yk what i woke up thinking about? how striking the difference in the ways sawyer gets along with ollie and how he gets on with shane. i think we've established that, out of the group, shane and sawyer have known each other the longest, but... it really doesn't seem that way. in their relationship, i mean; this has mainly come from highwayman theories and stuff, right?
i saw this because ollie and sawyer seem closer. aside from the fact that (in my head) they have a bigger age gap and sawyer def feels protective, they're also clearly friends. they quip and joke with each other, seen very early in the comic, they usually go together to get things done (the marks, or other stuff like trying to find that intruder). sawyer isn't fazed by ollie's antics, finds them amusing even. he doesn't get angry with ollie like he does with shane, and not in the same way he doesn't get angry with syd--with syd it's to protect her, keep her away from the highwayman. i honestly just think that sawyer has a hard time getting truly angry at ollie like he does with shane (which, i suppose, also speaks of shane and sawyer knowing each other way too long)
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one of the scenes that stands out to me is when they're in the ducts, with sawyer apparantly asleep, but ollie says "psh, him? he's been pretending a while" and shane is genuinely surprised. sawyer and ollie are close enough that ollie recognises sawyer's mannerisms, and even though he can be kind of tactless (as seen at the start, in the sewers, when talking about syd) he knows what things to say to sawyer to calm him down (like when he's pissed about shane being out all night with dusty and syd)
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this secuence is overall really interesting to me cuz like. sawyer's killed people for less. when shane talks about sawyer being syd's "hero" later on, that's the push that makes sawyer grab shane by his shirt (granted, he was already pissed at him, but still). like i said, ollie doesn't exactly have a lot of tact but sawyer seems to realise that it's not said maliciously. shane, on the other hand, says it to piss sawyer off (which is another thing, cuz while ollie seems to know what to say to sawyer to calm him down, shane always seems to say the thing that pisses him off)
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i think, to the core of it, it speaks of loyalty. we know that sawyer is fiercely loyal to all his friends and would do anything to keep them safe (hell, its been hinted at in the comic that sawyer is only the marked man to help shane, that he gets no benefit from it at all). he's the one doing everything for everyone, even the most mundane things (the firewood, hello?? like, how do you live somewhere for years and not know where the firewood is?? something basic??) and while i love shane i'm sure he's taken advantage of that
but ollie? what we've seen in ollie is that he's ALSO very loyal, but he's loyal TO SAWYER. i don't think sawyer has ever had anyone who would be willing to do so much for him for no apparant reason except that they're friends, right? ollie helps sawyer wiith the marks, even though he has no reason to be involved and has his own demon problems already (i mean, dusty is hardly involved in the whole highwayman thing--she knows sawyer's the marked man. that's it. but she strikes me as the kinda person to mind her own business, honestly. she does what she's asked--helping shane grab marks--and doesn't ask many questions). he doesn't complain about going to the fields with sawyer to search. he knows where the firewood is (and offers to go and get it but at that moment i think it was a ploy to get unchained lmao). he tries to get sawyer out of trouble with the highwayman, not once but twice. he always has sawyer's back, and it's even acknowledged by the others--shane tells ollie to "hang back, support sawyer if he needs you" when they're breaking into corrections. last but not least, let's not forget it's sawyer who manages to get ollie to momentarily come to himself when his demon's taken over.
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look, i don't think shane and sawyer aren't close. they are, 100%. but the relationship is wildly different. it seems... less friendly, in a way, but then again they probably have a LOT of issues between them that ollie and sawyer don't have. ollie acts in the moment, which sawyer seems to like, but shane stays back and prefers to do damage control after the fact (with the highwayman, shane stays aside but after he tells sawyer "i don't think you're a nobody". many such cases)
idk, i just absolutely adore ollie's and sawyer's relationship
