sweet-sage-tea - Tumblr blog

sweet-sage-tea · 2 months

Text

Knowing When to Fold

A Valentine’s Day Oscar/Olive Fic

Happy late Valentine’s day to oddsually!! You were my secret Valetine for @cacti-trash 's gift exchange, and I'm very excited for you to see this :)

There’s something on Olive’s desk. It’s small and shoddily folded, but there sits a paper crane. She admits that, for a moment, she was worried she’d forgotten some kind of occasion, but when she goes to check the calendar, there’s nothing marked on it. It was the 10th of February. No event, no notes of any kind. It’s a day like any other.

And yet, the crane, set gently on her keyboard, hints to something unknown. She…should know why it’s there, right? No one just gives gifts out without any reason to.

Olive picks it up, inspecting it. She holds it gingerly in her palm, and upon further inspection, she finds that it’s been folded and re-folded multiple times, the creases suggesting that whoever made it was a beginner. It was made of notebook paper, the lined stuff, thin and cheap, and it looks like it was used for something before that, the dark scratchings of a pencil on it. The type of paper was a surprisingly good choice for the craft, and she always did support recycling. But still, it was interesting.

Whoever had done it was just starting to learn, and she didn’t know many people who’ve made origami a hobby of theirs. The people she figured would do well at it wouldn’t be the type to single her out like this, so no one could truly be ruled out.

Olive sets the, admittedly adorable, paper crane aside. A plan to figure out who’d left it starts to formulate in the back of her mind as she begins her work for the day.

“Why can’t I just use the gadget for it?” Oscar asks. Ms. O slides a juice box down the table, and Oscar just barely grabs it before it shoots off the edge.

“Because it means more if you make it yourself.”

“But I basically made the origami-inator-”

“Trust me. Fold them yourself.” Ms. O stabs her straw into her juice box, “Why do you think I order these instead of having you make a gadget for them?” She punctuates her sentence by taking a long sip, “They’re better when they’re handmade.” Oscar isn’t completely sure how the juice boxes relate, but he sees the merit in her advice. He’d rather receive something handmade than something zapped into existence.

“You’re right.” He nods.

“When am I not?”

“Touche.” Oscar pokes the straw into his juice box, “So…how do you fold one?”

“Don’t ask me.” Ms. O shrugs, and Oscar realizes that this was going to be a difficult project, “Carol would probably know, though.”

The next day, another piece was set on top of Olive’s desk. A rose. The way it twists in the middle is actually a bit impressive, and Olive spends a few moments wondering just how that works. But it’s the same as yesterday. The paper seems used, a bit of graphite rubbing off onto her hand as she cradles it in her palm, and the weird creasing seemed consistent with the crane. She figures it was left by the same person as the day before. Whoever is leaving these, it’s a bit cute. A crane and a rose…

She sets down the rose next to the crane, shaking her head. There’s still the question of why. Again, it’s not any type of holiday, nor is it her birthday, half birthday, or quarter birthday (she had to ask her mom about that one.) It’s just the 11th. And the pattern so far just seems to be every day…she’ll have to wait to see if it continues.

Oscar exits the Math Room, armed with a ream of paper and an hour-long lunch break. If he was going to pull this off, he knew he had to be prepared. So, he sits in the back of the lab and practices what he’d learned.

What he’s learned is that making accurate folds is about the most difficult thing he’s ever done with paper. Committing to creasing the paper, only for it to be the entirely wrong fold, can only happen so many times before the paper tears and he has to start over. He’s surrounded by unfinished models and various crumpled papers, and there’s a vague sense of worry lingering in the back of his mind that he’ll never actually figure this out, much less make something presentable.

Regardless, at the end of the hour, he’s finally got a rough plan for the project. Each day, for 4 days, he’d make a paper crane and leave it on Olive’s desk. And at the end, on the fifth day, he’d leave something bigger. Now he just has to figure out how to make better ones…

Olive can’t help but grin as she sees the next piece on her desk. An origami boat sits in the middle of her keyboard, and a row of paper waves sticks out from between the front keys, making it look like the boat was at sea. She felt bad about moving it from her keyboard, but she does have work to do. As she sits down, however, she looks at the paper waves and has an idea.

Olive tapes the two ends of the strip of water together, making a circle with them, and then setting the boat inside it, so it still looks like it’s riding the waves. Then, she moves it next to the rest of the gifts, noticing that she’s starting to gain quite a collection of them. Whoever keeps leaving them seems to be having a bit more fun.

Past that, however, day three officially makes a pattern. A pattern in which Olive can use to try and figure out just who’s doing this. Otto was late on Monday, so that rules him out as a suspect. Ms. O doesn’t seem like the type to, especially not if there’s no event to be celebrating. But there is a holiday coming up…

On the 14th is Valentine’s Day. She’s never really gotten the hype for it, herself, as she’s never actually…dated before. She’s not scared of it. No, of course not. It’s just…a bit too...important-feeling for her.

But, as long as the anonymous gifts stop before the 14th, there’s no need to worry. The gifts won’t even be related, and she can be content to find whoever keeps giving them to her and ask them the real reason behind the little paper sculptures.

“Hey Oscar!” Otto walks over, right as Oscar finishes a paper crane. He panics, throwing it behind him to the confusion of Otto, the one person that can give away the whole game. If he sees him fold the crane, and then sees it later on Olive’s desk, it’ll ruin the whole surprise, “Uh, what was that?”

“Nothing! Nothing at all, it was nothing.” Oscar responds a little too quickly, earning himself another odd look from Otto.

“Right…” Otto goes to speak, but Oscar cuts in suddenly, looking guilty.

“Okay fine, it was origami that I’m making for Olive for Valentine’s day, please don’t tell her-” Otto blinks, staring at him for a moment.

“You admitted that…really quickly.” Otto shakes his head, “Wait, so you and Olive are-”

“Hey, hey, not so loud-” His voice is hushed as he takes Otto’s sleeve and pulls him further into the lab. He picks up the crane and shows Otto, “I’m gonna leave one on her desk every day until Valentine’s Day. But-” He unfolds the paper crane, “I’m going to write a letter in each one of them. And at the end, it’ll spell out my name, revealing who did it.” Otto nods slowly, still a bit confused.

“But why not…tell her?” Oscar pales at the thought.

“Tell her? In person?”

“Yeah, why not just tell her in person?” Otto asks, “She’s not going to be mean if she doesn’t feel the same way.” Oscar considers it for a moment.

“...no, I can’t. I’ll embarrass myself- I’m embarrassed just thinking about it! See?” Oscar points to his face, which he can already feel reddening. Otto sighs, giving up on trying to talk him into being direct and deciding to shift gears.

“Well, maybe you could do other ones, too. Like, instead of them all being cranes, you could make one that’s a…spaceship or something!” Otto posits with a grin. Oscar considers it for a moment, before nodding.

“Great idea, Otto! But…I’m no good at origami.” He admits, “All the little folds and flips-” Oscar mimes with his hands, tangling his fingers together, “It’s just not my thing.”

“Well-” Otto gives him a look, and Oscar knows exactly what he wants to ask, but he doesn’t, “Good luck.”

Another origami model sits on her desk, and Olive is amused to find that the mystery artist had given up trying to fold the model in a way to give the small cat figure any whiskers, deciding instead to simply paste them on. In a moment of weakness, she gingerly sets the cat on the boat with a grin.

It was the 13th, only a day before Valentine’s Day, and she still hasn’t found who’d been leaving the gifts on her desk. She hasn’t even figured out if it’s about Valentine’s Day in the first place, or what it would mean if it was…

Oscar watches worriedly from the lab. He’d assumed that Olive would’ve unfolded the origami, but she hasn’t. It was supposed to be a game, a puzzle for her to solve. Although the cat in the boat is kind of adorable…

He’s getting distracted. There has to be some way to hint at unfolding the models without giving it away. Maybe he could ask Otto to suggest it? But what if she thinks it’s Otto who’s leaving the models?

If she doesn’t figure it out tomorrow, then…

Oscar decides not to tell her. Maybe she’ll figure it out at some point, but if she doesn’t figure it out now, then perhaps it just…wasn’t meant to be.

It’s the 14th, Valentine’s Day, and Olive looks conflicted as she stares at the woven paper basket on her desk. It’s just big enough to fit the rest of the models, which is very thoughtful. What confused her, however, was that, inside of the basket, there’s a large lower-case “r” written in pencil. It…suggests that maybe there’s a letter that corresponds with each of the other models. But, if that’s the case, then where are the other letters?

Taking a closer look at each of them she notices nothing new. The paper is a bit crumpled and clearly used, just like when she’d first inspected them. This was getting ridiculous, and Olive was too bothered by it all to just keep ignoring the why behind the gifts. If anyone was able to help her figure this out, it was going to be Oscar.

“O-oh, hey Olive-” Oscar shoots up from behind the table, knocking his head on the edge of it. He winces, holding a hand to it as he tries to hide the pain.

“Woah, Oscar,” Olive quickly walks around the table, at his side in a moment, “You alright? That looked like it hurt…”

“Yeah, I’m great- fine, I’m fine.” He corrects himself, to Olive’s confusion, “What do you need?”

“I…needed to ask you something.” She refocuses, “I was wondering if you had a gadget that could track who’s had contact with certain objects.” Oscar knows exactly what she wants to use it to figure out, and it must have shown on his face, based on Olive’s reaction, “It’s for a case-” Neither of them seem to catch how her tone catches nervously.

“I…I really wish I did, but the only gadget I can think of that could be used like that is on loan to another precinct.” He really does wish they had it in the lab, because then he wouldn’t have to figure out a way to drop the hint that she has to actually unfold the origami. Olive looks a small bit frustrated, but doesn’t push any further.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. I’ll just…” She trails off for a moment, trying to find a different way she could figure out the culprit.

“...Is it about the origami?” Oscar asks. Olive nods.

“I need to find out who keeps leaving them there. It’s been driving me crazy the whole week.” She crosses her arms, still puzzling over it. Oscar feels his nerves creep up on him as he does his best to be subtle.

“Maybe- maybe you should try unfolding them. I mean, there could be a hint in there, right? What if there’s something written inside them, some kind of clue?” Olive looks to him, and he expects to see some kind of impressed look, but instead he finds her looking conflicted.

“But they’re so…cute. I don’t want to destroy them, I don’t think I could remember how to fold them back into those shapes.” He feels something flutter in his chest when Olive calls his origami cute. Of course she wouldn’t want to unfold them! Who would after being given something like that?

“Oh…right, that wouldn’t really be fun, would it?” He laughs, seeing how his plan wouldn’t have worked in the first place. Olive seems to catch his tone change.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Oscar tries to come up with another way to confess, but he can’t seem to come up with anything clever, especially not when she’s right next to him, already trying to figure it out, “Do you-” Oscar realizes she's asked a question.

“-I was the one who left them!” He blurts out. Olive blinks.

“...you…you did?” She asks. All the thoughts about Valentine’s Day and the implications behind him leaving those for her come right back to the surface. Oscar nods, visibly red in the face as he nods.

“I didn’t know how else to tell you-! I thought that you’d unfold them and figure it out, but I didn’t realize that you’d like them so much. They weren’t the best, I thought you wouldn’t have been so attached to them-” Olive listens quietly.

“The hints…they were spelling out your name?” She asks, and Oscar nods, “And the last letter of your name is R…you planned it out so that it would end on Valentine’s Day.” Olive, too, was red in the face. Oscar again nods, too nervous to actually say it out loud.

The two stand in silence a moment, Olive taking in the information and the implications, while Oscar fidgets nervously with his lab coat. Finally, Olive speaks.

“...I didn’t know you felt that way. That- that is how you feel, right?” Olive asks, matching his nerves a moment. Oscar nods, and Olive is relieved that she hadn’t been wrong, “I just wasn’t…expecting it.” She turns to him.

“Was it too…”

“No, no, it wasn’t. I’ve just never really thought about something like this. It’s a bit…scary.” Oscar takes a breath.

“It’s terrifying. I mean, one day I’m talking to you while you return some gadgets, and the next I can barely look at you without my heart beating out of my chest, I didn’t know how to handle it.” There’s a pause, and Oscar feels it start again.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one.” Olive finally speaks, “Oscar, you’re a great friend, and…I think that if I’m going to do this…I’d want it to be with you.” She smiles softly, and Oscar’s face lights up.

“Really?!” He grins excitedly, and Olive laughs, mirroring his own excitement.

“Really.” She nods.

Oscar pulls Olive into a tight hug, the two’s nervousness having given way to a newfound excitement as they begin this journey together.

#odd squad pbs kids #odd squad fanfic

9 notes · View notes