Disclaimer: Arrow isn't mine, just the fanfic
The welcome mat that had the words "Keep Calm and Knock!" printed across the blue weave, had Felicity giggling from the moment she saw it in the thrift store till the time she brought it home and placed it in front of her apartment door. She was quite happy with her first foray into apartment decorating. Well… technically it sits outside the apartment but still, she thinks it adds a little personality.
Her good mood just about ended after that. She was kept awake into the early hours of the morning by the definitive sounds of obnoxious laughter and outrageous drinking games, the sounds of a party coming from one of the other apartments. She is assuming whoever it was had every single window open as well as their front door, because no matter where Felicity tried to go in her apartment it constantly felt like the never ending stream of bass heavy house music was seeping through every wall.
Her long night didn't really end when the music was switched off either. She may or may not have had a hand in corrupting the music program on the DJ's laptop. It was like 3am. But unfortunately karma probably bit her in the butt, in the form of banging, shuffling and laughter up and down the hallway outside her apartment for another solid hour.
Her morning continued in much the same fashion.
By the time she rolled out of bed, she had already decided on wearing her glasses and deeper colours for the day. Then she realised she didn't have coffee. The last straw was when she stepped out of her apartment. All she had wanted to do was to turn around and stay home. Her mat, her admittedly geeky and very new mat was missing.
Reluctantly she headed towards the elevator, it too every inch of her self-restraint not to stomp petulantly on her way there. She barely even realised the elevator had opened to her till she heard, "Hey, Felicity."
With a quirk of a wave, Felicity quickly stepped into the elevator next to Thea. The girl had been friendly ever since the flying cockroach incident; waving to her from across the QC lobby occasionally or attempting to plan some time for coffee whenever she caught Felicity in the apartment complex. Although the elevator was surprisingly quiet this morning, Thea had glasses on, inside and when Felicity turned to speak Thea winced at her first words. Felicity put two and two together fairly quickly. "You were at that party last night!" She threw at the younger girl accusingly.
"It was a good one." Thea returned massaging her head.
"I could tell." Felcity replied darkly.
"Whats with the mood?"
"That party, the good one, kept me up all night." Felicity stared down Thea. At least the girl was clear enough to look apologetic, with a lopsided smile she countered that Felicity could've just joined in and that she'd for sure get an invite next time.
Felicity shook her head, "oh I'm much more of a homebody. But that's not to say that I'm not grateful for the invitation. Because who doesn't like a good party, shots are always fun. But I just wanted to sleep! And now theres no coffee and my mat is gone."
"Coffee…? Wait did you say your Mat is gone?"
"Yes and I just got it. I thought it was great! Maybe "keep calm" is a little over used now, but it was like the first thing I've bought for the apartment and it was really cute." Felicity ends with a pout.
Meanwhile Thea's eyebrows have risen up above the top of her shades and her mouth is hanging open a little. Quickly her hand shoots out and presses another floor number, an upper floor. Earning her a questioning look from Felicity, the elevator had already been on its way downwards when Felicity stepped on. A quick small nervous smile on Thea's face was all Felicity got in answer and then the girls head was bowed the frames of her shades pointed downwards.
"Are you okay Thea?"
As quickly as Thea looks up to respond her gaze quickly returns to the floor. "Uh… yeah, just, hangover," The younger woman points to her head "I changed my mind, no school today." When the ding indicating the elevators arrival at the lobby, Felicity didn't get anything other than a tight, albeit brief, hug from Thea.
She was surprised the girl hadn't mentioned anything about coffee. Felicity hoped Thea was okay and couldn't stop herself from walking up to John. Who was perfectly awake as his shift had started about 2 hours earlier. She asked if the man could call up to Thea's room in a couple of hours, just to make sure the girl was okay. With a kind smile, John assured her he'd go check on Thea himself. Felicity tanked him with a grateful smile and resolved to call Thea on her lunch break as well.
###
Thea on the other hand had headed straight to her brother and Tommy's shared apartment, knowing they'd both probably still be asleep after last night she let herself in. She went straight for the coffee machine. She knew from past experience, if her next efforts failed to wake the two guys, it'd be the smell of fresh coffee that would tempt them.
She'd learnt her lesson much earlier in life not to barge into the guys bedrooms. So she knocked on Tommy's door first, peeking her head around the door to see Tommy belly down spread eagle on the bed, alone, no women in sight.
Thea thanked god for small mercies.
She strode up to the bed, "Toommyyy…. Tooooommmyy… Tommy?" Punctuating every call of his name with pokes to his head and shoulders and for her efforts she only gets a sleepy grunt. Thea's patience slips, so she leans in close the ear not mashed into the pillow.
"THOMAS. MERLYN. GET UP!"
Thea has to jump back to avoid Tommy abruptly lifting his head with a snort, "wah…"
Grabbing his chin, Thea looks directly into his sleepy eyes, making sure he's paying attention. "Lounge, five minutes… move." Thea says sharply and immediately turns heel heading towards Oliver's room.
She repeats the same process before going into Oliver's room, turns out she's two for two. At least she's having a better day than Felicity. She knew Oliver wouldn't ever respond to yelling so after calling his name a couple of times. So Thea just headed out to the kitchen and returned with a glass full of water, which she them promptly poured over Oliver's head, he woke up even faster than Tommy with a "THEA!"
But the little sister in question was already halfway out the door, "lounge room Oliver! Five minutes!" and the door closed behind her.
To both guys credit, not five minutes later, both of them were sitting in front of her, rubbing their eyes and heads holding freshly brewed mugs of coffee she'd shoved into their hands. Thea waited till both their heads had lifted before she started.
"Do you guys remember the scavenger hunt last night?" Oliver's grunt and Tommy's lazy nod was all she got in reply. "Yeah well we took Felicity's doormat." At their blanks stares she continued, "the new lady, in 9? On Mr. Diggle's floor remember? The bit where we had to get an indoor plant and one of Tommy's blondes kept giggling. I told her to shut up like 5 times. Anyway, she really loves it and she was super nice to me the other day and we need to give it back. So where did you guys put the stuff?"
Tommy's shaking his head "did you say her doormat?"
Oliver's looking up from behind his mug, "you lost me at Felicity."
Thea takes her own dramatic pause; she tells them to focus and asks again, slowly, where they've put the scavenger hunt items. The boys shake their heads, "can you help me look for her doormat then?"
Oliver shakes his head, "who?"
Thea leans over and grabs Oliver between her hands, "Focus. Last night. Scavenger Hunt. Apartment 9. Doormat. Find it."
He looks at her, "why?"
Thea brings out the big guns, "cause she saved me from the flying cockroach," Oliver sighed, he remembered getting home that day and being subjected to a detailed ten minute recount of the incident. But Thea continued on to hammer it home with her puppy dog eyes, "and she really likes her doormat."
Tommy's phone goes off and he is up collecting his keys and wallet. Thea looks at him, eyebrows raised, "Where you going?"
"Early delivery at the club gotta go." He steps towards the atrium of the apartment, "But I think I remember the mat too, pretty sure that one was Oliver's task." Opening the front door her called out, "Good luck" as his smirk disappears behind the door.
Oliver takes a deep breath, it is coming back to him and he puts down his cup, "what does it look like?"
"It's blue, with the words Keep Calm and Knock written across it."
Oliver's eyebrows rise and he opens his mouth as if to say something, but seemingly he decides against it. Getting up instead he beckons her to follow him, "Come on, I think we dumped the stuff on the balcony."
Felicity calls Thea twice, not getting through the first time. On the second the younger girl seems to be okay, especially when Thea asks if she can visit Felicity when she gets home from work. The girl says she's got a surprise for her. Felicity's intrigued, she responds with a "Sure!" and tells Thea to give her till 6, just so she can shake off work.
Sure enough at around five past six Felicity hears knocking on the front door, knowing its Thea, she doesn't check the peep hole. Standing there just outside her door sure enough is Thea, she's not alone though, she flanked by a taller guy. Muscular with short cropped hair and a curious spark in his steel blue eyes.
Thea has to wave the doormat between Felicity's eye line and Oliver for Felicity to break away from checking out Oliver and noticing her surprise. Felicity may or may not have actually squealed when she realised Thea was holding her lost doormat, practically smothering Thea in a hug, showering her with a few thank yous in the process.
Felicity hesitates before inviting them in, Thea realises and introduces Felicity to her brother with an,
"Oh sorry, I forgot this is Oliver. Brother and more recently… Doormat thief."
Oliver looked down at Felicity apologetically, but it was Thea that explained. "Sorry, we had a bit of an impromptu scavenger hunt last night and doormat was on Oliver's list"
Felicity's face was an easy read, her emotions went from confused to surprised and then as if she'd resolved something her smile was back. Little did Thea know, she was actually pretty close, Felicity was indeed surprised but then chalked it up as a young rich and bored thing.
When Oliver did speak up it was pretty much perfect, "I brought dinner, as an I'm sorry for stealing your mat kind of thing."
"Well in that case then," Felicity opened the door wider and stepped back and with a smile she waved them through, "come in and you can either leave the food and go or you can help me tackle all of this because there's like ten different containers in here."
"We weren't sure what you liked, so we just got a whole lot of things, where did you want Oliver to put the food down, where are we eating?" The two siblings turned to face Felicity but both had to redirect their gazes to the floor, Felicity was already laying out her doormat, inside. Oliver chuckled a little.
"Oh… Just ah, um… I don't have dining chairs yet, so we'll be eating on the couch. But we can do like a buffet thing and spread it all out on the dining table, and by that I mean we can spread the food out on the dining table" and then her mouth ran away from her brain, "Being stretch out on the dining table would probably hurt. " Hearing Thea giggle, Felicity closed her eyes, feeling a faint blush rise on her cheeks. "Just, yes, food on dining table. Just one second I'll grab some plates." From the corner of her eye she sees Thea elbow Oliver in the stomach.
Felicity's in the kitchen by the time the hurried whispers between Thea and her brother end with Oliver calling to her, "Can I help in anyway?" as he rounded the corner into her kitchen.
Felicity laughs nervously, pointing up to the cupboard directly above her head, "can you get the plates, I had a friend come through to help me unpack a little and he thought it'd be funny if I was forced to eat out of a cereal bowl because I couldn't reach my plates."
Oliver just kind of stood there for a moment, eyebrows almost in his hairline and then a hint of a smirk appeared on his face. He walked straight up to her, stopping with a mere few inches separating them, he stared her down as he reached over her head and felt for three plates. Thea had found her own way into the kitchen and had to cough before the couple in the corner realised Oliver had the plates already and sprang apart. Thea didn't have to look at her brother to know he was smirking.
Felicity however quite literally feels the blush race to her cheeks and her brain slowly begin to unscramble, "so um, plates… for the food. Eating on the couch. Yes." It takes a second. She turns to Oliver who quickly schools his face, but his twinkling grey blue eyes tell her he knows exactly what he's doing and what it's doing to her.
She walks past Thea who has an eyebrow raised and who quickly follows after her, "Felicity, forgetting something?"
The plates. They're still in the kitchen. With her guests. The plates she has forgotten, next to Oliver's elbow.
He doesn't move to make getting them any easier either. He just looks back down at her with another smirk, "Are the glasses in a cupboard you can't reach either?"
They do eventually make it to the couch for dinner, and also later a movie. Felicity and Thea team up against Oliver deciding on a chick flick while he's in the bathroom and then stubbornly refusing to change their minds. Laughing together at the love fern scene, that turns out to be both their favourites. Felicity swears she hears Oliver chuckle, which was probably what got Thea started with the teasing, asking her brother whether he's ever dated a Vegan and he probably wouldn't make it through a counselling session without hitting on the doctor either.
###
The result of that night was Oliver and Felicity's first meeting. Not to mention, Felicity no longer had to eat out of the cereal bowl. Oliver must have brought the rest of the plates down when he went to the bathroom. When she came home the next day there was sturdy Oakwood dining chair waiting for her by her apartment door, a fairly perfect match with her dining table. There was a letter on the seat.
For your dining table, and all those high cupboards. Let me know if theres anything too far out of reach.
Oliver
So this turned out longer than I thought it would be and I just kinda went with it. It's only fair cause it's been a minute since I updated, finishing uni is unfortunately both stressful and time consuming.
Cheers for getting to the bottom and double cheers to everyone that's put this on one follow list or another, the notification emails make me smile.