secrets can haunt

July 21st, 2019

Oliver was still hungover from the party the night before. The second that he got to the party, alone of course, people were passing bottles to him. He got far too drunk far too fast and managed to forget that he was waiting for Skye and Lachlan to show up. He never actually saw them at the party, but it was a wild party and he was mostly hanging out with Emily and Brian, and then some random guy whose name was mostly gone. Tony? Peter? Stephen? Steve? Eh, it was something basic and so was he. When he left, he texted Lachlan that he was sorry he missed him, but he was having a crazy night.

Oliver didn't have a text the next morning, but he didn't give it much thought since he was running late for therapy. Again. He knew that he was going to see Skye anyway. And see Skye he did. Less than a minute into therapy, Skye turned to say something to Delilah and her hair fell over her shoulder. On the side of her neck, was a giant hickey. It didn't take Oliver long to put the pieces together. He hadn't seen Skye and Lachlan because they were never there. His eyes grew wide and he looked down at his feet. He felt like he had stumbled onto something he shouldn't know.

So, as therapy ended, he walked out with Delilah as Skye packed up and then said he forgot something. He turned back towards where they had met. As Delilah left, he leaned up against the building at the end of the path, waiting for Skye to walk past. When she past him, he said,

"Most people use makeup or scarves, y'know."

Oliver took a couple of long strides to catch up with Skye and match her pace, walking away from the hospital. He highly doubted that she wanted to have this conversation where Dr. Burke could turn the corner any second and have more stuff to write down in her notebook. Oliver had to wonder if she was starting to run out of paper in the legal pad.

"Okay, but you could definitely rock it in the Vampire Diaries universe. A real Elena Gilbert type, definitely. I, on the other hand, am more of a Jeremy or Matt." Oliver said, clarifying that he definitely had knowledge of the Vampire Diaries and had definitely been referencing Caroline Forbes. He watched it for the plot, he swore.

"So, feel free to correct any of this that is wrong. I left last night, and in the heated passion of an argument, you and Lachlan kissed or something. You went back to his trash heap of a club house and bumped the ugly with that hetero-mess. From the way you two fight all the time, I have to guess that this isn't the first time." Oliver looked Skye up and down. He may not have been smart when it came to the book stuff, but he was very good at reading people. "And you enjoyed it much more than you'd like to admit." Oliver raised his eyebrow at her.

Oliver laughed when she said that she hadn't meant for it to happen. It wasn't the first time he had heard that phrase. He had heard it both from Lachlan and about him. Lachlan was pretty good at getting himself into messes, and Oliver could see this turning into one quickly.

"I don't think there is really an accidental way for that to happen, Skye." Oliver said with a smug smirk. Sure, he knew what she meant and he'd be lying if he said he hadn't found himself in a similar situation before, but it was so much fun to harass her for it. Anyway, they had ditched him, technically. That gave him the right to make fun of her for this. He looked at Skye and for a second thought about Lachlan like that and his nose scrunched up and he pushed it out of his head as quickly as he could.

"So when did this start?" Oliver asked. There had been a few times that he had seen them suspiciously together, but he had never known if he was just reading in to things. Now he was taking mental inventory of all of those times. He guessed that at least one of them had to be the time. "And who else knows?" Oliver asked. Again, he felt like he knew the answer, but he needed it confirmed. Anyway, Oliver was always in for the hot goss.

Oliver sorted through his mental filing cabinet. Well, it was more like a mental desk with a small lamp on it shining on a couple pieces of paper on it at a time. He didn't exactly have a good memory. He was able to remember a day that fall when they had all been in the same place. Lachlan and Caroline were in one of their bigger fights and she had straight up not come to the party. Oliver played through the broken memories from that night when he was still with Thurmond. Most of it was blurry, but he remembered watching Lachlan and Skye weave out of the party together. He flagged them memory in his mind. It might be important later.

Oliver had managed to glaze over one important piece of information in that, remembering it when Skye mentioned her: Caroline. Sure, Lachlan and Caroline were never officially anything, but they were definitely capital-S Something. Was Skye what caused The Fight? And then when Skye left with Caroline, that couldn't have been good. To think, they thought Caroline hated Skye before that.

Oliver let out a dramatic sigh through tight lips. "That must have not been fun for you. I would not want to be staring down that bayonet." Oliver had gotten plenty of lectures from Caroline in his time, but he had never slept with her Something. He could not imagine that firestorm.

Oliver didn't want it to seem like he didn't like Caroline. On the contrary, he absolutely adored Caroline. He had always had the time of his life gossiping with her and going out partying. He remembered one party in early May before her and Skye left for their quest when Lachlan had an 102° fever and they went to this neon party alone. It was one of the few times that they had hung out without Lachlan there, too. It was that night that he decided that Caroline and Lachlan were absolutely awful for each other. He'd always thought that Caroline was just bad for Lachlan, but as he watched Caroline dance and be more free than ever with Lachlan, he knew that he was bad for her, too.

Oliver couldn't be happy about what Skye and Lachlan had done, though, as much as he wanted to be. Caroline had been his friend, as much as that seemed to be forgotten by both him and others.

"I don't think that any one person, or any two people for that matter, can shake the very foundation of the world, but I think you and Lachlan, together, could actually do that." Oliver thought back to The Fight between Caroline and Lachlan. He remembered how much it felt like things had changed. "Talk about a true mess."

Suddenly, Oliver thought about Delilah. He knew how much of her life had been flipped upside down recently, and he knows that Skye and Lachlan would be another big change for her. Oliver and Delilah were planning Skye's birthday right now. He already knew the answer, but he had to ask,

"I can't tell Delilah, can I?"

In the back of his head, it really bothered Oliver how Skye said that Delilah couldn't know. On the one hand, he know that it wasn't his business to say anything to Delilah. He definitely thought that Skye and Lachlan should tell her, but he couldn't be the one to do it. That would only cause more drama. Oliver didn't really get why he felt so defensive of Delilah right then. Sure, they had been spending a lot more time together lately, but it's not like there was anything there, he reminded himself, pushing back the screaming in his head.

"You should really, probably, tell her, y'know. Or maybe you shouldn't. I guess I actually don't know." He felt like Lachlan and Skye knew Delilah better, but he knew her well enough that she would like to know under normal circumstances. Her circumstances right now might not really be normal. This might be too much. Oliver could feel the electric tension between him and Skye right now. He didn't want to upset Skye. What her and Lachlan did, consensually, was entirely their choice. So he decided to change the topic, with a laugh.

"Lachlan sucks, right?"