Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There is a part of Oliver Banks that does not quite regret the things that he is doing when he meets Graham Folger for the first time. He would be lying if he said there wasn’t anything, but that anything is mostly the awkwardness that always comes from first encounters. 

(He does not lie about his first name, or his last, which is a feat considering it’s something that is about to become slightly habitual.)

And he knows, he can feel it deep down, welling somewhere underneath his heart and hidden behind slightly self-conscious laughter, that this probably won’t end well for either of them. It usually doesn’t, most relationships don’t (though this is not a relationship yet. Just the beginning of one that could end in the next three days or twenty years in the future), but Oliver can’t exactly bring himself to care. For whatever reason, the apprehension just doesn’t stick. 

How could it, really? Graham is oddly enchanting in his own nervous way, fidgeting with his hands and head constantly tilted to one side as if it feels heavy, whether from tiredness or actively trying to show that he’s listening and paying attention to whoever he’s talking to. Or maybe it’s just that he’s just uncomfortable with eye contact. No real reason to ask. But they talk, learning about each others’ lives until Anahita comes back, sitting between the two of them, and they lose track of what they’re going to say to each other.

They do exchange phone numbers at the end of the night though, standing outside Anahita’s apartment building, smiling as the cold winter wind bites at their skin. As he leaves, noting that they’re walking in opposite directions, Oliver takes a moment to push down the slight—though it isn’t all that slight, not really—burst of confused emotions that have taken root in his chest. 

When he gets back to his flat, Oliver puts the little slip of paper right next to his phone, not thinking too hard about how all his other numbers have always gone in the drawer below.

The second time they meet is because of Anahita again, only a few days later before either had the thought to call. Bitter wind blowing through the street when they catch each other outside the door of her building once again, and the smile that Graham gives Oliver before the door opens is cute. Alarmingly so, though it isn’t like that was his fault. 

It doesn’t last too long though, saved when Ana opens the door and waves them inside. Oliver doesn’t want to consider the implications of that, the way he wanted to reach out and take the other’s hand, bring him closer and just… relish in a strange feeling of fondness. 

As Anahita talks, shaking her hands up and down the more excited she gets, Oliver gets distracted, watching the way that Graham seems to respond to her excitement in a similar manner, leaning over, leg bouncing up and down. There’s another pang of all those confused, twisting emotions that he doesn’t have the time to care about or deal with (and, eventually, will wish he had sooner), but he pushes them down and tries to tune into the conversation again. 

It’s quite dark on the balcony, but Graham is out there anyway, watching the street as he pulls out a cigarette. He doesn’t light it immediately, and Oliver decides he might as well go outside since Ana won’t be back anytime soon. 

Graham jumps when the door slides open, turning around to see who might be coming out, now that the sun is down and the chill is something that sinks in past their skin, right down to the bone. His shoulders relax though, once he sees who it is, and he gives Oliver a small wave. It’s the first time Oliver has seen Graham so still, face illuminated by the streetlights outside as he stares up at the dark sky. Only three hours have passed since they got there, but stars have already started to come out. 

He’s… pretty. Something about how soft he looked at the moment, cheeks and nose tinged pink as he shivers and crosses his arms against the wind. Oliver wants to reach out, hold him, or give him his jacket at least. But that’s too intimate, far too intimate, for people who just met less than a week prior, and he doesn’t want to screw it up.

So he asks a question instead. “You going to light that?”

“Hm?” Graham turns, brain catching up before Oliver can repeat himself. “Oh, I tend not to around other people. Feels rude? This is just a habit.”

They talk for a while, getting more and more comfortable with each other, right up until the cold drives them back inside and they find Anahita waiting for them with a soft smile on her face. Oliver can’t tell if this was intended or not, making a new friend, but he doesn’t mind that she did it. Not enough to point it out, at least. 

It’s with a bit of a sad smile that he checks the clock and realizes he has to leave, giving Ana a kiss on the cheek and Graham a wave before he heads out the door. 

What he doesn’t see is just how long that pink flush stays on Graham’s cheeks, the way he paces his flat for hours after he gets home wondering whether or not he should give Oliver a call the next day. Of course, it wouldn’t be a problem if he did, but there’s always an amount of uncertainty that comes with beginning to fall for someone he’d just started to consider being a friend. 

To be fair, it wasn’t as if Graham slept much anyway. Oliver just gave him fluttery feelings that he didn’t know quite what to do with. Or if he should attempt to start anything at all. Wouldn’t be the first time either of them had mistaken strong platonic feelings for romantic ones or vice versa.

A part of him just hoped that no one had noticed him staring at Oliver with softness in his eyes and a warmth in his chest when they’d talked alone last night. Anahita had teased, but… well, teasing was just teasing. Hopefully. He didn’t want to deal with the sort of questions that came from someone noticing something like that.

It takes almost three years for Oliver to figure out what that confusing bundle of emotions had meant, and even longer for him to say anything about it. Which… he’s planning on doing that night when they’re chilling together again for what seems like the first time in months (it’s been a week or two at most). They’re at his place, this time, which hopefully will ease some of the anxiety. 

He can count on his fingers the number of times he’s had an “oh” moment while talking to or looking at Graham, and it’s embarrassingly high even with only ten spots to take up. That smile outside Ana’s door, the first laugh when Oliver had told a joke, the first time he saw Graham well and truly excited. Those and a few more, but they’re the ones that stand out the most at the moment. 

There are a few knocks on the door, and he rushes to open it. Pausing before he does, just to calm down a bit, collect his thoughts.

Graham lights up the moment he sees Oliver, and fuck, that’s one of the things about him that makes Oliver love him even more. Quietly, sure. But it does mean a lot that someone is so excited to see him. More than endearing, it’s… special. So very special.

It’s not as though they have a routine, per-say, it’s just that it’s an unofficial one. Graham comes in and bumps his shoulder into Oliver’s—oddly gentle, though he doesn’t need to be—before they’ve made it into the kitchen to make tea. Along the way, someone picks up the cat, and then the rest of the night goes naturally. 

There’s a domestic feeling to it, something that’s theirs, that Oliver wouldn’t trade for the world. 

Graham has Minnie this time (he’d snorted at the name when he’d first heard it), keeping her close to his chest while she purrs loud enough Oliver can hear it clearly from across the kitchen as he goes through his tea box while the kettle boils. They’ve done this what feels like a thousand times, and it’s never gotten tiring. 

He doesn’t expect Graham to come up beside him and lean against the counter with a slightly concerned tone to his voice. “I could hear you thinking from back there, is everything alright?” 

“Uh,” Oliver pauses, looking over to him. “I’ll tell you later, I promise.”

Thankfully, Graham doesn’t push it. Instead choosing to hold out Minnie so Oliver can give her a pat on the head before the kettle boils and a new distraction is put in place.

Oliver thinks about his decision to confess how he feels all throughout the show that he is supposed to be watching with Graham. Trying to ignore the fact that they’ve been sitting closer lately than they were before. He can tell that Graham is watching him too, trying to subtly give him more space (which he is grateful for).

Eventually, the show just gets muted, Graham turning to face him. “Is now ‘later’ yet? Or do you need more time?”

Oliver looks over at him and stays quiet for a long time. There’s rain coming down against the window in the dark, faint and comforting, but no amount of waiting will make Graham try and fill the silence, so there isn’t much of a point beating around the bush, is there?

“I think I like you, in a romantic sense.”

There’s another stretch of silence, and Graham seems to be trying to figure out whether or not that was a joke. Something to try and dissuade him from asking again that night. 

“What?—”

That makes Oliver wince. “I’m not kidding before you ask. Just give me a moment to explain before you ask any more questions, please?”

The silence that follows must be his response, a hand covering his mouth, eyes open wide.

“Right,” Oliver rubs his eyes. “I can’t get you out of my head. I’ve felt like this since the second time we saw each other and you smiled at me outside Anahita’s flat all that time ago. You’re just… perfect? And I hope you know that I am being completely serious when I say that. It’s not every day you meet someone who takes up most of your thoughts, and I just thought that you should know, considering… y’know.”

It takes what feels like hours for Graham to even take his hand away from his mouth, let alone have a response. Doing the same little motions he always does when he gets nervous. “Are you joking?”

“Swear that I’m not.”

“You promise?”

“I do.”

It wouldn’t feel as unbearable if Graham would just look at Oliver, he suspects it wouldn’t be anyway, but he’s staring at his hands and there’s not much to do about it but wait. The hair tugging isn’t super concerning but… it’s still concerning. 

The way that Graham inhales, holds his breath and then starts to nod puts Oliver on edge. It’s far too similar to rejection, and he would’ve said it was just a joke if not for the question of confirmation, that little reassurance that was asked of him. 

“I think I might love you too? You’ve just… fit into my life in a way that I never expected someone could. Taken up a space in my brain that makes me think about you whenever I have just… a spare moment. Fuck, just—” Graham pauses, holding out a hand, eyes darting over Oliver’s face like there’s something there that will help him voice what he’s feeling, “—just… you’re special and you’re you and I like you. A whole lot.”

Oliver takes Graham’s hand, to steady himself more than anything else. A mix of uncertainty and shock and delight courses through his veins and it’s just so vivid. Like he hasn’t been alive in years, like this was a turning point. Like there’s no possible way they could try and pretend this never happened, mostly because there really isn’t. 

Graham shifts closer, smiling softly at him, sheepish and nervous in a way that might make this another stupid “oh” moment. Everything feels sort of slow and dreamlike, and then there’s a hand on his cheek, just barely touching, and he can hear a voice.

“Hey, can I…? I mean, would you mind…?” Graham’s voice is so quiet, and Oliver’s head is swimmy. When he nods and Graham tucks his face to the crook of Oliver’s neck, drags him down, and all of that anxiety drops, he’s downright euphoric. 

There’s something about this moment that feels… right, and it isn’t long before Graham is crushed underneath Oliver on the couch. Not talking, they didn’t need to talk yet, but from where Oliver’s head was resting on his chest, he could hear Graham’s heart beating ridiculously fast.

It’s nice. More than nice. And when he finally does have to leave, it’s not without five minutes trying to just say goodbye at the door.

The next day, Anahita invites them both over, and the awkward tension in the air is so obvious that even she sees it clear as day. Thankfully not bringing it up.

She does, however, try to find ways to leave them alone over and over again, pushing them both out onto her balcony while she takes a call. It’s not that Oliver minds , but he’d rather that her involvement was more… low-key, to say the least. 

“So,” He says, leaning against the railing. “Do you think she knows or do you think that she thinks we had a fight?”

Graham’s soft laugh that he gets in response is enough to make his heart flutter. “I think she just wants us to talk and work out whatever she thinks it might be. Which is a good idea regardless.”

Oliver hums at that, arms crossed against his chest as he looks out over the pavement that looks like bricks, wet from the light rain. There’s a lot for them to talk about, almost too much, and they would have last night (probably, maybe) if they hadn’t gotten so caught up in the thrill of having feelings returned in such a positive way.

“I do… feel the same way, promise—” Graham starts, only to get interrupted.

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t think you’d have thrown yourself at me the first time I said I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t.” 

Graham looks up at him with a mortified look on his face, and, before he can say anything in retaliation, Ana opens the door and asks if they want to come back inside. To be fair it was getting quite wet out, probably going to get cold incredibly quickly, so they do. 

As soon as her back is turned, Graham gives an exasperated sigh that Oliver would mistake for him being genuinely mad, if not for the fact that his face is red and they bump shoulders—gentle, as always—before going back through the door.

Something Oliver doesn’t notice, that he’ll wish he did later on down the line, is the way that Graham looks over his shoulder at the buildings opposite them as if he saw something. Whether inside or on the street—or maybe up above, on one of the roofs—is unclear.

It’ll be obvious in hindsight that there were a lot of moments when Graham acted paranoid (or maybe like he needed to know something?) even before they actually owned that damn table.

It’s Graham that leaves early that night, saying goodnight before he shuts the door, eyes lingering on Oliver for a moment like he wants to say something. But he doesn’t, and, after the door shuts, he pretends not to notice there aren’t any footsteps for a good while. 

He and Anahita talk for a while before she finally asks what happened between them in the week between their two visits. And, well…

There isn’t a bad answer to this. If he wanted to he could just say nothing happened or that they fought or something else. He could say that he didn’t want to talk, lie and hope she didn’t notice (she always did). It isn’t expected either, or it shouldn’t be anyway. While they were friends, Oliver hasn’t had a partner in years. She’s never met anyone he liked before.

He lets out a sigh, resting his head on her shoulder, “I told Graham I was in love with him last night, and he said he felt the same, and then we kind of… cuddled on my couch for an hour before he had to go home.”

The silence that comes before Ana says anything feels like it stretches on for hours, and Oliver is wondering if he should just say he was kidding until—

“I thought you two were already dating?”

“What?”

“Like,” she sighs, collecting her thoughts, “You and Graham call Minnie ‘our kid’ and gaze at each other all lovingly across the room when you think no one is looking and sit closer together than you do with anyone else.”

Oliver doesn’t speak for a while, staring at the coffee table and just trying to process while Ana teases him.

“Why don’t you spend the night?”

Oliver looks up to where Graham is standing, in front of the sink and doing the dishes (he would have helped if Graham hadn’t insisted on doing it alone and tried to make his reason as vague as possible). He’s purposely not looking anywhere but the sink, and there’s the faintest blush sitting high on his cheeks. 

Neither of them have stayed at the other’s flat, not since a few months ago, before their relationship had started. There would be no harm… it’s Friday after all. Oliver leans forward a bit from where he’s sat at the counter, “Yeah, I’d love to, if you’re sure.”

“I am sure! It’s just- It’s late, is all, and you have things here already,” A pause. “And it’s not like you haven’t done it before. I like having you around and getting to sleep next to you, love.” Graham smiles, just enough that he can see from where he sits.

So he gets up and goes over, burying his face in the crook of Graham’s neck while he wraps him up in a hug from behind. He doesn’t miss the small jump (or the immediate relaxation afterwards), but it’s probably nothing. Probably. 

They stand there for a while, just breathing and taking in the comfortable silence until Oliver has to stand up straight because his back is starting to hurt and Graham takes that opportunity to go back to doing the dishes. Checking over them once more, then again, then again, just to make sure that there was nothing else there.

Oliver doesn’t say anything. Better to observe and see the consistencies than to interrupt and throw him off. Whether or not Graham knows he’s noticed is debatable. Besides, it’s not as if it’s hurting either of them.

For almost the entire night Graham lies awake, and he makes sure that Oliver won’t know it. Perfectly still as he listens to quiet, slow, gentle breathing in the dark, moonlight shining in through a gap in the curtains and spilling over the sheets just enough that he can actually see. It’s nice, normally it would be enough to lull him to sleep, but there’s just something slightly different about Oliver sleeping next to him as his boyfriend.

Everything about him is overwhelmingly warm and it would be nice to press closer if it weren’t for the fact that that was… slightly anxiety provoking. 

And… he’s being careful, maybe overly so, when he reaches out and takes one of Oliver’s hands in his own, intertwining their fingers. So gentle and so quiet and so aware of everything around them. Only really notices that he isn’t breathing until a few moments after when he’s sure that everything is fine, and even then it’s a bit of a struggle to make his heart go back down to normal.

Graham presses his face to Oliver’s shoulder, takes a deep breath, and very slowly starts to fall asleep.

He doesn’t realize that Oliver is good at faking sleep until a lot later in their relationship.

Light filters through the gap in the curtains the next morning, right over Oliver’s eyes. It’s with a small groan that he turns over, an arm covering his eyes. Fingertips brush his shoulder, and then there’s Graham, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of his neck. 

“Good morning,” Graham sounds sleepy, there’s a part of Oliver that wants to stay in this moment forever. Capture it and never let it go. Have that voice tucked away in the back of a drawer (he will, eventually, but he won’t ever bring it out. There will be a part of him that feels like it would be wrong somehow. Different in a way he can’t quite put his finger on.

He will know that the feeling is ridiculous, and try to excuse it by saying it’s creepy to go through old recordings of people he once loved—still does love—even though he had done just that with different exes, at different times, in different places).

But since he can’t do that, he’ll capture Graham now instead. Rolling over and pulling Graham to his chest, holding him, almost squishing him. The laugh that he receives is relaxed and happy, and slightly less muffled as Graham starts to squirm.

“No, no, stay. If you leave the bed then I have to leave the bed.”

Graham tries to push Oliver away, but the attempt is half-assed at best, “I did leave the bed already, dickhead. Please let me go?”

“You can handle another minute or two,” Oliver is already loosening his grip. “You love me!”

“I do…” The softness in his voice makes Oliver’s heart ache, and he pretends to tuck a strand of hair behind Graham’s ear. Not saying anything, just taking in the sight before him. 

It isn’t as quiet as they’d like it to be, but the window is shut and there are blankets aplenty on Graham’s bed helping to absorb the noise (and weigh them down). A safe place. 

It’s impossible not to see some days where Graham is extra jumpy. Where he writes something down, crosses it out, and then writes the same thing again until he stops. Where he looks out the window when there’s noise out on the street. Hides knives in the back of cupboards, always near the floor where they won’t fall. Where he looks at Oliver with guilt in his eyes and has to take a moment to go back to normal.

He had talked a little bit about it a few months into their relationship, called it a “fucked brain problem” and said it got worse at times and became too hard to ignore. The vagueness wasn’t the most comforting, there was obviously more to it, but what was Oliver really going to say?

It gets worse after Desmond and Samantha die, lessens when they clean out his childhood house, and then goes back to normal when they return to their now-shared flat.

They keep a funny-looking table for reasons they don’t entirely understand.

A few years pass in a blur, and everything is fine. Oliver stays with a family member for a while, helping out at home, and Graham reassures him that everything is fine. There’s no reason that that’s suspicious other than the fact that he’s just so out of it so much of the time when they call. It could be that he’s tired, but there’s something more under there.

And Graham checks in every day, sometimes multiple times, makes sure to, to see if Oliver is alive, if he’s okay, if his family is okay. It’s odd, sure, but nothing new. 

But there are other things to worry about, Oliver will be home in a matter of months, nothing was stopping him from coming to visit when the week ended. 

He doesn’t, Graham insists. The next night he sounds absolutely, totally fine.

When Oliver gets back, the apartment feels… off. More empty while still feeling fuller than when he left it. Fingers tracing the bookshelf they had (something there was missing), the top of the table was covered, and nearly all their doors were open.

One of them was pushed wider, and Graham came out, smiling and leaning against the wall with his arms outstretched (that felt weird too. Like there should have been more energy there, like Oliver should have had his breath knocked out of him the moment the front door clicked behind him). He shakes himself, dropping bags next to the door and walking over as fast as he can. 

Oliver hugs him so tight, Graham’s feet briefly leave the floor. 

And he could have sworn that nothing like that had ever happened before, not unintentionally at least. But they did so it must have… right? 

Oliver spends the rest of that final year with his Graham doubting himself and falling deeper and deeper into a stress spiral. It’s visible, he knows, but by the time they break up and he’s sleeping on Anahita’s couch for the second time in his life, and he doesn’t care. 

But, oh… how he does. Missing the way it felt to be held, tangled up with someone and waking up with pins and needles in arms and legs. The faint smell of smoke that lingered on clothes and was more pleasant than not. 

That was the one weirdest thing about going home again a year ago, no smoke smell anymore. No cigarettes, no ashtray, nothing to suggest anyone had ever been near the place with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. 

If Graham had quit, he hadn’t talked about it at all. And did a really thorough job when cleaning. 

He has his first death dream that very same week. 

Nine years later, Antonio Blake gives his first statement to the Magnus Institute. Pushing open a door and asking where to go, looking over the rules and finally getting it all down. It’s the first time in a while that he’s had to think about Graham Folger at all. One of the smallest parts of his statements, almost completely irrelevant.

He doesn’t have to give Graham’s name, he chooses to anyway. Just the first, so they can’t figure out who he is and track him down. He’s moved on with his life, but there’s a part of him that wants to linger on that bit. On the way that, in the last year of their relationship, a lot of things about Graham had just changed . Which wasn’t odd, that’s what people did , it had just felt so drastic at the time. Just off . 

Graham hadn’t been sweet anymore for a long time, he was just… nice. In a generic sort of way that he would’ve been with a stranger. And then, once he’d learned what Oliver liked and had reacted well to, he used it more often than he used to. Every compliment felt like sweet talk. There were no more playful insults, no smiles that were teasing and sweet all at once, no gentle kisses to his neck right before a lick just to gross him out anymore. 

But he’d moved on as quickly as possible. He wasn’t going to talk about an ex-boyfriend when he had far weirder things, and more persistent things, that were a problem right then and there. Anything else could and would wait for another day. 

The thoughts about Graham Folger ( fucking Graham Folger) persisted up until the day that Dr. Thomas Pritchard had died. Not the real one, of course, but the one that had killed someone right in front of many others and got hit by a falling satellite not hours later. And even afterwards, when he’d found himself at the bottom of the ocean. Not a scratch there to prove what had just happened.

He had died, he was sure of it. Skin cold to the touch even after he’d managed to pull himself out of the water and onto dry land. Hadn’t needed to breathe either. But he did need to talk to The Archivist at some point, if not for the man, for himself. To try and get whatever he could down as a recording. It mattered—though he wasn’t exactly sure why—that he got that statement to Jonathan Sims. 

And, God, it almost hurt to be thinking about his Graham again after so long of not having to. After so long of being able to ignore the fact that he’d even existed at any moment in time. If he had just moved on from that one thought for a second longer this might not have even happened. He might have thought of someone else before he’d died. Not that Oliver had had any long-lasting relationships after that first death dream. They’d torn him apart. Taken whatever life he’d had away from him completely. 

After dying, he hadn’t cared as much, not really. There was no point in caring about the life he’d had before. He was still around. Walking, talking, existing in the same space as living people, but he wasn’t alive. Maybe that was what hurt. That Graham Folger was the last thing that had tied him to who he had been. Seemingly the last thing that had been keeping him entirely human. Not like the dreams. Certainly not like whatever this not-death was. This not having to breathe, let alone eat (things he still did out of habit. Why? He was never sure, but there was something about wanting to that made him feel just a little bit better about everything else he had experienced up to that point.) 

Oliver Banks was Oliver Banks again the minute he had died. In that same vein, he was also the least Oliver Banks than he’d ever been before. 

It was almost funny, in an especially awful way. 

Jonathan Sims lies comatose in front of him for what feels like forever before Oliver makes any move to speak at all. He said more than a few things to anyone in so very long that it almost felt wrong to do so. 

And, when he finishes, he’s chased out of the room by a friend of The Archivist’s who feels strangely familiar, even though he doesn’t recognize anything about her. 

When the world ends, Oliver Banks feels nothing at all.

Chapter Text

Graham Folger doesn’t know how he ends up lying next to a woman he doesn’t know in front of a carousel that spins too fast for its own good, his face bleeding and burning so much he’s barely able to see. At least it feels like it’s burning, every around it nerve set alight, the muscles sore and aching. He hasn’t been burnt enough to say for sure.

It takes what feels like days (weeks? Months? For all he knows, it was merely minutes) for anything to calm down, for him to see what’s left of the sky, how much of it looks just slightly off. To see that the woman next to him seems to be in a worse state than he is. 

She’s shaking, hands clamped down over the sides of her face like they’re the only things keeping the skin there anymore. When he touches her, she doesn’t even scream, just flinches and inhales quickly through her teeth. That might be worse, so much worse than screaming.

He waits until she can move her hands from her face—until she can open her eyes and not close them again immediately—before he helps her sit up and start breathing normally again. There’s a weird sort of detachment that he feels from the world around him, from the woman he’s sitting next to herself, but there’s no point in dwelling on that at the moment. Hell, they might not even have a chance later. Everything is off. 

He honestly might be sick. He wants to be sick, at this point. The woman’s face is red around the edges like it was torn off with someone’s bare hands. Jagged the way new calluses on fingers learning to play string instruments are when they’re picked at, just so much worse. 

When the woman sits up and hunches forward and crosses her arms, he starts to notice just how ripped up she seems. From skin to clothes, everything is torn, and he probably doesn’t look much better. He takes her lean as a partial invitation to touch, a hand on her back, not moving, just in case she falls back toward the ground. He wants to be able to catch her, to make sure she doesn’t hit her head if she falls.

Simple questions at first. He asks her name (Sasha James), what time she thinks it last was (sometime during 2016), where she lives (no response, fair). 

The woman named Sasha is starting to calm down now, not holding her breath like there won’t be any air left to breathe in the next few seconds, which is a small relief. It’s only now that the true terror of the situation starts to sink in. They aren’t in London anymore, they don’t know where they are, the date, what’s going on that made whatever this place was. (That’s not even thinking about the fact they were quite literally torn into pieces and put back together. It feels similar, in other places than their faces, to scraping a knee as a child. That sharp sting that’s hot to the touch and makes you want to cover it as if that will help ease the pain, just… worse. So much worse.) 

There’s a very distinct feeling of “Shouldn’t be here” that Graham gets when he helps Sasha to her feet, not really minding when she doesn’t let go of his hand. It’s comforting, at least a little bit, to know that she’s just as scared as he is (if not more), and wants him to stay close. 

They don’t turn to face the merry-go-round, it’s the last thing they want to see. A gory, screaming mess of what had been happening to them before they’d… fallen off? Or something of the like. All put together, back in place. Maybe it was just because they were the only ones who could reasonably be alive at this point. That whatever killed them was dead, actually dead, with no chance of return. 

And, God, that was hard to face. The fact that it felt like no time had passed since when he was last whole and put together. Himself, really and truly. Even if he was borderline conscious when he was not-him. 

Borderline, not completely. He’d had no control, that was the scariest part, and he’d been able to see and hear things (just barely, it was all fuzzy, distant) until it went silent and there was just nothing. Blissful nothing. Probably when Sasha had been taken over, whenever that had been (presumably around 2016. God, that was so far in the future, it felt ridiculous to even consider). 

“Here, let’s...” Graham gives Sasha’s hand a small squeeze, getting her attention. “Let’s get out of here, yeah? And after that, we can try talking more, see if we can find things like bandages.”

They do manage to get out into an endless stretch of nothing without being seen, and it’s probably a miracle that it doesn’t take them days given how similar everything looks to everything else. There’s only so much red and yellow and white that someone can see before everything blends together.

This is not, however, much of an improvement. The sun (or is that an eye?) beating down endlessly over broken buildings and stretches of desert, but less in the filled-with-sand sense, and more like the general definition. Nothing.

Sasha’s hand gives Graham’s a squeeze, and she’s still looking ahead when he turns. “So,” she mumbles. “Do you have a plan or...?”

“Yeah, that’s... never really been my strong suit, sorry.”

She hums, nodding, then starts walking toward a pile of rock, dragging him behind. “Well, can’t have one if you don’t start anywhere, so—” Sasha hoists herself up onto a ledge low-ish to the ground, “—we’ll start here, take a moment to choose which direction we go in,” A smile, and jazz hands, full of fake-cheer. 

Graham wants to laugh at the fact that this was where their lives had led. Trying to pretend like they weren’t in the middle of nowhere after dying (maybe this was Hell) and planning some sort of hike to their probable demise. He would if it wasn’t something that might make him start crying. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Starting at the rock-similar-to-all-other-rocks and going…?” 

A quick glance around didn’t exactly give them much. There was a tower to their right, wherever they had come from behind them, and absolutely nothing to the left upwards.

“That way?” Sasha points behind her back, to the stretch of nothingness they’d seen when they had stopped the first time. 

He shrugs and holds out a hand to help her down. It’s oddly nice to walk with a stranger along a nonexistent road, not really talking, just… taking in the silence. Normally he’d try to fill it, he does feel like he needs to, but it’s welcome after the sound of the screams they’d left behind.

Ignoring the growing anxiety could be done. It could, and he would do it.  

G raham Folger is lying on his back in the kitchen at fifteen years old, lights off, relishing in the coldness of the floor. He doesn’t know exactly why, but it feels different than everywhere else and it’s comforting. Quietest place in the house, made his brain seem… not silent, per se, but more muffled somehow. And yeah, he knows, that if he stays here long enough, comes back enough, it would quickly start to not be anymore, but he needs it. Just for a few moments, and then he could leave and go back to trying to stay sane.

His parents are going to be home soon, and he knows that they won’t take too kindly to him being a human broom, but he doesn’t want to move just yet. It was… a bad day for thoughts he did not want to have but had anyway. Not even his bedroom is safe anymore and, God, that really does sting. The one place where he should feel safest isn’t safe and there’s nothing he can do about it.

The world seems hazy with all the lights off, and he starts going over lists and letters and numbers in his head. Arm over his eyes, curled up on his side in a little ball now, because it’s more comfortable. Because he feels safer. 

He hears the light switch click back on (and it sounds wrong but he can’t get up to fix it) and his mother’s weary sigh when she sees him lying there. A small part of him feels a tiny bit pathetic when she just moves around him, and it’s not her fault, it’s just not another thing tacked onto an already bad day. (And he feels even worse for hiding anything that made his brain scream “DANGER!” so loud he couldn’t hear himself think anymore.)

He doesn’t blame his parents, they’ve been far more patient than he really deserves. So he gets up off the floor and tries to not think about the tired look on his mother’s face for too long. 

(On his way out, he rubs his wrist over a small patch of wall, one two three four five six times—pause—one two three four five six seven eight more. 

It eases the tightness in his chest that he usually gets when leaving the kitchen. He doesn’t know why, it just does. And he knows, he knows that it’s completely illogical, but when something works—eases all the pent up anxiety, makes him feel safer—well… he’s not going to stop. )

After a while, Sasha whistles as she squints up into the eye (it was most definitely an eye, though hard to see, it wasn’t as round as the sun would’ve been). “Can I have your name?”

Graham slows a bit, “I thought I’d told you?”

“No,” she frowns. “Though I can’t exactly blame you for it.” She’s running her fingers over a cut at her hairline, and it looks like she was scalped. She probably was scalped. They’re both so dirty already, it’s all he can do to not try to gently bat her hand away. “Not like there was much time for introductions.”

“Graham Folger. Is my name, I mean.”

Even though Sasha doesn’t say anything, she gets this look of recognition that sets him on edge. He doesn’t know what she knows, and that’s never a good thing. That could mean anything from bad to good and she’s not going to say. It’s creepy to ask and creepy to answer. 

Might not even be him she knows, just someone else with the same name, a similar face, but it’s unlikely at best. 

And Graham likes her too, which might be the worst part. He’s always been bad at people, but before he knows people he likes… well. 

It isn’t exactly easy to figure out when to stop talking. Or why, for that matter.

Sasha looks over him, ever curious and bad at hiding it, biting the inside of her cheek as she does so. It’s a quiet, considering gaze that makes him feel taken apart and vulnerable, and not necessarily in the pleasant way. He’s being studied . Thoroughly. 

Almost feels like he should have expected it. She’s got a familiar air about her, one that he can’t quite place.

Maybe it’s his involuntary shudder, or just that she had come to some conclusion, but Sasha looks away and pretends like her staring had never happened in the first place. Takes his wrist in her hand and carries on walking to make sure he follows. 

She is… quite strange.

He doesn’t expect anything to come from that moment, certainly isn’t going to bring it up anytime soon.

(Far too often for having just come back from the dead(?), Graham gets a distinct feeling of wrongness along with images and thoughts of any number of things he does not want to think about. Things that he hates and make him feel gross and dangerous and sick.

If she notices him calming himself down by shoving the heel of his hand against one eye, she doesn’t say anything.

He’s grateful for it.) 

When he meets Oliver Banks for the first time—thanks to Anahita, and he’s definitely going to try and hide this from her for a while—Graham is twenty-two, fresh out of university, and just about ready to ram his head through a wall (breakdowns were starting to become a regular occurrence. So much so that it didn’t feel right to even call them breakdowns anymore, it was just one long, continuous one with little breaks in the middle).

Something about Oliver is refreshing, almost intoxicating, in a giddy, floaty sort of way. Sort of similar to the feeling he gets after smoking a cigarette. And it’s so, so tempting to open up that can of worms—to entertain the thought that this time could be different—all while trying to not be too obvious, not show any compulsions.

He tries to shut those infatuated thoughts away for the time being though, they’re more trouble than any dopamine rush is worth. It would be nice, but it’s unlikely that there would be any reciprocation anyway. 

The way Oliver looks at Graham though is… yeah, it’s definitely something. Not anything bad, just full of mild interest in the things he does and what he says, how he fidgets with his hands. It’s nice. Like a different feeling of being watched. A whole lot less sinister and far nicer to just exist in.

Anahita ruffles his hair when she comes back from chatting with another friend, and that helps bring him back to the present a bit. Hopefully soon enough that no one noticed. 

Just before she can go, he traps her hand there with both of his and gives it a gentle squeeze (out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he can see Oliver smile—fond? Or is he seeing things?—and his heart gives an involuntary flutter).

Graham is shaking so hard by the time he gets home that he’s barely able to take off his shoes at the door—a mess of jitters and excitement and a few more things he’s choosing to ignore. 

Mess is probably the best way to describe it, yes. Small and watched and slightly too interested in someone else for his own good. 

They don’t come across anything for ages. Neither of them had watches on at the time of their… deaths(?) and there’s no way that they'd walked for miles (and miles and miles and miles) without the sun moving in the sky even a smudge if time hadn’t stopped completely.

And that’s a terrifying thought, time just refusing to pass. Another messed up thing to keep track of—and they can’t even be sure of their own humanity either, because normal humans don’t make it off a carousel made for people ripping each others’ faces off—among all the other messed up things that they can’t seem to get away from. No time, no fatigue, no need to eat.

Graham can’t say for sure, but Sasha’s wounds seem to be just a tad better than when they were when they first came. There’s no way to say that it has been days, but no way to say that it hasn’t either. 

A terrifying thought for another day. 

Sasha seems happy though, eyes closed while she walks and chatters away about her friends and her work (there were tunnels under her workplace, filled with tons of worms). Her hand holds his wrist while they walk so she doesn’t veer off to the side, because there’s only so long you can look at or do one thing without starting to go a little bit crazy.

She reminded him of Anahita, mostly, now that he’s had time to think about it. So much he nearly forgets to call her by her actual name once or twice. (He tries not to think about where she might be in all this.

The fact that she’d probably be old enough to be someone’s mother is another thought that feels a little like getting shaken. The idea that Ana would be able to take care of anything more than a houseplant for a prolonged period of time is absurd.

He misses her.)

The scenery around the two of them changes so suddenly it’s like becoming lucid in the middle of a dream, and Graham stops dead in his tracks. Watches as Sasha walks forward one… two steps before opening her eyes and turning around to look back at him. 

They’re in a large, dark forest. The smell of rain is almost overwhelming, and Graham turns a few times trying to take in where they are. No signs of anyone else having come through, other than cracked branches and a torn piece of fabric hanging off a tree. Weirdly peaceful for seeming more than a little sinister.

He feels like he’s being watched even more intensely than he was before. The moon isn’t also an eye, though it might as well be. 

It’s very hard to get past the fact that the sky blinks down at them.

Sasha looks strangely lost now, wandering in circles, trying to see what there is to see. Looking up into the branches of trees. Trees that she does not touch, even though she gets close, and that’s probably the smartest thing she’s done yet.

Everything is strangely uniform for being nature. There are a lot more bugs than he expected to see. Not a bad thing, not yet, but not pleasant. Big beetles with shiny exoskeletons and a few long-legged spiders and—much to his displeasure—a long, fat slug that falls from a tree and just barely misses his shoulder. 

He can’t even bring himself to be annoyed when Sasha laughs at that.

The further they go, the weirder it gets. Not just snails without shells anymore, but plenty of other stuff too. They pass a cave that’s shrouded perfectly in the darkness, everything inside obscured from view. Everything except a pair of eyes that are a tad too big and bright and focused to be a wild cat’s, even if shapes are the same.

In the end, just unsettling. More than, it’s… borderline scary.

“Did you hear something move?” Sasha asks after a little while of walking in silence. “Other than more bugs, I mean. Something like a rustle?”

Graham tilts his head a bit, trying to find the right thing to say. “It could just be the wind, right?”

They ignore the fact that there’s been no wind at all.

It seems like there might be a day and night cycle here (maybe), and whether or not that’s true is ultimately going to be based on waiting. (And neither of them want to wait, but it’s not as if walking around and attracting the attention of however many monsters might be lurking in the dark is helping either.)

Maybe they’re worrying over nothing, it could be that there’s simply nothing bad waiting for them around here at all. Overreacting because somewhere is dark and loud and filled with a distinct lack of anyone who could help.

Graham thinks he can hear Sasha try and make a joke about slugs that mug when another hits the ground with a quiet thwack. All he can do is grimace.

This scenario feels… gross. The moon is too dim to be normal, with no stars in sight, and then there’s that weird blink that plunges them back into the most complete darkness he’s ever been in. Bugs too big, trees too… something. There was something wrong with them. He knows it somehow. It’s overly strange, and there’s that faint rustling again, even with no wind. They haven’t been attacked yet, sure, but it seems like only a matter of time.

Graham’s getting in his own head. He knows this. He knows it’s bad, but when he starts pacing it barely matters. Going back and forth in the middle of a small clearing, right in front of where Sasha’s decided to sit.

She’s tugging at the grass, ripping up small handfuls and messing with them.

It’s endearing, in a way. Like a little girl out on the playground with nothing to do and too much time to wait to pass.

When he looks away, finally, he can see something spark in the distance. Then someone whimpers, barely audible.

Sasha goes still next to him.

Light? Was there also a click, or did he imagine that? 

Why was someone whimpering? Afraid of the dark? Or maybe of being chased?

Yeah, definitely a click before the sparks, and then a woman starts to cry. Begging something to just catch, please, just for a little while, please.

She’s so preoccupied with the sparks that she doesn’t see Graham help Sasha up and then start to get closer with her by his side. Slow, steady, no need to scare her, but they probably shouldn’t be loud or rush if they can help it.

Another click, and suddenly a lighter turns on. The flame is small, but the woman immediately starts to sob in relief. Her hands shaking as she tries to light a pile of twigs and leaves. It’s so… desperate. The ground has to be damp, but something catches anyway and the woman leans in close enough her face is illuminated.

Graham freezes, and Sasha does too. She’s older, sure, but familiar enough he knows exactly who she is immediately. 

And when she looks up and sees the two of them, he can tell she does too.

Amy Patel and the real Graham Folger look at each other for the first time in years.

I see you.

The small fire flickers out, leaving them in a cloud of smoke.

Chapter Text

When the world goes dark— really dark; plunging everything but the embers at her feet into an inky black—Amy doesn’t resist the sob that forces its way out of her. It hurt to be so lost. It hurt to be so vulnerable. It hurt to not be able to see, and nothing she could do was stopping that, just clinging to the lighter that had become her lifeline wherever she was because there was no good way of getting out. There was just this… this place that seemed to go on forever.

Real-Graham Folger (fucking Graham Folger) and a woman who had talked to her only once before (what was her name? Sarah? Sasha?) stand close enough that Amy can feel them, not… see them, but she knows they’re there. It’s such a strange comfort; an unwelcome feeling of safety that they grant her, despite the fact that both of them had looked… distorted somehow, when they were out in the light. 

It takes what feels like forever for the eye that is the sky, that looks down on Amy and the people around her with a distant amusement that she can feel in her bones, to open and let in at least a little bit of light. Just a little, just enough to see.

The people who stand near her don’t move from where they are, they just stand there, waiting as she gasps for breath and wipes at her eyes. 

(Not that she really wishes that they did anything differently. Could they have done anything differently without Amy attempting to set them both on fire? But it’s not like she wanted them to be there either. It was… a breakdown too personal for strangers. Most of the time, they are. 

It’s stupid to be scared of the dark at 42 years old, it’s stupid to try and convince anyone otherwise unless they’re also afraid of the dark and far too old to lie in bed and wait and wait and beg God that He spare her just one more day.

She only really believes in God when she’s trapped in the dark.)

First it had been… what had it been? What tipped her off that the whole thing wasn’t entirely normal, was it the eyes around the building, or the way that she felt the same as when she saw him looking back at her through the window? Or was it just the way the old woman had put a hand on her shoulder before walking out, going into a room full of files upon files of statements just like hers, to try and show… comfort, maybe? 

Or maybe it was just the fact that it was so familiar, the strong feeling of being watched. Of something trying to know everything about her.

And it had been a some thing , not a some one . Every time Amy had looked back at the old woman, she had been wrapped up in whatever work that she was doing before, and there was no one else there. At least, it seemed like no one else was there. 

It was a something, just like he had been, and it was watching her with such intensity.

When was it? She had to figure out when, maybe that… maybe that could help change everything back. Or wake her up. Or wake her up from whatever this was.

Amy opens her eyes again, and yeah… nothing changes. Nothing changes, she’s still sitting next to someone who showed up on her doorstep once two years ago and someone else who she thought she would never see again, all in some… hospital, it looks like. The people that are rushing around look too cruel to be people, and she’s so tired. And Amy just wants… she just wants to sleep. Fuck.

One breath in, one breath out. She pushes the heels of her hands against her eyes, fingers curled around a lighter, and she does her best to not get too overwhelmed. The last thing she wants to do is to cry in front of people.

The hospital lights glare down, brighter than they should be. There are cameras everywhere they can be, tucked away into corners so maybe, maybe people won’t see the red light. People always do. Amy always does, anyway. 

Somewhere, someone throws themself against the door and screams to get out, for some help, and she’s never wanted more than now to get up and leave a building.

Of course… of course Amy knows when it got bad . When everything started going downhill and there was very little that she could do about it, or wanted to do about it. When she went from people watching, to following, to stalking. Actual stalking. Watching people get more and more paranoid and still not letting go because it made her feel so much better than when she didn’t. 

Amy had gotten a camera at one point. A nice one with a good lens that hung heavy around her neck when it wasn’t being used. What had it been for? She could swear that it was for something different, something that was not for… what? Some sort of messed up eating?

She’d taken so many pictures after some point. SD card after SD card that was filled to the brim of people who slowly deteriorated in front of her, all tucked away into a drawer that she did not look through. 

They… were useless pictures, mostly. Nothing that she wanted, certainly, but she just couldn’t throw them away. Going through them when Leanne wasn’t looking.

When she thought Leanne wasn’t looking.

It was weird behaviour, of course she paid attention to it. Tried asking her about it. Expressed concern about it. 

“Talk to me, Ames.” She had said.

“I love you… and I worry about you sometimes.”

“You’re starting to scare me.”

That had been the thing that nearly broke Amy. Not the lack of sleep or the way that her hands shook all the time now or the fact that the whole situation was just so strange and nothing was helping and it felt useless . 

“Amy?” Original-Graham’s voice is quieter than she remembers, accompanied by the sound of someone going to shift slightly closer, then stopping before they do—not him. Even going here was something they just… wordlessly agreed on. Like that was the only option now that they’d seen each other. 

Was it? Did they have an actual choice in that? 

Was it a good decision to group together with people they somewhat knew, or would it be the thing that doomed them? 

Would it—

A hand rests on her shoulder now, the eye on her neck sees it through a curtain of hair. It is scarred and freckled, the nails are chipped and grimy and covered in dried blood—but they are all so chipped and grimy and covered in blood now, so it is not a surprise—and it is so gentle where it lies, heavy and .

And it’s almost as if Sasha (and she is definitely Sasha) can feel the eyes on her shoulder, underneath her shirt. Her fingers tighten, and she looks to Actual-Graham with her mouth open, and she has so many things she wants to say. She wants to shout at him, shout at Sasha, she wants to break down and hit the tiled floor with her fists over and over again until the knuckles start to bruise.

But she grits her teeth and looks down at her socks.

The apocalypse’s eyes that litter her neck and torso blink. Eyes that Amy has tried over and over again to get rid of only to fall so sick afterwards she spent God knows how long lying on the floor. Eyes that stayed open even as she convulsed. 

Eyes that mocked when she finally found a mirror big enough to get a look at them. A pale green that did not match her own. 

That she thought didn’t match her own.

And there, there is Amy Patel with her nails cutting into her knees, right through her jeans, underneath lights that make the nerves connected to her eyes sing because everything is so clear, so open, so ready to be observed. In many ways, she is so happy with the situation she’s in, in so many more she is not.

It is not as if the blame lies on Real-Graham or Sasha, but she would like for it to lie on them, even just for a moment. Nothing else will happen today (or is it tonight?), nothing else will happen because time will not happen, and every moment that Amy spends thinking about the feel of ragged nails with chipped green polish on them is technically not time wasted, but it’s also not exactly like time is being used at all. So, yeah, she can spend as much time as she needs to think about her bitten nails and the way that they make her stomach churn when they catch on the fabric, but would it be helpful?  

Are the seconds that she doesn’t use seconds that allow her wife to keep being taken further and further away from her? 

Amy knows, she is smart enough to know, that time on emotions is time well-spent. Leanne has drilled this into her countless times with words and looks and actions. 

(Like the time they were sitting together, with Leanne’s niece by her side, and Amy had done the thing where she started to get distracted too easily, felt off, shook it and tried to stay with the conversation, again and again, and Leanne had known (she was always so good at just knowing when something was wrong, they hadn’t even been dating all that long at that point) and she came over when her niece ran off to find her where her parents had gone. Leanne came over and she just sat there, stayed quiet, put a hand over Amy’s and waited. And she waited and didn’t ask what the problem was, because it was too public for that, she was just so patient .

She called them episodes—even though Amy didn’t know where they came from—and insisted on doing so because “clearly something is wrong.” Which was hard to believe, but easy enough to go along with.)

This feels like an episode. But it doesn’t get better when Amy shuts her eyes to try and block out some information intake. Everything is here, all the time, and there’s no way to stop it. Long and drawn out and distracting.

Like a head plunged into a bath full of cold water.

Yeah, yes, exactly like a head plunged into a bath. 

There was a time that Leanne had asked Amy if and why she loved her. And Amy couldn’t really answer that, could she? Not truthfully. Nothing that came out would have sounded right, because it all felt so innate . Like she’d never known anything else.

It was not a good time for them though, and that wouldn’t have been the right thing to say, it could’ve come off bad, so she just said “everything” and held her through the night, and when the morning came and Leanne was back enough that she could talk without a stutter and go an hour without shaking, they both got ready for work and hoped that she would make it through the day. 

(She didn’t.)

The hand that is resting on her shoulder, pressing into the eye, shakes her a bit, and Sasha is leaning in front of her now, with her brow furrowed as if that will help her know what is going through Amy’s head.

“Amy, can you talk to me?” She says, and it’s definitely unintentional, but there is a bit of a sing-song to her voice that is so so familiar it almost hurts to hear. A sing-song like the sing-song she would hear on nights that were filled with the dark, but also a little bit of comfort. Balance. 

It is so… weird to hear outside of the context of home, of safe, that it pushes Amy deeper and deeper into the little place inside herself where she grabs onto the information she has and hoards it. She keeps it close to her chest because she has to. She looks at every card and keeps her own flat on the table because she has to. “Yeah.”

Sasha seems to like that answer, at least. Her shoulders relax and her eyes soften. With both hands, she picks Amy’s up and presses the lighter—Leanne’s lighter (that’s almost dead now), that she dropped while lighting a candle when the sky ripped itself open with a scream that she could just barely make out the words to—into Amy’s open palm. 

“Here,” her voice is so quiet. “Me and Graham were talking, it might be time to get you back out on the road… you seem overwhelmed here, and we want to know if there’s anywhere that you were trying to go—” 

It doesn’t feel like overwhelmed, but it doesn’t feel normal either.

“—because if there is, we’d like to go with you, or at least make sure that you’re okay before we send you on your way.” 

Sasha’s very still when she talks, and only when she talks, and it feels wrong in a way she really can’t describe. It hurts the thing that co-owns her eyes to see. “Uh, no. No, I’m… looking for someone, but I don’t know where she might… be.”

Looking, looking. Always has to look at something , because the lack of a thing is never safe, and the lack of a thing means change. Uncontrolled change, most of the time. And sitting in the dark means being alone in the dark, a lot of the time. Especially now that Leanne is missing and she is not turning up. She wants so dearly for her to be behind one of these doors, to see her in one of the windows. Instead, she just sees so many people who do not see her back.

It’s good, but in a way that makes her feel sick to her stomach. Up until now, she hasn’t had time to think, she didn’t know what it was and that was a good thing. That kept her alive and well and awake enough that she could go to work and pretend that she was normal, go home and kiss Leanne, and then spend as long as she could resisting the urge to grab her camera and go outside. She just wants to be normal . She wants… to be in one of the many rooms with cracked windows and locked doors. 

(But what would those be like if it got too dark? If she couldn’t see? Would the people here with heels that click on the tile-covered concrete floors even care enough to help? Would they drink it in? Maybe that’s the thing that makes her stop shaking and gagging on air but for them. Knowing how it feels, would she let them? Would it start happening to her in there? Would it, would it, would it…?)

Actual-Graham and Sasha keep trying to get her attention, but she’s just so far gone that everything grabs her attention and makes her focus more and less simultaneously.

It does not hurt … but it doesn’t feel good either. 

The hand that holds the lighter sweats.