SOME KIND OF DISASTER ─ oliver wood

[ 030 ] paper planes

She shakes her head, and the moment passes and her once weary and sad eyes are sharp and focused and stern again.

A stampede of footsteps thundered down the corridor, and when the door burst open, the three Slytherin boys surged in, swarming Quinn's bedside at a go. Jeremy reached over and hugged her fiercely, feathering kisses along her hairline. Rio patted Quinn's knee awkwardly. He looked stronger today, standing on his own two feet without need for support. There was some colour on his face, and there were no bags under his eyes. Sawyer wondered where the pale, withdrawal-sick boy had gone. Had he found a crutch? Where had he disappeared off to yesterday?

"Glad you're not dead, Comet," Rio said, all teeth.

Quinn smiled.

Marcus, on the other hand, was staring at Oliver with calculative eyes, a storm darkening his face as he stared down his rival. While Marcus wasn't vocal about how much he couldn't stand Oliver, especially in fifth year when Sawyer and Oliver apparently had a thing, Sawyer could tell that he thought that Oliver's presence, currently, appeared to be too intrusive. It hadn't slipped Sawyer's mind that they barely knew anything about the tether holding her and Oliver in orbit. Maybe she wanted them to find out this way. Maybe she wanted them to notice something different, notice the way Oliver instinctively stepped away from Sawyer like they weren't melded together this morning on the Quidditch pitch, gilded in sweat and skin on skin on skin. Maybe she wanted them to explain to her what she couldn't explain to herself.

Maybe Marcus could get the ball rolling.

"What is he doing here?" Marcus spat.

The last thing Sawyer expected Oliver to tell was the truth.

"Stealing your girl," Oliver drawled, a thick bite of sarcasm in his steely tone. He gave Sawyer a flat look that read: of course, you're friends with Marcus Flint. As if he'd forgotten.

"You should leave," Marcus said, stiffly, "this doesn't concern you."

Oliver rolled his eyes.

"You're making a scene," Sawyer said, knotting her fingers in the hem of Oliver's sweatshirt and tugging until he sits back down. "He stays."

All four of her friends fixed her with confused stares. Rio smirked, crossing his arms over his chest, as though he'd seen this coming from a mile away. Or maybe he was waiting for the chance to take a shark-bite out of the situation. Sawyer could see it—for all the times he slipped up on his promises, for all the times he wasn't truthful to his friends, for all the times he was just plain awful—he was building a war chest. Something to throw back in her face later, when it mattered more: you've been hiding this for how long?

"It's fine," Quinn said, reassuringly. "I'm getting discharged at the end of the day, anyhow."

"He's not one of us," Rio drawled, his teeth turning sharp, eager to bite, to tear. He fixed Sawyer with a serpentine stare. "Unless there's something you have to confess. Last I recall, ex-boyfriends don't make good company." He glanced at Marcus meaningfully then, his words a double-edged sword.

Marcus didn't wince, didn't look away, didn't betray any emotion he might've been feeling at that point. Dating Rio Alvarez required granite skin, fortified strongholds that didn't whittle away so easily. Instead, he turned to Oliver and Sawyer, waiting on an explanation.

"We're friends," Oliver said, again, looking as bored as Sawyer felt with this conversation.

"Bullshit," Rio snapped, shooting to kill—judge, jury, executioner.

Unfazed, Oliver merely shrugged. "Sure, man, believe what you want. I have nothing to prove to you."

He was a good liar. Sawyer wondered how much practice he got. How many other things has he lied about.