with theyremembermine || "All your secrets and your lies..."

[trueaussiedoc]

[ In the wake of THIS @ wayswithwords, follows end of How To Get Away With Murder 1x09 ]

Despite Connor's best attempts to get information out of Chase about one of their patients, who apparently killed someone in Philadelphia and then drove to Princeton (for some reason) and keeled over at the wheel, driving his car into a children's playground, his efforts were fruitless. At least, fruitless to that intention. Chase had been extremely tight-lipped with the information, not revealing anything and holding firm on his doctor-patient confidentiality, but he still ended up fucking Connor.

And so what? He had needs, and one of those was the fact he was constantly horny without an outlet of late. Whatever small things that had started had fizzled out before they turned into anything serious. Not that he was looking for something serious. He wasn't... at least, he didn't think so. He was divorced and all his past relationships had bombed, so there was that. But still, he had always been a romantic at heart, and maybe he was looking without realising? All he knew was that before Connor came along, even casual sex had been boring.

Though, Connor was very similar to him. Not just in personality, but in the do-anything-to-win ambition and dry sarcasm. Maybe the opposites attract was total bullshit, and what he needed was someone the same as him to challenge him and keep it interesting. Which is what happened when Connor showed up. They had fucked a few times now, and even though Chase expected him to lose interest when the patient was diagnosed and discharged from hospital, it didn't. In fact, only a week ago, they had met up in a hotel halfway between Philadelphia and Princeton for a really hot fuck... or five. Chase was late to work the next day, and didn't give a flying fuck about it.

He hadn't given Connor his home address, and vice-versa. All in all, they barely knew anything about each other beyond the Aussie doctor and law student thing. Chase was leaving work that night, planning on hitting the sack early. He was just checking his backed up text messages on his phone and unlocking his Jeep when suddenly Connor seemed to appear out of the shadows on the sidewalk and made Chase nearly shit himself. "What the fuck?!" he gasped in shock, hoping he wasn't about to have a heart attack. It was two beats of a pause, if that, where he quickly gave Connor the once over and he looked like hell. "... are you high? I've fucked someone on drugs in the past, and let's just say, it was a hot mess, so I'm not keen."

Comments

[theyremembermine]

It wasn't even on purpose that Connor leaned into Chase, resting his head on his shoulder as the warmth from Chase's body slowly but surely warmed Connor's. "I needed it... I just... haven't ever been really good at asking for it." He said nothing for a long time, just sitting in the silence with Chase and trying as hard as he could to catch his breath and keep control of himself when his urge was to just cry uncontrollably for the rest of forever.

"Yeah. Her husband. There was this... This girl. Lila. You might've heard about her on the news... All the major stations were covering the hell out of it. She was murdered, and she went to the school where Annalise's husband teaches." He felt sick even talking about this -- about seeing Sam in a pool of his own blood and Wes standing there in absolute shock at the realization that he'd just killed a man. "Lila was apparently fucking Sam, and she was pregnant when she died. It's a really fucking long story, but they thought that Wes -- you don't know Wes. He's a classmate -- His friend or... whatever she is did it. She tried to make sure all the evidence about Sam got out, and he tried to kill her. Wes... Wes fucking killed him first." It was such an abrupt sort of ending, and Connor took a moment to focus on breathing so that he could finish telling Chase his story. "Long story short, we got rid of the body and the murder weapon is safe, but... Fuck, I never saw anybody die before, and this? I don't know what the fuck I was thinking."

[trueaussiedoc]

"In my experience, it's the people who don't know how to ask for help who need it the most. It doesn't matter why, all it usually means is that before anyone even realises they needed the help, they're usually in danger or worse. I'm glad you came to me. Stress and shock can put a brain into a volatile state and no matter how well we usually deal with shit, or despite our pasts, everyone is still susceptible to breaking. I can think of four times off the top of my head that I completely lost my shit. But there is absolutely nothing in this world that can prepare you for two things... the first time you see someone you love dead, and seeing a murdered body," Chase told him quietly, making sure to keep the soft rubs to Connor's back rhythmic so he could have something consistent to focus on.

He gave a small shake of his head. "I know you're probably feeling like you failed here, that you should have kept your shit together better, or even feeling stupid for letting yourself get caught up in that jeopardising your career that you've worked really hard towards. This is one of those situations where you don't have time to think, you just act. Not all that long ago, I was stabbed by a patient. I didn't see it coming, I felt like I should have. I felt like I fucked up for a very long time. Not only was the possibility of be never working again on the cards, but so was the possibility that I could be paralysed for the rest of my life. He could have killed me. Now, I've also fucked up in ways that I don't regret. I took a life of a bad person, and that's something I have to live with. This is something you will have to live with, but you'll be faced with this precipice... feel like you're standing on the edge of the cliff with no way out of the mess. You have to keep going. Or it will ruin you. I'm not talking professional, I'm talking mentally," he warned. "Especially if you don't know how much you can trust the others involved. Human nature, people will stab you in the back to save themselves. Protect number one, okay? I guarantee, they'll all be doing that too."

[theyremembermine]

"I'm glad I came to you, too," Connor admitted, which in itself said how desperate and afraid he'd been. He wasn't the type of person to cop to needing anyone or anything, but he'd needed Chase so bad and he hadn't even known it until he got here. But Chase was a doctor and a damn good one, and he'd stepped right in here, helping Connor as much as he could. "Especially when you see the murdered body when the murder happens. He was our the husband of our professor and our boss, dude. But he would've killed that girl, no questions asked. Probably already did kill Lila. He deserved it, but I can't stop feeling fucked up about it inside."

"All of the above," Connor agreed with a tired shake of his head, the tears still streaming down his face, though the painful sobs had subsided a little. "How the fuck did a patient stab you?" he asked, taking the moment to focus on the doctor instead of everything else swirling around his head. "You couldn't have seen that coming. But... You... you did? How did you keep going, though? How did you live knowing what you did? How does it not drive you batshit crazy every fucking day of your life? It... It feels like it's never going to stop."

[trueaussiedoc]

Chase wasn't sure what the whole logistics of the nightmare had been. "So, the guy was killed to save someone else? Do you feel guilty that he's dead or just guilty that you were involved in the cover-up? Because honestly, both just mean you're human. Someone every fucking one of us is guilty of. Pretty much why I stopped believing in heaven and hell, because not a single fucking person on the face of this earth is guilt-free of sin or bad things. We all are. This has just happened. You're in shock. You need to give it time."

"Psychotic episode. I was performing a biopsy and he grabbed the scalpel and stabbed me in the chest. Lacerated my heart. I should have known better because his presenting issue was a psychotic episode, but everyone can have lapses in judgement that can cause an pile of shit for them." It was probably one of the hardest times of Chase's life, and that was saying something considering the crap he had been through since he was a kid. Feeling like you had your independence on the line, and possibly losing the quality of your life forever. Really make you reassess, well, absolutely fucking everything. He shrugged. "There was no other choice. I lost a hell of a lot. Lost my wife, lost my confidence, nearly lost my job, nearly got a murder record. It was only my boss saving my arse that prevented it. The reason I really lived with it ultimately was knowing I saved a lot of lives in exchange for one. It didn't stop the guilt, though. Maybe I'm just a cold-hearted bastard without a conscience and a selfish streak a mile wide to not want to waste my own live over something I can't wind the clock back and change."

[theyremembermine]

"He deserved to die. He would've killed that girl -- Rebecca. I'm not sorry he's dead. I've just never seen a murder happen before, and I just... If they find out that I helped cover it up, I'll never be an attorney. I'll be in jail, and after that, there'll be no way that anybody's going to want to give me a chance to finish law school. I'd never even get a public defender job. Not a chance in hell. I worked too hard for this shit, and I could lose it now in the blink of an eye... And I'm not even the one who fucking killed him." He looked at Chase, wondering if the doctor could see the utter helplessness that he felt inside written all over his face.

"Seriously? You're fucking lucky you're alive. Hell... I'm fucking lucky you're alive. If you weren't here tonight, I don't know where I'd be. But those are the kinds of things you never expect to happen. You never think you're going to see somebody murdered in front of you... or have to do the murdering yourself. The thing is... I didn't save anybody or help anybody really with what I did, unless you want to consider hiding the body for Wes to be helping him. Honestly, I think he would've been able to get off anyway. A lot of good damn reasons he could've gotten out of it." Connor ran his hands through his hair before he laid his head on Chase's shoulder again, more for warmth than anything. "I don't want to waste my life, either. I just don't know how to stop feeling out of control."

[trueaussiedoc]

It would certainly be an impossible for Annalise Keating to defend all of them on a murder charge when she would probably go down as an accessory herself. Maybe they could all share a jail cell or something. It was a complete and utter mess, and one that left Connor's future and reputation on the line. Chase didn't care about any of the others involved, or even who it was who actually did the murder. He cared about Connor. "Where did you hide the body?" he asked. That would have a lot of standing on the actual outcome of it all. Once a medical examiner was called in, that was were a lot of the turning point evidence would come from.

"Lucky twice over. I nearly killed myself in high school too, so maybe I was a cat in a former life? Who the hell knows. I used to have firm beliefs, now not so much." Who was Wes? Chase wasn't sure. Maybe he was that 'other guy' Connor had mentioned in passing as seeing, and Chase had countered with asking whether he was fucking him to get information too and they both just laughed about it. "You had no choice. If you witnessed it and had an involvement in the lead-up, if you walked away to save your own arse, you'd have the biggest target on your back and you would still be running scared. At least this way, you know you're not the only one guilty of what you did."

[theyremembermine]

"We burned it," Connor said with a shrug, disconnected from the words he was saying because he had to be or he was going to be sobbing all over again. "It's gone. We almost got caught with it a couple times. This guy Asher in our class came to Annalise's house looking for us, and my car was there. It puts me at least at the scene of the crime if Asher tells them. He probably would. He's more of a classmate, less of a friend, and he was mad at us because he thought we went to the bonfire without him..." It was stupid what he remembered and what seemed important now that he was recounting his story to Chase.

"I'm glad you didn't," he replied, looking Chase over. "Why did you almost kill yourself?" he asked with a look of concern on his face. But the doctor's words were comforting, and Connor clung to the knowledge that he had done the right thing. Or at least the best impression of the right thing he could've done with a dead body in front of him and very little other choice in the matter. "Yeah. You're right. I had to do something. I just..." he sighed, shaking his head, as if somehow he'd be able to shake the memories away of what he'd seen... what he'd been part of doing. "I had no way to fucking win this. No easy fix to be had. For fuck's sake, dude. My whole life's a mess, and I don't know how to fix it."