Fic - The Tea Party

Feb 02, 2011 21:54

Title: The Tea Party
Author: moviefreak4634 
Rating: G
Characters: Oliver, Laura, an eensy bit of Lois (Lois/Oliver)
Summary: Oliver and Laura have a tea party.
Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville or its characters.

Set in the Seeing Green verse.

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Oliver Queen knew what it was like to grow up without parents, which was why he was determined to make sure his daughter Laura grew up with hers. While being the owner of a multi-billion dollar company kept him away from home more often than he liked, one of the many perks of said ownership included his ability to do anything he wanted. Almost anything.

Early one morning, he strode into the conference room, gesturing around it. “I need this room.”

“Mr. Queen, this is a board meeting. You can’t just come in here demanding-”

Oliver stopped her with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You can argue about budget cuts later.” He leaned over, placing both hands on the table top. “Right now, I need this room.”

Oliver Queen could fly to Maui at a moment’s notice. He could shoot arrow after arrow with deadly accuracy, but it appeared he couldn’t get the board of his own company out of a conference room when he wanted. The board stayed firm, and it was Oliver who ended up leaving.

Laura and a security guard were waiting for him outside. Laura clutched a yellow rabbit by its ears in her right hand, and with her left, she was continually poking the security guard in the leg.

“When’s Daddy getting back?” she asked. The guard stood there impassively.

Oliver smiled and walked over to the two, ruffling Laura’s strawberry blonde hair.

“I’m right here, Laura.”

Laura looked up and grinned widely, taking hold of his pants leg. “Daddy.”

“Thank you,” he said to the security guard as he bent down and lifted Laura into his arms.

“When are we having my tea party? Mr. Cotton’s hungry.” She rested her head against his chest.

“I couldn’t get the room.”

Laura’s head shot up, her eyes wide with panic and already glistening with tears that tore at Oliver’s heart.

“But Daddy will fix it. Don’t worry.” He took hold of the back her head, pushing it gently forward to rest on his chest again. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

Despite his words, he felt Laura lift the hand that wasn’t clutching Mr. Cotton. He glanced down at her and sighed. Laura’s thumb was in her mouth.

He and Lois had been trying to wean Laura off thumb sucking for awhile, and so far it had been going pretty well, but Laura still had a tendency to revert when she was upset. He should tell her to stop, but he didn’t want to upset her any more for one day.

Oliver took Laura back to his office and leaned against the desk, studying the room. There had to be some way he could fix this and save the day for Laura.

His eyes alit on the coffee table In the middle of the room. Oliver turned around, set Laura on the desk, and picked up the phone.

“Change of plan,” he said into it. “Bring everything to my office.”

Laura took her thumb out of her mouth to rub at her eyes then put it back again. Oliver reached over and tapped her on the knee.

“Come on. Go get your toys. I told you Daddy would fix everything.”

Laura flashed him a smile around her thumb and slid down off the desk, running to the corner of the room where her bag was.

While Laura rummaged in her bag, Oliver moved over to the coffee table and dragged it into the center of the room. After a moment, Laura ran back over with an armful of toys, and Oliver motioned at the table.

“Have at it.”

Oliver watched Laura place her stuffed animals around the table. Mr. Cotton went directly to her left at one end of the table. Big Blue, Laura’s elephant, and Buttons, her teddy bear, went on one side of the table. She skipped the other end of the table, which Oliver assumed meant it was for him; and Laura’s Supergirl doll and Clipper, her horse, went on the other side of the table.

There was a knock on the door, and Oliver went to answer it, pulling a cart piled high with tea things, plates, and pastries into the room a moment later.

Laura squealed when she saw the cart and ran up to Oliver, wrapping her arms around his knees. “Oh, thank you, thank you, Daddy!”

Oliver grinned. “You’re welcome.”

Laura let go of Oliver, grabbed a plate off the cart, and promptly dropped it on the ground. Fortunately, it didn’t break, but Oliver scooped up a stack of plates as Laura reached for it.

“Here. Let me help you with that.”

He put the stack on one end of the table for Laura to arrange and went back for the arrangement of pastries and the tea tray.

Once Laura had everything arranged just so, with every spot having a napkin, tea cup, spoon, and plate, Oliver settled cross-legged at his end of the table and watched Laura pour tea, most of which made it into the cups, for her animals.

When she had finished pouring tea for Mr. Cotton, Big Blue, Clipper, and herself, she handed the teapot to Oliver who started filling the remaining cups, knowing his role by now.

“One lump or two?” Laura asked each animal in turn, nodding in reply to their imagined answers and dropping sugar into their tea.

Oliver took one sugar with his tea and just a dash of honey. He was pretty sure most of the animals and Laura had more sugar and honey in their tea than actual tea. He stirred his tea carefully and smiled as Laura tried to do the same, mostly resulting in loud clinking noises and tea sloshing all over. Some fell on the table and some on the carpet. Oliver made a mental note to mention it to the cleaning crew.

Laura leaned across the table to reach the pastries, bumping the sugar bowl in the process. The bowl upended, and the little sugar cubes flew out in all directions. Laura made a noise of distress and began collecting the sugar with her sticky fingers.

Oliver watched her. This was par for the course for their tea parties, and he knew from experience that Laura would only get upset if he tried to help.

Once the sugar was back in its place, Laura started passing out pastries, placing them on the plates she’d put in front of each animal. The arrangement was covered in cream puffs, tarts, and turnovers. Oliver helped himself to a cherry tart, and Laura took a handful of cream puffs and a turnover. She took a bite out of the turnover first and grinned across the table at Oliver.

“Strawberry.”

Oliver smiled back at her, sipped his tea, and ate his tart. Laura chattered happily to her animals. The girl could talk up a storm when she wanted, not unlike Lois.

When Laura turned to talk to Mr. Cotton, Oliver surreptitiously reached out, grabbed Buttons’s cream puff, and ate it. It took Laura awhile to notice the cream puff was missing, but when she did, she frowned and put another cream puff on Buttons’s plate. Oliver ate that one too.

Laura replaced that one, and Oliver ate it. Laura replaced the cream puff once again, and Oliver started to reach for it, letting her see him this time.

“Daddy!” Laura exclaimed. “Those are Buttons’s. Don’t eat them.”

“I didn’t eat them. Buttons did.”

Laura gave him an exasperated look. “Daddy.”

She went back to playing, and Oliver reached for the cream puff again. This time, Laura got up and ran over to him, slapping his hand away.

“Stop!”

She reminded him so much of Lois in that moment that Oliver just laughed. He held his hands up in mock surrender. “Okay. I won’t.”

Laura nodded emphatically and returned to her game. Oliver looked at the clock. It was time for Laura’s nap. He hadn’t realized it was so late.

“Laura, it’s nap time.”

“No.”

Oliver sighed. Laura could be infinitely stubborn sometimes.

“Laura.”

“No.”

Oliver got up, walked around the table, and picked the little girl up.

“No!” she screamed.

“How about you just try taking a nap? If you’re not asleep in ten minutes, you can get up again.”

“Okay,” Laura muttered, pouting.

Oliver tucked Laura up on the couch, green blanket surrounding her and Mr. Cotton by her head.

“Good night, Laura,” he whispered and kissed her on the forehead.

For the next ten minutes, Oliver could hear Laura whispering to Mr. Cotton. He probably should have made her settle down, but at the end of the ten minutes, he let her get up like he’d promised.

“Don’t tell Mommy,” he told her.

When they got home later that evening, Lois asked how Laura’s nap was, and Laura promptly replied, “No nap. Daddy didn’t make me.”

Lois shot a glare at Oliver who was looking down at Laura. Laura gazed back at him and very calmly said, “You ate Buttons’s food.”

Oliver smiled and looked back up at Lois, throwing a little shrug. “I did eat Buttons’s food.”

pairing: lollie (lois/oliver), character: oliver queen, fanfiction, verse: the troublesome two

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