Oliver could barely breathe.

It was the way every single memory of his past was flooding him, filling him up so that he felt like his mind was swimming, lost among the corridors of Hogwarts and flashes celebratory nights after Quidditch matches. The smell of locker room showers, that one soap that Wally always commented on that was green and blue in scent, filling up far-off hotel rooms with lush sheets and vibrant colors in city lights and clubs and concerts and the heady thrill of celebrity with Wally at his side...

Wally's hand on Oliver's face was warm and soft and his cheek savored the sensation of the touch that was altogether familiar yet so long forgotten that it felt new all over again.

Again and again and again.

Deep in his core, he was still that ickle little first-year, sitting on the edge of his bed, hearing his best mate say pretty things before there came a soft peck of the lips and the entire world exploded from black and white into screaming color. He was learning how to believe in things that were good like that moment had been again. Sure, on the surface he was also the internationally famous Quidditch Seeker with a hundred thousand fans - including a lot of young witches that got into the sport only because of him and his gorgeous hair and facial structure - but that surface layer with an ego and an attitude of self confidence was like a glamour worn by the boy whose toes didn't reach the carpet...

Everything in Oliver had come to a screaming halt at the breakfast table on 1 November, 1981, and although life had gone rattling on around him, he'd stopped there in so many ways.

This was the first time he'd felt like he was moving again... and it was terrifying.

It had been almost a week since Oliver had opened the door and found Wally Grant on the stoop, since they had stood in the dining room and Wally had asked to kiss him...

And so Wally had kissed him - just like he had in first year, with all his strength.

Without breaking the kiss, Oliver had started backing them into the living room, setting sights on the plush white couch. Wally had easily followed his lead at first but stumbled on the edge of a rug that hadn't been there when he'd lived at the house too. It was that small change that had made them break apart, Oliver having stepped over it without hesitation, their lips losing contact and Wally's mind coming-to out of the fog of the excitement of the kiss. Wally looked down at the carpet - it was blue - and he was reminded of Declan Alectric's hair. Of news stories and public turmoils and press with their camera flashbulbs...

"Wait, wait." Wally's voice was funny, breathless, fighting a current about to pull him back under.

Oliver barely could hear him, he was on fire, and his hands were on Wally - the rip tide.

"Ollie, wait." Wally pushed Oliver back and Oliver stood, panting, staring at Wally in confusion. Wally took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. Oliver's blonde hair had already become disheveled and that was always one of Wally's favorite things (and those if the many adoring fans who were less into quidditch and more into Oliver). It was the way the locks hung over his forehead all windswept-looking, strands of it getting into his eyes like some handsome Hollywood actor, his baby-face peeking out behind those golden strands and taking away Wally's concentration and good moral judgements. "God how do you look the same now as you did ten years ago?"

Oliver tossed his head, flipping the hair back off his forehead. Another of Wally's favorite things. "What do you mean?"

"I mean - you. Look at you. I've become a fat slub and you're --" Wally shook his head.

Oliver looked down at himself, then back up to meet Wally's eyes. "You're not a fat slub."

"Compared to you and your wash board abs --" Wally shook his head. "No. No Wally. Not the point. Not the point. Get it together."

Oliver's eyebrows were raised in question.

"We have things to discuss before we go doing anything stupid. Like going horizontal on that couch," he pointed to where Oliver had been headed.

"But discussing is no fun," Oliver pouted.

Wally said, "No, I don't reckon it will be. Especially given what we need to discuss." He studied Oliver for a moment. "Have you been using?"

Oliver shook his head. "No."

"You're not lying to me?"

"I'm not lying. I haven't used in a long time. Since shortly after -" He stopped.

Wally said, "Since the accident."

"Yeah," Oliver said. "Since the - the accident."

Wally frowned.

"I lost everything in the accident," Oliver whispered.

"Not everything," Wally said, waving his palms. "You kept a great deal. I lost everything."

"I tried to let you take the house," Oliver said, "I tried to give you the money, I --"

"Gave me everything except the thing I needed most of all," Wally interrupted, cutting off the list of things Oliver had tried to give him. "I only wanted you."

"I -" Oliver faltered, flushed.

"You're still all I want."

Now, almost a week later, and they hadn't finished the conversation, hadn't talked about Colin, about the accident, but they'd not left the house either, and now they lay in Oliver's bed, in a pool of sunlight, on top of a mountain of tangled blankets. Wally was smelling the citrus-ginger notes of Oliver's cologne still clinging to his pulse points, even after everything, so true to that effortless perfection that Oliver had somehow naturally grown into. Compared to him, Wally really did feel like a rather fat slub, despite Oliver's insistence that he wasn't one. Any average man next to Oliver would feel like one, he supposed, but he had really let himself go a bit during his time with Geri. 

The thought of Geri made him groan.

"Wossamatter?" Oliver asked, muffled by the pillow his face was pressed against. Wally watched his eyelashes flutter as Oliver turned his head to look up at him.

Wally was transported to a hospital room - a muggle hospital because the ambulance had been called after the car crash. Mediwitches and wizards had been called in, too, but the sort of injuries sustained had been best treated with both magical and muggle medicines. If he'd been a muggle, Oliver Kent wouldn't have walked again. He was lucky; lucky because the nerves severed by the crash were repairable by magic, but only just barely and it took time... it would take a full quidditch season on the bench...

And more of those damned muggle medicine pills that he was so easily lost to.

Wally had watched Oliver's eyelashes flutter then, too, as Oliver came to, days after the crash.

"What - where am I?"

"In hospital," Wally had whispered.

"Colin. Where's Colin?"

Wally couldn't answer. The words caught in his throat, his mind a flickering reel of memories already, the word having lost all meaning, a drum beat in his head, pounding like a migraine, but impossible to say.

How do you tell someone the child they were caring for was killed in a motor car accident?

How do you tell someone that the accident was their fault?

And not for any reason except it was really, truly an accident?

...an accident that happened to occur on Halloween.

The three musketeers. That'd been their costumes. Because that's what they called each other.

Wally's own body was still sore, but he'd been the lucky one of the accident. Thrown from the window by the impact, he'd landed on the roadside, on a hill, and woke to the horror of the scene unfolding... he'd seen the bodies and the wreckage and the smoke and the fire. But sure, he was the lucky one. Though honestly he would have preferred the days of blissful ignorance.

Silence sometimes speaks louder than words.

Oliver knew without Wally telling him.

"Wally?" Oliver touched Wally's face, and Wally startled like he'd been underwater and just been returner to air. Oliver stared up at him, stroked his lips with his thumb softly, searching his eyes.

Wally drew a deep breath.

Oliver sat up, the blankets falling away from his broad chest, the muscles from quidditch were so defined -- Wally stared at them a moment before shaking his head and re-focusing. 

"We really do need to talk. Before anymore of -- us -- can happen."

Oliver sighed and sank back into the pillows.

"I saw your - I saw Jasper," Wally said slowly, gently.

Oliver's eyes moved to meet Wally's. 

"I didn't set out to but I was in Diagon Alley, at Gringott's, and as I was going in he was just coming out from doing his daily deposit for the parlor and we ran smack into each other. He said you were there - on Eil's birthday."

Oliver looked away.

"He said you left before he could talk to you."

Oliver stared blankly at the foot of the bed.

"Ollie... What happened? Between you and Jasper?"

Oliver drew a deep breath. He closed his eyes and his nostrils flared, then he opened them and met Wally's again. "He wanted me to get help."

Wally said, "We all did. Me and Dex and Macy and Deccy and everyone asked you to get help."

"I know. But - but you all knew that what happened with the motor car... you all knew it was an accident. You knew I needed the help, yeah, but it was because I got back on the pills after the accident, when I was all tore up and I needed them again and I got fucking benched and everything was falling apart again - and on the anniversary of -- and - but you guys knew. You knew it was an accident."

"Because it was," Wally said.

Oliver's eyes glistened as he met Wally's eyes. "Jasper didn't."

"You didn't tell him?"

"I told him," Oliver said, "I told him about a hundred thousand times. He didn't believe me."

Wally bit his lip with concern.

"He said I was revising my memory, making excuses, trying to back out of owning responsibility, afraid of facing truth and doing the hard work of recovery," Oliver said, "All those shitty self-help book keywords he likes so much." His blue eyes couldn't have looked bluer than they did with tears teetering right on the edges of his eye ducts. He shook his head. He looked away from Wally, turning his head the opposite direction, his mouth twisted sourly. "I - I started to believe it... even though I hadn't taken anything that day. I hadn't taken anything since the day we got the letter. Since the day Colin came to live with us. I refused to give in to even the worst cravings - you know that."

Wally nodded.

"But he told me it wasn't an accident, that it was something I had to take care of, so many times that I started to believe it wasn't an accident and --" Oliver bit his lip.

"--and you left me," Wally whispered.

Oliver nodded, "And I left you. I left our friends. But I also left my family. And I left myself in a lot of ways. Only Declan stuck around - I mean he had to, he was my PR."

Wally sighed.

Oliver ran his hands over his own eyes, smearing away the tears that were threatening him. "I know if I told him the whole thing, I know he'd believe me now and I know he'd say he was sorry and that he would mean it. He really thought he was trying to help me, trying to get me to process what he believed was the truth. I just don't know how to make it right between us."

Wally said, "You have to try, Ollie."

"I don't know how."

Wally said, "You go... and you knock on the door... and when he opens it up... you look him in the eye and you tell him the steps you've taken toward the start of making it right."

"You think that's all there is to it, don't you?" Oliver asked. "As though you've done it before."

Wally looked him in the eyes. "I'm here, aren't I?"