It'll Give Us Something To Talk About The Next Time We Meet, Part 5
Title: It'll Give Us Something To Talk About The Next Time We Meet
Author: Flying High / latetothpartyhp
Pairing: Chloe/Oliver, Clark/Tess, ex-Lois/Oliver
Rating: Teen / PG-13
Warnings: Coarse language, violence, brief nudity
Spoilers: For Luthor and Hex
Summary: Oliver has problems. Lois wants out, Tess wants Clark and Clark wants his powers back. If only Oliver could have what he wants... Set in the Luthor-verse about a month after the Finale.
Sequel to Of All The Towns In All The Worlds In All The Parallel Universes, You Had To Walk Into Mine and I Don't Mind A Little Trouble.
Author's Note (and some additional warnings): Many, many thanks to
iluvaqt for beta'ing this and giving me the confidence to keep writing it. This is a JLA-centered story with a Chlollie twist that ya'll should see coming from a mile away (which I write to persuade anyone put off by the lack of Chloe in the first few chapters). Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think!
Bonus points for spotting all the SV character walk-ons and mentions in this chapter.
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7a / Part 7b
Gina jumped at his entrance with her usual alacrity. Oliver braced himself. Alacritous was what he paid her to be, but there were times - now, for instance - when he might have bumped up that pay for a little laxity. Laziness, even. Alas, today was not that day. He didn't even have time to make the offer before she'd begun reviewing the day's schedule. She was, in fact, so full of cheerful helpfulness that she got all the way through to: “Now - messages. You've had two calls from Jerry Saffire regarding the Schott business. I referred him to legal but - “ before she looked up and saw the sunglasses. They were a big, hipstery pair with white rims that Lois had bought him as a joke, but they were the only non-Green Arrow version he could find that morning. He looked, he knew, like the kind of jack-ass who spent most of his time making video diary entries about his DJ collective, but better that than the alternative. “Do you … do you need anything?” Gina asked.
“I'm fine. Thanks.” Not really, but he was not about to tell his assistant that he was really the kind of jack-ass who'd gotten the shit kicked out of him the night before, by an under-age prostitute defending her pimp. It would have totally destroyed her image of him, for one thing.
Gina hesitated as if to contradict him, but then decided to plow on down her to-do list. “I'll continue to refer him to legal. Speaking of which, legal sent this up - here,” she handed him a fat, sealed Tyvek envelope - “for your review.”
“What is it?”
“The owners represented by Ross and Small have agreed to the deal. With a few caveats, but nothing counsel wasn't expecting.”
He nodded. That was good news. He wished he was in a mood to appreciate it. “Any word from DCK?” Dent, Clark and Kent represented just one of Smallville's former land-owners, but also the most recalcitrant.
“No, but, obviously the hope is that if the others sign on that will put pressure on her to sign on as well.”
Oliver doubted it. William Clark had made most of his money representing mining companies in land acquisition deals, and most of Smallville's meteor rock not housed in a QI vault was, technically, still strewn over the former Kent farm. The old man couldn't possibly know its true value, but that wouldn't stop him from doing everything in his power to protect his daughter's claim to it. “We'll see,” he said. “What else?”
“Nell Potter called to confirm you and Lois will be able to meet Saturday to finalize the plans for the rehearsal dinner.”
Oliver eyed the door to his office longingly. “The caterer's gotta know,” Victor had said, and, in his case, that meant Potter Productions (“Weddings, Debuts, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs”). However, since the pretty Ms. Potter would, undoubtedly, feed that information immediately to Lionel, she would not know today. “Sure, sure. Tell her - tell her Lois might be out of town on a story, but I can make it.”
“Has Lois joined another paper?” Gina asked. “Should I notify PR?”
“No, she's doing some freelance work right now. Say, if you want to be a real hero, hold all calls until lunch.” He hefted the envelope and smiled. “I want to give this a good read-through.”
Gina smiled back, tentatively. “Are you sure I can't get you anything? Some water?”
“No, th--”
“Or pop? With ice?”
Ice actually sounded like a god-send. “You read my mind,” he told her, and her smile widened. Seizing his opportunity, he made his escape into his office, tossing the envelope on the credenza, sinking into his desk chair, peeling off the shades and dropping his head on his desk. He'd downed three bottles of water since rising and still felt cotton-mouthed. He tried not to drool on the blotter but he didn't quite succeed. Dinah was going to kill him. Dinah deserved to kill him. Last night had been a mistake. A big, fat, bruising mistake. He could still hear the asshole laughing at him, “Who do you think you are? Ultraman?” That's when he'd swung, and the rest was a blur.
He didn't know how long he sat there. However long it took for Gina to get the ice and buzz herself in with a cart carrying a dozen different cans of soda and an enormous, aluminum bowl full of crushed ice with a few zippered plastic bags carefully tucked beneath it. She studiously did not look at his eye while he, in turn, studiously faked sorting through his in-box.
“Remind me to throw a couple of tickets to the Caribbean in your next check,” he told her.
“How about Belize?”
“Belize it - “
“Mr. Queen?” she asked after a few heart-beats had passed.
“ - is.” He finished. “Sorry. Just got something I wasn't expecting.”
“Not bad news, I hope.”
“No.” He smiled at her, and this time the smile was genuine. “Good news. Very good, in fact.”
“Congratulations,” she said, and let herself out. Oliver again as he re-read Yuri's response: “Some possible interest. Be here at one.”
* - & % @ - # - - * - & % @ - # - - * - & % @ - # - - * - & % @ - # - - * - & % @ - #
On his way to Yuri's storefront he tried to tell himself the glasses had been a serendipitous find. After all, no one would expect to see Oliver Queen behind them, and therefore no one would expect to see Oliver Queen entering a shop with a neon sign advertising “INCENSE BOOKS PSYCHIC READINGS”. As it happened, however, Yuri was expecting to see Oliver Queen, so the glasses had to be removed once he'd made his way past the icons and smudge sticks and tarot cards to the counter.
“Hello,” Yuri said. “You need poultice?”
“I'm sorry?”
“For eye.”
Oliver wasn't sure how to respond to an offer for a poultice from a man who claimed his grandmother had cursed Rasputin with satyriasis and who kept an M4 under his cash register. He decided it was best to be polite. “No. No thanks. You said there was some possible interest in the item?”
Yuri stared at him a moment. “You sure you don't want poultice?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Alright. However, I think we re-negotiate.”
Oliver felt the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen. “Why would that be?”
“I have no wish for your family business to be my business.”
Oliver's right foot fell back and his knees bent before he managed to take a breath and a little control over himself. “I see. How much re-negotiating did you have in mind?”
Yuri shrugged. “I think... five.”
Oliver took a breath. “Two and a half.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Fine. Where is he?”
“He?” Yuri asked as he led Oliver to the back of the shop. “If it was 'he', I ask for ten.” He opened a door that read “Employees Only” and something in Russian. There, sitting at the battered metal desk, surrounded by yellow second sheets of carbonless invoices, a ten-year-old iMac and a giant poster of the Universal Tree of Life with a traced drawing of what might be a tree trunk - or maybe a river, it was hard to tell - taped to it, sat his sister. Tess.
Oliver drew a deep breath.
“Thanks,” he said to Yuri. “I'll take it from here.”
Yuri lifted a brow.
“It's ok Yuri,” Tess said. “Big brother here will be watching out for both of us.”
Yuri gave her one blank stare and Oliver another, then turned and shut the door behind him.
“You should have someone take a look at that eye,” Tess said.
“I'm fine. Thanks,” he said tightly. “What are you doing here?”
Tess smiled, amused, and Oliver was, as usual, startled by how faithfully she managed to mimic Lionel despite the short amount of time she had spent in his care. “Well, unlike you, I didn't come to be inducted into the Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill. Speaking of which, how is Lois?”
“You know, one of these days you'll really have to tell me what it was that made you hate her so much, because as far as I can tell, she's never done a damn thing do you.”
“Oh, I wouldn't say that,” she answered, picking up and examining a stained copy of The Qabalah of Aleister Crowley. “But now that she's had her soapbox kicked out from under her I'm sure she'll be annoying everyone much less. As for why I'm here, I'd think that would be obvious.”
Oliver considered that. In addition to inheriting their father's condescending smirk she'd also acquired his impassive stare. Anything could be read into that neutrality, and anything often was. It was an expression countless skilled negotiators had bet on and lost. The trick he had learned, that they had not, was to never assume he was smarter than a Luthor.
He shook his head. “Not really. No,” he admitted.
Tess blinked. “Yuri said you were interested in selling something. A book.”
“Yuri told you that?”
“Among other things.”
Oliver considered that. Why Tess, a scientist, would be seeking out books on the occult was one question. What Yuri had told her was another. Yuri was in a position to know more than Oliver would have liked, but then Oliver was in a position to know more than Yuri would have liked. Yuri's knowledge plus Oliver's knowledge had so far equaled, well, discretion, but Tess' presence in this office added something extra to Yuri's side of the equation. Even the daughter of Lionel Luthor and the sister of Oliver Queen had to step carefully where guys like Yuri - or, more specifically, guys like the guys Yuri knew - were concerned. Maybe more carefully.
“I'd consider your source next time,” he told her. “You don't want to believe everything you hear.” With that he opened the office door and stepped out. Yuri lifted his head up from the chalice he was showing the woman at the counter and quirked his brow again.
“We'll talk,” Oliver said.
Yuri nodded.
“You bet we'll talk,” Tess said behind him. Oliver ignored her and walked out of the store, the little tin bell above the door ringing as he left. It tinkled again a few seconds later as Tess followed. That she did so was a given - no Luthor liked the sound of the word “no”. He was already on his phone calling his driver, however.
“I'm done, Tess,” he said over his shoulder. “I'm not walking on at half-time into whatever game you're playing.”
“I don't have a game, Oliver.” She whirled around him, all self-righteous indignation. “It's not that complicated for some of us. You want to sell, I want to buy. What is the problem?”
The bell tinkled again behind him and he put the sun-glasses back on. “The problem is - hold on - yes,” he told his driver, “I'm done, thanks. The problem is,” he repeated to Tess, pocketing his phone, “this book is not something you want to get involved with. It's dangerous and so are the people who want it.”
She smiled her smile of condescending amusement again. “That's sweet. But how do you know I'm not one of the dangerous people of whom you speak?”
“I'm sure you are.” For what she now knew if nothing else. “That doesn't change the fact that you have no idea what you're messing with here.”
“Oh, honey. You have no idea what I - “ She broke off, frowning at something over his shoulder. He glanced back but all he could see was Yuri's storefront with its glowing sign and the people walking past it. He turned back to Tess, who was still frowning vaguely, as if she couldn't remember whether she'd unplugged the iron before leaving her apartment.
“Is something wrong?”
She shook her head. “I've got to go.”
“Wait - Tess - “
But she was already dodging his LS as she crossed the street. He watched her jog down the sidewalk for a block and then turn out of sight at the Metro Coffee on the corner. He let himself into the car and crawled into the back seat, telling himself he needed to build a hydrogen-powered limo so he could have some goddamn leg room for once.
“Where to?” Kasich asked.
“The office.” He craned his neck as they crossed the next intersection, but did not see Tess. He could have Bart … no. He couldn't. Bart did have a day job, after all. He took off his glasses. “You got anything that would help this?”
Kasich took a look back in the rear-view mirror. “That ain't so bad.”
“Maybe for you. I gotta look pretty for the cameras.”
“Yeah, pretty's the word. An eye like that might be what your rep needs.”
“You're a real pal,” Oliver said, sitting back as Max chuckled.
The sad part, he reflected as he pulled out his phone, was that Kasich was probably right.