what does home look like? - t - olicity - part four [b]
title: what does home look like? (I've only seen shadows of it in my dreams)
category: arrow
genre: family/romance
ship: felicity/oliver
chapter rating: pg-13/teen
overall rating: nc-17/explicit
polyvore: felicity's outfit
prompt: ooh ooh felicity as lance's step-daughter, growing up with laurel and sara, in love with oliver! - anonymous
word count: 7,100
summary: (au) For most of her life, Felicity Smoak grew up with her father in Coast City, only visiting her mother Dinah and the Lance family in the summers. But when her father drops her off for an unexpected visit and doesn't come back, Felicity is forced to figure out what 'family' really means. And, in the meantime, falling in love with the local billionaire can't hurt, right?
[return.]
After a few minutes, she leaned back and looked up at him. "Thanks… And sorry for, well, crying all over you." She smoothed her hands over his t-shirt, large, damp spots more than a little noticeable.
Oliver shook his head, reaching up to rub away the tears from her cheeks. "If anybody can rock tear stains, it's me."
She laughed, rolling her eyes at him. "Cheesy and arrogant, what a combination."
"I might have to trademark it."
She ducked her head, hiding a smile.
"It's okay, you know…" he said, gently.
She glanced up, an eyebrow raised.
"It's okay to feel like you don't belong. It's even okay to be mad at your sister for saying what she did. It's okay to be yourself, even if people don't really like who that is. And it's okay to want attention and love from the people who should be giving it to you anyway. It's okay to want a family and to want your family to pay attention to you. All of that's okay. I might not know what it's like, having two different families. I lucked out. My parents might pressure me to be different or more serious or to follow in their footsteps, but I know that when I go home, they'll be there. If I need help, they'll help me. I know Thea loves me, worships me even, and that'll probably never change. So I don't know exactly what you're going through, but I know you. I can probably know you better and I'm gonna try really hard to know every part of you, all the stuff that makes you smile and cry and laugh. But what I do know now is that you're a good person, Felicity. You've got a good heart. And you don't deserve to be hurt like this. You don't deserve to feel like this. And nobody should be making you cry." He rubbed his knuckles down her cheek and tucked his hand under her chin, lifting it a little higher. "So don't let them, all right?"
She stared at him a long moment, that earnest, hopeful look on his face making her heart squeeze a little tighter.
And then she leaned in, pressing her lips to his, and wrapped her arms around his neck. It wasn't a passionate kiss; if anything it was desperate and a little sloppy, but it was full of thanks and appreciation and more than a little need. He responded in kind, his hands sweeping up and down her back, squeezing her shoulders and rubbing her neck. And then she pulled back, a little breathless, and dropped her head to his shoulder again, closing her eyes and breathing him in, letting the comfort of his arms and his scent and his words lull her a little more.
And he held her, fingers stroking down her hair, skimming down the shell of her ear, rubbing the lobe before they traced down her neck and then repeated it all over again.
He held her for a good, long while, letting the peace settle in, and then he said, "If you ever wanna get away, from your family or anything, you can call me, okay? Instead of running around the city, no idea where you are. I might not know what the right thing to say is, but we can do this… I can hold you… for as long as you want."
She smiled then, nuzzling her face against his neck. "Okay."
"Yeah?" he asked, sounding a little unsure, like he didn't think he was offering enough.
"Hold me a little tighter?" she asked.
And his arms flexed around her, gathering her closer. "What happens if I don't let go?" he wondered softly.
"Let's not find out," she murmured back.
He pressed a kiss to her hair in answer and she sighed, letting every bone, every muscle, relax completely. This felt good. It felt right. It felt easy and comfortable and like nothing she'd ever known before. Because her friends had comforted her a thousand-and-one times over the years. They hugged her between them and offered ice cream and advice and their own problems in comparison. They would braid her hair and make her laugh and put on one of her favorite movies until she was happy again. They had their ways of cheering her up, and she'd never thought anything could feel quite as good, as sincere, as that. But this, right here, it felt genuine and intimate in a wholly different way. And she liked it just as much.
Felicity stared out the window as shadows moved over the passenger side door, as cars passed by outside them, as the sun slowly began to set.
"Can you promise me something?" he wondered, his voice quiet, like he didn't want to interrupt the moment.
"Hmm?" she hummed.
"If you do leave, back to Coast City… don't go without telling me, okay?"
Her throat burned then, Saturday weighing heavily on her shoulders, and then she nodded. "I'll say goodbye," she answered.
He didn't reply, but he did hold her just a little bit tighter, his chin resting atop her head, and that said enough.
Later, when Oliver dropped her off back at the apartment, they stood beside his car, his back against the passenger door with her standing between his feet. He pulled her in by her hips, until she was resting against his front, her ear pressed to his chest. And it felt good, it felt really good to have someone to lean on, who invited her to do exactly that.
"You know what we're gonna do tomorrow?"
"Not have long, emotionally draining conversations, I hope," she answered, tipping her head up.
He grinned down at her and pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger. "Only if you need to. But if you don't, then we're going to the aquarium."
"Really?" she asked, eyebrow quirked.
"Mmhmm. You ever been?"
She shrugged. "Maybe when I was a kid. Not in a while, though."
"Good," he decided. "Then you probably don't remember a lot."
"Excuse you." Felicity poked his chest, "I have an amazing memory."
"Apologies to your super-brain, Smoak," he teased.
"Apology accepted." She smiled up at him. "But seriously, I think that could be fun. You, me, and a giant fish tank. What's not to love?"
He chuckled, deep into his chest; the rumbling noise made her bite her lip. "We'll stop at a pet store, pick up some fish food before we go."
"All right, but I get attached really easily, you could be setting yourself up to buy me a squid or something."
"A squid?" he laughed.
"What? Too many tentacles. Hm, maybe a turtle then. Ooh, I could call him Alfred!"
"Alfred the turtle. Sounds distinguished."
She nodded. "Very gentlemanly. I might just add Esquire to his name. Befitting of a turtle of his status, right?"
He grinned, before leaning in and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "It'll just be me, you, and Alfred the Turtle Esquire… Sounds like my kind of day."
"I'm looking forward to it." She rubbed a hand up and down his side. "Do you want to meet there after school? I might have to ask for directions, but it could be a good lesson in city a little better."
"Um, no, I thought we'd go in the morning."
Felicity quirked her head to one side, unable to hide a smile when he mimicked her. "Don't you have classes?"
"Don't you think I deserve a day off? It's an auspicious occasion. I'm getting a pet turtle."
Felicity snorted. "No, I am. You're just there for the ride."
"I think I'm going to have to make an argument for at least joint custody..."
She laughed, patting his chest and stepping back. "You do that. Maybe mock one up during break between classes tomorrow."
Oliver rolled his eyes, taking her hips in hand and tugging her back towards him. "Come on, it's one day." He held a hand up and vowed, "Honest. I won't skip the rest of the week…"
She arched an eyebrow.
"Two weeks?" he offered.
Her lips pursed.
"All right, you drive a hard bargain, Smoak. I won't skip any classes for the next month. I swear it on Alfred the Turtle."
"Esquire," she added.
"Esquire," he agreed.
Biting her lip a moment, she considered it and then nodded. "All right, but I expect you to hold up your end of the bargain. Or Alfred's all mine. No more joint custody."
"Deal," he said, holding his hand out for her to shake.
Felicity snorted, but took it anyway. "You're a dork."
"A very loveable and cuddly dork," he said, pulling her in again and catching her lips in a kiss.
She hummed, reaching up on her tiptoes to meet his slanting lips. She'd be lying if she said it wasn't easy to get lost in the way he kissed her. Oliver never did things by halves; he wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her in close, and focused on her mouth so completely that she felt it right down to the roots of her hair. He kissed her like she was air and his lungs were empty, like her lips were wings and he was falling. Sliding her hand around his neck, she scraped her nails down his nape, and dragged her tongue over his bottom lip, her teeth following to nip at the edge of his mouth. She felt him shudder, a full body shiver followed by his fingers gripping her hair a little tighter. He had a thing about her hair. Sometimes he pulled it down out of its ponytail so he could sift his fingers through it, other times he just tied it around his fingers.
It wasn't until a throat cleared that they pulled back from each other, her head swiveling to find Quentin staring at them, brows raised and frown etched across his mouth. His eyes narrowed abruptly then as he said, "Gettin' late, son, might be time for you to head on home."
Oliver, being Oliver, grinned. "Always nice to see you, Detective Lance. We should get coffee sometime and bond more."
"I'll put it on my to-list, somewhere between 'shoot myself in the foot' and 'not in your lifetime.'"
"Well, keep me updated on when the foot's healed. I know a place that sells speciality teas. You strike me as a tea guy. Very zen."
Felicity shook her head, turning her eyes up and asking for patience. "All right, I think that's enough machismo for one night. Oliver, I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" She patted his chest.
He turned his attention down to her, his mockingly cheerful smile becoming very real in a quick heartbeat. "Yeah, tomorrow." He leaned in to press one last kiss to the tip of her nose. "Remember what I said, all right?" he murmured, quiet enough for only her to hear.
"I will," she whispered back, smiling up at him.
With one last squeeze to her hip, he stepped back, circling his car to the driver's side. He revved the engine before he left, which she was pretty sure was just to irritate Quentin.
"Your taste in guys is gonna give me an early heart attack, I can feel it," her step-dad sighed from beside her.
Felicity's smile dimmed a little. "He's not always like that. I think he only does it because he knows it gets under your skin and he doesn't like that you don't approve of him." She shrugged. "He's not good with rejection so he pretends it doesn't bother him."
"Yeah? Sounds like you've thought about this…" He turned to look at her searchingly. "You really like him, don't you?"
"Oliver is…" She trailed off for a moment, thinking of the way he held her, how he planned to cheer her up with marine animals, how he admitted that he didn't know exactly what to do but he wanted to try anyway. "He's different, and he's special, and… yeah, I really like him. So…" She looked up at him hopefully. "Try to take it easy on him, okay?"
With another long, deep sigh, Quentin nodded faintly. "All right, but… only because I trust your judgement."
She half-smiled then. "Even after I run off into a city I barely know and lead you on a really long, confusing, and probably kind of scary search for me?"
"Even then." He reached for her, his hand settling on her shoulder. "Speaking of, though. I wanna talk, just me and you, and I feel like we didn't really get to do that last night."
"Yeah, well, it kind of feels like the conversation that never ends… Look, mom and I talked it out. It was irresponsible for me to run off like that, I should've answered my phone when you called, Laurel didn't mean it, she's stressed, the dynamics are different, oldest child to middle child, it's complicated, don't take it personally, and yeah, talk more. I think that about covers it."
Quentin stared at her a long moment, shaking his head faintly. "Sounds like it. Doesn't mean we can't talk it out a bit more, huh?" He walked a few feet away then, taking a seat on the cement stairs leading up to the apartment building. He rested his arms on his knees, his fingers threaded together. Felicity stared at him a long moment while he cast his eyes out to the street ahead. "You know, when you were a little girl and you'd get upset, you had two ways you'd deal with it. You'd either crawl under your bed and hide there, usually to cry and sometimes just to read a book and calm down, or… you'd find me."
Felicity's head cocked curiously. "I did?"
"Yeah." He smiled faintly. "Yeah, you'd, uh, you'd come lookin' for me, but you'd never call my name. You'd just search around the apartment until you found me, usually on the couch, watchin' TV, or in the kitchen, cookin'. And you'd never say anything. You'd just crawl in beside me and you'd wrap your arms around me and you'd hold on, tight as your little arms could, and you wouldn't let go until you were okay. Sometimes you cried, Laurel took your toy or Sara ripped one of your books or something, but mostly you'd just hug me. And I used to think, or maybe I'd just tell myself, that you were holding onto me 'cause you wanted to remind yourself that, no matter what, you still had me and I'd make all the bad things go away." His mouth ticked up on one corner. "I don't know. Probably a sappy thing dad's tell themselves, y'know? We convince ourselves that we're gonna save our kids from all the bad stuff that tries to hurt 'em. And it's hard, 'cause some of that stuff happens at home. One of your books gets a beating, I can buy you a new one or tape the pages back in, but that other stuff, you get your heartbroken, somebody makes you feel bad, it gets harder when you get older. I can't go around beatin' up anybody that hurts your feelings. Hear that's frowned on or something…"
Felicity smiled lightly, wrapping her arms around herself as she moved to sit down beside him, hunched forward a little with her head turned to see him.
"The things that Laurel said, I… I know they hurt you. And I'm not gonna apologize for her. When she's ready, she'll make her own apologies and you two will figure it out, just like you always do. But I will tell you something, and even if it's corny or lame or whatever you kids wanna call it, I want you to know it's true…"
She nodded slowly.
He turned to look at her, his expression serious, even fierce. "Anything ever happens in this world, anybody ever makes you feel lower than low, it doesn't matter where you're at or who it is or what's going on… You can always come to me. You can cry on me, hug me, you don't have to talk if you don't want to, it's all up to you, sweetheart. Just as long as you know… There is always gonna be a place for you right here beside me. And nothing's ever gonna change that. Doesn't matter how old you get or who your boyfriend is or where you live… I'll always be here for you, kid."
Felicity stared up at him, the sincerity of his words written all over his face, and she leaned over, dropping her head to his shoulder. She didn't tell him how much it hurt, what Laurel said. She didn't tell him she was leaving on Saturday. She didn't tell him that she still felt like she didn't quite fit into the family upstairs. But she leaned on him, she listened to him, and she believed him.
Slinging an arm around her shoulders, Quentin hugged her close, and they stayed like that, quiet but comfortable. Until he asked her if she wanted to help him make dinner, spaghetti, and she smiled up at him and nodded. They climbed the stairs together, with him complaining about some work thing or another, and her laughing under her breath at the inventive ways he described his co-workers.
It didn't make everything better, it didn't erase what happened the night before, but it did feel good. Because he might not be her dad, not biologically, and she might always be jealous of Sara and Laurel for that fact, but that didn't mean he wasn't hers; her family and her friend and her cheer up squad. And she could live with that.
[Next: Chapter Five.]
author's note: so I added a lot more to this chapter than I expected and the fluff is interspersed with a lot more angst than originally. There's more fluff to come in the next chapter, which begins with the aquarium date of cuteness. But I did want to delve into how each person close to her helps her get through these moments. Dinah wants to support her and understand her motivations for running away, but she was also terrified that something might happen to her and she's still learning how to discipline Felicity when, for the most part, she hasn't had to. Then we see protective but still sisterly and cheerful Sara, who lets Laurel know she made a mistake without completely tearing her apart for it and supports Felicity in her own way. Oliver's still figuring out how to be there for someone else, so you actually see him mirroring her way of helping him through things in the last chapter. He wants to be there for her and he's not sure what he's doing, but he's trying. And that's huge for him. And then we've got Quentin, who is probably the funnest for me to write. The way he is as a dad is just awesome. because for him, it's not a matter of biology, Felicity is his and he's trying really hard to show her that.
Also, apologies for how long it took to update this. As I'm sure the majority of you are aware, I've been on hiatus for about a month now, maybe a little longer. I needed a break and it felt good. I'm slowly making my way back into writing regularly again, so please be patient with me.
Lastly, in case you missed it, Felicity's outfit is here on Polyvore.
Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a review; they're my lifeblood.
- Lee | Fina