[round 10: girls only] if Icarus had only known you
fic: if Icarus had only known you
fandom: Arrow
characters: Laurel, Thea, Moira, Sara
rating: g
prompt: for punch_kicker15 who wanted 1) A female character who was killed off in canon, 2) An AU where she survives, 3) spring without violence or another lady dying
setting: sometime in an alt-s3 in which everyone is alive and (mostly) happy(ish) - hope you like it sweetie!
“Picnics,” Thea said with a wrinkled nose, “are incredibly lame.”
With that sage pronouncement, she stretched out her long, thin legs with a sigh and readjusted her head on Moira’s lap, craning her neck a bit to try to access the shade cast by her mother’s wide old-fashioned gardening hat. Ignoring her daughter, Moira leaned back and popped a cherry tomato into her mouth.
Laurel giggled slightly as Thea glared up at the bright sun now shining directly into her face.
“I agree,” Sara replied, half a beat too late. “This whole set up is a bit too Sound of Music to be cool.” She waved her hand at the red-and-white-checkered picnic blanket and L. L. Bean wicker basket as if they were somehow offensive and then leaned her face back to the sun, closing her eyes and smiling to herself.
Laurel’s stomach lurched a bit at the sight of all three of them, faces turned towards the sun, each in their own moment of peace and self-contentment. Moira, always the sphinx, almost seemed knowledgeable in a ragged thrift-store hat and shorts. Thea, eyes squinting into the sun, refusing to move or to close her eyes, always fighting and always determined, in a battle between a mortal and the sun - Laurel would put her money on Thea. Sara, not-a-ghost, legs crossed like a mystic, hair trailing down her neck, face turned up to the sun as if she was drinking in the light and for a moment Laurel wondered (as she often wondered) if Sara’s thirst would strip all the light from the world and the only thing left for her sister would be the shadows.
A trail of ants excavated a Frito Sara had thrown at Thea during a game of Scrabble earlier in the afternoon. They all agreed that Scrabble was the worst game for a picnic - too many small pieces - but everyone vetoed charades, much to Sara’s obvious disappointment.
“I don’t think the Von Trapps ate chevre-stuffed mushrooms on their picnics,” Moira mused.
“Weren’t they like millionaires?” Thea raised one leg to scratch under her knee. Since childhood, she’d been determinedly ignoring the fact that she was allergic to grass. She still rolled down every hill on Oliver and Tommy’s heels. Still threw herself into soccer and field hockey, wearing long socks and pretending that she wasn’t itchy from head to toe.
Laurel had heard so many stories about Thea as a freckle-faced kid trailing after her brother that it sometimes almost felt like she had been there, and watched her stretch out - get taller and thinner and brittle. It wasn’t so different from watching Sara grow up, maybe.
Maybe all little sisters were intrinsically the same. Maybe they all disappeared right under your nose no matter how much you tried to watch them every moment. Maybe they reappeared fierce and terrifying and stronger than their elders.
Maybe that’s what being a girl meant.
Moira caught Laurel’s gaze and smiled at her. If it turned out Moira could hear other people’s thoughts, Laurel wouldn’t even blink. She smiled back, shy and still slightly uncomfortable.
There was a moment when she knew just what to say to Moira, leave me alone and a healthy dose of bitterness had tasted so good on her tongue.
(Things she’s learned never to admit to anyone:
1. How delicious anger feels running through her veins.
2. How blissful a drink feels at the end of the day.
3. How the constant gnawing of an empty stomach feels like proof she’s alive.)
There were more moments when she didn’t know what to say to Moira. I’m sorry, wasn’t false and wasn’t true and she wasn’t prepared to negotiate that kind of gray. Congratulations, wasn’t true and wasn’t false and she wasn’t prepared to expose herself that way.
(Anyway, did it matter? Didn’t she know everything Laurel didn’t say regardless?)
There’s something uniquely tragic about the understanding between women who love the same man.
“Can you believe this day?” Moira scanned the horizon, eyes skipping right up the nearly cloud-less, deep blue sky.
“It’s supposed to rain later,” Sara inserted into the lingering silence.
“Like we need any more rain,” Thea spit out sarcastically.
An unreasonably cold winter had turned into a particularly wet spring. Today had been the first dry, warm day in months. Probably a bit too cold for the shorts and sundresses they had all pulled on in a rush that morning, Laurel kept catching herself rubbing away goosebumps on her arms, but it was too beautiful a day to resist.
Moira had cancelled all her meetings that day and enlisted Sara in helping her drag Laurel and Thea out of work and class (respectively) (though Laurel would bet that Sara found Thea far from a classroom). Moira Queen could, apparently, request the personal use of anyone for the day without many people batting an eye.
There had been quite a bit of grumbling, but the Queen estate was actually perfect for a day like today. Dark clouds hugged the horizon behind Moira’s head, but never seemed to move closer to them. Laurel was glad she had come, grateful in an odd way that she had been included in Moira’s impromptu decision to play hooky.
Tonight, Sara would put on a mask and pretend to be on a normal date with her girlfriend and Laurel would know better. Tonight, Oliver would disappear in the middle of his mother’s event and they’d all pretend not to notice or care. Tonight, Thea would scrape her nails down the back of a stranger in a darkened corridor and maybe Tommy would try to stop her or maybe Laurel and she’d probably sit between them at a diner while they force-fed her black coffee and ignored news reports about the man in green. Tonight, Moira would smile and thank her guests for their well-wishes and yes, she is feeling much better after her trip to the Italian spa and no one would know about the scar across her stomach. Tonight, Laurel would pretend to eat more than she did and drink less than she did and be less angry than she actually felt and smile more than she wanted and pretend not to care that no one noticed.
But now. Now in the sunshine and with a light breeze tugging at Sara’s hair and Moira’s ridiculous hat and Thea’s harsh laugh and a smile that felt real on her lips, now felt better than yesterday and tonight and tomorrow.
Now didn’t feel like running or hiding or chasing or bitterness at all.
And it tasted good.
fandom: Arrow
characters: Laurel, Thea, Moira, Sara
rating: g
prompt: for punch_kicker15 who wanted 1) A female character who was killed off in canon, 2) An AU where she survives, 3) spring without violence or another lady dying
setting: sometime in an alt-s3 in which everyone is alive and (mostly) happy(ish) - hope you like it sweetie!
“Picnics,” Thea said with a wrinkled nose, “are incredibly lame.”
With that sage pronouncement, she stretched out her long, thin legs with a sigh and readjusted her head on Moira’s lap, craning her neck a bit to try to access the shade cast by her mother’s wide old-fashioned gardening hat. Ignoring her daughter, Moira leaned back and popped a cherry tomato into her mouth.
Laurel giggled slightly as Thea glared up at the bright sun now shining directly into her face.
“I agree,” Sara replied, half a beat too late. “This whole set up is a bit too Sound of Music to be cool.” She waved her hand at the red-and-white-checkered picnic blanket and L. L. Bean wicker basket as if they were somehow offensive and then leaned her face back to the sun, closing her eyes and smiling to herself.
Laurel’s stomach lurched a bit at the sight of all three of them, faces turned towards the sun, each in their own moment of peace and self-contentment. Moira, always the sphinx, almost seemed knowledgeable in a ragged thrift-store hat and shorts. Thea, eyes squinting into the sun, refusing to move or to close her eyes, always fighting and always determined, in a battle between a mortal and the sun - Laurel would put her money on Thea. Sara, not-a-ghost, legs crossed like a mystic, hair trailing down her neck, face turned up to the sun as if she was drinking in the light and for a moment Laurel wondered (as she often wondered) if Sara’s thirst would strip all the light from the world and the only thing left for her sister would be the shadows.
A trail of ants excavated a Frito Sara had thrown at Thea during a game of Scrabble earlier in the afternoon. They all agreed that Scrabble was the worst game for a picnic - too many small pieces - but everyone vetoed charades, much to Sara’s obvious disappointment.
“I don’t think the Von Trapps ate chevre-stuffed mushrooms on their picnics,” Moira mused.
“Weren’t they like millionaires?” Thea raised one leg to scratch under her knee. Since childhood, she’d been determinedly ignoring the fact that she was allergic to grass. She still rolled down every hill on Oliver and Tommy’s heels. Still threw herself into soccer and field hockey, wearing long socks and pretending that she wasn’t itchy from head to toe.
Laurel had heard so many stories about Thea as a freckle-faced kid trailing after her brother that it sometimes almost felt like she had been there, and watched her stretch out - get taller and thinner and brittle. It wasn’t so different from watching Sara grow up, maybe.
Maybe all little sisters were intrinsically the same. Maybe they all disappeared right under your nose no matter how much you tried to watch them every moment. Maybe they reappeared fierce and terrifying and stronger than their elders.
Maybe that’s what being a girl meant.
Moira caught Laurel’s gaze and smiled at her. If it turned out Moira could hear other people’s thoughts, Laurel wouldn’t even blink. She smiled back, shy and still slightly uncomfortable.
There was a moment when she knew just what to say to Moira, leave me alone and a healthy dose of bitterness had tasted so good on her tongue.
(Things she’s learned never to admit to anyone:
1. How delicious anger feels running through her veins.
2. How blissful a drink feels at the end of the day.
3. How the constant gnawing of an empty stomach feels like proof she’s alive.)
There were more moments when she didn’t know what to say to Moira. I’m sorry, wasn’t false and wasn’t true and she wasn’t prepared to negotiate that kind of gray. Congratulations, wasn’t true and wasn’t false and she wasn’t prepared to expose herself that way.
(Anyway, did it matter? Didn’t she know everything Laurel didn’t say regardless?)
There’s something uniquely tragic about the understanding between women who love the same man.
“Can you believe this day?” Moira scanned the horizon, eyes skipping right up the nearly cloud-less, deep blue sky.
“It’s supposed to rain later,” Sara inserted into the lingering silence.
“Like we need any more rain,” Thea spit out sarcastically.
An unreasonably cold winter had turned into a particularly wet spring. Today had been the first dry, warm day in months. Probably a bit too cold for the shorts and sundresses they had all pulled on in a rush that morning, Laurel kept catching herself rubbing away goosebumps on her arms, but it was too beautiful a day to resist.
Moira had cancelled all her meetings that day and enlisted Sara in helping her drag Laurel and Thea out of work and class (respectively) (though Laurel would bet that Sara found Thea far from a classroom). Moira Queen could, apparently, request the personal use of anyone for the day without many people batting an eye.
There had been quite a bit of grumbling, but the Queen estate was actually perfect for a day like today. Dark clouds hugged the horizon behind Moira’s head, but never seemed to move closer to them. Laurel was glad she had come, grateful in an odd way that she had been included in Moira’s impromptu decision to play hooky.
Tonight, Sara would put on a mask and pretend to be on a normal date with her girlfriend and Laurel would know better. Tonight, Oliver would disappear in the middle of his mother’s event and they’d all pretend not to notice or care. Tonight, Thea would scrape her nails down the back of a stranger in a darkened corridor and maybe Tommy would try to stop her or maybe Laurel and she’d probably sit between them at a diner while they force-fed her black coffee and ignored news reports about the man in green. Tonight, Moira would smile and thank her guests for their well-wishes and yes, she is feeling much better after her trip to the Italian spa and no one would know about the scar across her stomach. Tonight, Laurel would pretend to eat more than she did and drink less than she did and be less angry than she actually felt and smile more than she wanted and pretend not to care that no one noticed.
But now. Now in the sunshine and with a light breeze tugging at Sara’s hair and Moira’s ridiculous hat and Thea’s harsh laugh and a smile that felt real on her lips, now felt better than yesterday and tonight and tomorrow.
Now didn’t feel like running or hiding or chasing or bitterness at all.
And it tasted good.