maybe it's time to stop drinking, he thinks to himself for what has to be the hundredth time this month. the reason behind this thought is this time not the way his hands shake when it's been too long between his kissing the bottle, nor is it the sick feeling in his stomach that follows him everywhere, but something new and potentially much worse ⸻ hallucinations?
he has to be seeing things, has to be. after all, deja vu is not a particularly more reassuring possibility where explanations are concerned, is it? he stares at the stranger on the sidewalk with an expression that is caught somewhere between entertaining thoughts that he's having a mental fit, and having seen a ghost.
and maybe, just maybe the last possibility to come to mind is the most realistic explanation for how the stranger on the sidewalk was just on the slab in the mortuary a week ago, how oliver had put him in the ground in an unmarked grave, only to now see him standing in front of him.
"i know you," he murmurs, shaking his head at @acidcorrodes in disbelief, "i mean, i've seen you. i buried you."