Chapter Text
Day one: "I'm fine. Let me look at your face"
Finals were never something that Connor had ever really paid much mind towards. He’d always known that they were coming, of course, but they seemed more of an idle threat – something for professors to dangle over their heads as some kind of incentive to study, something looming on the distant horizon that was only ever a problem for Future Connor.
But the fact of the matter was that they were, like death, painfully inevitable and inevitably painful.
Still, he would much rather put all of his effort towards not failing actually important classes like drama and dance, rather than stress over a boring, dusty old subject like American History, which had been something of a compromise with his parents in exchange for taking the former two. So, with less than an hour remaining before the exam, he was perfectly content to lie back in a bunk bed that wasn’t his, lazily flipping through some textbook, having come perfectly to terms with the fact that he was going to fail.
He only wished that the same could be said for his boyfriend.
“So the Revolutionary War started in 1775 in Massachusetts, America’s freedom was declared in 1776 but the war only ended in 1783 when-“ Kevin recites, pacing up and down their shared dorm room in a mechanical fashion.
Connor’s mother would probably call the room cosy, but in plain truth it was so small you couldn’t swing a cat, dog, rabbit or gerbil in there without hitting at least three people over the head, despite only two people living there.
Connor had long since learnt how to affectionately drown out Kevin’s impassioned ramblings for the sake of both his sanity and his grade point average, but occasionally he picked up words that sounded important like “constitution” or “Benjamin Franklin” and vaguely committed them to memory just in case. He found his boyfriend’s enthusiasm really quite endearing, particularly the way he’d break into a stream of expletives whenever he had to consult a textbook upon forgetting one date or another.
After a couple minutes, Connor found that he much preferred watching Kevin as opposed to staring blindly at the same page in his textbook as he determinedly pretended to study – what could he say? He was an actor, not an historian. Plus, Kevin was far more entertaining than trying to remember exactly why one group of old white men wanted to kill another group of old white men. He loved seeing Kevin like this, all pent up and energetic right before a debate or a presentation or an exam, ready to burst with a nervous anticipation that made his eyes light up.
A small smile crept onto his face as he watched his boyfriend go, the passionate shine in his dark eyes, the quick little gestures of his hands as he tried to emote the endless stream of words that tripped over one another in their haste to get out. Connor felt inexplicably proud in that moment – hyperaware that this man was all his. This wildly intelligent, adorably egotistical, unfairly handsome man was his and nobody else’s.
Sure, Kevin had to resort to Arnold to talk about Star… Trek Wars Of The Caribbean or whatever, to Nabulungi to have any sort of meaningful discussion about class, to literally anybody other than Connor to talk about sports, but at the end of the day nobody else got to wake up just a couple feet away from him and kiss him whenever they wanted, just because.
It was at this point that Kevin seemed to notice that he had an audience, and fell silent. Connor regrettably hadn’t a clue what he’d been going on about, but kind of missed the uninterrupted white noise nonetheless. Kevin ran a hand through his hair and flopped down beside Connor on the bed with a groan, hiding his face in the crook of his elbow. It was in fact his own bed, but Connor wasn’t particularly desperate to remind him of that fact.
“Connor…” he murmurs, resting his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder.
Connor rhythmically traces the patterns on Kevin’s shirt with a couple fingers “What is it?”
Only half-joking, he says “Will you still love me when I end up failing all my classes?”, voice muffled by his arm.
“What do you mean? You’re not going to fail…”
Kevin groans again and uncovers his face, his expression uncharacteristically weary “You don’t know that”
“Yes I do – you’re top in every subject you’re taking”
Ostensibly not including drama - or dance for that matter - since his incredible academic prowess seemed particularly limited in the performing arts department. Adorable, but limited.
“But what if I bomb this test? What if- what if I stress out and forget absolutely everything?” he says quickly, a panicked edge to his voice.
The school bell chose that moment to ring from somewhere distant, signalling that the exam was to start in five minute’s time.
The pair reluctantly got to their feet, Connor in an oddly philosophical state of resigned acceptance, and Kevin now in a blind state of panic.
“Oh shit, oh shit, fucking god-“ he says, hands physically trembling as he collected his books together “Fuck everything, I can’t do this, I can’t do this-“
A tiny part of Connor’s brain, which was buried beneath the concern for his boyfriend, found it rather amusing that Kevin only ever properly cursed at matters directly related to schoolwork – whereas in all other situations he could be counted upon to find increasingly colourful substitutes.
“Look, it’s going to be fine” Connor says and pulls Kevin in for a hug, head resting on his chest. He could hear Kevin’s heart beating concerningly fast, and his breath coming in short little gasps – Kevin's pre-exam episodes were a regrettably routine occurrence, but Connor could never remember seeing one this extreme.
“You don’t seem- seem like you’re stressing out about a- all this as much as I am – are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” He replies, clueless as to how his boyfriend could possibly be worrying about him at a time like this “Now let me look at your face, okay…” he pulls back, tilting his head at an embarrassingly steep angle to fix Kevin with as sincere a look as he could muster. “Look at me”
Kevin blinks a few times, closes his eyes, and then finally meets Connor’s gaze.
“Breathe for me, okay?” They shared a couple deep breaths, eyes locked “Listen to me - you are the smartest, the funniest, and the sexiest man I know. For all the time we’ve been together, I’ve seen you study and work harder than anybody – plus you could probably guess half of the answers and still ace it because you’re clever like that. I know your parents have been feeding you all this shit that you have to get straight A’s if you want to make anything of your life, but if they’re upset with any of your results, then- then fuck them”
Kevin nods, his erratic pulse slowing and his breaths becoming more regular as Connor speaks.
“Because no matter what score you get, I love you and that’s all that matters, okay?”
Then Connor reaches up on his tiptoes to kiss him, and Kevin gratefully leans into the kiss, moving his hands from where they sat on Connor’s waist to the back of his head, cradling it as if it were something fragile and expensive. Connor was sure to enlist every ounce of his self-control not to let the kiss progress too far, since Kevin’s mind should be entirely focused on American History for the next 2 hours, and certainly not on… other things. Other things can come later.
“For what it’s worth,” Connor gasps as they broke apart “I still think you should go on in there and make that test your bitch”
“I’ll bear that in mind” Kevin smirks and takes his boyfriend by the hand, confident at last that he might just be able to walk into that test hall and do something incredible.