⁂—A HEALTHY DOSE OF POOR COMMUNICATION.
(request for @Blerbeee !)
"OH MY GOD, oh my God, oh my God!"
"Alex, please stop—"
"This is incredible. Everything I've ever wanted. Fantastic. Exquisite. Extraordinary."
"Stop using big words and let me finish—"
"Oh, this is going to be so great! You're going to be all 'hey' and she's going to be all 'what's up' and then boom you're like 'wanna go ou—"
"Stop. Talking."
Alex Bailey promptly shut her mouth. She stared at her brother on the other side of the mirror, who was pacing furiously. "You look like you're about to puke."
Conner shot her a dirty look. "Gee, thanks!" He snapped, throwing his hands in the air. "God, why did I even call you?" He said dramatically, half to himself and half to the mirror in his house.
Alex raised her eyebrows. "Because I have experience with these things?"
"No, I think I did it because you're the only girl I know," He shot back. "And I'm not talking to Mom about this."
"Conner, I hate to break it to you, but that's sad."
Conner looked up from the floor with a burst of inspiration. He started to pace with enthusiasm. "Wait, can you get Mother Goose on the line? Oh yeah, that'd totally work! They're related and she doesn't have that annoying pitchy voice you do—"
"Mother Goose is in Camelot, Conner," She reminded. Her face morphed into a scowl. "With my boyfriend."
Conner made a gagging sound. "Ugh, gross. You're so gross. Now I think I actually am going to puke, thanks a lot."
"Oh, shut up and get on with it!" Alex scolded.
Conner rolled his eyes at her, but continued nevertheless. "So, you know that movie Star Wars?"
Alex's eyes rolled so far back into her head it was a miracle she could still see. "Yes, I am vaguely familiar with pop culture sensation Star Wars," She gritted dryly.
"Okay cool, just wanted to make sure you're still in the loop. Anyways, you know that other really old movie The Silence of the Lambs?" He asked, without missing a beat.
Alex was this close to losing her mind. "If you called me to say you were asking Bree out just so you could ask me a bunch of dumb movie questions, I'll kill you in your sleep."
"Wow, ouch," Conner's eyes widened. "But no, that's my actual point. It's this really gruesome horror movie about this dude who eats people—"
"What?"
Conner glared. "Alex, stop interrupting me." After taking a breath, he continued. "So this dude eats people and it's really scary, and me and Bree watched it illegally in class once—"
"You what?"
"—and I'm going to be honest I straight-up peed a bit, but Bree really likes it so—"
"She what?"
"She likes it, Alex. Don't you listen?" Conner scoffed. He fished around in the pocket of his sweater for a moment.
Conner had called Alex about an hour before school started, stressing that it was something very important. Alex had never seen her brother more nervous or elated in his life, and she knew he was definitely going to talk about Bree.
Apparently, she'd been dropping hints that she actually wanted to officially date him—according to Conner, who was dumb as a rock so Alex assumed Bree had to have been laying it on thick to get through—and Conner decided to grow a pair and do it today.
"I was walking her halfway home yesterday, and I swear she said 'I'm tired of waiting' under her breath and I was like 'what?' but she was like 'hmm?', so I might be making stuff up but then she hugged me like 2 seconds longer than usual," Conner had rambled when they'd first got on the call. "Now call me crazy, but I think she's into me."
Alex sighed as presently, she watched Conner dig around in the pocket of his sweater. He eventually fished out two thin sheets of paper and flashed them to her. "So I bought these tickets to the showing at the drive-in on Friday, and I know it's kinda basic and cheesey and all, but I thought it suited, well, us. Regular movie theatres are all about being quiet and holding hands in silence, but at least in drive-ins it's more. . . cinematic. I really hope she says yes."
"I gathered," Alex replied, but she smiled at how passionate her brother was explaining things.
Conner glared at her. "Any other pearls of wisdom?"
She straightened her headband as she spoke to her brother. "As repetitive as it sounds, you have to be yourself. I know I hate how much you ramble and walk into things and can't form sentences, but that's part of why Bree likes you—something I'll never understand. But don't make this big massive gesture about it because that's probably not her thing. You guys know each other." Conner was listening intently, more intent than Alex had seen him. She struggled for a moment, wondering how to phrase the next part. "This isn't you asking out some random girl from English class, right? She's seen you kidnap people and lie and mess up. And nobody ever sees much of her, but she's comfortable with you. Don't screw that up."
Conner nodded to himself. "Okay, okay," He murmured, letting the words resonate in his head. Alex was right, after all. They were comfortable with each other already. You take that away, and she's just a stranger again.
He was about to say something more, but when he looked back to Alex, her face had changed. She was staring at the bottom of her mirror, face contorted into urgency. "Oh, Conner, gotta go! Greattalkingtoyoubye!"
Then she was gone.
Conner sighed, smoothing the tickets out and carefully putting them back in his pocket. He really hoped his sister was right.
—⁂—
"UGH, THAT WAS such a close call. I just got off with him, you know."
Bree swished the toothpaste around in her mouth and spit it out as fast as she could. "Reawy?" She gargled, wiping her mouth and then speaking again. "What'd he say?"
Alex didn't want to spoil her brother's reply, so she just shrugged. "Nothing much. Why, you curious?" She wiggled her brows a bit.
Bree, though not visibly flustered, looked away for a moment. "No it's not that, I just. . ." She bit her lip, sighing. "I think I'm going to ask him on a date."
Alex was hit with a strange sense of déjà vu. "Pardon?"
"Yeah, I'm done with this whole grounding thing. My parents can suck it if they want. They don't pay attention to me anyways, so what the don't know won't hurt them." She ran her lashes with a bit of mascara as she talked to the small chip of her mirror propped on her bathroom sink. "So, there's this new bookstore downtown that's opening up, and that might sound lame to you but Conner's really excited about it cause they've got a whole section dedicated to comic books and two floors worth of other stuff."
Alex was scared this was going to go where she thought it was going to go. "Mmhm," She smiled and nodded.
"I was thinking of asking him if he wanted to go there Saturday to look around, and I already put a book he wanted on hold for him, so I'll give him that as a, uh, twist." Bree didn't look at Alex once when she talked. She snatched her beanie from the ledge behind her and pulled it over her head. "It sounds boring but I really didn't know what else to do," She admitted. "And there are coffee shops and weird antique stores we could mess around in."
A smile waded onto Alex's face. She could tell that Bree was only telling her so much. Bree never told Alex anything about her and Conner. She was reserved with that sort of thing, painfully blunt, while Conner often called Alex just to tell her how many times Bree had smiled at him in English class. They were both train-wrecks in their own respective ways, and she had no idea how they got along as well as they did.
But there were moments when Alex could see how much he meant to her. Moments like this, when she spent just a little too long pulling out and adjusting strands of her hair underneath her beanie. Her hair was down today. Bree had told her Conner liked her hair down. "Or up. Or any way, really. Sorry if that was mean, I'm going to go over there now." Those were his exact words.
Alex could also tell how worried she was. Conner, at least, had bucketloads of trust he was willing to give to her. Bree second-guessed nothing in her life except how he'd feel about her.
"Hello, earth to Alex? What do you think?"
She blinked twice. "Oh yeah, sounds great!" This was a bit of a parallel moment for her, but it was cute enough that she kind of wanted to see it go up in flames. "You got this."
Bree nodded, smiling at her friend through the mirror. "Thanks, Alex. Call you later?"
"Sure," Alex replied. "Good luck!" She beamed.
Bree faded away into her own reflection, and Alex was alone again. "This is a disaster," She snorted. At least it suited them.
—⁂—
"DUDE, YOU OKAY?"
Okay in ten seconds you're gonna go over there. You're just going to walk. With your feet. Over there. To ask her out.
"Hellooooo?"
"Hm?" Conner snapped to his right, where his friend was staring at him. "Yeah sorry, what?"
DeVante crossed his arms, leaning back against the locker. "You gonna ask her out or what?" He nodded towards Conner's previous line of interest—Bree was standing at the end of the hall, stuffing things into her locker. Some friend of hers was chatting Bree's ear off.
Conner shrugged. "Yep." He took a deep breath. "Yep, right now."
Vante took another look at Bree and then back at him. "Y'all are weird, man. Wasn't that the girl you ran away with and when she came back everybody thought you eloped or something?" When Conner's face didn't change, he leaned forward. "Holy shit, did you?"
"No!" Conner exclaimed. He shifted to look at her again, and Bree had started to put her earbuds in. "I'm going to go now, but I'll text you later, okay?"
DeVante shrugged, hoisting up his backpack and waving goodbye. "Good luck, little man," He said solemnly.
"Dude, I'm taller than you."
After his friend had vanished from sight, Conner turned on his heels. "Okay, now or never. Don't get scared now."
The hallway was full of swooping laughter and warm spring air. Teenagers were packing up and streaming out the front doors, leaving the stragglers to finish up their business. Conner was one of these stragglers. And boy, did he have business to finish.
Heart in his throat, he approached Bree's locker. Her chatty friend had long gone and she still had her earbuds tucked underneath her beanie when Conner halted in front of her. He leaned against the locker wall, grinning.
Bree felt a tug on her left earbud. She smiled inwardly. She already knew who it was. "Hey, Conner," She side-eyed him, pulling her earbuds out. His lips were quirked into that cute smile, and his eyes were especially blue today. It made her a little scared.
"Hey," He cleared his throat rather awkwardly. "Ready to go?"
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, slamming her locker door. "Yep."
It was almost tradition for Conner to walk Bree home. Her parents got off work later than school finished, so it was the perfect time to talk without getting caught. And it was about a fifteen-minute walk, twenty with the long way, so they had plenty of time if they really wanted it. (They usually took the long way.)
They started to walk together. Bree was trying her best not to look at him. Her hand itched to grab his, and she wanted to do something really dumb like kiss him. She hated the butterflies in her stomach right now, but they came so often that they felt like old friends.
"How was Gym?" Conner asked as they left the school.
"Gross," Bree snorted, trying to keep the conversation light. "How was science?"
Conner shrugged. "Gross."
It was quiet for a second, and that was when Bree realized that she really couldn't do this. It would kill her.
Like, what if they did go out? And he'd notice all the annoying things about her like how she slaps her rubber bands on her wrists and how she hated strawberry milkshakes and how she's far too blunt for her own good. What if she wasn't who he thought she was? Because the way he looked at her sometimes made her feel like he was staring at somebody else. She wasn't perfect. She was damaged, if anything. Would he really like her after he saw all that? Maybe they'd fight and she'd yell and—
And she was holding his hand. Shoot.
She didn't know how it happened, if it was her or him, but they were walking together with their fingers interlocked and Bree wanted to shoot off every last one of her own. He faintly squeezed her hand. She tried not to smile about it.
Conner was having no more luck than Bree. He kept thinking about the sting of rejection and the fear of having to wait again. Sure, if she needed time or something he'd respect that, but part of him feared she'd never be ready at all and she'd just push him away forever.
He looked at her. Really looked at her. The slope of her nose, the birthmark on the side of her face, the chapstick on her lips. It was hard not to notice everything about her when she was the only thing he thought about. He'd seen the cracks underneath her, the ones she hid. And after all he knew, she was still a real mystery. It was a little entertaining.
"I passed my math test," Conner said, breaking the silence. "Seventy-five."
Bree, drawn out of her own thoughts, looked to him. "That's so great!" She bumped his side, a surge of happiness flourishing in her heart. "I'm proud of you," She beamed.
Conner lowered his head, a blush flaring through his cheeks. "Well, you helped, so be proud of yourself, I guess."
He thought his hand was getting sweaty. He pushed the thought away before he got too paranoid. Checking to see where they were, he saw they were about six minutes away from home. Just long enough so he could spew out a proper sentence, Bree could say no, and she'd be at her door without it being awkward.
"Hey, so, uh—"
"There was actually something—"
They stared at each other. Bree snorted. "You go first," She said.
Conner shook his head furtively. "No, you."
"Conner it's fine, really," She insisted, smiling warmly.
His stomach twisted into knots. He felt like he was going to throw up. What was he thinking? This was illogical. He was a wimp. He wasn't special. He wasn't some Norse god with a chiseled jawline; his face was full of baby fat and his arms were far too skinny for his body. He couldn't do this. He physically could not do this.
Her hand slipped out of his, and she put a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"
His eyes glazed over to her. Her brows were scrunched, and that made him feel worse.
"I—yeah, I'm just. . ." His mouth went dry. He felt dizzy. Putting a hand to the back of his neck, he looked away. She probably thought she was an idiot. "I can't do this," He muttered.
Bree stopped walking. She put both of her hands on the blades of his shoulders. "Do what?" She asked, but there was more fear in her voice than concern.
He shook his head. He could not breathe. This was a walking disaster. "I, I just, I don't know, sorry," He rambled, taking a step away from her but longing to be closer.
"Oh. So Alex told you."
Conner stopped panicking for a second. She sounded sad. Also, what?
He looked at her, and now she looked uneasy. "It's fine, really. I get it. Things change, right? People change. We can still be friends if you want, but it's fine. Really. Don't change your decision because you feel bad."
Seriously, what? "Wait, what are you talking about?"
She crossed her arms over her chest. "The library opening," She said it like it were obvious. Conner still looked confused. "The date," She added.
No sort of lightbulbs went off in his mind, but a spark shot through his chest.
Bree studied his face. He kept looking at her with the same perplexed look. Her expression softened. "You really don't know, do you?"
Conner shook his head. Did he miss something? He was a pretty forgetful person, but he was sure he wouldn't forget about a date.
"Oh," Bree said again, swallowing. "That's embarrassing," She muttered.
Conner's cheeks burned. What he was about to say felt too good to be true. "You were going to ask me on a date?" A smile crept onto his face.
Bree fiddled with the bracelets on her wrists like she did when she was anxious. She looked at him for a brief moment. "Depends," She started. "Did you want me to?"
Conner bit back a grin. "Well. . . yes and no," He admitted.
Bree's eyes darted to his, and her face fell. Okay, so maybe he was a little awful at this.
"Because I've got two tickets in my pocket for a showing at the drive-in, and I was planning on asking you to go with me," He finished.
She furrowed her brows. "What?"
"Yeah, exactly," Conner chuckled nervously, slinging his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt. "I was just about to ask you out."
Bree waited a second, almost to see if he'd go back on his word or burst out laughing. Slowly, her face changed into one of amusement. She started to laugh, and so did he. "So we're in a bit of a paradox here, huh?" A smile spread across her face before she could help it.
"Well, uh," He cleared his throat. "Would you want to. . . go?" His fingers closed around the flimsy paper tickets in his pocket.
Bree leaned a little closer to him, hickory eyes shaded by the bangs in front of her face. "Yeah, of course I want to go!" She answered. "The real question. . . do you want to go with me?"
"Hmm, going to a library opening with the girl I've been in love with since seventh grade?" He pretended to think, bouncing on the balls of his feet. It felt warm when he said it, and a little sweet, but he resisted the urge to hole up in his hoodie and hide like he would've three years ago."I mean, I've got nothing better to do," He shrugged.
Bree rolled her eyes at him. "Very romantic," She elbowed his shoulder, and soon enough they were walking again. "What movie are we seeing?" She asked.
Conner took her hand. "That creepy one where the guy who plays Thor's dad eats people," He commented.
She squeezed his hand eagerly, doing a little jump. "Silence of The Lambs?!" She squealed. "I thought you hated it!"
"I don't hate it, it's just the most terrifying and mentally scarring thing I've ever seen," He shrugged. "And I saw my uncle being dragged to his grave by a re-incarnated zombie in a story you wrote."
"Guess you'll just have to stare at something else," Bree said coyly, a teasing smile on her lips.
Now it was Conner's turn to bump her shoulder. "You're lucky the tickets aren't refundable."
"And you're lucky you're cute."
He blushed. "I bought the tickets for Friday, so you could just tell your parents you've got a school thing or something," He informed her.
Bree thought that was sweet. "Thanks." She let her eyes wander for a moment, taking a breath. "Honestly, I don't even care anymore, they can do what they want. I'm miserable in that house wether I'm grounded or not." She flexed her jaw. "You know, sometimes I wish I was emancipated. Maybe I'll get them to sign the papers."
Conner laughed softly. "Just be careful, alright? I'd rather go to the movies alone than have to rescue you from some tower in the middle of nowhere like Rapunzel," He warned.
"I will, I will," Bree replied. "But sneaking out is always worth it. Besides, we both know you're the Rapunzel and I'm the Flynn Rider in this scenario."
"How?"
"I'm a dastardly charming thief, and you're a clueless blonde that just wants a good time."
Conner pursed his lips. "Can't argue with that," He shrugged.
Bree's house was in view now. The distance from the sidewalk to her driveway grew shorter and shorter with each step. Conner could barely acknowledge he was even walking at all because he was pretty sure he was floating and this was all some weird dream sequence.
They settled to a stop in front of Bree's speckled grey driveway. "So. . . see you tomorrow?" Bree bit the inside of her cheek. She couldn't believe she could be so dense to jump to conclusions like she just did. She also couldn't believe she was wrong.
Conner stuck his hands in his pockets. "Tomorrow," He said with a smile.
Bree kissed his cheek. "And Friday."
"And Saturday!" He grinned.
So even though poor communication and oddly similar parallels aren't exactly ideal for a situation like this, it sure did work out for everybody.
Everybody except Alex, apparently, because Conner was going to kill her as soon as she got home.
________________________
♡ NOTE...
hi everybody! this is a fairly long author's note, so please bear with me! i know it's been a while since i've updated this story, and it's not because i'm losing inspiration for the tlos fandom or i'm bored, it's just that this book is my bottom priority simply because i have stories with plot lines i need to get finished. books like that need to be finished quicker, because if you wait too long the audience will forget the main plot line and become uninterested. here, i can write whatever i want, whenever i want!
that said, if you like this book and you're not doing so already, i highly encourage you to check out The Scorchings, my other land of stories book with a plot line and lots of conner and bree! it's updated faster and written better so please do that because it's my first original plot🥺 and it would mean the world if you read my other books as well!!
i don't like the look/layout of this book so it might be under serious renovations, since i have no idea where to take it. i've gone against my gut and decided not to edit the first few chapters because idk it's a testament to how choppy my writing used to be!
i really appreciate the support for this book, even when i make crummy chapters like this one you guys are so engaging and i CANNOT appreciate that enough!!
now that i've said all that, time for the fun part because i've been thinking of ways to switch this book up! tell me if you guys would like to see any of these!
i was entertaining the idea of doing oneshots in the same timeline/series, so kind of a short story spanning multiple update instead of one chapter per story. so first chapter is part one, couple days later is part two in a different chapter, and so on. it might help me update quicker but i think i'll only do this if all my other books are in a good place.
also i want to unironically write some alex and bree stuff bc i started it as a joke, but now that i'm looking at it from a storytelling standpoint i know chris didn't make them canon because it would've literally made the entire universe implode.
i was additionally thinking that i could write some non-conneree centered chapters if you're into that?? just short stories from the land of stories in general, expanding on friendships like bree and arthur's (if anybody ships them pls remember they are basically the same person in different fonts xoxo), conner's and emmerich's, bree and ROOK'S because he's STILL my favourite redemption arc even though he's d**d
so stuff like that, and maybe some shorter things like headcanons because i could publish like 30 of those a day!
last but not least, i've been thinking of making a playlist for this book (all ur conneree vibes) on my spotify account! so if you have any songs you'd want on there, feel free to give suggestions! my spotify is rosannacommisso (THAT IS NOT MY NAME IT WAS A FAMILY MEMBER'S OLD ACCOUNT) and there's also a link in my bio to follow it from there!
that's all i think i've had to cover, thank you so much for reading! i hope you guys have a great day <3
—perrie