Chapter Text
The picture on Conor's phone screen showed Mason in the middle and two mostly strangers to him. He was in LA for two weeks, bringing his new bandmates to Sydney for recording some of their songs they wrote over the past weeks they spent on video calls. Conor didn’t know much about the two guys, he only knew what Mason told him. The older Aussie was a good friend, Conor knew all about his music, but when Mason wanted to form a band with two guys he apparently met online, he was a bit skittish. A band that made out of guys that met over TikTok? Was this even a good idea or would they break the band before even releasing their first song? Conor did follow the two guys on Instagram, but didn’t really interact with them. He mostly just did it to see what Mason was up to when he was gone, maybe adding that Conor wanted to support Mason all it cost. The two Aussie's met at the studio Conor works as assistant. Mason was recording a single and they instantly clicked, joking around and just being a good pair of friends. Mason once joked that they were soulmates in another universe. Both of them knew that they weren’t; soulmates usually knew they met them once they befriended their other half, achieving the ability to feel pain and Mason already did when they met; his fiancé.
Ironic, wasn’t it?
Everyone was able to live their life without needing be scared over the pain of a broken bone, but the moment you started to be emotional with the right person the universe started haunting everyone down. Conor was happy that he never felt any pain when he went skating, sometimes he joked that this was the best of not knowing his soulmate. He stopped searching for that person on his 18th birthday, because he felt like it was meaningless. He felt emotions, happy ones and the phase that he called just an empty space; why should he need the ability to cry or the ability to feel a scraped leg when another skate trick went wrong?
"If you’re already going to the store, could you bring some eggs with you?" Jody, Conor’s mom, asked who sat at the table, her phone in front of her as she looked through some recipes. She promised him to bake the cake for Mason’s birthday party this evening.
"Will do," Conor answered and nodded, putting his phone and money into his pocket. Mason and his friends arrived yesterday evening, but Conor was sure that they were still sleeping and later that evening they would meet at the beach, just celebrating Mason’s birthday in a small circle. Technically he should feel flattered that only he and the two bandmates of Mason were invited, but he also felt skittish. Conor didn’t avoid getting to know new people for no reason; he saw what meeting a soulmate could do to people and he didn’t want it. With Conor's board in one hand and headphones on he drove from the small house to the nearest shop. Next to eggs he wanted to stock up his snack stack in his room and buy something small for Mason. He kicked his board into his hand and walked inside.
"Hello Conor."
Oh, the universe had it coming for the young Aussie. He turned to his left to see the brown-haired young woman he didn’t feel anything, but pity for. They were good friends during school, but he kind of blew her out of his life. Maybe he was scared that she was his soulmate, but he wasn’t. Two years after not really talking to each other she met a young man from Italy, they were at the same hotel in Greece and she came back with the news that after they got close friends and spent the whole vacation together, she felt the bond snap in place. At least that was what she wrote on Facebook together with the fact that a papercut hurt like hell and was nothing to be enjoyed.
"Hey Lisa," Conor answered and his fingers immediately clung to his board. His plan was to walk into the store and out again, but apparently this wasn’t going to work today.
The brunette smiled brightly at him, "how are you?"
Oh no, not small talk.
"Good good," he answered and shrugged, "working a lot."
Lisa still held that smile on her face Conor once thought he found his best friend in. He felt sorry for brushing her of like he did, because she didn’t deserve it. To be honest, he was thankful that they weren’t soulmates, otherwise he would have broken her heart with leaving her like that — probably his own too. To that point he didn’t feel anything, empty maybe, but not pain.
"Did you hear about the school gathering next weekend?" Lisa asked and still held that happy smile on her face that let Conor want to run as fast as possible. What kind of school gathering? He shook his head saying no.
"Nothing much, just everyone meeting up, you didn’t get an invite?" Lisa questioned and tilted her head. "Anyway, it’s next weekend, here."
The brunette didn’t ask twice and just grabbed a pen out of her bag and wrote the date and time on Conor’s hand.
"I would love if you come," she smiled brightly up to him. Conor nodded slowly, "I’ll see if I can manage."
Lisa held her beautiful smile on her face as she continued, "so many people will come, we would love having you there, wait."
She cramped her phone out of her bag and tapped on it before holding the screen out with a smile. Conor took a moment to realize that she wanted his number. As he typed his number in she continued spea
"I would love if you would come, a plus one is allowed, did you find your special someone yet?" she asked like it didn't matter that they didn't talk in so long. Then it obviously happened, Conor blurted out /yes.
Fucking Idiot.
Lisa's eyes sparkled as she smiled, "so you won't have to come alone, great!"
Oh no, absolutely no. Why did something like a casual small talk escalate so fast?
"Will see if we can manage," Conor answered as he started to fidget with his board before continuing, "I really need to go on now, but it was nice seeing you."
She nodded and then did the most unbelievable thing to Conor, she opened her arms and hugged him. He didn't even have time to hug her back or pat her shoulder, because she thankfully gave him free again and said her goodbyes to leave the store.
Oh god, Conor was in trouble. He definitely was going to excuse himself from that class meetup. They were like hundreds of reasons to not go and now where Lisa believed he met his soulmate she would believe him when he said he was ill with a headache or whatever. He grabbed the stuff he wanted and went to check out before leaving the store as fast as possible, because it felt threating out of the sudden to life a lie.
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The car came to a stop in the near of the beach and Conor's dad grinned at him and squeezed his shoulder. Conor already saw the set up on the beach of the birthday party and wasn’t so sure if he wanted to push himself into the middle of those stranger's faces that could be whispering about him.
"Bye," Conor mumbled and slowly unbuckled his seatbelt as his father wished him much fun. For a second he stopped moving … fun. What possibly could go wrong? He had Mason at his side and that dude was a worried mother hen. Especially he didn't need to lie around Mason and maybe (just maybe) those friends of him were just the same? With the car driving away Conor forced every step closer to the party. There were the three people that seemed to be waiting for him, one of them his best friend Mason. The blue-eyed dude smiled brightly and walked towards Conor exclaiming, "you made it!"
Oh, great.
Everyone looked at Conor. Two pairs of eyes he didn’t know anything about stared into the depths of his soul, which was probably just a black hole. Mason seemed to want to go in for a handshake, but Conor hugged his best friend who usually accepted that Conor felt uncomfortable during a hug after a small incident with a coworker.
Conor did like Jake, one of the older guys that worked there, and he wasn't mad at him, but slightly terrified. After Jake once grabbed Conor out of a joke and put his arm around his throat to show him who the boss was Conor straight up passed out from lack of oxygen. He didn't even realise until after fainting, that he probably should have felt pain from not breathing, but when he woke up on the floor people started treating him like an eggshell and maybe it was good that way, because for Conor a lot changed that day – to realize he could have died, because of a joke.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…
That was one of the little tricks Conor started to do. He knew it wasn't deadly to be hugged for a few seconds and this hug felt so different than the one of Lisa this morning. It felt warm, welcoming, from someone who would never judge him. It was Mason's birthday, he wanted to hug him. The older Aussie made sure to give Conor enough space, but he put his head on the smaller one's shoulder and Conor felt how Mason relaxed.
Technically Conor didn't hate hugs, he just hated it that he felt trapped and it was just a social norm that he always had to hug people no matter what. Sometimes he just didn't feel like it, he just needed some space, but Mason was next to his parents a special person in his life and he would always find a way to show him the gratitude of it.
"It’s so great to see you!" Mason said and let go of Conor and squeezed his shoulder. Conor was at eighteen, ten seconds longer than usually, but he wasn't mad at Mason, he understood it and he fully knew that he never told Mason about the eight second rule. Mason looked at Conor's face before eyeing up and down once. God, why did he do that, was something about his outfit choice wrong?
"Meet my friends, they‘re straight out of America, staying for a while, and brought the good stuff."
Conor smiled slightly, "happy birthday, Mason."
It was the first time Conor went to the beach since weeks. He mostly spent most of his time in the skating park or at work, maybe the small park in the near of his home to write his poetry was an option too, but never the beach. Mason had his arm loosely around Conor as they walked to the small fire, the two strangers sitting on beach towels, their naked feet in the warm sand.
"Guys Conor, Conor those are Shane and Zach," Mason said and put his arm around the younger Aussie. Out of comfort or just to make sure Conor couldn't run away, he didn't know. "Some American support for us Aussies."
Zach had dark, short curls and brown eyes. Muscular and seeming exhausted from what Conor guessed jet lag. The hand squeeze between them was short as Zach smiled, "Mason already told us about your liking for sweets, had to make sure that Shane didn't eat them all during our flight."
Great Mason, really great.
"A man of my liking, finally someone appreciates the good old candy!" the blonde said, Shane. He came into the view of Conor and instead of going into a handshake he lifted his arms, inviting for a hug. For a second the Aussie was paralysed. Conor didn’t want to come off as rude, but while Conor did that hug for Mason, this was a stranger to want the same thing. Conor felt forced to do so, so he did accept the hug and braced himself for squeezing, for anything, but it didn’t come. Unless like any other hug Conor got the past months it was soft, Shane's arms were loosely around his shoulders and didn’t squeeze, didn’t make him feel trapped or uncomfortable. The hug maybe lasted three seconds and Conor was blinked surprised.
"Nice to meet you!" Shane smiled and winked in a friendly manner down to Conor before leaving his personal space and sitting down onto the towel. Conor lowered himself onto the towel next to Mason, his hoodie arms pulled over his hands. The fire that was cracking in front of him reminded him not to get near it. Was it just two weeks ago when he burned his hand on the oven? It didn't hurt, he only realised the small blister when his brother mentioned it.
Both Zach and Shane wore tank tops, seeming to be burning up in the Australian era. Conor never left his home, except one time he was around three, and wasn't able to remember anything, but he knew that if they came from the colder area of America they both would be overheating the next days. There was a piece of cake shoved into Conor's hands by Mason and he looked up. When was the last time they both just sat down, ate and talked? Probably a few weeks now.
"You’re working in a studio?" Shane asked who pushed a piece of cake into his mouth. His eyes were focused on Conor and he had a smile on his face even his mouth was stuffed with cake. Mason, why did he always have to already tell everything to everyone?
"Just as assistance," Conor replied and looked at the cake down, not wanting to meet Shane’s eyes. That stranger seemed like the kind of guy who was able to read someone’s mind and that was the least thing what Conor wanted to have. Shane stretched his long legs out and put his bare feet into the warm sand as he exclaimed, "yeah, but that’s sick!"
Sick? Conor didn’t do much. The first three weeks he was only allowed to bring coffee until his boss heard about that and got Conor resigned to another one of the studio who slowly showed him step by step what to do. Now Conor did all the small stuff like printing lists, phone calls, greeting customers, helping inside with the material and obviously he still brought coffee sometimes.
"Thats sick anyway, are you doing music on your own?" Shane asked and Conor noticed how he was sincere interested in what he asked. Conor looked at Mason for a split second, but he was in a deep conversation with Zach, who had powdered sugar all around his nose from the cake.
"Not really, the rockstar life is Mason’s," Conor answered and slowly he was able to exhale. It felt natural to sit here, talk, eat. Maybe Conor was so overthinking about Lisa and ruining Mason's birthday that he didn't think about how nice it was to meet new people.
"But I play guitar," Conor then told Shane. It’s one of the few hobbies where he didn’t get injured like skating – his mom was probably thankful for that.
"And you never thought about making music on your own?" Shane asked almost shocked. Conor shrugged and gave it a second before answering, "not really, I would be overwhelmed with the people anyway."
Conor did enjoy quiet, not being squeezed all night in a crappy bus, not needing to stand on a stage and getting screamed at. Not that he would mind hundreds of people think that he was hot, but he wanted to be seen for such more than that. For his creativity, for his way to write poems, not only because he was tattooed young man that would be considered as a hot rockstar boyfriend.
"Yeah, I get what you mean, bro, as nice as it would be, it could be draining," Shane answered and pushed another bite of cake onto his fork before pushing it into his mouth. Shane seemed so careless, so free of this world. Conor could have sworn that the blonde probably had his soulmate already, because he never met anyone before who was just this calm. Conor nodded softly, "yeah probably would…"