Archive of Our Own

thirteen.

Leon Stamatis is dead.

Michael hears that sentence a thousand times over on the drive to Wonderland. He hears it in a voice not unlike Leon’s own, echoing through his head like a gunshot in the dead of winter. He hears it in the voice of Chuck Octagon, reading a script over the radio as roller coasters rage and teenagers scream in the background.

He hears it fall from his lips, a thousand miles away from the mind that owns them. Even then, he cannot persuade himself to believe it.

Leon Stamatis is dead.

Michael hears it, but he does not believe it.

Leon Stamatis is dead.

Michael turns the radio off. Michael takes a deep breath.

The drive should take forty minutes. It feels like decades pass as he sits in the driver’s seat, watching the road signs slip past him. Each one is a bright, garish reminder that he is fifteen, ten, two miles from a world he never wants to reach.

A world where Leon Stamatis is dead, where he has been taken away by an ambulance that cannot save him.

Michael pulls over. Michael rests his head against the steering wheel. Michael tries, haltingly, to breathe.

four.

It is two o’clock on a Wednesday morning when Leon finds him.

“His check, please,” Leon says.

Michael thinks that’s an odd thing to say, until the bartender is bringing over a receipt. It’s much longer than Michael might have expected.

Leon places a card down on the counter and waits. His mouth is tilted down, just barely. His eyes avoid Michael entirely, staring at the bottles on the top shelf. One hand rests against the counter; the other is in the pocket of his coat, but Michael thinks it’s probably clenched into a tight fist.

“Leon,” Michael says. He winces at the way it sounds; sloppy, just like they both knew it would be. This is not the first time. “Leon…”

He doesn’t know what to say. He hadn’t regretted coming here, not really. Leon brought that with him.

The bartender brings Leon his card.

Until now, the world has been soft and quiet. Michael has felt the apology building in the back of his throat, fully aware that it won’t cover the divide he has once more placed between them.

And then all he feels is the tug of a hand on the back of his shirt, pulling him off the stool and onto the ground. He stumbles to catch himself, but Leon doesn’t slow his steps. His hand is fisted in the neck of Michael’s shirt and he’s dragging, pulling, in a quick and stubborn line toward the door.

“You’re better than this, Michael,” Leon says. His voice betrays nothing. It never does. “You have to be better than this.”

Michael’s toe catches on the pavement. He nearly falls over. Leon stops.

“Oh, I…” Michael straightens up. He takes a breath. “What if I’m not better than this?”

Leon turns to face him. His hands pull at Michael’s shirt, straightening out the wrinkles that his own hands have made. They’re cool against Michael’s skin; like the rest of him, Leon’s hands are ice.

“I will make sure that you are,” he says. His eyes are golden brown, like whiskey. Like the light from streetlamps reflected in muddy puddles on the ground.

The world drifts in and out of focus after that. It’s like being in a movie, cutting from one moment to the next with no time for thought.

Michael is in the car, forehead resting against the window as the world flies by; Michael is sitting on the edge of his bed with a glass of water in his hand; Michael is standing beside Leon at the bathroom sink with more liquor in his hand.

“Is this the last of it?” Leon asks.

Michael nods. His eyelids feel heavy. His tongue is cotton and sandpaper all at once. “I think so.”

Leon stares at him with those sunlit-whiskey eyes. “Think harder, Michael.”

“Yes,” Michael says, as firm as he can given the ground is tilting underneath him. “That’s all of it.”

Leon opens the bottle. He takes a long pull; Michael can’t help watching the line of his throat. Then he turns the bottle over, and they both watch as its contents flow down the drain.

“What if I can’t do this?” Michael asks.

Leon wraps a hand around Michael’s elbow and pulls, leading him back to their dorm room. “You can.”

fourteen.

Nica is quiet. She sits in the passenger seat, curled in on herself. Michael knows there’s something she isn’t telling him.

“I, uh,” he starts.

Stops. Swallows, tries again.

“I’m sorry I ran out. Especially after asking you to come,” he says. “It just didn’t feel right, talking to Leon like that.”

“It’s okay,” Nica says. She’s holding Dimitri’s letters in her lap. Her knuckles are white. “I understand.”

“Did anything… happen?” he asks. He tries to sound relaxed, but he’s sure it doesn’t work.

Leon could always see right through him. Maybe that’s genetic. Maybe Nica can read him just as clearly.

“Someone sent a message through those tube things,” she tells him. Her voice is low, quiet.

“Oh! Yeah, the publisher,” Michael supplies. “He must have been listening to the whole thing. What did he say?”

“Nothing,” Nica says.

“O-oh,” Michael says. He tries to think of what to say next. He fails to come up with anything at all.

They drive in silence. Michael can’t help glancing over at Nica periodically, checking for any change. Leon had always been so – well, he hadn’t been easy to read, that wasn’t true. But Michael had learned to understand him. He’d learned to see the slight change in his expressions and to hear exactly what it was that Leon wanted to say.

Nica isn’t like that. Her eyes are trained on her lap, face blank. Michael thinks she’s upset, but whatever else she’s feeling is beyond him.

“Turn left just up there,” Nica says. “I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“Are you sure?”

Nica nods. “I think I need some fresh air,” she says. “Some – some peace and quiet, to let me think.”

Michael almost doesn’t listen. He considers asking more questions. He thinks about asking her if she’d like to get some tea, or maybe lunch.

Michael turns left. He slows to a stop, and Nica opens her door.

“Thank you, Michael,” she says. “For… for inviting me. And for the letters.”

Michael wonders if Leon would be upset with him for dragging Nica into all this. He thinks maybe he would.

“Thank you for coming,” Michael says. “And I’m sorry, again. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

It doesn’t make up for what he’s done. He knows it doesn’t. But Nica waves him off, and then she’s gone.

Then it’s Michael’s turn to be alone, driving back to the empty apartment that shouldn’t belong to him.

nine.

“Thank you,” Michael says. It’s probably the twentieth time he’s said it today; it doesn’t feel like enough.

Leon’s lips pull sharply to the side as he fiddles with his keys. He shifts around until the box he’s carrying is rested against his hip and unlocks the door.

“You’re welcome, Michael,” he says.

“This is only temporary, I promise. Just until I get my feet under me again.”

Leon pushes open the door and Michael follows him into the apartment. It’s immaculate, like always; Michael can even smell the sharp citrus of cleaning products.

“You can stay for as long as you need,” Leon says. “There is always room for you.”

Michael isn’t sure he believes that. Knowing Leon, there’s probably some note in his calendar three weeks from now with “Michael Moves Out” already scheduled.

Whatever. Michael knows he’s lucky to have a friend like Leon. Not many people would take an unemployed alcoholic – well, former alcoholic – into their home, just because.

“I can pitch in for, for rent. And groceries!” Michael says. “Just tell me how much I owe you and I’ll figure something out.”

“Of course.” Leon sets the box of Michael’s things down on the kitchen table. “We’ll unload the rest of the boxes first and find somewhere to keep them later.”

“This will be fun!” Michael says. He’s trying to convince himself, mostly; he thinks they both know that. “Like sharing the dorm back in college!”

Leon turns to face him. It looks like he’s ready to agree, in that deadpan, dry way he does. Like he’s going to nod and say, ever so serious, Yes. Just like college.

That’s not what he says.

“I don’t need fun. I just need to know you’re okay,” he says, and he doesn’t even sound upset. Just as matter-of-fact and straightforward as he’s ever been.

Michael is caught off guard by the bluntness of the statement. He shouldn’t be; by now, Leon has delivered such statements hundreds of times over.

I think you need to stop drinking, and I want you to come and work with me, and you’re my best friend. Always in that same steady tone of voice.

“O-oh!” Michael stutters out, hating the way his voice catches. “Well, I am. Okay, that is. And as soon as I can find a job I’ll be out of your hair. You’ll only have to see me for, uh, regularly scheduled events.”

Leon continues to stare at him. Michael thinks maybe he’s going to respond to that, but he doesn’t.

Instead, Leon waits a moment. Then, he wipes his hands against his pants and says, “Come on, Michael. We have twenty-one boxes left to unload before the afternoon is over.”

“You counted my boxes?” Michael asks.

“Yes.”

Michael follows Leon back out the door, downstairs to where Dimitri is waiting with the van. They each grab another box.

He forgets about that conversation, puts it right out of his head until he’s got no other distractions. Until it’s late at night and he’s lying on the couch under Leon’s spare blanket.

Each of his twenty-three boxes has been labelled and filed away into an appropriate hiding place. Leon’s apartment isn’t large, but somehow he’s made space for Michael and his things within it. Somehow, he’s given Michael a home when Michael had nowhere else to go.

I just need to know you’re okay.

Michael tries to ignore the way his chest tightens, as though the words are a rope wrapped tight around his lungs. He takes a deep, shaky breath and pulls the blanket up to his chin.

“I’m okay,” he says into the darkness. “I’ll be okay.”

Michael closes his eyes and does his best to fall asleep.

fifteen.

Michael likes his job.

That’s not always true, but the thing is, it wasn’t too long ago that he didn’t have a job to speak of. So today, he likes his job. Extinction Event has given him permission to change the name of the advice column, and now that he’s no longer responding as “Persephone” he feels like maybe he can actually learn to enjoy this.

He knows this job would have originally belonged to Leon. So naming the column after him… well, it made a certain kind of sense. Plus, Michael didn’t know anyone more capable of delivering sound advice than Leon Stamatis. If he can just channel that energy, or something, maybe he can help just as much.

It’s his first day trying, anyway, so he’ll find out soon enough.

The letters are stacked up on his desk. As he waits for his computer to boot up, he opens the first one. It’s written in a loopy, meandering script that drifts all over the page; Leon would hate it.

Seeing “Dear Leon” written on the top makes Michael’s stomach squirm. They could have tried to make their lines straighter.

Michael’s not sure when he started to care about things like that. He shrugs it off and starts reading.

Dear Leon,

I’ve come to realize I am in love with my best friend. But I worry they don’t feel the same. If I tell them, it could ruin our friendship. I couldn’t bear to lose them. Do you know of any spells or potions I could use to make them love me back? Are there any crystals that will heighten feelings of love and affection?

Romancer in Redline

Michael sighs. He pushes back from his desk, stands, and begins his walk to Tyrell’s office.

He has a feeling he’ll need a few squeezy stress balls today.

eleven.

Thursday dinner was a better tradition when Michael wasn’t living on Leon’s couch.

Now it’s more of a formality. They eat together most nights of the week anyway. But even knowing that’s the case, Leon still schedules this night for the two of them once or twice a month. It’s always been a chance for them to have a good meal and discuss what they’ve been up to recently. Now, it’s mainly discussing Michael’s job prospects.

“Have you heard anything from the publishing firm?” Leon asks.

Michael shrugs. “Not yet. I don’t really expect to, at this point. It’s been weeks.”

The kitchen table is full of food Michael didn’t purchase or cook, although he’ll be responsible for doing the dishes later. He would like to pay Leon back for all of it, the food and the rent and the electricity, but he just doesn’t have the money right now.

“We’ll find you something,” Leon says, taking a bite of salad.

“Yeah, something,” Michael says. He pauses. Then, “What have you been up to lately? It feels like you haven’t been around much.”

Leon swallows, takes a sip of water. “I went on a date yesterday.”

Michael almost chokes on his food. He tries to cover it, pretend it was a laugh; he doesn’t think it works. “A date?” he asks, voice hoarse. “With who?”

“Whom,” Leon corrects easily, like it’s an old habit. He doesn’t acknowledge the coughing; he just passes Michael a napkin. “Her name is Louisa. She’s a photographer. We met at Nica’s last open mic night.”

Michael takes a moment to take the information in. He wipes his mouth with the napkin and avoids eye contact, just for a split second.

And then he asks, “Do you like her?”

Leon ponders that for a moment.

“I like her as much as is appropriate, given that our first date was not a total disaster,” Leon says, in that way that sounds like he’s reading off a list of statistics.

“So you’ll be seeing her again, then,” Michael says. His chest feels unusually tight.

Leon nods. “I plan to see her again, yes.”

“Oh!” he says. And he smiles, realizing a little late that he already should have done that. “That’s… nice!”

The skin between Leon’s eyes creases almost imperceptibly. “Are you feeling well, Michael?” he asks.

“I’m— I’m fine. And I’d love to meet her,” Michael says. “Uh, Louisa, I mean.”

Leon unlocks his phone. Michael watches as he scrolls through his calendar, searching Leon’s face for any change however minute.

He doesn’t catch anything, not even when Leon looks up.

“I don’t know that there’s time for that,” Leon says. “I don’t foresee this being a lengthy engagement.”

Michael lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

sixteen.

Dear Romancer,

It is best to leave magic out of the picture. A stellar analysis has revealed that use of a love potion or a crystal could result in resentment or lost trust, rather than increased affection. If you do not feel up to the task of admitting your feelings, signs suggest it may be best to show your love in other ways. Spend time with your friend. Take part in activities that they enjoy. These methods, while slow-moving, may generate strong results.

Leon

eighteen.

This is where Michael is going to die.

He doesn’t even need I Ching to see it, either. His phone is broken, the elevator’s locked, and while he has enough celery to last until the end of time he might not have the mental capacity to do anything with it.

Most of his brain cells are focused on what is logically a hallucination, although it sounds and looks very much like Leon trapped inside a crystal ball.

Gemma Linzer-Coolidge’s crystal ball. Which has been hiding up in Oliver’s office ever since Phil stole it. Stolen, because the publisher – Oliver – wanted to spy on mayoral candidates of the Redline and create The Lottery. Oliver, Phil’s uncle. Phil, who was only dating Louisa so he could spy on her.

Michael, who has all of this information and cannot do anything with it because the elevator is locked and the transporter tube is empty.

He thinks he knows how Leon felt, now, trapped inside that ball with all of this information and no one to give it to.

Assuming, that is, that Leon really is trapped inside a crystal ball and Michael hasn’t finally lost all of his marbles.

Michael really wishes he had a squeezy stress ball right now. He picks up the crystal ball instead.

“Leon?” he asks. He isn’t sure what would be better: to get a response, or to hear nothing and know none of this is real.

“Yes, Michael,” comes the voice, that familiar monotone with which Michael has become so accustomed. “I’m here.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Michael says, and he’s fighting down the uncertain laughter that has taken over during each of their conversations in the past few days.

“What do you need, Michael?”

Michael swallows. “Leon, did you ever happen to see Oliver enter the code to the elevator?”

Somewhere beyond the mortal veil, Michael knows Leon is wearing an expression that reads “Of course I did, but I could not tell it to you until you picked up the crystal ball. You have not picked up the crystal ball, and so I have not been able to tell you.”

“Yes,” he says. “The code is two, three, two, pound.”

twelve.

Leon is packing a box.

Michael thinks, instantly, that the box is his. This is his sign. Leon wants him to move out, and he’ll have to go and find somewhere else to live. He doesn’t really have the money to get an apartment, still doesn’t have a job, but he knows he’s overstayed his welcome. He hasn’t even pitched in for groceries in a while.

“Oh, should I – can I help you with that?” Michael asks. He’s taking a step forward before Leon can answer.

Leon turns his head. He looks confused, which confuses Michael in turn. “Why would you do that?” he asks. “It’s neither your responsibility nor my expectation that you help me clean up her things.”

Her things. Michael pauses, takes a moment to puzzle that one out. Leon raises an eyebrow.

“Whose things?” Michael asks. He feels about twenty steps behind, which isn’t exactly unusual when it comes to Leon.

“Louisa’s,” Leon says. “It seems more practical for you to dedicate your time to filling out job applications, rather than assisting me in packing up the remnants of my previous relationship.”

Michael feels something twisting in his chest, thin and gauzy as a ghost. He nods, if only because he doesn’t know what else to do. “Oh, no, yeah – you’re right. I should… I’ll do that, absolutely.”

Leon is still watching him, head tilted just slightly to the left. His eyes catch the light, gold and brown and piercing in a way Michael isn’t quite prepared to counter. The moment stretches out a beat too long, the air heavy as an ocean between them.

“Do you… want to talk about it?” Michael asks, and it feels like testing out a tightrope.

“There is nothing to say,” Leon says. “I had intended for our relationship to be… temporary. This is all to be expected.”

Michael wonders sometimes, how Leon can come across as so put together. He knows that’s not all there is; he knows that Leon has his issues, and sometimes he loses his footing too. But at times like this, that reality seems far away.

nineteen.

“Holy sh—iiiizzz,” Gemma says, catching herself just in time.

Michael glances around. Monty isn’t even here; she doesn’t have to censor herself.

“Hello, Ms. Linzer-Coolidge,” Leon says.

“Hello… Leon,” Gemma says. “Nice to… meet you?”

“Technically, we have met before,” Leon says, “although you were unaware of it at the time.”

Michael tries to tamp down on the twisting in his gut. There’s a part of him, however small, that feels disappointment at the discovery that Leon can, in fact, speak with other people.

Louisa is there too, face frozen in a kind of disbelief and shock that Michael would find funny if he hadn’t felt the same way just a few days before.

“I guess you’re right,” Gemma says. And then, “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to… disturb your rest?”

“Of all the disturbances, yours was the least… obtrusive,” Leon says.

“Is this really happening?” Louisa asks. She’s staring at the crystal ball in Gemma’s hands. “Can this really be happening? How… how?”

“The specifics of my circumstance are a mystery even to myself,” Leon says. Michael still hasn’t gotten used to the way Leon sounds now, like an echo inside his head. Like a ghost. “But until we can interpret some higher purpose, I have decided the reason for my presence is to help those I left behind, in whatever way I can.”

Michael thinks of the Third Sight offices, of struggling to break his bonds only to find his escape thwarted by a passcode. He thinks of the information Leon has given him, of all the good it can do.

“Okay,” Michael says. He takes the crystal ball back, trying his hardest to be gentle. “We have a lot of work to do. Where’s Nica?”

“Yes, Nica,” Leon says.

“Oh. Nica.” Louisa sighs. “Leon, you’re not going to like--”

“I am aware of what she has been through,” Leon says. “Please, take me to my sister.”

eight.

Michael doesn’t know Dimitri very well.

In fact, he gets the feeling that most of the guests at this party don’t know Dimitri. The room is full to bursting with people from what looks like all walks of life, from hipsters in flannel with beards down their chests to tall figures in tailored suits.

Dimitri doesn’t really look like he fits in either category; mostly, he just looks young. A little like Leon did back in college, except for the unruly curly hair and the green eyes.

Leon is sitting beside Michael. He’s holding that puzzle box in his hands, the one Dimitri gave him, and he’s staring at it with the kind of frustration and annoyance he only ever has when Dimitri is involved.

“Do you think it’s supposed to open?” Michael asks. “How do you know there’s a solution?”

“Because there has to be one,” Leon answers, in a voice that allows no argument. “Who would construct a puzzle box that could not be solved?”

“Well, from what you’ve told me, it seems like maybe your brother would,” Michael offers. “It sounds… exactly like him, actually.”

“No,” Leon says. “There is a solution. And I will solve it before the end of the evening.”

Michael watches a stranger walk by, two glasses of wine in his hands. For more than just a second, he contemplates getting one for himself.

When he pulls his eyes away, Leon is watching him with what must be a forcibly neutral expression. His fingers have stopped toying with the wood of the box.

“I’m not going to,” Michael says, words rushing out of him like a waterfall. “I promise. Not tonight, not ever.”

“I know,” Leon says. He sounds like he means it. “I’m proud of you, Michael.”

Michael can see that he means that one; the corner of his mouth is twisted up, just the hint of a smile.

“Wouldn’t have been able to do it without you,” Michael mutters, breaking eye contact to stare at his own hands.

“Yes, you could have,” Leon says. Again, he allows no room for disagreement. Michael looks up, finds Leon still staring at him.

And then Leon’s gaze shifts, ever so slowly, to a spot above Michael’s left shoulder. His brow furrows, just slightly, and then he’s pushing away from the table.

“Dimitri’s going to leave soon,” he says, by way of explanation.

Now it’s Michael’s turn to look confused.

“Really?” he asks, following Leon’s gaze. Dimitri is standing with a group of other kids, laughing and looking for all the world like he’s thoroughly enjoying himself. Nica is beside him. “But the party hasn’t even been going that long.”

“I’ll be back momentarily,” Leon says. “When Nica asks, tell her I’ve gone to work on the puzzle box in peace.”

Michael has more questions, but he doesn’t get a chance to ask them. Leon’s gone within a breath, just an empty chair and a clean plate left behind.

Nica comes by a few minutes later, just as Leon said she would.

twenty.

It’s a simple headstone.

He’s buried next to his mother.

Michael thinks, more than anything, that he should not be the one who brought Leon here. This is something that Nica should have done, that Dimitri should have done – anyone, really, other than himself. But Nica had refused outright, and Dimitri… well, no one has seen him.

“We followed your will,” Michael says. “The watch factory was… It worked. Made sense for you.”

 “Eight, eleven, five, four, nine, one, seven, six, ten, three, twelve, two,” Leon says.

“Yeah,” Michael says. “Like that.”

Silence stretches out, envelops them both. The wind blows through and scatters some fallen leaves that have gathered around the concrete base of the marker.

“It is a strange thing, to see one’s final resting place when one is not at rest,” Leon says, and his voice is less the booming crescendo that it was when Michael first found him. It almost sounds like… himself. “For the first time in my life, I feel I have overstayed my welcome.”

Michael laughs, but it’s hardly there. His chest is collapsing in on itself, a heavy, weighted thing. He feels the cold, crystal ball in his hands and wishes more than anything it contained just a fraction of Leon’s warmth. Just a hint at something familiar.

 “You heard me,” Leon says. “That first day, after I died. You heard me. No one else could.”

“You were very determined to make me listen,” Michael tells him, honestly. He doesn’t know how he heard, how he saw Leon standing in the apartment less than a day after his death. He’s not sure he’s ready to put words to his best theory, either.

Again, the silence.

Michael stares at the heavy crystal, at the dark shadows within it. He can see his own reflection in the surface, staring back at him with an expression even he can’t name. He squints, stares until his eyes are straining with the effort.

“Well. We had a schedule to keep.”

Leon Stamatis is dead. His gravestone is there, standing upright in the ground and daring anyone to defy that fact. There are newspapers, websites, televisions and radio waves that prove that to be true.

But in the deep gray smog of the crystal ball, Michael thinks he can see the ghost of Leon’s smile.

one.

Michael is eighteen when he meets Leon. He’s eighteen, he’s a little wasted, and it’s nine-thirty in the morning.

He doesn’t know how, exactly, he came to fall asleep in front of a stranger’s dorm in a building on the opposite side of campus. But he did, and now that stranger is staring down at him with whiskey-brown eyes and a look of confusion.

“Move,” the stranger says, in a voice that does not allow room for arguments. “You’re going to make me late.”

“Who’re you?” Michael demands. He rolls over on his side and pushes himself upright, just about ready to say something incredibly smart that would make this guy close the door and go away.

Instead, the world begins to spin at an alarming rate. Michael, unable to prevent what was bound to happen at some point this morning, throws up.

“I’m Leon. I live here,” Leon says. He doesn’t sound at all surprised by what’s just happened. “Who are you?”

Michael looks up at him, dazed. “What?”

Leon checks his watch.

“I’m Michael,” Michael says, because he might as well. “I… don’t live here, apparently.”

Leon sighs. “Come on. I have just enough time to make you coffee.”