Fic: Oliver Is
Title: Oliver is
Authors: lillylunaPairing: Phelps/Lochte
Rating: PG 12
Warnings: If you don't like my lyrics, you can press fast-forward. It's not real.
Summary: A bunch of Oliver blurbs that didn't fit anywhere else
Notes: 2055 words
Oliver is five when he asks the question they’ve been dreading.
He’s already crying when Michael picks him up from school but he won’t talk on the ride home. Once they’re in the house and Michael’s helping him untie his shoes (how he manages to knot them this tight every single day is a mystery to everyone) his story comes out.
“Everyone has a mom, and I don’t.” It’s hard to understand him through the sobs, the sniffling and the snot running down his face. “Ty said everyone has one but mee.”
“Oh Ols.” Michael hugs him trying to buy time for his explanation.
They’ve explained it to Oliver before, they’ve read him books about gay parents and have told him the story of how he grew in someone else’s tummy and how he was special because they had to work so hard to have him. How he was special because they’d wanted him so much.
“Why don’t I have a mo-om?” Oliver drags the last syllable through two gulping sobs burying his face in Michael’s neck.
“What’s going on?” Alerted by the sobs, Ryan walks into their mudroom. Michael’s head is leaning against Oliver’s and Ryan notices that Michael and Oliver have the exact same shade of brown hair, it makes something in the bottom of his stomach hurt.
“What’s wrong Gator?” Ryan fights the feeling away. He kneels down next to Mike and starts rubbing Oliver’s back.
Oliver turns his head to look at Ryan, “I…” He hiccups, “Don’t have a mom.”
“Yeah you don’t Gator.” Ryan tells him. He uses the sleeve of his sweater to wipe Oliver’s face.
“WHY?!” Oliver throws his head back and sobs even louder, “It’s YOUR FAULT. WHY DON’T I HAVE A MOM?” He beats his little fists against Michael’s chest.
“Because.” Ryan says firmly, grabbing both of Oliver’s hands in one of his, “You have two dads.”
Oliver blinks at him, gulps and stops crying.
Oliver is fifteen when he has to spend his first night in the hospital.
He swims with a bad cold for a week and a half until Ryan finds him shaking with chills and burning up with a fever on the couch waiting for a ride to morning practice.
“You don’t look so hot Gator.” He tells him and Oliver doesn’t even open his eyes.
Ryan presses the back of his hand against Oliver’s forehead and then his palm on top of Oliver’s head.
Oliver coughs until tears run down his face.
“Yeah dude,” Ryan reaches for the phone on the coffee table, “You’re not swimming today.”
The phone call takes thirty seconds because he’s not about to let someone change his mind. If they’ve learned anything about raising a swimmer it’s that when it comes to dealing with Oliver’s career they have to be the parents. They have to be the ones who look out for him no matter what.
Oliver leans against him and he feels heavy.
“I bailed you out. Let’s get you back to bed.” Ryan nudges Oliver, “You can think of how you’re going to thank me for this.” He jokes but Oliver doesn’t laugh.
*
Oliver’s breathing is quick and he coughs until he’s holding his sides in pain. Once he’s up the stairs, in his room and back in his bed, Ryan gets him more blankets, some Tylenol to lower his fever and he lets Bert back into the room.
“How’re you feeling dude?” Ryan asks once Oliver stops shivering.
“Like shit.” Oliver’s voice is hoarse from coughing and there’s an alarming wheezing sound every time he breathes. .
“Yeah well.” He sits next to Oliver’s curled up shape because he’s too worried to leave the room, “It’s why when you’re sick as fuck you don’t lie about it to go swimming. What the fuck were you going to do in the pool like this? Die?” He rubs Oliver’s back.
“Don’t.“ Oliver whines, “I had a traini-“
“Forget it kid.” Ryan keeps rubbing his back, “My kick is better than any asshole your coaches have teaching you. I’ll help you out once you’re better.”
Oliver doesn’t answer. Once he’s asleep, his breathing is still quick but it evens out a bit. It’s still ridiculously early and Ryan dozes off with his hand on Oliver’s back and with Bert’s head on his legs.
*
“Ry?” Michael calls out from the hallway, “Ry? Where are you your car’s still here.”
Bert growls in protest when Ryan carefully gets up from Oliver’s bed. Ryan makes sure Oliver is still sleeping before slipping out of the door.
“Hey.” He says quietly, “Don’t be loud, Oliver’s still sleeping.”
“Is he too sick to go swim?” Michael looks worried, “ I thought you guys were gone… Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I had it under control dude.” Ryan reassures him, “I called him out of practice and got him back to bed, gave him more blankets and Tylenol and I rubbed his back until he fell asleep.”
“Is he still sleeping?” Michael walks up to Oliver’s room to check on him.
“Yeah, what time does his doctor’s office open?” Ryan takes his cell phone out of his pocket to look at the time.
“Like in half an hour? I can call and make him an-” Oliver coughs and wheezes. Michael stops talking and the worry settles on his face again. “Dude, let’s just take him to the ER.”
*
“He could.” Michael says carefully, “I do.”
“You what?”
“You know this.” Michael tells Ryan, “We talked about this before we had him… When I didn’t want to put my stuff in the dish because and you said-“
“That I didn’t care, I still-“
“So yeah, it’s genetic. If he’s mine he probably-“
“Yo…” Ryan’s voice is so quiet Michael barely hears him, “We both know he’s yours.”
“He’s yours too dude.”
*
Oliver has pneumonia and because his fever is high, his breathing fast and because he’s not drinking any fluids, his doctor decides to hospitalize him.
The nurses tell them that Oliver will be fine, that all he needs are some intravenous fluids, some oxygen, antibiotics and a lot of rest.
It’s hard to believe them because for a kid who’s just hit six feet Oliver looks really small in the hospital bed and the Buzz Lightyear printed hospital gown does nothing to help Ryan and Michael remember that he’s fifteen and not five.
They sit on opposite side of his bed and watch him sleep.
Oliver is four when he wins his first medal
It’s a soccer game and the kids spend most of the time running in a pack after the ball. Sometimes they remember which net is theirs and sometimes all they do is stand in the middle of the field and cry.
Oliver’s jersey is two times too big for him and his shin guards are bright green. Everyone gets a medal and there’s no podium or national anthems but Michael squeezes Ryan’s shoulder when the coach slips the blue ribbon around Oliver’s neck.
It’s the only medal that hangs in their house.
Oliver is a month old, it’s three in the morning and he won’t stop crying.
Ryan walks into the nursery with bleary eyes and makes a desperate kind of noise.
“I’ve tried everything.” Michael answers, “I don’t know what’s wrong.”
Ryan backs up against the wall and slides down to the floor, he holds his head in his hands.
“Go back to bed Ry,” Michael nudges him with his foot, “You have to be at the pool.”
“I can’t.” He shakes his head.
“I don’t know what to do.” Michael admits, “He won’t stop crying.”
It’s been five days since Oliver’s slept more than an hour in one stretch. Their house looks like a warzone; there are piles of laundry everywhere and no food in their fridge. Even the dogs know something’s up. They pace the hallway and stick close to Oliver’s crib or to the side of whoever’s holding him.
Both Ryan and Michael are at their breaking point.
“Is his diaper wet?” Ryan asks but he doesn’t look up.
“Oh shit, maybe I should check.” Michael says back sarcastically, “He’s been crying for three fucking hours but I-“
“I was just-“ Ryan looks up at him hurt.
“Fuck, I’m sorry… I just can’t take it anymore.” Michael stops pacing and Oliver’s cries get louder, “I’m about to fucking loose it dude.”
“Give him.” Ryan instantly seems more alert, he stands up and takes Oliver and puts him down still crying in the crib. He pushes Michael out of the room and closes the door.
“You can’t just-“ Michael argues
“He’ll be okay for ten.” Ryan heads for the stairs still holding Michael’s hand. He stops at the top step and shakes his head, “Fuck man, I’m so tired I can’t see straight.”
“We can’t leave him cryi-“
“My mom says,” Ryan starts going down the stairs, “That if they cry and you feel like you’re going to lose it you gotta walk away.”
“I wasn’t going to do anything to him Ry-“ Michael doesn’t follow him down.
“Didn’t say that.” Ryan turns around and wobbles a bit, “Fuck, too tired for stairs.”
He sits down in the staircase and pulls Michael down to sit a step above his. The house is dark; the only light comes from a streetlamp outside. Oliver’s crying is just slightly muffled by the closed door it’s still loud.
“This is hard.” Ryan lays his head on Michael’s lap, “Like fucking hard.”
“I wasn’t going to hurt him.” Michael repeats, “I just can’t listen to him cry-“
“I know.” Ryan says, “But I gotta watch out for you too. Not just Gator.”
“We should go back-“
“No, he’s okay, he’s safe. Just take like five minutes.” Ryan reaches up to stroke Michael’s hair and ends up awkwardly palming his face.
“Dude.” Michael laughs, “Just go to bed.”
“No, I’ll like take over, I’m good.”
“You have practice in the morning.”
“Uh uh.” Ryan closes his eyes, “It is morning.”
“Maybe we need to suck it up and call our moms.” Michael says a little desperate.
“No… They’re waiting… We just gotta like.” He doesn’t finish
“Exactly dude.” Michael runs his fingers through Ryan’s hair which is longer than it’s been in years.
“Next time we do the baby thing, can I not be training for the Olympics?”
“Dude.” Michael groans, “We’re not doing this again.”
“Deal.”
They high five on it.
Oliver is sixteen when he makes the Olympic team
Oliver used to chew his nails when he was a kid. It had taken a reward system, band-aids on all his fingers and five months to get him to stop. Two weeks before the Olympics Michael notices three of Oliver’s fingers are bleeding; he’s chewed the nails down to the skin.
“Olls is stressing it.” Michael tells Ryan as he’s getting ready for bed.
“You saw his hands?” Ryan has glasses on; he’s looking through model headshots and fabric swatches.
“Yeah.”
“Do you think we should dig out the reward chart from the basement?” Ryan shoves all the papers and the pictures and the fabric samples into the binder and dumps it on the ground. Sometimes, Michael feels really bad for Ryan’s assistant.
“I think this is bigger than the reward chart Ry.”
“Not if we get him a car at the end of it.” Ryan’s fingers inch towards the car brochures he keeps on his bedside table instead of books.
“No, you can’t just keep buying him cars Ry… It’s not the-“ Michael takes the car brochures off Ryan’s reach.
“He doesn’t get the worrying shit from me bro.” Ryan says, “I don’t know how to solve that shit.”
“I know.” Michael wishes that of all the things Oliver’s picked up from Ryan over the years, he would have also picked up his attitude towards swimming, that it didn’t matter as long as it was fun.
“I think this one’s yours.” Ryan admits, “I tried to take him out skateboarding last week and he didn’t want to risk it, I don’t know how to deal with him when he worries.”
“I don’t know either…”
“Fuck.” Ryan pushes his glasses up, “You’d think after sixteen years we would have figured this kid out.”
I know there's a part of this that is very close to the sickfic. I hope no one's upset about it... I just needed to write it out without the drama of the sickfick because after thinking about it forever, it just feels like Michael would have never kept information that was that important from Ryan. There's also no way Michael Phelps would have forgotten about something that important. Anyways, I hope no one's angry. If you are I'm really sorry.