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They cling to each other in a way they didn't dare before, desperate and needy and always hungry, always terrified. They don't talk about it, just like they don't talk about the blood on their hands or the mess that's become of their lives or how their hands shake when they don't have the others' to hold them.
Wes guesses it started with Laurel and him, though it might have begun at any time since The Night and it's just as possible that they were too caught up in their fear and hysteria to notice it. But he kisses Laurel in a car parked eight hours away from the chaos that is their lives and it's a chain reaction from there, so he chooses to call that a beginning.
When Connor shows up at his door at two in the morning, drunk and red-eyed, Laurel is already there. Connor doesn't even ask when he sees Wes in nothing but his jeans and Laurel wearing his shirt --he just babbles something that sounds vaguely like Oliver's name and lets Wes drag him inside.
Laurel goes to make coffee for the three of them and, the moment Wes lets go of him, Connor drops to the floor and hugs his knees to his chest. He's talking nonsense --his words slurred, his voice muffled when he half-hides his face behind his knees, and Wes' attempts to pull him up are useless. He ends up sitting next to Connor instead, and glances at Laurel when she comes to him balancing two coffee mugs and a glass of water in her hands.
While Laurel drinks her own coffee on the bed, Wes manages to coerce Connor into drinking a little water and starts to pierce together what happened. Connor doesn't specify the reasons --it's probably Connor's own fault and he doesn't want to admit it, Wes guesses-- but Oliver kicked him out of the apartment. The name of a couple bars come up, though Wes isn't sure if Connor went to all of them. What's clear, though, is that Connor was terrified of staying in a motel room --of sleeping in a place he didn't know.
"You can stay here a couple nights," Wes reassures, ignoring Laurel's questioning look. When Connor grabs him by the back of the neck and pulls him in for a short and sour kiss, Laurel seems to be endlessly amused. Wes tells her to scoot over and physically drags Connor up and onto the bed, whispers, "sleep it off."
There are so many things they don't talk about that not talking about the kiss --or about the break-up, or Laurel and Wes' relationship, or the paranoid mess that Connor turns into when his guard is down-- comes to them naturally. After sleeping pressed between Wes and Laurel that first night, Connor sleeps on the floor and Laurel doesn't spend the night. One day Connor comes back from class carrying a suitcase with most of his clothes and a box of books, and promises Wes he'll be out of there in a couple days tops.
Wes doesn't know if the offer is truly as casual as Connor makes it seem, or if he's been thinking about it since the morning he woke up, hungover, in Wes' apartment. Connor is looking at leases on his laptop while Wes writes an essay on his own computer, both drinking coffee in silence, when Connor, without looking up, says, "Most two-bedrooms cost about the same as a single. And they're better than this place, for sure."
They don't actually throw a housewarming party --Laurel just shows up with a bottle of ridiculously expensive tequila and a new coffee-maker, Michaela knocks on their door half an hour later with a normal-price-range rum and a set of scented candles. It doesn't take them long to get hammered --they are all on edge and exhausted, terrified of what this limbo after the bloody end of the Hapstall case means, of what storm will follow this artificial peace, and they chase tequila with rum until all of them are tipsy and giggling and almost able to forget their circumstances.
He isn't surprised when Laurel moves to sit by his right on the floor, her side pressed to his and head on his shoulder, but Connor catches him off-guard dropping at his left side and resting his head on his thighs. Michaela follows, giggling, and stumbles half on top of Laurel, tangling their legs and resting her cheek on Laurel's chest.
They talk about torts and their most recent, way more normal case with Annalise, and Wes finds himself running his fingers through Connor's hair. He doesn't know when, exactly, Michaela and Laurel start kissing, but he feels Laurel shift against him and turns to find that Michaela is sucking a mark on her neck and Connor is watching them with hazy amusement.
"You're not fucking in my bed," Connor warns when they stand up, Laurel's hand in Michaela's, but they don't listen. Laurel flips him off as they disappear down the hallway and, a second later, a door closes with a bang. They don't have a couch yet so, for the second time in a couple weeks, Wes helps Connor stand up and drags him to his own bed.
They don't kiss this time, but Connor wraps his arm around Wes' waist and breathes against his neck a soft "good night".
"Weren't you and Laurel sleeping together?" Connor asks over coffee the next morning, while Michaela and Laurel are still sleeping in his room. Wes shrugs. It doesn't bother him as long as it doesn't bother Laurel or Michaela. Plus, it isn't like any of them have had any 'normal' relationships lately, whatever those are supposed to be. At least, among the four of them, they don't need to hide anything. "So, if I were to kiss you again..."
"I'd tell you to brush your teeth first," Wes tells him, deadpan, and Connor's grin makes him chuckle. They don't speak again until Michaela stumbles out of Connor's room, groaning and bleary-eyed, but they both are still smiling by the time Laurel joins them.
Connor doesn't kiss him, but he does brew coffee for two when he wakes up first, and keeps his voice low and soft when Wes looks tired (if Wes has been talking through his nightmares again, he doesn't mention it). He makes intrusive comments when Laurel stays over, but they don't sound as mean-spirited now. Wes doesn't know if it's because Connor intends it, or because he's getting used to it.
He guesses that Laurel and Michaela are sleeping together --they get to class or to Annalise's office together often, and he often notices that one of them is wearing the other's clothes-- but he doesn't comment on it. Connor takes care of it, anyways. He winks at them, jokes about "that orgy we talked about", asks more than one question that makes Michaela stutter and Laurel roll her eyes at him. Wes often tells him to knock it off, but that only makes Connor deviate his attention from the girls to him.
"Will you stop inquiring about my sex life if you're a part of it, or not even that can stop you?" Wes asks, exasperated, one day. They're at Annalise's office, and Asher instantly looks at them curiously. Wes almost wished he's stayed silent, already dreading Connor's surely lewd answer and the questions Asher will ask. But Connor doesn't reply, eyes him for a few seconds and goes back to his work.
They're studying on Laurel's apartment when Michaela comes in. She's stumbling under the weight of half a dozen books, and Wes quickly takes them off her arms. Laurel is right behind him, taking Michaela's purse off her shoulder and pulling her in for a sweet kiss on the mouth. Wes doesn't feel particularly uncomfortable or out of place, but he does busy himself setting Michaela's books on Laurel's table.
They tangle together on Laurel's couch, discussing old jurisprudence that is only tangentially relevant to the subject they are studying and joking about The Good Wife. Michaela rests her calves on Wes' thighs, Laurel scratches the short hair at the back of his head with her left hand while she passes the pages on her book with the right.
Wes feels safe and calm in a way he only does when he's with one of them --sure that they understand him better than anyone else and are as willing to protect him as he is to protect them. He dozes off with his hand around Michaela's thin ankle and the number of a particular case hanging off the tip of his tongue.
"That's it, I'm not studying anymore. Let's get fu-ucked u-up!" Laurel yells, the last part a scarily accurate imitation of Asher. She slams her book closed and the rest follow her easily, none too willing to read for much longer.
Connor points at the cabinet next to the fridge, where they keep their alcohol. "There's still some of Michaela's rum and a sparkling wine that the divorcee next door gave us as a welcoming gift," he says, smirking at Wes when he mentions the wine. Wes isn't quick enough to stop him. "The lady has been making eyes in the puppy's direction for weeks." Wes groans just as Michaela leans closer to Connor, waiting to hear any details. "She might steal him for good if you aren't careful," Connor adds, looking at Laurel. Laurel doesn't look up from where she's digging through her purse.
"If she's hot, we could have a threesome," she says and ignores Connor's startled laughter in favor of showing what she's just pulled out of her bag. Michaela lets out a soft "oh". "Grown at our summer house. The best you'll ever try."
Connor snatches the plastic bag from her hands and opens it to sniff the buds inside. His skeptical frown is quickly replaced by a grin. "D'you know I consider you my best friend?" he asks, fake-sweet. Laurel snorts.
"That'd be sad. We don't like each other."
"True, but I'm willing to pretend if you always have weed this good."
They don't bother arguing whether any of them are friends or not, because it doesn't matter. They are bound together by something way stronger than friendship, and they are finally getting used to it.
They discover that Wes rolls excellent joints ("I'd guessed already," Connor says with a look at Wes' hands, and it sounds like innuendo) and that Michaela hadn't smoked weed before her last year of college.
"What did you do in the first three years, if you weren't getting high or having your bisexual awakening?" Connor asks, and she swats him over the head with a rolled up paper.
"I had my bisexual awakening at, like, fourteen. Mi amá almost had a heart attack when she found me kissing my 'BFF' during a sleepover," Laurel says, and she accepts the joint from Wes' hands smiling. The lighter she pulls out of her pocket is golden and engraved with some complex design, looks as expensive as most of the things she owns. When she takes a first drag from the joint, both Wes and Michaela's eyes linger on her lips.
"I don't remember a time I didn't know I was gay," Connor says, shrugging. "I had my doubts in college, thought I was bi for like two months, but I think I was more curious than anything else." He accepts the joint from Laurel.
"Does that make Wes the only one who's straight?" Michaela asks, smiling, but she's met with a raspy laughter from Laurel and a snort from Connor. Her mouth shapes an 'o' when she looks at Wes. "How come I'm the last one to know?"
"They guessed, I didn't tell them," Wes says, raising his hands in apology, and he's glad when they're interrupted by Connor having a coughing fit. Laurel laughs as Connor's eyes fill with tears and he gasps for air.
The joint makes a couple rounds before everyone is red-eyed and giggly. Michaela and Connor suggest moving the coffee table that they've been using to study so they can spread out on the carpet, which turns out to be harder in practice than in theory with all of their books over the table. They manage anyways, and Michaela is the first to drop down on the floor.
They lay in silence for a few minutes, passing the joint and staring at the patterns of light on the ceiling, until Michaela has a sudden thought. "Laurel, if you have a threesome with some old divorcee before me, I'm leaving you," she says, slurred but stern, and they all dissolve in laughter.
They invite Asher to study or drink with them a little more often now --he's in, in on the secret and in on the consequences-- but it's still usually just the four of them, having coffee or eating take-out or getting plastered and crashing together at one of their places.
"I can't sleep alone anymore," Michaela admits one night, with her head against Connor's chest and her legs over Wes and Laurel's laps, her feet hanging off the end of Laurel's couch. The rest agree in soft mumbles and stiff nods, and everyone is a little surprised when Connor speaks up next.
"I don't even bother going to sleep when the puppy stays out. I just study until dawn and pass out mid-morning." Wes notices that Michaela grabs Connor's hand, and sees that Laurel is throwing them a curious look. She doesn't comment on it, though, choosing to stand up instead of taking a jab at Connor.
"Who wants more coffee?" Laurel asks, and everyone raises their hands.
"You study too much," Connor calls, standing at the door. Wes is sitting on his bed, trying to finish reading a sentence that might be useful for the case Annalise took this week.
"You don't study nearly enough," Wes replies, intending for it come off as a dismissal but smiling up at Connor nonetheless. Connor smirks, and takes it as an invitation to join Wes, dropping his weight next to Wes on the bed and causing a book to fall to the floor. He takes the paper sheet from Wes' hands without asking for permission and reads the header, a kind of boredom on his face that Wes has learned to recognize as an act.
"Oh, this is actually useful," he says --Wes isn't sure whether his surprise now is a pretense or not. Connor drops the paper to the side and shifts so his head is on the pillows, his shoulder digging against Wes' side. "So, did that threesome ever happen, or..."
Wes snorts, rolls his eyes. Of course that Connor would ask such a thing. He decides not to indulge him. "You still thinking about that orgy?"
"Don't you think it'd be hot?" Connor asks, and twists his head to shoot a smirk at him. Wes wishes he had Laurel's innate talent for shutting him down. He huffs, and starts picking up the books and papers on the bed. When he's set them all on the floor, he lies down next to Connor.
"Laurel's bed is definitely big enough for a foursome," he says, looking up at the ceiling, and Connor's laughter sounds like a bark, like he tried to swallow it down but failed terribly. He doesn't look, but he feels Connor shift and turn next to him.
He looks at the corner of the room, where a spiderweb already spreads towards the window. He's grown to think of those things --spiderwebs and ink stains on the kitchen counter and the marks of furniture dragging across the wooden floors-- as signs of the passing time, and he realizes that he's been living with Connor for months already.
"She's coming over for dinner, you can ask about the orgy over tacos," he jokes, and turns his head to find Connor looking at him with heavy-lidded eyes and his mouth just slightly open. A sarcastic remark dies in his throat.
He reaches to grasp the back of Connor's neck and pulls, and Connor goes willingly, leans his weight over one elbow and hovers with his lips just an inch from Wes' until he tugs softly and pulls him in for a short and sweet kiss. Connor pulls back quickly, and Wes thinks that maybe he's gonna make a stupid remark, but he just takes a breath and leans in again, catches Wes' lower lip between his teeth.