Anxiously he scratches his head, almost hoping the tips of his fingernails would dug into his skull and ruin his brain enough for him to actually die. To die from a sort of lobotomy would be a lot more appealing than what he had ahead of him.
Connor Walsh was a confident young man. He was popular along his co-workers and fellow students, he was handsome, successful. Connor Walsh was the typical young man who had everything going for him.
However, just like with any other person who seemed to have it all, there was a lot under the surface. Like his fear of water and heights, like his obsessive behavior with his facial hair and how not even a single hair could be in the wrong place and like his insecurities with real emotions.
He had always been surrounded by friends, his schedule had always been busy and he was never around much. If you wanted to meet him you'd have to be prepared for that he might not have the time to do so in a week or two and Connor was more than pleased with that. It meant him never being vulnerable. It meant him never being home for his father's beating and his mother's tears. It meant him closing his eyes to not being accepted as who he was at home and it meant everybody believing he was doing really good when in fact it was a real good act.
His act had been going strong until one day he had to get information out of a hacker. It wasn't just any hacker it turned out. It was a gorgeous, self-conscious man who gave him the information when he feared Connor being bored with him. He saw something of himself in the man. The same fear of not being accepted, not being loved, not being good enough.
Connor had went home with the man that night, believing it was only sex as he did. The entire plan was for it to be only sex. It wouldn't be the first time and Connor doubted it would be the last. However, when he was supposed to sneak out in the middle of the night after the other man had fallen asleep he realized how comfortable he was in that bed and he felt strangely good when he woke up with his arms around the other man.
He had promised to take him out to dinner that night. Of course he hadn't. He hadn't meant to stand him up, but it was just Connor's nature. Anything that even could mean something good for him he would screw up somehow.
He showed up at h is doorstep late that night, with a bag of take out food and hoping he'd be forgiven. He wasn't, not at first, but the part of the other man that made him question everything about himself seemed to cave in just before the rest of him did. They never ate the take out food, but they had crazy good sex instead.
That was their dance. Connor messed up, brought take out, they had sex. The take out never got eaten, at least not as far as Connor knew.
However, somewhere in the whole being comfortable with something that wasn't supposed to be real that's exactly what it got. It got real and it scared him beyond anything. Here he was vulnerable again and though he didn't seem like the classical heartbreaker-type you could just never know for certain.
Of course he knew today. Well, partly at least. Today it was exactly half a year since he'd been standing outside his door the last time with that anxiety in the pit of his stomach. It hadn't been the last time he had been afraid that he wouldn't be enough for his boyfriend. It hadn't been the last time he had been afraid that he would come to the realization that he could do better than Connor.
It hadn't happened though. He felt a pair of arms around him and he felt a pair of lips on his shoulder.
