Work Text:
i wish you were here
did you see my speech
i mentioned you
obviously
it feels so wrong everyone’s here except you
baby?
Read: 11:08PM
i can see you read these
why are you awake at 2am
connor
baby
sunshine
light of my life
hellooooooooooooooo
Delivered
Connor groaned, the incessant pings of his phone pulling him out of his shallow attempt at a REM cycle. He rolled (back) over and picked up the lit device, previewing the text notifications on his lock screen. His stomach coiled with guilt. His chest tightened. He didn’t mean to ignore Hudson, but the whole evening was weighing on him for a million different reasons and he really couldn’t bring himself to reply at the moment.
They didn’t do this. They didn’t ignore each other. They always, always told each other how proud they were of each other, so he didn’t really know why he was avoiding it this time - congratulating Hudson on his award. Connor had seen the HR cast group chats light up the second it happened. He didn’t need social media to know Hudson had won.
They were all there. Without him. It was technically Connor’s choice to stay in Atlanta. They’d offered to build the filming schedule around a very, very quick 24hr turnaround trip for him to make it to the awards and back in the middle of filming, but he’d declined. He hadn’t told Hudson they’d offered, just that it conflicted with his filming schedule. So he was in Atlanta, in bed, alone, when maybe he should be in Canada with literally every other cast and crew member of the show. But then again, she was there, and he couldn’t bring himself to exist in the same room as her right now... as them.
Incoming Call: Huddy (Shane)
Connor stared at the ceiling, contemplating for a moment before looking over at the brightened screen buzzing its way across the nightstand. He sighed deeply and reached over, picked it up, and paused.
“Hmm Hello?” he faked the sleepiest voice he could muster.
“CONNIE BABY,” Hudson yapped into the phone, clearly tipsy, “I CAN SEE YOU READING MY TEXT MESSAGES AND I MISS YOU. DID YOU SEE MY SPEECH?”
“Huddy, I’m trying to sleep baby,” he sighed, physically unable to deny Hudson entirely, “Can I call you in the morning?”
“YOU HAVEN’T EVEN SAID CONGRATULATIONS TO ME,” Hudson whined half-laughing, though Connor could clearly read between the lines that Hudson was bothered by his lack of verbal support.
“Congratulations Huddy, you know I’m proud of you. Can you go find Aika, baby? Go drink some water?”
“I JUST GOT YOU ON THE PHONE,” Hudson hiccuped. Connor could hear someone in the background of Hudson’s call telling him to “shh.” He repeated himself quieter before continuing, “I just got you on the phone, I don’t want you to go yet. We haven’t talked in like, three days.”
“I know, I’m sorry baby,” Connor sighed, running his hand over his face, “it’s so late here though, and I have to be up early to shoot, you know this.”
“If you don’t want to talk to me, you can just tell me,” Hudson snapped brattily, “I just wanted to share this moment with you since you can’t be here, but fuck me, I guess.”
“You have plenty of other people there to share this moment with, Huddy.”
He was met with silence from Hudson for a moment.
“Is that what this is about? That’s not,” a hiccup, “that’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair.”
Connor could hear a fair amount of rustling in the background of Hudson’s call, a couple of “fuck, excuse me’s,” and the general noise dying down. He was clearly moving somewhere quieter to have a conversation Connor really, really didn’t want to have.
“I thought… I thought we talked about this. I thought we were okay,” Hudson questioned.
“We’re okay. I can’t… I can’t get into this right now.”
“No, I don’t want to go back to this party knowing you’re upset. I can tell,” a hiccup, “I can tell you’re upset. It doesn’t feel right to go to one of these things without being able to blow you in the bathroom anyway,” he laughed.
Connor scrunched his eyes and turned face first into his pillow.
“You can’t say things like that, Huddy.”
“Since when?”
“Since your girlfriend is there? Since it’s the middle of the night for me and I’m fucking tired and I don’t want to argue with you right now?”
“Fine, fuck off back to,” a hiccup, “back to sleep.”
The line went quiet. Connor could still hear Hudson breathing unevenly through the phone. Neither of them hung up.
“You mentioned me in your speech?”
“Of course.”
“What did you say?”
“Something about my bottom gay yearning eyes having something big and russian to feast upon, I don’t know… I kept it,” a hiccup, “super professional obviously.”
God, Connor wanted to laugh. It was so close to being enough, but something about the acknowledgement being Shane and Ilya coded felt so bitter in his mouth. It would never just openly be Hudson and Connor, would it?
“Professional… right. Well, that’s how it has to be, so…”
“That’s not fair, Con- ”
“Isn’t it?” he cut Hudson off, “None of this is fucking fair! She gets to be with you and your family on the carpet, she gets to sit next to you openly as your partner. No one has ever sat her down like a fucking kid and told her the rules of how she can and can’t interact with you. She just gets to be with you, meanwhile I’m here in fucking Atlanta- ”
“Baby- ”
“No, you wanted this. Look, I have been hidden away and minimized my entire fucking life. My whole life, Hudson. I’ve always been too loud or too gay or too much, and I cannot tell you how many times I have made myself smaller or quieter to please other people. I fought so hard to grow out of that. I moved half way across the country away from my family to get away from that. I have been someone’s secret, I have been someone’s phase, I have never, ever been seen for who I am and just loved by a partner unconditionally, publicly, regardless.”
He stopped and took a shaky breath, holding back the tears threatening to fall.
“The thing that… the thing that breaks my heart, Hudson, is I met you and I finally thought maybe that was happening for me. It didn’t matter what we called it. You’re just as much of a fucking freak as I am. I see you and you see me, and my heart feels like it’s going to climb out of my fucking chest sometimes when I look at you, but…”
“But?”
“Huddy, we have to get people to sign NDAs just so photos of us don’t get out. I just… It’s not even about you and her being together, it’s about the fact that she gets to love someone as openly as I’ve only ever dreamed of loving someone… and that someone is you, and you are the closest and somehow also the farthest I’ve ever come to having that myself.”
“Is that why you decided not to come tonight? James um… James told me because he thought I already knew.”
Connor hesitated, knowing he’d probably already said too much.
“She gets to be proud of you out loud, in public, with her whole chest. You deserve that, Huddy. You deserve to accept your award with a room full of people who can love you as loudly as they want, but it’s just… starting to wear on me that it will never be me. It’ll be me as Ilya or me with a heart drawn around my face tucked in an Instagram dump, but it will never actually just be me.”
The silence from Hudson’s end was deafening.
“Connie- ”
“Please, Hudson.”
“You’re right that I see you and you see me… in a way that no one else has ever been able to. I know exactly what you mean. I need you to know, I’ve never once been ashamed of you or- ”
“I know,” Connor’s voice came out small and exhausted, “I believe you. That doesn’t change what it feels like to watch someone else love you the way I do, the way… I wish everyone could know that I do.”
Hudson’s breathing had calmed.
“I don’t know how to fix this tonight.”
“I know.”
“I want to, Connor. Please…” a hiccup, “Please know that I want to.”
“I know that too.”
“Can that be enough for tonight? For you to not go to sleep mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you, I’m- ”
“ -mad at the situation, yeah,” Hudson finished the sentence for him.
“Yeah.”
Hudson whined dramatically, making Connor laugh, finally breaking the tension.
“Go back inside, baby. Go celebrate your win.”
“Fine... Connie?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you a million swedish fish.”
“I love you a million red m&ms, Huddy.”
Call Ended 2:31AM