Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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Make Me Feel Alive (And Shatter Me)
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Even with his thoughts a jumbled mess, as Oliver stalked off from the darkened manor he'd once lived, Oliver knew he had just committed an act so selfish it could almost be a sin.
The plan had been simple, get Slade to want Felicity Smoak in his immediate grasp, thus insuring the blond could inject the cure into him. All Oliver had to do was show the importance of Felicity's friendship, her importance on his team. He was not meant to be supposed to be telling her those three words.
But, why is he even surprised? With a weary tilt to his lips, Oliver has to admit nothing has ever really gone to plan when Felicity Smoak is involved. For all his skill at lying to others, he'd not been able to make his first trip for that laptop seem plausible—there was just something about the bubbly I.T. girl (his My Girl, his Girl Wednesday) that knocked him off balance and left him bare, with no swagger.
Yet he had been unable to help himself; the plan did not call for him to swallow hard, Adam's apple bobbing, taking a shallow breath and saying "I love you," in a raspy emotional tone, while not removing his eyes from her own, wanting his stare to convey just how true that statement was. It had hit him in that single moment the danger she was entering, to willingly subject herself to the tender mercies of Slade Wilson, to help the city and stop him from killing. And the words just dripped off his tongue, slipping from between his lips, without much thought.
It would taste a lie to say he was oblivious to his feelings for Felicity before that moment, he's known that what he feels for the tiny blond dynamo is love. No matter what Digg might like to think, Oliver knows most snide comments about Barry Allen came from a place of jealousy; here was this intelligent man, who seemed to appeal to her awkward sense of flirting, for God's sake the kid rambled too. He ended up taking it too far when Allen was in town, even further when waking to find him in the foundry, but Oliver flirted dangerously with the line when snapping at Felicity for spending time worried about the Allen kid. It brought home a true fear, what happens when the I.T. goddess leaves to make a family for herself. How would he fight off the darkness with her light?
Still it's a shock to his overwrought system to discover how deeply in love with Felicity he already is. To discover that squeezing sensation around his heart at the idea of her in such dangers without him within arm's reach to protect her.
Despite the fear that sharing this love and passion with Felicity could very well lead to her death, Oliver doubts he'd even be the best choice for a girl as beautiful on the inside and out like Felicity. Yet he doubts even more that he'll ever be able to let her go—what a nightmare it'd be without pink pert lips curved into a warm smile, brightly painted nails clacking away on a keyboard or lightly tapping a tablet, endless babbles that go far off point. Or the soft look in Felicity's blue eyes when looking right at him; her voice like a lullaby telling him in his darkest hours that he's a hero.
Slade's voice slices through the silence like a well sharpened blade, and his words so ominous that they chill his blood, "She is quite lovely…your Felicity."
Those words drive home every fear, want, and need that he's ever agonized over this situation in general. Thus with a clenched jaw Oliver clears his thoughts, both saddened and relieved in equal measure to be unsure when he'll ever be this honest with himself or Felicity again.
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[Fin.]