Archive of Our Own

Colin was dead.

Stefan had watched him fall, his body spiralling towards the ground, limp and lifeless as a rag-doll. He thinks to himself, perhaps as a reassurance, ‘Maybe he was dead before he hit the ground.’
He knew, deep down in his mind, that that wasn’t the case. Colin had died as his body slammed into the storage unit below the balcony of his flat, painting the rusty white surface in the most vibrant shade of red. Not too different to the red mood lighting spilling out of the still-open sliding glass door, bathing Stefan in hazy brightness where he crouched, shaking against the stone foundation bordering the balcony. The image of Colin’s body seemed to be seared into his mind; the brilliance of his position, the stark contrast between the shade of his shirt, the shade of the blood, and the nothingness of the unit, all engulfed by the weak, protesting whistle of the wind as Colin’s body had cut through it.

Stefan sat, meagre in his position, for several seconds after witnessing Colin’s death. He swallowed the bile that was rising the back of his throat, and stood, uncertain and trembling. He wished that Kitty hadn’t chosen this moment to check on her husband. Wished he hadn’t seen the look on her face, heard the shudder in her voice.

He thought it sounded more like a statement than a question. It wasn’t, ‘Where is Colin?’, neither, ‘Where has Colin gone?’. Kitty was asking, ‘What’s happened to him?’.
Stefan shuffled around her, eyes wide, like a deer caught in the headlights. He pretended not to hear her scream, though it echoed within his head, painful behind his ears. The ‘New Order’ poster on the wall had been beautiful before, the rendition of ‘A Basket of Roses’ swirling and twirling in an entrancing, fascinating way.
Now, the flowers stretched and writhed like serpents, coiling menacingly like the pixellated blue of Pax’s mane.

Stefan’s alarm, in fact, his whole morning routine, was beginning to ache with monotony. He couldn’t put a finger on just why, all of a sudden, his life felt like a record stuck on repeat. It’d never been this way before; he’d always known that he was moving forward, no matter how small the steps were.
Only now, he felt as though he was just going in circles. Nothing would progress for longer than a day at a time - whatever he’d done in one day, the next morning, it’d be as if it was erased over night.

Stefan plodded out of his room, weary and sluggish. Even his dreams seemed to merge with reality recently, and the boy felt disorientated and hazy with the internal struggle of distinguishing between his lucid, and aware states. His father left his study, firmly locking the door behind him as Stefan continued down the hallway - as he had the morning before, and the morning before that, and the one before that, as well.
Or at least, Stefan thought he had done. He couldn’t be sure at the moment.
“Breakfast?” Same tone. Same expression. Same shirt, and hair style, and creased forehead.
This must have happened before.

Stefan, as he seemingly remembered doing for the past ten, if not a hundred mornings, followed his dad downstairs and sat opposite him at the breakfast table. His thought process, completely preoccupied with thoughts of Bandersnatch, reeled at a million miles a minute - the never-ending pathways overlapping, and coiling in his mind. He didn’t notice his dad leaning over the table.

“Here’s your tea,” he said quietly, passively. There was a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth, smoke billowing from the parted lips surrounding it. Stefan, oblivious to the world, didn’t think to respond.
“Thanks, dad,” the man muttered, sitting back down in his seat, pulling the cigarette from his lips and stubbing it out in the ashtray. Stefan looks up. It takes him longer than he should to stub out the cig, as it always seems to.
The eye contact is fleeting, awkward.
“S - Sorry, sorry. I was miles away, gotta get everything ready for today.” Had he said this before?
“This for some computer people?” The cigarette was finally out. Stefan watched as his dad pulled his hand away from the glass ashtray, eyes lingering on the frame of the object for just a second too long. His dad already knew this. They had had this conversation before.
Stefan swallowed.
“You - you know this,” He paused, watched confusion flood his dad’s features. Doubt prodded at the corners of Stefan’s mind, “You do know this, don’t you? Tuckersoft. They do Colin Ritman’s games.”

His stomach lurched at the sound of his own voice saying Colin’s name. But why? He’d never met the man. If asked, he couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. Stefan tugged at his earlobe subconsciously, still clutching the copy of Bandersnatch close to his chest.

“Oh, not the Colin Ritman?”

The sarcasm that seeped into his dad’s voice made Stefan’s blood boil. His hand fell from his ear, and he clenched it into a fist beneath the table, just out of sight.

“Mr Tucker, the owner, he said I could show them my Bandersnatch demo.” Change the subject. He couldn’t talk about Colin anymore, not with how his body was reacting to it. Stefan was convinced that he could hear the blood pumping through his veins, could feel every single pulsation of his heart. He wouldn’t be surprised if his dad could see his heart beating out of his chest.

“Your Bander-what?”

Anger. Pure, unadulterated, seething anger. Stefan gritted his teeth. Paused, shut his eyes for a moment. Exhaled through his nose.

“Bandersnatch. I based it on the book. You know this. We’ve spoken about this. We must have.” The book was now clutched tightly to his chest, cover facing his dad.

“Is that your mother’s?”

“I don’t - I don’t want to talk about her. Not today, not again. I can’t.”
Stefan’s dad held up his hands, palms exposed, defensively.

“Okay, okay,” he stood up, turning away from the table and stepping towards the peninsular, “Well, how about you decide what you want for your breakfast?”

A box of Frosties, and a box of Sugar Puffs were held up, one in each of his dad’s hands.

Stefan found that he wasn’t in fact hungry, but begrudgingly pointed towards the Frosties anyway. ‘Maybe a change would be good for once’, he reasoned. Maybe it was the sugar that was keeping him up at night, that was infiltrating his mind like some kind of hacker.
He found himself shaking his head as he took in a mouthful of the sodden flakes, returning to his mother’s battered copy of Bandersnatch as he ate.

The bus was quiet, as it had been the previous times Stefan had made his way to Tuckersoft. The gentle hum of the engine as the bus pulled away from his stop was almost soothing, though as usual, Stefan opted to pull his headphones over his ears snugly and take a cassette out of his bag.

The hectic jumble of the compilation didn’t appeal to Stefan anymore. His mind, seemingly one-toned and solely focused on Bandersnatch at the current time, didn’t see the joy and excitement in a combination of random songs, all by different artists.
He slid the Thompson Twins cassette into the player, and hit ‘play’. The gentle sway of ‘Hold Me Now’ began to fill his mind.

The Tuckersoft building towered before him, as it had done many times now. Stefan took the stairs, the copy of Bandersnatch thumping rhythmically, almost painfully, in the satchel hanging against his thigh with every step he took. He had done this before, he had the yellowing bruise on his leg to prove it.
Stefan paused. He’d done this before - why is he doing it again? He couldn’t remember exactly why he’d been asked to come here. The other time - the other time it was to demo Bandersnatch for Tucker and Colin -
Colin.
The satchel was dropped, with the boy following it to the floor. Stefan crouched, back against the cold, brick wall of the stairwell.

He retched, hunching over himself, head almost between his own knees. Colin was dead. He must be dead. It had happened, couldn’t have been a dream.
But then, when had he last been here? It should have been yesterday. Had he been at Colin’s flat yesterday, face cradled by the older boy’s hands as he watched the eyes before him melt into nothingness?
He couldn’t have been. There’s no way.
Stefan’s hand rose to his right earlobe, squeezing and pulling at it until a familiar ooze of heat pooled in his head, behind the ear.
Calm.
He was having another episode, that was all. He just needed to go and see Tucker, see what he wanted from him. Go back home, work on the game. His dreams were meddling with reality again, the overlap between the two almost completely engulfing him now.

“Ah, you are Steven!” Tucker’s beaming face appeared from across the office, eyes gleaming, hand outstretched. Stefan took it, tentatively. Had he forgotten his name already?
“It’s - uh, Stefan.” Tucker’s hand was uncomfortably warm.
“Stefan, sorry, -“
“That’s alright, I - I get it all the time.” He had forgotten. Stefan shrank into himself.
“Sorry about the chaos, we just moved in Monday.”
“I - I know you did, you told me last time. Yesterday. You told me. ‘A whole team for graphics, another for sound, for gameplay’, you said.” He complimented his statement with finger-quotations, brow furrowed. Watched as confusion, disbelief flooded Tucker’s features - just as it had his dad’s at breakfast.
Continued watching, as the older man’s face broke out into a toothy grin, eyes crinkling at the corners. He laughed, loudly, confidently, and clapped Stefan on the shoulder.
“Bloody hell, don’t do that to me, kid,” he was still laughing, might have even wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. Stefan’s mind was preoccupied, “What, are you in contact with someone here? Bet it’s Colin, the madman. Spilling all our company secrets.”
Stefan caught sight of the ‘METL HEDD’ poster, gracing the building’s wall. It was in the same place as yesterday.
“Colin Ritman?” He whispered, as if it was a secret.
As if someone hearing him say it meant that Colin would end up on a storage unit, drowned in red.
Tucker hummed, still grinning, “That’s him over there,” he said, pointing to the platinum-blond boy sat with his feet up on the desk, hand outstretched to type nonchalantly at the keyboard in front of him.
If he needed proof that Colin was still alive - that his suicide was just a dream, a nightmare - Stefan couldn’t have asked for anything more. He felt his breath catch in his throat, almost painfully.
“Bet you’ve played loads of his games, right? Let’s say hello.”
Stefan had already started walking over. Reached Colin’s chair before Tucker could, stood expectantly. Waited.
“What’s this, Kajagoogoo?” Tucker’s voice rang out, pulling one of Colin’s headphones back to shout in his ear. Colin didn’t look to him, neither did Stefan. Their eyes were trained on one another.
“Have I met you before?”
Same voice. Same roll-up hanging from the corner of his lips. Stefan thinks he could have cried.
“I - I don’t know. Maybe.”
“State of him,” Tucker was speaking again, “he’s made enough this year to buy a Lamborghini, and he still smokes roll-ups.”
“Yeah,” Colin muttered, breaking eye contact with Stefan to look back up at Tucker briefly, before turning to the screen in front of him, “Well, pre-rolled has strychnine in them, so, the joke’s on him.”
Stefan allowed himself to smile. He’d heard that before. This was the Colin that he knew; it must be.
Maybe he’d know what was happening, why the days seemed to have melded into one, never-ending and infinite. Repetitive. Monotone.
“Anyway,” Tucker cut in again, still standing to the side of Colin’s chair, “This is Stefan - uh,”
“Butler,” he finished, too quickly, embarrassing, “Butler.”He held out a hand for Colin to take, skin itching at the implication of contact. The blond boy eyed him for a minute, pushed up his glasses. Took ahold of Stefan’s hand awkwardly, uncomfortably.
“I’m Colin, yeah?” Something in the way he looked at Stefan seemed to add, ‘but of course, you already know that’. Colin let go of his hand, and turned back to the screen.
Stefan didn’t need to tell Colin that he’d played all of his games, except the Commodore ones, because he didn’t own a Commodore. There was no need for him to explain any of that; Colin already knew. He knew. They’d had this conversation before, this whole interaction before, and he could tell, somehow, something screamed at him that Colin remembered it too. Tucker didn’t, he wasn’t awake, or important enough to. But Colin did.That became everything that mattered. The only aspect of Stefan’s life of even minor importance. Colin could help him. He understood.

“This is my latest,” Colin murmured, breaking the almost uncomfortable silence that’d begun to spread throughout the three. He pressed a key on the board, and Stefan watched as the screen lit up with a scratchy, winding font spelling out the word, ‘Nohzdyve’, the screen framed on either side with pixellated brick walls. Of course, he’d seen it before. Colin had shown him Nohzdyve hundreds of times by now, surely. The game would run, the sprite, controlled by its creator, would free-fall for several seconds, until the game crashed.

He leant back, squeezing his eyes shut, willing his mind to push away the images of Colin’s body in the air, on the unit, that plagued his vision. Only, the darkness of his mind once his eyes were shut seemed to emphasise the images, they liked the dark, it brought out the vibrance of the red, the brightness of the white shirt, increased the volume of the sound of Colin’s body smashing onto the container’s roof.
Tried to will away the bile rising in the back of his throat, the coiling of his belly, the tremble of his hands.

“Alright, mate? It’s not that exciting,” Colin’s voice sliced through the darkness, shattered the images in his mind. Grounding. Safe.
Stefan opened his eyes, realised that Colin hadn’t even started up the game yet. It was still on the loading screen, the colours too bright, the walls too pronounced. He held the attention of both Colin and Tucker, Colin’s expression one of curiosity and worry.
“I’m - I just, I - yeah, never mind.” He thought it better to remain quiet, passive. If Tucker wasn’t aware of what was happening, that means Colin chose not to make him aware. If Colin chose to keep quiet, then Stefan would follow.
The blond boy nodded, mumbled a quiet, “Right,” and turned back to the monitor. ‘Nohzdyve’ started up, the sprite falling through the washing lines strung up across the screen, Colin’s fingers controlling it all effortlessly. Stefan pressed forwards, closer to the screen, chest against the back of Colin’s chair, against his right shoulder.
Until, of course, the screen whited out to an offensive tone. Colin leant forward in his seat - the most attention he’d paid anything so far - and began faffing with the keyboard.
“Oh, bollocks.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s - “
“ - it’s a buffer error,” Stefan interrupted, desperate for Colin to recognise, to realise that he remembered too, “the, uh, eyeballs have overrun the video memory.”
Colin watched Stefan intently, eyes narrowing and widening as he spoke. Lips twitching up into a one-sided smile, sly, and knowing.
“Yeah, it’s exactly that.”

The demo was uneventful - of course it was. Stefan hadn’t worked on the game since the first demo, and even if he had, those pathways were seemingly ignored by whatever universe he and Colin were existing in. Everything ran the same; Tucker’s comparison to The Hobbit, but with no typing (“so no, ‘get lamp’ or whatever?”), Colin’s endless fidgeting with the rubber band ball. There was a difference, though, and it set Stefan’s heart racing.
They encountered Pax.
“Well, don’t worship him,” Colin stated from the back of the table. Stefan turned to him, grinning.
“I - yeah. You shouldn’t worship him. He’s a demon, the Thief of Destiny, in the book.”
Colin slid his hand over the cover of Stefan’s copy of Bandersnatch, and picked it up carefully, as if it might break. As if he knew, and understood, how precious it was to Stefan.
“Got a copy of this at home. Never got around to reading it.” He said, perhaps to himself, perhaps to Stefan. He ran his finger down the spine, skimmed through the pages. Stefan swallowed.
“Well, you - you should. Jerome F. Davies was a genius.”
“Didn’t he go bonkers and cut his wife’s head off?” Colin looked pensive now, thoughtful. Stefan thought of Kitty.
“Well, yeah, but - I mean, apart from that,” he began, but stopped himself as Tucker leant across the desk, taking the joystick from his hand with a too-loud “Excuse me.”.
He, of course, selected ‘worship him’, and the game cut out. Stefan explained again, that he hadn’t programmed that pathway yet.
Acted surprised at Tucker’s job proposal.
Still turned it down anyway.
“At home, on your own?” Tucker sounded incredulous, shocked. He mustn’t have expected that response.
“Y - yeah, it’s just that, it’s all in my head, and I think if I let other people in, it’ll just get, I don’t know, stressy?”
Colin began to twang rubber bands on the edge of the ball. He’d looked away from Stefan now, seemingly content.
“‘Stressy.’” Tucker seemed to be bordering on angry.
“But I know that I can do it proper justice. The book. You know, divergent story paths. Parallel realities.” Is he rambling?
“It’s still a game though, yeah?”
“I get it,” Colin pipes in. Quiet, confident, “The lad’s a craftsman. He’s a lone woodsman. I’m the same.” And he looked to Stefan again, smiling.
Did he just wink?
“Yeah, but - “ Tucker’s protest went ignored.
“ - It’s like I say. Teams are fine for things like action titles, but when it’s a concept piece,” he pointed at Stefan, “bit of madness is what you need, and that works best when it’s one mind.” The rubber band ball was pressed against his temple, eyes trained on the younger boy.
“Alright, Timothy Leary, we’ll debate the doors of perception later - “
“That was Huxley not Leary.” Stefan could hear the irritation ebbing into Colin’s voice, watched as he twanged a rubber band particularly loudly.
“Look, if you’re going to write this on your tod, the important thing is putting out out for Christmas, so I’ll need finished code by 12th of September.”
“Ok, sure.” Uncertain.
“But no later,” Tucker adds as an afterthought, a warning. He held out a hand across the table.
Stefan took it.

“What do you listen to?”
Stefan had followed Colin out of the conference room, right back to his desk. He stood, fidgeting and awkward, as Colin regarded him from the swivel-chair.
“Hmm?”
“To get into the flow.”
“Oh, music.” What an idiot, of course he was talking about music. What else could it have been?
Colin sat, nodding. Expectant.
“Uh, Thompson Twins?”
“The other times I asked, it was ‘compilations’. You’ve changed your preference.” Cool, composed. He’d been waiting for this.
Stefan stood gaping at Colin for a while, eyes wide, lips parted. He fell to his knees by the blond boy’s desk, staring down at the floor, at his own hands, then back up at Colin.
“You know,” he began, not quite knowing how to continue, “You know, it - it - what is it? I don’t understand,” Stefan mumbled, and he could feel the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.
“On your feet, mate. C’mon,” Colin’s hand was on his shoulder, voice heavy, and dreamy, in his ears. He ushered Stefan to his feet, glancing around the office to find that no one had noticed the younger boy’s realisation.
“But you know, you must, you have to know,” Stefan continued, all but delirious, clinging onto Colin’s arm as though he was the only thing keeping him up, as if his legs would buckle beneath him if they weren’t touching one another.
“I know,” was his reply, curt, but it was all Stefan needed. Colin’s eyes were still on him as his hand slid down from Stefan’s shoulder to the small of his back, pushing him forward gently. He turned back for a moment, slid the tattered satchel onto his shoulder, and continued guiding Stefan out of the office.Tucker didn’t seem to notice them leaving, or, if he did, he didn’t seem to care.

“This isn’t - you’re changing it,” Stefan breathed as the reached the bottom of the stairs, regaining his stability. He’d stopped a few steps behind Colin, and watched as the older boy turned back around to face him, satchel still over his shoulder.
“Yes,” he said, and Stefan thought that might have been his whole reply, but then Colin spoke again - “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. We can try other things now that we’re both conscious.”
“Other things,” Stefan repeated, eyeing Colin warily. He didn’t take the few steps forward, maintaining the gap between the two, and watched as the blond boy fidgeted with the strap of his satchel, “What have we tried already?”.
Colin narrowed his eyes, taking one step forward. Stefan took one back.
“You tell me. What do you remember?”
Only, Stefan didn’t want to remember. Didn’t want to explain how the images of the body on the rooftop kept him up at night, how he yearned to reverse something that hadn’t ever happened.
“Did you jump?”
“What?”
“My balcony. Did you jump?”
“I -”, Stefan started, allowed Colin to bridge the gap. Let him stand opposite him, stood, passive, as the older boy reached forward to gently hold Stefan’s arm, as if he was afraid he’d run away - as a mother would hold her child. “No, you did. I watched you go.”
The grip on his arm tightened a little, though it wasn’t painful, nor restricting. Colin’s hand on him was comforting, reassuring. Pleasant.
“Sorry you had to watch that. Had to try everything, I guess.” Was his reply, and then Stefan was being tugged forward again, trailing just behind his idol. Colin’s words swirled around in his already-too-busy mind, disruptive, confusing.
“Where are we going?” He asked, slowing his pace until Colin was forced to stop alongside him. A look of realisation flashed over his features.
“Ah, I assume my flat wouldn’t be ideal, given certain circumstances. I don’t know, Stefan. Where do you want to go?”
‘Certain circumstances’, which implied that Colin thought Stefan might have gone berserk if in close proximity to the balcony again.
‘Certain circumstances’, which clearly implied that Colin expected him to go to his flat again. Probably expected him to take LSD again, expected them to end up on the balcony.
Stefan shook his head, as if it would somehow clear his thoughts - as if they’d fly out of his ears and scatter on the ground. Colin squeezed his arm again.
“Yeah - uh, my dad’s at work, I think.”
“He isn’t, I’ve been round to your house at this time before. He’s making something in the kitchen, something with mince. Spag bol or something, I don’t know.”
Stefan couldn’t help but grin.
“How do you know that?”
“He had mince juice on his hands when he opened the door,” and then he paused, “Clean your doorknob.”
And then Stefan was laughing, uncertainly at first and then uncontrollably, buckled over at the waist. He felt Colin throw an arm around his shoulders to steady him as he straightened back up, felt the reverberations in his chest as he laughed, too.
“Y’know, I feel like I’ve known you for a lifetime now, and that was the first time I’ve seen you laugh. Properly, anyway.”
Colin was so close. Stefan could feel the warmth of his breath as he spoke, and he found himself trying to push impossibly closer into the older boy’s side. He didn’t seem to mind.
They walked for longer than Stefan could keep track of, aimless and ambling in whichever direction seemed to take their fancy. Like this, side by side, Colin’s arm bracketing Stefan’s shoulders, everything felt right. Balanced.
As it was supposed to be.
Like this, it felt as though they were in control. As though the universe would keep ticking, the Earth would still rotate instead of freezing, and jumping back on itself.
They ended up splayed out across the grass of an embankment in a park that was, conveniently, not too far from the Tuckersoft building. Stefan, from his position laying on his side, knee hooked over Colin’s leg, gazed up at the older boy as he rambled on about parallel universes, alternate timelines and Pac-Man. It didn’t surprise him when a joint was produced from - God knows where - and lifted, already lit, to his lips.
“How about I climb through your window?” Colin turned to him, grinning lazily.
“Predictable,” Stefan wondered how long the joint had been lit, how much Colin had smoked already, “Or I could just, you know, tell my dad I’ve brought a friend over.”
“Confident,” he’d shut his eyes now, eyebrows raised, dumb smile plastered on his face, “I like your style.”

The walk back to Stefan’s house was longer than the walk to the park. The two spent most of it in a comfortable silence, with the occasional giggle from one of them spurring on complete fits of laughter, followed by a chorus of, ‘Colin, I feel like I’m flying’, ‘I’m so light’, ‘what if I float away?’ from a slightly confused Stefan.
The blond boy trailed behind Stefan up to the house, hovered by his shoulder as he knocked on his own front door. Surely enough, the door swung open to reveal Stefan’s dad - mince juice and all.
“Stefan? Have you lost your key?”
“No, hi, dad, hello, I’ve brought a friend over - he’ll help me with the game, I turned down their offer, so I’m doing it all at home, on my own, but now Colin’s here to help me, so I’m not on my own really, so it’ll all be okay.” He rattled off, seemingly pleased with his introduction. The stupid grin was back on his face.
“Stefan’s a little overwhelmed with the prospect of working for us, I think,” explained Colin, because of course, his tolerance was higher, and he wasn’t off in the clouds like the younger boy was.
“No, yeah, of course,” Stefan’s dad offered, holding out a hand for Colin to take. Perhaps it was the weed, or the way Stefan turned his head and forced himself to cough to shield the laughter, but Colin took the hand, and shook it firmly.
“M’Colin, I think he said.” Colin added, nodding at Stefan with his head, successfully masking the cringe that racked his body at the contact with the mince juice.
“Ah, yes, the Colin. I’m Peter, won’t make you refer to me as ‘Stefan’s dad’. He’s said a lot about you.” There was a smile on Peter’s face, as if he was happy that his son was finally socialising, even if it was with his boss of sorts, it was still someone.
“I’m sure he has,” Colin added, smart, cocking an eyebrow at Stefan, who just snickered again.
“We’ll - I’ll - no, we’ll see you later dad,” Stefan finally cut in, sliding past his dad and through the doorway, bee-lining for the stairs. Colin followed shortly after, patting Peter on the back as he passed, successfully wiping most of the mince juice off of himself.

They were at the top of the stairs, then in Stefan’s room, before either of the two spoke again.
“You’re blatantly obvious,” it was Colin, the smart arse, of course it was. Stefan hummed, blissful, falling backwards onto his bed.
“C’mon then, show me Bandersnatch.”
“You’ve already seen it, boot it up yourself,” he mumbled, curling onto his side. Colin moved over to Stefan’s desk, admiring the maze of paperwork on the walls, up his wardrobe, and - Jesus - did it continue up onto the ceiling?
He did as Stefan said - booted up his PC, began to run Bandersnatch. Scanned over the code, and the written pathways on the paper pinned to the walls.
“You’re giving them too much choice, Stef,” he began, half accepting the fact that Stefan might have fallen asleep before he started talking, “Why don’t we take some choices out? Give the player the illusion of free will, but really, most of their choices don’t make a difference.”
“Sounds like us.” He sounded hazy, half-asleep.
“Sure, but we’re controlling ourselves, yeah?”
“How can you be certain?”
“I can’t. I just am,” Colin replied, and Stefan believed him.

Stefan thinks he awoke to his dad’s voice shouting from downstairs (something about tea being ready, he thinks), though it could have been Colin’s hair on his arm from where he’d fallen asleep, half on the computer chair, half sprawled over the bed. He couldn’t help but smile at how typically domestic it all was, after the chaos he faced this morning.
“Stefan, tea!” Came the voice from downstairs again - it must have been his dad, then.
“Coming!” He replied, sounding more feeble than he would have hoped. Colin jolted awake at that, groaning and rubbing his face.
“You’re a bad influence on me, I never sleep during the day.”
“You do now,” Stefan’s reply was quick, and he resisted the urge to run his hand through Colin’s hair, “Won’t be a minute.”

His dad was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for him, holding a bowl of spaghetti bolognese in each hand.“Thought, uh, Colin might have been hungry too,” he said, smile genuine, and happy on his face. Stefan took the bowls, could smell the meaty richness of the sauce from his hands.
“Yeah, I - he probably is,” Stefan replied, meeting his dad’s eyes and returning the smile, “Thanks, dad.”
“I’m glad you’re happy,” he added, as an afterthought, as he watched Stefan trail back up the stairs.

Colin had stretched himself out on the bed when Stefan came back into the room, still marvelling at the papers taped to the wall and the roof. The younger boy pressed a bowl into his side, and he took it with a quiet, “Cheers.”
They ate in silence, though it wasn’t uncomfortable. Colin knocked his knee against Stefan’s, who in turn allowed his legs to fall open. He didn’t know why. It just felt natural.
“Feel like I’m a kid again, y’know, sleeping over at a pal’s house.” Colin mused, eyes shut, head titled upwards as if he was still eyeing up the ceiling. Stefan narrowed his eyes, as if the other boy would somehow see it through his eyelids.
“What, you’re staying over?”
Colin’s eyes fell open, half-lidded and lazy. He shrugged, rolled his shoulders, and inhaled deeply.
“Dunno, am I?”
Stefan thinks that that answer would have annoyed him if it had come from anyone else. He’d feel spotlighted, cautious of making the wrong choice. With Colin, he believed that there wasn’t a wrong choice. Anything was worth trying; he just needed confirmation.
“Sure, I mean, if you want to,” he paused, reevaluating what he’d said, “I mean - if you think it’ll change anything.”
“It could,” he answered, smiling softly at Stefan, “It’s worth a try, I think.”
“I - I can - I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“I don’t bite. Not too sure about you, though.” And Colin winked again - Stefan wished he’d stop doing that, it made his stomach twinge in a foreign, uncomfortable way. He opened his mouth to reply, but the blond boy just held a hand up, adamant that he’d continue unprompted anyway.
“You killed your dad in one timeline - quite a few, actually. Killed me once, too.”
Stefan moved their bowls onto the floor, and shuffled up to lay alongside Colin on the bed. As if prompted by some external force, they turned onto their sides to face each other.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Stefan reasoned, eyes on the duvet, the window - anywhere but Colin’s. After a minute, there was a finger under his chin, tipping his head up, and Stefan’s stomach flipped again.
“I know,” Colin murmured, thumb stroking over Stefan’s cheekbone now, “But you did, so we gotta watch out for that.”
“How’d I do it?”
“You were gonna stab me, I think. Got you to hit me over head,” he pushed himself up on the bed, pointed at the trophy on Stefan’s desk, “With that, instead.”
Stefan eyed his desk warily and swallowed the lump in the back of his throat. He found it hard to believe that somewhere else - in another universe, perhaps - he’d grown so paranoid and peculiar that he’d lost it completely. He could never imagine killing Colin, let alone his own father - no matter how much of a tendency he had to frustrate him.
“Don’t think about it,” Colin’s hand was back on his face, the other trailing through his hair to rest at the base of his neck, “This is a different timeline. Completely different.”
“Yeah,” was all Stefan could muster, allowing himself to be bathed in warmth and affection.

If he felt Colin kiss his forehead before he fell asleep, neither of them mentioned it.

Stefan awoke the next morning to the same repetitive alarm as usual. This day was different though - he could tell, he could feel it.
More importantly, he could feel Colin, still next to him in bed. He’d been pulled closer to the older boy’s chest, with his head resting snugly under Colin’s chin.
“Oh, fucks sake,” the older boy groaned as Stefan tried to pull away from him to dim the alarm. Eventually, he let him go and resorted to pulling the duvet up over his face instead, still complaining as Stefan shut the alarm off.
“Sorry, forgot I had it set,” the younger boy murmured, joining Colin under the duvet, “It’s another day. We’ve gone forward.”
“Fuck me,” Stefan noticed how different Colin looked without his glasses, noticed the strange, inexplicable attraction to him that had bloomed in his chest over the past day and a half, noticed the way Colin was looking at him, “Was beginning to think that’d never happen.”
And Stefan didn’t know what it was that compelled him to lean forward, pressing his lips to Colin’s, but he was glad that he did. Colin snaked his arms around Stefan’s waist, returning the kiss slowly, languidly.
Somehow, he knew that things would be okay from now on. He knew that they’d get Bandersnatch finished, that it’d get a five-star rating. If Colin was working on it with him, it would have to.

Stefan told himself that everything would be okay, that it had to be okay. He whispered it to himself on his way down to the garden, as he buried the trophy in the tulip bed. Chanted it like a mantra in his head as he hugged his dad, told him he loved him, that he understood why he took Rabbit the morning of his mother’s death.
Listened as Colin cooed it to him as he cried, entangled in his arms.
And for the first time in a long time, Stefan believed it.