Some Girls
By Re White
Fandom: Green Arrow (comic)
Written for: Lady Sarai in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge
Disclaimer: All characters and associated trademarks are property of DC comics.
Rating and Warnings: R (femmeslash and implied Connor/Eddie)
Spoilers: None, really. I make some references to events in OYL, and Connor Hawke: Dragon's Blood - I also ignore the hell out of others. Play along, gentle fangirl.
*
Cissie doesn't go down to the basement. She could go down there, but she won't and there is no one in Ollie's household who would make her. That assurance is something like comfort, but she hesitates to give it a name.
Names tend not to stick.
*
Her room is next to Mia's. It makes for an agreeable kind of juxtaposition.
It's been months and Cissie's room still has the sort of blank hospitality any Holiday Inn would be proud to call it's own. There are no signs that she lives there, except for a purple stain on the carpet from when she accidentally tipped over a can of grape Zesti.
Mia's room is exactly the opposite.
Her closet is a mess of clothes that seem to be creeping ever further towards the bed. Cissie hasn't checked, but she's sure there are more weapons concealed in Mia's headboard than even the Speedy uniform. It reminds her deeply of Robin. There are posters, news clippings, album covers and sketches of bows -some practical, some utterly fantastic- freckled across the walls. There is a post-it attached to the lampshade on Mia's night stand that says, "A Good Soldier". (A goal or a warning? Cissie isn't sure.) Her desk is stacked with books and empty soda cans. Pens, a switchblade and a framed photo of a man's obituary. Text books and note cards. Homework. Caffeine. Knives. It begs for a new rhyme about what little girls are made of.
*
Roy calls her Trick, like the arrow and Cissie smiles every time he does.
*
Cissie makes it a point to do all her nightly routines in Mia's bathroom. It connects their rooms anyway but Mia was too casual about pointing out there are others in the house she could use if she wanted to.
The medicine cabinet is meticulously organized, all the bottles arranged to some careful schedule Cissie hasn't yet figured out. Pills, pills, pills. Vitamins and supplements on their own shelf, prescriptions on another, and generics on yet another. The more predictable, more ordinary things (toothbrushes, mouth wash, deodorant...) are in their own cabinet.
Cissie makes sure both doors are open when she embarks on her daily campaign against black heads. Doesn't bother rinsing the glass on the sink before getting a drink of water. She wants it clear - being in direct line of sight with Mia's illness - Cissie has no problem with this.
*
They found each other in China, she and Connor. It was an accident of timing and an overlap of motives. Cissie had run from home and he was running towards it.
*
There were fevered rumors flooding out of Shanghai, of fire and blood - of a monster whose foot steps shook down buildings. The innocent and the guilty burned away under the hot gaze a great red dragon. Cissie had not been far from the city when she looked up at those great pillars of smoke and felt a familiar rush of fear and adrenalin.
Cissie had shouldered her backpack and flagged down the first truck she saw headed towards the city.
She was out of bandages when they discovered each other in the soot and the blood.
*
Cissie likes to spend time on the roof. Sometimes Connor brings her tea and they sit quietly drinking it together while dusk crawls across Star City.
*
Ollie's house is always full. There seems to be a constant stream of people crashing on one of Ollie's sofas or in the guest rooms, a mess of steel toe boots and creaking body armor on any given day. Chili is always on the stove and there is never enough hot water. Eddie Fyers is over often and Cissie notices that he does not sleep on a couch or in a guest room when he stays over.
Those are the only nights Connor closes his bedroom door.
Ollie and Dinah either don't know or don't care or some other compartmentalized mixture of both.
Eddie comes down- shirtless- to the kitchen one morning while Ollie brews coffee. Hal coughs and looks embarrassed. Roy puts on what Cissie has come to call his game face and they all hold their breath while Ollie scowls.
"Fucking spook - didn't I just get rid of you?"
The silence stretches, taunt as a bow string, until it's unceremoniously broken by Eddie's stomach rumbling.
Ollie throws an apple at Eddie's head and that seems to be the end of it.
She and Roy quietly snicker at each other.
*
Cissie doesn't panic when the man pulls a gun on her. She does not use the nerve strike Dinah taught her and she does not break his jaw with the heel of her boot (she wants to).
Her heart does pick up when she catches the high shrill song of an arrow cutting a path through the darkness of the alley. The man screams when he looks at his hand and sees a shaft of red protruding from his palm. Cissie kicks his gun into the gutter while he's distracted.
When she looks, Speedy dives off the top of a street light, cape fanning out behind her, smile vicious.
Cissie's chest feels tight around the awful thud of her heart, like a wild bird caught in the sticky fist of a cruel child.
Mia is beautiful.
Speedy salutes her before Cissie turns and continues down the street towards home.
*
Sometimes Speedy comes home through Cissie's window, bringing in the night and the street grime and memories. The smell of leather at the end of a shift, sweat and sometimes, blood.
Speedy is always very careful to step around the purple stain on the way to their shared bathroom. Cissie slips out of bed on those nights and follows her. She knows all the catches of the Speedy uniform, and together they strip Mia down to her underwear and the mask.
They don't speak. There is just the snap of pink latex gloves and the soft grunt Mia makes when Cissie starts the first stitch.
Mia's body is not the map of scars that Robin's is. It would still make a social worker faint. There's a splash of what looks like an acid burn just above her coccyx and three long, very neat cuts over her left hip. There's a jagged splay of scar tissue across her abs. There are smaller marks, some faded more than others, mementos of a life before Ollie. In the light of the bathroom, Cissie feels pale and soft.
Sometimes, as she is cleaning a wound or carefully removing glass, Mia reaches out and twirls a thin strand of Cissie's hair around her finger.
*
She's in the study looking for a book when the phone rings. Cissie never considers not answering it.
"Queen residence, King speaking." When ever she does that in ear shot of Mia, the other girl throws things at her, and since that is not the kind of thing one just ignores, Cissie throws back. That is why most of Ollie's conversations begin with "Knock if off! What the hell do you want?" once he actually gets to the phone.
It's strange to hear Bonnie's voice over the phone after so long. Cissie hangs up after a deep breath when she realizes that no, she's really not going to be able to stop her self from crying and that's the last thing Cissie wants her mother to hear.
She's still sobbing when Ollie walks in, who half steps back out, and then takes four long strides over to her. Ollie looks at her like he wants to hug her but isn't sure he has permission. The terrible thing is, Cissie isn't sure if she wants to give it or not. It makes her cry harder. She hates him a little for that.
Eventually, Ollie pries her hand from the telephone and just holds it. When she cries her self out, he hands her a tissue and says, "Dinner in ten."
*
Ollie cuts the land line after that and hands out cell phones to everybody. Connor looks at his like it's going to bite him. Mia uses red nail polish to paint an arrow head on hers.
*
Cissie knows there are targets in the basement, bows, arrows, wrist wraps and mats to spar on.
She goes down for gauze and iodine - there's no more left in her bathroom.
At first, Cissie really thinks she's going to be able to just walk back out, but then she sees Mia in the Speedy uniform, moving through a kata.
It's awful just watching, but something in Cissie's heart insists that simply passing by would be worse. Some kind of sacrilege because Mia can move. The suite makes her movements seem slick. She looks sharp enough to cut Superman and twice as beautiful. Red and yellow, and the white of her teeth as she smiles. Cissie is not at all ready for it when Speedy throws the knife - aimed for her head - but she's dodging fast just like that, whip snap quick, like she never stopped.
That's how the spar started.
Speedy is ruthless. They ruin three practice dummies, the work table and smash one of the monitors. Cissie uses one of Roy's experimental bows (alloy) as a deflector. When Speedy seems to run out of knives she reaches for a sword. Cissie licks her lips, and tightens her grip before moving in. The metal clashes together, and they dance around it. Strike and dodge and leap. Cissie's heart pounds and the sweat beading down her neck is terribly, unbelievably good.
It's quick after that.
Speedy curses like no one Cissie's ever met.
She kisses like no one Cissie's ever met.
They fall onto the mats , no art, no finesse. Just heat and Mia's wicked eyes that see right into Cissie and seem to like what they find. Hands tangled in each others hair, moving gracelessly together, Speedy groans and catches the lobe of Cissie's ear between her teeth. "Arrowette."
Cissie gasps and holds on.