Chapter Text
Connor didn’t have Twitter; hell, he didn’t even have Instagram downloaded on his phone, quickly realising that social media was a drug that could be as cruel as it was kind. So he limited his doses to small portions, only posting once before deleting the app again and staying far, far away from the cesspit that was now called X, preferring to keep his sanity intact, thank you very much.
He'd already been put through the wringer the past few days: what with his ex deciding to come out and post all those videos on Instagram, effectively outing him - like the asshole that he was - cashing in on his fifteen minutes of fame. It hurt, but it wasn't like he'd been hiding his sexuality from everyone in his life, all he'd wanted was a shred of privacy and now that was gone but - he would survive. He had the SAG Actor Awards to think about now, and then the show with Seth Meyers and the Golden Globes and whatever else his agent booked him onto. CAA weren’t messing around.
So it hit him like a stack of bricks when Tayler texted him that morning. It was early, even for him and definitely for her (he had never seen Tayler willingly up before 10, especially because she had a day off today and was crashing at her friends house, probably still hung over from girls' night) but there were a flurry of messages and a couple of missed calls waiting for him at 6.30 AM.
[Missed call] from Tay💛 at 6.25 AM
[Missed call] from Tay💛 at 6.28 AM
Tay💛: Hey Con, I know it's early but have you talked to Hudson recently?
Tay💛: Things are blowing up on twitter rn. It's not looking good.
Tay💛: Ik he's got the CNN and andy cohen stuff today but I really hope he's doing ok. People are such shitheads. Call me when you can.
His fingers were pressing the dial button before he'd even read the messages, knowing that Tayler wouldn't be texting him this early unless it was important. His anxiety only spiked when he saw Hudson's name. What were they saying about him now?
“Con?”
“Hey,” he cleared his throat, voice still groggy from sleep, “Tay what's going on?”
“Did you just wake up?” He made a noise of assent and his fingers fisted the sheets, picking at a loose thread until it started to unravel a little.
“Look, maybe you should freshen up first…”
“No, Tay, I'm fine need to kno-”
“Connor.”
“Tayler.”
“Listen, it can wait-”
“Please.” He cut her off, desperation leaching into his voice, tremors of foreboding working its way up his skin, buzzing like static. “Please.” His hand gripped the phone, knuckles straining. She must have heard something in his tone because he heard a slow exhale and some rustling; he imagined her sitting back against the couch in her bunny pyjamas, the look on her face when she didn’t want to say something she knew would hurt him.
“People are leaking stuff about Hudson.” She said at last, voice quiet and serious.
“Like, about his girlfriend?” That had started up a couple of weeks ago, and it seemed like it had died down - were people so bored they were just digging up old news again?
“Well that, and some other stuff. His letterboxd got leaked or - not leaked, but some creeps traced it and figured out his account and now his reviews are all over twitter and people are -” she blew out a breath, and he could hear the frustration through the line, matching his rising anger and confusion in tandem. His letterboxd got leaked? That was the scandal? A couple of movie reviews?
“People are going crazy, Connor. They're fucking eviscerating him over there just because he said Timothee Chalamet looks like he'd rather be getting high on Juul and because he said Lolita was a good movie. Like - they're trying to cancel him over fucking Lolita of all things when it was just Hudson being Hudson, and honestly people have no idea about nuance and exploring themes and being able to intellectually disagree anymore because this is -”
“Tay,” and his voice broke and he hated it because - what the fuck? He must have said it out loud because he heard her repeat it and make a small hum of agreement down the line.
“Lolita? They're - oh my god. This is so - just - what?” His hands raked through his hair, mussing up his curls even more as he tugged at the roots in an attempt to steady himself. It didn’t really work, but he tried to pretend it helped somehwat, forcing his volume down.
“How bad is it?”
“It’s - bad. It's not the end of the world, there’s been way worse scandals and this - this isn't even a fucking scandal.” She let out a short, caustic laugh, and Connor felt it in his throat. “Like, if stuff's gonna come out about you, fucking letterboxd reviews is as tame as it gets. They're so gross, trawling through his social media, trying to find links, picking apart his life.” He felt his stomach churn at the words, a cold ice spreading over his skin. Hudson. He needed to call Hudson.
“Hey, I'll talk to you later okay? I need to -” He couldn't even finish the sentence, fingers already scrolling through his contact list to find the name.
“I know,” she said soothingly, and he let it wash over him for a second, even though it did nothing to calm his racing heart. Nothing would, not until Connor heard his voice. “Love you, talk to you later Con.”
With shaking fingers he pressed the call button. Please pick up. Please pick up. Please pick-
‘This person is currently not available, please try again-’
“Fuck.” Of course he couldn't pick up now. Hudson was probably getting ready for the CNN appearance, it was a 3 hour time difference after all. They were on completely opposite sides of the country, moored on different coasts and Connor had never felt so helpless. Useless.
He imagined Hudson: standing still as Aika helped him with the suit, brushing his hair, putting on a smile to meet the hosts because he could do it, he could play the part, and do it damn well - but Connor would know. Connor would see the smile and how it was just shy of meeting his eyes, read the slight tension in his cheeks no one else would be able to pick up on, the way he stood, body braced for impact, written in the arch of his spine, the lines of his arms, sinew and bone pulled tight waiting for collapse. He knew that face. He knew his body, his tells, like the back of his own hand, better than he knew himself at times.
Connor knew Hudson had twitter, and he was generally good at cutting back and knowing his limits but he also knew there was no way Hudson hadn't seen this. And now he would have to go out in public and act like it was fine, he was fine, when he wasn’t.
He needed someone to hold him, to stroke his hair and trail their hands down from his neck to his back in the way that made him melt, the tension seeping out of his body like a trickling stream. He needed someone to take the phone away, because his impulses got the best of him at times and Hudson could become hyperfixated, losing himself in a spiral if there was no one to pull him out. He needed someone to kiss his forehead, his cheeks, trace the crinkles by his eyes, warm brown depths you could sink into forever, sharing breath, sharing heat and light and space as he burrowed inwards, someone to rock him gently and wrap their arms around his waist, cradle his jaw and sweep a hand over his throat just so.
He needs me. He needs me and I'm not there.
And it was the first time he hated it, truly hated it. The fame, the fans - not all of them, but the crazy ones, the ones who pitted them against each other like they weren't intertwined, like he would have ever survived this without Hudson by his side - the awards shows. He couldn’t leave because he was presenting tonight and there was no way Hudson could come here because he had the podcast with Cohen later on.
It was one thing after another, and he was grateful, he was, but it was hard to remember that right now when his best friend was miles away and trying not to buckle and he couldn’t be there. I'm sorry. I wish I was there. I'm sorry. I miss you. I want to hold you. I'm sorry. I want to make it all better, take you away, protect you. I'm sorry, I’m sorry, I'msorryi'msorryimsorr-
He pressed call again and again and again, in rapid succesion, knowing it was useless, hopeless, but his heart sank all the same, gut twisting when the same message came up. He moved to messages, fingers flying before his brain had worked through all the words.
You: Hey, call me when you're free ok?
You: How are you holding up?
You: Sorry that’s a stupid question.
You: I miss you, I wish I was there. They don’t fucking deserve you.
You: I want to hold you and give you a hug and keep you wrapped in my arms like a koala bear. Remember how you called me that? You were right
You: Is someone giving you a hug right now? You need hugs. And people telling you how brilliant and smart and fucking hilarious and amazing you are because it's the truth.
You: And yes, it's because I said so - and that's because I know, better than any of them.
You: Call me. I love you.
He dragged himself out of bed, went through his morning workout and eyed the skincare masks he had bought after Hudson had rolled his eyes and teased him about his non-existent routine 3 weeks ago (had it already been 3 weeks?). He left them in the cabinet, shutting the door, but not before he put on sunscreen, the one Hudson had praised him about when he crashed at his house.
***
“Sunscreen? Look at you Connie, are we finally getting into it?”
“Shut up.” Connor had grumbled from the bed, his voice carrying through the open bathroom door as Hudson laughed.
“No, it's cute. In the year of our lord 2026-”
“It’s not new years yet, idiot.”
“-in 2026,” Hudson continued putting emphasis on the number as he raised an eyebrow while Connor shook his head and tried not to smile, “Connor Storrie discovered sunscreen. What next? A face wash?” He gasped dramatically, hands coming to clutch at his imaginary pearls as he walked out of the en-suite towards Connor.
“Oh my god-”
“Toner?”
“Serum?”
“I hate you.”
“Oh my, oh my,” for some reason Hudson now sounded like a southern belle - well, if she was 86 years old and went to weekly mormon sermons, preaching about Christ our lord and saviour, “what if, heaven forbid, he discovered exfoli-”
Connor grabbed him by the waist and tugged, making Hudson topple over him onto the bed with a dramatic screech. His hands landed on either side of Connor's head to take his weight immediately, but their bodies were aligned, touching everywhere from chest to feet, waist resting on hips, his face centimetres away.
He was staring into brown eyes that were an abyss, the light reflected off them, their molten colour like the aftermath of a warm crackling fire. Eyes he had missed, ones he could fall into, pick out in a crowd of hundreds. Brown eyes that were starting to symbolise comfort, ready to turn towards him and crinkle with a smile or soften at the sight of him, taking his breath away, eyes that felt a little bit like ho-
“Ex-fo-li-a-tion.” Hudson whispered, a hair's breadth away from his lips, and Connor couldn’t help the laugh that burst out of him, the electricity between them dissipating, shifting into something familiar as Hudson laughed too, their cackles echoing in the room. He leaned down, nose tucked into the side of Connor's neck, trailing softly over the skin. He heard a sniff.
“Did you just- smell me?”
“Mm, you smell nice.” He heard Hudson mumble, still sniffing his damn neck. “Missed your smell.” Oh. “Missed you.” Oh.
“You saw me like a week ago,” Connor laughed, or tried to, it was a high, reedy thing.
Hudson only nuzzled in closer, “Too long. Missed you.”
“Damn, this 3 hour flight difference is gonna be a problem if you're ready to crawl into my arms like a cat, huh? Press got you down that bad?” He joked, hands instinctively coming up to card through Hudson's hair. It was getting so long now, he loved it.
“Yeah,” a sigh against his neck, warm breath tickled his skin, “we need to be conjoined at the hip now, sorry. Or - not sorry. I'm a fucking delight to be conjoined to.” Connor bit his lip to stop a giggle. Hudson was so soft and ridiculous when he was sleepy.
“I don’t say it enough, but I couldn’t do any of this stuff without you, Connie. The press tour, the interviews -” a soft kiss pressed right over his pulse point, “I love you.”
He wasn't fucked. This was fine. This what they did. Touches and hugs and kisses. This was fine. They were friends, best friends, didn't he call them soulmates? Yeah, yep, it was good. So good. Sooooo good.
He felt teeth scrape the side of his neck and yelped, “What the hell are you doing to my neck, Williams?”
“You didn't say it back.” He mumbled petulantly, pressing another soft kiss over the bite, and Connor melted.
“I love you Huddy, and yeah, I think I would have like, a million freak outs by now if you weren't here.”
“Mm, we could have freaked out on video call together.” Hudson pulled his face up (thank god, Connor thought) and looked at his eyes instead, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Panic party over Zoom? Invite only.”
“Very classy.” Connor grinned, watching Hudson's eyes dance, the way his face lit up like sparklers when he was like this: soft, happy, safe. This is good, he thought again, if I could have just this - this is good.
***
He snapped himself out of it, and went about his day, fielding calls from his agent, another from his mom, one from a friend he hadn't spoken to in a month. All the while he checked his text thread, waiting for a reply from Hudson. He watched him on CNN, noted the way he smiled, the pink blush on his cheeks, his thoughtful and precise answers, and felt a rush of pride mixed with some hollow ache.
Who did Hudson have in New York? Someone who knew him well enough to say ‘I'm so proud of you. Now, come here.’ and take him into his arms, make him feel safe enough to let his guard down, to let the smile slip. He heard Hudson mention the invasion of his privacy in real time, and felt his heart clench from miles away, hands grabbing at a phantom body, to touch, to soothe, to try and make it a little bit better.
And then the interview was over, and Hudson was gone, out of his screen, out of his sight. Two hours later, there was still no response. He felt stupid and crazy all at once: Hudson was busy, today was packed for him, but if he could just hear his voice, his steady breaths, listen to him talk, Connor would be satisfied. If he could know he was okay, just a sentence, a word, this itch would disappear.
He called Tayler instead, let her distract him for half an hour as he got ready to meet his stylist.
“He'll call you soon, okay? I'm sure he's just crazy busy right now.”
“Yeah.”
“You're a good friend, Connor.”
“Yeah.” He repeated, because that's what this feeling in his chest was, why he felt his ribs squeezing together, tightening around him, ready to cut off all air whenever he let himself think about Hudson, and everything he must be going through, for too long. He was a good friend. A good friend. And this is what good friends did.
“I'll talk to you when you're free, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Love you, bye.”
There was still no text.
It came two hours later, when his stylist was putting the finishing touches on his curls.
Huddy: Hey. Yeah Im ok
Huddy: Miss you too
He could see him typing, three dots rising and falling, like waves. What are you thinking? You know you can tell me anything. If only he was there, if only he could see him, hold him. There would be no need for words, hieroglyphs sent across the sky, to be plucked apart and deciphered in isolation.
Huddy: Wish you were here
Like a sucker punch to his gut.
He was up out of his chair before he could consciously think about it, “Sorry, I really need to take this call. Could we take a 10 minute break?” She nodded and smiled, and Connor apologised profusely again before he made his way down to the street, finding an empty bench to sit on as he dialled.
“Hey.” And there it was. A single word, his voice carrying down the line, and Connor felt something in him loosen, just a fraction, just an inch.
“Hey yourself.” They stayed there in silence for a while, just listening to each other breathe, Hudson's presence a comfort down the line. He's here, he's safe, he's here.
“I miss you so much.” It was a whispered confession, almsot lost to the wind and LA traffic if he hadn’t been paying the utmost attention like his life depended on it. He swallowed past the lump in his throat, he needs you to be strong for him right now.
“I'm here, baby.” Hudson let out a quiet noise from the other side, and Connor gripped the phone, stopping his hands from reaching out. “I wish I was there.”
“Yeah,” Hudson said quietly, “today was…hard.”
He pressed his eyes shut for a moment at the small voice. Hudson, who was so bright, funny and beautiful and radiant, being made to feel tiny and insecure.
“I’m right here with you, baby.” He said again, because the alternative was I would fly to you in a heartbeat or I'll keep you safe in my arms forever, if you asked me to.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” He said softly, fingers twisting in his lapel. His stylist would be annoyed, but who cared right now? Who cared when Hudson was down the line, on the other side of the country, letting out a shaky breath like he was trying to hold himself together? Who cared when Connor just wanted to pick him up and wrap him in his arms, and keep him there? Who actually cared?
“No. Not -” and there was that stilted breath, a pause, a jagged inhale. Connor could feel it threading through his own ribs, slicing its way into his lungs. “Not now.”
“Okay.” He said, and let the silence wrap around them, a kind of comfort on its own: a blanket cocooning them, shielding them from the world as every other thing fell away. This was familiar, this Hudson-and-Connor thing, an easy quiet to slip into, just listening to each other's breaths and imagining they were there. For a second he let himself believe he was: how he would tangle his fingers with Hudson's, and then pull him into his side, let his head rest in the crook of his neck.
“I liked your leather trench coat by the way. Very sexy.” There was a huffed laugh down the line, barely there but audible. It felt like winning, tasted like the first drops of honey.
“Thanks, I was going for the dominatrix vibe, you know?”
“Oh my god, and here I thought I had you speechless.” Connor groaned theatrically, playing it up just so he could hear the fond smile in Hudson's voice, almost see the way he rolled his eyes.
“Have you met me? I never shut up.” And then there was a pause, and Connor could imagine the shift in his facial expression, the way his eyes would close for a moment.
“That’s good, I don’t know what I'd do without you,” he said quietly, firmly, trying to impress the words into Hudson's mind, “without you talking my ear off every day about anything and everything.”
There was a gap, a breath, time unspooling between them, and then:
“See, I knew you didn’t hate it. You can't hide from me Connie.” His tone was still muted, but there was a teasing lilt to his voice that hadn’t been there before. Connor grasped it with two hands.
“Mmm no, turns out I actually like your random rambles and your nerdy essays on your latest obsession. Oh what in god's green earth would I do without it?” He said, putting on an overexaggerated Texan accent just so he could hear the quiet half-laugh Hudson let out.
“You're so ridiculous, Connor Storrie.”
“Only for you, Hudson Williams.”
He could hear someone calling for Hudson down the line, “Okay, my booked and busy man, I better let you go.” Even though it was the last thing he wanted to do and every cell in his body was screaming stay, a minute, an hour. Whatever you'll give me.
“Um yeah, I'll - talk to you soon? I mean, if you're free after the SAG awards. Actually you'll probably be out-”
“Hudson,” he said gently, cutting off his rambling, “I'll be there okay? After the awards, I'll call you, if you're still up.”
“Of course I'll be up,” and there was a tone of affront in his voice, “you think i'm gonna miss my best friend presenting his first awards show?”
“Right, no, of course,” and he could hear the smile in his own voice, imagining Hudson's scrunched up expression right now. “But make sure you sleep okay, it's a 3 hour time difference and-”
“Okay, yes, grandma. I'll see you on that stage, and send you lots of screencaps so you can relive the moment with me later.” There was a pause and Connor let it hang, neither of them wanting to put the phone down. After a moment Hudson said quietly, “I love you.”
“I love you too, Huddy. Talk to you soon, yeah?” He managed, around the lump in his throat.
“Yeah.”
It had definitely been more than 10 minutes, but he was looking up flights to New York for tomorrow morning before he could think too much about it.