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“I guess you’re not the only one who’s a good liar.”
Oliver stares at him for a solid five seconds before his composure collapses with a disbelieving scoff. He shakes his head, going over the facts he knows again and again, wondering where he missed it, how had he missed it…
“Is that all you have to say?” Oliver whispers.
Connor’s jaw clenches painfully, but he stubbornly holds Oliver’s gaze, as painful as it is. “What did you expect?” He whispers harshly.
“How about the truth for once?” Oliver demands, and suddenly Connor is paralyzed by a familiar wave of terror.
He’s spent too long terrified of the truth coming out. It’s exhausting.
“What happened to blissfully ignorant?” Connor finally murmurs softly.
Oliver shakes his head. “Not with this. Not with you.”
He says it like they’re something special. Like Connor and Oliver are something held above the rest of the shit storm that’s overtaken their lives. Like they’re still something worth salvaging.
But Connor just shrugs, makes a face like it’s no big deal. Anything to throw Oliver off.
“I don’t know, I kept all this from you for a whole year. I came home to you every night like nothing was wrong.” Connor shrugs again. Looking around their little apartment, he’s flooded with memories. Memories of home. “Woke up next to you every morning, pretending like our entire life wasn’t a lie. Fucked you like I wasn’t thinking about the blood on my hands–”
“WHY DO YOU DO THAT??”
Connor flinches at the volume of Oliver’s voice.
“Why do you do that?” Oliver asks again, softer, but no less filled with pain. “You put on this act, like you don’t care, like it’s not tearing you up inside! Michaela sees right through you! And so do I!”
Connor’s jaw snaps shut, and he swallows painfully.
“I see right through it,” Oliver whispers. “Stop acting like you don’t care. And just tell me the truth, please. What happened at Annalise’s house that night? What happened? What did you see? What did you…” Oliver’s voice trails off.
What did you do?
The unspoken question hangs heavy in the room. The air suddenly gets harder to breathe.
A million possibilities flash through Oliver’s mind. All of them he’d gone over again and again since he saw those phone records, waiting for Connor to come home. Of all the secrets Connor had kept from him. This one scares him the most.
“Are you scared I killed him?”
“You’re not a killer, Connor.” Oliver says. But the waver in his voice betrays them both. Too much had changed recently for him to admit it wasn’t a possibility.
Connor watches the other man with sad eyes. They’ve been here before so many times now. Too many, it seems recently. It used to be that he would look at Oliver, and the other man would smile at him in response. And it was like the rest of the world faded away at that smile. All the noise disappeared, and there was no one left but them. That feels like a lifetime ago. And Oliver’s not smiling any more.
It takes a moment for it to register, what it is that he sees in Oliver’s eyes.
It’s fear.
And that hurts more than he’d like to admit.
“You think I could do something like that?”
Oliver sighs softly. He looks away, unsure of himself. “No,” he finally whispers. “I don’t.”
“He was already dead when I got there,” Connor says heavily. “I tried… I tried to save him. But… he was already gone.”
Oliver closes his eyes. He breathes like a weight had been lifted from his chest. “Why didn’t you say something?” He whispers.
“I would have been the next suspect. I didn’t kill him.”
“Okay, but–but you could have told me!”
“Because we’re the kind of couple who tell each other everything?!”
Oliver falls silent. He feels a twinge of guilt. Or maybe it’s regret. He brushes past it. “Did you see anything?” He manages to ask. “Was there anyone else?”
Connor shakes his head. “No, there was no one. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know who did it. I just… I don’t know.”
“All this time, you kept saying it could be Annalise–”
“I don’t know, Ollie.” Connor closes his eyes tiredly. “All I know is that she called us over there, and Wes was dead by the time I stepped into that house.” He looks away, feeling heavy and exhausted–like every awful thing that’s happened in the past two years has finally caught up with him.
“All this time,” Oliver whispers. “All this time, you were the last person to see Wes before the fire–”
“Obviously not the last,” Connor says dryly. “Because I ran. I ran out of that house, long before whoever set that fire.”
Oliver wants to ask where Connor went after that. Where did he go for all those hours? Where did he run to? But he bites his tongue. Because for this moment, they might be okay. And he wants this moment to last as long as it can.
It could have been so much worse.
“I wish you’d told me.” Oliver bites his lip. Even after all that’s happened, after all the secrets that have come out, they’re still keeping things from each other. All those months they spent together in the beginning… happy… it feels like a dream now. Looking back, he wonders if what they had was ever real at all.
“You should have told me,” Oliver whispers.
Connor drops his gaze. It wouldn’t have changed anything. Wes is still dead. What does it matter that he’s carrying around the weight of feeling Wes’s motionless body under his hands? Telling Oliver the truth wouldn’t have changed a damn thing.
“I’m scared. I’m always scared, and I’m so fucking tired of being scared.” Connor shakes his head slowly. “It wasn’t supposed to be Wes.”
“Connor…”
“I know I wasn’t good to him,” Connor murmurs softly, eyes gazing at nothing on the ground. “But it wasn’t supposed to be Wes…”
Oliver doesn’t say anything. But he takes a step closer. He wants to reach out–but he doesn’t. He can’t.
“I just want it to stop,” Connor whispers, glancing up as Oliver comes closer. “I want to stop feeling like this. But I know it’s not going to end. Because it never does. And now I’ve dragged you into it with me.”
Oliver doesn’t say a word. He slowly closes the distance between them, and pulls Connor into a tight embrace. He closes his eyes when he feels Connor’s arms wrap around him.
They remain like that for a while, desperately holding onto every reason why they’re okay for the moment. Fearing, if they break apart, it’ll all fall apart.
For this moment, they’re okay… In each other’s arms. In the safety of their own home.
For now, the rest of the world can wait.