Note: It may be useful to read 'Memory' (a college AU) first, as this occurs in the same universe, but it is NOT implied in that story that the events of this work took place.

Connor and Kevin were fighting again. They'd been living together for three months, plus the two years they'd been together at school, plus the year that Kevin had still been in Uganda and it had all been mostly wonderful, but lately they had been arguing more often and it was weighing heavily on the both of them.

Connor was pacing back and forth across the apartment living room with his hands clasped behind his neck, while Kevin leaned up against the dividing wall by the kitchen, arms folded across his chest, scowling. Connor threw his arms up in exasperation. "I just—I can't even deal with you right now!"

Kevin balked and said in a voice dripping with sarcasm and loathing, "Oh good, yeah, fine, just shut down, avoid it! Pretend like nothing's wrong—you're so good at that!" He turned away, not wanting to look at Connor.

"Oh please, you're one to talk!" Connor went over to the front door, and began angrily pulling on a jacket.

"What, are you just going to leave in the middle of this? This isn't my fault and you know it!"

He stopped, jacket halfway on, and spun around. "That is so unfair! I'm not saying anything is anyone's fault, Kevin! Why don't you understand that?" He let out a frustrated groan and grabbed his keys from the hook. "You're not even listening to me! I can't do this right now. I'm just—I'm going out to get some air."

"You're the one who brought this up in the first place! And you're not even going to stay and talk about it?" Kevin stepped forward, but didn't stop him. "Sure. Fine. Whatever. That's real mature." Connor didn't respond. His hand was already on the door when Kevin sputtered, "You can't just run away to avoid talking to me!"

Connor looked back to glare at Kevin. "I sure as heck can, Kevin," he said with icy determination, then slammed the door behind him. Kevin shouted something else, but Connor didn't hear. He stomped down the hallway, fists jammed into his pockets, and made his way outside.

The late October chill made him shiver—it was cold and he'd grabbed the wrong coat but he wasn't about to go back to the apartment. He kicked a path through the leaves from the back door of the building to the bike rack under the stairs, frustratedly grumbling under his breath. He struggled to wrest his bike from the rack, and fought the urge to look up to see if Kevin was watching out the back window before setting off.

He sprinted through the neighborhood, dark save for the few streetlamps, trying to work off his pent up energy. When he pulled up to the corner at the main road and his head had stopped pounding quite as much, he grabbed his phone from his pocket. He'd left the apartment in such a rush that he hadn't thought about where he would go once he was out. He scrolled through the phonebook looking for someone who would be up this late and free to talk—his finger hovered over Martin's entry.

Connor had met Martin through a classmate in the fall of his first year at school. Martin lived in town and was older, 28 to Connor's 24. He had a house and a car and a cat, and held a law degree from IU and a masters in human rights. He worked as the legal director of the Equality Ohio chapter, and he'd secured Connor an internship there the summer after Connor's first year. It was Martin who'd encouraged them to volunteer on the marriage amendment campaign that fall. They shared several of the same friends, and he and Kevin and Connor had become close over the past two years.

Connor dialed, then pinched the phone against his shoulder so that he could rub his hands together to warm them up while he waited for Martin to answer, hoping he'd be awake. "Hey. Sorry, did I wake you?"

"No," Martin replied. "You sound out of breath."

"I've been…biking. Listen, are you free tonight? I've got to get out of the house for a bit and it'd be nice to have someone to talk to."

"Sure. Anything wrong?"

"What? No, no, it's fine, it's nothing."

"I don't believe you, but all right. Come on over, I'm just working on some briefs."

"Thanks. I'll be by in a bit."

Martin opened the door and greeted Connor with a smile. "God, Con, you look a mess." Connor smirked in annoyance. Martin's short black-brown hair was disheveled and he adjusted his glasses, but he was still smartly dressed in a black dress shirt and dark jeans.

"Well, come on, come in, it's fucking freezing out." He ushered Connor in, and Connor dropped his jacket and shoes by the door as Martin headed to the kitchen. "You want anything to drink?" he called out, opening the refrigerator door.

"No, I'm fine, thanks." Connor sat down on the oversized burgundy couch in the living room and awkwardly looked around. Martin's house was nice—small, but cozy, decorated in warm reds and oranges and browns. He'd been there many times before, for campaign meetings, or hanging out with friends, or dinner parties. Martin loved to play host; he had a long-standing tradition in town of hosting popular Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings, which was where he had first met Connor and Kevin.

Connor pawed through some papers on the coffee table. "What are you working on?"

"Oh, it's an ACLU case: high schooler wasn't allowed to take her girlfriend to the prom. Bunch of absolute bullshit is what it is." Martin leaned over the fridge door, gesturing to Connor with a beer bottle in his hand. "You should read the principal's deposition—he's a tactless, bigoted, brainless, spineless moron. He's like a sea slug, if sea slugs were homophobes and voted Republican."

Connor heard Martin pop the cap off the bottle and close the fridge. The older man came into the living room, cleared some papers off of the coffee table and sat down next to Connor.

"So," Martin said, taking a drink and propping his feet up on the table, "What's up? Why're you out biking around town at one in the morning?"

"It's nothing. Kevin and I just had a fight and I needed to get out and clear my head."

"Ah, I see. Trouble in paradise. What were you two lovebirds fighting about?"

"Oh…it's nothing, nothing important."

"What, you're going to come all the way over here and not tell me?"

"No, but…well, it was…" Connor shifted uneasily, leaning against the arm of the couch and pulling his knees up. "Ugh, this is so uncomfortable to talk about with other people. It's so much easier with him."

Martin gave him a look that said 'stop stalling.' "Come on, you came here to talk, so spill."

"I just…I don't know. It's the same fight we keep having over and over again. I feel like he doesn't want me. I mean, I know that he does. I know that he loves me. It's not that. It's just that sometimes I just need to know that's he's…attracted to me, that he physically wants me, that's I'm not just some…some friend with whom he can cuddle and make pancakes and whatever."

Martin turned toward Connor, listening, draping an arm over the back of the sofa.

"It's just difficult sometimes. He's just not that interested, and that's fine, it's fine. It's fine. He is interested sometimes; every so often he'll initiate it and it's wonderful, and when I do it's still so good. He pleases me—and he is great about offering—and occasionally he'll…oblige me and let me please him because he knows I like it, but for him, he's just not that into it."

"God, but you do use a lot of euphemistic language to talk about fucking," Martin observed, chuckling.

Connor cringed. "I just don't like to use such…unnecessarily vulgar terminology. Come on, you know that. …Anyway, he's more interested in the physical intimacy but not the sex, the emotional closeness and just being together, and, I mean, who the heck am I to say that's wrong?"

"Do you think it's wrong?"

"No! It's not at all! And that's why I feel so awful for feeling awful about all of this. I don't want to make him do anything he doesn't want to do. I don't want him to feel like he's not contributing or that there's something broken about him that needs to be fixed. I don't believe that. I don't want to push him. I don't want him to fake it… But…I guess I do? I don't know." Martin nodded sympathetically.

Connor suddenly blushed and buried his face in his hands in embarrassment. "Ugh, what am I saying? I sound like spurned housewife, like, 'Oh dearie me, why does my husband not want to make looooove to me?'"

Martin laughed loudly and Connor grinned in spite of himself, but then Martin took a sip and resumed a serious expression. "Well, have you guys talked about this?" he asked.

"Yeah, and that's the problem, we argue about it all the time now. Maybe it's my fault for just caving and saying that I'm fine so often. I mean, I don't want to beg for sex, that's so gross."

"Hey, that's not true, Con," Martin chided, furrowing his brown in concern. "You're just asking for something that you need in your relationship, that's not gross."

"I know… I know. I just feel so…I don't know…rapacious for wanting more than what we have. I shouldn't, right? What we have should be enough." Connor frowned and looked away sadly. "It used to be enough. It used to be fine. We've both known that we just have different needs and desires, and we've been really good talking about it, and it's been fine. I mean, we're both pretty…new to all of this, and we're figuring it out together, and that's what makes it so great. So so great. I've know it from the start; this is what I signed on for."

Connor sighed and stretched his legs out, slumping back into the couch. "But sometime I feel like he's not making as much of an effort as he used to or maybe my needs have changed and I'm trying to meet him halfway, but…"

Martin nodded for him to continue.

"I feel like he's just blowing me off…" Martin smirked and raised an eyebrow and Connor batted him in the arm. "Hey, no! Not like that! No, come on, that's kind of the point here… I mean that he's not taking me seriously, and he just keeps deflecting. Like he'll say these snide sarcastic comments, and he'll accuse me of being evasive and avoiding the issue, when he's the onewho's avoiding it. And then! And then he has the nerve to bring up, 'Oh, of course I'm meeting you more than halfway, I do this for you and I do that for you, blah blah blah,' and I'm like, 'That's not what we're talking about! We're talking about this one single aspect of our relationship, let's not conflate it with any other part.' He just makes me so aggravated sometimes."

"So…what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know… I don't know if I should do anything. I feel terrible when he says things like, 'You know me and you know I love you. And you know I can't just change, just like that, I can't just change who I am any more than you can,' because of course, of course I don't want him to change, that's ludicrous… I don't know what I want. I don't know how to fix it."

"Well, try to figure out what you want. What is it you want but you're not getting?"

"I just…I just need something. Not often, just every once in a while. Just to know that he's there… I just want him to make love to me and want it the same way I do. I want him to…to want me in the same way that I want him. I want him to feel what I'm feeling. And I just…don't know if that's going to happen…"

Connor's eyes were red and watery. He hastily wiped tears away with the back of his hand and moaned, "Ugh, this is so stupid and embarrassing. I hate this." He let out a frustrated groan and pulled his knees up to his chest again.

"Hey hey hey, now. Don't get worked up. It's okay." Martin moved closer to Connor and put a comforting arm around him. Connor weakly leaned his head against Martin's shoulder, and Martin stroked his arm reassuringly. "It's okay. It's all right." The sat quietly for a long while. Martin said, "You two are solid, you'll get through this."

Connor sniffled and asked meekly, "How?"

Martin scoffed playfully. "What, you think I'm the expert on making relationships work? Oh, I'm sorry, you must be referring to my long-term live-in boyfriend the cat. God, I hate that cat… Sorry," he said waving his hand dismissively. "Tangential, my problems, not yours. Anyway, yeah, no, I'm afraid I don't have an answer for ya, kiddo. I don't think there's a quick fix for something like this."

Connor lolled his head back and sighed. "It sucks. It just absolutely and totally sucks." He laid it head back on Martin's shoulder.

"I know," Martin said sympathetically, rubbing Connor's arm. "I know it does. But you'll figure it out, it'll be okay." He ran his hand softly through Connor's hair and leaned down to place a gentle kiss on his forehead. He let his arm fall back and gave Connor squeeze. "It'll be okay."

It was quiet again for several moments. Then Connor put a hand on Martin's chest and looked up at him with a strange glint in his eyes. He leaned forward and kissed Martin on the lips, first tentatively, exploring, then more insistently when he didn't feel Martin resist.

Martin, confused, tried to ask apprehensively, "Connor, what are you—"

Connor cut him off, kissing him more forcefully. He grabbed the collar of Martin's shirt and pulled himself onto Martin's lap, straddling the older man's legs, and held him close, teasing with his tongue, drawing Martin's lower lip into his mouth and tugging at it with his teeth.

"Whoa, hey, Con, I don't—"

Connor pulled back. His eyes were still red and puffy, but he had a look of fierce determination. He stared into Martin's eyes, challenging him, daring him. "Do you want me to stop?"

Martin paused and steadied himself. "Connor… I—no, I can't truthfully say I don't want this, but I think you should—"

Connor placed a hand over Martin's mouth to silence him. "Don't…just don't." He lunged at Martin again and kissed him intensely, thrusting his tongue into Martin's mouth, lapping greedily. Martin responded with earnest. Connor kept him close, holding onto his shirt, and sat up on his knees. He leaned Martin's head back over the back of the couch and dove down into a deep, protracted kiss, running both hands through Martin's hair and gripping tightly while hungrily grinding his hips against Martin.

Martin dipped his head down and sucked at Connor's neck, tugging down his shirt and tracing lines along his collarbone with his tongue. Connor hurriedly yanked off his t-shirt and tossed it aside, letting Martin run his hands across his smooth chest.

Connor could feel Martin's hard on through his jeans and it excited him more than he could imagine. He ran a hand over Martin's bulge, investigating, and Martin responded with a shiver and a gulped back moan. Connor gingerly unfastened Martin's jeans and thrust a hand down, grazing his erection with his fingertips. He brushed his thumb over the tip and wrapped his hand around the shaft, giving it a gentle tug. Martin bucked against Connor's hand and threw his arms around the younger man's neck, pulling his close and attacking him with erratic, wet kisses.

Connor withdrew his hand and unbuttoned Martin's shirt, yanking it off along with his undershirt. He took a moment to explore Martin, to feel what it was like to touch someone else. Then he drew his hands across Martin's back and up to his shoulders, and backed down onto the couch, guiding Martin on top of him, keeping their lips firmly together. Connor pushed Martin's jeans down and grabbed his buttocks with both hands. He arched his hips up, grinding against him. Martin tilted his head to the side and kissed Connor more tenaciously, ravenously.

Connor brought his hands up to Martin's face and held his head an inch from his own. He locked eyes with Martin and demanded brusquely, "Tell me that you want me."

"Mmm, I want you so badly, Connor," Martin purred, tilting his head to kiss him.

"How badly?" Connor asked, drawing a hand down Martin's spine.

"Oh God, so badly. What do you want from me, Connor? Anything. Anything you want."

Connor swallowed nervously and said, "I want you to make love to me."

Martin nodded, kissing him again. "You want me to fuck you."

Connor cringed reflexively and shook his head. "Ugh, no, please don't say it like that or I'll change my mind."

In apology, Martin hastily pulled off Connors pants and leaned down and gave his cock a brief lick, tracing his tongue around it slowly and drawing it into his mouth for just a moment. He sat up and kicked off his own jeans, and reached over to the drawer in the table, taking out a bottle of lube and a condom.

"You keep that stuff inside your coffee table?" Connor asked, momentarily shocked.

"Best to be prepared, right?" He tore open the condom wrapper and rolled it onto himself, then leaned forward and kissed Connor hard, driving his head back into the couch cushion. He trailed kisses down his neck, down his chest, down his stomach, down the length of his cock.

Martin stuck one lubed finger inside him, then two, massaging and pumping, opening him up. Connor gasped eagerly, "Just do it. Just do it, I'm ready." Holding Connor's thigh, Martin gently eased himself into Connor, just the tip, then paused, and when he felt Connor relax he pushed forward and Connor groaned and winced.

When Martin looked up, Connor shook his head and reassured him, "No, no, it's good, it's good, keep going, keep going." Martin thrust slowly, rhythmically. Connor wrapped a leg around Martin's back and dug his fingers into his shoulder blades, pulling him down against his chest, his erection caught between the heat of their bodies. "Oh, gosh, harder," he mumbled, biting his lip. Martin obliged, anchoring his head on Connor's shoulder as he rocked faster into Connor, as deep as he could go.

Connor panted, out of breath, "Just…tell me that you love me. I don't care if you don't mean it, just tell me anyway."

"I love you, Connor," Martin gasped in between grunts. "Oh God, mmm, I love you."

Connor swallowed a moan and held his breath. He shut his eyes tight and leaned his head back, gripping firmly onto Martin's shoulders. He tried his hardest to imagine that it was Kevin's taut body he was holding onto. That it was Kevin inside of him, Kevin so hard for him, Kevin telling he loved him, Kevin's heart beating against his, Kevin's sweat, Kevin's skin, Kevin's voice.

But it wasn't Kevin.