"Messing With Your Head"

By Wtchcool

Disclaimer: Why would I even be interested in owning "Arrow"? Oh, that's right: Quentin. Never mind.

The phone—the one that had been borrowed, bugged, then borrowed again before being returned to its rightful owner—rings once before Quentin answers it.

"Hello?" Lance asks.

"I know what you're up to," the voice on the other end growls without preamble.

"I've no idea what you're talking about," the sergeant replies. His tone is as innocent as he can make it with a grin threatening to break out on his face.

The Hood doesn't buy his act and goes on to accuse him of having an ulterior motive for adding a certain detective recently promoted from Vice to the team assigned to bring down the vigilante. Quentin cuts him off before he says anything too damning.

"Yes, I knew she'd just started dating Oliver Queen, but what does that have to do with it? It's not like you're Queen, after all."

Cursing is heard because they both know that he can't just come out and say the truth.

"I offered to do those things to you in person," the Hood bites out. "It's not my fault that you said no. You can't expect a man to live like a monk—"

"You're free to see who you want. As is Queen," Lance retorts, though he wouldn't have added the latter if Laurel wasn't already seeing someone else, even if it is Queen's friend Merlyn. "And I'm free to select members of my team." He pauses, takes a breath before continuing.

"You know that there's a security leak on my team. I still don't know who it is. Unless you can give me a name, McKenna is the only one I can trust. Everyone else who was a member when my daughter was kidnapped is still a suspect.

"Do you have any leads?"

The silence is deafening.

"That's what I thought," Quentin says.

"You could've picked someone else, though," the Hood grumbles, and Detective Lance can practically see him pouting.

"I could have, yeah. But what would have been the fun in that?" he chuckles as he gets off the phone.

He can take satisfaction in knowing that if he's going to be frustrated, so will Queen. The relationship between the billionaire and McKenna is doomed. Either she'll dump him after discovering who he is or she'll figure out he's keeping something important from her and end it. Though it's also possible Queen will see the writing on the wall and end things preemptively.

Lance hasn't figured out what he'll do if Queen starts dating someone outside the Starling City Police Department, but he expects he'll think of something.

THE END

Author's Note: So the plot bunny was nagging me since I saw the last episode. I am experimenting with writing in a different verb tense, as you can see.

Title is from Avril Lavigne's "What the Hell".

If you enjoyed this fic and are thirsty for more Quiver, please check out my current crossover, "Black Bird; Green Arrow."