What Lies Below
Annalise's words keep twirling in his head as he drags himself home that night, struggling to stand on his feet while his whole body shakes and shivers run down his spine, numbing his limbs. A storm roars inside of him, striking him with memories that hunt him like ravenous predators eager to bite into their victim and tear him apart, and he cannot run away from them fast enough: they always catch up. He's a sinking wreck when he reaches the door to Oliver's apartment, and his hands tremble in the cold light of the hallway as he tries to push the key into the lock. A swearword escapes his lips when he fails to open the door the first time and he curses the day his life became such a living hell, hates himself for being the fucked up mess he is. Finally, he manages to flung the door open, and he bursts into the apartment with the violence of a lightning bolt. Yet suddenly, as if soothed by the warmth that irradiates from the walls that surround him, he feels like the storm in him is fading, and his battered ship sails into a safe and unruffled bay, no longer struck by the raging waves of the high seas.
Oliver is waiting for him in the kitchen and smiles at him when he sees him, genuine joy rising on his lips as Connor gets closer, his feet now standing on a steady rock that Oliver has placed underneath him. Connor smiles back and kisses his cheek, while Oliver turns off the burner, ready to serve dinner.
It's easy to fall back into the comforting simplicity of domestic life, and Connor curls up into this safe place he's managed to carve out for himself. Oliver's apartment - their apartment - is a peaceful land, a land in which Connor forgets the wars he's fighting outside those walls and inside his chest. Among kisses and smiles, he can push away the guilt and his mind can stop wrapping up in murder plots and other illegal (and immoral) activities, and feel at ease. He hushes the voices in his head, forgets the lies he says, the truth he hides. He can even unsee the blood on his hands as he lets himself feel Oliver's skin under his palms. It's all right, he tells himself, it's all right.
But it's not.
Every night they sit at the dinner table, eat whatever they've cooked and talk about their day, because apparently this is what boring, domesticated, cohabitating couples do, and Connor doesn't mind. He loves listening to Oliver, loves how he overheats when he talks about a frustrating colleague or complains about the minor, annoying problems he has to solve at work. Connor enjoys discovering Oliver's pet peeves, figuring out what kind of person he is when he's not with him, how he lives life and how he feels about it, what makes him happy, what makes him mad. He loves uncovering all the layers that lie underneath and everything he finds out makes him like Oliver even more — and he never thought this would be possible.
One evening, after a particularly enthusiastic rant, Oliver falls silent and apologizes for getting carried away, but Connor shakes his head and tells him it's okay. He admits that he looks forward to knowing more about him and within himself he thinks that it's beautiful that they can tell each other things, be honest with each other. But then the bitter irony of his own reflections occurs to him, and the knot in his stomach tightens as he reminds himself that he is in fact a liar, that he cannot tell Oliver about his day without hiding the million things he knows Oliver should know but Connor could never tell. He can speak to him about the cases, maybe even mention what an idiot Asher is or gossip about Michaela's sex life. But the things he cannot reveal are the things that matter: the thoughts that hunt him, the memories that stifle him… these are the things he keeps to himself, there are the demons that he needs to bottle up inside and that wouldn't let him sleep if it weren't for Oliver's cozy arms that wrap around him at night.
The lies he tells, the truths he keeps hidden stalk him as much as the memories of what he did. He cannot say if he's still living in the real world or if he's lingering in a fake, deceitful dream he has built around himself by piling up lies as if they were bricks. When he's with Oliver, everything else becomes a blur, but at the same time he feels like life becomes neat and vivid, as if only this dream were reality, and all the rest were a deception. He couldn't tell whether it is haze or clarity that he experiences when he comes back home: all he knows is that reality is not real enough, and he's not being honest with the person he would want to tell everything to. And this is one more thing he feels guilty about.
He's trying to be good, trying hard to be better, doing his best to fix his messed up self, in the hope that one day he will be able to redeem himself from all the bad things he has done. He wishes he could erase his wrong deeds, start over with a clean conscience that is not stained with cons and murder, but soon enough he finds himself with blood on his hands once again, and he could hardly explain how that happened. This time it's warm, flowing blood that reddens his palm and fingertips, and he attempts to stop the flood that pours from Annalise's body, but it's as useless as trying to contain a leaking dam bare-handedly. Yet, he doesn't give up until Michaela pulls him out of there, drags him along down the stairs and then through the woods, running as if their life depended on it. Maybe it does.
He should feel safe when Nate picks them up with his car, but he's too exhausted to feel anything, too drained to find the energy to think or understand what's going on. As he washes the blood off his hands, he can only notice the meaninglessness of a gesture that won't cleanse his soul, and he would laugh bitterly if his body weren't so deadened. When the others decide to split, he can merely nod in agreement, and he starts wandering around, unsure of what to do with himself. He considers going home, but he doesn't know if he can. He fears that the moment he will step in, he will have another breakdown, and Oliver will kneel beside him and read the truth on his face, and Connor won't be able to lie anymore. Or maybe what really scares him is the thought that, deep inside, he wishes Oliver could indeed read the truth on his skin, as if it were a secret message written in Braille all over his body, a message Oliver could decipher simply by touching him with his fingertips. This craven part of him wishes the truth would shine in his eyes, so he wouldn't have to speak it with his words, and it's a part of him that Connor cannot let prevail. So he tries to be good, tells himself he shouldn't go home. But home is exactly where he needs to be.
It's past 4 a.m. when he enters the apartment, staggering like a drunkard after a wild night. He leans onto the wall and takes off his shoes, looking forward to undressing himself, to setting his body free from those clothes soaked with the smell of blood and death. He wishes to slide under the blanket without waking Oliver up, and to fall asleep. However, a light turns on and footsteps approach him, and all he can do is to straighten himself up and put on a mask. Oliver appears in front of him: he looks tired, like someone who hasn't slept all night. He seems worried, even, and a pang of guilt stings Connor from the inside. Oliver opens his mouth, as if to ask where he was, if Annalise kept him at work until late; he looks like he's about to say that he should have called, let him know that he wasn't going to come back for dinner, instead of leaving him there to worry and stress over what could have happened to him. However, he says nothing. Maybe he notices the darkness in Connor's eyes, the exhaustion that overshadows his features. Maybe he realizes that there's something wrong with him, something so wrong that it's unspeakable. Maybe he's thinking that he has already seen Connor like that, a long time ago, when Connor had shown up at his door, panicking, ceaselessly repeating that he had screwed up. Maybe he doesn't speak or move because he doesn't know what to do or say. But when Connor almost collapses to the ground, defeated by the unbearable weight upon his shoulders, Oliver is ready to pick him up with his arms. He holds him tight, lulls him in his embrace, presses a kiss on his temple, murmurs sweet, reassuring words in his ears. Somehow, he manages to make him feel safe. Once again.
It seems like a déjà vu when he exits the shower the following morning and he finds Oliver sitting on their bed, his eyes inquisitive as they had been the day after Connor's breakdown. He dries his hair with the towel, leaving them ruffled, he moves around the room wishing he could avoid Oliver's gaze, which is glued to his body, and he starts to feel like a trapped animal, or like a double agent whose identity is about to be revealed. When Oliver asks him about the previous night, he feels the urge to tell the truth, and it scares him. Oliver's words echo in his head — "You can tell me everything" — and Connor wishes he could surrender and speak, let it all out, allow the words to overflow like blood spilling from a wounded body. He can tell him everything, he repeats within himself… but can he tell him this? Can he tell what he has done and what he has witnessed? Can he reveal what kind of a wrecked man he is?
He fears what would happen if he only dared to speak the words. He needs Oliver to remain sane in all this madness, but he cannot be sure that Oliver would stick by him if he knew how crazy and deranged his life really is. He's afraid to lose him, to see the only good thing in his life slip away trough his fingers. He cannot live without him, and he knows that as soon as he opens his mouth, Oliver will leave — and he couldn't blame him for keeping his distance, because Connor would run away from himself too if only he could. So he goes out of the room, exits the apartment, wanders around for hours before coming back home, ready to pretend that nothing ever happened. He chooses silence over words that would hurt them both. But silence doesn't hurt them any less.
He wishes they could fall back into their daily routine, but it's not that easy. They're quiet around each other, almost awkwardly so. They hardly touch, and when Connor tries to kiss him, Oliver pulls away and leaves the room, his avoidance so blatant that he might as well be making a statement. Connor realizes that he's probably scared, afraid that he might be cheating on him or that he's gone back doing drugs. For some reason, he cannot let Oliver believe that: he feeds him lies but not all lies are equal, so he opts for coming up with an excuse, whatever he needs to break that silence. But after he says "I need to tell you something" no other words come out of his mouth because he cannot bring himself to speak yet another lie. Oliver looks at Connor, waits for him for what feels like a bunch of endless minutes. At the end, he's the one who talks.
"It was about Annalise, wasn't it?", he asks, but it doesn't sound like a question, but rather an assertion, a conclusion he has come to after careful consideration. Connor's face burns up and for a moment he wonders if Oliver was really able to read the truth on his face, in his eyes. He still says nothing, too stunned and puzzled to pronounce any word. "The night you came home late, it was the night they almost killed Annalise," Oliver says, and all Connor can do is nod, waiting for the accusation to come. But it doesn't. "You already knew. You were shocked because you already knew." Connor lowers his gaze, his mind once again stormy with thoughts and feelings. "That's why you were so shaken", Oliver concludes, and from his tone of voice Connor perceives that he's waiting for him to confirm what he just said, that he needs to know that this is the reason why he was upset, that all he's trying to hide is a pain he cannot put into words. And when he says "Yes," he tells himself that it's not a lie, not entirely at least. It's not a whole truth either, but that's all he can live with at the moment.
Oliver stretches out his arms and hugs him, and his embrace feels particularly warm and melts his frozen blood, which starts to flow again after days of stasis. Connor loathes himself in that moment, because he doesn't deserve Oliver's trust, he doesn't deserve his care and affection. He's a coward, a liar, an unredeemable mess. He feels selfish because he cannot let him go, even though he knows Oliver deserves better than anything he could ever be. Yet, he cannot force himself out of his hold, he cannot slip away from his sweet kisses, from his stroking thumbs, from his caring hands. Only Oliver can save him from himself: he's the cure that helps him battle an illness he can't even see, that soothes wounds he cannot even fathom. And Connor needs him for that.
He learns to live with another lie, another half truth, another hidden demon; and it drives him crazy to think that all these lies, if revealed, could destroy the only thing that feels real in his life. Because now he knows this is not a deceitful dream, he knows that, despite all the lies, there's something real there, and that's what keeps him afloat. So when he tells Oliver that he loves him, he means it, and it feels like the only truth that his lips have ever spoken. He loves him, and he savors the sweet taste of truthfulness that comes with this admission, and he makes up his mind to never let Oliver forget or doubt how he feels about him. He says the words at dawn when they wake up, in the morning when they leave for work, in the evening when he comes back home, at night before falling asleep. And he hopes that it's enough, hopes that the day Oliver unveils all his lies — because Connor knows deep inside that some day he will — he will know for sure that some things were indeed real. Most of them were.