It's not every day you almost hit somebody with your car - but then again, it's not every day that the somebody in question falls directly out of the sky and into the road in front of you.
Oli slams the brakes as fast as he can physically manage, parks the car, hops out. (If traffic comes up behind him on a little road like this, only a couple of streets from his house, then they can wait for him to check on the body before he lets them past, alright?) Lying in front of him, tensed but not appearing to be grievously injured, is a man.
"Hello?"
The man's eyes flick open, his gaze wild and alert at once, and he scrambles back across the tarmac. "Who are you?"
"No - no, I'm not - you just fell in front of my car, that's all, I'm not a cop or anything."
"Don't need to be a cop to be dangerous," the stranger insists, fists balling against the road as though he'd rather be reaching for a weapon. "Where is this?"
"You're - we're in Sheffield," he hazards, "like, north Sheffield, not in the middle of town or anything. How did you fall out of the sky like that?"
"Sheffield?" the man repeats.
"Yeah?"
"What's your name?"
"Er - I'm Oli. Oliver."
The stranger stares at Oli like he's trying to bore a hole through to the other side of his skull. "OrionSound?"
Oli pauses. How in the everliving fuck does this random stranger know his gamertag, of all things? "What? Yes. What?"
"Right," the stranger mutters, "not over yet, I guess." He hops up, offers a hand, which Oli, bewildered, shakes. "My name is Martyn."
Ah - that would explain it. If, albeit, it is still a fucking insane coincidence. "You've been in some of our lobbies before. How did you work that out from name and location?"
Martyn stops short. "Hold on. Lobbies?"
"Yeah - on Pirates, right? And Rats. I always just sort of assumed you must be mates with Owen or something."
"Lobbies like - like in-game?"
"... Yes?"
Martyn looks around, as though he's processing this quiet side street for the very first time. He flexes his fingers on either side, half-concealed under fingerless gloves. Then he makes eye contact with Oli again. "Let me just get this straight. You've met me in-game, and this is not that. This is real."
"Yeah," Oli frowns, "what? Of course this is real. I'm sorry, am I missing something?"
And Martyn laughs, mirthless, like Oli's not privy to the greatest cosmic joke he can imagine. "Little bit, yeah. Right. I did get out. And I'm in Sheffield, and OrionSound of all people found me. And… I need to call my mum."
"You want my phone?"
"Oh, god, not now, I need a minute."
Against his better judgement, Oli makes a choice. "Well, if you need somewhere to go, just for a bit, we're not far from my house?"
Martyn laughs again. "Right! Sure. Let's do that. Fuck. Fucking hell, you've got a car, been a hot minute since I've seen one of those. Let's go."
So that's how Oli ends up letting Martyn, a man he's never met before but also knows quite well, into his car and into his home. It's not even one o'clock yet.
(part two here)
