Work Text:
Conor was filling out his CAO when Ned found him.
"Arts in Galway?"
"Fuck off, Ned." Conor shoved him away. "This is supposed to be confidential."
"Well, excuse me if you don't think you can tell me, your best friend, what you're doing with the rest of your life."
Conor sighed and showed Ned the rest of the form. "Fine, be nosy."
Ned scanned down the paper, a neat list of every major course offered outside of Dublin.
"Dedicated to breaking with the family tradition, then? How's your dad taking it?"
"I haven't told him yet. Who even cares. He's going to be disappointed whatever I do, so I may as well do whatever I want."
"That's the spirit." Ned patted Conor on the shoulder. "I suppose I should put something down before Mr. Sherry comes back at me with another lecture about selling myself short out of misplaced youthful rebellion."
He smoothed the page out on the desk and carefully filled in the code for 'National University of Ireland, Galway: BA(Hons)' at the top.
"No more basket weaving in Sligo?" Conor asked, nudging him with his shoulder.
"Mr. Sherry might have a point, but don't go telling him that, right?"
"Wouldn't dream of it. Won't your dad mind you leaving?"
"My dad will be thrilled I've even filled the form out, let alone took it vaguely seriously. I'll be able to get away with murder the rest of the year just for looking like I'm trying."
Conor smiled. "Are you actually going to go, then? Or is this all just misdirection?"
Ned sat for a second. "Might as well, I guess. Nice to have Donal footing the bills for another few years, at least. And Galway's apparently great for drinking."
"You could do worse, then."
"Right? So that's decided, then. Now if you're done with that, I can think of about fifteen things I would rather be doing today, so let’s do one of those."
"Fine."
* * * * *
At the graduation afterparty, Mr. Sherry squeezed Ned's shoulder.
"I'm not your teacher anymore, so now I can say that I was really worried there for a minute that you wouldn't get your fucking act together in time, but you managed it by the skin of your teeth."
"Ah, sir. Fuck off."
"It's Dan now, we're all free and equal. Pint?"
"Go on then."
Dan bought him a pint and told him a few stories about his own undergrad years while they watched Conor try and extract himself from a very intense conversation with Weasel. It took about fifteen minutes before Conor managed to get free and find them at the bar.
"What the fuck was that about?" Ned asked.
"I'm not entirely sure, but I think the gist of it was, he's sorry?"
"Well then," Dan said, passing Conor a drink. "Wonders will never cease."
* * * * *
When results came in, Mr. Sherry was right, and he’d managed it by the skin of his teeth.
They both went to Galway, and ended up sharing a house in Corrib Village with some randommers, just like almost every other fresher in the university. The three other people in their flat were all from Athlone and had apparently all known each other since they were six. It took less than a week before Conor and Ned were dubbed "the posh ones" by most of their neighbours. Ned found some solace that it seemed generally agreed upon that he was the marginally less posh of the two of them.
Ned also carefully selected his course options based on which ones seemed like the easiest, and which ones had the fewestearly morning classes. He ended up with English, history, soc-pol, and philosophy. Conor put a little bit more effort in, but still ended up in most of Ned's lectures.
"French? Why would you pick French?"
"I got an A1. And I can go to France in third year."
"Yeah," said Ned, "where you'll have to hang out with French people."
"Look, if I survived school, I can survive France just fine."
* * * * *
“Are you going to join the gay society?” Ned asked.
“The what?”
“The gay society, they have one here. For like… making gay friends, I guess? You could probably do with some gay friends. With any friends.”
“I have friends!” Conor insisted.
“You have me, who you found by accident. And I guess Paddy, Sean, and JP, who you also found by accident, and are frankly a little suspicious of us because we’re from Dublin.”
“I have other friends, Ned.”
“Do you, do you really? Because I’ve never met one.”
“Anyway, we’ve only been here a week. I’ll make more friends. I bet I’ll make more friends than you, I’m way more likable.”
Ned couldn’t really argue with that. Conor was a much nicer person then he was.
“You were nowhere near this enthusiastic about me making new friends yesterday when I joined the rugby club,” Conor pointed out.
“That’s because rugby players are pricks, to be honest. Present company excepted. Most of the time.”
Conor smiled. “Fine, I’ll join the gay society. But then you have to join one too, any society, it doesn’t matter. And make some friends who you don’t live with.”
“Fine.” said Ned. “You can make me talk to people, but you can’t make me enjoy it.”
The Socs’ fair was jam-packed when they got there. A whole group of people were doing elaborate juggling routines outside, and when they got inside the door they were instantly greeted with four different and entirely uncomplementary bits of music playing over various aging speakers. There was a huge crowd in the corner around one table that seemed to be giving out free pizza, but the rest of the room was less intense.
Ned immediately guided Conor to the GIG Soc stand, which some passive-aggressive genius had put directly across from the Legion of Mary. The girl behind the table looked up at them from under her side-swept fringe and sighed.
“GIG stands for Gay in Galway, this isn’t a music society, they’re in the next room.”
“No, we know that.” Ned said, and pointed to Conor. “He’s gay.”
“Are you?”
“Yeah,” said Conor.
“So can you let him sign up, or whatever?” asked Ned.
“Shut up Ned.” said Conor. “Sorry, he thinks I need more gay friends.”
“You need any gay friends.”
The girl sighed. “Maybe he’s right, if he’s indicative of your straight friends.”
She kept talking before Ned could react. “I’m Siobhán, I’m this year’s female auditor. Sign up and you’ll be on the mailing list. We’ve an intro meeting tomorrow evening, you should come.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Conor signed the list, took a flyer, and thanked Siobhán. Then he grabbed Ned’s arm and guided him away from the table.
“Now we can find you some friends.”
“But I hate people.”
“Don’t care.”
Ned joined the Music soc and Trad soc, and then demanded Conor take him to Ward’s for lunch after forcing him to talk to more people then he wanted to.
* * * * *
Ned had spent most of his life with very few friends, so he was surprised to notice Conor’s absence as much as he did. Sure, they’d spent most of their time together since TY, but he had many years of being a loner to draw on. He wasn’t expecting to find himself at a loose end when Conor went to the GIG Soc intro meeting. He ended up watching Paddy and JP play Xbox while Sean yelled advice at both of them between sips of Tuborg.
"So is this it, then?" he asked.
"Hmm?" said Sean.
"What people do in college, is this it? Sit at home playing video games?"
"We're going to CPs later. You should come, you're fierce boring."
"Thanks."
"Serious though, come out. Few pints, bit of dancing, maybe meet a girl. Unless you've a girl hidden back home."
Ned scoffed. "I went to an all-boys school in the middle of Meath. I barely talked to a girl I wasn't related to in the last six years."
"That's sad." said Sean. "You'll come out so, get that sorted out."
Which is how Ned found himself in CPs a little before midnight, completely unable to hear anyone over the music but unwilling to leave after spending five euro to get in. He lasted about twenty minutes after losing sight of Sean, Paddy, and JP before deciding that even five euro wasn't worth it.
Conor was making tea in the kitchen when he got home, and made Ned one without even asking.
"Where'd you get to?"
"Sean decided I needed to go to a nightclub. And can I just say: never again. That place is a shithole. What about you? Make any friends?"
Conor rolled his eyes. "I barely had time to talk to any of them, there were too many people there. But some of them were nice, yeah. We went to the Róisín afterwards, you'd like it, I think. You dress like everyone there, and there was a band."
"See, that sounds like way more fun. Maybe I should come out with you guys next time. Or is that not allowed?"
"You probably wouldn't care about the meeting itself, but afterwards, sure? You will spend the whole night telling people you're not gay, though."
Ned waved that away. "I've been telling people I'm not gay since Junior Cert, why should it stop now."
"All right then, I'll let you know."
* * * * *
Conor and Ned ended up in the same English tutorial, which was great for Ned, as Conor was a far more dedicated student then he ever was.
Tutorials were Ned's least favourite part of college, because you were actually required to pay attention and participate, and couldn't just doodle in the corner of your refill pad while someone talked at the front of a lecture hall. Tutorials were too much like school.
Also one of the other guys in the class had such a gigantic and obvious crush on Conor that Ned was honestly a little embarrassed for him. He'd feel bad about it, except the guy kept trying to sit next to Conor, which was where Ned sat, and the stupid desks in the classroom weren't set up for them both to sit next to Conor. On the days when Ned got there at the last possible minute (which was most days), he got stuck sitting next to one of the other people in class.
It was especially terrible on the days when they had to do pair discussions, and Ned was stuck discussing The Second Mrs Tanqueray with someone whose name he didn't even remember.
"Are you all right?" the girl — Mary? Marie? — asked.
"What? Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"
"You keep staring at Conor and Tom like you're trying to kill them."
"I don't want to kill them." (Just Tom.) "Tom just always steals my seat."
Marie rolled her eyes. "Seating isn't assigned. If you want to sit next to your boyfriend, you need to show up more then fifteen seconds before the period starts."
"What? No. Conor isn't my boyfriend. I don't have — I wouldn't have a boyfriend. Conor's just my best friend."
Marie was clearly unconvinced. "Can we please discuss the play now? You know tutorial participation is ten percent, right?"
"Fine. He's really not my boyfriend."
"I don't care.”
* * * * *
The next time Conor went to a GIG Soc meeting, Ned met them all in the Róisín afterwards. Conor was right, this was much more his type of place, even if the bouncer did stare at his ID a little too long. Conor was also right that he would spend most of the night telling people he wasn't gay.
He explained to six different people that he was just Conor's straight best friend before he got into a conversation about Woody Guthrie with an incredibly earnest lesbian from Roscommon that ate up most of an hour.
"I'd love a three in one right now," she said suddenly, and Ned realised he was starving.
"I'd fucking murder one."
"There's a Chinese across the road."
"Right. Let me just grab Conor."
"Nah, we'll leave him be."
She pointed across the smoking area, where Conor was deep in conversation with one of the other GIG soccers. The guy was several inches shorter than Conor, so Conor had his head dipped sharply down to get close enough to hear him over the noise, and he had his free hand on the guy's shoulder.
Ned had a weird feeling in his stomach, but he dismissed it as hunger.
"Right. Just us then."
"Lead on, Macduff."
* * * * *
The problem with cultivating a generally misanthropic air, Ned found, was that when you needed to talk to someone about something, you had very few options.
Normally he talked to Conor about whatever was happening, but he couldn't really talk to Conor about the current issue, which was that three times in the last week, he'd had dreams about scoring Conor.
Dreams were weird, though. Dreaming about kissing someone didn't mean you wanted to kiss them in real life, it could mean something entirely different. So it was perfectly possible that dreaming about kissing Conor was a representation of friendship or admiration or something entirely platonic.
But Ned didn't know anything about dream interpretation, and the internet in Corrib Village was refusing to connect to his laptop. He didn't want to google gay kissing dreams questions on a university computer, so he found himself in a dodgy net cafe in town, tilting the screen so that no one else could look.
what does it mean if i dream about kissing someone
If you dream of kissing your close friend or about them kissing you, it may mean that you admire and respect them. The kiss represents your strong bond. It may mean that you want something more with them. This dream may be your unconscious telling you that you are missing something in your life, specifically love.
Well, that wasn't entirely bad. His subconscious clearly just wanted him to score someone and Conor just happened to be the person he saw the most, so it filled him into the blank. That was nothing to worry about.
* * * * *
By the end of September, Ned had managed to make a couple of friends who weren't Conor. He went to a Trad Soc session and nodded along, reminding himself he needed to practice the guitar so he could join in at some point, and ended up sinking many pints while two girls both called Lisa argued with each other about bodhráns. They all got garlic cheese chips and walked home to Corrib Village together, the shorter Lisa linking her free arm through his because she said she needed support.
The taller Lisa had walked on ahead, just far enough that they could barely see her in the dark, and shorter Lisa was walking so slowly it was taking them forever to get back.
“My boyfriend broke up with me last week,” Lisa announced out of nowhere.
“Oh man. That’s terrible.”
“Yeah.” She stopped walking, her arm pulling him to a stop. “I mean, he’s still in Clare so I hadn’t seen him in a while, but still.”
She was balanced on her tip toes for some reason, which meant she was swaying into Ned and he had to grab her other arm to hold her up.
“Are you okay?”
Lisa smiled. “I guess I’m a little drunk. But I’m fine.”
“All right.” Ned smiled. “Let’s get you home then.”
She sank back onto her heels with a small sigh and unlinked her arm from his.
“This is me, anyway.” She pointed to the next building over. “I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah, safe home.”
Ned’s building was a few further down, and when he got there more than half the windows were dark. He pushed the door open, hoping he wasn’t going to wake anyone, but it looked like a few people were still up.
Inside, Conor was a few feet away from the door to their flat, wearing the face off some guy in a Waterford jersey.
He took a deep breath and tried to slide past them to the door without either of them noticing, but the hallways weren't wide enough. They sprang apart as soon as they noticed him, and it took Waterford jersey about seven seconds to disappear.
Conor's cheeks were a little flushed, and his eyes were a little dark, and Ned had literally just finished his chips, so this time he could't blame the awkward swoop in his stomach on hunger.
"Sorry about that," Conor said, ducking his head a little awkwardly.
"No apologies necessary. I feel like Corrib Village demands it."
Inside, Ned left his greasy chip box on the kitchen counter, reminding himself to throw it out in the morning.
"Tea?"
"No, you're all right." Conor said. "I'm just going to turn in."
"That's probably a better plan."
"I always have the better plans."
It took Ned two full hours to fall asleep.
* * * * *
Ned got an email from Mr. Sherry — Dan — in the middle of October, saying he was going to be in town and asking if they wanted to get lunch.
Conor was out of town for a rugby game, but Ned met Dan at a tiny cafe around the corner from Eyre Square for sandwiches. Dan gave him a few updates on the tiny number of not-terrible faculty and remaining students at Woodhill, and Ned told him the books he was reading for English, before finally deciding to bite the bullet.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Of course. Ask away."
"How did you know you were gay?"
Dan raised an eyebrow and Ned concentrated very hard on not sinking through the floor.
"Well, it's different for everyone, really. Some people always know, some people take a while to figure it out. But I do think that if you've gotten to the stage where you're asking other people questions about it, there's probably something there."
"You don't sound that surprised."
"I'm not entirely shocked, no."
"Oh. Great."
"It's not the end of the world, you know."
"I do know, yeah. Sorry."
"It's fine, I'm very hard to offend. But if I can ask... what's brought this on?"
"Well, you've been in Woodhill."
"I am blessed with that experience, yes."
"Other guys have been calling me gay since I was twelve. I think I just ended up denying it out of reflex without ever even thinking about it."
"Right, yeah. Makes sense. But now you are thinking about it?"
"Yeah. Sort of."
Dan stirred his coffee for a long moment. "And... if I might be so bold, has this recent soul-searching been spurred by anything — or anyone — in particular?"
Ned blushed. "Is that important?"
"Oh, I would say it is."
Ned started fidgeting again. "I mean, yes. It is about someone specific. The someone specific you probably think it is."
"Honestly, that part is also not entirely shocking."
"But I mean, we're friends! Maybe that's it? Maybe my terrible school experience has left me unable to process friendship and I don't really have a crush on him, I'm just confused about platonic feelings."
"Well, that part's easy, anyway."
"None of this is exactly easy."
"My apologies. But I'm just saying, if when you think about him, you think about sitting on the sofa and quietly playing videogames, maybe you're right. But on the other hand, if you're thinking about kissi—"
"Stop, please. I really can't listen to a teacher talking about kissing. It feels deeply wrong."
Dan held his hands up in concession. "Fine. But think about it."
"I have." Ned sighed.
Dan looked at him for a moment. "It'll be all right, you know."
"I know." Ned sighed again. "I just wish I could skip to that part."
Dan patted him on the shoulder. "And miss out on all this character building? Never. C'mon, you can walk me to the train."
"Thanks."
* * * * *
Objectively, Ned knew Conor was attractive. Obviously personally, he knew Conor was very attractive, but he sometimes forgot that other people also thought so, and then he got reminded very quickly.
The entire GIG Soc crowd (plus Ned) had decamped to Strano's after starting in the Róisín, and it seemed like every guy in the entire city had hit on Conor in the fifteen minutes since they got there.
Ned was trying very hard not to glare at every single one of them, and he was obviously failing, because Sarah the earnest folk music fan patted him gently on the arm.
"Are you having a crisis?"
"I haven't decided yet."
"You should maybe stop staring daggers at every guy that looks at him, or it might get decided for you."
Ned tore his eyes away. "I don't feel like I'm in crisis, I don't think."
"Right." Sarah said. "So is this a 'it's not that I don't want him to have a boyfriend, it's just that every potential boyfriend is coincidentally terrible' crisis, or..."
Ned sighed. "It's really more of a 'I think I want to be his boyfriend but also that's impossible' kind of crisis."
"How sure are you it's impossible?"
"Pretty sure."
Sarah gave him a loose side-hug. "Do you want chips?"
"Yeah."
* * * * *
"We should go to the kayaking party tonight."
"We're not in the kayaking club."
Ned shrugged. "Half the people at the parties aren't in the club. And half of the others just joined for the parties. It'll be fine."
Ned had been to two other kayaking parties this semester, but the pre-Christmas one was apparently always the best. The first time was with a girl from his philosophy tutorial (who in retrospect he realizes was probably flirting with him) and the second was because JP had a mad thing for the club treasurer but was too afraid to say anything to her. Both times he'd brought a shoulder of Jameson and gotten way too hammered way too quickly. He'd woken up both mornings demanding Conor make him rashers, remembering very few details of the previous nights.
This time he was determined to keep a little better hold of himself, so he bought cans instead and stuffed them into his messenger bag before meeting Conor at the end of the laneway that led to the kayak shed. It was cold out, but not so cold everyone was going to have to huddle inside the shed, and not raining yet.
Ned tried not to be disappointed when it was less then five minutes before Conor was surrounded by a bunch of people he didn't recognise. Conor tried to introduce them all, but aside from Siobhán and Mikey from GIG Soc (who he'd already met) and both a Saoirse and a Sorcha from Conor's French tutorial, he didn't catch any of the names. Siobhán disappeared with her girlfriend almost immediately, leaving Conor and all the other Frenchies laughing about something that happened in class and Ned awkwardly trying to make conversation with Mikey.
"Do you know if Conor is seeing anyone?" Mikey asked suddenly.
Ned nearly choked on his beer.
"I don't think so? But I mean, you guys would probably know more about that then I would. We don't really talk about like... gay stuff."
"Aren't you his best friend?"
"Yeah? It's not like I don't want him to talk about it. He just doesn't. It's not like I tell him about any of the girls I score, or whatever."
"Do you... score a lot of girls?" Mikey asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing! Just like... nothing. Oh shit, my roommate —"
Mikey ran off before Ned could really get a handle on the conversation. Beside him, Conor was still talking to Saoirse (Sorcha?) and Ned didn't want to just stand around like an eejit but he also didn't want to wander the party without anyone to talk to. So he just stood there, drinking his beer too quickly, and waiting for Conor to pay attention to him again.
It took forever, and three more beers, before Conor was finally free and Ned had had far too much time alone with his thoughts.
He gave Conor one of his cans, but he'd barely had a chance to open it before Ned started talking.
"Do you remember school?"
"Just a little, yeah. Why?"
"Remember how I kept saying I wasn't gay?"
"...yeah?"
"What if I was wrong?"
Conor's hand stopped moving with the can halfway to his face.
"...Ned."
"I'm just saying, that's not that weird, is it? People can take their time."
"It's been three years, Ned. And now you're just gay all of a sudden?"
Ned tried to shrug nonchalantly, and failed. "I think I'm bisexual."
Conor stared at him. "And you just realised this now, standing in a field in the dark?"
"Well..." Ned bit his lip. "Remember when Mr. Sherry was in town a few months ago?"
"Yeah."
"We had lunch and it kind of came up."
"Came up."
"Yeah. So I asked him like, how did he know he was gay."
"As you do."
"Yeah, like that. And he said..." Ned took a breath. "He said everyone is different but if you're at the stage of giving it serious thought, then there's probably something to it, and then he asked..."
He trailed off until Conor nudged him to keep talking.
"He asked if I was just wondering in general or if someone specific was making me think about it, and..."
"And?"
Ned stared at the ground for a moment. "I was really hoping I was never going to have to say any of this out loud. Can't you just fill in the blanks yourself?"
"Nope, absolutely not."
"Okay, fine." Ned downed the rest of his can. "Conor Masters, I have a crush on you."
Conor stared at him.
Ned shifted from foot to foot. "Can you say something, please? Let me know I haven't torpedoed my entire life in one sentence."
"Since when?"
"What?"
"Since when?"
"I dunno? Forever? Guitar practice? The senior cup? Six weeks ago? I don't even know. But this isn't something I've just come up with, I promise."
Conor was still staring.
"Okay. I'm gonna go, yeah? We can just like, pretend this never happened."
Ned turned to go, but Conor grabbed his jacket sleeve and pulled him back.
"This is a terrible decision," he said under his breath.
"Okay, there's no need for —" But he was cut off when Conor kissed him.
Ned's hand was awkwardly sandwiched between them, his remaining cans were digging into his stomach, and somewhere he could hear a few cheers and someone shouting "Get it, Masters!" but it all faded out as he pulled Conor closer.
When they pulled apart, Conor rested his hands on Ned's waist but avoided making any eye contact.
"That was a terrible decision."
"So you said." Ned smiled. "But I respectfully disagree."
He slid his hand up to rest on Conor's neck, and felt his pulse going crazy. He kissed him again, to more cheers around them.
When they pulled apart, Conor's cheeks were flushed and his mouth was red, and Ned desperately wanted to drag him somewhere where half the people they knew weren't watching. He wondered if Sean, Paddy, and JP were still out.
Ned touched the end of his nose. "Bags not telling the lads."
Conor grinned and pulled Ned closer by his belt loops. "I'm pretty sure I can make you change your mind."
"Challenge accepted," Ned said, and kissed him again.