Valley of Fire
Story: “Valley of Fire”
Author: svmadelyn@yahoo.com
Characters: Conner/Geoffrey
Rating: Hard R
Spoilers: No, AU.
Disclaimer: From Pru’s AMAZING Conflicts of Interest and Visiting Hours universe.
Summary: Geoffrey is a scummy boy.
Notes: No, Pru, hell is not even freezing over! Thanks to you for, you know, audiencing, poking, begging, prodding me into writing this; I like how it came out. *g* Happy (belated) Two Year Anniversary! You’re wonderful and I love you and I hope you still love me after…this.
And a big, big Thanks to the ever wonderful Lyra, the only one I could trust with the beta on this one. As always, she catches me doing stupid grammatical things and I love her for it. *g*
Valley of Fire
It was the noxious fumes of the bleach on his pillowcase that finally inspired Conner enough to move. His cheek felt itchy and his head hurt, and blame for the first one could be squarely laid at the incredible lack of decent laundry services this motel offered. It was hardly surprising; the room was $39.98 a night, so he should probably just be relieved there weren’t rats. Or if there were, they at least had the decency to stay hidden in the walls like rats with survival instincts should do. He wondered if he offered to do the laundry for the next few hours, if they’d give him a free night.
Feet landing a bit unsteadily on the floor, Conner wobbled along the wall, trying not to look at the windows much. There were holes in the blinds and way too much sunlight for what surely had to be an ungodly hour.
He blinked once at the bright red alarm clock. Ten twenty-six. Well. That could still qualify as ungodly.
Conner padded over to the bathroom and tried to shut the door. It squeaked loudly and he cringed, rushing to hold it silently in place, feeling like an idiot as he realized what he was doing. He was alone; there wasn’t any need to worry about stupid things like being considerate of noises. Taking care of business, immensely pleased he wasn’t a girl and didn’t have to sit on that toilet, he fumbled around with the shower knobs. He waited half a minute for it to warm up and flung open the shower curtain, scouring hopefully for soap. Nothing. He poked at the basket by the sink and passed the mirror, did a double take. His hair was eerily reminiscent of Alfalfa and he had two small bruises on his shoulder. He peered closer, eyes widening.
A hickey on the right side of his throat, and one just below his left ear. Gaping, he tugged at the skin, hoping it was food or something. Conner inhaled and managed to open the door again, concentrating vaguely on the broken hinge so it wouldn’t squeak.
Sighing, he pressed the door shut again. No one in the bed and—and he was just going to take a shower, and get this weird paste crap out of his hair, and then he’d retrace his footsteps from last night and figure out what the hell was going on.
Well, either that or he’d go out and get some pancakes and pretend that whatever he couldn’t remember never, ever happened.
Grabbing a couple of random packets and bars from the basket at the sink, he went back to his shower. As he stepped under the water, $39.98 a night no longer seemed such a rip off. The water was wonderfully hot, and Conner hadn’t realized he was this sore until right this second. “Ohhh,” he groaned out loud; tearing open the tiny bar of soap. He peered at the wrapper curiously. French-milled. God. Somewhere, his father was having chest pains and he had to know it was something to do with his dumb-ass kid on the quintessential goof-off road trip before college.
He could only hope that it wasn’t because Hope was relaying the details to him as she followed Conner’s sad saga on the road. He lathered up as well as he could, scrubbing vigorously, desperate to get rid of the bleach smell. He stared down at the tiny shampoo bottle. Pantene. Why wasn’t this stuff illegal by now?
Sacrifices had to be made. Inhaling deeply before he twisted off the cap, he rubbed it in his hair and rinsed as quickly as possible.
The telltale squeak of the door made him go still. Conner decided on a proactive approach. Standing so that the curtain covered as much of him as possible, he threw it open and glared.
At Geoffrey.
Conner stared, and then Geoffrey moved forward, his eyes wide, cheeks lightly flushed, arms laden with coffee and a bag from McDonald’s. Conner must have gotten some water on the floor though, and Geoffrey made a desperate split-second attempt to regain his balance, but the coffee went flying toward Conner. Conner ducked out of the way and managed to stop Geoffrey from hitting the floor, but his concentration was shot and he fell, smacking his head on the back of the shower tile. The coffee rolled halfway and hit the shower floor, precious, precious coffee spilling down the drain. Conner groaned helplessly and tried to toe it upright.
Geoffrey scrambled to his feet and he looked down at Conner, sprawled in the shower, his foot propping up the coffee cup, which was tipping rather precariously. He twisted the knob once, to the right, and Conner shrieked as the water turned freezing.
“Shit! I’m sorry! I can’t get it to turn off!” Geoffrey said, twisting this way and that. Conner gave up on the coffee and crawled out of the shower from the back end, Geoffrey still frantically trying to work the handles. Shivering on the floor, Conner gingerly felt at the back of his head. Seeing Conner’s motion, Geoffrey gave up on the apparently possessed shower and crawled to Conner’s side, moving Conner’s arm aside gently, propping him against his shoulder and peering at the back of Conner’s head, lightly calloused fingers feeling along Conner’s neck, leaving cool shivers in their wake.
“I’m so sorry. I totally should have knocked. I mean, I thought about knocking, and then I thought that it was weird to knock, but—you know.” Geoffrey breathed into Conner’s ear.
No, Conner *didn’t* know, but with Geoffrey’s anxious, worried voice this close to his ear, and with his bare stomach pressed up against Geoffrey’s warm arm, he didn’t especially mind. Then he realized he was naked on a floor that probably hadn’t been cleaned in months, if ever since its installation. Clinging to Geoffrey’s arm to help pull him up, he looked back down at the floor with distaste.
The floor was *cleaner*, whiter where he’d sat on it. “I’m going to rinse off again.” He muttered, eyeing the shower handles dubiously. He twisted the left one once, hopefully, and the water was once again tolerable. Eyeing Geoffrey curiously, he managed to get back in without incident.
The shower curtain was torn, but it wasn’t anything Geoffrey hadn’t seen anyway, so he didn’t especially care. The only thing was that Geoffrey usually looked off to the side, ever polite, whenever Conner needed to change or something, and Conner reciprocated in kind.
Geoffrey wasn’t looking away even now. A dozen questions burned through Conner’s mind, and he finally settled on the first one again, the hey, you quit in Albuquerque, what the hell gives with you being here now? But he didn’t want to sound hurt, or upset, because he wasn’t. So he just had to prove to Geoffrey that he really hadn’t minded one way or the other, and Conner couldn’t do that with his ass covered in mildew and bathroom floor dirt, and Geoffrey watching him in the shower. Conner retrieved his soap from where it had hovered over the drain and met Geoffrey’s eyes. That was when it happened; when he felt his dick jerk and Conner had never wished so hard for a shower curtain to be functional in his life.
“Was there something you needed?” he asked, turning a little to the side, hoping Geoffrey wouldn’t see his reaction to his friend—his *best* friend of all time, watching him in the shower. Crap, Luthor, get a grip, he mentally willed himself, as he squeezed and mutilated the soap in his hand.
“No. I mean. Not—not really. I was just thinking…”
“Thinking what?” Conner cringed as the words came out a little bit meaner than he’d meant for them to.
“It was wrong, obviously,” Geoffrey said, pushing himself off the sink, and picking up the tattered, soaked McDonald’s bag from the floor on his way out. Conner scrubbed viciously, and he twisted the shower back to the cold setting. He bit his lip hard and stood shivering under the glacial water for a full two minutes before he trusted that his body was numb enough to get out. He wrapped a big towel around his waist, and tamped down on the feeling that he was back at the beginning.
The towel reeked of bleach too.
“You could teach these guys a thing or two about laundry,” Geoffrey said, snickering as Conner smacked him with the pillow again.
Conner wiped off the mirror with a wad of toilet paper and stared at the hickeys on his neck again, pressing down on them hesitantly. He pitched the now empty coffee cups into the trash and eased the door open to the sight of Geoffrey, one leg propped on the bed, the other on the floor, picking listlessly at an Egg McMuffin, squirting grape jam on the top.
“They were out of strawberry?” Conner asked quietly, sliding to his duffle.
“No, I asked for strawberry, and they gave me grape.”
“Oh. At least there’s enough cholesterol and grease in the rest of it to disguise it, right?” Conner attempted a smile, but it fell flat instantly. He pretended to be completely absorbed in finding something to wear in his bag. He pulled out his underwear supply, and the dark blue jeans on the bottom. He was down to one clean shirt, which meant he’d need to find a Laundromat today.
“I’m going to try and find a Laundromat. You up for it?” he asked casually, tugging on the underwear underneath his towel. Geoffrey looked up from spreading the jam and Conner caught the brief flash of confusion on his face.
“I guess so.” Geoffrey nodded.
“Well, you don’t have to. I just thought maybe you’d want to talk. Or something.”
Geoffrey smirked. “Yeah, I would think we’d want to talk.”
Conner pulled on his pants, ignoring the moisture that made them stick slightly. It looked a little ridiculous, but he wasn’t about to hazard another moment like the horror averted in the shower. Once they were at a safe height, he flung the towel to the floor nonchalantly and sat down on the bed next to Geoffrey.
Conner eyed the bag a little warily, and found a hash brown.
“Hey, monopoly pieces!” He ripped it off the side.
“That’s why I got you three.” Geoffrey grinned, dangling a packet of ketchup.
“You’re too good to me.” Conner smirked, yanking the ketchup out of Geoffrey’s outstretched hand.
“Hey, nothing but the best for my–” Conner looked up from his mouthful of hash brown as there was a loud knock on the door. Swallowing, he sprang to his feet and slid the chain lock open.
“Someone left this for you downstairs,” a maid said, smiling at Conner as she held out a big manila envelope.
“Really? I didn’t know anyone knew I was here.” He grinned in return. “Thank you.” He pushed his hand in his jeans pocket, hoping desperately he wasn’t about to be embarrassed. Two bucks. Rock. He placed them in her hand and started to close the door, only she was still gripping his hand.
Geoffrey came up from behind and said, “Really, thanks,” as he tugged Conner back and shut the door.
Conner looked up at Geoffrey, forehead wrinkling. “What was that?” he asked, eyeing the envelope curiously. He noted Geoffrey doing the same, even as he started tapping his finger on the panel at the side of the door.
“Conner, if I say the words, ‘valley of fire’ to you, what comes to your mind?” Geoffrey asked seriously.
“A valley? On fire?” Conner mumbled, starting to thumb open the envelope, only to have Geoffrey tug it out of his hands.
“It’s addressed to me,” Geoffrey said hurriedly, throwing it on the bed.
“The maid said it was for me!” Conner protested, moving past Geoffrey.
“Yeah, but it’s addressed to me!” Geoffrey yelled in a curiously high-pitch.
Conner looked down at the envelope, and sure enough it was. “Well, who the hell knows you’re here, Geoffrey? I didn’t even know you were here until you barged into my shower! What gives?”
Geoffrey’s skin whitened and his short exhalation seemed to suck the air out of the room somehow.
“Shit,” Geoffrey muttered, rubbing his head in a way that Conner found disturbing once he’d finally figured out that it reminded him of his father.
“You can’t just expect to come back right away when skipped out two whole weeks after you–” Conner bit his tongue on the ‘ditched’ word that was trying to get out—“decided to stay for awhile in New Mexico.”
“We talked about this last night.” Geoffrey told him in a voice that was completely unlike anything Conner had ever heard from him, his hands clenching on the tops of his thighs.
“You weren’t even here last night!” Conner said, confused.
“I told you that I wanted to stay in Albuquerque because it was just getting so hard to be with you. Don’t you remember *anything*?” Geoffrey pleaded, and the desperation plainly written on his face overrode the sick, heavy feeling in Conner’s stomach at Geoffrey saying it was hard to be with Conner.
“No.” Conner said simply. He noticed the motel guidebook on the end table and had to glance at it twice to be sure he hadn’t misread. “Geoffrey? Why are we in Las Vegas?”
Geoffrey stared at him blankly, like he was about to jump out the window just to not have this conversation. Conner had seen that expression far, far too many times in his life, and he knew it was best to start with the hardest question he could think of.
“Why…why was it hard to be with me?” he asked quietly.
“Because…because in Metropolis, we could ignore this. In a car, for two months, all alone? I just couldn’t anymore.”
Conner felt like someone was squeezing every molecule of air from his chest.
“So, I’m guessing you’re here because of a girl.” The bartender smiled and Conner almost felt as though he was going to cry—it was a kind, soft smile, not like either of those other bars where they’d just shoved beers at him, not even bothering to ask for his fake I.D.
“Sort of. A scummy, scummy boy.” Conner mumbled, hand twisting around the bottle’s neck.
“Ah. One of those.” Conner took a long swallow and frowned at the bottle.
“You gave me root beer?” he asked incredulously.
She slid a tray of peanuts toward him and he stared at it for a moment.
“Kiddo, if you’re older than eighteen, I will get that pretty boy on the other end to strip for you and make you forget all about your scummy boy,” she told him, her lips curling slightly. Conner felt his skin warm all over as he gulped down his drink.
He shook his head and munched on a handful of peanuts sorrowfully. Smirking, the bartender moved her way down her line of patrons, which were surprisingly plentiful for three in the afternoon.
Conner was startled when a large hand found its way to the small of his back.
“Conner, okay, look—let’s just sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down; you can sit down,” Conner sulked.
“I *am* sitting down,” Geoffrey said, gesturing at the bed and Conner hated it when Geoffrey had valid points during times like these. He flopped down on the bed, laying his head in his arms and stared at Geoffrey.
“So,” Geoffrey said intelligently, and Conner sat a little straighter. Geoffrey was weird but it was usually a weird that made sense to him. He jammed another bite of the sandwich into this mouth; Clark always said that greeting bad news on a full stomach was important, and when his Mom was right, his Mom was *right*.
“What’s the final thing you remember about last night?” Geoffrey asked in a rush, picking at the comforter with his nails. Conner watched, fascinated, as the thin fabric started to rip. “What the….cheap shit.” Geoffrey muttered, trying to fold the fabric over the tear.
“$39.98 gets you fine, fine quality,” Conner murmured. “Hey. You don’t think they’ll charge us, do you?”
“No. We’ll run out in the dead of night before we have to pay for that.” Geoffrey said definitely. “But last night?” Geoffrey repeated, and it was like the St. Ann’s field trip to the museum all over again, but scary in a whole different way.
Conner shifted and pushed the bag onto the floor, propping his head back on a pillow flat enough that he had to double it up.
“I was telling the bartender how scummy a friend you were,” Conner said, biting his lip, “and there was a hand on my back….”
“Conner.” And it was wrong, so wrong how Geoffrey’s voice could make him feel cold and warm all over at the same time, especially when Geoffrey ditched him in New Fucking Mexico.
Conner examined a nut in his hand like it held the answers to the secrets of the universe, or at least could explain where all the socks went when they went missing after the dryer.
“Conner, can we go somewhere else?”
“No. I like it here. It’s got…ambience. And nuts. And…root beer.” Conner said, taking a big drink and swirling the straw around absently. “And there’s a bar two blocks down that won’t check my ID when I get bored.”
“It’s only three in the afternoon and half these people are completely plastered. I just want to take a walk with you. Please?” Geoffrey knew that Conner would always follow when Geoffrey asked like that, but this was abusing the privilege. Conner pivoted slowly, slightly entranced as Geoffrey’s hair caught in the sunlight. He swiveled back around for a second, deciding.
Conner left his tip on the bar and half-waved to the bartender. She saw Geoffrey, blinked, and grinned brightly back, mouthing something that Conner couldn’t quite figure out, and Geoffrey was pulling him out of there quickly enough that he couldn’t double back to ask.
Conner was so distracted by Geoffrey’s hair that he didn’t notice exactly what they’d stopped in front of. Geoffrey pulled out a set of keys in his pocket and unlocked a rusty Camero. The door squeaked as he opened it, and he had to reach over—REACH OVER—to unlock the door for Conner. Conner stared.
“I’m not getting in…in whatever the hell this is.”
“You are so elitist about cars, Conner.” Geoffrey rolled his eyes and blew the hair out of his face. Conner swallowed, watching the beads of sweat pooling around Geoffrey’s throat. He hadn’t seen it inside the dark bar.
“I’m not elitist. Well. I am, in that I have *standards*. What if someone took a picture of me in this car, Geoffrey? Do you know how much that would hurt my father? He might cry. You, Geoffrey Archer, could make my father cry just by having him see me in this…’car’.”
“You are so melodramatic.” Geoffrey sighed, gripping the steering wheel.
“You said a walk! A walk is fine!”
“The air conditioning actually works.” Geoffrey said, pressing buttons, long fingers pulling and twisting temptingly. He saw Geoffrey shiver into the seat as the first blast of cold air hit him and Conner made up his mind. The fact that his shirt was sticking to his back may or may not have contributed.
“I’m going to drive around the block, okay?” Geoffrey asked as he was already switching gears.
*Gears*. Conner slumped down in his seat; hoping people wouldn’t be able to see him fully.
“I don’t even want to know how you ended up with this car.” Conner moaned, covering his face.
The gears groaned a little and watching through a crack in-between his fingers, Conner could see Geoffrey cringe and frown. “Want a beer? Or something else?” Geoffrey asked, rummaging in the back. Seemingly at random, he pulled out a bottle.
“…do you have a bar back there or what?” Conner blinked and twisted around to poke in the two bags sitting on the back seat.
“There was this guy in Tucson. It’s a long story.” Geoffrey said offhandedly.
Conner decided he maybe didn’t want to know.
“Then…we drove through Arizona.” Conner said blankly, remembering small patches of conversation, cacti to his right, a snake he’d thought was a wicked hallucination after his sixth gulp of the scotch, only to be reassured by Geoffrey that it was in fact, a genuine snake slowly weaving across the highway at nine at night.
“None of that’s important.” Geoffrey said, standing abruptly. “I guess it is, because you were way more hammered than I thought you were if you can’t even remember…we went to Nevada. Highway 10 turned into Highway 17?”
“To gamble?” Conner asked hopefully. Maybe they’d won a shitload of money, enough to get into a sixty dollar a night hotel or something equally posh. You could gamble on ferries if you weren’t 21, couldn’t you?
“Keep thinking.” Geoffrey slid down next to Conner on the bed now, hands rubbing at Conner’s suddenly throbbing temples. Conner tried not to think about how good it felt because a) Geoffrey was scum, b) Geoffrey had ditched him in New Mexico and c) Geoffrey had taken him to Nevada and obviously there was something Conner should be remembering and wasn’t.
“Let’s combine them,” Conner suggested, only a slight slur elongating the words. He was Lex Luthor’s son; a tolerance for alcohol came with the blood.
Geoffrey made a face that said it was a stupid, but interesting idea, and they solemnly poured the remaining liquor from all the bottles in the one liter Evian bottles they’d poured on the grass.
“Vegas is bright,” Conner complained. He took a tentative swallow. “Oh God. This makes my throat close up.”
“Huh. I like it. It’s making my eyes water though.”
“Switch.” Conner said, hefting his bottle.
“How much tequila did you put in here?” Geoffrey asked, already motioning to take back his own bottle. Conner pretended not to notice, and picked up the pace walking.
They walked around random streets for hours until Conner got a little dizzy and decided to pour his leftover alcohol down a drain. Geoffrey followed suit, stumbling and smacking his head on an inconveniently placed building.
“Wanna go inside?” Conner asked, blinking, the lights too bright for him to really be able to read the marquee. “They have benches.”
Geoffrey nodded, a sort of half-jerk of his head but it was in the right direction for a nod, so Conner pulled him to his feet and they walked through the door.
“It looks like Valentine’s Day came here to die.” Geoffrey muttered, kicking at a balloon on the floor. Conner snorted and kissed Geoffrey, because he was spontaneous like that sometimes.
Geoffrey kissed him back, but Geoffrey wasn’t spontaneous at all, and Conner hoped that meant he just really wanted to.
Conner thought he would be falling asleep if it were anyone but Geoffrey massaging his head like that. As it was, he just wished he were lying on his stomach, because certain parts of him were completely awake. Geoffrey’s eyes seemed to be too intent on alternating between Conner’s face and the lamp, so Conner could hope Geoffrey hadn’t noticed.
“I can’t believe we ended up at a wedding chapel.” Conner yawned. “Did we pass out on a bench or…” Geoffrey’s eyes were completely focused on him now, and Conner swallowed.
Conner poured through the book carefully, trying to ignore the off and on again blurriness of the glossy pages. “Hey, do you like–”
“Valley of Fire? For the third time, no. I like page 21.” Geoffrey muttered, shifting in his seat and squeezing M&Ms in his palm, checking his watch every thirty seconds to properly time how long it took to melt. “Melts in your mouth, not your hands,” he muttered. “I can’t believe no one’s called Mars on this.” He popped them in his mouth after three minutes and he looked for something to wipe away the red coloring on his hand. Conner leaned over, distracted as he paged through to 21 again, absently licking at Geoffrey’s palm. Geoffrey sighed into the touch, eyes fixated on Conner’s tongue.
“21’s boring.” Conner said finally, “And it’s just not classy. I don’t want to look back at this and think that we did this half-assed.”
“We could do the Live Webcam wedding.” Geoffrey suggested. “I mean, we’re cute. People’d probably like watching us.” Conner bit his lip thoughtfully.
“So you really don’t ever want to be seeing my dad again, right?” Conner asked as Geoffrey winced. “I mean, sure, we can say we were both really drunk but even so, he’s going to kill us.”
“Right. Okay. We’ve ruled out Elvis, the pink Cadillac, Valley of Fire–” Geoffrey valiantly ignored Conner’s pursed pout, “the live webcam and the nude beachfront wedding will result in hideous death inflicted by our loved ones. Hell, even Clark will be ticked even though it’ll only be because we didn’t invite him. I still say we should just go with a Justice of the Peace and be done with this.”
Conner threw the book across the room; it bounced off the wall and neatly into the trash can. “Wow. That was cool.” Geoffrey said somewhat worriedly.
“Be done with this?!” Conner yelled indignantly. “This isn’t something people just do!”
“We are.” Geoffrey pointed out, and really, it was frustrating that Geoffrey could even say that sensibly and *be right*. Conner sighed.
“You know, if we bought Garrison some pot and gave him a bottle of that liquor, he wouldn’t even remember coming here.” Conner said finally, slumping down in a chair.
“We did not. Get. Married.” Conner hissed, sitting up, and his head felt weird without Geoffrey’s hands touching it.
“I think that video will kind of show that we did.” Geoffrey had the audacity to cough.
Conner buried his face in the craptastic pillow, trying to concentrate on something other than the bleach smell. “Where’s my ring, then!?” he yelled into the pillow.
“Um. We didn’t have…rings. We just…decided to do it. They were running a special, remember? But rings weren’t included, and you said we didn’t need them.”
It sounded like something Conner would say. It sounded like something stupid enough for Conner to say. It’d have been nice to have a ring, if for no other reason than that Conner might have known he’d gotten *married*.
Conner pushed himself up so he was facing Geoffrey rather than the pillow. He wished he’d done it sooner, because Geoffrey looked like he was about to cry and was staring at the lamp again. Conner crawled the two feet over to him and wrapped his arms around Geoffrey’s shoulders.
“I didn’t…I didn’t think you’d forget.” Geoffrey whispered, arms still at his sides. “I mean, I know we were both trashed, but…I’m so sorry. We can get an annulment, right?”
Conner’s hand had decided that rubbing underneath Geoffrey’s shirt was a Good Idea, but it froze at that. “I guess. I mean. We didn’t…we didn’t…” To his horror, Conner saw his hands making ‘come together’ motions, but fortunately there was a God and Geoffrey couldn’t see.
“No. We couldn’t find the car again so we stopped here for the night. And we…well, we kissed and messed around a little bit but it wasn’t anything we can’t take back.” Conner slid away from the hug finally, eyeing Geoffrey.
“What if I wanted to do something we couldn’t take back?”
“Conner, it was a stupid thing we did. People can’t just get married in Vegas and have it for keeps. It doesn’t work that way.” Geoffrey sighed and *fuck* what was it with that lamp anyway?
“What if I wanted to keep you?” Conner asked and it felt like time had slowed down, like his mouth was stuffed with cotton candy; too sweet and making him feel sick and so good all at the same time.
Conner triumphed against the lamp, and Geoffrey turned big eyes toward him. He reached up and spread his fingers through Geoffrey’s thick blond hair, tugging softly. “My dad would have a fit if I changed my name.” Conner tried not to grin because this was Serious and it deserved his Serious Face.
“I like you just the way you are.” The corner of Geoffrey’s mouth twitched and Conner couldn’t help it; it was too nice not to kiss it. Geoffrey sat still for all of a second, and then kissed Conner back, harder than anyone had ever kissed before, better than everything, because it was Geoffrey and Geoffrey could do anything that Conner could imagine and Conner would like it. Geoffrey pressed Conner back flat on the comforter, but his tongue was in Conner’s mouth and his hand was on Conner’s stomach, so there wasn’t time for Conner to be nervous.
***
“I think you should be the one to tell your dad. He’s less likely to pull out the shotgun on you,” Geoffrey said weakly.
“You’re thinking of my grandfather. My dad has semi-automatics. And Mercy,” Conner said sleepily, burrowing into Geoffrey’s shoulder.
“Flip you for it?” Geoffrey asked seriously, reaching for a quarter.
Conner narrowed his eyes. “Just because you’re my husband doesn’t mean you get to take liberties with my sleep schedule.” Concentrating, he flipped the coin elegantly backwards and forwards a couple of times over the blanket. They watched as Conner made it jiggle and bounce.
“Well, if you don’t care what your dad’s going to say, what about your mom? He’s going to want to throw a party or something.”
“…or I could eat the certificate. Like old times?” Conner offered.
[…] fic: here […]