Work Text:
Oscar had sworn he wouldn't let himself worry about Jasmine anymore. He promised Lauren and his dad that he'd move on.
His family had always had a hunch that she was a danger, that one day she'd waltz in, ruin everything and hurt everyone around her. And of course he couldn't help but pray that despite everything that she wasn't the bad person everyone made out to be.
He should have known she'd break his heart.
It started when she began becoming secretive whenever he simply asked her questions, ones that he didn't have a problem with answering himself. All he wanted was for her to let him in, let him see her heart and pick out all of the bad bits and hold her and tell her it would be okay. But instead she got defensive, cut him off and walked away. He wanted to be there for her, but how could he when she didn't give him the chance to?
So although it tore him apart, he decided it was best for them to take a break.
It crushed him, so much so he cried, cried and wailed. It was pathetic, he knew it, but he just couldn't help it. He hurt himself, badly, by hitting his knuckles against the splintering wood of the garage, but it was worth it because if it could distract him, for even half a second, it did its job.
When he had heard the shouting from the house, he barged in without a second thought. He had felt the smoke swallowing his lungs as he helped Zoe, felt the cold iron of the post box as he pressed against it whilst he wheezed, felt the soft fabric of the duvet as he was put onto the stretcher before he fell unconscious.
His day in hospital had been hell (he had joked about no phone signal), so when Jasmine told him that she had been responsible for the thing that had almost killed him, Chrissie Watts or not, he was mad. He had needed time to think about it so he turned her away yet again.
But just like before he came back to her, because he ever so desperately wanted someone to love him. He didn't know love like everyone else around him. It had always been conditional.
She had wanted him to run away with him to Thailand for a break as she put it. And he wanted to go because he loved her.
However, Lauren convinced them to stay momentarily because Oscar knew damn well they couldn't afford it, with the money Jasmine managed to get gifted from Patrick or not.
And then on a disastrous night at the Vic, she was outed for murdering Antony, her very own father. Self-defence she had cried as she was dragged out by the police, pleading Oscar to find her phone that would prove it had been. He didn't owe her anything at all. The audacity she had to break up with him over text and then demanded he find her phone.
The holiday had been a cover up. She wanted to flee from the police and tear him away from his family, even after he had said this was the first time he had been surrounded by so much of it.
Looking back at it now, she made it so easy for him to assume that what they had together was never even true to begin with, supported by his family's attempt at comforting him which ultimately resulted in "she probably didn't love you anyway."
He tried so hard to believe that those small moments they had together were real, that their whole relationship hadn't been a lie. And Jasmine promised him that out of everything, he was the one real thing she had.
But those words felt so forced, so empty to him now.
Everywhere he looked he saw newspapers with headlines that described Jasmine's crime and people muttering her name in hushed tones. They thought they could get away with their silent judgement, but he heard them. He heard everything. He didn't want to face it, so he stormed right over to the Minute Mart, bought every single newspaper in a huff and attempted to burn them in the middle of the square.
Oscar tried to move on, really he did. But it hurt. So he turned to alcohol, moped around on his phone, got caught up in random parties and stag dos, had random hook-ups, became snarky and tried to numb the pain with anything he could get his hands on. It was how he coped, no matter how self-destructive it may be. Lauren pointed it out and he hated it because she was right. He did cope by drowning out the truth and when he was faced with it, he ran. He hid.
Just like a coward.
He appreciated his family trying to help and he wanted help. Needed it. But there was a quiet, lurking voice in the back of his head that didn't want help; that wanted to deal with the pain; that didn't want to move on. It was wrong, he knew it oh so well, so tried his hardest to push it away.
The alcohol managed to quiet the voices for the most part, so he stuck with that.
He made jokes as per usual and they worked too.
It was constantly the same with him; drink, joke, repeat.
All of this because he let himself be swayed by Jasmine.
He should've listened. He should've seen the warning signs.
But all he wanted was to believe that she wasn't the monster everyone thought she was. Because they didn't know her like he did, but turns out he didn't know her like they did. He felt stupid. So incredibly stupid.
He was so confused.
There were so many unanswered questions.
But one stuck out to him the most, no matter how many times she may have tried to convinced him.
Did she ever really love him?