Title: Thursday Blues
Word Count: 4509
Notes: I can't tell you how long this has been in my drafts. At least a month or two. Either way, it's been there ever since acheaptrickandacheesyoneline gave me the idea, and damn was it a fantastic one. She's been giving me a lot of brilliant ideas lately, so shower her with affection if you like it. :)
I had to post it on a Thursday. For very important reasons. ;)
Also, a quick but important shout-out to Kim (ohmyemilybett) for saving me from the Exposition Fairy. She's a goddess who deems fit to trifle with us mere mortals. ;)
As always, your thoughts are much appreciated, but if you don't have the time, I totally get you. :) Thank you for just reading it!
John Diggle knew this was going to be a hard job when he signed on to help the local vigilante, but he can safely say he didn't expect this level of strangeness.
It starts on a Thursday. Because it's always Thursdays with John. Everything bad in his life has happened on a Thursday. His ex-wife filed for divorce on a Thursday. His brother died on a Thursday. He started working for Oliver Queen on a Thursday. And, what's more, Oliver Queen chose none other than a wretched Thursday to reveal that he dresses up in green leather and plays vigilante.
It was also on a Thursday that John made the mistake of agreeing to help him.
He thought Oliver was strange before the whole Robin Hood revelation. To be fair, he has every right to be: he was stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere for five years. Before that, he was raised by nannies and tutors, and, cliché as it may be, the boy probably wasn't hugged enough as a child. Beyond that, he uses a bow in the twenty-first century, which makes his judgment questionable enough.
But there are acceptable levels of strange, and then there's Oliver Queen.
When John is sure the boy has taken one risk too many, he walks out unscathed. When he's captured and tied up by some enemy force, he escapes in ways that would make Harry Houdini cry tears of joy. Just last week, some Triad enforcers were trying to dump him in the harbor. By the time the former soldier arrived, Oliver was casually pouring water out of his quiver and staring at John like he was the weird one.
So as John stares at the live security feed from Queen Consolidated, he isn't worried when he sees Oliver take a bullet in the chest. Of course he got shot—it's Thursday. John has seen Oliver get out of so much worse, usually while looking slightly dumbfounded that his partner is trying to save him. He's seen this play out enough to know how it will happen: Oliver will disappear for forty minutes, then show up with a patched wound and something that looks like a smile on his face.
Which is significant. For the first two months working with Oliver, John was certain the boy was allergic to smiling. Never once. Maybe he'd offer a softer expression to Thea, Oliver's sister and polar opposite in every way, but never an actual smile. John is fairly certain that the vigilante wouldn't know fun if it walked up and introduced itself to him. But forty minutes after his post-wounding disappearance, there's a kind-of-a-smile on his face. Like clockwork.
Except, forty minutes later, John is still sitting in their base of operations entirely alone.
"Of course," John mutters to himself, pulling out his cell phone. "It's Thursday." He dials the number and waits for an answer—because Oliver lives in the Dark Ages and doesn't know how to text. It goes to voicemail after five rings, but that's normal for the first call. Touchscreen devices and Oliver mix like oil and water. Time number two meets with no response, too. The third call breaks off in the middle of ring number two and goes directly to voicemail yet again.
"Son of a bitch." John stares down at his phone for a very long moment before he comes to an important conclusion: "I can't believe he learned how to reject calls."
"He totally didn't," a voice assures him. "That was me." After John jumps about a foot in the air, he rounds with his hand on the gun in his shoulder holster. The voice is soft and light, with a low, subtle drawl of gravel that is definitely not Oliver. "I'm not sure there's enough electronic literacy in the world for that."
When he pulls the gun, nothing is there. But a blink and a heartbeat later, she's there, combat boots casually stomping across the stairs. Her hair is jet black—but so is almost everything about her. From her hair, to her eyeshadow, to her lipstick, to her clothes. She's attractive, but he'd probably never describe her as pretty; she's enticing, like a good mystery novel that makes you beg for the conclusion. She unnerves him, and the smirk on her lips says she not only knows that, but likes it.
Her eyes are what keep him from lowering the gun. They're blue, but somehow they manage to remind John of one particular elephant at the zoo: ancient and filled with infinite wisdom. It was only afterward he read the story about how said elephant was captured and mistreated, only to later hunt its tormentors down and kill them.
Goth Barbie looks a lot like she would do that, too.
She waves a hand in dismissal of her thought, and it's only then John realizes it's covered in blood. There's a smear across her shoulder and neck, too, but she doesn't seem to be bleeding. "If you're looking for him," she starts, jerking a thumb over her shoulder, "he's out back in the Mini Cooper I stole." Goth Barbie studies her hands. "He's bleeding pretty bad—maybe he's going to die this time. That would save me a lot of trouble." It comes out in the same tone John would use to say it might rain. "Oh, and I need someone to move him. He's really heavy."
John doesn't have time for Goth Barbie and her cryptic remarks. Oliver is bleeding out in the back of a stolen car, and that's all that matters right now. He stops three steps away from the stairs. Actually, it isn't all that matters right now. "Who the hell are you?" he asks her.
When Goth Barbie smiles, it isn't friendly. It's a threat. "Names are too important to give to strangers," is all she says. "Oliver calls me Felicity. I'm sure he enjoys the irony. You can, too, if you like." She pauses, waving a blood-covered hand. "Call me Felicity, I mean. Not enjoy the irony. Though if you want to do that, it's certainly your prerogative." She turns her eyes upward. "Unlike some people, I don't get off controlling the universe."
Thunder suddenly shakes the entire basement.
Though he's certainly no stranger to the abnormal, it's suddenly a little too weird for even John, who has become an expert in strange in the last few months. "Whatever," he replies. Felicity blinks at him twice before breaking into a slow smile. "Are you gonna help me save his life or not?" John points to the stairs.
Head tilting to the side, Felicity actually seems to ponder the rhetorical question for a moment. Finally she holds up her right hand, palm upward. "On the one hand, I could get rid of him faster," she mutters to herself before holding up her left palm. "On the other, he's got at least another, what, thirty years before he's prime quality." She releases a long sigh before stepping forward, shoving her shoulder into John's arm as she passes by him. "Fine. Let's go save Arrow Boy. Or whatever they're calling him now."
Five minutes later, an unconscious Oliver is laid out on the gurney and Felicity is merrily pulling the bullet out of his shoulder, oblivious to the blood. John glares at her before starting to patch it. "I'm John Diggle, by the way," he mentions to her, hoping to start a conversation.
She makes a noise in the back of her throat before looking upward and declaring to no one, "I bet you're getting a kick out of this. Asshole." To John, she adds, "Of course it is. And it's a shame. John is such a delightfully bland name by today's standards." She jumps up on the gurney, next to Oliver's feet. "But it has a great history. One of the apostles of Christ and all that." Her head tilts to the side. "Interesting because you're kind of a disciple yourself. Oliver is trying to create a better world, and you latch on."
Digg snorts while tying off a blood vessel. "Except Oliver isn't a saint."
"I know," Felicity agrees readily. "It happens to be one of the things I like about him. One of a very few things." She releases a low chuckle that sounds more bitter than humor. "A saint wouldn't give me the time of day."
The forceps slip in his hand, the needle slipping out as he attempts to stitch Oliver's wound closed. "I'm not sure what that says about me," Digg replies.
Rolling her eyes, the woman replies, "There are more options than just saint and sinner, John." Her tone makes it sound like she's declaring water is wet. "Between black and white are infinite shades of gray, and most people fall in that gap." She puts a hand on his shoulder, and a chill runs through him. While he may not believe in the supernatural, part of him is inclined to call her a witch. "You're on the ashy side of light—just tainted enough to talk to me."
"And Oliver?" John asks, turning to her with a quirked eyebrow. Felicity meets his gaze without blinking, staring back at him. But instead of just looking at him, it feels like she's seeing into his soul. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up; this time he isn't so inclined to dismiss the label of witch. There's something about Felicity that is… not of this world.
After he looks away, Felicity answers with a smirk, "I don't kiss and tell, John. I might be able to see what lies in your heart—and his—but that's between Oliver and me." With a huff as he makes a pitiful stitch, she jumps from the table, shooing him aside. "You have the dexterity of an ungulate," she declares before picking up the forceps and redoing his stitch so cleanly that it would put a doctor to shame.
Admittedly, she is doing a better job, but John doesn't know why she had to be rude about it. "I take it you got your MD from Yale?" he snarks back at her.
Felicity laughs. "No medical degree," she assures him, tying off the vessel with a dark glint in her eyes and a smile on her lips. The suture needle slides in and out of Oliver's skin like she's done it all her life. "But I know quite a bit about science—technology and medicine especially." The smile on her face changes, as though she's making a private joke. "I taught science for a while, actually."
"And what do you do now?" John asks, crossing his arms.
"I make deals," she admits after a moment, dabbing at Oliver's wound. "People come to me and tell me their greatest desires, and I make them happen." The look on her face sends chills down John's spine when she turns to him. "For a price, of course. It's not much and I don't collect for years, but I can't just go around and make dreams come true without asking a little in return."
Staring down at Oliver, John studies the boy again, wondering how he got twisted up with something like Felicity. At the same time, he can't help but admit the whole weird mystery angle they have going is perfect for one another. Not so good for him, though; his days of knowing what's going on ended the moment she walked into the base.
The mystery he's concerned about, though, is why Oliver would give her the time of day. Felicity isn't unlike the targets he goes after: promising the world, only to ask it in return when the time is right, then standing around to watch them fall. It makes Digg wonder how they met in the first place. Oliver isn't the kind to show vulnerability, and Felicity wouldn't waste her time with a hard sell. She wouldn't talk to him unless he needed something, and—
It hits John like a battering ram, and by the time asks the question, he already knows the answer. "And you did a favor for him, didn't you?"
Felicity stops in the middle of gathering her instruments, studying John with a new sort of appraisal he isn't sure he likes. "I see why he picked you," is all she says for a long moment. "You're sharp." Finally, she crosses her arms, not seeming to care about the blood on her hands smearing across her clothes. "I can't imagine what you're thinking about Arrow Boy," she admits after a long moment, "but you're probably wrong."
She turns to a bottle of water, wetting a cloth and wiping the blood of her hands. "I've seen the absolute worst of humanity, John," Felicity says, so casual that she might be ordering a cup of tea. Drying her hands with a fresh towel, she walks back over to the gurney. "I can't tell you how terrible the favors are that I've granted over the years. There were plenty that I wanted to smite like an avenging angel." She grins. "And I'm not exactly holy myself."
Placing a hand on Oliver's arm, she continues, "But Oliver…" She sighs, eyes narrowing in frustration as she shakes her head. "He's like nothing I've ever seen before." Turning back to John, she admits with her hand still on the vigilante. "The first time I laid eyes on Oliver Queen, he had just killed a man with his bare hands." Her expression softens. "He did it to save his sister. Even when he's a sinner, he's a saint." This time when she rolls her eyes, Digg knows better than to think she means it. "It's annoying.
"He knew what my price was, John. He knew what I wanted from him and understood the magnitude of what it meant." Her hand moves from Oliver's arm to his face, stroking it with a tenderness Digg doesn't expect. "And to him it was worth it. All he asked is that his baby sister not spiral into addiction."
"The man loves his sister," Digg says after a long moment.
"I know," Felicity replies, making a noise of disgust in the back of her throat. "It makes him thoroughly… likeable." It comes out like an insult. "Willing to make a deal with the devil"—she motions to herself, and John bites back on a laugh—"to save his sister." She sighs. "Like I said, sinner and saint. Just pure enough to be annoying and dark enough not to be a dick about his piety."
After a moment, she adds, "And nearly dies. All the time." She waves a hand through the air. "I can't even get in the shower without him calling me to come save his ass." Felicity points to her head. "And do you know how much work it takes to keep this color locked in, John? Despite what they might have you think, my hair is not naturally black." Blowing out a breath, she finishes, "The last time I had a contract this difficult, I let the premium pass just to get rid of him." She lifts a shoulder. "He muttered something about the island being magical, and he and his knight kept calling me the lady of the lake." Jabbing a thumb over her shoulder at Oliver, she concludes, "He's more annoying than that."
"Yet you saved my life again," a voice points out behind them. Felicity turns on the spot, running a hand over Oliver's pale arm. His fingers thread through hers. "I guess that means I'm not going to die today. Cool."
"No, not cool," Felicity corrects without missing a beat, even though her smile contradicts the bite of her words. "Now I'm saddled with your ass for a while longer." She groans. "I'm already mourning the loss of good hair."
He releases her when he attempts to sit up, wincing. It's soon replaced with a smile—an honest-to-God smile from Mr. Happiness Allergy himself. And all because of Goth Barbie and her grousing. Oliver prods the wound, but Felicity slaps his hand away. John barely holds in a chuckle. "I love you, too, Felicity," the vigilante deadpans.
It's three simple words that give John pause. In the time he's known Oliver, he's never said that to anyone—not his mother, not his sister. Maybe he's saying them to tease Felicity now, but somehow, John doesn't think so. Those aren't words Oliver uses lightly. There's the clarity Digg needed all along.
Felicity shoves Oliver's good shoulder. "You humans and your love," she declares. "It's such a nasty emotion, and you use it to excuse everything you do." She crosses her arms. "It isn't an emotion—it's a crutch. An excuse. The dog ate your homework, the devil made you do it, and you did whatever horrible thing you just did out of love."
"'You humans'?" John repeats, eyes narrowing.
Oliver turns to her a second later, mirroring John's expression. "You didn't tell him?" he asks her.
"Well of course not," Felicity replies with a roll of her eyes. "He'd think I was crazy. Especially without you to back me up." She pats his cheek. Usually Oliver flinches under any sort of touch, but not hers. It seems like Felicity is going to twist everything Digg knows about his partner upside down. "Most humans aren't as tolerant as you are."
"Felicity is a demon," Oliver offers without preamble, just as easily as he might have said Felicity works in IT. "She and I have a contract. My sister stays safe, alive, and fully intact. Felicity gets my soul." Felicity tosses him the old, gray hoodie draped across the desk, and he starts shrugging it on. "When I'm done with it, anyway."
"Don't think of it as me taking your soul," Felicity replies when John can do nothing more than gape at them. "Think of it as an all-expenses-paid trip to Hell when your soul matures." She shrugs. "I mean, eternal damnation isn't as bad as it sounds. You're too much of a goody-goody to warrant a torture chamber, and, on the bright side, it's never cold."
John looks between them for a long time before turning to Oliver. "This is a really bad time for you to develop a sense of humor, man," he says flatly.
Sighing as though he's being the difficult one, Oliver raises the edge of his hoodie to flash the black tattoo next to his abdomen. John has wondered about it more than once; it's a strange, dark curl of calligraphy with a vertical line through it, two thin lines running perpendicular running across the image. Felicity shrugs off her jacket and drops it onto the table next to him. With her back to John, she lifts up her hair to show the same symbol between her shoulder blades, just below where her neck meets her shoulders.
Turning back to John, Felicity explains, "That marks him as mine. And will until the day he dies." She motions to him. "That's the mark of the contract." After floundering with her hands for a moment, she adds, "The mark of my contract, anyway. Each of us has a different one."
"So you two have matching tattoos," John says with a snort.
She rolls her eyes before turning to Oliver. "Honestly, sometimes humans are so daft it's hard to remember why I liked them in the first place." To Digg, she snaps, "Fine. Here, I'll show you." Sighing, she twists her hair up at the nape of her neck, sticking one of the dull flechettes from Oliver's arrow-crafting table and sliding it through. Placing her hands on the table, she closes her eyes in full concentration. After a minute of her lips moving without sound, the tattoo starts glowing blue.
And if that wasn't freaky enough, so does Oliver's.
John sighs. Thursday strikes again.
When Felicity finally stops, she turns back to him with glowing blue eyes. It fades as she takes a grand bow. "A not-so-humble servant of Hell, at your service."
Before Digg can do much more that gape like a fish, Oliver is on his feet, walking up to her. His hand brushes over her shoulder, drawing John's attention to the mottled scars on her back for the first time. Over the point of her shoulder blades, two red, textured scars sit, following the natural curve of her scapulae.
Felicity doesn't shy away from the touch, but simply freezes in place. "I don't remember seeing these," Oliver mutters to her quietly. Digg wonders for a moment how the hell Oliver would be in a position to see this part of her back, but it comes to him quickly.
Turning to the archer with a smirk, she taps his shoulder. "At the time, I believe your attention was on other things," Felicity remarks, confirming John's suspicions. Not exactly the wisest choice, to sleep with a demon who owns his soul, but then again, Oliver is prone to horrible judgment where beautiful women are involved. "And I don't really advertise them."
The barely-contained fury on Oliver's face does comes as another surprise: that's the look of a man ready to burn the world down. "What happened to you, Felicity?" he asks in a quiet voice. "Who did this to you?" It isn't a question, but a demand.
"That's where my wings used to be," she answers slowly, in a voice so low John barely hears her.
"Demons don't have wings," Oliver replies slowly, eyebrows knitting together. "They have horns." His eyes go to her forehead. "Which you don't have." His expression changes with understanding that John doesn't yet have. Then again, up until an hour ago, he thought Oliver was the weirdest thing in his life. Understanding seems to have flown out the window. "You're not a demon, are you?" Though it's a question, Oliver asks it as though he already knows the answer to it.
She's quiet for a long moment before replying, "Does that change anything?"
"Not for me," Oliver answers without missing a beat.
His eagerness does not go unnoticed by his demonic friend. Rolling her eyes, Felicity answers, "Well, I know it doesn't physically, Oliver." She motions wildly between them. "You knew what you were getting into bed with before we started this… whatever we have." The look shared between them makes Digg wonder if he should leave the room. "And the contract stands regardless of what I am. I'm talking about this… thing we do. Where you call me and I save your ass and you act like a lost puppy and I mock you."
Another rare smile appears on Oliver's face. "I think that's called friendship, Felicity."
Dismissing it with a gesture, Felicity replies, "First you're spouting love and now you're pushing your human pack-bonding instincts on me. Honestly, I don't know why I ever liked you creatures." She places a hand to her breastbone. It doesn't escape John's notice that Oliver's eyes follow the motion. "I am a proud servant of Hell, Oliver. I am a solitary creature and I do not need friends or love or emotional connections."
Felicity pokes a finger into his shoulder. "I need to keep your soul intact for at least another fifty years if I want it to be prime quality, so that means keeping you alive. I enjoy practicing my craft of science, which I get to do almost nightly because you're prone to danger. And occasionally, I have physical needs that you're nice enough to fulfill." Her head tilts to the side, nodding several times to herself. "Rather well, I might add. For a human." John winces; he didn't need to know that. "But don't think that makes us friends."
Ignoring her, Oliver turns to Digg with lifted eyebrows. "I think that sounds like we're friends. Don't you, Diggle?"
Because apparently playful Oliver appears once every millennium, John immediately replies, "I think the demon has made a friend."
"If you two are going to gang up on me, I'm going to leave before I have to explain two dead humans to Lucifer," Felicity answers with a glare. "Unlike me, he's actually fond of you. Doesn't like it when we do away with the Almighty's playthings." There's another clap of thunder above them, which Felicity promptly flips off. "And that would mean going back to the torture chambers in Hell." She sighs. "While I like disemboweling Hitler for all eternity as much as the next girl, it gets a little stuffy in the ninth circle." She pats Oliver's arm. "Fortunately for you, you'll be in the outer layer. The humans are nicer there and it doesn't feel like you're being boiled alive by the heat."
Turning, she points a finger at Digg. "John Diggle, it's been weird meeting you, but as far as humans go, you don't suck. I'll see you the next time Oliver nearly gets himself killed." She turns back to Oliver, sliding a hand down his jaw. "And the next time you send for me, Oliver, I hope you're less bloody." She winks as she goes to pick up her jacket. "Less business, more pleasure, okay?" And just like that, she disappears.
She doesn't walk up the stairs or magically create a puff of smoke.
John blinks and… she's gone.
Oliver nods once in silent understanding. "You get used to it," he offers with some semblance of empathy for Digg. It's more than he's received in the last few months they've been working together. The kind-of-a-smile is still on the vigilante's face. John doesn't know what's weirder: the fact that the kid is smiling, or that a demon is the one who put it on his face.
"You're friends with a demon who owns your soul," John states, just to see if it makes more sense when said aloud. It doesn't.
"I'm friends with someone who sees every side of me and hasn't run away," Oliver corrects quietly.
Digg looks over to him, where he's sharpening some arrows. That's the crux of the matter, isn't it? Oliver doesn't let people in, doesn't lower his defenses. When the first person to come barreling through his walls with gunpowder and dynamite was a demon, he didn't care. He's been deprived of so much love and understanding that it didn't matter to him what she was.
And Felicity is surprisingly… good for a demon from Hell. John doesn't like to admit it, but after meeting her, he knows it's true. Mysterious and maybe a little broken, but definitely on the side of the angels. All of that wrapped up in a prickly exterior. Though she might be adamant that she doesn't need anyone, the lingering touches and gentleness about her contradict that. She needs him just as much as he needs her.
In some strange, twisted way, they're good for each other.
John sighs. Of course they are. Because that doesn't make sense, and when has Oliver ever made sense?
With a shake of his head, he mutters, "Just another Thursday."