Title: Coffee Highs and Other Highs
Author: OpheliacAngel
Pairing: Felicity/Diggle/Oliver
Genres: Romance/Family
Rating: Teen
Summary: Oliver's about to learn that he will never have to deal with his grief alone. Or: Lately, in Felicity's world there's always caffeine highs and a plus one.
A/N: Written for Holly Poly as a pinch hit for Sheeana. Spoilers for Season 2.
John's putting a ridiculously warm cup of coffee in her gloved hands just as she's seriously considering banging on the vent to get it to work faster. Felicity shoots him a grateful smile and practically buries her nose in the cup, uncaring if it scalds her tongue or tastes like the crappy coffee she's become accustomed to. It never ceases to amaze her how John always knows exactly how she likes her coffee: a teeny pinch less than a tablespoon of sugar and just a dash of cream because she likes it dark but not black. He always does it for her rather than bring a sugar packet and creamer, and that, along with the warm beverage itself, has a lot to do with how warm she feels inside.
She puts the lid back on to try to preserve what's left. Felicity and too many cups of coffee in one day can lead to a bad combination: jittery, paranoid, touch-starved. It's not that any of those symptoms freak Diggle out much, not even that last one that inevitably means cuddling up as close to him as she can get, which ties into the paranoia a bit too, but she'd rather not be jumping into his lap in search of some reassurance or encouragement or something.
The last time it happened John chuckled and placed a kiss to the top of her head. He didn't tell her to 'lay off' or 'chill out' or threaten to leave the car. Didn't lock her in some room to ride out the caffeine or give her one of those disapproving looks. Felicity's just waiting for him to push her away, to tell her that he's not into her that way. To tell her that he doesn't want to be some plus one because she obviously loves Oliver and Oliver obviously loves her too.
He never does.
She lowers her eyes and stares at the dash. "Thanks."
Diggle pretends not to notice her anxiety, or chalks it up to having to do with Oliver. There's no way he doesn't notice it because saying that would be both disrespecting him and wrongly admitting she knows nothing about him. Yet other than that she doesn't… know a lot about John, that is. They've always been so concerned about what's going on with Oliver that they don't have time for much of anything else. Not that she minds, she wants Oliver to be okay, wants him to be happy, but Diggle sometimes takes a step back and lets Felicity deal with it all and when that happens there is always a piece missing.
She's really started to depend on John lately. He's the best form of support she has and always listens, never pressuring her if she doesn't want to talk unless he feels like it's in her best interest. Along with Oliver, they're a team. Maybe not the most functional team in the world but still… a team.
That's why when Felicity immediately started noticing the distance Oliver was trying to put between himself and everyone else after his mother's death, Diggle noticed it too. That's when Felicity proposed something he was proposing the same thing at the exact same time. It's funny sometimes how they know Oliver Queen himself inside and out, know how he tries to hide and where he tries to hide it, know what he's not saying. They should know, Felicity and Diggle deserve enough for at least that.
Still, this whole start, stop, take a step back, stall, stop again thing is getting a little old.
"Hopefully he'll leave the house today."
Diggle takes the lid of his coffee and puts half a packet of sugar in. He stirs it and takes a sip, and Felicity watches his hands the entire time. The hand that's whisking the stirrer in his coffee, his other hand wrapping around the paper cup, the way his index finger curves slightly at the rim as he lifts it up to take a drink. She knows those hands are strong because she remembers how they held her when she was hurt, but she knows how gentle they are too, has seen them tremble upon noticing blood leak out of the bullet hole in her stomach and Oliver nodding to him and saying he could stitch her up, because his hands never shook anymore and Diggle didn't always have to take care of everything.
He took care of her anyway, even if he couldn't stitch her up. Even if that meant Felicity knew how much she loved him, how much he loved her. He fluffed her pillows and made her soup and checked on her dressings and sneaked her in ice cream when Oliver wasn't looking. It was cute to see how much they worried, to see how much they cared.
Call her selfish, but there was no way in hell she was choosing between the two of them. And she knew there was no way in hell they would have to.
She thinks about John's thumb on her cheek and his hand helping her in undoing her ponytail because her arm was sore and when she stretched it there would be a twinge in her side and even though she could do it, it was awkward to reach back that far and worse to see John's face pale. She thinks about John cupping her neck and running his thumb along her lip and kissing her cheek.
Felicity's been reliving it pretty frequently lately, which means sitting in a car right next to Diggle as they spy on Oliver is more than a bit uncomfortable. John never shows that there's anything wrong, that he feels any differently than the two of them being friends, and Felicity's face heats when she thinks about asking him.
He'd probably just be nice and try to avoid the subject.
She buries her face in her coffee again. If she has to blame her red cheeks on something it'll be that. "Maybe it's good for him not to throw himself back into it again," she offers, but the whole thing sounds wrong.
Diggle opens his mouth to say something but the backseat door on the driver's side opens and slams shut. Felicity only gets the chance to freak out for a split second before she glances in the rear-view mirror and recognizes that their stalker is Oliver. It's honestly kinda unsurprising; he was going to figure this out sooner rather than later.
"You want to tell me what the two of you think you're doing?" Felicity almost succeeds in masking her cringe if not for Oliver's no-nonsense, sort of angry tone. There's no way she should feel insecure about any of this, she has a right to care about Oliver more than just him being her boss and Diggle's here to back her up. Still, Oliver's temper shouldn't form goosebumps up and down her arms and yet make her want to curl up against him either.
"Mmm." Felicity takes a large swallow of coffee and pointedly ignores Oliver's glare. "Checking up on you?"
"Checking up on me for what?" Oliver demands. He still sounds pissed and maybe it's because he's totally outnumbered, maybe because if it were just Felicity here he could more easily blow her off and not have to worry about John applying pressure. Felicity almost wants to squeak out for John not to apply pressure, because she wasn't sure how she suspected Oliver to react but kinda definitely didn't expect this, yet she's stronger than that petty fear now.
Both John and Oliver showed her how to be.
Here goes nothing. "Uh… well, you haven't left your house in over a week," she says. She turns around and takes a good look at what he's wearing, even though she already knows and it's just to prove her point. "And I'm pretty sure you've already worn that shirt twice already this week."
"And that tie," Diggle chips in.
"And that," Felicity agrees. She then proceeds to go back to her 'hey, it's kinda good after all, would you look at that?' cup of coffee. She can feel Oliver's eyes on her, as if her avoidance of eye-contact means she's up to something far more worse than even she could have thought up.
But Oliver sighs and leans back into the seat and Felicity dares a quick glance in the mirror, just to see that he's no longer looking at her. "Alright. Fine," he huffs, undoing his tie and draping it over the seat next to him. Felicity shares a look with John and lets him take the coffee cup from her, putting it in the cup holder. "What are the two of you doing for the rest of the day?"
Felicity doesn't know what to say other than 'watching you' which is kinda the same thing as 'stalking you' but it's in a much nicer and far less creepy context. Besides, she figures it probably doesn't take two people to stalk someone, unless that person is Oliver, who was probably onto them at the get go and just decided not to do anything about it.
"If the two of you would rather sit in here and drink coffee all day I won't stop you."
Felicity immediately turns the key in the ignition and puts both hands on the steering wheel. "Where do you want to go?" She reaches one hand over for her coffee but John beats her to it and Felicity draws her hand away slowly, trying not to make it too obvious. Judging from the incredibly awkward silence in the car, there's no way she couldn't have made it less obvious.
"You okay, Felicity?"
God help her if she's going to cave right here, if she's thinking about Oliver unbuttoning her cardigan with those damn sexy but sensitive eyes gazing up at her and John at her back smoothing a hand across the back of her neck and pulling all her hair to one side, and the two men whom she loves and trusts most in the world tearing to shreds all the parts of her that don't matter and basking in all the parts of her that do. She wants them to laugh at all the stupid things she says but love them too, wants the three of them to fit together like finely crafted puzzle pieces that won't separate if shook. Shake well, Felicity chuckles to herself. Then serve. That's us. They are this strong, she knows this, it's just that she doesn't know if they want to be this strong.
Diggle puts his coffee down along with hers, because if she can't drink coffee then he can't either. "Coffee high," he says for her. It explains everything in a nutshell right now because she is feeling alarmingly jittery, but John has to know that something has to change.
"It's not about me," Felicity cuts in. "Now… where do you want to go?"
The car's too small, Felicity realizes, but the size isn't what bothers her. She'd be anywhere with them.
Oliver books them into some hotel on the outskirts of the city. Nothing too fancy or expensive so Oliver can keep a low profile, but something bigger than the backseat of a car and much cleaner too. It's awkward because even though they're so used to being together it's usually because they're working a case, or because one of them is in danger and they don't have time to stop and think and breathe, let alone talk about their relationship. Now there's just the stuff that Oliver doesn't want to talk about and the stuff that Felicity can't talk about and John, who thinks he's not even trapped in the middle but just there.
Diggle heads off into the kitchen to find a bottle opener even though Felicity has no idea what they're celebrating and really doesn't want to drink, but as soon as she puts her purse down on the table Oliver is standing so close to her he's practically on top of her.
So close his breath is fogging her glasses.
She lifts a hand up to take them off and clean them but Oliver lays his hand on hers. His touch is so light that it sends sparks along Felicity's wrist and up her arm. She pulls her hand closer to her chest until his fingers are dangerously close to the buttons on her cardigan and Felicity tells herself that this is a dream or a caffeine hallucination or at least not what she thinks it is. It's just that Oliver smells like tears and alcohol and grief and his eyes are so big and wet and beautiful and Felicity can't help but not lay a hand on his face and breathe him in.
"If I lost…."
Felicity shakes her head. "You won't. You won't lose either of us. Besides, you'll hate yourself more if you don't do this."
He sighs, fingers running up and down her arm and he's forming goosebumps again. He's so close and Felicity just wants to jump him right now. Hasn't she waited long enough? "Why are you always right? And why can't I stand it?"
She grins. "Because I'm the smart one. That's what you pay me for and that's why you keep me around. Except, I can't make it easy for you. I don't want to make it easier for you, Oliver." Happiness isn't always the easy way out, Felicity knows. Sometimes it's the hardest. Sometimes it's so hard it crushes your lungs with the notions of rejection and failure and loss. But even if Felicity loses in the end, she still has the way Oliver feels about her. She still has the way she feels about him and John.
"You two gonna kiss and make up already?" Diggle's uncorking a bottle of wine in the doorway, watching them with such a relaxed look on his face that Felicity realizes she's seen so little of. Maybe this is the only way all three of them can be happy. Team Arrow. Maybe they don't need anyone else but the three of them; it sounds almost too good to be true.
Felicity's shocked when Oliver opens his mouth first. "Plus one."
"Plus one," Felicity agrees, and Diggle doesn't have to be told a third time. He puts the bottle of wine down on the coffee table and embraces them both. The grip on Felicity's back sorta hurts but she's not going to complain no matter how many bruises these men will have given her by the end of the night. She lets them crush her and kiss her and carry her into the bedroom and watches them kiss and undress each other so slowly it seems like it takes hours, but Felicity doesn't mind. She works off her cardigan and they're crowding her into a cocoon only the two of them can make. John's saying something about her hair and Oliver's gazing at her like it's just this room and the rest of the world, not even his city, exists, and it's home.
Their home isn't a city, their home is each other and Felicity's almost glad it took this long.
At least she can tell herself it was completely worth the wait.
FIN