SmoakandArrow's Olicity Flash Fic #19: "That Night"
a/n: I'm not really sure about this one. Actually, I don't like it. But if I'm going to get back into the swing of writing, I've gotta keep writing. And feedback is a good way to figure out what I need to work on. So, enjoy, and share your thoughts if you'd like.
This was not what one would name as Oliver's finest moment.
Getting on his motorcycle and driving across town after half a bottle of his good scotch was a stupid idea. Stopping outside of Felicity's townhouse and ringing her doorbell at three in the morning was an even worse idea.
She would understand, though. He knew she would. Because that's what Felicity does, she understands him when no one else does. She patches him up and helps him put the pieces back together, even when he doesn't ask her to. Even when he tells her he loves her just so he can put her in danger and then goes on letting her believe he didn't mean it once she's safe again.
It took several minutes for Felicity to open the door, finding Oliver leaning just to the side of it to keep from toppling over. She was wearing her blue pajamas, hair piled in a messy blonde knot on the top of her head, eyes bleary and her glasses forgotten somewhere inside.
"Oliver? What are you doing?" She was waking up, shifting into Caring and Concerned mode and her hand reached out to grab hold of his arm before she even had time to realize what she was doing.
He stumbled forward towards her, not liking how his feet didn't seem to want to stay under him and he had to steady himself on the doorframe to keep from crashing into her.
Felicity made a noise that sounded a little like agitation and a lot like exhaustion.
"You're drunk, Oliver. You shouldn't be here." She said, hand dropping from his arm to rub her temple and effectively block him out of her gaze.
"But- I want to be here," Oliver was pouting at her, giving her the doe eyes that only came out when he was intoxicated or feeling particularly playful. The look was almost enough to let Felicity overlook the slur in his words. It was almost enough to forget about the fact that if he were sober, he wouldn't be saying that to her. Almost.
"You can't keep doing this, Oliver. You can't keep showing up at my door in the middle of the night and telling me things like that." Felicity's voice was strained, either from lack of sleep or emotion, and she didn't care to take the time to distinguish between the two. "I can't keep driving you home because you're too drunk to do it yourself- I need sleep. I can't keep coming in to the foundry every morning after you've gone and said something else that you don't mean but can't take back, I can't keep pretending all of it never happened."
She was talking about more than his late-night drunken habits, more than slurred sentiments in the shadows outside her house or in her car, more than fumbling hands that seemed to never want to let go of her. In all the nights he'd interrupted her sleep, he'd never once gone as far as to let out those three words he had that night in the mansion. For that, at least, Felicity was grateful.
A clumsy hand reached out to wipe a tear from her cheek that she hadn't realized had fallen. "Let me stay," Oliver said.
Felicity's eyes flicked up at the softness of his tone, the genuine emotion in it despite the way it fell from his lips like he wasn't completely in control of it.
"No. You need to go home, Oliver. You need to go to bed and get away from me before one of us says something we can't come back from. You need to go," She was shaking her head, resolute. She couldn't keep playing this game, and letting him win every single time.
It was quiet for a long time. Weary, tired eyes met unfocused, desperate blue that was so unguarded that Felicity had to fight the urge to take a step back, away from him. She was used to being able to read Oliver, see him in a way that was all her own and no one else could. She was proud of that ability, the way he could almost never hide anything from her when he had no problem lying to everyone else. She wasn't petty enough to let herself think it was because she knew him better than the others did, but she had learned to pick up on his tells. Little quirks like the way he would press his forefinger and thumb together when he was bluffing, or how his fake smiles differed from the rare real ones.
This was different, though. There was nothing for her to decipher or figure out in his eyes, no mystery for her to solve or code for her to crack. It was all laid out before her; all his cards were on the table now, showing his hand for her to see. And what Felicity found there was just about enough to break her.
"I'm so lost, 'Licity," it wasn't much more than a clumsy whisper, and Felicity had to wonder when he'd inched his was so close to her- or maybe she'd stepped closer to him. She didn't have the slightest clue.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Felicity reached down and took his hand in hers, pulling him into her home behind her. His fingers tightened around hers as she led them to the couch and ordered him to sit. "I won't make you go home, but don't think it's solely for your benefit. I've got a DVR full of recorded shows and movies that, believe it or not, spending your nights as a member of a crime fighting vigilante team is not exactly conducive to getting around to." She looked at him almost sternly, as if warning him that if he tried anything she didn't deem appropriate, he'd be out on her porch with no ride home.
Oliver didn't try his luck. Even in his less than totally coherent state, he knew better than that. He nodded, watching quietly while she brought him a glass of water and fished around for the remote. She scrolled through the recorded content, settling on a movie from a few years ago that she'd seen but knew for a fact that Oliver hadn't. It played quietly for a while, until Oliver's hand found its way to Felicity's and her head around whipped to face him, eyeing him that way she did when his touch shocked her and she wasn't sure how to react to it yet.
"Thank you," he mouthed it more than said it, and Felicity found that she liked it better that way. The slur was almost nonexistent when he was so quiet, and she could just about pretend that he wasn't drunk, that he meant what he was saying and that every action was as purposeful and intentional as it was when he was sober. That he would remember it the next day, or at least not pretend that he didn't.
She kept thinking this to herself when he gave her a small smile, turning his head back to the television.
She repeated it over and over in her mind when, a few minutes later, he shifted to lay his head on her lap, face turned away from her and fingers brushing the bare shin at her ankles.
It became a bit like a mantra when she reached out a tentative hand, combing her nails through his hair until they both fell asleep with the movie playing quietly, completely forgotten.
Oliver showed up at Felicity's door several more times in the weeks after that. Sober, at a reasonable hour, and usually with takeout, sitting with her for hours on end watching countless shows and movies with her, while she excitedly explained to him what was going on. He always liked her version of the stories better.