Title: Recovery
Prompt: Fic-a-thon #1 - summer vacation
Word Count: 1755
Notes: Happy Monday, y'all!
I saw the idea for the Hiatus Fic-a-thon on Tumblr, so I decided to give it a whirl. I can't guarantee I'll make every week's post, but for now, I had an idea and I ran with it. To be honest, I'm not sure it's up to my usual standard, but I decided to give it a whirl anyway.
You guys are always appreciated. Thank you for reading! :)
Oliver stares up at the ceiling, listening to the soft ticking of the clock mixed with the groaning creeks of the Shatterdome and Felicity's even breathing. His hand traces Chinese characters over the exposed skin of her waist as her breath fans across his chest, and he releases a long breath of contentment. In this one moment, it doesn't matter that his insomnia is keeping him awake again. It doesn't matter that not even having her next to him at night—every night—isn't enough to relax him.
In these quiet moments, there is peace.
Before the Breach and anyone had ever heard of a Kaiju, Oliver wasn't the kind of man who recognized peace. He ignored it in search of another high or confused it with the particular brand of loneliness that can only be experienced in a room full of people Ever since he crawled in his first Jaeger, peace became a luxury he couldn't afford. Every moment not spent in battle was spent waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now that he has Felicity, though, he's learned to accept those moments of insomnia-induced tranquility for the gift they are.
With every day comes a new challenge, but, as Oliver glances over at Felicity, he knows she's worth it. First they battled Kaiju together, but after their relationship became public, they began to battle the upper echelons of the PPDC together, too. When the media found out, they battled the paparazzi—and sometimes it felt like the world—together. And now they share their quarters, a bed, and their minds. It's not always easy and the stress may take its toll on both of them, but at the end of the day, they still have each other. It's enough for him, and, judging by the direction of Felicity's thoughts he hears in the Drift, it's enough for her, too.
She stirs in his arms as he thinks her name, as receptive to his emotions and moods as always. Of all the partners he's Ghosted with—and there have been many—their bond is easily the most sensitive. Even when he doesn't manage to wake her with his racing thoughts, she knows if he's slept or not. Even after nineteen successful Drifts, he isn't sure how, but she just offers a cryptic smile and offers, I can feel it in my cells.
Felicity says that about a lot of things since they maxed out their Drift.
A blue eye winks open at him, and she squints through the darkness with unfocused vision. Instead of offering him some sort of groggy, half-asleep mumbling, she asks with complete clarity, "Do you know what I was just thinking about?"
While he's become transparent to her in their relationship, she has only become a greater mystery to Oliver. All he knows is that sometimes she'll fall asleep his Felicity and wake up something else entirely. Sometimes she'll wake up the J-Tech officer he first met, buzzing with a new idea she has to work on at precisely that moment. Other times it's with a philosopher's soul impressive enough to rival Francis Bacon. Other times still it's to ask questions that are beyond him in their strangeness.
With a barely restrained sigh, Oliver asks, "Is this the penguin thing again?" She may be the love of his life, but if she's waking him just before two in the morning to ask if penguins have knees again, he's going downstairs to sleep in the archery range.
Felicity rolls her eyes as if he's the ridiculous one. "No, this isn't the penguin thing again," she assures him in a dry voice. "I looked that up yesterday because you wouldn't debate it with me." Oliver refrains from trying to explain that it was the fact she woke him from a solid sleep at three a.m. to ask about the anatomy of penguins. In a smug tone, she adds, "As it turns out, they do." She waves a hand a moment later. "Not important right now, though. I was thinking about summer vacations." Silence lapses between them for a moment, and she fills it when he doesn't, propping herself up on one elbow. "I mean, not that we can take one or anything, but did you ever get a chance before everything went to hell?"
The smile comes unbidden to his lips. "Yeah, I do." Felicity doesn't need to coax him to keep talking this time; the memory demands to be shared. "When we were kids, we took vacations every summer. We had this house on the beach, and—"
"Of course you did," Felicity answers. "I keep forgetting your family is rich."
Even as he presses a finger to her lips, Oliver chuckles. "Tommy's mom died when he was six. His dad sort of left him with us for a long time after that, and so we grew up like brothers." He smiles in spite of himself; talking about Tommy is always bittersweet, but somehow it's easier with Felicity. "We must have been twelve or thirteen that year—Speedy was old enough to walk, but just barely. I remember having to carry her out of the water because she kept going to it, and we all made sandcastles together." His smile fades. "It was nice—Mom and Dad didn't have conference calls and just focused on being parents." He makes a face. "Not like the corporate hunting trips that he always dragged me on."
Felicity rises up a little further to ask, "Is that where you learned to use a bow?" She waves a hand. "I didn't get all of it in the Drift, but I remember something about a young brunette with a Russian accent in a woodsy sort of area."
He nods. "That was Taiana," he answers, looking away as his face starts to feel hot. "I was bored on one of the trips, and she thought I had talent. I was fifteen and I thought she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen."
"And already breaking hearts," Felicity teases with a nudge. "I would bet you didn't pick up archery just because you were bored—especially if there was a pretty girl teaching it." Oliver has to look away; he was a freshman in high school and Taiana was mature, confident, and displayed interest in him—even if it was only intellectual. It feels foolish now. Despite that, the blonde by his side is relentless. "And I already know how much you love to show off."
"Only to you," Oliver replies with a smile. They both know the truth of that; while he might be training Thea and Roy with it, he's never made a spectacle out of his archery skill. Felicity kisses his bare shoulder in reply. Though he had long since decided, it reaffirms the fact that, if Heaven isn't like this, he isn't going—not that he believes in Heaven or that he would be offered the chance to go. Instead of dwelling in the darkness, he asks, "What about you? Did you have any summer vacations?"
"My mom and dad divorced when I was twelve, and that's when we moved to Starling City. Before that, we lived in Las Vegas," she tells him. That explains so much about deserts and cacti in her head during the Drift. "My life was basically one giant summer vacation." Felicity grins, and it's the smile that lights up her face when one of her ideas works. "I went back when I was sixteen. I had just finished the Drift program, and I took my earnings to the casino with a fake ID." She shakes her head at her past actions while Oliver tries to imagine that. "I counted cards and won almost five hundred thousand dollars before they caught me." He lifts an eyebrow, and she explains, "I was sloppy."
He laughs. "I tried to impress the archery coach, and you were a card shark."
"Don't ever play poker with me," is her only answer, but she doesn't laugh when Oliver chuckles. Felicity is quiet for so long he thinks she's fallen asleep, but she adds in a quiet voice, "You know I would if I could, right? Go on vacation with you, I mean." She sighs. "This is the only time I hate being a Jaeger pilot. Our lives are here—and only here."
While they might be confined to Starling City as long as Kaiju continue to pop out of the Rift, that doesn't mean there's nothing to explore. Oliver frowns; surely there's something they can do in the city. There has to be somewhere he hasn't been, somewhere they can see together…
It hits him instantly. "I've never been to the Bone Slums before," he realizes aloud to Felicity, referring to the part of the Glades ravaged by Kaiju attacks ten years ago. While once a tragedy, it's grown into a series of vendors and a marketplace for all sorts of unique—and possibly illegal—items for sale. "Not when I wasn't in a Jaeger."
She sits upright in bed. "How have you never visited the Bone Slums?" she asks. "It's one of the best parts of the city, Oliver!" Her eyes brighten. "Okay, we have to go. We need to visit the Crater. And you'd love the weapons bazaar—they have a ton of archery supplies." She nudges his shoulder. "And we have to visit Madam Wu's. She has a small, open-air restaurant in the Spires—that's the ribcage of the Kaiju that dropped ten years ago. They've decorated it all with lanterns, and it's beautiful at night. And Madam Wu has some of the best dumplings in the city." She smiles. "It's not all tragedy and heartbreak there, you know. It's hope, too. Rebuilding something from destruction."
When Felicity yawns, Oliver presses his lips to her forehead. "We should do that tomorrow morning," he suggests. "Spend the day in the city, and get some of those dumplings. The words bring a smile to her lips as her eyes drift closed, and he can't help but mirror it; nothing sounds quiet as appealing as getting a little lost together. Sleep begins to overtake him, too, and he closes his eyes, hoping for dreams of traveling through the city with Felicity.
It's not ten seconds later when the sirens sound.
Felicity groans before asking, "Raincheck while we go kick some Kaiju ass?"
Oliver winks before clambering out of bed. "You're worth waiting for."