Things had gone a little bit mad after that. The trouble with public places was that the cleanup after was murder. The cleaners swept in as per usual, and suddenly the place was a nut house with people in suits and embroidered jackets hustling here and there. Stephen nearly got lost in it, dodging out of the way of people that seemed to have more to do than he did.

He didn't particularly care. His job was when the thing was still alive and kicking and the mess was still being made; let the other blokes take care of it after that. He was actually on his way out, only just before he made it through the archway of the stadium, something caught his eye.

Over to the side, down a short little corridor to what Stephen pegged to be the concession stand, a pair of telltale brown boots were sticking out. Looking a little harder, Stephen could make out what looked like arms wrapped around what he guessed to be a pair of legs.

He frowned. There was no questioning that it was Connor; the only question was what the bloody hell he was doing tucked away in that corner? Cutter had sent him home nearly an hour ago.

Since guessing at it wasn't going to get him anywhere but irritated, Stephen course-corrected and started down the hall instead. As he got closer, walking along the opposite wall, he was able to make out more and more of the younger man. He had his legs pulled up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them, and his head was bowed under his hat such that Stephen couldn't see his face.

Stephen slowed his step enough to give him time to think about how to approach this – there was no mistaking the trembling of Connor's shoulders for anything but crying – but eventually he came up with nothing and decided to wing it.

When he reached the doorway Connor was huddled against, he simply turned around and slid down the door beside him. It was a bit of a tight squeeze, the two of them in the doorway, but Stephen didn't mind.

"Oi," he said, "I wondered where you'd gotten off to."

Connor didn't even look up; he kept his head tucked into his knees. All the same, Stephen could hear the tremor in his voice and the way it caught. He was definitely crying. "Cutter sent you to find me?"

"Cutter thinks you left," Stephen said. "We all did, matter of fact. You can imagine my surprise, come to find you've been hiding in here the whole time." He gave Connor's shoulder a soft nudge to show he was kidding. Anything to get him to lift his head and give him one of those smiles he'd grown so fond of.

Nothing doing.

Stephen wouldn't be deterred, though. If Connor didn't feel like chatting just yet, then Stephen would fill the silence. "Why are you, by the way? Hiding, I mean. You're supposed to be home."

"Don't have one," Connor said. There was something decidedly sulky about his tone. Miserable and youthful at the same time.

Stephen frowned. That was right – the flat situation.

"I thought you were staying with Abby."

"I was," Connor said, raising his head just a bit from his arms. Stephen counted it a marked improvement. "I mean, I am. I just...it's not mine."

"Can't be too bad, sharing a house with a beautiful woman walking around in her underwear half the time." Another nudge.

This time, Connor actually did raise his head. Through the tear tracks on his cheeks and the redness in his eyes, Stephen was able to make out just a little flush of embarrassment colouring his otherwise pale face. And to his relief, there was just a hint of that glimmer back in Connor's eyes.

"I don't—she's not—it's really..." That was about when it seemed to don on Connor that Stephen was having a go at him, and the embarrassment became a full blushing smile.

Stephen only grinned in response and slid an arm around Connor's shoulders, pulling him close. "I know," he said. "I just wanted to make you smile."

The comment took Connor off guard, it seemed, and he cocked his head to the side just a bit as he dragged his sleeve across his red eyes. If anything, it just made them water more. "W—w—why would you...why would want to do that?" Connor said. From the way he was stumbling over the words, rubbing his face, and refusing to look Stephen in the eyes, Stephen would've wagered he'd flustered him.

Connor wanted to know why, then. Why he liked seeing him smile so much, why he hadn't just walked on and left him to wallow in his misery?

So Stephen showed him. Reaching out to cup Connor's lightly-stubbled cheek, leaned over and pressed his lips to Connor's.

It was like nothing he'd felt before. Connor's lips were perfect – soft enough to meld to Stephen's, but firm enough to make him feel it – and for a long moment, the world seemed to stop. It was only by sheer force of will that Stephen managed to make himself back up enough to gauge the younger man's reaction.

Connor's eyes were closed, his lips still lightly parted from the kiss. As Stephen watched, though, his dark eyes began to peel open, revealing a dazed sort of look that Stephen didn't quite know how to interpret.

After too long a time had passed without an answer, Stephen couldn't take it anymore. "Connor?" he said.

That did a good enough job of snapping Connor out of his daze.

"Right," he said, sitting back a bit. Stephen let him go, but he took it as a good sign that Connor didn't make to move the arm he had around his shoulders. "Right, that was..."

Something told Stephen that he wasn't going to get a definite response out of Connor for a while. He'd been through a lot today; he was in rough shape. Stephen could still feel him shaking against him, and the tears hadn't quite dried in his too-red eyes. All the chaos, all the pain of the day...at the very least, he needed to get out of there.

"Come on," he said, rising to his feet.

Connor looked confused.

"It's getting dark out. I'll give you a ride back to Abby's," he said, and he held out a hand to help him up. With a sort of dazed look – like he couldn't quite get his head around what was going on and was just going with the motions – he reached up and took Stephen's hand. Luckily, Connor hardly weighed any more than Abby, so Stephen had an easy enough time pulling him up to his feet.

They made it as far as the exit to the stadium before the shit hit the fan. It was just Stephen's luck that the moment they happened to be leaving was the moment the cleanup guys were wheeling out the gurney with the black bag that Stephen knew contained Connor's friend.

The moment Connor's eyes fell to it, it was like someone had physically struck the younger man. His legs seemed to buckle and his breath seemed to leave his body in a rush. To that point, Stephen had been steering him down the hall with a hand on the small of his back; now, though, he had to grab him to keep him from dropping to the ground. Light as Connor was, it presented a bit of a challenge when he froze, and it was all Stephen could do to keep him moving.

"Don't look," he said, but he'd no sooner said it than Connor started towards the gurney. Stephen only just managed to step in front of him to block his path. It seemed Connor wouldn't be deterred, though. He fought against Stephen, trying to push past him even as Stephen wrestled him back towards the exit.

"Let me go," Connor said. "Steph—Stephen, let me go."

The more Stephen pushed, the harder Connor struggled. But Stephen had always been the stronger of the two, and though a couple of times, his feet literally left the ground as he practically threw himself against him.

"Stephen!" Connor fought all the harder. Stephen was honestly impressed, only he couldn't quite appreciate it in the moment. He just wanted to get Connor away from there, and the squirrely little bloke wasn't making it easy on him.

"I'm sorry," Stephen said as he forced him out into the parking lot. Mercifully, the gurney went one way as half-walked, half-pushed Connor the other. When he finally managed to get him into the passenger seat of his car, he stood in front of him. "Hey, just take a second to catch your...Connor, look at—"

Stephen realized with a miserably twist of his gut that Connor was still trying to look around him at the gurney they were loading in the back of the van. He kept craning his neck this way and that, until finally Stephen caught his face between his hands and forced him to look him in the eyes.

"Look at me," he said firmly, and Connor had no choice this time. Those hazel eyes finally met Stephen's bright blues, and Stephen felt his own eyes burn at the agony in them. He was too young, too innocent. People like him weren't supposed to feel pain like this. Connor wasn't supposed to feel pain like this.

Stephen wasn't really sure how it happened, but the next moment, Connor's face was buried in his chest, and he had his arms around the smaller man. Harsh sobs wracked his slight form, and it wasn't long before Stephen felt moisture begin to seep through his shirt.

He'd never heard such a heartrending sound in all his life, he realized. Such a happy soul crying like he was. And there was nothing Stephen could do to stop it. He couldn't shoot some monster or beat up some bully. There was nothing to fight, nothing to fix. All he could do was be there.

But if that was all he could do, then he was going to do it right. As Connor cried, he held him, his fingers carding absently through the young man's soft hair and his feet rocking on the ground. The sobs that shook Connor's slight frame shook him too, to his very core; they broke his heart.

"Shh, I know," he said. "I know." Truly, he did. He knew what it was like to lose friends, to lose loved ones. He wasn't sure he'd ever felt like Connor did, though. When he cared for something, he did so unreservedly. He gave everything, gave his all, and now he was having to suffer for it. Stephen wasn't sure he'd ever felt that.

Not before, at least.

"It's my fault," Connor said, his voice muffled by Stephen's shirt. "If I hadn't—if I wasn't—Tom wouldn't have—"

"No, Connor." Stephen forced him to look up, tipping a hand under his chin. Connor's face was more ashen before, and his red eyes and nose stood out too starkly in comparison as tears streamed down his cheeks. He was trying so hard to keep it back; his lip was trembling and his jaw was clenched tightly. As Stephen went to brush the tears from his cheeks, he jerked his head back. He started to turn around in his seat altogether, but Stephen stopped him, bracing his hands on his shoulders. "Hey," he said, and then he pulled the younger man into a firm embrace. Even as Connor gave half-hearted tugs and shoves at his chest, he held him, cradling his head against his shoulder. "Hey...this isn't your fault. None of it, and you know that. You did everything you could do for him; there was nothing you could do to stop what happened, understand?"

It took Connor a second to realize that the question wasn't rhetorical. Stephen wanted an answer; he wanted him to say that he understood, that it wasn't his fault and that he'd done all he could.

And after a long moment, Connor finally nodded into Stephen's shoulder. It wasn't quite what he was after, but thinking about it, Stephen wasn't sure Connor could manage anything more at the time. No, it was enough that he hadn't denied it, enough that he'd stopped fighting. He'd stopped pushing away from Connor and instead tucked his head down into the crook of Stephen's shoulder, his fingers twisting in Stephen's shirt.

The fit was dying down, it seemed. The sobs weren't quite so harsh, and it took hardly more than a whisper to cut through the otherwise silent air around the truck. "Me and Cutter and Abby, we couldn't do this without you. I know it hurts right now...I know all of this seems like too much and it feels like everything's off and nothing's right, but just give it a bit."

"And then what?" Connor said, his voice cracking around the words. He sounded so pitiful, so lost.

Stephen just held him tighter, stroking his thumb along the back of Connor's neck. "And then you'll realize," he said, "that this is where you belong."