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It officially gets weird (well. Weirder.) when Diggle walks in on it.
Look, he works for a vampire. His life is fucking ridiculous already. And yes, he’s fed Oliver – twice – because the guy was going to die and ultimately Oliver Queen falls just about under the category of people who the world would be worse off without, so sometimes John Diggle has done what’s necessary. From his wrist, mind you, not the neck – the neck would be weird. Weirder.
(“Don’t get any Count Blackula ideas, here, Oliver, I’m not here for that shit.”
“Count – what?” Oliver, pale and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, had collapsed into a snort of semi-hysterical laughter.)
Diggle knows Oliver’s feeding off Felicity semi-regularly, though. He doesn’t ask why it has to be her, rather than him – a little because deep down he’s relieved. Feeding Oliver is not fun. But why Felicity and not, say, any random person on the street remains a mystery and it raises Diggle’s hackles – because feeding Oliver is not fun. And Felicity is itty-bitty and how much of this shit can she take before it makes her seriously sick?
He’s already had a couple of non-negotiable ‘discussions’ about the situation with Oliver in which he made it quite clear that, much as Felicity was free to make her own decisions, if Oliver ever truly harmed her in the process, John Diggle would be Coming For Him.
(“I would never, ever harm her, Digg.”
“I know you’d never mean to.”
Oliver’s jaw had tightened, a haunted look behind his eyes. “If I ever do, you won’t have to kill me, okay? I’ll end things myself.”
He’d said it so calmly that John had known he was stone-cold serious. And he’d fought off an instinctive urge to tell his friend no, no, don’t do that – because damn it, one of them would have to end it if Oliver ever truly got out of control. He settled for squeezing Oliver’s arm, tight.
“Just don’t let it come to that, man.”)
And once Oliver had tried to explain about blood types and how Felicity is some kind of hemoglobin-rich equivilant to fine wine and that’s why he kind of can’t help but favour her in emergencies but – Diggle had decidedly not wanted to know what their IT expert tasted like so had hit him in the head. (They’d been sparring. Diggle doesn’t make a habit of hitting his vampiric vigilante employer otherwise. Unless he deserves it.)
Why Felicity, though, becomes really freaking clear when Diggle actually sees what it is they – well – do.
Because he walks into the Foundry one evening after forgetting his keys. He’s already left after a long night saving the city (again) and gets all the way to his front door before he has a perfect, crystal clear flash of his keys where he left them, on the edge of Felicity’s desk next to the Dim Sum he brought her for her dinner/3AM breakfast before getting ready to leave.
She’s stayed behind to ‘sort Oliver out’. (That’s always the euphemism she uses). Oliver, shakey, exhausted and pale, has already been through the last packet of AB-negative they have in their fridge(stupid, Diggle had known they were running low, but the latest Bad Guy in their general vicinity has been keeping them all so busy that there’s been no time to break into another blood bank). So Felicity has stayed and Diggle has left them to it because he doesn’t want to see any of what’s about to go down.
But he figures that by the end of forty five minute round trip from the Foundry to his place and back, it’ll be over. How long can it possibly take to feed a hungry vamp? Both times when he’s fed Oliver, it’s been over in five minutes – Oliver taking the bare minimum needed to keep himself together.
He hasn’t figured on the fact that Felicity needs to eat first, because having someone feed on you when you have low blood sugar is a bad idea, and that after eating she’ll need half an hour or so to digest some of it so that all those enzymes and the sudden drop in her blood pressure that will accompany the feeding won’t also make her throw up.
(Diggle hasn’t counted on the fact that this apparently happens enough that Oliver and Felicity actually have, like, a routine).
So he walks in and god damn it Oliver is mid-bite.
(This is how they got there:
“Okay, how do you want your meal served this evening, Mr Queen? Rare? Medium?”
“Felicity…” He’d glanced at her as she leaned back in her chair, eyebrows raised. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I want to help,” she insisted, “besides, it might be days before we have time to get you more blood, and by then you’ll be all – drooling and rabid the way you went that time you almost tore Roy’s throat out. And that was like the opposite of fun for everyone involved, remember? How Diggle had to threaten to stake you and you almost drank half my blood volume?”
“I try not to think about it.”
“So. Snack time, Mr Queen. C’mon. I’ll be gentle with you.”
He snorted, trying not to watch the nervous way she was knotting and unknotting her fingers, the slight quickening in her heartbeat that he could sense even from here – goddamn he could smell her apprehension. And something else he wasn’t going to contemplate, at all.
“Comfy?” He had her sit on the edge of her desk.
Truthfully, this was easiest to do if she was physically in his lap, but the last time they’d done that it had felt… god, so fucking intimate it had felt wrong – too much – an invasion of her physicality in a way that he couldn’t trust himself with (didn’t deserve, wasn’t entitled to). Even though it had been her idea, to sit in his lap, and she’d wrapped her arms around him and hummed contentedly against his chest and goddamn she’d just – fitted – slotted in against him so naturally he’d immediately begun thinking about all the other ways they could – slot.
Even though, as he drew the blood out of her neck, the position had made it easy for him to massage her shoulders and back the way he knew helped ease the discomfort of the bite – and after, sitting like that had let her rest without having to move, leaning tiredly against him, her breath coming in soft, short little hitches as he tried to resist the temptation to stroke her hair, her forehead tucked against his jaw.
No – no. There would be no more feeding with her in his lap. Absolutely not.
“Yup,” she was swinging her legs, offered him a quick, guileless smile, easy and open, as if he wasn’t about to do anything at all like what he was preparing to do. “What about you? Is it gonna be a problem, bending down for too long?”
“I’ll be fine,” he could have pointed out that he’d survived getting shot at tonight already and was fairly sure that bending over for a while would be significantly less risky.
“Mm,” she was worrying her lower lip between her teeth, which he really wished she wouldn’t do because it was an impossibly attractive gesture on her, “no, I think I’d be better like –“
And she got up onto her knees, kicking off her shoes and drawing her feet up beneath her. “There, now I’m more on your level, right?”
“Uh, right.” He watched her unbutton her blouse, rolling back the collar. “You sure you’re ready?”
“I’m fine, Oliver,” she rolled her eyes, “come on. You’re tired. Let’s get this done so we can both go home and get some sleep?”
He never, ever got any sleep after feeding off her (and lately he’d started to suspect that she had a similar issue), but he wasn’t going to tell her that. Only nodded, pushing himself up against the table, nudging her knees apart a little where they connected with the table edge, and pushing her hair back from her neck. She’d braced her hands on the table too but now that he was close she let them drift to his waist – fisted one in the old, sweaty t-shirt he had changed into out of his leathers.
Her eyes were wide and bruised from lack of sleep, mascara a little smudged, her gaze slightly out of focus because she’d taken her glasses off. He resisted the urge to brush his nose to hers as he dipped his head against her neck, feeling her pulse kick up to a rhythm he was now sickeningly familiar with.
He tried very, very hard not to enjoy it, he really did – letting his mouth touch her skin, his tongue brushing her flesh – the first time they’d done this she’d flinched, expecting his teeth – and the second time she’d shivered and that had done… things, to him. Now she exhaled, low and soft, and her hand went to his hair, cradling the back of his head, gently, gently pushing him – Christ she was guiding him to his usual spot.
He tried not to enjoy that, too.
When he bit down she made the single most perfect sound he had ever heard, and he couldn’t help the low rumbling growl that came up from his chest in response. One of her hands pushed restlessly down from his shoulder, down his arm, squeezing his forearm – and instinctively he drew his hand up and clasped hers, twining their fingers as he swallowed, her blood hitting the back of his throat with a heavy, familiar tang. He was rubbing her back with his other hand, the tense spot between her shoulder blades, and as the muscles there eased beneath his hand, he heard her sigh again.
She was keeping the hand he wasn’t holding anchored on the back of his neck, her fingers gently flexing against his skin – christ the sensation combined with the sudden, overwhelming relief from his hunger was actually making his knees shake. He bit down again – and – god – she whimpered, pushing up a little on her knees – not trying to escape him at all, just shifting, settling, like sand beneath him, against him.
She tasted so fucking good he was torn between holding every mouthful on his tongue for minutes at a time, savouring every drop, and sucking frantically, sating himself as fast as he could in a heady, half-starved frenzy.
He could taste her nervousness and under that the crackling, peppery heat of joy – excitement – desire – goddamn –
He pulled her closer and she leant her weight against him without any resistance, humming softly as he worked his tongue over the bite, nursing another mouthful from the artery. She’d let him, he knew, in this moment, if he wanted to do more than bite her, she’d let him, and he couldn’t – he could never – allow himself to take advantage of her in that way – his enzymes in her blood would be making her dizzy, pliant, drunk –
“Oliver…” his name lilted in her mouth, soft and warm, as he swallowed again and growled – really growled against her neck – her breath hitched, she winced as he bit again – again – and drank and. Her fingers were going pleasantly numb, she was growing floaty and distant, as if they were alone together tucked up in some forgotten, woolly corner of the world, wrapped in the pleasant fog of the moment. So she let go of his hand, grasped his wrist, and guided it – what the hell – just a little closer to where she was beginning to ache in a distinctly different way –
And he was rubbing easy, wide circles in her back with one hand, as his other crept, slowly, inexorably, up her thigh, her fingers drawing his wrist toward her… )
This is exactly the moment at which John Diggle walks in, and knows that things have officially gotten weird. Weirder. Than they have any right to be already given the current situation.
Oliver and Felicity are pressed together so close that for a moment he thinks they really must be making out. If they weren’t so fully clothed he’d have assumed he was catching them in a lot more than just a clinch, probably well past third base but – nope.
No.
Christ.
This is how Oliver feeds off her, then.
Abruptly a whole load of things make way more sense than Diggle wants them to. No wonder Oliver only wants Felicity – it’s not about the damn blood. Not even a little.
(Well, okay, it’s probably at least in part the blood, but Felicity could have any goddamn blood type in the world – she could have freaking chocolate milk in her veins – and Oliver would pretty clearly still want to do this to her. With her. The idiot is practically humping her, for god’s sake. Not that Felicity looks especially displeased with the situation, her face flushed, one hand raking through his hair, lips slightly parted, eyes half closed. Diggle doesn’t want to know where Oliver’s other hand is – it’s disappeared between them somewhere).
They’re so goddamn distracted by each other that they haven’t even heard him come in, and Oliver’s usually the sort of freakishly alert that can hear birds farting fifty feet over their heads, so this – this. Is weird.
Diggle clears his throat. Loudly.
Oliver jerks up so suddenly that he makes Felicity yelp, and then he clutches at her, wrapping her up in his arms, his fangs bared, one hand on the back of her head as he tucks her close and snarls – he actually fucking snarls at Digg, like a goddamn dog with a bone.
Diggle raises an eyebrow. “Left my keys.”
He sees the tension slowly draining out of the pair of them, Oliver’s fangs retracting, his grip on their IT specialist loosening, Felicity’s flush deepening as she pushes Oliver away from her with one hand and clamps the other over her wound.
Neither of them say anything – Diggle’s kind of glad they don’t. There is nothing that is going to make this situation less awkward.
He swipes his keys off the desk next to her and turns on his heel to make good his escape. “Don’t stay up too late, kids.”