The Monsters In Our Heads (Book 7 Arrow/SPN Crossovers)

Old Roads Different Paths

Turns out he hadn't dedicated a whole playlist to turning this trip into a musical torture chamber for me. The next songs that came on were a mix of good old standbys and new stuff that he'd figured I'd like.

"So why'd you wait til we hit the freeway before you played that crap song?"

He shrugged, "Figured you wouldn't tuck and roll if we were doing eighty."

He knows me way too well, "Oliver and Roy are bad influences on you, you're thinking you're way through things like this way too much now."

"Actually, that was more Dig's influence then either of them. He and I spend a lot of time talking strategy on hunts when I'm over there. He is former military after all."

"Oh yeah, I forgot." That made a lot of sense actually.

"So's Lyla actually, that's how her and Dig met, they were in the same unit back in the day."

"Really? I didn't know that." Which explained why Lyla had always seemed pretty solid. I knew she did some sort of top secret, black ops stuff for the government but never asked for details.

"They have some interesting stories."

"I bet." My brain was churning through all of that, adding that in with the things Roy had said a year ago when he wanted to hunt with Sam and I, then decided to keep hunting. "Huh, out of curiosity, how much does Oliver listen to Dig on things?" I knew they were close but Oliver and I had clicked for a lot of reasons, one of them being sheer stubbornness.

"You remember how jacked up the group was back then?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, one of the times I was there Dig came home pissed as hell because Oliver was trying to pull another martyr act and he went into the whole backstory of their history from his view and how he'd gotten fed up with trying to get Oliver to understand things. Early on Oliver had paid a bit more attention to Dig's advice, then for some reason started ignoring him until things had gotten so out of hand the situation was almost beyond saving. I knew exactly how he felt and told him to just lay it all out. So he tried, from what Roy said he got in on a few of those talks as well, they didn't go easy on Oliver either. He explained to Oliver why he was splitting his time between Oliver and hunting with me, how the drama was driving wedges into the group and Oliver needed to make some serious choices. Roy was about two steps from just hunting full time with me, he honestly thought that was safer for him then working with Oliver."

"Really? Wow, it was that bad huh?"

"Guess so, Oliver kept being stubborn though, then Felicity piled on and said she'd leave Oliver high and dry if he kept being an idiot."

"Damn, that had to hurt." I knew how much Oliver loved her, even though it'd taken him a long time to admit it. I had no room to judge him on that, that's for sure.

"Yeah, well he almost made the wrong choice. I was there when Felicity showed up at Dig's in tears because Oliver still didn't get it. So I took steps."

"Uh oh," Sam had deeper ties with Oliver's group than I did and I knew he cared a lot for Felicity, he saw her as the reason he'd pulled out of the depression my going to Hell had left him in. "What'd you do?"

His jaw tightened, apparently it still bothered him that Oliver had hurt her. "I tracked his ass down and told him point blank that if he was too damn scared to love her how she should be loved I'd be more than happy to provide a comforting shoulder for her to cry on."

"You what?" That was pushing some serious boundaries. Even I'd never made moves on a girl that was already hooked up, at least as soon as I knew she was with someone. "That's a bit low don't you think?"