GOING BACK. FOURTEEN MONTHS AND TWO DAYS PRIOR TO THE DEATH OF OLIVER SALLOW. TWO MINUTES AND TWENTY-FOUR SECONDS BEFORE MAKING FINN O'CONNELL'S AQUAINTANCE

Whether by coincidence or by design, Sisters of Mercy were also playing the day Oliver and Finn first spoke. Well, and the day before. And the day before that.

This was because, at seventeen years and a few months old, Oliver Sallow thrived on routines.

It wasn't what one would have expected when looking at him; black leather and a sour mouth seemed to read more like misfit or rebel or, in the case of sixty-seven-year-old Dorothea Bailey, a satanist who kills cats under the full moon, or whatever it is these goths—she had spat this word in a tone others might use to say spiders or landlords or Tories—do these days!

As it was, there was little that Oliver loved more than the predictable. Stability, he had learned early on, was nothing to be taken for granted, and so he cherished the clockwork of his sixth form days. His mornings were divided into even blocks of History, Psychology, and English Lit; his breaks saw him sneaking a cigarette at his favourite spot just outside the school gates; his afternoons, he devoted to his one true love.

Which was to say, the library.

Blissby School was a monster of brick and misplaced ambition. Its halls were vast and echoing, with a myriad of alcoves that looked out at the rainy courtyard and winding stone staircases twisting ever upward.

Tragically, since it was the twenty-first century and the school filled with teenagers, this was where the visions of academics past shattered. Lockers in offensive shades of blue and orange lined the walls of the once dignified corridors, and instead of islands for quiet contemplation, the alcoves were now hideaways where prepubescent students giddily passed around their Juuls.

(Oliver was aware of his hypocrisy, but held onto it with conviction nevertheless. He preferred his lung cancer to be obtained puffing cinematically into a dreary sky, not cherry-flavoured and covered with enough body spray to induce a migraine.)

The point was this: the library, dust-filled, gloomy creature that it was, had stubbornly withstood the pull of present day. Here, all still looked exactly as it had in the school's founding days: tall shelves reaching towards the arched stone ceiling, scratched wooden desks tucked into the nooks between them, ladders that one could slide along the shelves. God, how he loved those ladders.

Even though it wasn't as large or as well-stocked as the libraries at some of his previous schools, Oliver had been instantly charmed—enough so to accept the position of student librarian without second thought. It hadn't been a difficult choice, really. He loved the library. The librarian loved not having to shelve cart-fulls of messily discarded books on her own each afternoon. A match made in heaven.

And so, here he was. Seven p.m.: time for him to pack his things and close the library. With Andrew Eldritch growling in his ears, Oliver went through his usual routine. Turning off the one functional computer in the dimly lit nonfiction corner. Grabbing a few books that some kid hadn't bothered to put back and gently setting them into the return cart to deal with tomorrow. Taking Mrs. Thistlecloth's empty coffee mug—she tended to forget them when she left—and dumping it into the sink in the tiny kitchen.

His last stop was the restroom.

It was here, while making sure that he didn't lock some unlucky sod inside the building, that his perfect routine was overturned.

There was a boy under the sink.

He sat with his back pressed to the wall, his arms slung around his knees, head wedged between them. At Oliver's entrance, he didn't look up. Oliver was grateful for this: it gave him the chance to school his expression of a shocked cartoon character with his jaw hanging open into that of a shocked cartoon character with his lips only slightly parted.

"Er," he eloquently announced himself. "You all right there?"

As the boy's head snapped up, Oliver realized two things at the same time. One: the boy on the bathroom floor was Finn O'Connell. Which made sense, seeing as there wasn't anyone else at this school with hair as flaming red as his. It was the surrealness of the situation that had made Oliver slow to recognize him.

Which brought him to his second realization: Finn O'Connell was having a panic attack.

"I'm fine," he ground out—or at least Oliver was pretty sure that was what he said. His words were hard to make out over Patricia Morrison's heavy bass line.

He did not look fine. In the cold ceiling light, Finn's complexion almost matched Oliver's, which was impressive considering that the latter required diligent powdering to transform himself from pasty into possibly undead every morning. It was also concerning enough to make him take out his earbuds.

Finn's pants were a jagged staccato layered over the tinny sound of the Sisters of Mercy released into the restroom. With his hands wide-knuckled where they were gripping onto his knees, his breathing sounded like that of a man drowning, shaky gasps for air that bounced off the cracked tiles that enclosed them.

Oliver hesitated for a few seconds, caught between a strange sense of responsibility that he blamed on his student librarian duties and the faint embarrassment that came with walking in on Blissby's golden boy. Something about seeing him like this, chest heaving and eyes wild, made Oliver feel strange—as if he'd caught him in a state of undress, his mask knocked askew. Finn O'Connell wasn't the type of boy to cower under sinks in empty school libraries. He was the type of boy who scored match-winning goals and wrestled with his friends in the lunch line and grinned like he'd swallowed the sun.

No matter. Contrary to popular belief, Oliver was not an ice-cold cat killer, satanic or otherwise.

He tucked his limbs in and sank to the floor next to Finn.

"You really... really don't have to," the other boy managed. His voice was thin, but crammed underneath the sink as they were, Oliver understood him just fine.

He chose not to dignify this obviously accurate observation with a response and instead asked, "How long have you been sat here?"

"Fifteen minutes, maybe." Scrunching his eyes shut, Finn rested his forehead on his knees again. He seemed like he was trying to control his breathing, but it still sounded like it was coming from inside a metal tin. "I know..." Gasp. "The library's closing." Gasp. "I'll be done in a minute."

Oliver stared disbelievingly at the bit of freckled cheek he could make out. "You have these often?"

"Sometimes."

They were sitting close enough that Oliver could clearly see the way Finn's frame shook, his shoulders tense where they were pulled up to his ears. One of his hands had moved to press above his heart, fingertips curled into the fabric of his school blazer.

"If it's already been fifteen minutes," Oliver said, trying to sound reassuring, "Then you're probably halfway through already. Twenty to thirty minutes for a panic attack, yeah?"

Finn let out a strange sound, like a laugh but wet. "Dunno. Never... never timed myself."

Oliver felt oddly pleased at the half-laugh, wet though it might have been. Finn's breaths sounded less ragged by the minute. Oliver didn't think he had anything to do with it, but he was glad about it anyway, in a detached thank-God-he's-not-dying-in-my-library-tonight way. That particular scenario had not been included in Mrs. Thistlecloth's crash course.

When Finn finally lifted his head, his hair was sticking slightly to his forehead, his chest still heaving like he'd just stumbled off the football field after a match. He only now seemed to register who was sitting next to him. Oliver supposed the shocked-then-embarrassed-then-shocked-again expression was appropriate for when one found themselves crammed under a sink with a lanky goth after having hyperventilated for almost twenty minutes. He wouldn't have known.

"Sorry," Finn said again. "You—you're the student librarian, right?"

Oliver nodded, surprised that Finn remembered. Most of the football blokes seemed to acknowledge little of the student body aside from the faces they saw in the locker room three days a week. "Oliver." He stretched out a hand.

Finn stared down at it as if it was something utterly alien before he hesitantly grasped it. His fingers were very clammy. "Fi—Birdie."

Oliver, who didn't believe in nicknames one hadn't consented to, wordlessly dropped his hand back into his lap. He debated the merits of offering a smile—he didn't give them away freely; he had an image to keep after all—and found his lips ticking up on their own accord. "Next time you have a panic attack, feel free to have it in the library proper. Bit depressing in here, innit?"

Finn glanced around as if he only now became aware of his surroundings. "I'll make sure to scout a better location next time I feel one coming on," he promised.

Next time. Oliver held back a frown. Even though he only knew him from afar, the idea of Finn O'Connell sitting crumbled into himself like this in any place, be it the library restroom or the goddamn Throne Room of Buckingham Palace, filled him with a strange unease.

Injecting his voice with fake levity, he advised, "The music room's supposed to be lovely."

"I'll keep that in mind." Hands still trembling, Finn gingerly extracted himself from underneath the sink.

Oliver did the same, albeit with less grace and more almost knocking his head. Standing, he realized that he towered a good few inches above Finn, although some of that height was sponsored by his Doc Martens. "Well," he said.

"Well," Finn agreed.

"You need a ride home?" Oliver offered. He wasn't one hundred percent certain where the words came from. No one but him had touched Lucretia before and, frankly, the idea of parading around Blissby with the town's football star clinging to his back was so absurd it almost made him laugh.

Seeming to come to the same conclusion, Finn hastily shook his head. "That's all right. I have my own bike. Er, manual. Well, not manual because you don't use your hands to pedal, but—yeah."

Oliver tried to think of a reply and landed on a non-committal, "Sure."

They looked at each other for a few seconds, two awkward pale spectres in the harsh fluorescent light. One of the faucets drip-drip-dripped. Overhead, a fly threw itself against the neon tube.

Finally, Finn slung his backpack and a grass-stained duffel bag over his shoulder and gestured limply at the door. "I'll be on my way then. Thanks for... you know."

Oliver wasn't sure he knew, but nodded nevertheless. "Good night, Finn O'Connell."

The faintest look of surprise flitted across Finn's face. Then, he ducked his head and was gone, leaving Oliver alone in the empty restroom.

He shoved his earbuds back into his ears, compelled by some unspoken code of ethics to give Finn a head-start of one song—Pictures Of You by The Cure, remastered—before he, too, made to leave. He only paused once more at the door to glance at the space Finn had occupied just moments ago. With him gone, it was even harder to reconcile triumphant-team-captain Finn O'Connell and trembling, as-small-as-humanly-possible Finn O'Connell.

Shaking his head, Oliver plunged the scene into darkness and headed back into the library for his coat and helmet. Outside, parked beneath a birch tree, his second true love awaited his return.

*****************************

hello!! the boys finally met! how are we feeling? :o

i am posting this from LA where i am getting ready for WattCon (!!!)— if you want, you can still get virtual tickets to watch me on a romance panel and during a Q&A tomorrow! also keep your eyes peeled at the watty awards show hehe <3

today's song is seventeen going under by sam fender mostly for vibes but also because the lyrics fit these two SO WELL. thank you for coming to my ted talk

until next friday!! mwah <3