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Thursdays were Curtis’s favorites. He didn’t have work at Palmer Tech and Oliver was out most of the day, having chosen the last real weekday as his community day- running around the city to soup kitchens, children's homes, and the like to spread a little good will- so he was left to his own devices in the lair until late in the evening. Not that he didn’t love working with the team, but sometimes the training and mentoring got in the way of the basics of his purpose- computers.
Some Thursdays, Mayor Queen would send his sister, the ever-wonderous office manager, home, claiming that she had no reason to dog him about arrival and departure time when he had a driver and a coordinator on hand. Which meant that, as a person with as great of hatred of sedentary life as himself, Thea had to find something else to occupy her time- typically, it involved challenging him to see who, bare-fisted and empty handed, could sit the other on their ass the most frequently in the span of an hour.
Today, however was an even more rare occassion. Not only did Thea show up early, a little past 1:30, but arm-in-arm with the seemingly spontaneously appearing Sara Lance.
They had met before, a number of weeks ago when the blonde suddenly resurfaced for shore leave from her unconventional but awesome employment as a protector of time. The initial introduction had been quick, supposed to be just her stopping in to pick up some gear that she had left in Oliver’s (though she almost solely referred to him as Ollie) safekeep before heading out again to tell her father that she was in town for a while, but had lead to an hour long conversation about strength training and the shoulder-pain realities of the salmon ladder. Over the following days, he had caught her on several security cameras around Star doing everything from pre-dawn, rooftop terrain training to leather-clad vigilantism. He liked her.
The women entered with matching expressions of anticipation, pausing only long enough for Thea to drop her phone on the desktop to Curtis’s right for safe keeping and to have an eye on the always incoming messages before moving to the sparring area and setting to work with a quartet of half-staffs.
And, man, was it work. Watching them, fluid and strong- trading blow for blow in perfect time- he realized that he had never actually see Thea fight someone her size, let alone her skill level. Evelyn was around often enough, but Thea had taken a step back when it came to training the ‘new recruits’, letting Oliver sweat out all his and the other’s quirks before she even bothered to work with them. And while he had watch her face-off with Digg and her brother several times, he was quickly realizing that a small person fighting large people looks very different than than two people of nearly matched stature.
Instead of the constant bob, weave, and turn, there was an even mixture of force and precision, with no small amount of grace on either side. Both faces were still, with the exception of a twist of lips when an exceptionally tricky move was blocked or a window was left open. And then a switch would flip and, suddenly, the pacing was turned on its head and the evenly timed and spaced movements were replaced with a dozen more far more hectic and frenzied strokes until one or the other -typically Thea, but not always- faltered and the original tone returned with the favored side having won the upper hand. It was impressive. And, somehow, infinitely more terrifying than whenever Oliver would take someone into the makeshift ring.
He had tried keeping score at first, counting hits and silently tallying the inferred damage in his head, but then Sara -who moved like someone who had been born with a staff in each hand- would quirk a smile and say something that Curtis couldn’t make out over the distance and their forms would change in the matter of half a step- dominance shifting back and forth between the pair, or a favored hand being tucked behind their back, or both eyes closed- all without missing a beat. It was a dance, a rehearsal. They weren’t fighting to win. They were testing, teasing; trying to see who knew better tactics and which woman could best the other in a real-
Buzzzz.
Focus broken, Curtis could only glare around for a second before landing his eyes on the offending technology (he didn’t mean it, he loves technology) and saw that the tell-tale little blue light was lit up in the top corner of Thea’s phone. He snagged it off the table before it could rattle a second time against the glass surface, tapping the screen to see what had woken the phone.
Oddly, Thea had set her device to allow certain contacts to push to priority- not that the practice in general was strange, Curtis himself and rigged his phone to practically implode if he didn’t answer a text from Paul in a matter of five minutes- but the contact was obviously unaware of the practice and continued to send several texts in quick succession.
The contact whose name, interestingly enough, was Super Secret Boy-Toy bookended by smiling poop and revolver emoji.
Psh. And he had believed the little minx when she said she wasn’t seeing anyone.
And so, in one of those delightfully fleeting moments where absolutely all self-control goes soaring out of the window, Curtis unlocks the device.
At first, it’s just pictures. A trio centered around what appears to be a man: a masculine lump sleeping in a bed, covered head to toe in blankets and sheets; one of a pile of clothes implied to belong to him at the foot of said bed, with the picture-taker’s almost assuredly feminine hand digging through them; and the last of the same hand in the foreground, middle finger raised to flip off the sleeping man while holding a thick wad of bills in her palm.
Curtis briefly considered Thea’s boy-toy being a girl -toy until he saw the message beneath the photos. The messenger seemed intensely displeased at having received the pictures himself in lieu of direct confrontation from the photographer and was sharing them to Thea as a result. Curtis swallowed and adjusted his glasses as he raised his head to confirm that the sparring contest was still in full swing.
“Uh, Thea?” He internally thanked his high school theatre teacher for perfecting his projection- Felicity’s intercom was far too ridiculous to use on a daily basis.
Another pair of hollow thump s sounded before he got a quick shout of acknowledgment from the brunette, neither her nor her partner losing stride as they circled and reversed in time with their current form. (He swore it was like they were listening to music he couldn't hear.)
“You, um, you got a text. . .” from who I think is your very angry lover. He wasn’t entirely sure whether or not he intended to have to rest of the sentence evaporate off of his tongue.
Sara responded first, sounding unfairly level while Thea leapt out of her way to dodge a jab, “Just read it, Curtis, we’re all friends here.”
Thea affirmed the suggestion with a fast but exaggerated nod.
“It says, from, ah, SuperSecretBoy-Toy in all caps- ‘WHY THE HELL DID YOU GIVE HER MY ADDRESS!?!?!’” Maybe the quote-yelling was too much, but it kinda distracted from the mumbled and incredibly awkward contact name recitation, so, a draw? There was more, too, about cold medicine, questionably obtained spare keys, and ‘forced naps’ but he figured the first text got the point across.
Shuffle-Thump-Smack- THUD.
And the very elegant fight-dance ended with Thea on her ass and Sara looking down at her with a shocked expression. One stuttered step was all it took for the younger woman to be caught in the right cheek and opposite knee by Sara’s staffs.
Thea, after a quick shake of her head to relieve what he assumed was very blurry vision, blinked widely up at Sara before flicking her eyes to Curtis in a silent plea- though, for what, he didn’t know. Another text pinged and, with restraint still nowhere in sight, he silently read it as well.
Super Secret Boy-Toy: Sara’s going to kill you.
And judging by the homicidal rage that seemed to be steadily emitting from the blonde’s entire body, the texter was right.
“Thea.” He had heard that voice, he knew that voice. That was the patented Oliver Queen (or so Curtis had thought) ‘I am going to turn your insides into outsides unless you explain what is happening, right now, in explicit, gory detail’ voice.
Good (terrifying, actually) to know he hadn’t cornered the market on it.
“What did you tell her?”
The younger woman sat on the floor, rubbing at her jaw with one hand while the injured knee flexed and relaxed repeatedly against the thick mats.
“I- She, um- I got a call saying that she wanted to talk to him . . .” Thea drifted for a beat until she caught Sara’s hardening glare. “She said she wanted to talk to him without supervision and I said that Big Belly Burger would be a good place but she didn’t seem to think so, but promised that if she got his address she would wait until tonight. And I was going to call both of you and warn you-” Oh?
Oh. Sara’s Super Secret Boy-Toy.
Oh, shit.
“Thea. I told you to stay out of it. If they don’t get along, they don’t get along. It’s not like I’m not experienced in living two lives.”
“But, that’s not fair, Sara. To any of you.”
Oh, girl, don’t do it.
“You love them both, and they can’t even stand to be near each other.”
She did it.
Then, Sara Lance- reformed assassin- turned and murdered the dummy to her right, sending the first half foot of one of the blunt bamboo staffs flying through its leather wrapped head. Thea jumped up, out of the way of splintering wood, but found herself too close to the fuming, blue-eyed destroyer and chose to back towards the weapons cases.
“Dammit, Thea, I know! Of all the people here that I thought would have an issue with Len, I didn’t think it would be her- that’s why I told her!”
Okay, ‘Boy-Toy’ may be an understatement, but ‘Super Secret’ fit to a tee.
Huh, ‘Len’. Probably a Leonard-
Oh.
Shit.
“That- that guy! You’re dating that guy; the thief on the ship! With the ice gun!” And there goes his mouth, without his permission.
Sara flinched and turned to face him slowly, her voice markedly calmer when she spoke.
“Dating, sleeping with, sharing a house, kinda sorta all of it- however you want to phrase it, yeah. And now you know. Keep it to yourself.” Very threatening message, received. “And it’s a cold gun.” Okay.
Thea rolled her eyes behind her friends back. Before stepping forward and dragging the blonde with her to the ramp of the tech platform.
“No, you don’t get to say it like that, Sara,” she turned to look Curtis dead in the eye, “Sara and an unreasonably beautiful man named Leonard are very much in love. But, since together they make a grand total of one properly adjusted adult,” insert a bristling glare from the women Thea now has held captive with an arm looped around her waist, “Sara’s surrogate little sister hates Len because she thinks that he’s bad for Sara, and he hates being hated by someone so important to his ‘partner’-seriously, the man refuses to say, like, lover or girlfriend- so he shuts down and refuses to interact with her, Sin, whatsoever, totally building on her idea that he is an emotionless robot intent on destroying any of Sara’s possible post-resurrection happiness.” She cut off with a sigh as Sara’s chin dropped nearly to her chest in defeat.
“And I, as gracious a' friend as ever, am caught in what I can only refer to as the least sexy threeway of emotional frustration, resentment, and exhaustion that I have ever had the displeasure of knowing.”
Sara glared off at nothing in particular while Thea spoke but turned to give her friend a weak smile before making her own addition.
“It just, Sin has decided that she going to shorthand him every chance she can- and I’ve tried everything to get them to just chill, ” She scoffed, apparently at herself, “bribery, blackmail, planning ahead so that they avoid . . .well, each other.” She paused, glare now aimed at the floor with both hands white-knuckling around the length of bamboo in her hand, “But now I guess she’s decided that stealing walking-around money from an internationally renowned thief is the way to get me to dump him. Which obviously won’t work because if I’ve put up with him for this long. . .” She dropped off, brow knitted together with frustration.
Curtis felt sorry for her.
For Sara.
An undead, crazy-skillful assassin.
This is insane.
“That, um, that sucks, Sara.” Oh, how eloquent. One upset woman and he forgets how to handle emotion. He huffed at himself and stood up from the desk, sure to take Thea’s phone with him as he rounded the railing and strode to where the two were standing.
“What I mean to say is that it can be very unsettling to know that people that you love can’t see the merits in each other. I get it. And it sounds like you’ve been keeping Len at a distance from a lot of people for that very reason, which I get, again, if what Felicity has told me is true. Sara, what they feel about each other- if it’s benign, at least- doesn’t have affect how you feel about either one of them. You can love them both and, before too long, Sin will overcome whatever irrational reasons behind whatever she’s feeling and it sounds like he would like nothing more than to have both you and her happy; and make it up to you. Hopefully with cake-” Oops. “Sorry, I forgot to eat lunch, I’m projecting my hunger.” Both women laughed.
Then the phone in his buzz ed again and he held it up to see a ‘Dammit, Queen. Call me.’ message from Supe- Len and he handed the device off to its rightful owner.
Thea glance at the screen before- “Ooh, how about we video call.”
That line was far too innocent for the eyebrow waggle that accompanied it.
Sara stiffened and gave a sharp “ No.”
“Come on, we could introduce him to-”
“Not happening.”
Curtis blinked. “What, why? I promise not to hate him.”
Thea smiled. “Oh, no it’s not you, Curtis, it’s just that last month I-”
“Dammit, Thea-” Sara was growling.
“Showed him pictures of Team Arrow and since you’re on Team Arrow, well-” The smile was growing so large that he wasn’t sure how she kept talking.
“Don’t tell him-” Sara was still insisting . . .
And Thea let out what was, without a doubt, the most evil giggle he had ever heard- and he had played Cards Against Humanity with the Smoaks .
“You, Curtis Holt, are apparently his type.”
Wha-? Oh. “ Oh .”
Sara’s hands shot into the air in disbelief.
“Oh my God, Thea! There was no need to tell him that!”
“Wrong. My poor, lonely , heart was in great need of reimbursement for all of the emotional turbulence I have had to endure of the past few weeks.”
Sara scoffed, tossing her head to look anywhere but at the lair’s other occupants.
“Technically all he said was that Curtis reminded him of an ex, not that he was his type .”
All that got her was a pseudo-sympathetic pat on the shoulder and a sweet ‘Keep telling yourself that, babe’ while Curtis felt heat flood his cheeks.
Sara left a grand total of five minutes later (“You people have gone and ruin my perfectly good sparring attitude. I’m going home.” “To make out with Len? Come on, Sara, the chance that he is still laying naked in bed is a little slim.”) and there is absolutely no reason that Oliver need ever know why they had to replace the central monitor, because it definitely had nothing to do with Sara missing his head by centimeters with her remaining staff, or the fact that said staff had managed to completely bisect the screen and all of its internal components. Nope, that one is getting blamed on Curtis’ conveniently absent fellow trainees.
As soon as the elevator doors closed behind her, Curtis turned to Thea.
“So, when you said ‘unreasonably beautiful’. . ?” He received a wink in return and the brunette pulled her phone out of her pocket, soon flipping through an album in search of proof. Which she found. Not really his type but - tall, very serious, piercing eyes. Yep. Yep.
Then she said she couldn’t resist showing him another, a picture she had snapped of them, Len and Sara, on way into a movie theater a few step ahead of Thea the first day she had met him. And Curtis was glad to know that, at whatever point Sara deemed it appropriate for him to meet the other man, his promise of not hating him would be completely irrelevant.
It would be impossible for him to feel anything but love for someone who looked at one of his friends like that . Like they would be more than happy if she was the only person to ever stand beside him, be near him, again.
He may have gone on to hint that Sin could profit from seeing the same picture.