Chapter Text
“Why do you need the date my mother graduated from college? She doesn't even know that.” Oliver grumbled under his breath as he filled out his common app. This was ridiculous. There was simply no way a college needed this much information on his background to know if they're going to accept him or not. When he got to the section about his siblings and their education level, he decided it was certainly time for a break.
Oliver stood up from his small wooden desk. Twisting from side to side, he stretched his back out. His room was dull, plain. Just like he was, his mind told him. The walls were beige. His parents wouldn't let him hang any art on them, not that he had any art to hang but still. He'd like to have the option.
His bed was a small twin sized mattress. It sat sadly over in the corner. His family had been going through hard times financially lately and his room seemed to show it. The whole reason he was going to college was because he didn't want to end up like his parents. His father was a cook and his mother worked as an electrician. They had to scrape by paycheck to paycheck since his dad was laid off last summer and couldn't find a job that paid more than minimum wage. With a family as big as his, money was always going to be a concern. Oliver personally finds it irresponsible to have five kids with no certainty of how they could afford it, but his opinion doesn't matter anyway. Even if his parents agreed, there was nothing they could do about it.
College was his escape. His grades were good enough that he could probably pay very little to go. Scholarships were making the whole thing possible. He was more than pleased that he'd managed to keep his grades up and score well on his tests.
He was going to college for computer technology. When his dad lost his job working in an automotive factory, he realized the importance of finding a stable job. Computers and technology would always need someone to understand them, someone to fix them.
Having to keep his grades up all through high school had taken a toll on his social life. He didn't have one. The only people he talked to on a regular basis were his coworkers at the high school's IT department.
He did have friends online but it’s not like he talked to them very often. Thinking about his friends, he plopped on to his bed and opened tumblr on his phone. First he checked his messages and found he had three from different people he regularly talked to. Most of them were also complaining about college applications and anxiety about not getting into their dream school. Oliver did feel sorry for those who had one particular school in mind. He didn’t really care what school he went to as long as it was a decent one with a good computer program. A lot of school fit his wish list and since he didn’t have to pay application fees, he decided to apply to six schools that looked decent. Most of them were out of his home state of North Carolina. Penn state was his favorite school on the list but if he doesn’t get it, he won't be heartbroken.
He responded to his friends with equal levels of support and mutual complaining, then he switched to his dashboard to waste time. It was six pm and the only other thing he had to do today was write an essay for english. It wouldn’t take him more than an hour at most. English wasn’t his favorite subject and certainly not something he would do before it had to be done.
A couple of posts down and he came across a selfie one of his mutuals had reblogged. The tag they had added read ‘hot damn’. Oliver smirked and glanced at the photo again. Hot damn was right, he thought. The person in question was a guy with chocolate eyes and a smirk that clearly was meant to entice. Oliver had to admit, it was working.
Clicking on the link to the person's blog, Oliver searched for more photos of him. He found more than expected. Oliver promptly hit ‘follow’ purely because of one photo in particular.
Despite the fact that he had never posted a selfie on his blog before, he felt the desire to. He sat up in bed and aimed his front facing camera and clicked. The photo turned out okay enough so he posted it and smiled.
Oliver then remembered the essay and sighed. Enough fun for a day, he thought and returned to his desk to type away some bullshit about how beautiful he found a poem he hadn’t even read yet.
when he finished the essay he went to the kitchen in search of food. Oliver’s mom was home but his dad was working so he wasn’t surprised that he found no one home. His mom didn’t usually leave the bedroom unless dad was home. She likes to pretend that her family doesn’t know that she's drinking herself to death in there and Oliver isn’t going to tell her otherwise.
He managed to find some granola and a banana, which was more than he expected. He returned to his room and flipped through a magazine as he ate.
On a whim he checked tumblr again to see if his friends had responded yet or not. One of them had, but that’s not what caught his attention. Right above his friends message was an ask. “well aren’t you attractive,” it read. Oliver’s eyes widened. The message was from the hot guy he had followed a few hours ago. I guess it was a good idea to take that selfie then, Oliver thought.
The next fifteen minutes were spent trying to formulate a perfect response to show he wasn’t shocked that the hot guy was talking to him. Just keep your cool Oliver, he thought.
Eventually he decided to say screw it and hit send. “Not so bad yourself” the message read. Oliver cringed at the corniness of it but he couldn’t think of anything better.
For five minutes he avoided refreshing his message box so he wouldn’t seem eager. He tapped his finger over and over again so if anyone else had been nearby, they certainly would have been annoyed.
Growing impatient, he finally refreshed it. “I know.” One of the two messages read. Oliver scoffed. Asshole, he thought with a smile. Then his eyes moved upwards and saw the second message. “How are college apps going?” the second message from the man said. Oliver had forgotten that he’d complained about them in a post earlier.
He clicked the man's blog again when he realized he hadn’t checked to see his name earlier when he followed. Glancing at the description, he read. “Connor, gay, (he/him).”
Oliver tapped back to the message to respond. “They’re going good, a little long though. Are you filling them out too?” Oliver reread the message and checked for errors. Finding none, he hit send.
He grinned and laid back on to his bed. It's not like he was expecting anything to come from this. It was just a conversation with some guy on tumblr. He talked to people on tumblr everyday. To be fair, he thought, it wasn’t usually people this attractive, but that’s beside the point.
Connor’s response came quickly. He must be checking his messages too. It was always nice when other people were interested in talking to you as much as you were them.
“Yes and I don’t understand why they need to know my sisters education level. If I say she's in college, they want me to tell them which one and a projected graduation date. Im tempted to just say she's in high school still, just so it's less work. I doubt they can prove I’m lying, or would really care.” Oliver chuckled. He understood what connor meant. He checked the time. It was one am already.
“I have four siblings so it's taking me way too long to complete that section. Luckily they’re all pretty young so it could be worse.” He responded.
Oliver rolled out of bed at that point and made his way to the bathroom. He washed his face and brushed his teeth, only returning to his room once he was certain he was ready to sleep.
He checked his messages one last time before bed.
“Must be hard to get privacy around your house then.” Connor had wrote. Oliver blushed at the hidden meaning to the man's words.
“Oh it is.” He responded cryptically and rolled over. He plugged his phone into the charger and closed his eyes. Sleep found him within minutes.
Bright light seeped in through the window. Outside, the garden was various shades of deep crimson and a soft green. The roses covered most of the space he saw and pathways separated them by rows. Looking farther out, he could see fields of green pastures. Some trees spotted the landscape. No animals could be seen but he guessed there must be some.
The window was open completely and he could smell the air outside. The roses gave it a pleasant but not overwhelming scent. He closed his eyes and took it in.
Moments later he heard someone outside walking. Oliver opened his eyes to see who it could be. Somehow he had a feeling that he knew who it was.
Outside was a man of average height wearing a tailcoat and bow tie. Somehow it seemed out of place in the casual looking garden. Oliver’s heart swelled with adoration when he saw who it was. Connor walked through the garden, and Oliver had the weird feeling that he should be calling him Walsh. He appeared to be inspecting the flowers.
Oliver smiled and his vision started going white. It started from the corners of his eyes and moved inwards and he felt like he was being sucked out of the world he was in.
Waking with a start, Oliver huffed loudly. His body was covered in sweat. He sat up to rip off his soaked shirt and laid back down. It was a pleasant dream. He couldn’t fathom why he woke up like this. Looking over at his clock, he saw that it was five am. Oliver groaned loudly.
School started at seven so he might as well get up. He reached for his clock and turned the alarm off so he wouldn’t have to hear it later.
Oliver grabbed his phone and stretched the charging cord out so he wouldn’t use up all the battery. 7 – 5 – 6 – 2 he tapped in his password and his phone came to life. Tumblr was still open on the screen from the night before so he scrolled his dashboard a bit before remembering to check for messages.
He had a couple. Two from friends and one from the person he was really check for. He knew it was rude but he ignored his friends messages for now and read Connors.
“Do you have kik then? Tumblr's messaging system isn’t the best.” Oliver grinned. Maybe this would last longer than he thought it would. He sent a response with his kik username and waited for a message to appear. In the time he was waiting, he responded to his friends and went to the bathroom the brush his teeth. When he got back his phone alerted him of a new friend on kik.
Oliver opened his phone and checked to see that it was indeed Connor. It was, so he added him back and started a chat. “Why are you up so early then?” Oliver typed.
The message immediately was read and he could see that connor was typing out a reply. Yes this was definitely an improvement from tumblr.
“I could ask you the same question. Are we in the same time zone?” His response read. Oliver grinned and told him he was in eastern standard time.
“So am I.” connor responded but he was still typing so Oliver waited until his next message was sent.
“Do we live near each other? What state are you in?” connor asked. Oliver hoped to any holy being that they lived near each other.
“North Carolina.” He responded. Connor started typing again and the response was less than ideal.
“Pennsylvania. That would be quite a drive. Maybe someday.”
Oliver agreed that if they became good friends- or more, his mind chimed in- then they’d probably meet eventually.
Not having anything else to really say, Oliver typed “I had a dream about you last night”. He didn’t even realize how that could’ve been taken until connor responded.
“What kind of dream?” it read. Oliver could practically here Connors tone through the message and he blushed. Typing out a quick “shut up”, he sent it and locked his phone.
He rolled out of bed and got ready for school. The bus arrived at six thirty and he had already spent till six talking to connor.
He threw on the first t-shirt he saw and some sweatpants to accompany it. He didn’t care what he looked like today. Senior year meant he didn’t have to care about most things. The other three years of his high school career he had tried to keep up appearances but that was over now. I'm just practicing for college, Oliver chuckled to himself.
He grabbed his bag and headed outside to wait for the bus. His house had a short driveway so it didn’t take long before he was just standing with nothing to do. He reached inside his pocket and grabbed his phone.
Pulling it out, he saw that he had three messages on kik from Connor. He read them in the order they were sent.
“Come on, Oliver.”
“You’re seriously not going to tell me what the dream was about?”
“You can't just say something like that. I'm dying of curiosity.”
Oliver chuckled and decided that he really had to respond now. Connor could see that he read them so he didn’t have time to formulate the perfect response.
“Are you dead?” Oliver typed back, just to be dick. The message was promptly read and responded to in less than a minute. Oliver had to applaud him on his typing speed. Also this meant he was just watching his phone and waiting for Oliver’s response and he didn’t know quite how to feel about that.
“Yes.” Connor responded. “But I’ll pull a frankenstein if you tell me what the dream was.” Oliver snorted at the text.
“It was just you checking out some roses.” He typed. “You looked great.” He sent a second later to change the conversation topic. The message was read but Connor didn’t type anything back. Oliver groaned and saw that his bus was here anyway. He plugged his ear buds into his phone and turned up his music so he wouldn’t have to hear all the talking on the bus. How people could handle that much noise and pointless conversation, Oliver will never understand.
He took his usual seat in the back of the bus. He was one of the first students to get on so it was easy to get whatever seat he wanted. Oliver always chose the back because people who sat back here, sat here because they also just wanted to be left alone.
Usually there was just him, some girl who always wore the same style of hoodie in various colors, and a boy who always looked paranoid. He always watched them as discreetly as he could. Oliver didn’t want to be a stalker but he was curious. He didn’t even know their names and yet he has sat back here with them for almost four years now.
Oliver resolved to ask their names when they got on the bus today. Maybe this year he could actually have some friends in real life. It was a nice idea but in reality he assumed they would tell him off and then it would be awkward back here for the rest of the time that they were forced to be in his presence. Still, he was going to try. It was senior year and there wasn’t much to lose.
About fifteen minutes into their drive, the bus got to the place where it picked up the paranoid boy. The boy walked up the stairs of the bus with his head up and eyes searching. About ten other people now occupied the bus along with them. Oliver watched him intently. He must have gone through a lot to always feel the need to be so alert. Oliver didn’t want to assume to know him though and waited for him to sit down before talking to him for the first time.
The boy sat down. He was wearing a black hoodie with some kind of patterned navy shirt underneath. He looked over at Oliver and made a slight nod before turning to look down at his phone that was always in his hand.
“Hey,” Oliver said, then winced. His people skills were not the best. It's not like he got to practice them often.
“What's your name?” Oliver asked and tried to pretend that this wasn’t the most uncomfortable he’s been in a long time. The boy looked up at him and frowned slightly before responding.
“Wes.” He said simply. He didn’t ask for Oliver’s name and didn’t seem interested in conversation since he returned to his phone right after he said it.
Oliver, deciding that he had already gone too far and had to continue now said, “I'm Oliver, by the way. If you were wondering,” he let it trail off. Wes glanced up and made a vague head movement before returning to his phone once again. He was avidly texting someone who was clearly more important than Oliver at the moment. Oliver took the hint and quit talking.
They both continued ignoring each other until five minutes later the girl joined them in the back seat. Wes continued looking at his phone but Oliver looked up and smiled at her. She smiled back as she sat down so he took in as an invitation to speak to her.
“Oliver,” he said while sticking out his hand for her to shake. She looked down at his hand and smiled.
“Laurel,” she responded and shook his hand politely. Oliver withdrew his hand when she let go and opened his mouth again but was interrupted by laurel.
“Have you started your common app yet? I mean it's insane.” She asked him. Oliver chuckled lightly.
“Yeah I’m considering lying about how many siblings I have just because it would be easier.” He stole the line from Connor. He wondered for a moment if the man had responded to his kik yet. He didn’t want to seem rude to laurel though, who was now laughing at what he said, by pulling out his phone so he left it in his pocket and resolved to check when they reached their school.
“You’re in three of my classes, you know.” She said. Oliver nodded, he knew.
They talked back and forth until the bus reached their destination and since their first period class was the same, the unspoken decision was made to walk to it together.
Wes walked behind them but didn't speak and Oliver decided just to ignore him. When they got to class, laurel sat next to him. He thought she seemed happy to have someone to sit with, and he had to admit, so was he.
When she stopped talking for a second, he pulled out his phone to check. Connor had responded but before he could read it class started.
He spent the whole class tapping his pen and wishing the teacher would finish so he could check his phone. Laurel looked over at him periodically. Probably wishing he would stop tapping. Every time she looked over he would stop for a couple minutes and then unconsciously start again.
The teacher finally stopped the lesson and Oliver checked his phone again to read the message.
“What was I wearing?” connor had asked an hour ago. Oliver bit his lip to keep from smiling too much. He was in calculus after all and no one smiled in that class. Laurel looked over at him with a questioning glance. He shook his head and she went back to doing the homework the teacher had assigned for tomorrow.
“A tailcoat and a bow tie. It was very nice.” Oliver responded. The message was read right away and Connor was typing. The bell rung before he could see the message. He groaned under his breath and walked to his next class.
The day continued in that manner, with Connor and Oliver exchanging messages when they could. By the end of the day when Oliver boarded the bus, they were talking about careers.
“I'm going into law.” Connor typed. Oliver smiled, it suited him. “What are you majoring in?” Connor added as an afterthought.
“Computer science,” Oliver texted back as he sat down on his seat in the back of the bus. Wes was already sitting there and looking out the window watching the students board the bus.
The message came back, “I think computer science is very cool”. Oliver was somewhat surprised that he didn’t make fun of him. Most people at least jokingly called him a nerd, which was true but that doesn’t mean he enjoyed hearing it constantly.
They typed back and forth until the bus came close to his home and then Connor said he had to go because of some after school club that he didn’t say the name of. He didn’t promise to text Oliver later but it was implied.
After getting off the bus, his day was pretty boring. He cooked some pasta and ate while he read for class. His homework was all completed before the time five rolled around and he was left with nothing to do. Oliver wasn’t adept at handling boredom so he pulled open tumblr on his computer to waste time.
He unconsciously moved to Connor's blog to see if anything new had been posted since last night. There were a couple text posts and some study on the effects lying has on the human body. Oliver didn’t read that but it made sense that Connor would.
At the very top was a post made right before he must have gone to school. A selfie of Connor in bed with his white sheet pulled up till it was right below his nose. He looked cuddly, Oliver thought. The post was captioned ‘why does school exist’. Oliver snorted and reblogged it, adding a comment. ‘Cute,’ he said.
The tumblr post had been an Instagram post first so Oliver clicked the link to his Instagram to snoop through and see more photos. Oliver didn’t have an Instagram personally. Mostly because his life was boring and he’d have nothing to post.
Connor apparently didn’t have the same problem. His Instagram had over two hundred photos posted and Oliver spent an hour just scrolling through them and being careful not to click like on a photo from his last year christmas party.
The man had an active social life it seemed. Most photos he could be seen with his best friend, some girl who wore expensive jewelry, and a guy who looked to be a football player. Oliver was a little concerned that the other guy could be his boyfriend but that thought was corrected when there was a picture of connor with the guy and a girl he was kissing. The caption was ‘ugh pda much’ and Oliver laughed a little too loud.
He was slightly disappointed when he ran out of photos to view. He closed out of the screen and went back to tumblr just to scroll through his dashboard.
Minutes later he received a text from connor.
“Kill me now.” It read. Oliver grinned as he unlocked his phone to answer.
“What happened?” He responded and included the gun emoji as an attempt to be cute.
“Adorable. Anyway Michaela would not shut up today. I understand that its debate club and that’s kind of the point but her voice just gets grating after a while.” Connor wrote.
Of course he was in debate club, thought Oliver. It was perfect for the lawyer in training.
They talked until midnight about random things that didn’t matter but for some reason made Oliver feel closer to connor. He didn’t know why he was talking to Oliver of all people. He could have anyone he wanted. Despite his worries that connor was using him, he continued to talk to connor. He didn’t have any reason to think he was being used anyway.
Eventually he had to sleep and when he told connor so he received a goodnight text accompanied by a kiss emoji. Oliver blushed slightly and turned off his phone.
Many days continued in this manner. Oliver would wake up and wish connor good morning, then take the bus and talk with laurel. When he got home he would homework and fill out scholarship applications until Connor finished with debate club and texted him. The two would talk until it was time to sleep and it would continue the next day. Oliver enjoyed his new life. Talking to Connor helped him feel less alone and laurel was by far the best friend he has ever had. Many months passed until January had arrived and everyone began receiving college acceptance letters.
Oliver got accepted into almost all colleges he applied to. MIT didn’t accept him but they were pricks anyway, Oliver decided. Of all the colleges on his list, there was one that he was excited to go to, Penn State, and it wasn’t at all because Connor was from that state and he was hoping Connor was going there. He didn’t want to ask and seem weird or stalkerish but Connor broke the topic later that day.
“I got into Penn State” the text read and Oliver’s heart rate picked up. He decided not to tell Connor of his decision and instead asked a question.
“So what are we to each other?” He asked. Connor had been flirting with him for months and he just wanted to understand why.
“I don’t do boyfriends, if that’s what you’re asking.” Connor responded so quickly that Oliver was unsure how he even did it. When reading the message, his hopes were dashed. Here he thought maybe they were getting somewhere but Connor was really just being friendly. Maybe he was incapable of not flirting with someone. It would make sense. Oliver groaned and locked his phone while flopping back on to his bed. He didn’t want to deal with this right now. He didn’t want to deal with Connor right now. Sleep hit him quickly when his head hit the pillow.
The room was warm, not just in temperature, but also in colors. Wooden panels covered all the walls and he was sitting in a green leather chair. He could feel the cool leather against his hand. The fireplace in front of him was crackling slowly. Oliver looked up and saw a painting of him and a woman he knew to be his wife. It didn’t bother him for some reason that he was married to a woman. He looked at the painting fondly.
Oliver looked over when he heard someone enter. It was Walsh. He grinned at the man he knew so well and beckoned him over with a wave of his hand.
He joined him and approached the table next to the arm chair Oliver was still sitting in. Walsh poured both of them a drink and sat in the chair opposite from Oliver’s.
“How was your day, sir?” Walsh asked him and sipped on his drink. Oliver smiled and took a gulp of his own before responding.
“Fairly good, and you?”
Walsh smiled at Oliver’s politeness but had nothing to really contribute to the conversation unless he wanted to complain about his daily duties. Instead he just nodded at his boss and Oliver took it as it was intended.
The two finished their drinks in comfortable silence. When the drinks were gone and an hour had passed, Walsh grabbed Oliver’s empty glass to wash it. His hand brushed up Oliver’s arm as he did so. Their eyes locked and Walsh grinned slightly. He knew exactly what he was doing.
“Thank you, Walsh.” Was all Oliver said before he started to see white.