Oz Spellman
July 19, 2023 2:45 PM
In case anyone was wondering why we're not speaking
by Oz Spellman
Co-written With: Xavier Lundstrom
Oz had enough people that he could avoid Xavier and still not be on his own. He had Henry, Gus, and Billy. At a pinch, he had any member of the Quidditch team. He’d been making use of all of them at meal times, and in class.
Today though, his Quidditch schedule and Henry’s prefect duties had them eating at different times. The coach had kept him late talking about captainy stuff, and even Gus was just… not there. Oz was too tired and hungry to make the effort of inserting himself into a new group of people. Anyway, the odds seemed low that Xavier would be in the hall during the brief window it took for Oz to shovel his own body weight in pasta and chicken into his mouth, or that he had somehow missed the memo that Oz wasn’t open to talking to him.
And yet, whatever Fates wanted to screw over Xav’s life seemed perfectly willing to jump in on Oz’s as well because there he was. Worse still, he was coming over. Oz considered abandoning his plate, but after training he was starving.
“I don’t want to talk to you.” He tried to pre-empt any interaction from Xavier.
“Yeah. I got that.” Xavier’s tone was snarky. But he seemed to try and reel it in. “Can you just tell me… why?”
“I would have thought that was fricking obvious.” But Xav continued to stare at him like he wasn’t making sense. “You could have fricking died. Because of your own stupidity and stubbornness—”
“I know. It was crappy. And I get why you needed space to cool down. But it won’t happen again. I’m doing better.”
Oz had expected puppy dog eyes. He had expected Xavier to beg for forgiveness, and Oz was terrible at being mad at people. He would cave and crumble, because Xav mattered so damn much to him.
Apparently, none of that had occurred to Xavier.
He hadn’t spent one second thinking about how Oz was thinking, other than to be annoyed and confused that Oz’s world suddenly didn’t revolve around him.
“So that’s it then? Problem solved?” Oz asked.
“Well… Yeah? I mean, like… Not every trauma I’ve ever had. It’s not all going to just magically vanish. But I’m…ok?”
“Oh. Alright then. So long as you’re fine, that’s it. Everything can just go back to normal.” He watched, waiting for the penny to drop. Expecting ‘that’s not what I meant’ or maybe even ‘I’m sorry.’
“Well… why can’t it?”
“Because all the crap you put me through sucks, Xavier. It fricking sucks. And you don’t even seem to have stopped to think about that for a second. So long as you’re fine. So long as you’ve done your posh boy thing and waltzed your way through all your therapies then what… there’s literally no other pieces to this puzzle and everything should just fall back into place? What am I? Too much of a dumb jock to have any significant feelings about you nearly dying?”
“No, Oz, I didn’t think—-”
“About anyone except yourself? Yeah. I’ve noticed. It’s kind of a pattern with you.” The blood was pulsing in his ears, adrenaline pumping hard enough for him to have lost his appetite. Especially if it meant staying, continuing this. He didn’t want to keep tearing the already broken pieces into even finer fragments. He didn’t want to be yelling in front of the whole school that he had feelings. He wasn’t supposed to have them. Xavier had been one of the few people who’d been let under his armour and was supposed to know that wasn’t true.
“Well, can we at least try to figure it out?” Xav asked.
“No. You figure it out. On your own. Because I am sick of clearing up your mess.” Oz was already halfway gone by the time he finished saying it.
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Oz Spellman
In case anyone was wondering why we're not speaking
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Xavier Lundstrom