The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

CXXVI: I'm Here Aren't I?

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?"