Chapter Text
July 21, 2014
Nathan,
I had another dream about Oliver last night.
He is becoming the angel from my nightmares. The shadow in the background of the morgue. The unsuspecting victim of darkness in the valley.
We can live like Jack and Sally if he wants. Where he can always find me. I'll be here.
Sam is calling me. I'll talk to you later,
(Maybe)
Felicity Novak
"Just a sec," Felicity calls through her door. Quietly she places the journal on the quaint nightstand that sits next to her side of the bed.
Four steps is all that's needed to stand face to face with the closed door. Pulling it open reveals the tall, lithe figure of Sam Winchester. His brown eyes seem to smile when they fall on her.
"Hey, Gabe just called. He says that he wants you to drop by the restaurant," he says.
"Why?"
"I'm not sure. But I'll walk you there", he pauses for a moment realizing what he has just said, "If that's okay with you, of course," is added hastily with a touch of sheepishness.
Felicity smiles in return. Her arm rises to brush against his in the sisterly way that she's adopted around the guy.
The second night that she spent in the house, Felicity had been feeling smothered by her unfamiliar surroundings.
Cas had been trying to feel everyone out, but she wasn't like that. Her heart rate spiked as she felt more and more consumed by the weight of everything.
She doesn't miss her parents or the life that she left behind. She isn't sad that she won't have to hear her mother's voice tormenting her anymore. That isn't the problem.
The problem is that she knows how to navigate that life. When her mother drinks too much she knows to hide on the roof until midnight. Felicity also knows how to sweet talk the lunch lady into giving her free fruit to eat for lunch.
What she doesn't understand is how to navigate this new life. How will she survive? What if these people end up hating her? What if one of these boys tries to get fresh?
Seeking reprieve, the blonde had headed in a random direction to get lost among the car frames littering the estate.
Once she found one with a front seat, and a safe distance from the house, she slid into it to rest. Her mouth was working hard to get her breathing under control. Pulling air into her lungs with all its might as her heart kept up its quick rhythm.
"Knock knock" a voice said from outside her window.
"What?" She gasped, confused, between breaths. Her vision was murky with tears. As a result she wasn't exactly sure in that minute who was speaking to her.
"No, your line is 'who's there?'. Lets try again. Ready? Knock knock" the voice says again. And this time she can see that the voice is attached to Sam.
"Who's there?" She asks. Her breaths are already starting to calm down at the distraction.
"Banana,"
"Banana who?"
"Knock knock" he grins, noticing the way that his words have calmed her down slightly.
"Who's there?"
"Banana"
"Banana who?" She is now taking deep breaths.
"Knock knock" he adopts a british accent.
"Who's there?" She does the same. Trying her best to sound like a chimney sweep.
"Orange"
"Orange who?"
"Orange you glad I didn't say banana?"
"Thanks," Felicity sighed. Sam had walked around the car and gotten into the passenger's seat.
"Anytime," he smiled. "Mind if I read in here?" He raised his book in question.
"Not if you don't," she held her journal out in a similar gesture.
The two sat for hours together after that, until Oliver had come to find them with Sara to bring them back for dinner.
Sara Lance lives across the field from them. It's the closest thing that the Singer's have to neighbors within a half mile radius. It's actually really nice being so separated.
Sara is blonde like Felicity, although her hair is closer to white than the gold that shines in Felicity's own. Her body is the exact right mixture of thin and curvy. Unlike Felicity who is just a little chubbier, in her own mind, and definitely not in the right places.
Felicity's mind deviates from its usual self loathing by Sam calling her name. Her eyes snap to his at the sound.
"You get a little lost in your head?"
"Yeah," she answers resting her head in her hand a moment, "let's hit the pavement"
"So," she begins once the pair are outside, "are you ever going to tell Gabe that you like him?" The blonde smiles coyly, moving a strand of rogue hair to place behind her ear.
The same coy smile takes residence on Sam's face, "are you going to tell Oliver?"
As Felicity's step falters, Sam doesn't remark on it.
* * * * *
"Why doesn't Felicity like me?" Oliver wonders aloud from his seat watching as she and Sam walk down the road away from them. Long limbs are slung across the expanse of the car's dark hood. His green t-shirt rides up to expose a patch of skin above his jeans.
"What are you talking about?" Dean grouses from underneath the car. "She might as well wear a neon sign; Open for Oliver!" Angrily he tightens a bolt in the undercarriage. "At least she isn't like her brother! God-damn hot and cold signals"
* * * * *
"Oliver does not like me. He wouldn't," Felicity acknowledges.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Lis. I don't think Gabe feels the same about me, but I have to try. What if he does?" Sam responds straightening out his over shirt.
* * * * *
"Felicity does not like me. In any capacity! She is constantly leaving the room every time I walk into it!" The blonde fumes to his pseudo-brother.
* * * * *
"You're braver than I am, Sam. I can't even handle staying in the same room as him!"
Sam slings an arm around her shoulders. "Felicity, I have a wonderful idea," he grins wide.
* * * * *
"I can't even handle my own love life, I can't juggle yours too. What is it with Felicity that has your feathers so rumpled?" Dean ponders while rolling out from under the car.
"What's with you and her brother?"
"Ah, touché" Dean allows. Crawling up to sit next to Oliver on the hood of the car he'd finally decided to restore for himself, Dean comments, "he's so hot and cold. One day he's flirting with me, hardcore and the next he's hiding out ignoring me. I just don't get it"
* * * * *
"Hey Lis. Hey Samsquatch, didn't know you'd be here," Gabriel smiles from behind the counter.
Sweet Nothings, Gabriel's bakery, sat in the center of town. It isn't too far off a walk from the salvage yard, but you wouldn't want to take it at night. There were three patio tables out front for customers to lounge on while they eat as well as seven tables inside. Most days he had a decent crowd, other days he is swamped.
"I'm sure you're wondering why I would summon you to my lair," he grins. "I'm prepared to offer you a waitress job. All you'd have to do is sometimes man the register and sometimes make deliveries,"
"How much are you prepared to pay her?" Sam asks, tone gone serious, ready to fight for a decent salary for his friend.
"Power down the lawyer mode. I can pay you eleven dollars an hour and three extra for every delivery you make that isn't inside the bakery. Would you like a moment alone with your council?"
* * * * *
July 21, 2014
Nathan,
Today, I got a job. I'm going to work at Gabriel's bakery. Cas is studying non-stop for the policeman test they have going next week. If he doesn't pass this one he'll have to wait six months before the next one. He's been hiding from everyone to study his ass off. I haven't seen him in about a week.
When I got back from Sweet Nothings today Oliver nearly pounced on me. I'm not sure why he even bothers to talk to me. He doesn't understand what this attention is doing to me. He shouldn't waste his time on me, he's already the voice inside my head. I wish he'd stop giving me false hope.
Talk later.
(Definitely)
Felicity Novak.
P.s. Oh, and there's one more thing that happened today...
* * * * * Seven hours earlier * * * * *
"So, what's this idea that's brilliant?" Felicity looks down shifting her sneakers in the dirt. Dirt makes her feel young; pure. It helps make her problems seem less significant than the universe around her.
"Don't freak out. Let's pretend to date. This way, Gabe gets jealous and so does Oliver. You be my beard and I'll be your skirt" he excitedly chatters.
"I feel like you're misusing those terms," her skepticism lacing her words. After a moment to think it over and a heavy sigh she decides. "Okay," Sam fist pumps at her acceptance. "But I'm only doing this to help you. Oliver doesn't like me in that way so let's at least get you your man,"
* * *
"Power down the lawyer mode. I can pay you eleven dollars an hour and three extra for every delivery you make that isn't inside the bakery. Would you like a moment alone with your council?" Gabriel snarks adorably.
She wonders how she could ever think, on that first night, that Gabe could ever hurt anyone. And for just a moment she's troubled at the pain she is about to cause him, but it will all work out in the end. She hopes.
"That's okay, I don't need my council. But I will consult my boyfriend," at her words Gabe's smile falters for just a fraction of a moment.
"Where is this lucky man?"
"I'm right here," Sam says while lashing his fingers with her own. And seeing the look of sadness behind the older man's eyes makes her own heart break. It's hard to imagine how Sam must be feeling; wishing that he could wipe that sadness away.
"Congrats you two. Come back in tomorrow to start. The job is yours if you want it" he says as a customer calls him over.
"I feel like shit," Sam says when they are back on the long empty road to Bobby's.
"I second that emotion," she answers. "I don't think anything else could make me feel so bad"
* * * * *
"Oliver, what's wrong?" Sara asks watching her best friend pace the steps of her porch. He has stormed over for seemingly no reason.
"I found this book--completely by accident!--and I didn't like what it said. There were all these..." he pauses to mull over the right way to say what he's feeling. He isn't even sure why he's so angry about it. There is just white hot anger bubbling to the surface. It shouldn't be like this.
"Come sit with me. Charlie's inside, too. We'll work out whatever this is that's happening, I promise" Gently she pulls him into the living room where her girlfriend, Charlie, is seated on the couch.
"Hey Oxen-free," the redhead says from her spot on the couch. Sara and Charlie have been dating for two years. The petite, geeky redhead moved to town around then and their whole group had welcomed her with open arms.
"Hey Charlie," he says as he sits between the two with Sara rubbing circles on his back to calm him. "So, I was looking for Cas earlier- a favor for Dean- I went up to his room. It's only logically to look in there. But I bumped into a table and knocked over a book. The book had a bunch of letters all written to some guy named Nathan! Who the fuck is that?"
"Whose book is it?" Charlie asks.
"Obviously, it's Felicity's, honey. Otherwise he wouldn't be so worked up" Sara answers while her friend seethes.
"I didn't realize you like her so much. It's only been, what, like, two weeks?" Charlie furrows her brow, she had never known Oliver to get so crazy over any girl.
"There's just something about her. She's been through a lot and most of it... I just understand her" he says, more sad now than angry. He had thought that he met someone who could finally understand him. Someone who could understand the pain he'd gone through before finding his real family. To think that he may never be able to have the small blonde all to himself is disconcerting, to say the least.
"Maybe you should talk to her about it?" Sara continues. "She lives here now. I don't know what happened in her past, but long distance is never easy"
"Maybe I will," he contemplates.