Bloodlust: An Arrow Fanfiction

All characters and locations are the explicit and intellectual property of DC Comics and The CW.  This story will not be used for profit without first obtaining the express written consent of the property holders. 

I'm a huge fan of the show Arrow. I watch the thing on a weekly basis and just can't get enough. So I decided to write a breif little fan fiction for fun. I hope you enjoy it and check out the show if you haven't done so already. It's soooooooooooooo good!

Enjoy,

Gabriel Janas

Bloodlust: An Arrow Fanfiction

 

“What a night,” Oliver sighed heavily to himself as he slowly made his way down the steel staircase towards the basement of his nightclub Verdant.

            What had once been his father’s decrepit factory in The Glades of Starling City was now home to the hottest nightclub in town.  Its sublevels also happened to be a convenient base of operations for what had now become his ritualistic nightly outings as the city’s resident ‘vigilante.’  As reluctant as he was to admit this to himself, this place felt more like home than the Queen mansion had since his return to civilization.  He never really felt safer than he did in the basement beneath his club.  It was a place entirely dedicated to the pursuit of a single goal.  It was a place of focus.  It was also the place he always ran to for a moment of solitude after the club had closed and everyone had gone home.  Here he could just rest for awhile and forget about being ‘The Vigilante’ and Oliver Queen, the billionaire playboy with hearts to break and money to burn.  Here he could just be Oliver.

            After tonight he really needed the time to be alone.  He had almost let Laurel in on his secret.  In a moment of weakness he had almost told her everything.  Lying to her day in and day out was eating him up inside.  After everything that he had done to her, after all the cheating, causing the death of her sister Sarah, she still found the strength to somehow be his friend.  And all he ever did to repay that kindness was to lie to her.

FLASHBACK TO EARLIER THAT EVENING

            “More wine monsieur?” asked the waiter politely.

            “Yes…please,” Oliver replied with a tight forced smile glued to his face.

            As the waiter poured the wine into his glass Oliver snuck a glance at Laurel across from him at the table.  She was playing with the penne on her plate.  Her thick, brown hair fell in gentle curls down to her smooth curved shoulders.  The faint blonde highlights she had added shimmered in the candlelight as she slowly shook her head back and forth to decline the waiter’s offer to refill her wine glass.  Her faint green eyes had an agitated look to them tonight.  The slight stress line on her forehead only increased the look of worry she was trying to mask.  Something was definitely wrong.  Yet, even like this she looked as beautiful as ever…

            “Ollie!”

            “Hmm…what?” Oliver asked as he snapped out of his trance with Laurel practically yelling his nickname from across the table.

            “You were staring at me,” she said.

            Pinching his eyebrows in what he hoped passed for a quizzical and surprised look of innocence Oliver replied, “No I wasn’t.”

            “Yes you were Ollie,” Laurel said.  “I called your name like three times.  You just kept on staring at me.”

            “I was just admiring the new highlights in your hair,” he replied quickly to mask his embarrassment at zoning out to thoughts of Laurel.

            Smiling politely, Laurel grabbed a strand of her hair and twirled it around her finger awkwardly as she said, “Thanks…but I got these done like two months ago…”

            “Ah…well they look good on you,” Oliver said sheepishly.

            “Thanks…”

            A moment of awkward silence filled the air between them as Laurel continued to play with her hair.

            “So…what’s up?” Oliver asked.  “Why the fancy dinner?”

            “It’s…it’s everything Ollie,” she sighed.  “It’s my work, it’s my dad, on top of the fact that Tommy isn’t speaking to me…”

            “That makes two of us,” he said with a bitter smile.

            “What?!”

            “Tommy and I…we’re not on the best of terms at the moment,” Oliver said slowly.  “We had a disagreement…about the club.”

            “Really?” Laurel asked with a disbelieving expression plastered on her face.

            “Yes,” Oliver replied a little too casually.

            “I don’t buy it Oliver.”

            “There were… a few other topics that we didn’t agree on,” he admitted slowly.

            “Like what?” Laurel asked, leaning in with the inquisitive intensity of a practiced lawyer playing a hunch.

            “I believe we were talking about you and why we’re here… not Tommy and I,” Oliver said with a slight smile, leaning back into his chair and resting his hands on the table.

            With an exasperated sigh Laurel replied, “Same old Oliver Queen, giving nothing of himself and expecting the world in return.”

            The smile on Oliver’s face deepened.  It was a smile to mask his vulnerability.  Laurel had no idea how close to the mark she had hit with her comment.  Ever since he had returned to Starling City from the island, he had been having trouble letting people in, especially those closest to him like his family and Laurel…always Laurel.

            “I’m sorry Laurel.  I…I’ve never really been good at this sort of thing,” he said slowly.

            “I know Oliver,” she sighed as she leaned back into her chair and crossed her arms under her breasts.  “When we were…together…you weren’t exactly open with me then either.”

            Swallowing the lump of guilt forming in his throat he decided to take a chance.  “Tommy and I…we had a disagreement about our opinions of…the Vigilante.”

            “That would make two of us then,” Laurel replied quietly.

            “What?!” Oliver said, just managing to catch her words.

            “We…Tommy and I have been arguing about The Hood a lot lately.  Ever since I lost contact with him after the incident at Iron Heights Prison…”

            “You mean the incident where you almost got yourself killed,” Oliver said seriously.

            “I know Oliver,” Laurel snapped.  “Ever since then…with everything that has happened…I can’t seem to get him off of my mind.”

            “Well you are dating him Laurel,” he replied jokingly.

            “Not Tommy Ollie,” she snapped.  “I can’t stop thinking about The Hood.”

            Shifting slightly in his seat he asked, “What about him?”

            “I don’t know,” Laurel said.  “I just feel like…like I know him somehow.  It’s just something about the way he watched me, you know?  It was almost protective.  It was…it was like he knew me too.  I told Tommy all of this and he got mad at me.  He told me that he’s a dangerous psychopath.  After that he hasn’t really come over and he’s barley spoken to me.  When I tried to call him to apologize he would just make up some sort of excuse and hang up.”

            “Well, that definitely sounds like Tommy,” he said stiffly.

            “Yeah,” Laurel sighed sadly.

            “Just give him some time Laurel,” Oliver said.  “He really cares about you.  He just needs some time to het his head around it all.  He can be a little stubborn at times.”

            “Tell me about it,” she said with a laugh.  “Thanks Ollie.”

            “For what?” he asked, blinking slightly from confusion.

            “For listening to me…and for just being here.  After everything that we’ve been through together… I still feel like I can talk to you and be honest with you.  With everything that I felt when Sarah died and when you came home alive… I never thought we would be able to do something as simple as talk and be honest with one another again.  I’m glad that we can be friends.”

            Suppressing the sudden immense feelings of guilt and shame over all that he had done to Laurel and with all the lies he had told, and was still telling, Oliver smiled at her, a smile that didn’t reach the sadness in his eyes.  Looking at her seriously he said, “I haven’t been completely honest with you Laurel.”

            With a worried expression, which quickly switched to the emotionless mask learned through countless hours spent practicing law, Laurel softly asked, “With what Oliver?”

            “With things about Tommy…and the Vigilante …to start,” he said, timing his words carefully as his brain raced in circles at the thought of telling laurel the truth.  There really was no good time to tell her everything Oliver decided.

            “Excuse me Mr. Queen,” a deep voice said just off of Oliver’s left shoulder.

            Turning, Oliver saw Diggle standing a respectful distance from the table with a very serious and impatient expression on his face.

            “What’s up Digg?” he asked with a hint of urgency.  He really didn’t know how much longer he could wait to tell Laurel about who he really was before the moment had passed and he decided against it.

            “I’m sorry to interrupt your evening sir,” Diggle said professionally. “But there is a problem with one of your liquor suppliers at the club.  Mr. Lawton is waiting to have a ‘pointed’ conversation with you.”

            Looking back at Laurel, Oliver was torn.  He may never again get another chance to come clean with her.  Before this moment, he hadn’t known how much he had really wanted to tell her everything.

            “Just go Oliver,” Laurel said with a measure of guarded disappointment staining her voice.

            With one last pained look into Laurel’s disappointed eyes he got up slowly from his seat.  Turning to follow Diggle out of the restaurant he quietly whispered, “I’m sorry.”

FLASHBACK TO THE PRESENT

            What a disaster it had all been.  Laurel already had enough reasons to not trust him.  His confession of dishonesty along with his abrupt exit had probably made her fragile trust of him shakier than it already was.  Leaning heavily against the steel railing Oliver felt the weight of his bow as a hundred pounds of burden resting in his hand.  The lives it had taken, the few that still had innocence within them that he had failed to protect, an the countless guilty that it had struck down in cold vengeance all rested there in the palm of his hand.  The weight of his duty laid only heavier, a mountain of immovable responsibility sown into the soil of his body, grown from his father’s failures…and from his own.  Oliver felt so tired, and so alone.

            Breathing deeply from his core he steadied his weariness after a few moments.  He had no time for weakness and self-pity, not until the mission was done.  The mission always came first.  Everything else was secondary.

            Once again as calm and focused as he could be, Oliver trudged his way down the remaining steps and entered the cavernous basement of Verdant.  After the disastrous dinner with Laurel and failing to kill Deadshot again, there really was no place else he would rather be at this moment.

            Looking around the room as he placed his bow and quiver on the nearby table, he stopped for a moment to take it all in.  The first thing that hit him was the silence.  There was no noise in his sanctuary, no music, no steady drip of water from the piper that long ago should have corroded and burst.  There was just the sound of his breathing.  Nothing more.  The low level of light registered to his sense next.  It cast a pale gloom over the place.  The light coupled with the crisp chill of the out of date heating system made the place feel like the a cave that he had stayed in back on the island.  It felt strangely reassuring.  As his eyes scanned the room he saw the tools of his trade.  Everything in the place was an instrument to be used, from the carefully arranged arrows, the knives that he had taken from Slade’s plane, the state of the art computers with access to almost any information he could think of… and even the empty Chinese food boxes plied on the desk next to the black rimmed glasses?

            “I don’t remember ordering take out,” Oliver thought to himself, confused as to their place in his private musings of mission and purpose.

            Walking over towards the desk where the empty food containers lay, Oliver noticed the sleeping form in the single high-backed, black chair just off into the shadows.  The chair’s resting occupant was blonde of hair and small of stature, wrapped in a make shift blanket of leather jackets and a plain black cardigan.  As his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting he recognized the form of a very tired looking Felicity Smoak bundled up against the chill of the room.

            “What is she still doing here?” Oliver thought, though he did not immediately make a move to wake her.

            Looking at Felicity closely he couldn’t help but smile to himself a little.  She looked so peaceful asleep in her chair with her long blonde hair pulled into a tight ponytail.  Her red lips wore a slight smile at the corners, which accentuated her pale face with the simple joy of sleep and dreams.

            The faint blush of her cheeks added a feminine radiance to her sleeping form that Oliver only noticed on a few other occasions.  This quirky I.T. girl had a strange sort of beauty to her at times that was born of a quick intellect, a surprisingly passionate demeanor, and an honesty about her to rival that of a saint.  She was actually one of the most honest people he had ever met, and also one of the hardest working he noted to himself as he glanced at one of the computer screens on the desk.  She had been up all night updating the tracking software she had installed a few months ago it seemed.

            Crouching down and gently touching her shoulder he whispered, “Felicity.  Hey, wake up.”

            Stirring slightly in her chair Felicity mumbled something incoherent and rolled over so that part of her back was facing Oliver.

            Tightening his jaw in amusement he called out to her again as he shook her shoulder a little more vigorously, “Felicity.  Felicity, wake up.”

            Rolling back towards him slightly and opening her eyes slowly from her slumber she recognized Oliver’s face.  With a dreamy smile she said, “So this is what it’s like to wake up next to you.”

            Blinking, Oliver slowly raised a single eyebrow at her comment.

            With her brain actively catching up to her groggy comment, Felicity quickly sat up in the chair and stammered, “I mean… you look bigger on top of me. Crap! Ummm…what I meant was… you’re huge! Damn it! That all came out so wrong.”

            Smiling to himself secretly in the dimness of the room, he walked over to the desk to retrieve Felicity’s glasses and said, “Good morning Felicity.”

            Rubbing the sleep from her eyes she mumbled, “Good morning.  What time is it?”

            “Just a few minutes past 7 a.m.” he replied as he handed over he glasses and leaned back against the table.

            “Holy crap!” Felicity yelled as she shoved her glasses onto her face in a panic and scrambled to put her cardigan on.

            “What’s up?” Oliver asked urgently, surprised at the burst of energy from Felicity.

            “I’m so late for work.  I stayed up way too late updating our tracking algorithms and operating system,” she said in a rush as she fumbled with the last few buttons.  “My so-called department boss is going to freak!”

            “Relax Felicity,” Oliver said wearily from his perch over by the table.  “I’ll make a call.  You’ll be fine.”

            Stopping her fumbling with the last button on he sweater, Felicity glanced up at Oliver.  With a look of concern on her face she asked him, “What’s wrong?”

            “Nothing,” Oliver said all too quickly.

            Walking over to the table and standing in front of him she said, “Something is definitely wrong.  You sound off.”

            “It’s nothing,” he said as he looked up at her standing there.  Reaching over he carefully did up the last button on her black cardigan.

            Following the movement of his hands, Felicity swallowed visibly and grabbed both of Oliver’s hands as he began to pull away.  Looking him steadily in the eye she again asked, “What’s wrong Oliver?”

            Sitting there against the table with his hands in Felicity’s, he looked pointedly into her blue eyes.  A mixture of confusing feelings welled up in his chest right then causing a strange tightness to spread across his upper body.  Accompanying the tight sensation was an odd sort of energy that tingled up his arms, starting from his hands and racing up and through to the rest of him.

            “It’s…everything Felicity,” Oliver found himself gushing quickly like water spraying from a crack in a pipe.  “It’s this whole night.  It’s this life. All of these lies that I’ve had to tell and to live are just eating away at me.  I lie to everyone around me.  I have to lie to my mom, to Thea…to Laurel.  On top of that, Deadshot got away tonight and Diggle isn’t in the greatest of moods about it.  I had a chance to end it tonight Felicity.  It would have cost the lives of many innocent people. I just couldn’t do it.  Now someone else will die because I failed to kill Lawton.”

            “Oliver…” Felicity said tenderly as she placed a reassuring hand on his chest.

            “I keep telling people that they’ve failed this city Felicity,” Oliver whispered as he stared intently into her eyes.  “But…I’m the one who keeps lying to those closest to me.  I’m the one who keeps on failing my friends.  I’m the one who is really failing this city.”

            “Oliver,” she said, cupping his face gently into her hands and staring just as intensely back at him.  “You haven’t failed this city.  You’ve shed blood for it.  You may have to lie to everyone you care about now, but one day, after everything is said and done and you’ve shot your last arrow, there will come a time where you won’t have to lie to anyone ever again.”

            Entranced by the intensity of her gaze Oliver mumbled his deepest fear out loud without even thinking about it, “But I’m so alone.  I’m so tired of being alone.  I don’t want to be on an island by myself anymore Felicity.”

            Moving in closer so that she was just an inch from his face, Felicity whispered, “You’re not alone.  You’ve got Diggle… and you’ve got me.”

            Something passed between them then.  In that moment Oliver felt a loosening in his chest.  It was as if a few pounds of burden had been lifted from his shoulders.  He just sat there, trapped in the fire of Felicity’s piercing blue gaze.  The warmth of her hands on his face supported him in a way he didn’t know was possible.

            “She is definitely something else,” he found himself thinking.  “Maybe I don’t have to be so alone…”

            Leaning forward ever so slightly, Oliver moved his face closer toward hers.  He could feel the molten heat from her lips calling to him in a way he had not felt since…

            “Oliver? You down here man?” a voice called as the sound of heavy feet coming down the steel staircase echoed throughout the room.

            Standing up quickly, Oliver moved away from the desk a few feet.  Looking over from the corner of his eyes he saw an intense blush radiating from Felicity’s face.  The look of supreme disappointment was not missed on him either.

            “There you are man,” Diggle said as he reached the bottom of the stairs.  Seeing Felicity and Oliver standing there he stopped in his tracks.  “Am I…interrupting anything?”

            “No,” Oliver said quickly.

            “Right…” Diggle said looking back and forth between them.

            “You two have some talking to do,” Felicity piped in. “And I need to get to work.”

            Turning towards Oliver she quietly said, “You can come talk to me anytime if you feel that you need to.”

            “Thank you,” he whispered.

            As she left the room Oliver couldn’t help but watch her go.  She had reawakened something inside of him tonight, but he really wasn’t sure just what exactly to do about it now.

            “Look man,” Oliver heard Diggle say as he listened to Felicity’s footsteps fade up the stairs. “About the whole Deadshot thing tonight…I didn’t mean to…”

            Raising a hand Oliver stopped Diggle in mid speech.  Looking at him in all seriousness he said, “It’s ok.”

            “No man it’s not…”

            “Digg,” Oliver interrupted.  “It’s ok.  We’ll get him next time.  When that happens, I promise you that I won’t hesitate.  We’ll sate your bloodlust Diggle…and my own desires in the process.”