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Connor didn’t have a lot of things he looked forward to these days. He felt like he was constantly working, and when he wasn’t he didn’t have the energy to do anything. He got home, laid down on his couch, put on Netflix when he wasn’t too tired to fight with his chromecast, and stayed there until it was time to go to bed. He considered himself lucky to have lunch included at his workplace, because if he hadn’t he would probably go the whole day without eating, since he never had the energy to make even the simplest meals, and when he got home in the evening he was too tired to even open the fridge and look for something.
There was rarely anything in it anyway. On his few days off he found it hard to even get out of bed, let alone leave the apartment, so unless his mother decided to bring him some groceries when she came over, the fridge would stay empty.
She was kind enough to do some shopping for him every other week, though. She knew he was constantly tired and that he would rarely do it himself, so she came over once in a while with some groceries and some lunch boxes she put in his freezer, so that he had some healthy food to heat up on his days off, instead of always ordering in pizza. He told her over and over she didn’t have to, but he couldn’t deny that it always made him smile when he got home from work and saw that the kitchen light was on, because it meant she had been there while he was gone.
She always left the light on. Connor had a cat, and his mother felt sorry for it when it had to sit in the dark, so she left the light on. Connor told her that Arya, as his little girl was called, wouldn’t mind the dark, but his mother insisted, and eventually he gave up. If she wanted to leave the lights on, then what did it matter? It made her feel better and when she was kind enough to come leave him some food, he wouldn’t argue about something as silly as kitchen lights being on or off.
Because of him always being tired, Connor was happy he didn’t really have many friends. The only ones he still had any contact with from his years at school both lived an hour away, so he didn’t have anyone who would want to meet up for a beer or who would randomly knock on his door to invite themselves to watch the night’s game or whatever. Sure there were times when Connor wished he had someone to hang out with when he had a weekend off or so, but most of the time he was happy he didn’t. He didn’t have any energy anyway, so his friends would just take up even more time he didn’t feel like he had.
He needed those few days off to recharge. To just… be. To prepare for another week at work. Another week in hell.
So no, Connor didn’t have a lot to look forward to, but there was one thing he actually did walk around waiting for, and he was always so happy another week at work had come to an end, because it meant Friday, and Friday… well Friday meant another forty minutes eavesdropping on his neighbor.
It wasn’t as creepy as it might sound, or maybe it was, Connor wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like he was overhearing a conversation or anything, and even if it had been… well, it wasn’t his fault the walls in the building were paper thin. Most people in the house wouldn’t care, majority of those living there were quite old, so their hearing wasn’t the best and therefore they weren’t bothered by how easily you could hear every little thing the person next door would say or do, but for Connor… well, the few hours he was home, he could hear a bit too much of the man next door.
It wouldn’t have bothered him much, but his living room seemed to be located next to the man’s bathroom, and with the thin walls… hell he could hear the guy pee, and that wasn’t something he enjoyed very much.
However, every Friday evening, at the exact same time and for exactly 40 minutes, the man would take a bath. Connor would hear him tap the water while humming lowly, and a few minutes after it would stop pouring, he would start an audio book.
And Connor would hear every single word of it.
At the beginning, it would annoy the crap out of him. He didn’t want to listen to some random dude’s book while trying to relax on his couch, especially since he was often too lazy to start his damn TV and watch something that would drown the sound, but after a while… after having listened to the voice of the narrator for a couple of times… well, he had gotten dragged into the plot, had found himself curious what would happen next, and since his neighbor, Oliver, as the tag on the door said his name was, didn’t seem to listen at any other time of the week, Connor could follow the book with him.
After a few times, it had become his favourite time of the week. The man had quite good taste in books, and he listened to various genres that always managed to catch Connor’s interest, and since Connor never had the energy to read anything anymore, he had ended up not even trying to drown the sound out anymore.
So he would lay down on his couch, close his eyes and wait for the water to stop running on the other side of the wall, and with a small smile playing on his lips he would listen to the next part of the book, the time always passing by so fast, he would feel pretty disappointed when it was once again over.
He had figured that Oliver must be using a timer function, because it was always exactly forty minutes. Sometimes if it ended in the middle of a sentence, he would listen for a few extra minutes, but he didn’t seem to care if he stopped in the middle of a chapter or not. He listened his forty minutes, then the book was turned off, and Connor could hear the slurping sound of water running down the drain, and he knew he would have to wait another long week to hear the next part.
Last week had been extra annoying. It had ended with such a horrible cliffhanger that Connor had been close to walk over to his neighbor and beg him to keep listening. He had also almost googled the plot to find out the name of the book, so he could go buy it and find out the end, but he was worried he would end up getting spoilers thrown at him instead, so he had decided to simply wait.
It had been the longest week in history, but Friday had finally arrived, and he was once again on his couch, waiting for the man next door to pour his bath. His week at work had been even worse than normal and right then there was nothing he was looking forward to more than another forty minutes of relaxing. He also figured they must be getting close to the end of the book, and he was curious to see what his neighbor would pick next.
He hoped it would be something a bit less intense. This book had been great, but it was also a nailbiter, and every time he thought they were getting closer to figure the mystery out, something new came up, turning it all upside down again. It was great, Connor loved it, but he wouldn’t mind something that was a little bit calmer next.
The water was turned off, he could hear Oliver move around a bit and then the a bit too loud groan of pleasure as he lowered himself down in the hot water, a little bit of splashing as he got comfortable and then…
A new voice.
What.
Connor sat up, frowning. This wasn’t the woman who had been reading the book they had been listening to. This was a man, and he was introducing a new title.
Had Oliver, for the first time in months, listened to the book at another time than his weekly bath?
But then how the hell would Connor get to find out what would happen next?
He couldn’t describe the sudden anger he felt. He felt betrayed, somehow. Like whoever this fucking Oliver was he had no goddamn right to suddenly listen without him. He couldn’t just change his routines, not when it was the only damn thing Connor looked forward to in his life. It was the only good thing he still had, and then this fucking Oliver guy thought he could just… listen alone?
Fuck that. Connor would not have it.
He didn’t even take a moment to think it through before he had gotten out of the couch and sConnorped out of his apartment, angrily making his way over to his neighbor’s door, pounding it with a bit more force than necessary.
Much later, he would realise just how insane he seemed, but at that very moment he was tired, annoyed and desperate to know what had happened next, and he didn’t even realise just how crazy he was being. Hell he hadn’t slept properly in almost a week, he never slept well before work, and he couldn’t think clearly.
He kept knocking the door, his knuckles hitting the wood so hard he almost wondered if he would bruise them, and when it finally opened he didn’t even take a moment to reflect over what the hell he was actually doing, he just stared at the man on the other side, who was looking back at him with an almost frightened look in the brown eyes.
“The hell do you think you’re doing?” Connor seethed, glaring at him.
“What?”
“You—You just… started a new damn book!” Connor snarled. “What about the last one, huh? What happened? Who was waiting in her bedroom?”
“What the hell are you—”
“Clara!” Connor yelled. “What happened to her?!”
Oliver blinked, taking a step back in surprise, and finally Connor realised just how insane he was sounding, and that he must be scaring him.
“Sorry,” he muttered, then he took a deep breath, calming himself down. It wasn’t Oliver’s fault he’d had a sucky week, and it wasn’t his fault he was so sleep deprived be could barely even remember his own name, that he was so tired he could probably murder someone for simply looking at him in a funny way. “I’m Connor,” he said instead. “I live next door.”
“Okay?” Oliver looked confused, a bit stressed and still kind of frightened, and it was first then Connor realised that he’d interrupted his weekly bath, and that he was standing there dressed in nothing but a towel around his waist.
He must have taken a bubblebath, Connor found himself thinking. There were still some bubbles clutching to his body, slowly making their way towards the floor together with the water dripping off him.
He was also kind of surprised over how young he was. He had imagined some old man, like majority of the others in the building, to be the kind of person to take a bath at such an exact time of the day every week, but this guy couldn’t be any older than twenty-five, maybe even younger.
“I can hear your book through the wall,” Connor muttered, and now when he had calmed down and realised just how crazy he was, his cheeks had started burning. “And you know… it ended quite… terribly, last week.”
“You’re listening?” Oliver cocked an eyebrow at him. “You don’t only hear it, you actually listen?”
“I know, I know,” Connor sighed. “I’m insane, and creepy as fuck, but I’m always too tired to turn my TV on and after a while I sort of… ended up listening. Yes.”
“Huh,” Oliver said, looking like he couldn’t decide if Connor was completely nuts, or just a bit weird. “Walls here really are thin, aren’t they?” he then said, and to Connor’s surprise, he let out a low laugh with the words. “Well I’ll be damned.”
“Sorry,” Connor muttered again. “Think you could give me the name of the book? So I can find out how it ends?”
“Where did I stop last time?” Oliver asked, giving him a soft smile. “I remember my timer stopping at a pretty bad place,” he agreed when Connor gave him a surprised look. “So for once I decided to finish it earlier. I listened to the last of it in bed before I went to sleep.”
“Oh,” Connor replied, confused. He had thought the guy would tell him to go to hell, or threaten with the police, or pretty much anything else than this. When a crazy guy knocks on your door to yell about an audiobook, you don’t just stand there wondering what he had missed, you made sure he left you the hell alone. “Uh, Clara got home and there was someone waiting for her in her apartment…”
“Oh, right,” Oliver nodded. “Yes, I remember. There was only like fifteen minutes left after that, so I decided to finish it so I could start a new one today.”
Connor nodded dumbly.
“Yeah,” he replied, coughing awkwardly. “So… uh, name of the book? I won’t listen again, I promise. I just… want to know how it ends.”
Oliver laughed, a soft and beautiful sound, and Connor wondered how the hell they could’ve lived next to each other for so long and never even met before.
He would’ve known if he had met the young man. There was no way he could’ve missed him if he had.
“If you promise me you won’t murder me, you can come in and I’ll let you hear the rest,” he said with a warm smile. “But I’m a hell of a screamer, so if you try to kill me or anything, I’ll make sure to be so damn loud, even the deaf lady downstairs will hear me.”
Connor let out an awkward laugh, and gave him a shy smile in reply.
“I’m not a murderer,” he replied. “Just the crazy guy next door stalking his neighbor’s weekly listening session instead of getting his own damn books.”
“Well, if I could get free audiobooks, I would probably do the same,” Oliver winked. “Besides, it’s not your fault the walls are thin as paper,” he continued with a warm smile. Then he took a step aside. “Come on in,” he said. “I’ll get dressed again, and we can listen to the rest of it over some tea?”
Connor smiled as well, for once feeling that maybe spending time with an actual person wouldn’t be so bad.
“Yeah,” he mumbled, stepping inside. “I’d like that.”
“Great,” Oliver smiled, then he gestured for Connor to come further inside, and told him he could wait in the living room, and with another smile Connor did as told while Oliver went to get dressed and make them that tea before they sat down to listen to the rest of the book together.
He didn’t understand how the young man wasn’t worried about letting a stranger into his home like that, especially not after how he had behaved just a few minutes earlier, and a small part of him wondered if maybe it was he who should be worried. Worried that someone would just let him in like that, worried that maybe Oliver was the crazy one. He was too tired to care, though, and after the week he’d had… hell, if Oliver turned out being some kind of serial killer or whatever, Connor wouldn’t even mind. There were worse ways to die than to be murdered by a gorgeous man with a great taste in books.
Oliver didn’t murder him, though. They drank their tea and listened to the book, and afterwards they spent almost an hour and a half discussing it. Connor had never before been the kind of person to actually discuss plots or writing, he simply finished his book and if he liked it it could stay in his bookcase, if he didn’t he would give it away, but with Oliver… with Oliver it was fun. Connor had no idea where his energy suddenly came from, but he found himself in a heated discussion about how authors always had to throw in useless things in their stories for no reason at all, and how most of them seemed to think it was absolutely impossible to write a book without a pointless romance happening in them, no matter what kind of genre it was, and he actually enjoyed it.
He was still tired as hell, but he didn’t even mind, and if it wasn’t for how he eventually had started to blink tiredly in a desperate way to stay awake he could easily had kept talking for another hour or two, but Oliver saw how tired he was, and suggested they would call it a night.
Connor hadn’t wanted to, but he also knew he wouldn’t be able to stay awake any longer, and with a nod he had gotten up from the couch, and while Oliver followed him to the door he apologized once again for his earlier behaviour, before thanking him for letting him hear the rest.
Oliver had laughed in reply, telling him it was fine, and before letting Connor leave, he had met his eyes, smiling warmly.
“So… should we start the new one together next week?”
Connor blinked, surprised over the question.
“I mean,” Oliver clarified. “Do you want to come over for tea again next week? We can start a new one together, instead of you listening through the wall.”
“Don’t you want your weekly bath?” Connor asked, still confused.
“Nah,” Oliver shrugged. “I can take a bath anytime, and I liked this,” he smiled. “Listening with someone, and then discussing it… it was fun.”
Connor smiled as well. It had been fun. If someone had suggested it before he would probably never have thought it would be something he would enjoy, but he had, and he found himself thinking that yes, he would actually like doing it again, no matter how tired he was after a week at work.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that.”
“We could eat something as well,” Oliver suggested. “Order in and just… enjoy the book together?”
Connor laughed. “Is this a date?” he asked, and surprisingly enough, he hoped it was. He had only spent a couple of hours with the guy, but he already liked him. A lot.
“If you want it to be,” Oliver replied with a shy smile. “If you don’t, it’ll simply be what we have apparently done for months,” he gave him a teasing grin. “Even if I didn’t get to know about it until tonight.”
Connor chuckled, holding back the urge to apologize once again, then he gave him a soft smile.
“Why the hell not,” he smiled, finding himself actually meaning what he said. “It’s a date.”