Work Text:
It was always Dave’s job to be the level-headed one. Phil was always more than happy, sometimes delighted, to challenge Ollie. In fact, he took great joy in getting one over on him whenever he could. It seemed like a useful combination. Good cop, bad cop. Gentle parenting to harmonise with some tough love, which often tipped into hatred or at least dislike. They’d been rehearsing when the child of the group had burst into babbling, ‘Linda’ and a few choice (and some frankly uncalled for) words about the woman being the only sounds comprehensible. The childish scene had started to look like a one-sided drunken brawl scarily quickly when he’d lifted a chair. They were in luck today (if they could call it that), as this time he wasn’t physically threatening them in front of a class of schoolkids.
“Ollie. Ollie, put it down. You’ll hurt someone.” Somewhere between condescending schoolteacher and sympathetic mother. Dave didn’t have a clear aim, but he felt a slightly infantilising tone was mitigated given the toddler-like tantrum from the man-child in front of him. “It’s not fair, is it?” Ollie’s volume had lowered slightly, and he’d almost stopped trembling, but still flying the ‘I hate Linda’ flag. “Put it down.” Dave repeated, tone firm and eyes locked with Ollie’s. Slowly but surely, the chair was lowered. He still continued with some dazed ramblings even as Dave guided him to a seat with a hand firmly on his shoulder. Somewhere between the scene and then, Phil had let out a huff and left, presumably to seek some much-needed reprieve. “Ollie, you need to calm down.” He continued. Ollie’s hysteria quickly turned to quiet sobbing, Dave hesitating for a second. “Come on, don’t cry.” Reflecting on his own advice, a cry was probably something Ollie could’ve done with. He’d much rather that than be threatened with furniture, anyway. “Why not? It doesn’t matter anymore, does it?!” He’d stopped speaking through gritted teeth, now the tears and occasional tiny gasp for breath restricted him. “I…It’s alright.” Dave’s voice changed from uncertainty to soft reassurance. “It’s okay.” He cooed. Ollie fell quiet for a few seconds, save for the breaths between his sobs, and regretfully a few restrained whimpers. It was the least Dave had heard from him in months. He attempted to soothe him by running his hand down his back between his shoulders rhythmically, much like he would comfort a small child with a grazed knee. It was a vulnerable position for both of them, and he was quite relieved Phil had stormed off in understandable incredulity. “Ollie.” He knew it might reverse all his efforts to calm Ollie down, but it needed to be said, he thought. “You need some proper help.” It needed to be sorted once and for all, whichever way he went about it. “Why should I be the one that gets help? She’s the one who left!” Ollie objected. “You can’t go on like this. You need to move on, get over Linda.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re lashing out at me and Phil every day, you’re embarrassing us on stage. I’m sorry, Ollie, but you’ve been horrible to be around.”
He knew it was coming. He’d set him up for more of the same, more ranting and rage. So it surprised him when Ollie came out with a simple, defeated, “I know.”
“Just…sort it out, Ollie. For all of our sakes.”
“Dave?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you and Phil hate me?”
“We…” He hadn’t expected that. Sometimes he’d seen Ollie as child-like, throwing a tantrum when he didn’t get his own way, holding no self-awareness whatsoever. But it still threw him off, seeing him seeking reassurance so blatantly, through weepy eyes and all.
‘Yes’, was his first thought, after all he had thought it dozens of times, sometimes mouthed it and even once voiced it. But he didn’t think he quite meant it. Ollie had always been arrogant, a control freak, and his recent split from Linda was the final nail in the ‘completely insufferable’ coffin. “No, we…look, like I said, you’ve been difficult to be around lately. I don’t think we can be blamed for needing a bit of space sometimes, do you?” He wasn’t going to lie to make life easier like usual. “So you do, then?” Ollie picked at his words. He was relentless, wouldn’t give it up until he had a straight answer. “Just…give it a rest, yeah?”
“Fine.” Ollie gave up, reluctantly but much sooner than Dave had been expecting.
“Let me drive you home.”
“My throat hurts.” He whinged. Dave sighed. “It’s probably all that shouting you’ve been doing. Here.” He scrambled to the fresh bottle of water in the van while at the lights to hand it to Ollie. “What happened to Phil?” He asked, it filled the silence. “He texted before, he’s gone home.” Dave explained, and caught a nod from Ollie.
It was a fairly silent drive once Ollie had decided he was at risk of losing his voice, not that Dave had any complaints about the quiet. He was feeling rather smug, being the one to finally get through to Ollie. He was sure Phil would laugh in his face at the suggestion that Ollie was a changed man. He’d felt a bit uneasy for the past hour or so after the interrogation from Ollie, he should’ve reassured him when he started to ask how the other two really felt about him and whether they actually hated him. He decided that it should’ve been instinct to say ‘no’ if Ollie were a true friend. Besides, Ollie was a veteran of upsetting people, Dave was sure he could get away with vaguely implying that he sometimes isn’t best keen on his colleague. Yet, he still felt the urge to reassure him.
“Ollie?”
The man in the passenger seat simply looked up expectedly.
“We don’t hate you.”
“Really?”
“No, course not.”
It hung there for a few seconds as they sat outside Ollie’s. Dave didn’t want to be totally unrealistic but he was actually expecting a ‘thank you’ for the lift now he’d drilled some sense into Ollie.
“Right, well, I’ll see you tomorrow. We can run through my new play about heartburn, ‘In For A Rennie, In For A Frown’. I’m looking to get us a run at an arts centre this time, I know I should’ve asked but it’s not like you and Phil will have anything on. I mean, you’re not likely to have jobs on are you? Especially once they see Phil on telly.”
Not as much progress as he’d thought. He’d continue tomorrow with the mammoth task of getting Ollie Plimsolls to mirror a reasonable human being.