A/N: For those of you who've been asking, Felicity will make her debut in Chapter 5. Thanks for your patience ;)
I don't own Arrow or its characters.
xxx
Thea wakes up at noon with a dry mouth and a pounding headache. She groans, clutching her head and cursing Sara Lance. Some friend she is, getting Thea wasted and then sneaking off to leave her to get caught. What a little bitch.
When Thea turns her phone on she has three apology texts from Sara. She ignores them, a little pissed off at being abandoned in the freaking Glades. She pulls her hair up into a messy ponytail, frowning.
How did she even get home last night?
Thea pulls on an old tee shirt she stole from Ollie years ago and pads downstairs to get the first of many glasses of water. When she gets to the bottom of the stairs she freezes. Ollie's in the living room, sitting on one of the black leather couches, staring blankly into the fireplace.
"What are you doing here?" she croaks. "I thought you had to go to Central City."
"I rescheduled."
"Why?"
"Can you come sit down, please?"
"Ollie, what's going on? You never cancel work trips."
"Sit down, Speedy," he snaps, and Thea shuffles to the couch, curling up in a corner.
Her brother stands up in front of her, running a hand through his short hair. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"
"No," she says sullenly.
"Thea."
"What?"
"Look, I know that..." Ollie trails off, his thumb and forefinger rubbing together. "I know that this has been a hard year for you."
Duh, she thinks, crossing her arms tightly around her chest.
"And I know things weren't easy for you while I was gone, either."
"What're you getting at?" she asks wearily.
"I know, Thea."
She stares at him blankly. "You know what?"
Her brother gives her a look that makes her insides squirm. "I know you had a drug problem while I was on the island."
Her mouth falls open. "How did you-how did you..."
"Tommy," Oliver says quietly.
Tommy Merlyn. What a freaking traitor.
"So what?" she says in a hard voice. "Nothing you didn't do when you were my age."
"That's not the point," Ollie says impatiently. "Look, I get it, you're young, you're having fun, whatever. But don't you think this is getting a little out of control?"
"By the time you were my age you were practically living in the back of Lance's squad car."
"This was the second night this week you've needed to get picked up in the Glades. This is unacceptable," he says stiffly.
"What do you care?" Thea says, kind of nastily.
What a hypocrite. Unacceptable her ass. Did he really think Tommy didn't tell her about all the stunts they pulled when they were teenagers?
"Thea, please," her brother says tiredly. "I'm doing my best here."
"You're never here at all!" she retorts. "You're always at work."
"I'm here now," he says seriously, sitting down next to her. "I cancelled my trip to be here."
"Whatever," she mumbles, shifting deeper in the couch.
"I'm doing the best that I can," he says tiredly. "I'm sorry if that's not enough, but you don't have to punish me by acting out like this."
"I'm not acting out. Everything's fine, you don't have to worry about me."
"Yeah, I don't. Because you're grounded."
She stares at him. "What?"
"You heard me."
"You can't do that."
"I just did."
"I can't believe you!" she yells, jumping up from the couch. "This is so unfair!"
"Thea-"
"You can't do this!" she wails.
"I'm your guardian, Thea."
"Yeah," she says angrily. "Which means you're not my parent!"
"I'm still in charge of you."
She glares at him, years of built up anger boiling in her veins. "Sometimes I wish you died on that island."
Ollie stumbles back like she hit him, his face going pale. She's already retreating, ready to hide under the covers for the rest of the day, so when he whispers under his breath she barely hears the words.
"Sometimes I wish I had too."
xxx
She catches Ollie sneaking out a few hours later.
"Where are you going?" she asks from the stair landing, crossing her arms defiantly.
"Work," he says shortly.
"It's four pm on a Saturday."
"It's an emergency," he says, eyes firmly on the floor.
Thea arches her eyebrow, taking in the fact that he's wearing a henley and jeans, not a suit, and he has a small duffle bag slung over his shoulder instead of his briefcase.
Unbelievable. He's leaving her for a hookup.
"Don't try and leave," Oliver tells her. "Mr. Diggle is posted in the hallway until I get back."
She sighs heavily and sits down on the top step. "He doesn't have to do that."
Her brother meets her eyes and Thea flinches when she sees the pain they hold. Since the day he came back from the island she has been haunted by her brother's eyes.
"Yes, he really does," he says, and she doesn't argue, because no one wins against Oliver.
He leaves.
Thea does her usual routine when she's in the loft alone- she double locks the door and all the windows and goes from room to room, switching on the lights.
In her room she pulls out a small white pill from her stash under her mattress and takes it down to the den, where she pours vodka into a tumbler and tosses the pill back with the liquor.
She turns on MTV and pulls out her phone, deciding to make up with Sara, who has sent her another follow up text begging forgiveness and promising to make it up to her. Her thumb hovers on Sara's name when she notices a new entry in her contact list right above Sara.
Roy Harper.
A phone number.
Thea grins to herself. She's not allowed to leave the loft, but Ollie didn't say anything about having friends over.
xxx
Thea doesn't live in a giant castle on an acre of land but in a fancy glass high rise in downtown Starling City. Roy gets cleared as a guest by the doorman in the lobby and takes the elevator up to the top, where it opens into a hallway with only one door.
The man from the other night is there, standing in front of the door in a black suit and a Bluetooth in his ear.
"Hi," Roy says, a little unsure. "I'm here to see Thea?"
"Mr. Harper," the man says, holding out his hand for Roy to shake. "John Diggle."
"Hi."
"Do you have any weapons on your person?"
Roy blinks at the question. "A pocketknife."
Thea's personal doorman (bodyguard? butler?) holds out his hand and Roy pulls the knife out of his back pocket and hands it over.
"You can have this back when you leave."
Mr. Diggle knocks on the door using some kind of code-three short knocks followed by two long ones-and Thea opens the door.
She looks more like a regular teenager than a socialite today. Her hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail and she's wearing jeans with holes in the knees and a cut off tank top.
Roy suppresses a groan, because she's even prettier like this, stripped down and natural.
"Thanks," she says, smiling gratefully at Mr. Diggle, who nods his head and gives her a gentle smile back.
Thea reaches for Roy's hand and her smile grows. "Come on in."
The loft is huge, all high ceilings and burning fireplaces. The furniture is sparse, a lot of leather couches and not much else. It looks more like a bachelor pad than a home.
"I have to admit, I was expecting a mansion," he confesses.
"Used to have one of those," she says lightly, twirling around the huge open room. "My brother sold it after my mom died. Said it wasn't worth the upkeep."
"So now you live here with him? Your brother?"
"Yeah. He's my legal guardian. Don't worry; he's not here right now. He's 'working'."
"Really?"
"My brother takes his playboy rep very seriously," she says dryly. "I'm just cramping his style."
"I'm sure that's not true," Roy says, and Thea shrugs.
"It's okay. It's not his fault he got stuck with me. Come on, let's hang out in the den. That's where all the alcohol is."
The den is twice the size of Roy's apartment. It has another huge leather couch (Oliver apparently has a thing for leather) a fully stocked wet bar, and a flat screen that makes Roy drool.
Thea mixes vodka, peach schnapps, and orange juice into a glass and hands it to him.
"Nice," he says appreciatively, taking a sip. "You're not half bad at this."
"Can't take credit," she says with a cheeky smile, mixing on for herself. "My friend Sara taught me."
Roy snorts. "I remember Sara."
"Right. Sorry, last night is a little fuzzy. I'm assuming you're the reason I got home okay?" Thea asks, plopping down on the couch and curling her legs under her.
"Yeah," he says, joining her on the couch. "Sorry about Sara."
"It's okay," Thea shrugs.
"You're not mad at her?"
She sighs, shaking her head. "I'm not saying it's cool she left me there, but I get it. Her dad is really scary sometimes."
Thea stretches out, her feet ending up in his lap. "Good thing you were there, huh?"
"Yeah," he says, staring at her little toes, like tiny pink painted shells.
She smiles lazily at him, taking a big sip of her drink. "I'm glad you're here. It gets lonely here sometimes."
Roy wants to ask how a billionaire could ever get lonely, but he just smiles and squeezes her ankle.
They're halfway through a hilariously bad movie of the week when the TV blares an alert and the movie cuts out, jumping to the local news.
"Breaking news," the man behind the reporter desk announces. "The Starling City vigilante has interrupted a robbery in progress at the Starling City Museum of Modern Art. The thieves were caught by vigilante, who incapacitated the guilty party and left them for the police."
The camera cuts to grainy footage of the vigilante exiting the museum, shooting an arrow up at a building and disappearing into the night.
"Whoa," Roy says. "That's awesome."
Thea laughs. "Are you one of those guys who has a raging man crush on the vigilante?"
"I don't have a man crush," he sneers.
"Sure," she says giving him a cheeky smile.
"I think what's he's doing is important," Roy tries to explain. "Where I live crime happens every minute and the cops don't do anything. Nobody cares about us. At least he's doing something."
"He's killed people," Thea points out.
"Yeah, criminals."
"You think that makes it okay?" She has a look of genuine curiosity on her face, like it really matters what he thinks.
"I think sometimes you have to do bad things to accomplish good things."
"So the means justify the ends?"
"Yes," he says resolutely.
Thea studies his face carefully. "You've really thought about this, haven't you?"
"He's making the city better. That has to count for something, right?"
She smiles. "So it's the hero thing."
"Your words, not mine."
"You're my hero," she says quietly.
Roy's hand tightens on his glass. "What do you mean?"
"You've already saved me twice this week," she points out. "See, you're like him. Saving the young and defenseless."
He turns to Thea and her cheeks flush. There's something about her that stands out more than her lithe body and pretty face.
Something sad.
"Do you need saving?" he asks carefully.
Thea leans in close to him. She smells like expensive perfume and citrus from her drink and he wants to inhale her, lick her from top to bottom.
"I don't know," she whispers. "But I think I should keep you around. Just in case."
Roy's fingers find her wrist, her bones small and delicate in his hand. "Works for me."
xxx
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