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thejusticelounge2012-08-10 01:02 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2012-08-10 01:02 pm
act in haste
KATE TXT: Oh my god, did you do what I think you did? You did, didn't you. GODDAMNIT OLLIE
OLLIE TXT: Wait, what? I thought we agreed this kind of thing would be fine? It was a one-off anyhow.
KATE TXT: funny, I seem to distinctly remember saying that NOT FUCKING STUPID sex was fine. this? pretty damn stupid on so many levels, I just…cannot even.
OLLIE TXT: I … look. Let’s at’s least talk about it face to face. Come to the house.
Ollie sent the message, then ran his hand through his hair, then sat down, then stood up, then kicked an innocent throw pillow that happened to be on the floor. In the time, at the moment, screwing Rory had seemed like an innocuous enough way to spend an evening.
Now? It was starting to look more than a little boneheaded. Christ. It wasn’t THAT big a deal, though.
It was fortunate that Kate was alone in her office at the time, because she slammed her fist down hard enough on the desk that the reverberation sloshed coffee out of the nearby mug. “You audacious son of a bitch,” she hissed, and took several very long deep breaths from between gritted teeth before she could bring herself to respond.
TXT: see, I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Oliver. kids or dog or creepy ever so fuckable redhead wandering in? not in the mood to modulate my tone at this time. besides, I’m committed to be up on the tower all afternoon.
TXT: too busy pensar con tu verga to meet on neutral territory?
It was difficult to stab/punch the send button on a touchscreen phone, but she made a pretty damn valiant effort at it.
She’d told Ollie she’d happily take gloves off when fighting with him. He apparently hadn’t thought that through, and it was a pity for him that Kate had had enough time to formulate an effective argument. While a small chunk of her anger was jealousy (she didn’t feel the need to deny it), the rest of it was based somewhere else entirely.
In the time that Ollie had to get himself together, head out to a Zeta tube, go through all of the increased clearance tapdance that they’d put into place to bump up security after Eden Corps, and complain to the hapless tube operators, his mood had taken a turn for the entirely worse.
He stomped down the corridors to Kate’s office, snarling at the unfortunate people he passed, until he reached her door. Since these were business hours, there was no need other than politeness to announce himself, so naturally he went in, slapped the door shut, and loudly said, “Well, I’m here, like you wanted. And what the hell did you say at the end in Spanish? I didn’t understand it.”
“That’s what Google’s for,” Kate said, turning slightly in the spinny chair to see Ollie, arms crossed, leaning furiously (apparently that was an adjective one could apply to leaning, because Ollie was sure as hell doing it) against the door. It was almost a sullen James Dean expression, actually, though she was careful not to to laugh. “And context. Helping out Isis with her league drinking game.”
She lifted both brows at him, settled her chin in her hand. “But if you must know: thinking with your dick. Because, damn, did you do that in amazing fashion. I’d be impressed, if I weren’t dating you and therefore emotionally fucking invested in you; they could put that in an internet meme with the words EPIC FAIL underneath in Impact font, size 64.”
Secretly, she was glad that Ollie’d actually gotten himself together and come up here after her. It said something about his underlying mindset—namely, that deep down he knew she was right.
“But I thought thinking with my dick was one of the things you liked *best* about me, Kate.” In another context he might’ve made the same comment, but in a much different tone — playful, flirty, wry, take your pick. Right now he could hear his voice coming out tense and loud, he was already too loud, and that meant —
No, no, nope. Ollie cut that thought off at the pass. He was in no mood to admit defeat right out the gate, what with his current annoyance at Roy disappearing yet AGAIN, various stupidities from Kyle Rayner, the situation with Gardner starting to grossly resemble how things had gone with Bruce, and now — this. He took a breath, stepping forward and unfolding his arms so he could wave his hands around.
“And I could give a fuck about Google when I’m being yelled at as if I’m not a goddamn adult perfectly capable of making my own decisions regarding my own person and household and — and fucking extracurricular activities!”
Kate had guessed Ollie was hardly going to roll over and listen to her from a position of supplication, because that would be way too fucking easy. A little bit of a shame, really, because then they could head all of the forthcoming off at the pass, but she’d live with it. And, if she was being perfectly honest, she was pretty sure she’d enjoy herself.
“Gee, Ollie, I thought one of the things you liked best about me was the fact that I have my own fucking opinions that I happen to enjoy sharing,” she retorted, getting up from the chair to perch on the desk. It was rude to stay sitting down like she was a fucking high school principal. “Pardon ME for giving a shit about you making stupid calls in your personal life, I wasn’t aware that you didn’t want me to do that. I wasn’t aware that you’ve changed your mind and don’t want me to call you the fuck out when you do something that makes you look like a dickwad who proudly wears his own ass for a hat. I will fucking KEEP it in MIND from now on.”
She settled a glare on him, crossed her own arms over her chest. The argument was gathering steam, now, Kate could feel it in her blood, though she was still reining it in. Ollie would have had a ridiculous metaphor about wild horses. Provided they didn’t hate each other at the end of this, he probably still would. Not that she had any intention of this not reaching some form of resolution.
“But fine. You talk a big talk—huge, because it’s you—about damning the man and screwing over the rich white boy system from the inside. Then you go pull this kind of patriarchal bullshit stunt, playing straight into perpetuating the status quo. Good. for. you.
“Let me cut you off at the pass—am I jealous? A little. But that ain’t nothin’ compared to how I feel about the big picture.”
Ollie felt his face flame up red. Some of it rage but a LOT of it embarrassment, and christ but he hated having a complexion that gave away his feelings so easily. Especially with Kate, here, alighted on her desk like a caricature of a ball-busting Lady Executive as she stared him down from dark eyes and complexion sanguine enough to give away nothing except for a slight flake of pink high in her cheeks.
Jesus christ but there were a million fucking things he was het up about *now*.
“I have no problem with you having opinions about my decisions,” he said, aiming for some kind of level volume. “But I don’t have to ACCEPT your opinions wholesale, do I? I mean, even *if* I’m nothing but a bastard privileged hypocrite, exploiting the poor itty-bitty innocent babysitter. How far are we gonna go with that chestnut, huh? How’d you envision it? Her with hair in pigtails quietly doing her homework, totally vulnerable to my big scary seduction techniques? Please, do tell. I’d like to know what scenario exactly you’ve concocted to object to here, counselor.”
Ollie was not doing as well as he thought with the level volume, and it was a good thing that the room was nearly soundproof, between what he was yelling and Kate’s own (possibly a touch self-righteous, she wasn’t that proud) fury.
She snorted, tapping a fingernail against her bare arm, lifting her eyebrows at him. “Oh, come ON, Ollie, what a picture you’ve come up with me having. I’ve met her, I’m a hundred percent sure she was all too willing to play, that she was already wearing her good panties—I mean, god, she dresses like a fucking lingerie model. You can’t accept that consent isn’t my fucking point, can you?”
Being called counselor outside of the courtroom (and in some cases, even in it) was a certain goad for Kate, made her teeth hurt like chewing tin foil. Her back arched, just slightly, like a cat. “You fucked the goddamn babysitter, Ollie. She’s in your fucking employment. Not to mention the whole utterly typical fact that you couldn’t resist the porno setup of it—did you ever consider the idea that she might be playing you? I’m so SORRY to call you out because you can’t think things through before you do them. That’s your coasting on your fucking privilege, not any kind of damn seduction tactic.”
“Point of order, she wasn’t wearing *any* panties,” Ollie leered before he really thought about it, then shut his eyes and skewed his bottom lip briefly to one side before gathering himself again. It wasn’t so much that the memory was distracting — although it could be, if he’d let it — and more that his habit in a fight of abandoning aim altogether and just firing shot after shot hoping something would land was not attractive. Or admirable. Or — well, fuck it, Kate knew he was no gentleman.
And for a moment there he thought that Kate might be legitimately worried that Rory the babysitter would sue his dumb ass, but then her next words made his indignance obliterate any of the momentary touched feelings that she was looking out for him.
“It might be hard for you to consider it, Kate, because I know *both* you and Hal think I can barely keep from crashing through every china shop in the city if left to my own devices, but I DID manage to run a household with no babies left in the oven or sexy and litigious service staff screwing me over before *either* of you joined the cruise. I’m not a complete dolt. And my being a rich whiteboy is handy enough when I need to pay for everything just short of goddamn fucking urinal cakes for the goddamn fucking Watchtower bathrooms, isn’t it? EVERYBODY gets to coast on my privilege!”
Kate, as it happened, was looking out for Ollie, though he didn’t exactly realize it yet. At this rate, she figured that he might figure it out sometime in the middle of next week. As he ranted, she let her brain run on in courtroom mode, find a way to deconstruct the absolute (seriously, what the fuck) bullshit he was throwing at her in the process of trying to combat her points.
It wasn’t really worth retorts, to be honest. If it wouldn’t have pissed Ollie off even more, she would have completely ignored it because it was seriously only tangentially relevant. If she’d been really masochistic, she’d have told him he was setting up an army of straw men and let him rail at her about that for a while. But time was limited and she didn’t feel like going down that path.
The not wearing panties, now THAT was interesting. She filed it away to use later.
“Fucking hell, are you even listening to me?” she asked, gesturing as she slid off the desk to pace across what space there was in the room. “It’s not about material consequences, Ollie. It’s about fucking respecting yourself when you wake up in the morning, it’s about living what the fuck you’re saying and not being a hypocrite. It’s not about money, it’s about if she’s playing you emotionally, for whatever reason she might have, god fucking knows.”
She leaned in, hands on her hips. “You can think I’m as sanctimonious as you want. I’m SORRY I wanted you not to buy into bullshit, to fuck women with a modicum of respect and equal footing and, I don’t even goddamn know, emotional resonance, even being fucking friends. Demonize me all you want, you won’t be the first güero who called me a ball-breaking ice queen bitch raining on his motherfucking parade!”
She was really mad. No, she was — Ollie’d seen Kate in a fight, kicking and whirling and knocking people down. He’d seen her when she turned on lawyer mode and verbally and intellectually eviscerated her opponent. Hell, he’d seen her having anger fits when she was worn down and too tired to hold them back, bursts of bright-burning temper that flared up and died down.
This time, though. He stood where he was, looking down at her as she laid into him, every word whip-precise and chosen with thought behind it, totally unlike his style of frenetic verbal brawling. And even though what she was saying felt harsh, and angry, and unfair in places, there were parts of it …
Parts that were things Ollie’d never heard before. At least, not in relation to *himself*.
He took a deep breath and reached out to put his fingertips against her elbows. “Kate,” he said, then the words got jammed up. What did he even want to say here? “Kate. I don’t — I hope I didn’t seem like I think those things about you. I don’t. I’m … okay, right at this very moment I’m not at my most eloquent or even sensible, but. I’m listening.”
Ollie stopped there, because honestly, he couldn’t move past two things Kate had said: respecting the women he went to bed with, and respecting himself. He’d heard the first before and arrogantly thought that by now, he’d achieved that goal and was henceforth flawless in that area. He couldn’t remember ever having heard the second.
This, well, this was Kate angry when she gave a damn—actually, more than gave a damn, when she was directly emotionally invested. She stood there, expecting Ollie to give her sheer hell in return, her fingers half clenched into claws, her back slightly hunched in a fury—
And then he didn’t, touched her gently, spoke without vitriol. Damn it.
It threw her, though she didn’t show it much, was far too practiced in this to let it do this. Instead, she stood there a moment or two without saying anything, breathing slow but heavy, gaze fixed on his eyes. After a second more, she said, with very deliberate calm, “I didn’t think that about me. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t apply to anybody else you’re screwing while you’re with me, and that you shouldn’t think things through before you do them, for your own sake and so you’re not…so you’re true to yourself.”
She paused, cleared her throat, because for some reason it was just a little tight, and she couldn’t figure out why. “I don’t feel like that’s unreasonable to ask. Maybe that’s me being a nagging pain in the ass. I don’t know.”
“It’s not unreasonable. It’s … incredibly caring of you, actually, and freakily on point. Even if I don’t like hearing it.” Ollie finger-stepped along Kate’s elbows, closer to her body, until he could wrap his hands around her upper arms and rub his palms along her muscles as he spoke. It was soothing, possibly more for him than for her, in truth, but she didn’t seem to be protesting and he was grateful for it.
“I’m sure you’ve gathered that I’ve been read the riot act before when it comes to thinking with my dick,” he told her. “Some of which was deserved, some not so much. And I’ve got a lifetime’s worth of defensive protests built up for every such occasion.” Ollie’s fingers tightened, relaxed; he wanted to gather Kate closer to him, but he resisted for the moment. There’d be time for that. Right now she might not even want it.
“But I can tell you’re saying something more than that, aren’t you. You’re talking about the bigger picture and the whole construction of Oliver Queen that I’ve made, and how to make sure I’m not betraying it all.” He grinned without much mirth. “Most of the time when people point out the holes in my carefully-crafted sense of self and worldview, it’s with much less of an eye to encourage me to improve them.”
Still tense, still not fully buying the shift in mood even though she consciously wanted to, Kate eyed Ollie warily. “You don’t,” she said. “Don’t like hearing it, though frankly, when the hell does anybody?”
She was tired, she realized, weary at the bone. If they’d kept yelling, she was certain she would have been able to go on for hours if need be, running on sheer adrenaline alone until she collapsed from exhaustion. But Ollie had done…an incredibly Ollieish thing, and had a revelation, it seemed. And as such, until she needed to go on guard again, her tension eased a little.
Letting him touch her, not shying away (maybe she wanted it, maybe she needed it even if she didn’t want him to know), Kate cleared her throat, tried to find an answer to everything that he’d said. It was easier than what she’d thought it might be. “I want you to be as good a man as you can,” she said quietly, not touching him back but not pushing him away. “To be as good a man as I know you are, not to fuck that up for the sake of trying to forget or making the pain go away. Because that is you, Ollie, damn it, even if you don’t think so. And stuff like this…it hurts.”
If seeing Kate shift gears from blisteringly, righteously angry to wary evaluation hadn’t taken the fight completely out of Ollie, her words did. Be a good man, she said, and damned if he didn’t hear his mother’s voice all over again, the instruction he’d tried hard to follow then resentfully rejected then slowly, gradually, painstakingly struggled to live up to. He did hug Kate, then, on reflex and desperate need and maybe to push his face against her hair until he wasn’t so close to crying anymore.
Once he’d gotten himself under control, Ollie readjusted his arms to wrap around her properly, close as he could manage. “I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t realiz— no, I didn’t think. I wasn’t thinking about it. I just knew I wanted *something* and she was there and she was willing and … if I’d taken a minute I might have acted differently. Better. I didn’t know I’d be hurting you.”
Which wasn’t exactly the whole truth, was it? He *had* thought of Kate for a moment, gimlets and lime and the smell of juniper, but it had only whetted his appetite and not made him stop. Ollie didn’t tell Kate that part of it. *Those* pieces of ugly, he could keep to himself.
If Kate hadn’t fully bought the repentance initially, she did now, now that Ollie had grabbed her, buried his face in her shoulder and her hair. The tension easing from his body as he did wasn’t anything either of them really had the capability to fake. (They weren’t Batman, after all, nor particularly good actors.) It wasn’t like she’d come into this not wanting to forgive him or wanting to end it all, just for him to see where the fuck she was coming from. That was it.
Now that she had it, she wasn’t sure what to do.
“Ollie,” she said quietly, closing her eyes as her brow furrowed tightly. “God, Ollie. Fucking her…that didn’t really hurt me, except for the fact that I don’t friggin’ like her and her skinny white ass. You acting like doing that, without thinking about it, just because you felt like you could, and she was there? That is what fucking hurts.” She used the present tense, wasn’t going to entirely let him off yet even if she wasn’t going to yell anymore. Even if she forgave him.
She inhaled, slowly, exhaled again. “Not to mention that she seriously discomfits me. I mean, jesus, no panties…that…doesn’t make sense, Ollie. Have you thought about that?”
“She … I dunno. I mean, we’ve already established that I wasn’t really thinking all that deeply about it, so between me figuring she’d had something planned for after she got off babysitting and her saying that she made a quick-change after unexpectedly needing to take a shower, it wasn’t something I dwelled on.”
Ollie still didn’t think it was a terribly significant thing, considering that he’d known Kate herself to eschew underwear on at least one occasion, but he kept that to himself. No point bringing it up at this juncture of the conversation.
“I don’t think Rory’s any kind of threat, Kate. But I agree with you that there’s something disconcerting about her, the way she *looks* at you sometimes. If it makes you feel better, she’s not coming with us on vacation? Now that Rose is staying in the house, she’s tagging along to Whistler — I swear to God, Mia thinks we have an expanding suite there — and she’s taken care of Lian before, so it’ll all be cool.”
Kate still didn’t buy it, and her expression said so, but she also didn’t really have any acceptable reply for it. She shrugged, gently shifting her weight along with him to bring them over to the sofa so they could stop standing around, which was fucking awkward. Not that this whole thing wasn’t already awkward, now that she was less angry.
She sat down, leaned on the arm of the sofa and kicked off the shoes she was wearing, inhaling slowly, then breathing out. Sometimes Ollie was seriously lacking in perception, or maybe willfully blind to certain things…or maybe just being a pain in the ass.
“Fabulous, Rose Wilson’s smiling face,” she said wryly, but it did make her feel a little better, and she laughed, looking up at him. “God, we need to get the fuck out of here, Ollie, sooner rather than later, even if Mia has us all piled four to a room and sleeping on couches. Even if I haven’t fucking skied in years and will be likely to fall on my ass. It’s still somewhere that isn’t so damn hot and sticky and full of drama.”
“It’ll be great. Sunny down in the village where we’re staying, but lots of bracing cool air from the elevation and the forestation. And since the place is huge and the extra guests will be rotating through — as far as I can tell — we shouldn’t end up stacked on each other to sleep. Although if we do, you can stack on me, that’s fine.” Ollie sighed dramatically, even though he was currently squashing himself closer to Kate than she probably wanted him to. Arrows didn’t have much of an idea of personal space when it came to people they felt comfortable with.
“So … are we good? And I don’t mean that in a tabula rasa way. I mean we’ve talked out the salient points of this, and now we can approach it in a positive way to make changes, right? Well, on my half, anyhow. There aren’t any changes you need to make.”
Kate honestly didn’t mind—the Watchtower was far cooler than either Star City or LA had been, fortunately, though it was only so much of a relief due to the recycled nature of the air. She let Ollie snuggle up, leaned against him, even, though she wasn’t 100% pleased with him. Not exactly. “Note to self,” she said, “Ollie doesn’t mind being stacked. Wait, that sounds really, really wrong…of course, you could always stack you and me and Hal…”
She stretched a bit, as much as she could in the limitation of the space and (relatively heavy) Ollie, scrubbing her face with her free hand. “Yeah, I think we’re good. Provided you actually see where the hell I’m coming from. I just…” Shrugging, she tensed a little in thought. “I love you so much, and I want things to work out, not get fucked up out of nowhere.”
After a pause, she added, “Dios, that makes me sound needy, doesn’t it.”
He picked up her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “No more needy than is reasonable, and definitely shared by your fond and remorseful partner.”
So he had boneheaded moves to make up for. That was fine and manageable and he’d be improved for the effort. As long as Kate never looked so damn disappointed in him again, never had cause to doubt his respect for women. Be a good man, Ollie.
Kissing her fingertips, he figured it was time to make that a primary goal again. Especially since Kate was invested in it as well, and he’d need the help.
“Ollie, you do realize you sound like some 19th century naval captain or Civil War commander writing a guilty letter home to his wife,” said Kate, but she was touched anyway. Maybe that was a soft spot, for her, she thought, then decided she really didn’t give a shit.
The kissing the fingertips thing totally helped. She decided she’d care more were it not for the fact that she knew (and, frankly, this conversation proved) that she was hardly going to roll over in the face of the tidal wave that was Oliver Queen and his Opinions. If anything, Ollie needed someone who took considerably less of his shit but still loved him at the end of it all.
“Dearest Katie,” she drawled, and kicked both feet up into his lap. “Long have been the nights I have lain awake and thought of your bright countenance, and these nights do get lonely for a man, so I must confess that my body has wandered where my soul has not....”
OLLIE TXT: Wait, what? I thought we agreed this kind of thing would be fine? It was a one-off anyhow.
KATE TXT: funny, I seem to distinctly remember saying that NOT FUCKING STUPID sex was fine. this? pretty damn stupid on so many levels, I just…cannot even.
OLLIE TXT: I … look. Let’s at’s least talk about it face to face. Come to the house.
Ollie sent the message, then ran his hand through his hair, then sat down, then stood up, then kicked an innocent throw pillow that happened to be on the floor. In the time, at the moment, screwing Rory had seemed like an innocuous enough way to spend an evening.
Now? It was starting to look more than a little boneheaded. Christ. It wasn’t THAT big a deal, though.
It was fortunate that Kate was alone in her office at the time, because she slammed her fist down hard enough on the desk that the reverberation sloshed coffee out of the nearby mug. “You audacious son of a bitch,” she hissed, and took several very long deep breaths from between gritted teeth before she could bring herself to respond.
TXT: see, I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Oliver. kids or dog or creepy ever so fuckable redhead wandering in? not in the mood to modulate my tone at this time. besides, I’m committed to be up on the tower all afternoon.
TXT: too busy pensar con tu verga to meet on neutral territory?
It was difficult to stab/punch the send button on a touchscreen phone, but she made a pretty damn valiant effort at it.
She’d told Ollie she’d happily take gloves off when fighting with him. He apparently hadn’t thought that through, and it was a pity for him that Kate had had enough time to formulate an effective argument. While a small chunk of her anger was jealousy (she didn’t feel the need to deny it), the rest of it was based somewhere else entirely.
In the time that Ollie had to get himself together, head out to a Zeta tube, go through all of the increased clearance tapdance that they’d put into place to bump up security after Eden Corps, and complain to the hapless tube operators, his mood had taken a turn for the entirely worse.
He stomped down the corridors to Kate’s office, snarling at the unfortunate people he passed, until he reached her door. Since these were business hours, there was no need other than politeness to announce himself, so naturally he went in, slapped the door shut, and loudly said, “Well, I’m here, like you wanted. And what the hell did you say at the end in Spanish? I didn’t understand it.”
“That’s what Google’s for,” Kate said, turning slightly in the spinny chair to see Ollie, arms crossed, leaning furiously (apparently that was an adjective one could apply to leaning, because Ollie was sure as hell doing it) against the door. It was almost a sullen James Dean expression, actually, though she was careful not to to laugh. “And context. Helping out Isis with her league drinking game.”
She lifted both brows at him, settled her chin in her hand. “But if you must know: thinking with your dick. Because, damn, did you do that in amazing fashion. I’d be impressed, if I weren’t dating you and therefore emotionally fucking invested in you; they could put that in an internet meme with the words EPIC FAIL underneath in Impact font, size 64.”
Secretly, she was glad that Ollie’d actually gotten himself together and come up here after her. It said something about his underlying mindset—namely, that deep down he knew she was right.
“But I thought thinking with my dick was one of the things you liked *best* about me, Kate.” In another context he might’ve made the same comment, but in a much different tone — playful, flirty, wry, take your pick. Right now he could hear his voice coming out tense and loud, he was already too loud, and that meant —
No, no, nope. Ollie cut that thought off at the pass. He was in no mood to admit defeat right out the gate, what with his current annoyance at Roy disappearing yet AGAIN, various stupidities from Kyle Rayner, the situation with Gardner starting to grossly resemble how things had gone with Bruce, and now — this. He took a breath, stepping forward and unfolding his arms so he could wave his hands around.
“And I could give a fuck about Google when I’m being yelled at as if I’m not a goddamn adult perfectly capable of making my own decisions regarding my own person and household and — and fucking extracurricular activities!”
Kate had guessed Ollie was hardly going to roll over and listen to her from a position of supplication, because that would be way too fucking easy. A little bit of a shame, really, because then they could head all of the forthcoming off at the pass, but she’d live with it. And, if she was being perfectly honest, she was pretty sure she’d enjoy herself.
“Gee, Ollie, I thought one of the things you liked best about me was the fact that I have my own fucking opinions that I happen to enjoy sharing,” she retorted, getting up from the chair to perch on the desk. It was rude to stay sitting down like she was a fucking high school principal. “Pardon ME for giving a shit about you making stupid calls in your personal life, I wasn’t aware that you didn’t want me to do that. I wasn’t aware that you’ve changed your mind and don’t want me to call you the fuck out when you do something that makes you look like a dickwad who proudly wears his own ass for a hat. I will fucking KEEP it in MIND from now on.”
She settled a glare on him, crossed her own arms over her chest. The argument was gathering steam, now, Kate could feel it in her blood, though she was still reining it in. Ollie would have had a ridiculous metaphor about wild horses. Provided they didn’t hate each other at the end of this, he probably still would. Not that she had any intention of this not reaching some form of resolution.
“But fine. You talk a big talk—huge, because it’s you—about damning the man and screwing over the rich white boy system from the inside. Then you go pull this kind of patriarchal bullshit stunt, playing straight into perpetuating the status quo. Good. for. you.
“Let me cut you off at the pass—am I jealous? A little. But that ain’t nothin’ compared to how I feel about the big picture.”
Ollie felt his face flame up red. Some of it rage but a LOT of it embarrassment, and christ but he hated having a complexion that gave away his feelings so easily. Especially with Kate, here, alighted on her desk like a caricature of a ball-busting Lady Executive as she stared him down from dark eyes and complexion sanguine enough to give away nothing except for a slight flake of pink high in her cheeks.
Jesus christ but there were a million fucking things he was het up about *now*.
“I have no problem with you having opinions about my decisions,” he said, aiming for some kind of level volume. “But I don’t have to ACCEPT your opinions wholesale, do I? I mean, even *if* I’m nothing but a bastard privileged hypocrite, exploiting the poor itty-bitty innocent babysitter. How far are we gonna go with that chestnut, huh? How’d you envision it? Her with hair in pigtails quietly doing her homework, totally vulnerable to my big scary seduction techniques? Please, do tell. I’d like to know what scenario exactly you’ve concocted to object to here, counselor.”
Ollie was not doing as well as he thought with the level volume, and it was a good thing that the room was nearly soundproof, between what he was yelling and Kate’s own (possibly a touch self-righteous, she wasn’t that proud) fury.
She snorted, tapping a fingernail against her bare arm, lifting her eyebrows at him. “Oh, come ON, Ollie, what a picture you’ve come up with me having. I’ve met her, I’m a hundred percent sure she was all too willing to play, that she was already wearing her good panties—I mean, god, she dresses like a fucking lingerie model. You can’t accept that consent isn’t my fucking point, can you?”
Being called counselor outside of the courtroom (and in some cases, even in it) was a certain goad for Kate, made her teeth hurt like chewing tin foil. Her back arched, just slightly, like a cat. “You fucked the goddamn babysitter, Ollie. She’s in your fucking employment. Not to mention the whole utterly typical fact that you couldn’t resist the porno setup of it—did you ever consider the idea that she might be playing you? I’m so SORRY to call you out because you can’t think things through before you do them. That’s your coasting on your fucking privilege, not any kind of damn seduction tactic.”
“Point of order, she wasn’t wearing *any* panties,” Ollie leered before he really thought about it, then shut his eyes and skewed his bottom lip briefly to one side before gathering himself again. It wasn’t so much that the memory was distracting — although it could be, if he’d let it — and more that his habit in a fight of abandoning aim altogether and just firing shot after shot hoping something would land was not attractive. Or admirable. Or — well, fuck it, Kate knew he was no gentleman.
And for a moment there he thought that Kate might be legitimately worried that Rory the babysitter would sue his dumb ass, but then her next words made his indignance obliterate any of the momentary touched feelings that she was looking out for him.
“It might be hard for you to consider it, Kate, because I know *both* you and Hal think I can barely keep from crashing through every china shop in the city if left to my own devices, but I DID manage to run a household with no babies left in the oven or sexy and litigious service staff screwing me over before *either* of you joined the cruise. I’m not a complete dolt. And my being a rich whiteboy is handy enough when I need to pay for everything just short of goddamn fucking urinal cakes for the goddamn fucking Watchtower bathrooms, isn’t it? EVERYBODY gets to coast on my privilege!”
Kate, as it happened, was looking out for Ollie, though he didn’t exactly realize it yet. At this rate, she figured that he might figure it out sometime in the middle of next week. As he ranted, she let her brain run on in courtroom mode, find a way to deconstruct the absolute (seriously, what the fuck) bullshit he was throwing at her in the process of trying to combat her points.
It wasn’t really worth retorts, to be honest. If it wouldn’t have pissed Ollie off even more, she would have completely ignored it because it was seriously only tangentially relevant. If she’d been really masochistic, she’d have told him he was setting up an army of straw men and let him rail at her about that for a while. But time was limited and she didn’t feel like going down that path.
The not wearing panties, now THAT was interesting. She filed it away to use later.
“Fucking hell, are you even listening to me?” she asked, gesturing as she slid off the desk to pace across what space there was in the room. “It’s not about material consequences, Ollie. It’s about fucking respecting yourself when you wake up in the morning, it’s about living what the fuck you’re saying and not being a hypocrite. It’s not about money, it’s about if she’s playing you emotionally, for whatever reason she might have, god fucking knows.”
She leaned in, hands on her hips. “You can think I’m as sanctimonious as you want. I’m SORRY I wanted you not to buy into bullshit, to fuck women with a modicum of respect and equal footing and, I don’t even goddamn know, emotional resonance, even being fucking friends. Demonize me all you want, you won’t be the first güero who called me a ball-breaking ice queen bitch raining on his motherfucking parade!”
She was really mad. No, she was — Ollie’d seen Kate in a fight, kicking and whirling and knocking people down. He’d seen her when she turned on lawyer mode and verbally and intellectually eviscerated her opponent. Hell, he’d seen her having anger fits when she was worn down and too tired to hold them back, bursts of bright-burning temper that flared up and died down.
This time, though. He stood where he was, looking down at her as she laid into him, every word whip-precise and chosen with thought behind it, totally unlike his style of frenetic verbal brawling. And even though what she was saying felt harsh, and angry, and unfair in places, there were parts of it …
Parts that were things Ollie’d never heard before. At least, not in relation to *himself*.
He took a deep breath and reached out to put his fingertips against her elbows. “Kate,” he said, then the words got jammed up. What did he even want to say here? “Kate. I don’t — I hope I didn’t seem like I think those things about you. I don’t. I’m … okay, right at this very moment I’m not at my most eloquent or even sensible, but. I’m listening.”
Ollie stopped there, because honestly, he couldn’t move past two things Kate had said: respecting the women he went to bed with, and respecting himself. He’d heard the first before and arrogantly thought that by now, he’d achieved that goal and was henceforth flawless in that area. He couldn’t remember ever having heard the second.
This, well, this was Kate angry when she gave a damn—actually, more than gave a damn, when she was directly emotionally invested. She stood there, expecting Ollie to give her sheer hell in return, her fingers half clenched into claws, her back slightly hunched in a fury—
And then he didn’t, touched her gently, spoke without vitriol. Damn it.
It threw her, though she didn’t show it much, was far too practiced in this to let it do this. Instead, she stood there a moment or two without saying anything, breathing slow but heavy, gaze fixed on his eyes. After a second more, she said, with very deliberate calm, “I didn’t think that about me. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t apply to anybody else you’re screwing while you’re with me, and that you shouldn’t think things through before you do them, for your own sake and so you’re not…so you’re true to yourself.”
She paused, cleared her throat, because for some reason it was just a little tight, and she couldn’t figure out why. “I don’t feel like that’s unreasonable to ask. Maybe that’s me being a nagging pain in the ass. I don’t know.”
“It’s not unreasonable. It’s … incredibly caring of you, actually, and freakily on point. Even if I don’t like hearing it.” Ollie finger-stepped along Kate’s elbows, closer to her body, until he could wrap his hands around her upper arms and rub his palms along her muscles as he spoke. It was soothing, possibly more for him than for her, in truth, but she didn’t seem to be protesting and he was grateful for it.
“I’m sure you’ve gathered that I’ve been read the riot act before when it comes to thinking with my dick,” he told her. “Some of which was deserved, some not so much. And I’ve got a lifetime’s worth of defensive protests built up for every such occasion.” Ollie’s fingers tightened, relaxed; he wanted to gather Kate closer to him, but he resisted for the moment. There’d be time for that. Right now she might not even want it.
“But I can tell you’re saying something more than that, aren’t you. You’re talking about the bigger picture and the whole construction of Oliver Queen that I’ve made, and how to make sure I’m not betraying it all.” He grinned without much mirth. “Most of the time when people point out the holes in my carefully-crafted sense of self and worldview, it’s with much less of an eye to encourage me to improve them.”
Still tense, still not fully buying the shift in mood even though she consciously wanted to, Kate eyed Ollie warily. “You don’t,” she said. “Don’t like hearing it, though frankly, when the hell does anybody?”
She was tired, she realized, weary at the bone. If they’d kept yelling, she was certain she would have been able to go on for hours if need be, running on sheer adrenaline alone until she collapsed from exhaustion. But Ollie had done…an incredibly Ollieish thing, and had a revelation, it seemed. And as such, until she needed to go on guard again, her tension eased a little.
Letting him touch her, not shying away (maybe she wanted it, maybe she needed it even if she didn’t want him to know), Kate cleared her throat, tried to find an answer to everything that he’d said. It was easier than what she’d thought it might be. “I want you to be as good a man as you can,” she said quietly, not touching him back but not pushing him away. “To be as good a man as I know you are, not to fuck that up for the sake of trying to forget or making the pain go away. Because that is you, Ollie, damn it, even if you don’t think so. And stuff like this…it hurts.”
If seeing Kate shift gears from blisteringly, righteously angry to wary evaluation hadn’t taken the fight completely out of Ollie, her words did. Be a good man, she said, and damned if he didn’t hear his mother’s voice all over again, the instruction he’d tried hard to follow then resentfully rejected then slowly, gradually, painstakingly struggled to live up to. He did hug Kate, then, on reflex and desperate need and maybe to push his face against her hair until he wasn’t so close to crying anymore.
Once he’d gotten himself under control, Ollie readjusted his arms to wrap around her properly, close as he could manage. “I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t realiz— no, I didn’t think. I wasn’t thinking about it. I just knew I wanted *something* and she was there and she was willing and … if I’d taken a minute I might have acted differently. Better. I didn’t know I’d be hurting you.”
Which wasn’t exactly the whole truth, was it? He *had* thought of Kate for a moment, gimlets and lime and the smell of juniper, but it had only whetted his appetite and not made him stop. Ollie didn’t tell Kate that part of it. *Those* pieces of ugly, he could keep to himself.
If Kate hadn’t fully bought the repentance initially, she did now, now that Ollie had grabbed her, buried his face in her shoulder and her hair. The tension easing from his body as he did wasn’t anything either of them really had the capability to fake. (They weren’t Batman, after all, nor particularly good actors.) It wasn’t like she’d come into this not wanting to forgive him or wanting to end it all, just for him to see where the fuck she was coming from. That was it.
Now that she had it, she wasn’t sure what to do.
“Ollie,” she said quietly, closing her eyes as her brow furrowed tightly. “God, Ollie. Fucking her…that didn’t really hurt me, except for the fact that I don’t friggin’ like her and her skinny white ass. You acting like doing that, without thinking about it, just because you felt like you could, and she was there? That is what fucking hurts.” She used the present tense, wasn’t going to entirely let him off yet even if she wasn’t going to yell anymore. Even if she forgave him.
She inhaled, slowly, exhaled again. “Not to mention that she seriously discomfits me. I mean, jesus, no panties…that…doesn’t make sense, Ollie. Have you thought about that?”
“She … I dunno. I mean, we’ve already established that I wasn’t really thinking all that deeply about it, so between me figuring she’d had something planned for after she got off babysitting and her saying that she made a quick-change after unexpectedly needing to take a shower, it wasn’t something I dwelled on.”
Ollie still didn’t think it was a terribly significant thing, considering that he’d known Kate herself to eschew underwear on at least one occasion, but he kept that to himself. No point bringing it up at this juncture of the conversation.
“I don’t think Rory’s any kind of threat, Kate. But I agree with you that there’s something disconcerting about her, the way she *looks* at you sometimes. If it makes you feel better, she’s not coming with us on vacation? Now that Rose is staying in the house, she’s tagging along to Whistler — I swear to God, Mia thinks we have an expanding suite there — and she’s taken care of Lian before, so it’ll all be cool.”
Kate still didn’t buy it, and her expression said so, but she also didn’t really have any acceptable reply for it. She shrugged, gently shifting her weight along with him to bring them over to the sofa so they could stop standing around, which was fucking awkward. Not that this whole thing wasn’t already awkward, now that she was less angry.
She sat down, leaned on the arm of the sofa and kicked off the shoes she was wearing, inhaling slowly, then breathing out. Sometimes Ollie was seriously lacking in perception, or maybe willfully blind to certain things…or maybe just being a pain in the ass.
“Fabulous, Rose Wilson’s smiling face,” she said wryly, but it did make her feel a little better, and she laughed, looking up at him. “God, we need to get the fuck out of here, Ollie, sooner rather than later, even if Mia has us all piled four to a room and sleeping on couches. Even if I haven’t fucking skied in years and will be likely to fall on my ass. It’s still somewhere that isn’t so damn hot and sticky and full of drama.”
“It’ll be great. Sunny down in the village where we’re staying, but lots of bracing cool air from the elevation and the forestation. And since the place is huge and the extra guests will be rotating through — as far as I can tell — we shouldn’t end up stacked on each other to sleep. Although if we do, you can stack on me, that’s fine.” Ollie sighed dramatically, even though he was currently squashing himself closer to Kate than she probably wanted him to. Arrows didn’t have much of an idea of personal space when it came to people they felt comfortable with.
“So … are we good? And I don’t mean that in a tabula rasa way. I mean we’ve talked out the salient points of this, and now we can approach it in a positive way to make changes, right? Well, on my half, anyhow. There aren’t any changes you need to make.”
Kate honestly didn’t mind—the Watchtower was far cooler than either Star City or LA had been, fortunately, though it was only so much of a relief due to the recycled nature of the air. She let Ollie snuggle up, leaned against him, even, though she wasn’t 100% pleased with him. Not exactly. “Note to self,” she said, “Ollie doesn’t mind being stacked. Wait, that sounds really, really wrong…of course, you could always stack you and me and Hal…”
She stretched a bit, as much as she could in the limitation of the space and (relatively heavy) Ollie, scrubbing her face with her free hand. “Yeah, I think we’re good. Provided you actually see where the hell I’m coming from. I just…” Shrugging, she tensed a little in thought. “I love you so much, and I want things to work out, not get fucked up out of nowhere.”
After a pause, she added, “Dios, that makes me sound needy, doesn’t it.”
He picked up her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “No more needy than is reasonable, and definitely shared by your fond and remorseful partner.”
So he had boneheaded moves to make up for. That was fine and manageable and he’d be improved for the effort. As long as Kate never looked so damn disappointed in him again, never had cause to doubt his respect for women. Be a good man, Ollie.
Kissing her fingertips, he figured it was time to make that a primary goal again. Especially since Kate was invested in it as well, and he’d need the help.
“Ollie, you do realize you sound like some 19th century naval captain or Civil War commander writing a guilty letter home to his wife,” said Kate, but she was touched anyway. Maybe that was a soft spot, for her, she thought, then decided she really didn’t give a shit.
The kissing the fingertips thing totally helped. She decided she’d care more were it not for the fact that she knew (and, frankly, this conversation proved) that she was hardly going to roll over in the face of the tidal wave that was Oliver Queen and his Opinions. If anything, Ollie needed someone who took considerably less of his shit but still loved him at the end of it all.
“Dearest Katie,” she drawled, and kicked both feet up into his lap. “Long have been the nights I have lain awake and thought of your bright countenance, and these nights do get lonely for a man, so I must confess that my body has wandered where my soul has not....”