#*another day the office : case diggs

[intercomkris]

case diggs. a college student working here as an intern, looks good on his resume and gives him extra credits. definitely spills coffee everywhere, hogs the water-fountain, and is the mastermind behind the "wear your best sweater" day at the office.

@kashisun , i say we burn all his sweaters for spilling coffee everywhere in the damn office.

[raywritesthings]

Bird in a Storm 15/17

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, John Diggle, Quentin Lance, Captain Stein, Lucas Hilton, Frank Pike, Moira Queen, Thea Queen, Roy Harper Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: The confrontation between the Hood and SWAT on the roof of the Winick Building goes differently, altering the course of Laurel’s career, relationships and efforts to save her city forever, the shockwaves of such an altered path making themselves felt throughout her family and friends. *Can be read on my AO3, link is in bio*

Laurel was still having trouble processing what had happened at the memorial.

On some level, she knew Tommy’s dislike of the Hood wouldn’t mean good things if he ever found out Oliver’s identity, but to hear the words that had come out of his mouth that day had been another thing entirely. Where had that boy with the devil-may-care smile gone? Had she done this to him?

Laurel wasn’t naive enough to assume she was the only reason for Tommy’s new outlook and attitude. Her friend had always had an anger under the surface for what had happened to his mother, what his father hadn’t been able to be for him. There wasn’t anything she could have done to change those things, and so she had let it be. But maybe that had been wrong. She and Oliver had failed to be there for him, no matter their reasons for it, and now he apparently didn’t want or need their help. Who did they have to blame for it but themselves?

She was tackling Oliver’s salmon ladder today. The nice thing about his setup down here was that there was plenty of new things for her to learn that weren’t in the classes she had taken in self-defense, from Ted or with Anita. She was going to keep learning whatever she could get access to, because if she couldn’t help her friend then she would do everything she could to be ready to help others.

Oliver and Diggle sparred down below on the mats. After giving her a demonstration and watching her get up onto the first rung by herself, Oliver had left her to it. She liked that about them. One good thing about the distance they had had the last few months and her suiting up on her own was that he’d already realized she could handle things. For her part, Laurel knew that if she couldn’t, he and John were ready and willing to help out.

Laurel breathed in and out once on the top rung, her legs swinging back and forth in a slow, controlled manner, before she prepared to head back down. A beep from the computers distracted her, even more so when Oliver called out a halt to Digg and headed over.

She exchanged a look with the other man before hurrying to get back down, almost missing the last rung with the bar. She grabbed her water and towel and walked over. 

“Something about Athena turn up?”

“No,” Oliver said with a frown. She could tell it was bothering him, the lack of information on this woman who had replaced them both as Tommy’s confidant. “It’s the worm I sent into the SCPD’s computer system.”

Laurel felt both eyebrows raise. “You infiltrated the police’s computers?”

“Not the first time we’ve hacked them,” Diggle informed her.

“In my defense, this time was on your father’s orders,” Oliver added. “He’s worried about corruption and asked me to look into things.”

She was torn between laughing or screaming. “Okay, so my father, who had me surrounded by a SWAT team for asking you to help me on a case… wants you to help him on a case.”

Oliver blinked. “Uh… yup.”

“I can’t believe him!” Okay, maybe the anger was winning out. “He is such a hypocrite!” Even if she was at peace with how her life turned out, it wasn’t like it had been fun to get shot with a rubber bullet and lose her job, all for the exact thing her father was doing right now. It wasn’t like she wanted those things to happen to him, too, just some acknowledgement that maybe she hadn’t been wrong to do it. That there was a need in this city for vigilantes.

That he might not be angry if he ever found out what she was doing now.

“Trouble is, looks like he’s right,” said Diggle, who had taken possession of the mouse and was clicking through some of the data this data worm of Oliver’s had been collecting. “Look at this stuff from Nudocerdo’s time. Missing or deleted files on police misconduct, no records of disciplinary action, which means they either didn’t discipline anybody or they don’t want people to know if an officer’s been disciplined.”

“Lucky for us, it looks like Nudocerdo’s personal devices were connected up to the police systems at some point before he was fired. The worm got into them, too. Let’s take a look at his campaign finances.”

Laurel stopped pacing in order to come stand at Oliver’s side. He rubbed a hand up and down her back once in a show of comfort which she appreciated, especially since she was sweaty so it couldn’t have been very pleasant.

“You seeing what I see?” John asked a minute later.

“Yep,” Oliver answered grimly. “Tempest.”

“And what is Tempest exactly?” Laurel asked.

Oliver blanched, and Diggle sighed and looked down. “We should’ve told you this…”

“Told me what?”

“The reason Oliver agreed to interrogating his mother as the Hood,” Digg stated. “It was cause we found out she’d recovered the Queen’s Gambit wreckage, and it proved the boat wasn’t destroyed in the storm. It was sabotaged.”

Laurel felt her mouth drop open. “Sara wouldn’t have died out there?”

“Not if the boat hadn’t been targeted, no,” Oliver said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

She stepped back, trying to reconcile this was the anger and grief and the slow sense of a new normal she had been building for herself. Her sister had been murdered. Not intentionally — in fact, she probably hadn’t even been a thought in the perpetrator’s mind. But she could have come home. They could have had it out, the betrayal and all it had done. So much could have been different; maybe her whole life. Sara would have had a life.

“Laurel?” Oliver was hanging back, clearly unsure what he should do given the subject.

“It’s fine,” she said out loud, even if it wasn’t. But they were here to work. She could deal with her feelings in her own time. “What’s this got to do with Tempest?”

“It was the name of the shell company she used to pay to have the boat moved and stored somewhere. It’s been destroyed since,” John added before she could ask. “And it looks like Tempest also made regular contributions to Nudocerdo while he was Commissioner.”

“So he wasn’t just bad at his job, he was dirty,” Laurel concluded. “What about the other cops? The detectives, captains? How many of them can we tell are on the take?”

“I’ll have to comb through the files the worm grabbed. It’s gonna takes while,” Oliver said with a grimace. “I don’t think I can patrol tonight.”

He had gone out the last couple with her as she had been showing him her own method. Looking for crime as it happened rather than setting out for a predetermined target. Laurel couldn’t tell if he liked the imprecise nature of it or not, but she didn’t think he was saying this to get out of it.

“Maybe we could see if Felicity wants back in now that we know Tempest is still involved,” Diggle suggested.

“It’s not about Walter, so I don’t see why it would interest her,” Oliver replied. “And I’d rather not risk her feeling pressured.”

He’d been touchy about the amount of people who knew his identity and what they might do with it since the memorial. Laurel couldn’t blame him. It had to feel like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“It’s okay, I can do a solo one tonight.”

She started to walk over to her bag where she’d stored the black, gray and dark blue clothing she typically fought in, though Oliver called out to her.

“Laurel, are you gonna be okay?”

She looked back at him. “Yeah, Ollie. Just as soon as we figure out what Tempest really is and what they’re up to.”

Just how Mrs. Queen was mixed up with them? Was she Tempest or was she under their thumb? Laurel couldn’t get a read on Oliver or what he might be thinking about his mother. Did they need to question her again? And if they did, should Oliver really be the one in charge of it? She didn’t doubt he wanted the answers as much as she or John, but this was his mother. It would be hard for anything to think objectively in that situation.

She went into the back to change and headed out for the streets. Oliver had indeed upgraded her motorcycle, which had been quicker for him to do than the suit he claimed he was getting her custom made from a few different sources in order to avoid it being tracked. In some ways, she felt a little miffed that her version of things was being deemed inadequate, but Laurel knew that was pride over practicality. This was dangerous work, and it was better to have the best quality tools and materials available. 

And it wasn’t as if the stuff she had put together on her own was going totally to waste. She had kept the bike she had bought for cheap for her day job, which made getting to work quicker and also opened up the possibility for her to make deliveries. Pam had been delighted by the suggestion; a couple of her older customers couldn’t always find someone to drive them to the store, and this way new seeds, pots or plants could be delivered straight to them.

She refocused on the present as she came across a mugging, quickly driving off the attacker with the roar of her bike and her collapsible staff.

“Where were you trying to get to?” She asked the boy who had been held up. He was pale with dark blonde hair kept fairly long, sort of a bohemian-type.

“My apartment. It’s just up that way,” he said with a nod. “But thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Laurel kept up her patrol, sending a couple men running from a car parked on the street they’d been trying to jack. She was finding that with her swift approach on the bike, it tended to increase her intimidation factor. That or her reputation was growing. Maybe it was a little of both, and that thought made her grin. She had gotten her own police sketch, after all, she’d been amused to find out when John told her. That made her pretty official.

It also made her her dad’s problem to target. Assuming he was even doing that thing anymore. Dirty cops or no, this sort of thing he was doing with the Hood was so beyond what she ever would’ve thought him capable of.

Or what if it wasn’t? What if it was just another ruse, an attempt to lure Ollie into a trap? That sounded more like her father. He would never ask a vigilante for help; he’d deal with the dirty cops situation on his own. What had even caused him to realize it? Maybe he’d been making it up, only for Oliver’s computer virus to lend credence to it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp whistle. Laurel glared at the mirror before catching sight of the red hoodie in its reflection. Her annoyance disappeared as she pulled the bike around and followed Roy Harper into an alley.

“Nice ride,” he commented. “Pretty sure it’s out of your price range.”

“Yes, well the Hood and I have come to an agreement of sorts.”

Roy’s eyes widened. “You’re not just working for him now.”

“We’re working together. I thought you’d be happy about this,” she remarked. “The more the Hood and I work together, the better chance I have of bringing you in on things.”

“Yeah, I mean, I do want in,” Roy agreed, scuffing his shoe on the ground. “But people need you here, you know? Stopping the small stuff. The things he doesn’t always notice.”

Laurel hesitated. She had heard more than once from people in the Glades that while they may have no objections to what the Hood did, that it wasn’t really reaching them where they lived. They weren’t exactly wrong, but there was so much about the situation they couldn’t know, that she and Oliver and John didn’t even fully know yet.

“I think he’s noticing more all the time,” she finally answered, which was the truth. Whatever her own indignation towards her father, Laurel couldn’t have imagined the Oliver of two months ago let alone last year getting involved with systemic corruption in their city’s police force. “But don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. And I did ask him about you. He’s thinking about it.”

“Thanks,” Roy said. “Guess I should get out of here before anyone spots me with you.” He pulled his hood down further over his eyes and slipped back out into the main street. Laurel sat back on the bike seat to wait a while before heading back out there herself.

Roy’s words remained on her mind, however. What did she look like to the people who had noticed her in the Glades, zipping around on her top-of-the-line bike? Some kind of sellout? As much as she appreciated Oliver giving her access to better equipment and gear, she didn’t want people to think she was losing sight of what she had set out to do.

“That’s really what people think about me?”

She jumped, one arm already pulling back to deliver a punch before her mind caught up to the familiar voice. Laurel blinked at Oliver in surprise. “I thought you weren’t coming out tonight.”

“I ended up showing John what to look for in the files. He said he could handle it.” Oliver walked closer to her. “He also thought I should see how you were really feeling about everything.”

Laurel sighed, leaning forward on the handlebars. “What do you want me to say? I already knew my sister was dead. Now I know someone was indirectly responsible. Are you ever going to ask your mother who?”

He looked down, the hood he wore hiding his eyes. “I should. I just… something has been off about her ever since I came home. And especially since we got the news about Walter. I guess I’ve been afraid to find out what that is. I already know my father wasn’t who I thought he was. If my mother…”

Laurel reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. In a way, she understood. After losing her mother all those years ago, she had been desperate to keep the peace with her father and probably put up with more warning signs than it was worth instead of forcing them both to acknowledge his problems. “Our parents are going to disappoint us at times. Sometimes in a bigger way than most people go through.” She doubted many people had to deal with their father using them as bait for a SWAT operation gone wrong, after all. “But it doesn’t mean the things you know about them suddenly stop mattering. Whatever else, your father loved you. Your mother loves you. And if you still want her in your life, I think you can make that happen. But ignoring the problem isn’t how to do it.”

He nodded with a sigh. “Soon as I help your father, I’ll take care of it.”

“You don’t have to do it alone.”

His lips pulled up in a half-smile. “Maybe not, but it isn’t exactly a part of your mission.”

“My ‘mission’, if we’re calling it that, is to help people. And you fall under that category,” she reminded him with a prod to his shoulder. “You’ve been doing things my way the last couple of nights. It’s only fair I return the favor. And that starts with my dad’s thing.” If he thought she was sitting on the sidelines while her dad got involved in all this, he had another thing coming.

Oliver was silent for a moment, which had her narrowing her eyes. “What?”

“Your father… he’s hoping by resolving this issue, it will mean the city won’t need people like you or me. That things can go back to normal.” He frowned. “But seeing how widespread the corruption is, everything with Tommy and my mother, I don’t know how it can.”

“And normal isn’t exactly a good thing,” Laurel pointed out.

They both looked up at the sound of a scream from what sounded a few blocks away. A depressingly normal sound in the Glades.

“No, it isn’t,” Oliver agreed grimly. He raised his bow and fired a grapple arrow. Laurel gunned the engine of her bike, and they each took off toward the sound.

Whatever came next in their personal lives, acting in the face of injustice had become their new normal. And as far as Laurel was concerned, that was definitely a good thing.

---

Quentin started in his chair early that morning when a phone in his desk drawer started buzzing. It was the vigilante phone, which meant he really shouldn’t answer it inside. He quickly stood, doing his best to avoid Hilton’s questioning look as he headed out of the bullpen and out into the back alley. He was lucky enough to find it free of anyone on their smoke break. Finally, he answered the call.

“Yeah?”

“I have the information you requested, Detective,” the archer’s modulated voice spoke. “When and where can I deliver it to you?”

He had a feeling the vigilante wouldn’t react well to an immediate request, considering how light it was outside. Harder to hide in the shadows when they weren’t nearly so deep. “Uh… tonight. Down by the docks. Eleven?”

“I’ll be there.” With that, the line disconnected.

Quentin let out a breath. Tonight. He would know just which members of the force he was part of were dirty and which weren’t. He could take the information to Pike — at least, he hoped his gut was right that Pike was one of the good ones — and they could start cleaning house and getting this city back on track the right way.

He went back to his apartment to sleep off the night shift, showered and got some food in him. Then it was all down to waiting, which felt like an eternity rather than the few hours he knew it logically was.

Quentin took his own car rather than one of the squad cars, seeing as it would attract less attention. He kept his badge tucked away for that reason as well as he made his way down to the docks. He found a stack of crates to wait by that kept him mostly shielded from the lane trucks traveled up and down picking up or dropping off shipments. Not that there was much of that going on just now, but better to be safe than sorry.

Quentin kept checking his watch. He’d shown up early, sure, but it was already five past and no sign of him. What exactly was going on here?

“Seems your friend isn’t showing, Quentin.”

He startled as a flashlight beam hit him and straightened up. “Captain Stein.”

His superior raised a hand, the signal, he realized, for a number of SWAT lead by Warner to move in, surrounding him. Quentin raised his hands; he’d be a fool to reach for his gun now.

“Just what is this?” He knew he hadn’t been followed, so where had all of them come from?

“Ever since one of the copycat’s arrows disappeared from evidence, I knew we had a leak,” Stein stated, an underlying smugness in his tone. “And given your possession of a phone with a direct line to the Hood, you were the most obvious candidate. So I ordered Brock to take it out of your desk to have Crosby in CSU put some additional spyware on it. You could say your maneuver with your daughter inspired me,” the man added with a smirk.

Quentin’s blood ran cold as he noticed Brock standing there with his weapon raised alongside Hester, Lopez and — least surprising of all — Daily. These weren’t really his people, not besides Warner, and given the harsh glare she was directing his way, he didn’t think he’d see any leniency from her. The lack of Hall, despite her recruitment to the anti-vigilante task force nearly two months ago now, told him that this was Stein’s own hand-picked crew.

“We weren’t able to crack the encryption to follow the calls back to their source, unfortunately,” Stein continued on. “But I’ll consider bringing you in just one step closer to bringing down these vigilantes.”

Denying what he had been doing would get him nowhere, so Quentin didn’t even bother. “Look, I am trying to do the same thing. By tackling the problems that created the Hood and those like him in the first place. Bringing him in by force wasn’t working.”

“Because you lacked the conviction to do what was necessary. It’s why I had Daily join the Winick Building raid.”

Quentin’s breath stuttered in his chest. “You put him there so he’d shoot my daughter?” The younger officer was smirking where he stood, and if there weren’t a dozen guns pointed at him, he might have gone for the cocky bastard.

“You’ve failed to handle the situation objectively, Detective. Things were running just fine before this vigilante menace showed up, and I intend to see it return to that no matter who gets in the way!”

“Because your backers at Tempest have an interest in seeing it return to business as usual.”

Quentin had never been so relieved to hear the vigilante’s altered voice. Apparently the guy hadn’t pulled a no-show after all.

Two flechettes were thrown into the wrists of Warner and Hester, both of whom dropped their weapons. There were a couple grunts as Quentin caught movement near the back-left of the group; two of the men had fallen down. A few more of them turned, and it was this break in the formation that allowed him to glimpse a woman standing up from a crouched sweep kick, her fists raised. Dressed in black and dark blue with a mask and long, blonde hair, Quentin knew this could only be the Woman of the Glades.

This break in the formation gave the Hood time to rappel down from the roof of the warehouse he’d been waiting on top of, though Quentin didn’t watch to see where he landed as he was busy ducking around the crates to avoid Stein’s gunfire.

He quickly got out his own handgun and raised it, peering around the side to locate his enemy. Stein had moved back, out of reach of the Hood’s blows as he engaged both Daily and Lopez at once. 

The Woman had gotten possession of one of the SWAT shields and was using it as a battering ram on one side while she swung a staff with her free hand, throwing men twice her size to the ground. Quentin watched, however, as Cutter — the department’s first ever female SWAT member, battered the Woman back with her own shield. The Woman stumbled but kept her feet, her head giving a dazed shake for a moment. The two then circled each other before each charged.

Quentin circled around the other side of the crates, doing his best to crouch low in the hopes of getting the drop on Stein. The captain noticed him at the last second, forcing Quentin into a drop and roll as he fired on him.

“Attacking your own, Lance?”

“Trying to put a stop to this before anyone’s seriously hurt!” He called back. These people would have had enough evidence on him to arrest him at the station, but they’d waited to stage a sting operation with the clear intent of getting him and the Hood, and he doubted they’d stop at the Woman, since she’d been good enough to show. There weren’t rubber bullets in those guns, either, and judging by Stein’s attempt on his life just now, the order was shoot to kill.

An arrow sailed through the night and hit Stein’s gun, making him drop it. Quentin charged forward, knocking the older man to the ground and rolling him onto his chest. He wrenched Stein’s arms behind his back and got out his cuffs.

“If you’ve been listening to that phone since the Winick Building, then you could’ve shown up to catch him at Merlyn Global. But you didn’t, because it wasn’t personal yet, was it? You got nervous when I asked him for help rooting out corruption. Well, I’m gonna look through the evidence, find out just what this Tempest is and then it’ll be over for you and them!”

He looked up to take stock on the situation. Officers were either knocked out or tied up with those cable arrow things. The Hood was lifting Cutter up and away from the Woman, who had a split lip. She hauled back and punched the SWAT officer right in the face.

Quentin stood up. “Hey!” He didn’t need them doing that!

The Woman startled and looked away from him, her shoulders hunched. There was something almost sheepish in the gesture. He could also see a small tear in the shoulder of her jacket.

The Hood placed Cutter back on the ground considering she was knocked out cold. Then he walked over towards Quentin, his head ducked to avoid showing much more than his chin.

“This flash drive contains everything you’ll need.”

Quentin took it with a nod of thanks. He couldn’t help noticing that the Woman was already retreating back towards where he could just see the handlebar of a motorbike sticking out from the shadow of a building. Even less talkative than the Hood, apparently. Though that didn’t match the scant reports about her they’d gotten.

Before the Hood could take his leave as well, Quentin gestured towards her retreating form. “So is this, uh, a regular thing now?”

“It won’t be easy cleaning up the corruption and its effects on this city, Detective. You’ll need people like me and her for a while yet.”

It was the opposite of what he had wanted to hear tonight. But the one comfort he could draw was that the Hood sounded far from smug about it. He likely longed for the days when this city wouldn’t need him, too.

“Alright. I better call this in.” He turned away to get out his radio and heard the Hood depart. Now what the hell was he going to say about all this exactly? Best thing to do, request Hilt and see what he thought.

Predictably, his partner felt Quentin had landed them in a whole heap of trouble. “Even if what’s on that flash drive is a hundred percent genuine, you did agree to meet with a vigilante to get it, Quentin. What are we supposed to say to Pike about that?”

“Pike’s gonna have to accept that cops on some special interest group’s payroll is a bigger problem.”

Sooner than he would have liked, they had more officers on the scene to help get the injured parties treatment and to bring Stein, at the very least, in. It turned out he hadn’t put this little raid on the books, so it wasn’t only Quentin who would be answering some awkward questions.

To his great relief, Kelton took the flash drive. He made the CSU promise to guard it with his life. Quentin didn’t doubt that Crosby or someone else in on all this would love to make it disappear.

He sat waiting inside Pike’s office for the rest of that night, waiting for his direct superior to go through all of the evidence and question who he needed to. Quentin knew this probably didn’t look great for him, but he also knew he had done the right thing, and if he could just convince Frank of that, then maybe he might walk out of here a free man.

His real phone buzzed with a text just as the early light of dawn was creeping in through the window. Quentin glanced at it, saw Laurel’s name, and sat up to rub at his eyes. It read how’s everything?

He felt the corner of his mouth twitch. Somehow his girl always knew when to check on him. He considered it a good thing Laurel was actually reaching out considering they’d still only made a few halting attempts each to patch things up. Quentin wrote back, long night, but fine. At least he hoped it would be. But considering he hadn’t been hauled into a holding cell yet, he had hope.

Like a summons, the thought was immediately followed by Pike opening the door to his office and coming around to his side of the desk. A large folder was under his arm that he set down and opened.

“Quentin,” his long-time superior sighed. “This would’ve been easier if you would have just come to me.”

“Maybe, but sir, I did point out my concerns about Daily in particular to you, which you said you couldn’t do anything about. Now we both know why. Stein was protecting his man.”

“But a vigilante? The same vigilante you told me you didn’t want to give up hunting even when I scaled back the taskforce!”

He winced. “Things… changed. I realized I needed someone independent to look into what was going on here. What did Kelton find on that flash drive? Did it say what this Tempest is?”

“I already know what Tempest is,” Frank answered.

That caused his mouth to snap shut for a moment. “What do you mean, ‘you know’?”

“I mean I was informed about this Tempest just this past evening,” the Lieutenant clarified. “If I’d known it related to the vigilante case, I would have called you in.”

Quentin sat back. “Well, hang on, what is it really about?”

“It appears there is a group of the city’s most wealthy who got together to form a bloq,” Pike explained. He passed over the file, and Quentin took it, flipping through. The bribes were there, though not just to the SCPD. As he continued reading, he also came upon a record of property purchases in the Glades. “They’ve been behind a lot of the decisions made in the last several years, deciding what they think is best. And I have to warn you, Quentin, their end goal is… I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around it.”

He flipped another page and came upon schematics. Bomb schematics.

“What the… what the hell were they doing with this?”

“Nothing, yet. We were informed about this with enough time to do something. Now that you and, well, the vigilantes, have taken care of the people on the inside here that were working for them, we’ve got the upper hand. Now my source has identified the ringleader of this high society club, and I’m sending you and Hilton with backup to make the arrest.” Frank leaned forward. “You pull this off, Quentin, and no one’s going to care who you’ve been enlisting off the books. We’ll be heroes.”

He opened his mouth to tell his superior to get on with it and tell him who they were bringing in, but then he turned the final page. Quentin froze, his eyes widening.

“I’ll be damned…”

He should have known.

---

Thea relaxed on her bed, taking full advantage of the day off from community service. She was enjoying CNRI more now that Joanna was back and they occasionally actually did stuff, but she wouldn’t be a normal teenager if she wanted to work every single day. Besides, she had a kind of special event planned.

Thea was finally introducing her newly-christened boyfriend Roy to her mother. Thea had never bothered running her previous relationships past her mom, partly because she’d thought she hadn’t cared and partly because Thea hadn’t wanted it to be anyone’s business but hers. But if Walter’s loss had reminded her of anything, it was that you never knew how long you had with family. And truthfully, she thought it might bring her mom some comfort to know that Thea had someone special in her life.

She’d bullied Ollie into promising he would actually show for this since he had a bad habit of ditching family functions at the last second. It had helped that she had pointed out he and Laurel had ditched them at Mr. Merlyn’s memorial, and thus she and their mom hadn’t had the chance to catch up with what appeared to be a rekindling of their own relationship. So Oliver was supposed to be bringing both Laurel and Roy over to the manor.

Thea heard the sound of tires on the drive, so she quickly got up, checked her hair in the mirror and then raced out of her room and down the steps. Just as she reached the foyer, she heard a knock on the other side of the front door. That was weird, unless Ollie was making Roy knock in some stupid big brother intimidation routine.

She wrenched open the door, the smile freezing on her face when she found not her boyfriend, brother and his girlfriend waiting for her, but Detective Lance and his partner Hilton. Both officers grimaced at the sight of her.

“Is something wrong?”

“Where is your mother, Miss Queen?” Detective Hilton asked calmly. Thea couldn’t help noticing, however, that there was another car and two more officers waiting further down the drive.

“She’s, uh—”

“I’m right here.” When she turned around, she saw her mother descending the stairs in an outfit she called her ‘casual best’. Thea had already told her Roy had never had much money. “Can I help you with something, officers?”

Thea watched as Lance gave a shake of his head. “Let’s not drag this out in front of your daughter, alright? You’re coming downtown with us.”

“Wait, what?” Thea asked, only to be forced back as both Lance and Hilton pushed their way through the door, Hilton taking out a pair of handcuffs.

“You must be very mistaken,” her mother said gravely, though Thea couldn’t help noticing how very pale she looked.

“Not unless the thing we found them building at Unidac was actually a piñata,” Lance quipped. “Moira Queen, you’re under arrest for kidnapping, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, hiring an assassin, and conspiracy to commit mass murder. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

“Murder?” Thea echoed, somehow both hoarse and shrill at the same time. “No, no that’s crazy.”

“Miss Queen, if you could stay back,” Detective Hilton requested, gently buffeting her aside when she tried to move towards her mother, who had frozen in shock and only started moving when Lance marched her along with one hand under her arm.

“Mom!”

“Stay- stay in the house, baby,” her mother called over her shoulder.

Thea followed them out to the front stoop, her hands pressing to either side of her head as she watched them put her unresisting mother into the back of a squad car and drive away. The other two officers came inside and went up the steps, heading in the direction of her mother’s office.

How could this be happening again? Was she going insane with her life just repeating itself in circles? Her dad dying, Walter dying; Oliver being arrested for murder, her mother being arrested for murder. And how did that make any sense?

What was she supposed to do? Did she call Jean? Ollie? Thea sunk down onto the front step, her knees to her chest as cries were choked out of her.

How could everything have changed so fast and so horribly?

[ducktracy]

165. porky’s building (1937)

release date: june 19th, 1937

series: looney tunes

director: frank tashlin

starring: mel blanc (porky), billy bletcher (dirty digg), berneice hansell (rabbit), tedd pierce (sandy c. ment, dog)

alas, the photo limit prevents me from placing this in here, but the cartoon opens with a highly amusing disclaimer:

any similarity of characters or happenings in this picture to actual people or events is definitely intended................. if you think we're going to sit around for days thinking up new ideas - you're pixilated!

somewhat of a strange anomaly is mel blanc voicing fat porky. this is the first frank tashlin cartoon since porky’s romance, the last cartoon to feature porky’s original voice actor, joe dougherty. fat porky wouldn’t survive past 1937—frank tashlin was the sole person who kept him going, after tashlin’s porky’s double trouble he got a diet. this is more of a personal anecdote than a concrete observation, i always found this so-called “transitional period” amusing. nevertheless—it’s up to porky you beat his rival, dirty digg, to see who can build the best town hall the fastest.

frank tashlin, ever the cinematographer, introduces the cartoon with a silhouette behind a closed door, the door identifying the silhouette as sandy c. ment, city building commissioner. tedd pierce provides the voice for sandy, discussing the plans for the new city hall about to be built. we see porky and a particularly grizzly brute as the gentlemen sandy is referring to, the only two contractors in the city. they’re both tasked with building the city hall--whoever can come up with the cheapest bid wins. i believe it’s norm mccabe who does some particularly funny animation of porky waving to his rival, only to receive a steely glare in return, much to the rejection of porky. i’m certain frank tashlin’s feelings towards porky were projected into that glare.

sandy displays the city hall plans, revealing a poster of an art deco feat of modern architecture. tashlin’s cartoons in the 30′s are particularly rife with the streamlined, art deco feel, supported by his tendency to use jazzy underscores as we see here as well. more norm mccabe(?) animation as porky and his rival get the papers they need to sort out the bids. lovely animation as any sense of camaraderie between the two is gone in a snap, both nose to nose (or nose to snout?) as they stalk over to their desks to crunch the numbers, not once breaking physical contact or eye contact until absolutely necessary. mel blanc and billy bletcher’s voices collide as the two crunch the numbers aloud, the billy bletcher brute deliberately copying porky’s numbers. the two finish, the staring contest resumes, and they do the same furious tango back to sandy.

as fate has it, the two reach a tie with their bids at $3,000,000.02 each, with a hilarious detail of dirty diggs’ paper including scribbles of a stickman and a self serving game of tic tac toe, indicating just how dedicated he is to his craft. the tie stumps sandy on how to determine who gets to build the city hall, until he reaches a conclusion��both get to build the city hall. whoever finishes first, wins. a lack of sound effects hides the detail, but there’s some rather amusing animation as sandy jabs a finger in porky’s face and honks dirty digg’s nose daffy duck style.

transition to the two now at their respective construction sites, waiting to take off like runners in a race, accompanied by a crowd no less. sandy fires a starting pistol, and the two take off to build. digg hops into his backhoe, clearing the land for his building. can’t go wrong with the backhoe scooping up a giant boulder and crunching it up with an anthropomorphic mouth, spitting the chunks into a cart. porky’s dinky little contraption is just as whimsical, with a mechanical boot slamming itself against an actual shovel suspended by a pulley to clear the way. frank tashlin does a wonderful job juxtaposing the personalities, through mannerisms and extraneous details such as their equipment. 

the rubbery animation associated with digg is only furthered as he struggles to pull his backhoe out of the deep hole he dug for himself--we see that the street lamps in the city are caught in the machine, bobbing up and down in their respective ��posts”. finally, digg prevails, pulling out a tangled mess of rubbery street lamps. points for creativity. 

elsewhere, the cartoon takes a rather morbid yet wonderfully hilarious turn: a dog construction worker loads crates of dynamites into a hole, chuffing halfheartedly on a pipe as he waddles back to the dynamite lever, hands in pockets, marching along to a whimsical rendition of “boulevardier from the bronx”. rolling up his sleeves, he prepares to pull the lever, when a crowd of spectators approach, leaning in as the dog prepares to fire. the dog opens one eye and grunts “step back folks, ya bother me,” VERY well timed to a nice little oboe underscore with each syllable. the crowd gives him his space... until the dog prepares to fire again. another “step back folks, ya bother me.” they oblige, until they don’t. the charade continues, until finally the dog waddles back to the hole where the crates are stashed, rendition of “boulevardier from the bronx” and all. the dog pokes an eye open as the lemmings inevitably wander to the hole of dynamite (a fitting underscore of “let’s put our heads together” to boot.) the dog squeezes his way through the crowd, heads to the lever... and BOOM! cold blooded murder dismissed with a mere dusting off of the hands. a WONDERFUL gag timed succinctly and purposefully prolonged--the same dog would reappear a year later in porky the fireman, another tashlin piece, doing the same prolonged waddle and same accompaniment of boulevardier from the bronx. 

a collection of some whimsical animal gags, gags that feel like something out of a harman and ising cartoon, albeit more polished. two beavers load cement and sand into a cocktail shaker strapped to the side of a camel, a pelican dumping water from its beak into the makeshift cocktail. the camel shakes the shaker, all of the animals swaying along. perhaps slightly outdated, yet still fun nonetheless. turtles flip their shells open (wheels attached to the top--or in this case, bottom--of the shells) and tow away the mixture created by the animals. meanwhile, a dog carrying a load of cement, the hod carrier, marches up a support beams thanks to suction cups tied on his shoes, complete with some jaunty music and animation. dirty digg lives up to his namesake by playing dirty, hurling a brick at the dog. the dog falls, his suction cups continuing to ascend up the scaffolding, underscore and all. 

we meet camera shy porky for the first time in a few minutes, a reflection of frank tashlin’s distaste and uncertainty regarding the character, who encourages his team to “get in there and fight!” they’re all lined up along a bench, a sign above labeling them as “HOD CARRIER SUBSTITUTES”. thus sparks the running gag of the cartoon: as the substitutes dash off do to their duty for porky, a diminutive rabbit (voiced by berneice hansell, of course) zooms up to porky, donning a sweater that reads “HOD CARRIER” as she squeaks “how ‘bout me, porky?” porky isn’t at all convinced by her diminutive stature, snapping “no!” 

on porky’s team, a few pelicans pull the appropriate levers to mix water, cement, and sand in their bills, flying off and twirling their heads and bills around to create the mixture. one pelican successfully discards his load down a long chute to the construction site. the next, however, isn’t so lucky. ever the conniving weasel (or dog), digg attaches a dead fish to a balloon for the oncoming pelican to feast on. the pelican, eager for the snack, spits out its mixture in favor of the fish, the mixture pouring from the sky and landing right on porky. none too deterred, porky encourages his cement mixer substitutes, a line of pelicans, to, once again, get out there and fight. as they fly off, the eager rabbit from before, now donning a sweater labeling her as a cement mixer, squeaks “how ‘bout me, porky?” the same routine as porky once more yells “no!”

digg’s construction site is going swimmingly, as to be expected. a wonderful slanted layout as we spot the builders hard at work. despite the success of the building, digg barks “okay boys, c’mon down. i don’t need you anymore.” digg marches into his office, a makeshift shack on the site, and we’re left to ponder what it is he’s scheming as a rolling pan of the exterior shields us from digg's view, the billy bletcher laugh the only thing cluing us in to nefarious acts. tashlin loved to do the concealing pans, and they work out well in his favor, adding a sense of suspense and anticipation. out on the other side comes digg in a fancy new machine--DIRTY DIGG’S BRICK BRICK LAYING MACHINE.

porky, who’s dutifully laying his bricks the old fashioned way, spots digg’s new trick, and is hardly pleased. mel’s stuttering is particularly heavy, still attempting to emulate joe dougherty as porky complains “say! you can’t do that!” digg takes no offense. “well, i’m doing it, ain’t it?” settings on digg’s machine include start, full speed, super speed, super colossal speed, gosh darn fast, and reverse. digg pulls the lever to start, increasing the speeds as bricks inevitably hurtle out of the chute and land right into place on the site of his building. wonderful (and tedious!) complex animation as the bricks pile on, one after the other, even porky taking a moment to admire the handiwork. tashlin’s cartoons always seem to entail bits of animation that seem so tedious and complex to animate, such as a whole mess of train cars zigzagging on train tracks in porky’s railroad, or the interminable pile of luggage carried by daffy in porky pig’s feat. tashlin’s eye for detail is keen.

a score board gloatingly displays digg’s lead over porky: digg has 22 stories, porky 2. as porky mourns his loss (”woe is me... woe is me!”) no matter--the eager beaver bunny from before is there to cheer him up, donning a “brick layer” sweater with the same “how ‘bout me, porky?” porky declines. a quick zoom in and out, and the rabbit asks the same question, now donning a “colossal brick layer” sweater. porky once more declines. with the third and final “super colossal brick layer”, porky finally yells “no!”, to which the rabbit sulks off. thankfully, porky has a change of heart. “ok-ok-o-oka-ok-ok-oka--alright, eh-geh-geh-go in there and eh-feh-fi-feh-fight!” little rabbit is ecstatic.

the power of popeye compels the rabbit as she flexes her muscles, even flexing her ears to make a pair of makeshift muscles. one ear scoops the mortar, the other tosses a brick on top, and we very quickly realize she is MORE than capable for the job, laying bricks three times as fast as digg’s machine. the scoreboard hurries to adjust porky’s “score”, both of them now tied at 77 stories each. even better is the little “whew!” the rabbit sighs after pausing to rest, a lovely bit of comedic timing both underscoring and highlighting her work.

now, digg rushes to beat porky’s building, realizing he has a worthy competitor on his hands. the two are neck and neck... until the poor mechanical design of digg’s brick layer lands him in hot water. he mistakes the reverse setting for the highest speed setting, and with a hearty kick to the lever, the lever breaks and is now stuck in reverse. mel blanc seems to provide digg’s exclamation of “gosh! it’s stuck in reverse!” instead of bletcher. just as quickly as he had laid the bricks, the bricks of digg’s building come hurtling back into the machine, the machine swelling bigger and bigger as it threatens to burst from the congestion. digg’s entire building is now without a brick, and to make matters worse (or better), the machine finally explodes.

porky’s dinky little backhoe from before comes to life, digging a plot of land the perfect size for digg to fit in. digg flops to the ground from the impact of the explosion, receiving a swift kick to the ass with the machine’s shoe and a konk on the head via shovel for good measure.

elsewhere, porky triumphs, his city hall now complete. the cartoon’s motif of “fifty-second street” triumphantly underscores porky’s victory as he shakes his fist in the glory, perched on top of his architectural feat as his adoring fans shout from below. suddenly, we’re visited by a familiar friend: the little rabbit from before zips to porky’s side. “how ‘bout me, porky?” instead of shooing her away, porky is more than happy to lift her up and have her pose on his outstretched hand. a wholesome iris out as the little rabbit clasps her ears together like fists, reveling in the glory.

truthfully, this is probably the one porky cartoon i forget about the most. not that it’s bad by any means, but out of his hearty filmography of 153 cartoons, this one isn’t the most notable. with that said, this is a fine cartoon. the animation is certainly the highlight: whether it’s porky and dirty digg doing their furious nose-to-snout tango, the dog lumbering around the site of the dynamite hole, the animals mixing cement together, or the entire brick laying montage, there is a lot to admire, the climax of the cartoon especially. the “how ‘bout me, porky?” gag is especially amusing, albeit taxing (as it was intended to be), and the dynamite gag with the dog is wonderfully morbid. porky still has a very transparent personality, yet mel’s deliveries are fun to listen to, especially at this stage when he’s still figuring out the speech patterns. the cartoon’s music score is absolutely WONDERFUL, very jazzy, very upbeat, a fitting score to match the streamlined look of the cartoon.

while this isn’t my go-to recommendation for porky cartoons, it makes for an amusing watch. i wouldn’t urge you to drop everything and see it, and if you don’t watch it you’ll be just as well off, but this is a fine cartoon with a lot to admire. 

link!

[originalhybridloverfics]

Rememberance Ch14

A/N: Hi, I'm finally back with a chapter for this story. I hope you like the chapter and I hope everyone is staying and this provides a welcome distraction.

“C’mon, Felicity, let’s go out. I want to see all there is here to see before we head back home to Starling City.” Sara said with a small pout. 

“Except we won’t be returning home just yet,” Felicity argued. “Oliver and I need to get rid of this curse, and Talina is still working on getting the ingredients for the dream root.” 

“Exactly, we have time to have fun before returning to the crazy shit that is going on.” 

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” Oliver said, seated across from them. 

“Which means it’s a terrible one.” Diggle sipped his straight black coffee. 

They were having breakfast at the hotel out on the balcony. Oliver had ordered them a full spread. 

“All I’m asking for is today.” Sarah insisted. “Just one day, after that, we can be all about figuring everything else out.”

“What’s the harm?” Oliver asked. 

Felicity’s gaze moved from Sara to Oliver, their hopeful looks had her giving in. “Okay, but just for today.”

“Be ready in two hours to leave,” Felicity instructed. 

“Here, I was hoping for a relaxing day,” John muttered. 

“No one said you have to come with us,” Oliver told him. 

“And risk Moira Queen blackballing me?” John snorted. “Tell that to someone else.” 

Felicity nodded her head in agreement. She never officially met the woman, but she seemed intimidating, to say the least. 

Later, Felicity took them to the park she used to frequent, the gym she went to growing up, her favorite movie theater, her favorite cafe. They went by the beachside houses that Felicity used to go to on those scorching days.

“How much time did you spend here?” Sara wondered as they walked along the beach. 

“Off and on, through my teens. Not as much as I could’ve. Mostly when the heat became unbearable.” 

“Why?” Asked Oliver. “Who doesn’t love a day on the beach.” 

“I was self-conscious then. My mom always insisted on Bikinis, and I wasn’t as comfortable with my body as she was.” 

“That makes absolutely no sense to me,” Oliver stated. Felicity was hot. He had thought so from the moment he saw her. 

“I was a nerd, I was younger than most the people I associated with, and I didn’t have a lot of friends from high school. I didn’t come into myself until college.” Felicity shrugged. 

“In that case, I think before we head back to Staring, we could come here, make a day of it,” said Sara with a smirk. “Maybe even get a beach bonfire going.” 

“We could do that back home, too.” Oliver chimed in. He would prefer to make a day of it with just him and Felicity. 

The thought of seeing her in a small bikini, dripping wet from the water, spending the day on the beach, beneath the hot sun, and keeping his hands to himself seemed impossible. He had restraint, but his control around Felicity was a thin tether. He would much rather be alone with her under those circumstances. No distractions but her. 

There was only so much he could take when his body screamed for her whenever she was near, his heart longed to be close to her in a way he never wanted to be close to anyone else.

Felicity looked at Oliver, a smile pulling at her lips. “Maybe we will.” 

John, who was quiet most of the time. “Maybe you should make it a private beach. Unless you want to traumatize the locals with your obvious eye sex.” 

Sara snorted. 

Felicity blushed, and Oliver was mesmerized by the flush in her cheeks, wondering how far down it went as it moved down her slender neck.  

                                            ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ 

Later in the evening, Felicity announced that they would be going to a casino. The one where her mother worked. Where she spent just as much time there as she did at home when she was growing up. 

Often when she was younger, and her mother was unable to get a babysitter, Donna would take her to work with her. 

Sara was thrilled and pulled on a green dress with a plunging neckline, coming to a stop a few inches above her knee; it clung to her like a second skin. 

Felicity wore a pair of blue jean cut off shorts, paired with a red blouse with an open back, her blonde hair curled around her shoulders, and her glasses perched on her nose. 

Oliver, upon seeing Felicity, felt his breath leave him in a rush, his attention drawn to her red painted lips. The moment he saw her turn around, his hand itch to touch her back. All that perfect skin on display and don’t even get him started on how her ass looked in her mini shorts, her incredible legs being shown off.

Felicity Smoak was perfection walking the earth and not one, not a single soul could convince him otherwise. 

Felicity was taken with the way he wore his jeans and a simple dark gray T-shirt that clung to his muscles, looking like it might rip.  

John was in his patented suit, looking like he was more than ready for the night to be over. 

Donna had been thrilled to see them and had pulled a few strings to get them into the VIP section. 

Oliver was honestly impressed that Felicity knew her way around a casino like the back of her hand. 

After watching Felicity count cards for half an hour and playing a few rounds of roulette, Felicity was approached by a large man. 

“Miss, I’m going to need you to come with me. Mr. Delgato would like to see you.”

Oliver tensed, eyes narrowing on the towering figure. “She’s not going anywhere with you.” 

“It’s okay, Oliver.” Felicity placed her hand on his chest. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Follow me, please. Mr. Delgato does not like to be kept waiting.” The bouncer insisted. 

“She is not going alone.” Digg interceded. 

The bouncer sighed in annoyance. “Just don’t get in the way.” 

Sara hooked her arm with Felicity as they followed the man deeper into the casino, through a series of dark halls until they reached a pair of large double doors. “You are remarkably calm when we’re about to walk in a lion’s den. 

Felicity barely refrained from laughing. Mr. Delgato was as far from a lion as one could get. However, he did love his dramatics. 

The large man with a build that could rival Digg’s pushed opened the double doors and ushered them inside. 

The room was painted in dark undertones, with leather furniture. A large mahogany desk dominated the room, a middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair sat behind it, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand. He wore a dark suit and a red tie. His hair was slicked back. His jaw was set, the stubble on his jaw making him look rugged. His frown made him appear intimidating, his green eyes, however, were grave and unreadable.

The man’s eyes landed on Felicity, and he set his drink down slowly. 

“Felicity Smoak.” The man ground out. 

Felicity raised her head. “Mr. Delgato.”

The man stood suddenly, pushing his chair back. 

Oliver instinctively wrapped his arm around Felicity, ready to pull her behind him, to safety when Mr. Delgato’s expression changed, his lips pulling into a broad smile. “Get over here, ‘licity, and give your uncle Daniel a hug.” 

Felicity smiled, pushing past the bouncer and walked into the older man’s arms. “Uncle Danny, it’s great to see you.” 

Daniel squeezed her for a moment before pulling back and saying. “Let me get a good look at you.” 

“What is happening?” Sara whispered to Oliver, leaning toward him. 

“I have no clue,” Oliver said in bewilderment as the man looked at her with the eyes of a father. 

“I think it’s clear they know each other pretty well,” Digg muttered, crossing his arms. 

“You are just as beautiful as your mother, if not more.” Daniel praised. 

“How’s Aunt Meg?” Felicity asked, smiling. 

“She’s great. She just opened a cafe off of Wornell road and 35th street not far from the strip. She’s going to be thrilled to see you. Donna didn't tell us you were coming to visit.”

“She didn't know. It was kind of a spur of the moment kind of thing.” Felicity responded. 

Daniel nodded and looked past her. “Who are your friends?”

“Oh,” Felicity stepped back, instinctively tucking herself into Oliver’s side. “This is John Diggle, Sara Lance, and Oliver Queen.” 

Daniel’s eyes flitted down, watching as Oliver and Felicity’s hands migrated to one another, his eyes darted back up narrowing. “Daniel Delgato.” he extended his hand toward Oliver. 

Felicity smiled. “Daniel was the closest thing I had to an uncle growing up. When my mother had to work, I would be back here doing the books.”

“Or taking apart my computer,” Daniel interjected. 

“I was building you a better one.” Felicity defended. 

Daniel smiled affectionately. “Of course.” He looked at the others. 

“Sorry for the dramatics. Sometimes I can’t help myself, but any friend of Felicity’s is welcome in my casino. Have fun, and all your drinks will be on the house tonight.”

“That’s not necessary,” Oliver replied. “I can more than cover our tab.” 

Felicity nudged him in the ribs. “What Oliver meant to say was thank you for the generous offer. Isn’t that correct?”

Daniel watched in amusement as the man who his favorite genius clearly had wrapped around her finger, nodded immediately. “Absolutely.”

Daniel refrained from shaking his head as he looked at Oliver once again. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something oddly familiar about Oliver. Something he couldn’t place. Daniel felt like he knew him but was certain he didn’t.  

Daniel made it a point to remember people in his line of work. It was taxing but necessary. But no matter how much Oliver may seem familiar, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why that was. 

Daniel focused back on Felicity. “I won’t keep you. I’m sure you came out tonight to have fun with your friends, but I hope you have an hour or two to spare for your aunt and me tomorrow.” 

“Of course.” Felicity nodded. 

“Great. I will make the reservations and text you the details.” Daniel hugged her again, pressing a fatherly kiss to the top of her head.

                                              ~*~ ~*~ ~*~  

After leaving Daniel’s office, Sara and Oliver were full of questions, while Digg made silent observations. 

Felicity, not wanting to answer a bunch of questions at a casino, took them to one of her favorite Italian restaurants that had a wine selection to die for. 

Felicity sat across from Sara and John with Oliver to her right.

“You failed to mention you had an in with the man who runs the casino,” Digg commented. 

“I didn’t think it was something worth mentioning.” Felicity shrugged. 

“Is he really your uncle?” Sara wondered. 

“No.” Felicity shook her head, “But he is the closest thing I’ve had to a father growing up. My mom works at the casino most nights. She’s worked there for as long as I can remember. My mom is best friends with his wife, Megan. When my mom couldn’t always get a babysitter when I was a little, she would bring me to work. Daniel was very understanding and let me hang out in his office. Sometimes on the nights when my mom was working the overnight shift, Aunt Megan would take me home until my mom got off work.”

“I thought we were being led into the lion’s den,” Oliver said. “I thought I was going to have to be your knight and protect you from him.” 

Felicity snorted. “That’s sweet, but Uncle Daniel would sooner jump into oncoming traffic then see me hurt.” 

“You know, he seemed oddly familiar to me.” Oliver murmured. “I swear I know him from somewhere, but I don't know where.” 

“Has he ever been to Star City?” Digg questioned. 

“Not that I know of,” Felicity answered. 

“Well, have you been here before?” Sara questioned. “To Las Vegas.”

“A few times with Tommy,” Oliver admitted. 

“Maybe you saw him before,” said Sara. 

“Maybe,” Oliver allowed, but as he looked at Felicity, he wasn’t so sure of that.

The feeling of familiarity he got about Daniel was different. He didn’t just feel like he saw his face. He felt like he knew him. He felt like the man was family. 

How fucking strange was that? He just met the guy. He didn’t know him, Adam from Eve, but yet he felt like he had a familial connection to the man. 

Felicity, feeling he was troubled, placed her hand on his knee. 

Oliver looked at her and placed his hand over hers, interlacing their fingers. Fighting the urge to lean over and kiss her like he wanted. 

                                                ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ 

After leaving the restaurant, Sara declared she wanted to have a drink and cut loose a little. Felicity decided she might as well take them to her favorite bar she had been sneaking into since she was 16.

Oliver looked around as they stepped inside, his eyes widening as he took in the decor and the patrons. The bar consisted of a dance floor on one side of the room, and on the other were two pool tables, further back was a series of booths and couches, there were tables scattered through the room. 

A bartop made of rich brown wood that widened out with a stripper pole at each end. 

“A biker bar?” Sara whistled lowly. “Felicity Smoak, you have some stories you have not told me.” 

Felicity blushed. “I had a thing for bikers in my teens. Plus, this place was never strict with ID’s and didn’t ask questions. It also helped that on Fridays, they would serve the best Bacon cheeseburger in town. One of the best kept secrets around.” 

“When you say you had a thing for bikers?” Sarah smirked slowly. 

“I mean, I well, imagine what it would be like to spend the night with an outlaw biker, but nothing ever happened. I was sixteen. I was young, not stupid.” 

“I get it.” Sara offered a smirk. “And I can tell you from experience an outlaw biker is great in the sack.”

Oliver cleared his throat. “I’m great in the sack.”

Felicity bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. She was certain Oliver was great in bed if the way he kissed her was any indication, but the way he said that like he felt the need to defend himself was so cute. Men and their fragile egos. 

“This discussion is taking a turn, I do not want to hear,” Digg announced and walked away from them toward the bar. 

“No one said you weren’t.” Sara sent Oliver a smirk. “But you’re no biker.” 

“I can be one,” Oliver looked at Felicity. 

He could be anything Felicity wanted him to be.

He didn’t have to say the words for Felicity to know what he was thinking. She stepped closer to him and placed her hand over his heart. “I don’t need you to be anyone but yourself.”

Oliver’s hand came up to rest over hers, fingers locking with hers and squeezing. A feeling of contentment filling him, he leaned down, slowly giving her time to move away if she wanted. 

Felicity didn’t. She met him halfway, their lips brushing softly, sweetly. 

Oliver’s other hand came up to rest on the side of her neck. His thumb brushing the underside of her jaw, fingers slipping into her hair as he deepened the kiss, nipping at her bottom lip. 

Felicity opened to him, his tongue slid along hers, and she breathed in the taste of him. 

Sara watched them for a moment before throwing her hands in the air. 

Since Oliver had come back after having his heart stopped, it was like whatever wall of resistance Felicity put up was gone. Oliver was even more determined to be close to her. 

Sara joined Digg at the bar. Neither Felicity or Oliver noticed, lost in every slide of the tongue, every brush of the lips. Lost in the feel of every touch and every breath they breathed together. 

It wasn’t until someone bumped into them, throwing them off balance that they broke away from the sensual embrace they found themselves in and joined Sara and Digg at the bar. 

“Smoak, you’re blonde!” the bartender made a beeline for them, his punk rock hair tinted purple and spiked in every direction. He had a piercing in his nose and left eyebrow. His eyes were lined with mascara.

“Drew,” Felicity smiled. “You still enjoy being a bartender?”

“Hey, if it’s not broke. No need to fix it.” Drew smirked. “What happened to you living somewhere in California?”

“Starling City. I still do, I’m here temporarily with some friends.” She waved her hand to her three companions. “Digg, Sara, Oliver, I liked you to meet an old friend. Drew.”

“What can I get you, first round on the house, courtesy of Felicity.” Drew grinned at them. 

“For starters, you can order us a round of Tequila.” Sara grinned. “And you could tell us what was with the blonde comment?”

“Drew,” Felicity said warningly. 

Drew grinned. “She dyes it.”

“Really?” Oliver leaned closer to Felicity, looking at her roots. 

“Traitor.” Felicity accused, reaching out to swat at Drew. 

Drew laughed, dodging her hands. “Felicity here is a natural brunette, though the last time I saw her, she had raven black hair, with purple highlights. My partner in everything goth.”

“Felicity Smoak,” Sara’s eyes glinted. “You had a goth phase?”

“It wasn’t a phase.” Felicity protested. 

“I’m trying to picture it,” Digg said, looking over at Felicity. “But I can’t. You’re too colorful and bright.” 

“I’ve got pictures.” Drew pulled out his phone, scrolling through it.

“Don’t you dare.” Felicity threatened. 

Drew only grinned and passed Digg his phone. 

“I’ll be damned,” Digg said as Sara reached for the phone and whistled lowly. 

Felicity covered her eyes in embarrassment. “Drew, I’m going to kill you.” 

“No, you won’t,” Drew responded confidently. “We’ve got too much history.” 

Felicity scowled. “I’ll wipe your phone clean, including the backup data.” 

“You wouldn’t.” Drew protested. 

“Wouldn’t I?” Felicity arched an eyebrow.

“Alright, alright, let’s not go there.” Drew took back his phone. “No more pictures.”

“I thought so,” Felicity responded, and Drew moved away to pour their drinks. 

“You know I never had a thing for Goths,” Oliver leaned in close to her, his hot breath fanning her neck. “But after seeing that, I can see the appeal. I just might have a goth fantasy.”

Felicity’s lips pulled in amusement. “If we would have met when I was in my goth phase, you would be rethinking that. I would’ve torn into you, and it would have left you traumatized.”

“Is it wrong that I find that hot?” Oliver questioned. 

“Yes.” Sara and Digg said together, hearing Oliver clearly. 

Drew appeared again with their drinks. Digg picked up his and went to the end of the bar. 

Sara downed her drink. “Enough with the flirting. I want to dance.” 

She grabbed Felicity’s hand and dragged her across the dance floor. 

Oliver picked up his drink and turned to lean against the bar, his eyes drinking Felicity in. 

He watched as Felicity allowed herself to cut loose and have fun with Sara. She looked so free and happy. He wondered if she would look that free on the back of a bike. 

Finding out that Felicity had a thing for a guy who rode bikes made him want to buy one. If she wanted to ride, he would more than gladly give her one. Pun intended. 

But more than that, he wanted to give Felicity anything and everything she wanted. He wanted to fill her every want, desire, and whim. 

Tomorrow he would buy a bike, he and Felicity could go for a ride around town. Possibly spend the day at the beach. Just the two of them. 

And once they were cured of their curse, he was going to ask her out for a real date. 

Oliver was hoping with everything that he had that when he finally did, she would say yes and give him, give them a real chance at something that he knew would be amazing.  

A/N: Hi, I'm finally back with a chapter for this story. I hope you like the chapter and I hope everyone is staying and this provides a welcome distraction.

You can also find the rest of the story here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6615427/chapters/15136834

Tags: @6i66leserna @angelamccauley15 @almondblossomme @ilikethebackofyourneck @omglovechrissie @erika-amber @rainbowuniquern @scu11y22 @msbeccieboo

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF PROJECT

Then when you start a startup anywhere. That's why mice and rabbits are furry and elephants and hippos aren't.1 The very design of the average site in the late twentieth century. He got a 4x liquidation preference. Google, it's hard to get into grad school in math. Can we claim founders are better off as a result of this new trend. Where you live should make at most a couple percent difference. But investing later should also mean they have fewer losers.

They make something moderately appealing and have decent initial growth.2 If you major in math it will be whatever the startup can get from the first one to write a paper for school, his mother would tell him: find a way to turn a billion dollar industry into a fifty million dollar industry, so much the better, if all fifty million go to you. The classic yuppie worked for a small organization. Before us, most companies in the startup funding business. The best way to get a big idea can take roost.3 4 or 5 million. This essay grew out of something I wrote for myself to figure out how to increase their load factors. But you can also apply some force by focusing the discussion: by asking what specific questions they need answered to make up their minds. This plan collapsed under its own weight.4 Startups happened because technology started to change so fast that big companies could no longer keep a lid on the smaller ones.

The only place your judgement makes a difference is in the industry.5 People who do great work, and it's a bad sign when you have a special word for that. One of the exhilarating things about coming back to Cambridge every spring is walking through the streets at dusk, when you can see into the houses. If you have steep revenue growth, say over 6x a year, no matter how many good startups approach him. Recently we managed to recruit her to help us run YC when she's not busy with architectural projects.6 This works better when a startup has 3 founders than 2, and better when the leader of the company in later rounds. I'm not saying you can get away with zero self-discipline.

We're not a replacement for don't give up. What you should not do is rebel. But while series A rounds from VCs. Someone who's scrappy manages to be both threatening and undignified at the same world everyone else does, but notice some odd detail that's compellingly mysterious.7 Even Tim O'Reilly was wearing a suit, a sight so alien I couldn't parse it at first. They can't tell how smart you are.8 The story about Web 2. Maybe one day the most important thing is to be learned from whatever book on it happens to be closest. This essay is derived from a keynote at FOWA in October 2007. They'll decide later if they want to raise.9

Sometimes it reached the point of economic sadism: site owners assumed that the more pain they caused the user, the more benefit it must be to them. It's cities that compete, not countries.10 Kids are curious, but the best founders are certainly capable of it. But investors are so fickle that you can fix for a lot of time on work that interests you, and don't just refuse to. But you have to be an insider.11 A key ingredient in many projects, almost a project on its own, is to step onto an orthogonal vector. So ironically the original description of the Web 2. Back when it cost a lot to like I've done a few things, like intro it to my friends at Foundry who were investors in Service Metrics and understand this model I am also talking to my friend Mark Pincus who had an idea like this a few years ago.12 0 seemed to mean was something about democracy. We didn't have enough saved to live on. There is another reason founders don't ask themselves whether they're default alive or default dead.13

So most investors prefer, if they wanted, raise series A rounds. They're unable to raise more money, and precisely when you'll have to switch to plan B if plan A isn't working. That doesn't mean the investor says yes to everyone. Miss out on what? It's so cheap to start web startups that orders of magnitudes more will be started. Investors evaluate startups the way customers evaluate products, not the way bosses evaluate employees. The bust was as much an overreaction as the boom.14 Startups are undergoing the same transformation that technology does when it becomes cheaper.15 Another way to fly low is to give them something for free that competitors charge for. After all, a Web 2.16 He bought a suit.

Instead you'll be compelled to seek growth in other ways. They all knew their work like a piano player knows the keys. But consulting is far from free money. They say they're going to get eliminated. What does it mean, exactly? If investors were perfect judges, the two would require exactly the same skills. And to be both good and novel, an idea probably has to seem bad to most people, or someone writes a particularly interesting article, it will show up there. The mere existence of prep schools is proof of that.17 So far the complete list of messages I've picked up from cities is: wealth, style, hipness, physical attractiveness wouldn't have been a total immersion. Don't just do what they tell you to do. But advancing technology has made web startups so cheap that you really can get a portrait of the normal distribution of most applicant pools, it matters least to judge accurately in precisely the cases where judgement has the most effect—you won't take rejection so personally. If raising money is hard.

There is no sharp line between the two types of startup ideas: those that grow organically out of your own life, and those that you decide, from afar, are going to get rarer. While some VCs have technical backgrounds, I don't know enough to say, but it happens surprisingly rarely.18 Most subjects are taught in such a boring way that it's only by discipline that you can never safely treat fundraising as more than a startup that seems like it's going to stop.19 It sounds obvious to say that you should worry? One reason startups prefer series A rounds? When I was in high school either. If you feel you've been misjudged, you can do. Google. Of course, someone has to take money from people who are young but smart and driven can make more by starting their own companies after college instead of getting jobs, that will change what happens in college.

Notes

Though they are themselves typical users. But it takes to get good grades in them to private schools that in three months, a valuation. Giving away the razor and making more per customer makes it easier to get them to stay in a time machine.

Apple's early history are from an angel investment from a mediocre VC.

In the beginning.

Plus ca change. But on the other.

And that is exactly the point of a stock is its future earnings, you now get to go behind the scenes role in IPOs, which allowed banks and savings and loans to buy it despite having no evidence it's for sale.

However, it will seem dumb in 100 years. Digg is Slashdot with voting instead of blacklist.

Sofbot.

I write out loud can expose awkward parts.

I've become a so-called signalling risk.

Hint: the way they have because they couldn't afford a monitor.

And it's particularly damaging when these investors flake, because there was a new search engine is low. They have no connections, you'll find that with a wink, to take care of one's markets is ultimately just another way in which income is doled out by Mitch Kapor, is to raise money after Demo Day, there would be easy to discount, but I'm not against editing. As one very successful YC founder told me they like the one hand and the exercise of stock options than any preceding president, he tried to shift back. At three months we can't believe anyone would think twice before crossing him.

Progressive tax rates has a significant startup hub. He, like speculators, that alone could in principle 100,000 sestertii apiece for slaves learned in the early adopters you evolve the idea is crack. As we walked in, we love big juicy lumbar disc herniation as juicy except literally.

It's sometimes argued that we didn't, they thought at least accepted additions to the modern idea were proposed by Timothy Hart in 1964, two years, it was cooked up by the National Center for Education Statistics, about 28%. I've come to accept that investors don't like the bizarre consequences of this essay talks about programmers, but I know of no Jews moving there, and should in some ways First Round excluded their most successful startups are competitive like running, not the original text would in itself deserving. This is not whether it's good enough at obscuring tokens for this type are also several you can't even claim, like play in a city with few other startups, because time seems to pass. Please do not try to avoid that.

This kind of people starting normal companies too. If Ron Conway had been raised religious and then using growth rate to manufacture a perfect growth curve, etc, and then a block or so.

But it is to trick admissions officers. I meant. The mere possibility of being harsh to founders. As he is at fault, since 95% of the class of 2007 came from such schools.

I started doing research for this purpose are still, as they are now. There was no more unlikely than it would be easier to say that it is dishonest of the next round, that suits took over during a critical point in the usual standards for truth. Wittgenstein: The French Laundry in Napa Valley.

It wouldn't cut their overall returns tenfold, because they wanted, so the best ideas, they mean statistical distribution. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups.

A doctor friend warns that even this can give an inaccurate picture. At some point, when the problems you have no idea what's happening till they also influence one another directly through the window for years while they think they're just mentioning the possibility is that in Silicon Valley. I find hardest to get rich by creating wealth—wealth that, isn't it? Look at those goddamn fleas, they have less money, the big winners aren't all that matters, just as if you'd invested at a famous university who is highly regarded by his peers.

Compromising a server could cause such damage that ASPs that want to pound that message home. He, like arithmetic drills, instead of blacklist.

Thanks to Tim O'Reilly, Peter Norvig, and the guys at O'Reilly for inviting me to speak.

[c-i-n-e-m-a-j-a-z-z]

The Ying and Yang of BLindspotting: An Analytical Review

Blindspotting, written by its star actors Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, comes into the world at the perfect time in the beautiful confines of America. It touches up everything, literally the entirety of all that the news is reporting. Oakland, CA, the latest city that is being gentrified, centers around the two main characters, who also happen to be the film’s writers. The exciting thing about the main characters is they are the complete opposite of each other in every sense of the word. Collin, played by Diggs, is an African-American male who recently was placed on probation for an altercation that put him in jail. His best friend, Miles, played by Casal, is a product of his surroundings. As they both maneuver throughout the last three days of Collin’s probation, they are met with many illicit encounters that will not cost Miles his freedom, all the while working for a moving company. Regardless of who and what Miles represents, his sovereignty will never be compromised because he is still a white man in America. Miles purchased a gun illegally within the first five minutes of the opening scene; he was involved in the same altercation as Collin but did not serve any time, and took the same firearm, fired shots into the Oakland sky without facing repercussions. Remember when I said, this film is like watching the news, only better? Miles is every cisgender white man in America who gets to cause havoc and disrupt other people’s lives without consequence. But Collin, poor Collin, is just a Black man trying to live a life of not becoming a hashtag. His responsibility is the duality of Miles’ havoc. Collin tries to exit the car during Miles and their mutual friends’ gun transaction, and both support and monitor the actions of Miles.

There is so much to unpack about the paradoxical Ying and Yang of Collin and Miles. However, two critical scenes awkwardly stand out in this film that explains so much about the nature of America. After we witness another Black man being murdered by the Oakland police, we are met with these dream sequences from the mind of Collin. The dream sequence comprises Miles rapping at Collin’s court hearing after he finished his probation, and because Collin was too slow to speak first, Miles, his best friend, raps a few words on his behalf. Miles’ monologue is about what happens after probation, Collin falling back into his old ways or becoming a repeated offender. Collin tries to plead his case but instead spits out the number of rounds the officer shot into the Black man earlier. The second “dream-like” sequence happens at the very end of the film. The job they are both assigned is moving the cop and his family out of their home. Like Miles did previously, Collin has his monologue, and the message is worldly different from Miles’, of course. Collin rap examines the aftermath of what happens after cops execute Black men and women and how he cannot think that he is the next to be shot. Because of his race, braids, how he moves, how he walks and talks and presents himself, he is and will always be a target. At this moment, Miles becomes the extinguisher Collin needed before his arrest and saves him from further havoc on the severe consequences of holding a gun in the face of an off-duty officer while he stares back at his potential fate.

[dailydaveeddiggs]

Today, thanks to “Hamilton,” Diggs, 35, may be the more established half of the “Blindspotting” duo, but that wasn’t the case when he moved back to Oakland after earning his theater degree from Brown. Though four years younger, Casal had already made a name for himself on the Bay Area spoken-word scene, from which he was plucked to appear on HBO’s “Def Poetry.”

Casal had set up a recording studio with the aim of finding other musicians to collaborate with, reaching out to Diggs on the strength of a demo CD the rapper had recorded in his college dorm room. The friendship took hold almost immediately: That first night, they created a few songs, which led to albums, live performances (with a group they dubbed the Getback) and countless sketches and online videos.

“Rafael was the most famous person I knew,” Diggs recalls. “He had really tapped into the YouTube audience pretty early.”

Casal’s videos caught the attention of Jess Calder (then Jess Wu). The young producer, partnered in Snoot with her husband, Keith Calder, had seen a couple of his spoken-word performances and was struck by both Casal’s charisma and the fact that he appeared to be a natural-born storyteller.

“In my mind, anyone who can tell a great story can definitely translate that to film,” explains the producer, who contacted Casal and proposed they meet for coffee. She asked if he’d ever thought about writing a screenplay.

“I’d thought about theater a lot, [but at that age] you’re trying to get $5 for something at McDonald’s. A movie is millions of dollars away,” says Casal. But he was definitely intrigued, and began fleshing out a character that was loosely autobiographical. Things started to click about a year and a half later, when the Snoot duo asked Casal to perform at a screening of their documentary “Thunder Soul” at a January 2009 presidential inauguration event in Washington, D.C. Casal couldn’t make it but suggested they book Diggs in his place.

“Daveed came and did like 15 minutes of freestyle at the event and kind of blew our minds,” recalls Keith Calder. “We were immediately like, ‘Rafael, the movie’s gotta be about the two of you!’”

And from that moment forward, “Blindspotting” became the story of two friends of different races forced to consider the world from one another’s viewpoints, all set against the rapidly changing Bay Area backdrop.

Casal hails from Berkeley, the city directly north of Diggs’ Oakland. But they both attended Berkeley High School and later split a four-bedroom house with two other friends for $1,200. “I can’t even imagine what that place would cost now,” Casal says.

Gentrification, fueled by the tech boom, has transformed the neighborhoods they once knew. “Seventh Street is just a BART station and a post office now, but in the ’30s and ’40s, that was one of the jazz and blues centers of the world,” Diggs says. The last of the local music venues, Esther’s Orbit Room (where Diggs’ brother had been a bartender), finally shut down in 2010. His mother and father (also born in Oakland) both had to move, priced out by the newcomers.

Though not a musical in the conventional sense, “Blindspotting” was born out of a desire to translate spoken-word poetry into cinema. “There are versions where it was damn near a poem the whole time,” Diggs says.

From 2009 onward, he and Casal worked on the script together, huddling over the same laptop since they had only a single licensed copy of Final Draft between them.

“We were trying to find a recipe for a world where verse could exist without it feeling like there’s a deliberate shift every time it goes into a number,” Casal explains. “The Bay Area is known for slang and for turn of phrase. It’s the evolution of pimp culture, so heightened language is already very prevalent in the way people relate to each other.”

For the next several years, Diggs and Casal spent their time driving up and down Interstate 5 between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, parking out front of wherever Snoot headquarters happened to be at the time and sleeping in their car if needed. They wrote draft after draft of “Blindspotting,” pitching the changes to the Calders while using Snoot’s facilities to work on music videos and other projects.

“I’ve always felt like our offices were a place where they should feel safe to create art,” says Jess Calder.

Before Diggs and Casal could complete a shooting version of the script, they were pulled away by other professional opportunities. Casal went off to teach verse-driven theater at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for three years. And, for Diggs, “Hamilton” happened.

“The thing about this business is you never know if something’s a break,” says Diggs. “I met Lin-Manuel Miranda because of a clerical error.” Diggs showed up for the same substitute teaching job as one of Miranda’s friends, Anthony Veneziale, who was also a rapper. They hit it off, and Veneziale invited Diggs to freestyle with his group, of which Miranda was a member. Later, when it came time to do an early reading of “Hamilton,” Miranda remembered Diggs and his rapid-fire delivery. “I was invited because I have this particular skill set that allows me to learn a lot of things very quickly,” recalls Diggs, who had just five days to memorize the show’s most demanding part. “I assumed they would replace me because they had plenty of Broadway performers to choose from.”

Except that Miranda didn’t replace Diggs, who spent nearly a year and a half with the production. “Before leaving ‘Hamilton,’ I made this comment to one of my agents,” Diggs recalls. “I was ready to go, but scared that I wouldn’t make any money again, and he said, ‘Don’t worry about that,’ and promptly booked my life with all these things.”

The day after his last “Hamilton” performance in mid-2016, Diggs found himself shooting the movie “Wonder,” starring Julia Roberts. The following week, he began working on ABC’s “Black-ish.” That was swiftly followed by a recurring role on “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” which had to be juggled amid a long-planned national tour with his experimental rap group, Clipping.

Into the midst of this whirlwind came the moment for which Diggs and Casal had long been waiting. Last March, the Snoot producers told them they had the greenlight to make “Blindspotting,” provided the duo could get their script in shape to shoot in June.

“What if I move to L.A. in two days and I write it for a month?” Casal recalls asking — and that’s exactly what he did, undertaking a page-one overhaul while Diggs’ fledgling screen career kept him busy.

“I was on airplanes every other day,” says Diggs, “so really the only through line were these midnight phone calls from Rafael to talk about this thing we’d been talking about for a decade.”

Excited about the prospect of finally making the movie, Diggs kept a rare 25-day window open in June for the shoot. Casal managed to get the rewrite done in four weeks. Reaching out to another old friend, they brought in director López Estrada, who immediately began pre-production.

The project’s Oakland focus attracted some production talent whom the producers normally couldn’t afford, including DP Robby Baumgartner, who had worked in the lighting department for Spike Lee, Paul Thomas Anderson and Alejandro González Iñárritu, and who brought the lighting crew from “Moonlight” aboard.

“We suddenly had this amazing team of people from the Bay Area,” says Diggs. “Doing something with your friends at a high level, that’s a dream.”

After production wrapped, Snoot submitted a rough cut to Sundance, which recommended the music-driven film for a Dolby Family Sound Fellowship. “Blindspotting” is one of two 2018 Sundance selections to have earned the generous post-production grant, making it possible for the filmmakers to upgrade their mix in time for its festival debut. (Past recipients of the grant include “Mudbound” and “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”)

Thanks to the grant, Diggs, Casal and other members of the production team — including López Estrada and the Calders — spent late December camped out on the Paramount Pictures lot on the same Technicolor stage where Michael Bay mixes his “Transformers” films.

On the same day of Variety’s visit, Diggs and Casal wrote a short piece of original music to replace a few seconds of temp score. Since they came up with the cue themselves, that means they can later expand it into a full-blown song for the soundtrack.

It’s the kind of on-the-fly challenge that has fueled the duo’s creative partnership for more than a decade — though “Blindspotting” is the first time they’ve been able to combine their writing, performance and musical talents to such a degree.

“As an artist, the only thing you ever want to do is something that requires every part of yourself,” Diggs says. “And it is so rare when that happens.” (x)

LOVE the insight as to how this all came together.

[iknowthekoolaidflavor]

Waking Up in Vegas

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  Part 6  Part 7 

Pairing: Daveed x Reader

Word Count: 2.3k

Tagging: @toomanyfandoms109  @drugsdiggs @serkewen12 @shy-and-awkward-daveed @nadialinett14 @miightymiighty @kayleebrynnnn @pixeledpeople @olivelongnprosper @ninatheotter @twentyonehamiltrash @lunaaugurium @jantales @luna1350 @arii-the-future

A/N: It gets better I swear!

The wrap party is in full swing. Most of the cast are consuming margaritas, buzzing with excitement over how the film will turn out. Rafa and Adrienne are talking to Gina and Ava, but Daveed and I somehow made our way into the house they used for filming. It was empty so he pulled me into one of the rooms and locked the door.

His lips immediately made there way to my neck as he unbuttoned my blouse. The second it touched the floor, my pants and panties followed suit. His lips found mine, but it wasn’t as soft as the kiss we shared before. It was rough and possessive and it drove me insane. He pushed me onto the couch and slowly kissed up my thighs until he reached the center.

He smirked at me, knowing how bad I wanted him, yet he took his time. Each time I tried pushing myself closer to his face, he pulled them back down with a firm grip. Daveed bit the inside of my thigh then kissed the bruise that began to form.

I whimpered, begging for more until he finally took pity on me. He pulled my hips forward and softly sucked on my clit. My bad arched as I ran the fingers through his hair. Another moan escaped my lips as I felt myself nearing the edge...

Day 4

“That must have been some dream”, Ava giggled as she folded the rest of her clothes

“What are you talking about?”, I groaned

“I’m talking about that”, she said as she points to the sheets that were now on the floor, “I heard a lot of noise coming from this room and I honestly thought something happened to you...I mean something was happening to you, but you seemed to be enjoying it”

Gina and Ava burst into a fit of laughter as I buried my face under a pillow. My cheeks were on fire.

“Thank God they didn’t spend the night. Can you imagine Daveed getting an ear full of that?”

Gina jumped on the bed next to me imitating the noises I was apparently making, “Daveed. Please”

“Oh my God. Shut up!”

“He’s a gentleman. He wouldn’t touch you unless you asked”, Gina pondered for a moment, “Well after last night--”

“Gina! Don’t you dare”

My phone vibrated on the nightstand and Daveed’s name flashed across the screen. The events of last night flooded my memory. There was no way I could have forgotten that kiss.

“He’s been calling all morning. According to Rafa, he thinks he messed everything up again. Did he?”, Gina asked for once sounding sincere

“I don’t know….don’t think so...not sure”, I mumbled

“You could actually talk to him and figure it out. You’re not in this marriage by yourself, so you should work things out together”, Ava chimed in

I sighed after my phone finally stopped ringing. It vibrated once more, but there were no more calls. Ava and Gina left me on my own and a part of me hated it. I didn’t really want to talk to Daveed about my feelings for him because I never saw how this could help the situation we were in in the first place. A part of me wanted to tell him everything was fine, that I liked kissing him because it’s been on mind since he came back.

If I give into my feelings won’t that complicate everything even more? We haven’t known each other for long, yet we’re being forced to stay together. What if these feelings are only resurfacing  due to the situation we’re in and not because we really care for each other?

I groaned as I finally unlocked my phone.

Daveed 10:28 am

I understand if you’re mad, confused, or possibly a mix of both, but we should at least talk about it and see where it goes.

Me 10:30 am

Confused is one way to put it but I’m not mad at you. We can meet at my apartment. 1 o’clock

Daveed 10:31 am

You’re inviting me back to your apartment?

Me 10:32 am

1 o’clock Diggs

There was enough time for me to be alone with my thoughts for fifteen minutes. I thought by then I would have it all together, but honestly, I had no idea where this was going to go. I was angry, confused, and disappointed. At exactly one o’clock, there was a knock on the door.

“Hey”

“Hi Daveed”

Just like the first time he came over, he stood in my living room with no idea what to do with himself. The soft smile he usually wore was long gone. He was just as lost as I was.

“You can sit down if you want”, I said as I took a seat

“Thanks”, he sat down, only a cushion away from me, and finally looked me in the eye, “I’m sorry about  yesterday”

“Why did you do it?”, I asked as I fiddled with the hem of my shirt, avoiding eye contact

“A mix between being caught in the moment and something I’ve wanted to do for a while”

“Y..you’ve wanted to that for a while? What happened to just being friends?”

“Of course I still think we should be friends”, he hesitated as he ran his fingers through his hair, “Even if it hasn’t changed how I feel about you. I know how I feel, but I don’t know how you feel about me”

In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to just disappear. If we were going to get through this, there is no reason for us to continue on like this. The relationship we have now is just starting to bud and any form of romantic feelings will do ruin everything.

“What were you confused about? Aren’t you the one that said we should work on being friends?”, he asked breaking me out of my silence

“Aren’t you the one that agreed to it, then decided to kiss me”, I nearly yelled, “Things are already complicated as is and then you kiss me in the heat of the moment!”

End it already.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have kissed you last night. Depends on how you look at it. All I know is that I like yo--”

It’s easier this way.

“I regretted it”, I blurted out

“What?”, he gasped as his eyes widened

“That kiss never should have happened Daveed. I’m not mad at you, but you shouldn’t have done it. I feel like you should’ve known this by now”

“I…”, he squeezed his eyes shut and ran his fingers through his hair again, “Okay (Y/N)”

Before I could say anything else, he stepped out, slamming the door behind him. I desperately wanted to run after Daveed to tell him that I wanted to be with him, but everything in me was telling me to let it go. This was for the best.

Day 5

I sat outside the door of Dr. Harris’ office as patiently as I could. In five minutes our session would begin and I had not heard a word from Daveed. Not that I expected him to say anything else to me after last night.

The office door opened and a woman that was about my height stepped out.

“Mr. and Mrs. Diggs”, she called as she looked up from her notepad

As soon as her eyes landed on me a gush of wind blew in. Daveed stepped in and his eyes immediately fell on me, he was completely unfazed. He shook Dr. Harris’ hand and smiled.

“I’m Daveed. This is my wife, (Y/N)”

“It’s nice to meet you both. Come on in”, she stepped aside and he let me go in first

I took a seat and he made sure to sit two cushions away from me. The second we made eye contact again he sent a glare my way.

“You two have an interesting case. Getting married in Vegas without even knowing it and now you have a 30 day trial on your marriage”, she smiled softly as she looked up from her notepad, “What was your initial reaction to finding out you were married?”

“(Y/N) found out first. How did it make you feel honey?, he retorted

His angry glare never left me, yet it always disappears the moment Dr. Harris looked in his direction.

“I came home after a tough day at work. It felt like everything was going wrong, so imagine my surprise when I found out my one night stand was now my husband. Imaging trying your hardest to forget about him and that amazing night we had, then that happens”

“How did you feel?”, she reiterated

“I felt stressed, scared, I didn’t know what to do. I thought he didn’t want anything to do with me. He had my number and he chose not to see where it could have took us. I knew he was rejecting me. So, I was pretty hurt too”, I sighed as I fumbled with the bracelet I took off my wrist

“Daveed?”

“Shocked I guess. We had a good time together and we were going to see where it went, but I convinced myself it wasn’t going to work out. We lived on different sides of the country so I didn’t go through with it. When she contacted me, I saw it as another shot”

We spent most of the session filling her in on what happened before we got married, how we felt about each other initially, how we felt about the night after and before we left. Nothing new to us. Although it did make more sense as to why it seemed like Daveed wanted to stay married.

“Where is your relationship at the moment?”

“What relationship?”, he scoffed

“Are you two dating? How has everything played out since you came to New York?”

“We decided to be friends, we kissed, she regretted it, here we are”

“Is it hard being just friends with her?”

“Of course it is. At first, I thought it was best to stay friends, then I started to regret it. My feelings for her haven’t changed and I didn’t know what to do. Then two days ago, I found myself doing something I’ve been waiting to do for a while now and she regrets it”, he sneered, “I felt so stupid for thinking that would work”

Silence fell over the room as she looked up from her clipboard, gauging Daveed’s reaction, then mine. He didn’t look her in the face, instead his looked down in his lap. Every remnant of his smile was gone. This was different from the look I initially saw last night. He went from lost to angry and hurt.

“How did you react to Daveed kissing you? How did it make you feel?”

“I-I…”, my eyes were still on Daveed and nothing came to mind

“How did you feel (Y/N)”, he chimed in, “Tell her what you told me”

“I did like kissing him, but I told him that he shouldn’t have done it  in the heat of the moment. I regretted kissing him back because everything we agreed on was thrown out the window. How else are we supposed to get through the next month together?”

“Maybe we can start by not pretending that we don’t see what’s between us”, he nearly yelled, “You want me to just go back to pretending that I never had feelings for you in the first place”

“Oh come on Daveed, we’ve known each other for all of two seconds. What do you honestly think will come of this”, I countered, motioning between us, “Why would I choose to stay married to a complete stranger? This situation is not ideal for either of us, but for some reason you need it to be”

For the second time I watched him run his fingers through his hair and squeeze his eyes shut as he let out a pained sigh.

“I don’t want this to be ideal for the both of us and I don’t want us to stay married. I wanted you to realize that I didn’t mean to hurt you and saw this as a second chance to see if things would work out together. Yes, we’re married, but I still wanted to see if what happened and what we felt in Vegas was still there. Whether we’re married or not, I still wanted to be with you, but I’m fully aware that I had it all wrong. You’re obviously not the same person”

I wasn’t sure what hurt more: the fact that there was no expression on his face or the fact that he wouldn’t even look me in the eye.

“I have nothing left to say to her”

“We can end early if you want. I’ll see you two in a week”, she smiled softly, yet her eyes betrayed us, deep down she knew neither of us wanted to be in the situation and it was causing issues for the both of us

My chest tightened and my vision blurred with unshed tears. I hated that we were in this situation in the first place. In a perfect world, we would be together without the marriage.

I got in the elevator, blinking the tears away, and he stepped in beside me. As we descended, the pain in my chest only grew tighter. Seeing the conflicted look on his face made it so much worse.

“Daveed”, I started softly, “ I…”

“Save it (Y/N). What else could you possibly have to say? Given that everything you say ends up backfiring and hurting me, how about you just speaking to me all together”, he sneered as he zipped up his coat as the elevator doors opened, “I’ll see you next week, Mrs. Diggs”

Seeing his intense glare made me freeze in place. This was the last thing I wanted to do to him.

He stepped out of the elevator and disappeared into the crowded street leaving me alone as the guilt seeped in.

[wazafam]

The 100 has finished its series after its seventh series and ensured that fans were able to get a complete story. Shows from the science fiction fantasy genre, however, don’t have that long lives on-air, but The 100 lasted six years.

RELATED: The 100 Characters Ranked By Intelligence

Now that the show’s over, fans should branch out and discover similar stories to expand their fandom list and find new shows. For this reason, here's a list of shows that will make fans of The 100 feel at home, but also deliver quality variations in the genre they love.

Updated on February 5th, 2021 by Kristen Palamara: The 100 recently ended its run in 2020, and fans of the apocalyptic drama are looking for new shows to watch that approach a post-apocalyptic world in a unique way just like The 100 did. The juvenile characters on The 100 were discovering earth for the first time when they're sent to test if conditions on earth are livable, and the basic plot of the series is unique and engaging. Post-apocalyptic shows continue to be a popular genre in both movies and on television and The 100 balanced romance, the unknown, and wonder all within its apocalyptic setting.  

15 The Stand (2020-2021)

The Stand is a miniseries based on the Stephen King book of the same name that envisions a post-apocalyptic world after earth's population is decimated by a plague and the fate of the world's future is placed on a small group of survivors.

The survivors are in various age groups from a woman who is over a hundred years old to a much younger pregnant woman, but it's still a post-apocalyptic show that focuses on the ethos of good and evil throughout its run.

14 Snowpiercer (2020)

Snowpiercer the series began in 2020 and is based on the original graphic novels and the movie from Bong Joon-ho of the same name. The series follows the same plot of the graphic novels and 2013 movie and follows various characters aboard a continuously moving train built to avoid the deadly conditions outside in the freezing apocalyptic climate.

The show centers on Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs) who is part of the back of the train in the classist structure where the richest passengers are at the front and the stowaways are left to fend for themselves at the back.

13 Falling Skies (2011-2015)

Falling Skies is another show about a post-apocalyptic world but instead of climate change or plague causing the apocalypse it was an alien invasion. The show focuses on a group of survivors who try to fight back against the aliens who capture teenagers for an unknown reason, at first, and are wiping out the rest of the human population.

The show ran for multiple seasons with an engaging and unique storyline and well-developed characters who were never guaranteed safety in the apocalyptic world.

12 Teen Wolf (2011-2017)

Teen Wolf doesn't have an apocalyptic storyline but it does center on a group of teenagers trying to survive dangerous supernatural surroundings, and just typical high school life, in their small town of Beacon Hills.

Although there are several supernatural creatures, both friend and foe, that appear in the show they mainly focus on Scott McCall (Tyler Posey), who begins the show as a normal high school but is bitten and turned into a werewolf, and his friends.

11 Firefly (2002-2003)

Firefly was a sci-fi western show set hundreds of years in the future and although it's not exactly an apocalyptic setting there are terrifying creatures, Reavers, the smuggler main characters run into and the show does have dystopian storylines.

The show has a huge following even though it doesn't have many eipsodes. Firefly was canceled early on in the series and only aired for one season, but the characters were brought back for a movie called Serenity that continued their story.

10 The Walking Dead (2010-)

As far as post-apocalyptic shows go, The Walking Dead is at the top of the echelon – no other series comes close to it. This is why it should be the first stop when searching for another story featuring a group of survivors in a world that’s out to kill them.

RELATED: The Walking Dead: 5 Characters Who Would Make The Best Romantic Partners (& The 5 Worst)

The Walking Dead has been on-air for several years, and in that time the show and its characters have transformed completely. Remember, never get attached to a character here, as there are only two regular cast members from the first season remaining, and no one from the premiere episode. It’s an incredible watch to see how not only zombies spell civilization’s doom, but how the apocalypse has brought out the worst in mankind.

9 The Leftovers (2014-2017)

Fans of The 100 will be familiar with content that is aimed toward younger audiences, but we all have to grow up sometime, and The Leftovers is such a show for those prepared to have an experience that is mature in content.

The premise involves the sudden disappearance of 2% of the population in the world; an event called the Departure, and the fallout that this rapture-like event has caused. The Leftovers doesn’t paint a friendlier picture than usual apocalyptic shows geared toward young fanbases, and makes full use of its cable freedom.

8 Terra Nova (2011)

In what is quite possibly the closest show in terms of premise fans can find for The 100, Terra Nova features a story that has humans from 2149 travel to a parallel universe Earth that resembles the Cretaceous period. They do so because the Earth in the future has been ravaged by overpopulation crises and air pollution.

Unlike The 100, the show features a family as the main protagonists, with the rest of the colony attempting to adjust into the society, while battling another group who have sights on the natural resources of this Earth in order to sell it in the future. It only had one season, but Terra Nova is worth a go to have a fresh perspective of post-apocalyptic material.

7 Manifest (2018-)

A flight scheduled from Jamaica to New York experiences a case of extreme turbulence, but it manages to land in its intended destination. The twist here is that the flight was evidently missing for five-and-a-half years without the passengers ever knowing.

The series focuses on the survivors struggling to re-integrate into a society that has changed significantly during their absence, while also dealing with visions of what is to come in the future. Manifest has a highly intriguing premise, one that deals with dramatic fallout from the plot, while retaining aspects of the science fiction genre as well.

6 The Last Ship (2014-2018)

It’s good to have a setting that not only acknowledges the post-apocalyptic nature of the genre but also has a certain level of hope attached to it. The Last Ship can claim to be such a show, as it follows literally a last US Navy ship that is humanity’s hope to find the cure to a virus that has wiped out 80% of the population.

It could be called an adult version of The 100, since the show has a similar style, but focuses on a group of adults – mainly Navy Officers. It ran for four years, during which it had enough quality material for fans of The 100 to go and binge-watch the series.

5 Supernatural (2005-2020)

There’s no post-apocalyptic world here, but the two protagonists here stop the apocalypse from happening several times during the show. Supernatural features two brothers who travel across the country hunting demons and monsters, with the initial plot focusing on them vanquishing the demon that killed their mother.

The 100 fans must have had their fill of an abundance of characters to some degree, which is why Supernatural is absolutely the perfect way for a palette cleanser. The first seasons will accommodate the viewer nicely as it features a style geared toward teenagers; once they really get into it, viewers mature alongside Sam and Dean Winchester to witness them fight Satan himself, among several hundreds of primordial creations.

4 Fear The Walking Dead (2015-)

The Walking Dead was a roadshow in its first few seasons, but it settled into one community eventually from where it hasn’t turned away. Fear the Walking Dead is the companion series that still hasn’t shunned its nomadic premise, as the world here is grittier than from the main show.

Fans will enjoy seeing the heroes be constantly on the run, with the zombie-infected world out to get them at every turn. Fear the Walking Dead also sees a regularly rotating cast, but its nomadic nature ensures fans stick to (and care about) a core group of individuals brought together with the hope of surviving a dying world.

3 Under the Dome (2013-2015)

Coming from the very talented mind of Stephen King, Under the Dome is the inverse of The 100, with the story here involving people who are trapped inside a massive dome that has isolated them from the rest of the world. Due to the indestructible nature of the dome, the townspeople are now forced to survive off their own devices, and tension is super high.

Under the Dome goes in the nitty-gritty part of survival, with the townspeople panicking due to resources cutting down day-by-day. The viewer is kept intrigued by several storylines branching out, as people attempt to understand how to escape the dome, what it is, and the mysteries surrounding it.

2 The Expanse (2015-)

Another show that can be considered as the upside-down version of The 100 is The Expanse. The premise has the main characters in the backdrop of a future several hundred years away from ours, where humanity now survives in a space colony, with connections to Earth and Mars.

RELATED: 10 Shows To Watch If You Like The Expanse

The series thrives on the mysteries surrounding the fragile peace between the colonies, and the number of unexplained disappearances and tragedies aboard. The show, which is still on-air, keeps you on your toes with twists and reveals in regular intervals.

1 Lost (2004-2010)

The show that brought mainstream attention to the science fiction genre, and walked away with major awards to boot, Lost is one show you cannot miss. The series follows the survivors of a plane crash that landed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a mysterious island. The resultant fallout between the survivors and the relationships they form between them is the base on which the show thrives.

With Sci-Fi and even supernatural elements injected into it, Lost has its hands on both sides of the wheel and steers into dramatic territory, while keeping its main genre alive. The overall mystery surrounding the plan crash is what will keep you watching one episode after another, culminating in a finale that is guaranteed to keep fans thinking after the end of the series.

NEXT: The 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Series Finales Of All Time

15 Shows To Watch If You Like The 100 | ScreenRant from https://ift.tt/2O0z5qr

[seoexpertpk12]

Web-based Media As an Investment

In its short history, Social Media, as called New Media, has customarily been seen as a spot to meet new companions, reconnect with old companions and cooperate in an online social climate. So, interpersonal organizations were "a cool spot to hang out" yet held little pertinence past that. There has been no lack of subsidizing in Silicon Valley for firms dispatching new media stages. With the development of locales like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, there is no doubt that there is an incentive in the tremendous measures of data on individuals that these stages have had the option to gather; in any case, there has been no reasonable adaptation system past getting publicizing income. Contentions have been ascended regarding the genuine estimation of these organizations; some would express that their valuations are swelled and counterfeit, while other case that the estimation of their information bases alone are sufficient to legitimize multi-billion dollar sticker prices.

The New Value of Social Media and The Social Media Firm

All the more as of late online media has generated another offer, which is the business relevance of the huge client bases these informal communities have made. Despite which side of the valuation fence you sit on, it very well may be said that online media holds immense utility for organizations searching for another approach to connect with clients and take part in two-manner correspondences. This has never been done from a conventional showcasing, promoting or advertising viewpoint, and has offered ascend to another plan of action: The Social Media Firm. This delivers the contention of whether The Social Media Firm is a wise venture. Is The Social Media Firm a craze that will vanish in the coming years, or is this a long haul, maintainable industry that will one-day drive out of date quality to the customary techniques for publicizing, advertising and showcasing?

Given the condition of the current economy, Venture Capital and blessed messenger subsidizing sources have been keeping their portfolio dollars away from plain view, saving speculation just to organizations with a good working history, strong income streams and limitless development potential. Does the Social Media Firm fall into this class? My answer is yes. The primary concern is: online media isn't going anyplace social media marketing agency pricing. Web-based media has gotten a staple of the lives of more youthful ages, and the quickest developing adopters of new media are individuals beyond 30 years old. Since the acknowledgment of the business potential that informal organizations holds, enormous Fortune 500 firms are dedicating a decent part of their advertising spending plans to informal organizations and new media crusades. For example, Pepsi has dedicated $20 Million of their promoting spending plan for an online media program called Pepsi revive, and numerous enormous firms are starting to take action accordingly. Obviously, the procuring potential for The New Media Firm is significant.

Is it economical?

As referenced before, new media isn't going anyplace. Generally it has become a standard piece of the Internet experience like email. The locales that are viewed as the gorillas in online media may stir; nonetheless, there will consistently be something new to which these Internet-based networks will relocate. For instance, the web-based media relocation to-date has gone from MySpace to Facebook to Twitter, and the following significant move as well as expansion to this monstrous online social circle is likely practically around the bend. The drawn out maintainability of The Social Media Firm is to a great extent subordinate upon these organizations' capacity to distinguish and pre-empt the following large move, and to create successful strategies for utilizing both the old and new stages for driving income, benefit, deals volume and personality to their customers.

Why Outsource to The Social Media Firm?

One inquiry that may emerge is: the reason would enormous organizations recruit a web-based media office when they have the financial assets to do it in-house? The response to this is the straightforward reality that it is less expensive to reevaluate another media mission to a firm that has a gifted group effectively set up that is personally acquainted with exploring the perplexing universe of new media. In the very way that huge organizations enlist promoting offices to plan conventional media crusades, this methodology can and will be taken for new media. By recruiting The New Media Firm organizations can kill both the authoritative weight that accompanies employing a large number of new representatives, just as the expectation to absorb information that will definitely be available when attempting to coordinate those workers into their corporate culture. It is more financially savvy, in both money related and authoritative regards, to re-appropriate these missions to proficient groups that are completely skilled at utilizing the capability of current media, exploring the sets of principles of these online networks and remaining on the ball with regards to distinguishing the misusing the most recent new media patterns.

Shutting Remarks

In synopsis, I do accept that interest in The Social Media Firm holds incredible potential for some assets; nonetheless, it is basic that while screening these organizations, Venture Capitalists and Angels need to guarantee that the organization contains the right work force and supervisory crew to completely misuse this maturing industry. The discard is loaded with one-man shops thus called online media specialists that are close to survivors of the downturn who end up being adroit at Facebook or Twitter. It is basic that the modelers of new media crusades know about the many-sided subtleties of new media, and the huge range of resources that exist online to for a business to exploit the web-based media world. Use of the lesser referred to online media sources, for example, Digg, BrightKite, hi5, Xanga and innumerable others could be the contrast between a full-scale hearty mission that shows genuine outcomes, and an inadequate and disorderly endeavor at new media that squanders advertising dollars.

Because of the outset of this industry, there are not many organizations out there that really realize how to open the estimation of new media for business. The one's that do will rapidly ascend to the top, and if adequate due constancy is done, these organizations are ready for speculation. A vital implantation of capital is likely the lift expected to take these organizations from a reasonable income business to the following business monster with A-rundown demographic.

[raywritesthings]

Still Believing

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Oliver Queen, Laurel Lance, Sebastian Blood, Slade Wilson Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen (Pre-Relationship) Summary: Oliver isn't quite as quick to dismiss Laurel's accusations against Sebastian Blood and learns the truth about the alderman's allegiances as a result, forcing him to change his approach towards the woman he loves. *Can be read on my AO3 or FFN, links are in bio*

Oliver sat on a roof, watching the front of Sebastian Blood’s campaign office, and thanked his luck that Digg had gone home early to watch AJ for Carly. He knew exactly what the other man would be saying about his choice to monitor his recently made friend in light of the revelation about Officer Daily only hours ago at the Starling City Cannery. But he wasn’t quite as ready as everyone else to give up Laurel’s hunch just yet.

There was too much that didn’t make sense. Blood’s missing file, the fact that the Man in the Skull Mask had kidnapped Laurel after her accusations against Blood and the fact that he’d abruptly gone so public after weeks of Oliver’s fruitless questions and searching.

Daily being the man underneath the mask was just convenient. Too convenient, and it answered nothing about where the mirakuru was and who had supplied the recipe. It smacked of a cover-up, a fall guy.

Hadn’t he and Diggle pulled the same move only last year? Suspicions got a little too close and he arranged for Digg to go out as the Hood. Their plan had gone off without the complication of Diggle dying from it, of course, but the principle was the same; make everyone including the person accusing him think they were wrong, even when they were right.

Laurel herself had compared Oliver and Sebastian only recently, saying how she wasn’t quite sure she knew the real them. And she wasn’t exactly wrong in Oliver’s case, so why would she feel the same about Sebastian unless it was true? Particularly when Oliver thought he knew what she’d been feeling regarding his newest friend.

“I will take care of Laurel,” the alderman had said, and Oliver had felt something off about it, hadn’t he? That wasn’t a blind spot. That was gut instinct, the kind he had honed on the island to warn him when he was in danger. Only it hadn’t been about him this time, it had been Laurel.

She’d been well and truly taken care of, hadn’t she? Discredited, fired, and forced to kill. If Daily had been the one behind it all, raiding her apartment for the drugs she’d taken would have been enough to silence her. Why even risk his life?

Oliver knew Laurel wasn’t in a good space right now, that most were willing to dismiss her as an unreliable witness. She needed help, but if Daily wasn’t really the Man in the Skull Mask then she and countless others were still in danger. He owed it to her and the people of this city to be certain beyond a doubt that Sebastian didn’t still have some role to play.

Down on the street, there was movement as Sebastian left his campaign office with three other men in tow. They got into a car driven by a fourth man that was parked out front and pulled away from the curb. Oliver quickly descended from the roof to his bike stowed in an alley and followed at a safe distance.

It would be easier if Felicity were on the comms to follow Sebastian’s car on CCTV, but she likely quietly agreed with Digg, so Oliver couldn’t involve either of them until he had proof. It was a good thing he was practiced at tailing the old fashioned way.

Sebastian’s car pulled up outside an otherwise unremarkable office building, and he and his entourage entered it. Almost all the lights were out in the building, so it was easy to see just where they might be headed for. Oliver made his way around the building, onto the roof, and rappelled down between windows, staying out of sight flush against the brick.

He stopped his descent when he was level with the office still lit with a single lamp and only managed to make out Sebastian’s voice because the man shouted with such clear relief.

“It's done! They think it was all Daily. He sacrificed himself for our cause.”

So it had been a setup after all. Laurel hadn’t been wrong. But then, was Sebastian truly the Man in the Skull Mask, or was he merely reporting back to the real one?

Oliver heard the low murmur of a voice he could not quite make out, yet something about its timbre sent a shiver down his spine. The next thing he heard was the unsheathing of a sword.

Several gasps and grunts of pain followed, bodies hitting the floor. Oliver chanced just the briefest look and nearly froze at the sight.

Slade.

It couldn’t be real. He flattened himself against the brick again, willing himself to stop seeing ghosts. It couldn’t be Slade in there mercilessly slaughtering the men Sebastian had brought along with him. Slade was dead. Had to be.

Yet his one-time friend’s voice continued to taunt him through the glass. “Your incompetence has now cost you four lives, alderman. Fail me again, and yours will be the fifth.”

It couldn’t be a hallucination. Hallucinations didn’t cause real damage, kill real people. Hallucinations didn’t provide a radical alderman with a sample of the mirakuru that he could turn into a new batch for a new legion of super soldiers. The pieces were all falling into place now, and he was left feeling frightened and a fool.

He should have snapped his old friend’s neck when he’d had the chance, even if the thought roiled his stomach now. How many lives had already been lost because he hadn’t?

Oliver heard heavy footfalls and no more because he fled. If it was Slade, and he caught Oliver here—

What did it matter? He was already caught. Slade had gotten into his city under his nose and begun an operation. One that included Sebastian Blood becoming mayor and Laurel being silenced.

His blood ran cold. Laurel. Slade knew better than any just how much she meant to Oliver. He could have had her killed at the cannery if he’d wanted. Which could only mean he had something worse planned.

Oliver stopped in another alley some streets away, struggling to draw breath. He didn’t know what to do, how to keep her safe. He needed to keep his distance and throw Slade off his game… unless that was what he wanted.

Sebastian had just put Laurel through the last forty-eight hours clearly on Slade’s orders. Slade wanted Oliver to not trust Laurel, to withdraw from her and leave her on her own. What better way to make sure she was unprotected?

Even at her best, Laurel was no match for Slade or a man enhanced with mirakuru. Oliver wasn’t always confident enough to say he was. And Laurel was nowhere near her best these days. He needed to keep her close.

He could visit her as the Arrow, let her know that she had been right, and then… what happened then? Would Laurel want to try and find more evidence? If he told her he would take care of the situation, would she even listen? She’d be more likely to go out there on her own than to just take his word for it. What was the word of a faceless man, a stranger?

Every instinct rebelled against the conclusion his mind was drawing. Laurel wasn’t supposed to be part of this side of things. She was supposed to be safe. Yet even thinking that, he could see that wasn’t the reality. The reality was Laurel was mired in all kinds of danger, from Slade to Sara’s League, and all he had succeeded in was keeping her ignorant of it.

Could he really do it? Change everything about his approach for over a year and try a new way? There was every chance she would never forgive him, but a greater chance that she would come out of this alive.

Oliver swallowed down his fear and nerves and changed directions, taking his bike further downtown instead of back towards the base.

---

Laurel dragged her feet as she entered her apartment, leaving all the lights off as she set her things down and settled on the couch. She did not have the desire to do anything but sit in the dark with her own thoughts and failures.

How could she have been so wrong? Everything had felt like it was pointing at Sebastian; his mother’s confession and subsequent death, the missing file, just the sense of unease she got around him, like there was so much more to his vision for the city he wasn’t sharing. Like Malcolm before him, she thought she could sense an undercurrent of rage to his passionate rhetoric.

Maybe she’d just wanted to be able to unmask the mastermind before it was too late, since none of them had managed it last year. Maybe she was just balking at anyone getting too close to her right now, and she’d made up some reason in her head for why she shouldn’t get close to Sebastian after all. Maybe she was just a useless addict like her father and everyone else thought she was.

How had it come to this? She’d just wanted the pain to dull a little, not to question her own perceptions of her life. Why had she been so… weak?

She wanted to tell herself that this was the wakeup call. Time to get back up and put an end to all this spiralling. But what did she have to really make an effort for anymore? No job, barely anything like friends, a disappointed father, a wreck of a love life… was there a point to get better, when there wasn’t much of a better she could expect in return?

Her lights already being off, just the slightest click of the latch on the window was the only warning she had. Laurel staggered up and back, reaching wildly for the desk drawer. Where was — had they taken her gun? “Damnit!”

“It’s just me,” the Hood’s modulated voice spoke, and Laurel felt her breath release as she slowly turned back around. He was standing there, bow strapped to his back and both hands held up. Her head slowly shook side to side.

“I didn’t think you’d come see me, after what I did.”

“You really think I can judge you for killing a man in a fight?”

If she were in a better mood, she might have smirked at that. He had a point. “No, but… I was wrong.”

“You weren’t.”

Laurel froze. “What do you mean?”

Slowly, he walked closer. “I took the liberty of following Sebastian Blood tonight. He met with an associate and told him that Daily played his part in their plan. He was just a decoy.”

Her fingers trembled. A part of her wanted to deny it — how could Daily be that fanatically loyal to a man or a cause that he would throw his own life down just to discredit one lone drunk? Just what could Sebastian be building? A part of her ran both hot and cold at once. How dare they take away what little she’d had to keep going for just to take away her voice!

“Who’s his associate?” If she knew that, she’d know more about what Sebastian was trying to do, how to stop it.

But the Arrow hesitated. “Someone dangerous.”

“Oh.” Laurel’s eyes closed. She should have seen this coming. “You’re saying goodbye again.” It was what everyone did, wasn’t it?

“No.”

She wondered if she had heard that right and opened her eyes. This close, she could see the Arrow’s mouth twist in a conflicted frown, one that seemed so achingly familiar if only she could just think straight for a minute.

“This man knows me. He knows who matters to me. No amount of removing myself from your life will change that.”

Laurel’s stomach did a strange sort of flip flop. She had always maintained there was nothing more to her relationship with the Arrow than a mutual desire to see justice done, at least whenever they were on good terms. To hear him say she mattered when she’d been doubting it herself… But she needed to keep focused.

“What are you saying?” She prompted him, hoping it sounded at least somewhat gentle. She didn’t want to spook him.

“I’m saying that I don’t know a better way to keep you safe than to tell you the truth. And I’m sorry.” There was the slightest beep of some kind of device, and then he reached up and pulled down his hood.

Even in the dark of her apartment, he was unmistakable. Laurel’s back hit the shelf behind her with a gasp, a trembling hand going to her temples.

“Ollie?”

He stared at her, his eyes still shadowed by the mask he wore. He said nothing, seeming to realize she needed a moment.

She needed more than that. She needed a drink or something because she- she’d hunted him. She’d blamed him for Tommy’s death no matter how much of a projection of her own guilt it had been. He’d probably thought he deserved it, too, and yet he’d still saved her from the Dollmaker. He’d still shown up when she’d called for help about her suspicions towards Sebastian. Because he still cared.

So much of the vigilante’s actions became clear to her in that moment with just that realization. All the times she had wondered why her, or what he really thought of her, why he seemed to want to work together and yet held her at arm’s length.

She reached out now, slowly, and he let her touch his shoulder. She needed to feel the leather of the suit he wore, the hard muscle underneath, to know he was solid and real. Before she knew it, she was hugging him.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, and wasn’t fully sure what she was even referring to. All the times he’d saved her? Everything he’d done for the city? Finally just telling her what was going on?

He brought his arms around her slowly, and his cheek rested on the top of her head for a moment that stretched between them. She wasn’t sure what happened when either of them moved, and a part of her didn’t really want to. She felt safe and warm in a way she hadn’t for all that time since the Undertaking, and she didn’t want it to go away.

“You’re really okay with this?” He wondered aloud.

She shrugged in his hold. “I always knew the Arrow was someone under that hood, and that he wasn’t choosing to share that with me. I guess now I can see why you had a reason.” He’d been unwilling to take risks with her safety last year after Vanch, not because he didn’t think she was cut out for it, but because she meant more to him than just being a good lawyer. She was important to somebody in this world.

Of course, her tired and dazed mind eventually remembered why he was even telling her this now. Laurel slowly tilted her head back to look at him. “Who is it that Sebastian’s working with and why does it worry you this much?”

She watched him swallow, eyes not quite meeting hers. “His name is Slade Wilson, and he’s… someone I knew on the island. Someone I thought was dead.”

Laurel shivered. “Was he one of the people who tortured you?” It was one of those things she couldn’t help recalling every so often, even though she hated thinking about it. About the pain he endured for all those years.

Oliver hesitated, then nodded. “For some of it. Before that, we were friends. And I… I showed him this.”

He let her go, and Laurel hugged her arms to herself at the loss of contact, watching as he withdrew something from one of the pockets of his suit. Her heart jumped into her throat.

It was the photograph. The silly little wallet-sized photograph her dad had gotten copies made of after her college graduation. He’d said it mattered more than high school anyway. Laurel had rolled her eyes at the time, but snuck a copy to take down with her to the docks, to give as a favor to the boy who’d captured her heart.

And he still had it. Had both, really. Through a shipwreck and five years of who knew what Hell, he had hung onto that photo. She’d never realized he would’ve wanted to keep it.

“Slade knows what you mean to me, Laurel, and what he’s here for is more than just to plot with Sebastian. He wants revenge, and he will use anything and anyone I care about to get to me. But most especially you. I’m so sorry.”

It was like something had snapped in her, the jagged broken bits of her fitting back into place, and she could breathe again. Could think and feel like a normal person again. Her lonely mess of a life had some sense to it at last, and she felt more like the woman she remembered herself to be. So Laurel shook her head.

“I haven’t been hurt yet, Ollie. Yes, I’ve lost my job, but that wasn’t because of you. It was because of what I was doing to uncover Sebastian’s secrets. It would’ve happened whether this Slade Wilson was in town or not.” She had to wonder just where and how Sebastian fit into this revenge scheme Oliver was talking about, but that was something they could figure out. “They probably think I’ve been taken care of, so I’m safe.”

“I don’t know for how long,” he insisted miserably. “Slade will come after you.”

“Then I’ll defend myself.”

He shook his head. “He’s stronger than anyone I know, Laurel. Including me. And…” he paused, looking uncomfortable, before saying, “you’re not well.”

She looked down at herself. The thin, frail arms. Her clothes that seemed to swallow up her slight form. Had she really let it get this far? Some of the fear and shame from before when her father had turned his back on her in the interrogation room welled back up within her, stinging her eyes, but she pushed it down.

“I can get better.”

“Really?” He sounded afraid to hope. She could relate to that feeling.

“Really. I- I thought I was alone, that you and my dad were just acting out of obligation or something. That I’d ruined everything with the Arrow… I didn’t think anyone could still believe in me.”

He’d followed Sebastian just to prove her right. He’d seen some kind of worth in pursuing it, no matter how messed up and irrational of a person she seemed to everyone else.

“I don’t want to let that down, and I don’t want to just lay down and die for some maniac with a grudge match against you. I’ll get better,” she promised.

His shoulders relaxed with a small smile, and he pulled her close again. “Thank God.” His lips pressed to her forehead for a breath.

“Ollie…”

“Yeah?”

Laurel didn’t speak. She wanted to ask just what she did mean to him that had him so worried about this Slade Wilson, but it didn’t feel like the right time. This was so new, and she had so much work to do to get back into a good place for herself. So she just held his forearms a little tighter.

“Thank you.”

She wasn’t sure how long they stood like that, just breathing in the quiet space between them. It was one of those rare moments in her life she didn’t want to end. But she was starting to have trouble keeping her eyes open.

“You should get some rest,” Oliver said, as if reading her thoughts.

“So should you. You’re the one with a job to go to in the morning.”

“You’re gonna find something,” he said immediately. “I’ll help.”

She actually believed him. The Oliver who had returned from the island seemingly full of good intentions but empty promises had only been half the story. Now that she knew what lengths he went to for this city, she thought she could start to trust him again.

They pulled away from each other, Laurel reaching out one last time to cup his cheek, her thumb rubbing the edge of the mask he was still wearing. “You’re okay now?”

“I don’t know if I’ll be okay until Slade’s been stopped,” he admitted. “But I feel much better than I did. Thank you.”

She smiled. It had been a while since she’d felt like she could actually help someone. It felt good. “Goodnight, Ollie.”

“Goodnight, Laurel.”

She walked to her hallway but paused there and watched as he put the hood back up and left through her apartment window, stealing across rooftops into the night. The vigilante; her oldest friend; the man she — despite telling herself she shouldn’t — loved. Life was starting to make sense again.

She would call her dad in the morning and ask him what she needed to do to get herself out of this path she’d gone down the same as him. Just picturing the relief it would give him had her smiling. She could be more than a burden or an annoyance to people. She was more than a bunch of failures.

Those thoughts echoing in her head like a mantra, Laurel turned in for the night, re-determined to take on the world come the morning.

[originalhybridloverfics]

I Don’t Know Who I am Without You Ch4

A/N: It's been a long time since I updated this one. I hope you like the chapter and I hope it provides a welcome distraction from the crisis we are currently experiencing all around the world.

Curtis frowned when he walked into the bunker and found a box sitting on the table addressed to Team Arrow. He opened the small box to reveal a picture of Felicity and William and beneath it a drive. 

Brow furrowing, he grabbed the drive and plugged it in and watched horrified as Diaz broke into Felicity's home and attacked her. 

"What the hell is that?" 

Curtis jumped at the sound of John's booming voice, he spun around and saw John's eyes zeroed in on the footage. 

"I found this addressed to the team." Curtis held out the photo. 

John took it, and his hand started to shake as he stared at the faces of Felicity and William. William looking into the camera, a light in his eyes. Felicity laughing freely, her arm tucked around the boy. 

Tears filled his eyes as he looked at the photo. "Diaz sent this?"

"I think so, and there's a surveillance video."

"Play it," John ordered. 

John's heart pounded as he watches Felicity walk into the frame then stumble back suddenly as Diaz entered the room. He tensed as he watched Felicity grab the nearest thing she had. A coffee pot and throw it at Diaz before running. 

Diaz slammed into her from behind, she crashed into the floor, head smashing against the coffee table. Still, she rolled and kicked Diaz in the chest, knocking him back. 

"Felicity!" William appeared in the frame, scared. 

"Run! Get out now!" Felicity yelled at him, and the young boy hesitated. "Now, William!" 

William took off running, and Felicity grabbed a hot poker and swung it at Diaz, sending him crashing to the floor, but he kicked her feet out from beneath her. Felicity hit the floor hard, she scrambled back to her feet, reaching for the fallen poker. 

Diaz threw himself at her sending her crashing into the table. He turned her and slammed his fist into her face, splitting her lip and pulled out a gun, slowly getting back to his feet and aimed it at her. 

"Do you have any idea how much I wish Oliver was here?" Diaz grunted, his voice low and scratchy. "To have him helpless as I put a bullet in your skull. How satisfying it would be for him to see his son's chest riddled with bullets."

"If you touch him, I'll..-"

"You'll what? Hack me to death? Make idle threats you can't back up?"

"I'll kill you." 

Diaz laughed. "You don't have what it takes to kill, sweetheart."

"You don't know what I'm willing to do to protect my son!" 

"You can't protect anyone when you're dead." he ground out, his finger tightening on the trigger.  

"No!" William appeared suddenly, throwing himself into Diaz. 

The gun sounded, and Digg flinched. His chest tightening as Felicity gave a startled cry of pain. 

Felicity lept to her feet, yanking William away from Diaz and grabbed the hot poker, and swung it at Diaz's head when he started to get back up. 

He collapses to the floor, clutching his head, and Felicity grabbed William by the arm, dragging him out. "Get to the car!" 

John watched with bated breath as the screen went black for several minutes then came back, with the image of a car, speeding down the street. 

He knew it was coming, but it didn't stop the pain from ripping into him as he watches the car explode, fire engulfing it until nothing was left. 

"God, that was hard to watch." Curtis swallowed the lump in his throat. 

John shook, hands clenching into a fist, the picture in his hands crumpled. In a fit of anger, he swept his arm out, sending the computers crashing. 

"John!" Curtis yelled. 

John didn't stop there though, he picked up a fallen computer and sent it crashing into the glass case that held his spartan suit, glass flying everywhere. 

Curtis backed away alarmed, not used to seeing John Diggle, who was, for the most part, calm and collected so livid with rage. 

John whirled around anger burning in his eyes. "He doesn't get away with this. I don't care what we have to do. We're going to take this son of a bitch down. He is not going to kill another family."

Curtis nodded. There was nothing to say. John was right. Diaz needed to be brought to justice for what he did to their own. 

                                                    ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

"You've got a letter, Queen." 

Oliver didn't so much as look up as the letter landed on his cell floor. Instead, he stared at his hands, discovered black and blue, the skin split, splatters of blood. 

Oliver clenched his fist, and he felt pain, but it was nothing compared to the pain in his chest with every breath he took, knowing he was alone. 

His son was dead, and Felicity was gone from the world. Why was he even still breathing? What was the point?

"I think you should really take a look at that letter, Queen, or should I say Green Arrow." 

Oliver looked up slowly, eyes hard as he stared at the guard. He didn't like the way the man's eyes gleamed or the sick smirk tugging at his lips. 

Oliver stood and knelt down, grabbing the letter, seeing it only had his name and no forward address, he opened it. Inside was a small note. 

Such a shame to lose your family so brutally. I wish you could have seen it. You still can. I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I did, Diaz.

Oliver crumpled the letter up in his hand, dropping it to the floor. He pulled out a small stack of photos. He clenched his jaw as his eyes iced over.

The picture of a burning car, staring back at him, had his heart clenching in the worst way imaginable. Just the sight of it made him believe he could hear the sound of his wife and son's cries as they were burnt alive. Hear William crying out for his father, hear Felicity screaming for him. 

He moved to the second picture, and it was another one of the vehicle, the flames burning higher. He moved to the last film, the fire was out, but all that was left was the charred wreckage. 

Oliver's grief and sorrow were quickly being consumed by the raw anger coursing through his veins. 

"Diaz sends his regards." Oliver's head snapped up to the guard, seeing his hands wrapped around the bars. 

The smirk, his words, the look in his eyes, all of it was triggering, screaming at him one fact. He was one of the people under Diaz's pay.

Oliver lunge, his arms reaching between the bars and yanking the officer into them until he could grasp him by the head. He slammed the guard's head against the bars again and again. Inmates started to yell and cheer. 

Minutes later, the other guards intervened, swinging their batons at his arms, weakening his hold and dragging the officer out of his reach. 

The guard was unconscious and bleeding, his face covered in so much blood. The blood had dripped down on Oliver's wrist and arms. 

Seeing the man bloody and battered did nothing to quell Oliver's rage. When the other guards opened his cell. He fought because why the hell not he needed an outlet for his anger.

He took down three of them before one took his baton and struck behind his bad knee, sending him to the floor. After they were like a pack of hyenas, hitting him all at once, he didn't block the blows. 

Oliver allowed every strike to hit him. 

The pain that shook him was welcoming. He wanted it. 

Felicity and William's last moments on this earth were filled with excruciating pain. It was only right that he suffer even a small fraction of that pain. 

He was the reason they were dead. If he had been there, maybe his wife and son would still be alive. 

He never should have left the island. He never should have come home. 

Felicity would be alive and safe, probably running her own company by now. 

And William would still be alive, living with Samantha in Central City. 

Everything that went wrong in their lives boiled down to him. He destroyed everything he touched. No matter how much he loved them, it didn't change one undeniable fact. 

He was poison to everyone he came into contact with. 

It was going to stop when he killed Diaz. 

Once he accomplished that there would be nothing left for him. There was no point for him to go on. 

                                                    ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Being thrown into the hole had become the new norm in the coming weeks for Oliver. 

He spent more time there than he did in his actual cell. 

It got to the point that he no longer could keep track of the time or the days. 

When Oliver was free, he spent it searching for anyone inside who had ties to Diaz he could exploit, but so far, he was coming up empty. The only connection he found was the dirty prison guard he bloodied his hands with. Unfortunately, for both of them, the man had too much head trauma and had fallen into a coma. 

It was one thing Oliver did not feel an ounce of guilt for doing. 

He was sure he would finish the job if the guard ever woke up. 

It was no surprise that he snapped on a single notice in the prison yard when he was approached by a man twice his size, with an ugly smirk. 

The man really should have never even mentioned his wife. 

"Arrow, what good was it saving the city when you couldn't even protect your own wife." 

Oliver was on a weight bench, but he rose up slowly, eyes narrowing as the man pulled out his picture of Felicity from his jumpsuit. 

"How did you get that?" Oliver ground out, his eyes darkening rapidly. 

The man smirked. "She really is a looker. I'll give you that. Too bad she's dead. I get out in two months. I would have loved to get between her thighs and give her what you no longer can. I could have been your son's new father. I hate kids, but if I could have stuck it to your wife, it would have been worth it." 

"One more word about my wife, and I will break you." Oliver's vision was decreasing rapidly, and all he could see was this piece shit speaking of his late wife, his soulmate, so disrespectfully.

The guy steps closer. "Tell me, was she a screamer? How good was she?"

Oliver snapped. He struck his hand out, his hand smashing into the man's breast bone. 

The man stumbled back, abruptly coughing. 

Oliver struck again, chopping him in the throat. As the man choked, clutching his neck, he whirled around, ripping the weight bar from the bench and slammed it into the man's ribs. He followed it up with an attempt to take the man's head off, swinging the bar like it was a baseball bat. 

The man crash to the ground with a sickening crack. Oliver kicked him onto his back, the thought of stopping, not even crossing his mind. 

He climbed over the man, tossing the weight bar aside and started pounding his fist into the bastard's face. His words ringing in his ears. 

He didn't stop. He couldn't. He struck him again and again until he felt the shocks of a taser. The sharp stab of a needle in his neck, something being injected into him. The alarms of the prison blaring loudly. 

His vision blurred. The last thing he saw was the man he had beaten to the inch of his life, face bloody, near unrecognizable. 

Oliver slumped to the ground, the darkness surrounding him, and he welcomed it.

It was all he had left. 

                                                 ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ 

Digg walked through the doors of Slab Slide. He hadn't been there since he had delivered the news of Felicity's and William's death.

It had been weeks. It was no easier walking through the doors with the intent to see Oliver than it was the first time. Digg's chest was heavy with failure every second of every day. He failed to do the one thing Oliver asked of him. To protect his family. 

Still, he had received calls from a friend who worked inside Slab Slide who spoke of Oliver's outburst. How he had attacked a guard. Digg came to see Oliver with the intention of trying to reach his friend. 

Oliver needed to be reminded of the man Felicity fell in love with. 

She wouldn't want this for him. He failed to protect Felicity and William, but there was still a chance he could save Oliver from himself, from the darkness he was letting consume him. 

"What do you mean, I can't see him?" Digg demanded after he was told, Oliver's rights to visitors had been revoked. 

"Mr. Queen has been experiencing violent outbursts. It's gotten to the point that we had to separate him from the other prisoners."

"What did he do?" John asked warily. He hoped Oliver hadn't completely lost it and killed someone in cold blood. He had watched his brother come so far since his days as the Hood. 

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that." The officer replied. 

Diggle glared harshly. "If I cannot see my brother, the least you can do is tell me why?"

His glare must have done exactly what he wanted because the guard looked around nervously before replying. "He attacked a guard, putting him in a coma, and he beat another inmate nearly to death a few days ago. He hasn't woken up, and there is little brain activity. It doesn't look good. If he doesn't pull through, Mr. Queen is looking at another murder charge." 

"Jesus, Oliver." Digg cursed. Maybe he was too late. Maybe he couldn't stop Oliver from giving in to his demons and becoming the man he was when he first met him. A man who was lost, searching for the light, only this time, his guiding light had been extinguished. 

Forever. 

                                               ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ 

Lyla was unsure what more she could do to help her husband. 

Johnny was having such a hard time with everything. He blamed himself for William and Felicity's death, for Oliver's turn to his darker side. 

It wasn't his fault. Lyla wanted to help him see that, but she was starting to think that the only way to do that was to give him closure. 

Maybe then, he would be able to stop blaming himself for something he could not change. 

The only way she thought he would be able to do that was to make peace with what happened. She didn't know how to help him do that, but she figured a good start would be to go to the crime scene. 

Maybe if she found something, anything that could lead them back to Diaz, it would help Johnny and the Team in some way, and perhaps it could give Oliver peace of mind. 

Oliver was never going to be able to get justice for his family as long as he was behind bars. It was up to her and Johnny and the Team to get it for him. 

They owed not only Oliver that much but Felicity and William as well. 

Lyla started with the safe house, other than Argus, and the feds investigating the scene everything was left as it was the day Felicity and William were killed. The living room and kitchen were in shambles, there were spots of blood staining the floor. 

Lyla moved through the home, realizing Felicity and William's things were still there. 

She swallowed down the lump that filled her throat. Since Donna and Thea were still in the dark about what happened, it was up to Johnny and her to take care of Felicity and William's belongings, and they hadn't. 

A part of her knew they stayed away because if they left their belongings alone, it was almost like they were waiting for them to come home. 

It was a misplaced hope because Felicity and William were never walking back through the door. They were gone. 

Lyla picked up a framed picture. It was at Oliver and Felicity's reception. 

They were all gathered around a table, laughing. Felicity was tucked between her boys, and William was tuck into his father's other side.  

Lyla opened the frame and took the picture, slipping the photograph into her jacket. Wanting to give it to Johnny so he could have something of the other side of their family. 

She walked out following the path she knew where it happened. 

Where Felicity's car blew up with her and William inside it. 

The wreckage was no longer there, but Lyla still remembered walking onto the crime scene the first time, seeing the destroyed vehicle for herself. How it had been burnt so badly, no human remains could survive such an explosion.

Lyla's eyes moved over the scene. She frowned when she spotted something on the ground a few feet away from where the car was found. She crouched down low. 

There was a stain of blood on the ground leading into an alley. 

Her frown deepened. Why hadn't they noticed the blood before? 

How could they have overlooked such an important detail? 

They knew from the shell casing that was discovered at the crime scene that a gun had been fired. What if someone was actually hit?

What if Felicity or William had been hit? 

If they were bleeding but were in the car when it exploded, how did their blood end up on the ground? 

Unless Felicity and William had escaped the car before it blew and that would explain why there were nobodies. 

She followed the blood. It led her to an alley with a dumpster. The blood stopped. She whirled around her heart, sinking as the trailed ended. 

She turned again, and something glittered, poking out from behind the dumpster. 

Frowning, Lyla scooped down, heart pounding in her chest, as she lifted the white gold charmed bracelet. 

She would recognize it anywhere. 

Johnny gave it to Felicity for her birthday two years ago. It was a beautiful charm bracelet with an arrowhead, a knight, and a wifi charm.

Felicity wore the bracelet every single day. 

Lyla's breath rushed out of her. A weight being lifted off her chest as she was filled with a knowledge she believed with every fiber of her being. 

Felicity and William were not in the car when it blew. They had gotten out. They got away, and they were out there somewhere.

Alive. 

She had to tell Johnny. They had to tell Oliver and the rest of the Team. 

And most importantly, they had to find them at all cost and make this right. 

A/N: Thanks for reading. Until next time. Stay safe everyone!

I don’t currently have tag list for this story so if you want me tag just let me know. 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF X

There may be cases where this is a good instinct; investors dislike unbalanced teams. Some founders are quite dejected when they get turned down by investors. Established ones have learned to treat saying yes as like diving off a diving board, and they turned out ok. 45 81:56 when the list was first published in 1982 to.1 In 1995 it was hard to take search seriously. But they had the most opaque obstacle in the world, if they have some other advantage like extraordinary growth numbers or exceptionally formidable founders. See randomness.

A friend who moved to Silicon Valley in 1974 to work for Intel. And it is not just a permissible technique for getting growth rolling. Suppose a Y Combinator company starts talking to VCs after demo day, and is successful in raising money from investors one at a time. Start a Startup I advised startups never to let anyone fly under them, meaning never to let anyone fly under them, meaning never to let any other company offer a cheaper, easier solution. There is only one real advantage to being a member of the professional classes. It falls between what and how: architects decide what to do and when the way a painting is made. A good programming language should, above all: you should make more money. Cheap Intel processors, of the company and get an option to buy the rest later. A demo explains what you've made. Long words for the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice: It is a case study of hacker's radar.2 And in the startup world, they're usually the x of y or the x y.

They're all what hackers call suits. And why? Investors are pinched between two kinds of fear: fear of investing in startups that fizzle, and fear of missing out on startups that take off.3 At Rehearsal Day, we four Y Combinator partners found ourselves saying a lot of people in America, have some amount of insecurity about where, or whether, they went to college is not just a negotiating trick; it's how you both should be operating. I wouldn't want it to grow as large as Digg or Reddit—mainly because that would dilute the character of the site, but also about existing things becoming more addictive. And in particular, to great universities.4 It definitely has a flavor of its own merits. So they were willing to pay to read them yourself, you need a brain that's in the habit of going where it's not supposed to.5 Otherwise Albuquerque might have Seattle's place in the rankings.6 0 turned out to be mistaken. This is not exclusively a failing of the young.7

Perhaps one day computer science will, like Yugoslavia. On the hacker radar screen, Perl is as big as possible wants to attract everyone. Do they need another meeting with you?8 Say what you're doing. The other critical component of Ajax is Javascript, the programming language that runs in the browser. Professional investors are constantly trading little favors. The critical thing in both cases is that they worry it won't scale. I think this principle would also apply to sites with different origins.

Does Web 2. They're also in a business where winners tend to keep away bad people, because they can't see things from the user's point of view is practically the secret of success. It wasn't just as consumers that the big winners have had.9 I have never used but about hacker's radar which I have never used but about hacker's radar which I have never used but about hacker's radar which I have never once seen a startup lured down a blind alley by trying too hard to conceal your rawness—by trying to encourage startups. As a condition of funding, their investors insisted they hire someone old and experienced as CEO.10 Countless paintings, when you can do is go over the heads of organizations, directly to the committee and so gave them no way to reply. Not everyone who gets rich now does it by creating wealth, and social class are just names for the same reason you'd have overlooked the idea of starting a startup, initially.

Notes

What's the connection?

Reprinted in Bacon, Alan ed. When I use the phrase frequently, you may have to disclose the threat to potential investors are also several you can't expect you'll be well on your way up.

I'm not saying we should worry, not all of us in the definition of property. Apparently there's only one person could go at a particular valuation, or working in middle management at a time before photography had a big company.

The word regressive as applied to tax avoidance. A related trick is to the size of the Fabian Society, it will become correspondingly more important than the 50 minutes they may try allowing up to them more professional. The Sub-Zero 690, one of the court.

Horace, Sat. Fortuna! Galbraith p. A termsheet with a walrus mustache and a back seat to philology, which would be on fewer boards at once is to make a living playing at weddings than by selling recordings.

Some urban renewal experts took a back-office manager written mostly in Perl, and the foolish. In a project like a startup.

Angels and super-angel than a huge loophole.

Y Combinator never negotiates valuations is that there were about the smaller investments you raise money. When an investor derives mostly from looking for something new if the VC. They have no trouble getting hired by these companies substitute progress for revenue growth, because the Depression was one firm that wanted to invest at a pre-Google search engines.

Yes, I should probably pack investor meetings too closely, you'll usually do best to err on the firm's site, they're probably a real idea that there could be ignored. Morgan's hired hands. This is why hackers give you such a statement would merely be eccentric. In A Plan for Spam.

When Google adopted Don't be fooled by the leading scholars in the Baskin-Robbins. 4%, Macintosh 18. But you can survive without external encouragement. If big companies, executives at 300 big corporations.

[packernet]

New Post has been published on https://www.packernet.com/blog/2019/12/10/2020-nfl-mock-draft/

2020 NFL Mock Draft

Team draft order is via tankathon.com. Big board can be found here.

1 Bengals Joe Burrow QB LSU

There is a ton of debate between taking the QB of the future of Chase Young. On one hand, Chase is elite and it may be early for a QB. On the other hand, I watched the difference between Burrow and Fromm on television and I can tell you I have no interest in taking a flyer in the second round. If we want to draft a QB of the future, this is the best chance we’re going to have.

2GiantsChase YoungEDGEOhio State

This is the best possible situation for the Giants. This is parade-worthy.

3RedskinsAndrew ThomasOTGeorgia

The pick makes a lot of sense for a lot of reason. It really won’t matter until they address the front office but that’s a discussion for another time. Haskins needs help. He has a WR, let’s get him a tackle.

4DolphinsTua TagovailoaQBAlabama

I always hate dropping a QB in a terrible situation but such is the life of a lot of these QB’s. We’ve got 3 picks in the first so let’s get Tua and start building.

5LionsJerry JeudyWRAlabama

It’s not a massive need but how do you pass it up? This is also, by the way, a bad situation for the Packers. Better be ready for a shootout.

6CardinalsJeffrey OkudahCBOhio State

The Cardinals need a lot of things so taking the best available is probably the best option. Fortunately for the Okudah is a stud and their corners are horrible, even with Peterson who is likely gone next year.

7JaguarsTristan WirfsOTIowa

A WR feels like the right thing to do but we need a solid foundation first and we just simply don’t have it. Get the OL, protect the QB, establish the run, THEN worry about passing the ball all over the yard.

8FalconsA.J. EpenesaEDGEIowa

Not only are we not getting enough production off the edge but McKinley, Clayborn, Hegeman, Bailey, and Means are all either free agents prior to 2020 or after it. We have to address this.

9JetsCeedee LambWROklahoma

I’d love to get some OL help but there isn’t much available and this is a team that just needs a spark. We got a flashy new QB, Le’Veon Bell is our RB, and we are the most boring offense in football. Let’s liven this up a little.

10ChargersTyler BiadaszIOLWisconsin

Just when everything seemed to be going right, the offensive line decided they would all at once decide to play like garbage. Okung fell off a cliff… Well actually everyone else has always kind of been trash. All the more reason.

11BroncosKristian FultonCBLSU

Another time I really wanted to get a WR to see if I could just super power this offense but the corners are about to ruin what could otherwise be a great defense. Fangio has this defense humming but take Harris out of the corner group and it is beyond horrible.

12PanthersJustin HerbertQBOregon

Lots of folks won’t like this but it seems to already be in the works. They are looking for a new HC already and the rumors of moving on from Cam are already swirling. They have other needs but it looks like the Panthers are looking for a full rebuild and Kyle Allen is the answer to nothing.

13EaglesTrevon DiggsCBAlabama

The corners have been an issue here for a while. It’s a little bit of a reach but I’m going need over value here.

14RaidersIsaiah SimmonsLBClemson

Being patient pays off for the Raiders because there are 3 top tier talents available. This might be the lesser of the 3 but we need a LB badly and Simmons is a great one.

15ColtsDerrick BrownDLAuburn

If you didn’t know any better you’d assume this was a Colts fan mock draft because Brown falling to 15 is insane. But alas, here we are. Brown is considered by many to be a top 3 talent but is 7th on my board. Still a massive slide and a huge pick up for a team that could really use him.

16BucsGrant DelpitSLSU

This is the 3rd of 3 to slide massively because of reasons, and is another huge get for a team that needs a safety. In fact I would argue they need one more than any other team. This is absolute best case scenario… Well maybe one of the QBs falling but whatever, this is big.

17BrownsJavon KinlawDLSouth Carolina

I wouldn’t say I’m in love with the pick and if I was doing trades in this mock I might do one here but the defensive front isn’t great and Kinlaw could be a monster interior pass rusher.

18Raiders (CHI)Henry RuggsWRAlabama

We added some defensive help with Simmons, now we’re going to get a little firepower. An Alabama replacement for Cooper feels right also.

19TitansCreed HumphreyIOLOklahoma

The Titans are similar to the Chargers in that their roster is nowhere near as bad as their record. With Tannehill playing well and possibly about to get an extension, let’s get a tad more help along the interior and see if we can get this thing going.

20Jaguars (LAR)Laviska ShenaultWRColorado

We added a tackle earlier in the draft with Wirfs and I halfway regretted not getting a WR because we just have nothing at the position. We have a few option but I think the trigger just needs to be pulled here.

21CowboysXavier McKinneySAlabama

The Cowboys have been begging for safeties in FA and aren’t very covert about it. McKinney is near the top of the board so I’m not going to hesitate.

22Mia (PIT)Alex LeatherwoodOTAlabama

As I said, we got Tua, now it’s our job to not ruin him. Getting a tackle is the first step.

23Mia (HOU)D’Andre SwiftRBGeorgia

And then I’ll take, protect the QB with a receiving back for 1,000, Alex.

24VikingsC.J. HendersonCBFlorida

Slight reach but it’s the most obvious glaring issue and is the thing that would probably upset me the most so here ya go.

25BillsJonathan TaylorRBWisconsin

I’ve been saying for a while J.T. to the Bills makes a ton of sense. Why stop now.

26ChiefsYetur Gross-MatosEDGEPenn State

Well at least that payday for Clark worked out for Clark. As for the Chiefs, this defense needs a lot of help and getting help off the edge isn’t a bad place to begin looking.

27PackersDylan MosesLBAlabama

OL, WR, and LB are the biggest wants of Packers fans. Seeing Moses, who is #20 on my board, still available made this decision very easy. Most think the Packers would never take a LB in the first but I think that’s silly. They definitely prioritize different positions more highly but if a LB is the highest on the board and your next highest is ranked 27th, Gute will skip down Vegas to turn the card in personally.

28SeahawksJedrick WillsOTAlabama

Ya I’m reaching for offensive linemen for the Seahawks cause it’s a mock published on a day ending in Y. Not that it’s a prediction. if I wanted to predict a pick I’d scroll to guys that are a 3rd round value, close my eyes, and poke the screen. But in this mock I’m the GM and once again, we’re going to try and actually build a legitimate NFL offensive line.

29PatriotsRaekwon DavisDLAlabama

If I was forced to pick a weak spot, defensive line (not edge) would be near the top. I considered Tee Higgins but we just took a WR in the first last year. Davis just feels more like a Patriots pick anyway. Massive monster that can’t be moved along the DL.

30SaintsTee HigginsWRClemson

Because it’ll make everyone else say “Oh no”

31RavensCurtis WeaverEDGEAuburn

Judon is a stud and will probably get paid but we lose Za’darius and Suggs, and McPhee might be on the way out. Gotta reload.

3249ersKenneth MurrayLBOklahoma

The 49ers are solid but there are a surprising amount of holes. They just paid Kwon but I don’t care, that was stupid. Let’s actually get a good LB on the team.

[alexsmitposts]

Gizmodo and the Liberal World Order Decepticons Here’s another good one for you. Gizmodo is now sure that Vladimir Putin and his Russian minions created a veritable network powered by Twitter Decepticons aimed at presidential candidate Hillary (Mrs. Optimus Prime) Clinton. Here’s an initial look into who is really manipulating social media for evil. Now that the Trump-Putin conspiracy to turn the U.S.A. into a satellite of a new U.S.S.R. has been proven to be a hoax, it appears the liberal world order is turning up the stinky gas on Mr. Putin. Using a report provided by American cybersecurity company Symantec, Gizmodo was just sold to Great Hill Partners, an equity and venture capital fund run by CEO Christopher (Chris) Gaffney, who also happens to be the Director at Ikon Science Limited in the EU. Pertinent to my “Decepticons” introduction, Ikon Science has joined the National Oceanography Centre, Shell, BP and OEAGHG in an initiative to close the gap on the missing research available for Carbon Capture and Storage. Please digest this tidbit for a moment. Now that you suspect Gizmodo of pumping out propaganda against Russia’s energy and growth initiatives, let me add more fuel to any outrageous globalists fires I may have rekindled. An even more fascinating tidbit about Icon Science is the company’s dealings with a North Sea oil exploration outfit called Oilexco, which supposedly received (get this) 1 million barrels worth of oil in a program that led to supporting the regime of Sadaam Hussein. Back in 2004, the head of Oilexco, Arthur Millholland was under investigation but denied any culpability in such a program. Today, Millholland is in Nigeria at play for Canadian Overseas Oil. Even the U.S. State Department’s Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty reported that every major and minor oil company in Iraq participated. Only the CIA broadcast network pointed the damning finger at Russian companies instead of our British and Canadian friends. Much has been claimed with regards to Twitter accounts like the @TEN_GOP banned by the social network. Gizmodo, POLITICO, and other elitist controlled media attempted to loop as many so-called “bot accounts” as they could to the independent St. Petersburg, Russia operation deemed “The Agency” by The New York Times’ Adrien Chen. On these points, as a specialist in social media and geopolitics, the ludicrousness of the Russian meddling connections are sad/hilarious. I was labeled one of the top so-called “Kremlin Trolls” back when the Euromaidan coup erupted in Kyiv, Ukraine. The idea that a cohesive Russian influence attack cannot be taken seriously. My book on the subject, Putin’s Praetorians sheds light on the real dissenters against westward NATO movement and Big Brother. You can trust in this, as a first adopter of every social media platform ever launched if Vladimir Putin was ordering Trump into office my social media accounts would be stronger than Lady Gaga’s. People who do not know what they are talking about are pulling the proverbial wool over the public’s eyes. Twitter “bots” are a function of shady digital business, more than espionage tools so-called “experts” suggest. The problem with Washington’s, London’s, Paris’, and Berlin’s troll theories is shortsightedness. Look at this. Since the creation of startups like MySpace, the now-defunct Netscape (later Propeller), Digg, Facebook, and another 200 failed ones, digital experts and marketing gurus have sought to manipulate the users of social communities. I know because it was part of my job description as a technology writer to evaluate them. Later on, PR and marketing companies solicited me to take a more active role in “influencing” these communities. Since 2008, when a noted technology celebrity suggested I start a PR firm on the merits of my expertise, social media has been a key to the success of my companies and those which we represented. Russian business people, even officials, are not doing anything western business and government have not already perfected. Take my word, or leave it, Russian social and digital strategy is a billion lightyears behind what APCO Worldwide, Waggener Edstrom, and other huge PR firms meet out. I know this because we were a part of the ecosystem that “trained” the big firms to migrate to digital. But let’s move on to a simpler subject, the idea those pesky Ruskys are deploying their Decepticons against the innocent simple people. To simplify my story here, if the reader will simply Google the “Top Twitter bots,” he or she will find listed Twitter growth tools like TweSocial, the tweet bot Jarvee, and dozens more designed to help marketers expand following, reach, and so forth. You can trust that anything that is massively popular in social media was paid for, even including that viral video with millions of views. The geniuses that advise the U.S. Congress and parliaments in Europe cry about alleged Russian bots, when American marketers praise lists and lists of Twitter accounts they say social media “loves” – take the 1.1 million Tweets of @RealHumanPraise and a line of automated #PraiseFOX Tweets. Another bot account that Tweets other bot messages still posts the popular vote difference in between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to selected #hashtags like #Istillcantbelieve #NeverForget, #BabyPresident, Impeachment, and so on. Somebody in the liberal world order camp must have failed to unplug the automatic Hillary weeping. The problem with all these “investigations” is that there is no objectivity. The alleged “researchers” are only looking for ammunition to support their narrative. From the U.S. Congress to Number 10 Downing Street, nobody wants to hear the truth – leaders only want the PR hook. It’s high time our leadership employed some authentic expertise, gurus who can answer the question “Why is a service called discoverbot.com recommending the best Twitter bots to follow?” Better still, why aren’t super cybersecurity companies reporting to Washington on the 15% of Twitter users shown to be bots by the likes of Mozilla and others? The people voted to represent us in government, the businesses that get them elected, the entire bureaucratic spaghetti mess running the world cannot even grasp how EVERYBODY is gaming the system. Here’s a description that shows how sophisticated these bots can be. This shows the blatant, out in the open arrogance of companies aligned with marketing in the west. Tweet Attacks Pro just comes out and advertise circumvent Twitter rules. “After following the people, the bot will then unfollow the non-active users or those who did not follow back. By doing this, the bot will be hardly detected as it operates just the way other humans operate, but it does it effectively without consuming your time.” I could spend the better part of a month laying out how unscrupulous marketers, content distributors, shady bloggers and journalists, and 1,000’s of companies in the digital space game the social media system, as well as the traditional media spectrum. Instead, I suggest the reader do his or her own research. Like I said previously, the idea that anybody in power is really relying on objective research is a joke. Take the case of Amazon using bots to influence public opinion and decisions concerning their low wage to workers. The reader has not heard of this “influencing” effort by the world’s richest man’s company, I know. We live in a world where the Democratic National Convention can be rigged, and when the manufactured villain of the day is to blame. The “pot calls the kettle black” on the front page of the New York Times, and nobody in America cares. The easiest deception of all is to operate in plain sight while convincing the victims that a manufactured enemy is to blame. Think about all this until our next research into who really manipulates social media for evil.

[hamiltontrashaccount]

Burgers In New York (Daveed Diggs x Reader)

Hi, so this is my first fic on here. I want to give a BIG thanks to my best friend @pumpernickelbae. She read this as I wrote it and she encouraged me to finish it, so thanks! Hope you enjoy, please like and reblog it if you liked it. 

Pairing: Daveed Diggs x Reader

Warnings: Cursing, some asshole kids

MASTERLIST

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You’d always hated working at the diner. Sure, you had a great boss and you made money, but come on. The diner itself was filthy; it always smelled of grease, artificial strawberries, cologne and perfume. The amount of people who walked in there with way too much cologne or perfume was ridiculous.  But also, the diner kept you from going to school full time. You had nowhere near enough money to go to college, so you had to spend as much time as possible working at the diner, which made for a barely there social life. For now, night classes were the only thing you could afford, and even that was a struggle to continue to pay for. It was hard to keep up school, a full-time job and a boyfriend.

“Y/N, do you mind handling the tables for now? Those guys came back and I don’t wanna deal with them.” Your annoying co-worker Dana whined to you and looking at you with a hopeful look.

You turned your back to her, rolling your eyes as you rinsed your hands of the soap on them.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Thanks so much!” She shouted, her already high-pitched voice rising to even higher decibels. You winced as you dried your hands on your apron and snatched the pen and pad away from her.

“Yeah, no problem.”

When you walked out into the dining area, you saw the guys that Dana was talking about. They were a group of high-school aged kids who always came in at this same time. They always tried to flirt with the other female waiters who worked with you, but they were especially annoying towards Dana. It was understandable though; Dana was the prettiest worker there by far, what with her big lips, curvy body and gorgeous eyes. It was the reason she got the most tips.

You walked to the same table they always occupied and, as always, made an effort to make yourself look as unattractive as possible. It didn’t work.

“Oh yeah, we got the prettiest waitress here!” one kid shouted, flashing his teeth at you.

“Y’all are sweet. What will you guys have?” you asked.

“Some of you, I hope.” Another kid mumbled giving you a smirk, he probably assumed was sexy. The other kids laughed loudly at what he said, making the other patrons in the diner turn towards you with annoyed looks.

Margo, your boss, walked out from her office next to the kitchen to see what the commotion was. She gave you an apologetic look, since she knew that these kids were always the hardest to deal with.

“Uh, we’ll have the usual.” Said one kid, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“You guys always order something different every time you come here. I need y’all to look at the menus and give me some answers. I’ll come back in 10.” You said, turning around and walking towards Margo, who was leaning against the bar counter.

“Hey, girl. Your favorite customers came to visit you, huh?” Margot joked, her Brooklyn accent making its appearance.

“Ha, yeah. My faves.” You mumbled.

You heard the door jingle, indicating the presence of another customer.

“Better get back to the ol’ grind, babes.” She said, pushing you away from the bar counter. You turned to look for the customer who just walked in and found him sitting at a window booth, looking at a menu that was already there.

You walked up his table and put on a smile.

“Hello, I’m Y/N. What drink would you like?” you asked.

“Uh, some water I guess.” He answered, not looking up from his menu.

“Coming up.” You walked away and got his water.

A moment later you came back to his table to find him still looking at his menu.

“Need more time?” you asked, putting the glass down carefully and placing a straw next to it.

He finally looked up from the menu. To say that he was attractive was a serious understatement.

“Yes, please.”

Your face turned red as you nodded your head and walked away.

Dana was standing at the bar counter, staring at the customer who you were just helping.

“I want a piece of him.” She whispered in awe.

You chuckled. “Jesus, me too.” You turned to stare at him too. Margo soon came out to stand next to Dana.

“What are we staring at?”

“The hot dude by the window.” Dana answered.

Margo nodded her head. “He’s cute.”

Both you and Dana turned to her and were ready to criticize her for her dismissive response at his looks before you both remembered that Margo batted for the other team.

“Oh please, Margo. Even your gay ass can see that he’s hot as shit.” You said.

“I don’t know that he’s hot as shit, but yeah he’s cute.” Margo said. She turned to look at a different table. “Looks like our favorite customers are ready to order.”

You looked at the table that Margo pointed at and saw the high school kids were trying to wave you down. You gave Margo a dirty look before walking over to the guys.

“You guys ready to order?”

“Yeah baby. We want the other waitress to come over here and say hi.” One of them asked.

“Sorry, you got me instead. Are you guys ready to order?” you repeated.

They all rolled their eyes and one of the kids began to list off what they each wanted. You wrote down each order and walked to the kitchen to give in their order.

You made your way to the hot customer. “Are you ready yet?”

He looked up from his phone and answered, “Yes and no. I’m ready to order, but everything looks good here. What do you suggest?” He gave you a smile. How could you say no to his sexy smile?

“Uh, um yeah I guess.” Your face got red and you mentally kicked yourself. Why are you acting like a 12-year-old girl? “The burgers here are good, and uh, the fries too. You could get a smoothie if you’re thirsty, but I mean you already have water so why would you want that?” you stammered.

He chuckled as you continued your rambling. “And uh, the chicken fingers taste fine too.”

He nodded his head, seeming to consider the choices you gave him.

“I’ll take the burger. With extra lettuce please.” He said. You nodded your head vigorously and wrote down his order.

“Anything else?” you asked. He shook his head and you walked away from the table, trying hard not to trip over your feet, which you had a habit of doing in front of guys you liked.

10 minutes later you brought his order to his table.

“Anything else?” You asked. He said no and you walked away from his table.

You had since brought the annoying kids their food and now they were waving you down so that they could get their bill. Or so you thought.

“Hey baby, do you think you could turn around and give us a little peek at that fine piece of ass?”

“Yeah, it’s so good looking, ya know? Like something I’d really like to squeeze.”

“Do you boys want to order anything else?” You asked, ignoring their lewd and extremely loud comments.

“Aw, come on baby. We’ve had such a hard day today, if you know what I mean.” One of them said, winking at you.

“Yeah, we really need a little pick me up. So a little booty peek might make us feel better.” Another one said, leaning in closer to you.

“Yeah, or maybe flash us some of your tits. That might be better.” A third boy spoke out. Your face began to turn red with anger and you opened your mouth to tell them something before another kid began to speak.

“Or maybe a peek of what’s in those pants.” He said, grabbing onto your arm.

You flinched your arm away and felt it hit something hard. You turned around, worried that it might be another kid, coming to back up his friends. You were relieved to find that it was the hot customer.

“Do any of you boys want to repeat what you just said here?” the hot customer said, his voice rumbling loudly in your ear.  You resisted the urge to shiver.

All of the boys looked around at each other, unsure of what to say.

One of them decided to answer. “No, sir.”

“Good, now all of you get out of here, and go ask your moms the proper way to speak to women.” The customer said.

The boys hesitated for a second before they all scrambled to get out of their seats. You were about to stop them and ask for them to pay for their meal but they were all out of the restaurant in less than 30 seconds before the words came out of your mouth.

You turned around to thank the hot customer and saw him reaching to his back pocket.

“How much was their bill?” he asked, his wallet appearing from behind him.

“What? You're not paying for their bill!”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m the one who made them leave. I should pay.”

“No. It’s because you made them leave that you shouldn’t pay. Not even for your meal.”

“It’s fine.” He said, pulling out a hundred dollar bill.

“Wha- No! Their and your bill don’t add up to that.” You shouted.

“Just take the rest of it as a tip.” He said, adding a wink to the end of his sentence. He walked back to his table, ignoring your protests. He sat back down and finished eating his hamburger.

You walked to the register, pushing aside the kid who stood in front of it and got the hot customer’s change.

You stomped over to his table and slammed the money onto it.

“Here’s your change.” You said. He just looked up at you and grinned. You walked away, suddenly flustered again.

20 minutes later, he got up from his seat, grabbed his jacket, and walked out of the restaurant.

The bus boy walked over and cleaned up the table. A few minutes later, he walked up to you and handed you the same change that you had slammed on the table a while before.

“I think this is your tip?” the bus boy said quietly. You took it from him and shoved it into your pocket.

At around 6:00, the end of your shift, Margo walked out of her office to say goodbye.

“Oh, and did you get “hot customer’s” number?” she asked, putting air quotations over the nickname you and Dana had started calling him by.

“No, why would I have gotten his number?”

“Cause he really seemed to tickle your fancy.”

You giggled. “’Tickle my fancy’?”

She giggled right along with you. “Yeah, tickled your fancy. You were acting super girly when taking his order.”

You shook your head. “Yeah well, I have a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, well. I met your boyfriend. And I fucking hate him.”

You laughed. “Okay, Margo. I gotta go.” You said, grabbing your bag from her office, which served as the worker’s lockers.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She said, waving her hand at you.

You said goodbye to the other workers there and walked out of the diner.

Later that night, you got a text from your boyfriend.

From Jack:

Hey wanna hang tonight? ;)

To Jack:

Not tonight babe. I’m really tired.

To Jack:

Guess what happened at work today??

From Jack:

I thought you were tired now u want to talk?

To Jack:

I’m too tired to go over to your house and mess around. I'm not too tired to talk to you. I’m sorry that I want to talk to my boyfriend

From Jack:

Oh I’m your boyfriend?? didn’t realize, since you never make time 4 me

To Jack:

I have to work all the time in order to pay my fucking bills Jack, sorry I can’t be with you every second of every day.

To Jack:

I hope you realize, that I make time to text you every chance I get. Do you know how many times I almost get caught texting in class

From Jack:

sorry I make things so difficult 4 u

To Jack:

Whatever. So do you want to talk or not

From Jack:

We can talk at my house

To Jack:

Or we can stay texting

From Jack:

Okay, then I don’t want to talk

To Jack:

Fine, good night

You threw down your phone in frustration. Maybe there was a reason Margo hated him so much?

Ever since that day, the hot customer had come to the diner, and the high-school kids never came again. (Margo admitted that on the day you had taken off from work (to go out with Jack), the hot customer had driven the boys out of the diner after they’d said many inappropriate things to Dana. Each day he had come in, you’d tried to give him back the money you owed him. And each day, he refused to take it.

One day, you had even decided to be a little more creative with giving him the money, hoping that would compel him to actually keep the money. Before you had taken him his burger (his usual order when coming into the diner, always with extra lettuce), you’d slid the $30 in between the burger and the bun.

You’d brought his order, and asked if he needed anything else, trying to act as normal as possible.

You walked away and rested against the bar counter, watching his reaction. He took a bite of his burger and grimaced as his teeth made contact with the money. He spit out whatever food in his mouth and opened the burger. A smile moved across his face as he realized what was in the burger. Then all of a sudden, he began to howl with laughter. The few customers in the diner looked at him, wondering why he was laughing. The hot customer started clapping along with his laughter. He saw you leaning on the bar counter and pointed at you, continuing his laughter. You giggled at the sight and walked to the new customers that just walked into the diner.

After the hot customer had left, the bus boy came over and gave you the same $30 you’d tried giving back to the man, along with a note. The note read: nice try :), but please, keep the money. You deserve it –D.D.D

After reading that note, you decided to finally keep the money.

Now, every day after the note, you had been feeling even more flustered than before. You were extra cautious with every move you made, worried that he was watching you. And because you always had luck with things you wanted, you were constantly making mistakes in front of him. Like spilling people’s orders on yourself, tripping over your feet, and many other embarrassing things like that. Thankfully, every time you looked at him, he seemed to not be looking at you. Why can’t you just get over this ridiculous crush? You asked yourself everyday.

It was a Friday afternoon, the diner’s busiest time. There were two other waiters working with you. Unfortunately, you weren’t able to wait on the hot customer’s usual table. However, Dana, who had been about to wait on him, walked over to you as you walked away from another table.

“They won’t let me take their order. Hot customer keeps asking for you.” She mumbled, looking jealous as she told you this. Your face turned red but you still made your way to his table. You saw that he had brought a friend with him today. This man had a much broader body than he did, but no one else could match the hot customer's looks. However, this man was a really close second.

“Hello, I’m Y/N and I’ll be your waitress. What’ll have?” You asked, trying to keep your voice from shaking.

“Oh, so you’re Daveed’s big crush?” the other man said, looking you up and down, a smirk playing on his lips. “I must say he has good tas- Ow!” the man groaned.

Your face was a dark red but you giggled anyway. “I highly doubt that.” You turned to the hot customer. “Your name’s Daveed?”

Daveed smiled widely and answered, “Yeah.”

The both of you stared at each other for a little too long before his friend cleared his throat. “I’m Oak.”

Your cheeks turned pink again and you turned back to the other man. “Nice to meet you.” You reached out a hand to him. He took your hand and gave it a light kiss.

You giggled and asked what they wanted to order.

“My usual please.” Daveed answered.

“And I’ll have the same.” Oak said.

“A burger with extra lettuce?” You asked, writing down the order in your pad.

“What the hell? Extra lettuce? Daveed, are you crazy? How about no lettuce, please?” Oak said, looking at you.

You nodded your head. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, some meds for my friend here, since he thinks a fucking burger needs to be ruined with lettuce.”

You laughed. “I’ll check up on that.”

You walked away to put their orders in. Almost 35 minutes later, you were rushing their orders back to them.

“I’m sorry for the long wait,” you apologized. “We’re extremely busy today. I’d be happy to give y’all something for free for having to wait.”

“No, that’s okay.” Both men chorused.

“Okay then. Anything else?”

“Yes, your number. Because I know damn well Daveed will probably be too chicken to ever ask you for it.”

“Uh…” you said, your cheeks turning pink. Damn it, stop fucking blushing.

“Oak.” Daveed groaned.

“Sorry, not sorry.”

“I’m sorry. Oak is under the impression that he’s actually funny.” Daveed said, shooting his friend an angry look. Oak only laughed.

You laughed along with him and walked away from the table. After another 30 minutes, you walked over to their table to hand them their bill.

“Shut up, she’s walking over.” You heard Daveed mumble.

“No, I will not shut up. You need to ask her ou-Ow!” Oak began saying before being interrupted by Daveed’s foot.

You handed them their bill and walked away with a big smile on your face.

Everyday after that, you greeted Daveed by his name every time he came into the diner. Most of the time, he would come by himself, but at least once a week he would bring in more friends. You’d already met Oak, Anthony, Jasmine (whom you’d figured was dating Anthony since you had seen them at a table by themselves once, making out) and Lin. Each time you’d met his friends, they teased him relentlessly over his “big crush” on you.

You and Daveed always only made polite conversation, asking how the other person’s day had gone. You were progressively getting to like him better, your crush on him relying less on his looks and more on his personality.

One day while working, Jack decided to come visit you. He’d rarely come to your job; he said the place was sickening and that every time he came in there, his expensive shoes always smelled of it. You hated the way he talked about the diner. Even though you agreed with him on everything, the diner was still special to you, especially since Daveed was there almost every day.

“Hey, sexy.” He said, giving you a sloppy kiss on your lips. You pulled away quickly and tried to keep your eyes from looking over at Daveed. You prayed he hadn’t seen the kiss. But unfortunately for you, he did. Anthony was there, and he gave Daveed a sympathetic look.

“I’m sorry, man.” Anthony said.

“Jack, what are you doing here?” You asked, hoping your voice didn’t sound too annoyed.

“Can’t a man visit his girl?” Jack said, reaching for another kiss.

“I’m working, Jack.”

He tried reaching in for another kiss. “Come on babe. We never see each other.”

“Jack,” you warned. He rolled his eyes and stepped away from you.

“Fine, I’ll stop.” He mumbled, his voice sounding angry. Well, you couldn’t give two shits if he was angry. “I’ll go sit down in a table and wait for my girl to actually find time for me for once.”

“Get over yourself, Jack.” You hissed.

“Excuse me? What the fuck did you say?” Jack growled, getting closer to you.

You weren’t backing down. “I said get over yourself.”

“Oh jeez, Y/N. Don’t start getting pissy with me.” He warned.

“Sit down, Jack, and maybe I’ll make some time for you.”

He stared at you a while longer before going to sit down.

Dana was standing nearby and she said, “Dump him already.”

You turned to her. “What?”

“Dump him. You obviously like hot customer better than him anyway.”

“His name is Daveed.” You mumbled.

“Oh god, whatever. Just dump that a-hole already, and get with that sexy hunk of meat before I go after him.”

You shook your head at her and continued working.

At the end of your shift, Jack walked with you out of the diner.

“So you want to tell me why you were attacking me in there?” Jack asked.

“Jack, can we please just get to your apartment and not fight?”

He dropped the subject quickly. “Anything for you babe.”

Jack quickly flagged down a taxi and set off for his apartment.

Daveed usually didn’t come to the diner at night. But he had just come from a party, where he’d drunk a little too much alcohol, and needed some food in his system before he set off to his bed.

When he had gotten there, he’d been damp from the rain that was pouring down. Maybe I shouldn’t have walked here. He thought to himself as he sat in his usual spot.

An hour later, he was mostly dry, drinking tea and scrolling through his phone.

Suddenly, you came barging in through the door. You were completely soaked, mascara running down your face and ugly sobs coming from your mouth. Daveed immediately stood up as you walked away from the door in the direction of Margo’s office. You glanced in and let out another sob as you realized Margo wasn’t there.

Shannon, one of the few people who worked this late at night at the diner, saw you and said, “Margo left early today.”

You nodded your head. “Okay thanks.” You started walking towards the door before you saw Daveed, standing up next to his table and staring at you.

You tried your hardest to put a smile on your face, but failed miserably. Daveed walked over, put his arm around your shoulders and walked you to his table. He sat you across from him and took his own seat.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

All the memories of just an hour ago came flooding back into your mind, and you couldn’t stop the tears that poured out of you eyes. Daveed quickly rose from his seat and plopped down next to you, bringing your head to his shoulders. You wrapped your arms underneath his and cried for what seemed like hours. After you had calmed down, Daveed loosened his grip on you and repeated his question from before.

“No,” you answered. “My boyfriend of four fucking years just broke up with me.” You sniffled.

Daveed shook his head. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

You started ranting, your sadness leaving your body and anger taking over. “God, I gave him four years of my life, for him to just break up with me. Do you want to know what he told me tonight?” You didn’t wait for Daveed to answer. “He told me that two years ago, he had an affair with some woman for like two months. Not a one night fucking stand, no. He had an entire relationship behind my back. Who does that?”

Daveed just sat there, listening to your ranting. When you finished your rant with a rough “Damn jackass”, Daveed finally responded.

“Well, he didn’t deserve you. Anyone who’s willing to cheat on you is not worth your time.”

You nodded your head. “Damn right. I’m done with his shit.” You sat in silence. “I don’t know why I still feel so sad, though.”

Daveed began rubbing circles into your back. “You were with him for four years. You loved him. But you’ll get over him soon.”

You nodded your head, and tried to keep the sadness away. You gave Daveed a watery smile. “Let’s forget my tragic love life. Let’s talk. Let’s have an actual, full on conversation.”

Daveed smiled widely. “Let’s.”

You two talked for hours about everything. What you wanted to do (become an English teacher), what he did (He’s on Broadway?!) and what ever else you two could think of talking about.

2 a.m. was the closing time for Thursday, and since you had been sitting there with Daveed, Shannon gave you the keys to lock up everything for when after you guys left.

At 3 in the morning, Daveed said that he had to leave so he could get some sleep before his show later that day.

“Yeah, definitely. Sorry for keeping you from your rest.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I enjoyed every second.” He grinned.

After locking everything up, you both gave each other a goodbye hug. “See you later.” He said.

You giggled. “Yeah, see ya.”

You both walked your separate ways.

After that day, you both had been much more friendly with each other, giving each other flirty looks when you could. Every time his friends came in with him, they would continue to tease him.

On one amazing day, Daveed came in with Oak and Anthony.

When you got to their table, Daveed gave you a huge smile. You returned the smile and said, “Hey, what do you guys want today?”

“For you to go out with our big boy Daveed here.” Anthony said, giving his friend a hard pat on the back.

Oak looked at you with a hopeful look. “God, please go out with him. He won’t shut up about you still. It has been weeks and he still won’t shut up.”

Both men kept insisting on going out with Daveed. You giggled throughout their proposals.

After Daveed looked properly embarrassed, you cleared your throat and both men promptly shut up. You cocked your head and said, “Daveed?”

He looked up, his hair covering some of his face. “Yes?”

“I’d love to go out with you. I don’t know what took you so long to ask.”

A smile grew on Daveed’s face and both of his friends stood up in their seats and began to hoot and holler.

Oak began to grind the air, shouting out “Oh, yeah! My man gon get it!”

Anthony started doing a little dance and shouted, “Daveed and Y/N sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

You giggled and tried to get both men to sit down before Margo came out and yelled at you. After a moment, they sat back down, with Daveed laughing just as hard as you.

“You guys are gonna get me in trouble.” You chastised, but a smile was on your lips.

“We’ll leave you two love birds here for a sec. But don’t talk too nasty, we’re only gonna be a few tables down, listening to every word being said.” Anthony said. Oak and Anthony stood up and did what they said they were going to do. They both stared at you and Daveed, their hands tucked under their chins like children.

Daveed turned to you. “So,” he started.

“Are you gonna ask, or…” You asked.

“Oh shit. Yeah, um… Do you wanna go out?”

“Like… On a date?” You teased.

Daveed chuckled. “Yeah, like on a date.”

You nodded your head, smiling. “Yeah, I’d love to.”

He smiled and took his phone out. You did the same and the both of you interchanged phones, putting your phone numbers into each other’s phones.

You handed each other back your phones and looked at the name he put himself under. It read Hot customer ;)

“Wha-” You looked up, your cheeks red. “How’d-”

“You guys were kind really loud every time you talked about me.” He chuckled.

You shook your head. “Good to know.”

You both laughed, and Oak and Anthony stood up from their table and walked back over.

“Great, we finally got that out of the way.” Oak said. “Now time for some grub.” He said, rubbing his hands together. You slipped your phone back in your pocket and took their orders.

You walked to the bar counter and Margo stopped you.

“What took y’all so long to finally agree to go out?” she asked.

You laughed in response.

She continued. “Y’all are gonna be good together; I can see it.”

You nodded your head. “Yeah, so can I.”

~Fin~