Title: Cursing Your Name
Words: 2001
Genre: Angst/Romance
Pairing: Laurel/Oliver
Status: Done.
Summary: Oliver goes over to Laurel's because he's bought a present and doesn't know where to buy wrapping paper and a fight ensues.
He came to her because she would probably know. Laurel knew all of the things. Laurel was a genius. Besides, she used it more often than anyone he knew. It only followed logic that she would be the one he should go to with advice about where to buy it. He knocked on the door.
She smiled on the other side as she looked through the peephole.
"Do you know where I can buy wrapping paper?" He asked her as she opened the door.
She blinked at him. "You came over to my house. Not only that. You called me. Told me you had something important to ask me. And your question is where can I buy wrapping paper?" She asked him, arms crossed.
He nodded happily.
"Come on in," She told him as she went down the hall and opened a closet door and got out a big container of wrapping paper. It actually rivaled the Queen stock of wrapping paper. She gave presents, he knew this. He didn't know that she gave so many that she had a permanent stock of wrapping paper on hand.
He looked to her and looked to the box. It looked like it had gathered a fine layer of dust. Maybe she didn't use it as much as he thought. "When was the last time you gave a present, Laur?" He asked her as she set the box on the coffee table in the living room.
"A while," She said in that voice that told him that if he wanted to keep his life, he shouldn't go further with that line of questioning. He knew that it had been a rough couple of months for her. Hell, it'd been a rough year for the both of them. She got back on her feet though. "So what are we working with?" She asked.
He pushed the bag down and he smiled. He thought he did well with this one.
Laurel looked to him with eyebrows bunching together. "Who exactly is this for?" She asked him, going through all the people he could give these two gifts to and quite frankly all of the possibilities were terrible.
"Thea!" He said, proudly. He did good work. She would love this present that he got her.
Laurel looked to him with a horrified look and then looked back to the two things that were sitting on her coffee table with her big box of wrapping paper. "Please tell me you're joking," She said to him as she looked back to the thing and shook her head.
"No, I'm not, Thea's gonna love these gifts," He said, his pride a little wounded.
"These are terrible gifts, Oliver." She said, flatly. She wanted to do that without hurting his feelings, but she didn't see anyway to do that. So she went for the blunt option.
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Why are these terrible gifts?" He asked.
She looked to him, a little shocked that he didn't know, "Come on, Ollie. You really need it spelled out to you?" She asked him, trying to get him to work it out first. She didn't want to spell it out to him, but if he was going to be a dunce, she was going to.
"Yes, apparently I do, since you're the all knowing expert," He said getting a little bit more defensive as she said every biting word.
She turned her back to him and he grabbed her and turned her around. "Tell me what I'm doing so wrong," He said.
The look of horror in her eyes softened him and he felt bad. She needed to tell him or he would never get better at this stuff. "First of all, a blender? Really? Did you even try there? You never get a woman a freaking blender, unless she asks for one. It reeks of misogyny. That's right out of Father of the Bride, which I know you've seen. Not to mention, I don't know why Thea would need her own blender, since she's not moving out anytime soon."
He rubbed his cheek and he looked at it and looked at through that lens. Yeah, it might have been a bad gift, but the other part, that was perfect. "Do you have a problem with the ducks?" He asked, closing an eye, not really ready for her answer.
"Do I have problem with the ducks?" She exasperated. "Of course I have a problem with the ducks, Ollie."
"What's wrong with them? They're cute," He said, rubbing his neck.
She shook her head. "Oh my god, Oliver Jonas Queen, do you pay attention to anyone who isn't you?" She asked him as she crossed her arms.
"I don't get it," He said, confused. "Why are the ducks a bad idea?"
She chuckled in that way that made him think that if she were to ever go evil, he should worry, because she could be deadly. "Of course you don't get why it's a bad idea, because you are so blind to the fact that she has never discussed the damn ducks with you since you came back. But you're cute and adorable and think everything is okay, because she doesn't." She sighed.
"She'll be fine." Oliver said to Laurel.
She shook her head in tiny iterations. "No, she won't." She told him.
"Why not?" He asked her, getting tired of all the games.
She invaded his space and the anger on her face showed through like lace on a bra. She was not kidding around this time. "Because ducks were your thing. They were the thing you did with her. And when you died, she stopped liking ducks. But you don't know that because you are literally too wrapped up in your own damn head to realize that anything is going on with anyone else." She shouted at him.
He looked hurt by this statement, but he also oddly admired the passion in her voice, because it meant that she cared. She always cared. Five years gone, and Laurel looked after Thea.
He pushed her to the wall and kissed her quickly though, because he knew that if either of them had the chance to think about it, they wouldn't and they would get angry and pissed off and that wasn't what he wanted. Because the truth was, he loved that she cared for Thea so much after he died. She obligated herself to checking in on his family, even when they couldn't offer her anything.
"What's going on?" Laurel asked as she brought her legs up around his waist and kissed him back.
He shook his head. She shouldn't do that. "Don't question it," He said as he kissed her more passionately. More teeth, more love. Five years gone on an island and a year of dicking around and he still couldn't get enough of her.
She clutched at his hair and bumped her nose to his, rested her forehead on his, did anything to get closer. Which would have been great if she didn't clutch so hard.
He hadn't noticed before but his hair being pulled really did something for him and he wasn't going to be able to take much more of it without taking her to the back of the apartment, or even to the damn couch. "You need to stop doing that, coeur." He told her seriously as traveled to her neck and kissed the strong muscles on the column.
"Why?" She gasped, out of breathe and smiling, "Does it turn you on?" She asked him.
To that, he ground into her, the evidence showed how much her words rang true for him. She moaned in time with the motion. God, there had been many nights on the island when that moan haunted his dreams. When he thought about being in bed with her and kissing her just like this and that moan.
Slade told him that such was a distraction and that he should be ready for anything and having sex dreams was clearly not ready for anything, but he couldn't help it. Laurel was his everything. He wasn't about to give up the one place he could readily see her on the island because Slade told him to do so. Slade told him a lot of things. Didn't mean he listened to half of it.
She took him by the hair and took him away from her neck. "I still want to know why you kissed me in the first place." She told him.
He pressed her forehead to his and smiled, "Because of all the girls I've been with, you are the only one who cares for Thea. You are the only who cares about the other important girl in my life, coeur. And I need you," He told her honestly and put her hand on his heart.
She felt the beats underneath her palm with amusement and aww on her face. He loved seeing that, the sheer curiosity that she so naturally had. "You need me?" She said as she looked at him in the eyes, taking hers from her palm on his heart. "Ollie, I don't know about need."
He shook his head and cradled the back of her head in his hand. "I don't mean it in that clingy way that some guys need you. But you were asked nothing and you still protected my family. You're good for me," He whispered to her in a kiss. "I promise, if you give me one more chance, even though, I am the last person who deserves it, I will be my best self for you."
"You really don't deserve it," She told him, acknowledging that he had been horrible for her in the past. He cheated on her with her sister. He got stuck on an island for five years. When she started to get over him, he came back and disrupted her whole life. He went back to being with her sister. But she looked in his eyes and she saw the potential. She saw that he wanted to be better. Besides, she never ignored the fact that they had some amazing times. There were boxes stored in the closet with pictures of just how happy Oliver made her. "But hell, it's always been me and you. Let's give it another go," She told him as she put her pinky out and he smiled, and pinky swore to her.
"You know I'm the arrow?" He asked her.
She laughed and nodded. "Why do you think I went to the Arrow with the thing about Blood? I mean, you really think I'm that stupid? I know you and your assistant do some magic work." She told him.
"Felicity," He chuckled. "She is a wizard on her computer."
She nodded to him, "You know, if you want to give gifts to people, they're to go through her or me for approval, right? Because I never want to see something like this again," She said.
He saluted to her, "I promise, there never be a snafu this big." He dutifully swore to her. The whole thing was embarrassing, he acknowledged because it meant that he knew very little about Thea and that he was going to have to work on their relationship.
He had someone though who could at least help navigate some of that with relative ease and brush him up on the things that Thea confided to her. Laurel unwrapped from his waist and gently rested her feet on his toes and looked up to him. "By the way, we should really get her a new present, because yeah, this won't do. I hope you still have the receipt for all of this," She said, gesturing to the unpresentable gifts that he brought.
He moved to grab the bag from the floor and she moved off his feet and he dug into the bag and showed her the receipt. "You want to come with me?" He asked.
"Of course, always do."