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“There is nothing more out there for you tonight,” Felicity yawned down the coms, her eyes glancing up at the clock on the wall, it was near on 1am.
She waited for Oliver’s response, but only a muffled grunt came back down the line.
“Oliver, you can’t sustain this, go home, sleep. Well, come home,” she sighed realising she was sitting in the bunker he called home now.
She listened to him breathing, a sound she was positive she would always know, always remember.
“I’m going to head to the office and day job for a few hours,” finally came the response.
“You need to sleep,” she was almost begging him now, acutely aware that he barely slept anymore and it was becoming obvious to anyone.
“You don’t need to paint dark circles under your mask anymore Oliver, they’re there permanently,” she continued, running a hand through her fallen ponytail.
“I’ll come home soon,” he sighed, “go home,” he corrected.
Much of their coexistence was bordering on awkward despite their best intentions. She couldn’t stand the idea of him out there alone and he couldn’t do it without her, so they were stuck in this mutual reliance on each other while trying to quell the still-present feelings they had for each other.
It was a delicate balancing act that neither were particularly coping with. Oliver, for his part, hated returning to the bunker after Felicity had left for the night. Her perfume lingered where she had sat and for a moment his heart skipped in the hopefulness that perhaps tonight – this night – she hadn’t left for the night, that maybe, just maybe, he would find her still there, with open arms that he could sink in to. She would hold him and he would melt into her, seeking out the warm softness of her body, he would bury his face in the base of her neck, his cheek pressed against the pulse point on her neck, his mind counting the beats of her heart and the quiet comfort that always brought him.
Oliver shook his head as he stood in the fading shadows on the rooftop. She wouldn’t be there when he got back. He would go home to an empty bunker, a small, cold bed and only the slightest hint of her lingering perfume. He didn’t want that tonight so he would work to occupy his mind. He would look over budgets and ordinances and sign his name to things he didn’t completely understand – just so he didn’t have to go home.
If you could call it that.
“I’ll be fine, thanks for your help tonight,” Oliver spoke stoically, his brain too tired to engage in any kind of witty banter like they use to do.
“Mmmm,” was Felicity’s droned out response, she knew there was nothing she could say to convince him to rest, she could barely convince herself to do the exact same thing.
They were both running on fumes, and neither would admit it.
“Goodnight Felicity.”
“Goodnight Oliver.”
Felicity stood from the desk, removing the headset and shutting down the system.
“Be safe,” she whispered to no one as she blinked up at the empty glass case where his costume would sit.
Felicity closed the door to the loft with a tap of her shoe, her hands full of more food than she knew what to do with and a brand new bottle of wine she had purchased on a whim.
To be honest, she was simply surprised the store she stopped at on the way home even stocked alcohol and she was well prepared for it to taste like soapy old dishwater, but she needed something to take her mind off the large empty and echoing house she was coming home to.
She spilled the contents of the brown paper bag onto the marble bench top, it was a depressing array of junk food and one apple – purchased only because she didn’t like the side eye the cashier was giving her as she piled the jerky and pop rocks onto the front counter.
Felicity picked up the bottle of wine, the family size bag of M&Ms, two packets of jerky and a box of strawberry flavoured Pop Tarts. She padded over to the couch, kicking her shoes haphazardly as she walked. She slumped down onto the cool black leather of the couch, the soft grey throw blanket sliding down onto her legs as she tucked them up.
She danced delicately touches over the threads of the blanket, fondly recalling the moments it had witnessed in their lives as a couple, as – what had the newspapers dubbed them?
“Olicity,” she laughed softly to herself
Now staring at this blanket trapped between her fingers she, in equal measure, both loved and hated that inanimate object. Both extremes for the exact same reason – it reminded her of Oliver and just how much she missed him.
She was still adamant her choice to walk away had been the right one – for all its complications and shades of grey, in the very centre it came down to the simple, albeit rigid, realisation that she couldn’t marry a man she didn’t have complete and unwavering trust in – knowing he had the same in her. You can’t walk as one flesh when you walk steps apart.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t miss him – it hurt to think how much she wished he was sitting here beside her, his fingers entwined in hers, drawing out some slow rhythmic pattern on her hand. Likely his other hand resting on her thigh ever so slightly inching its way up, higher and higher. His breath close and warm against her skin. Her name softly dripping from his mouth, each syllable stretched and slow with his tongue moving across his lips as he spoke. She imagined his chest rising, the ridges of his muscles pushing through the stretch fabric of those jersey-knit tees he wore so, so well.
“Oh god,” she gaped, realising how flustered she had become over the thought of him.
She hurriedly unscrewed the top of the wine – never a good sign as to its vintage – of took a large swig of the stuff. As expected it tasted like alcoholic dishwater mixed with rancid vinegar.
At least – she decided – the sheer repulsion her taste buds were having at that moment had, for a minute at least, taken her mind off Oliver and his decidedly delectable muscles.
Oh god she was back there again.
Another swig.
A handful of M&Ms.
Her cheek absently grazing itself against the grey blanket.
Oliver rolled his head between his cupped hands. He was staring at paperwork he thought he could probably understand on a full 8 hour sleep brain capacity, but seeing that he had barely managed 5 hours in the last 3 days it was all in code….strange, indecipherable code, much like that time Felicity had tried to teach him binary code for some inexplicable reason.....
His mind wandered to her smile. He loved that smile more than anything he could ever truly express. It had been that effortless smile that had first drawn him in. That smile was fill of wonderment and kindness and most importantly to him, her engaging smile was filled with hope.
When he caught glimpses of that smile now it made his heart lurch remembering the quiet moments they shared alone when he knew that smile was for him alone. He would give the world just to have that feeling again.
He swallowed back the last dregs of his neat whiskey, which he had poured in the hopes it would give him at least an hour of productivity. He had been wrong, it had simply given him an hour of staring at the same document for an ordinance about dog registration – that he still didn’t understand. Productive it had not been.
The sudden and encompassing desire to slip under his desk and sleep served Oliver with the ultimatum that he better return home or Thea would find him passed out in the morning. He made a brief, probably slightly incoherent call to his driver and shut the file on his desk. Dog registration could wait till the morning. He looked down at his clock, 2am – the later morning.
“Home Mr Queen?” the driver – whose name Oliver had completed forgotten – asked as Oliver almost fell into the backseat
Without much forethought Oliver rattled off an address that was second nature as his eyes became heavy and his head slumped against the car door.
Less than 20 minutes later the car door opening startled Oliver from his lucid state.
“We’re here sir, do you need help upstairs?” the driver asked.
“No, no, it’s fine,” Oliver yawned, stumbling from the car, his mind and body now trapped between a state of sleep and wakefulness.
The days spent at a desk and the nights spent chasing down drug dealers and thugs was taking its toll on Oliver. His mind was dipping in and out of present time as he swatted at the buttons in the elevator.
The ding echoed through his head, his heavy lidded eyes blinked, the two glasses of whiskey he had downed were mixing unfavorably with his self-inflicted sleep deprivation and he felt like he was walking on ball bearings through a fog of reality.
He fumbled for his keys in his pocket as he stood before the particularly familiar door. He was finally home. Half asleep, probably a little intoxicated and barely coherent, but he was home …. At the loft.
The key fitted and the door creaked open.
Why haven’t I fixed that yet?
He slowly pushed the door closed, careful not to wake Thea…
No, Thea moved out, it was his and Felicity’s house now
He smiled thinking about her as he skidded his shoes along the polished concrete floor. It smelt like her in this room, but the lights were off, the room only illuminated but the city lights and the moon streaming in from the windows.
He toed off his shoes, pushing them back towards the door. He took another step forward, his foot kicking Felicity’s hazardously placed shoe. He muttered his annoyance at it, but right now all he wanted was to do was climb into bed next to her.
He dropped his jacket on the floor as he headed for the stairs. His belt and socks were cast aside by the time he reached the fourth step. His t-shirt was swept off in a quick and fluid motion, thrown onto the railing by the top step.
He turned the corner and saw her, lying under the covers, her arm over the top of them, dangling down the side of the bed, her fingertips floating just above the floor. He missed her, he was sure he’d seen her only a few hours ago – he couldn’t remember the circumstance, but they were engaged so he must have seen her – but it seemed like long drawn out months since he’d watched her sleep.
If he himself wasn’t so dog tired he might have considered watching her sleep, but that would have to wait, for now he just needed her warmth and the lulling sound of her heartbeat.
He dropped his pants, inadvertently peeling off his boxers at the same time. He paid his completely naked body no mind as he walked straight to the bed, following the illumination from the moon that danced across the floor. He never understood why Felicity didn’t like closing the curtains, but she like them open, claiming the moon calmed her. It never bothered him, if she wanted the curtains open then he wouldn’t say otherwise. She could ask for almost anything and he would agree without a second thought.
He slid under the blankets and instantly his body gave out – he was home.
*~*~*
Felicity’s dream was incomparably real at this juncture. She was dreaming of Italy, the village of Positano along the Amalfi Coast to be precise, the sounds of the ocean just steps down from their one-bedroom “love nest” as the brochure called it. She could smell the fresh fruit he had bought her and her tongue could taste the chocolate that she had insisted they share, in a less than conventional way, a way that involved her tongue, his abdomen and the soaring temperature in the Mediterranean climate.
She could almost feel the soft breeze that came through the private patio doors as they spent lazy mornings doing nothing but enjoying the close company of each other. He had touched her in ways she had never knew she craved but now she painfully lived knowing what she was missing. The bottle of wine had only dulled her senses just enough to stop crying, but not enough to stop missing him.
So she had resigned to the fact that Oliver was here, only in her dreams, and she would dream of him, because she wanted to. Dear God she wanted to.
The dream was so vivid she swore she felt the bed move as she imagined his weight shifting beside her. So real it became in her mind that she sighed imagining the warmth of his naked body pushed up against her back.
She could almost smell him, taste him, his musk dancing on her palate. She moaned softly at the recognition each one of her senses was having. It was like a sweet dream cacophony that made it all seem so real.
Felicity breathed his name like she had done in times passed, a soft signal she would give him that she was awake and she was eager to have him touch her.
Her dream responded as she knew it would. She could almost feel a hand slipping under the fabric of her dark blue panties. The touch felt so real she found herself licking her lips in expectation of what would be next.
True to form, her dream moved his hand over the round of her hip, his thumb playfully dragging along behind, skimming the soft skin of her stomach. God this dream felt so real.
A hooked finger gently pushed between her folds with a touch she didn’t know she could so vividly recall. It made her core tightening, it had been so long, too long, since she had felt a touch like that.
She rocked her body slowly, knowingly responding to the tantalizing pull of her imagined stimulus. She could feel herself heating up, brimming, with desire. She knew her walls were tightening, the touch seemed so real she couldn’t help herself. She had dreamt it during lonely night, but never to this point.
Never to the point where it felt, this – this real.
This. Real.
Felicity felt the finger slip inside her. She gasped at the sensation.
The sensation.
She had never had a dream where she could legitimately feel the sensations.
But this dream…
She could almost feel his warm, dewy breath of her neck. Almost feels the delicate peppering of kisses on her shoulder blade.
“Mmm, I love you,” a soft voice hummed in her ear.
She smiled, now her dream seemed so real she could hear him talking.
Wait.
Her eyes bolted open and her body froze severing the dreamlike slumber she was in.
Only there was still breath on her neck, warm kisses on her shoulder and still most definitely a finger – or two – moving inside her.
Oh shit.
She stumbled out of bed with such a ferocity that Oliver snapped backwards and fell like a lump of stone to the floor, his head landing with a thwack that was enough to pull him into reality.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Felicity cursed, pulling up the underwear that Oliver had pulled down her leg.
“What?” Oliver yawned, pushing his fingers into his eye, his other hand rubbing the back of his head where it made contact with the floor.
“Oliver, what the hell are you doing here?” Felicity snapped, her heart racing as she switched on the beside light.
Oliver stood and looked around the room, the realisation that he was at the loft came to him in slow motion.
“Oh, oh… ooooh,” he gaped, his hand stroking down his jawline.
“And naked?” Felicity squealed as she snapped her head to the side and braced her hand against the side of her face.
“I’m sorry,” he replied feverishly as he grabbed a pillow and held it against his almost fully erect cock.
“I was so tired and I just thought I was home, that I still lived here,” he paused sinking his head into his chest, “with you.”
“Oliver, I, we, don’t..” she was fumbling with words, trying to pull down the t-shirt of his she had decided to sleep in. “We can’t,” she finally sighed.
“I know, I’m sorry, I’ll leave.”
She looked across at him, even in the limited light she could tell he was running on next to nothing. His skin was pale, his eyes dark and his cheeks sunken. He needed to sleep, not try and get across town to the bunker.
“Stay here Oliver, you need to rest.”
Even if he wanted to argue, he couldn’t string enough words together to, so he simply nodded.
“I’ll take the couch,” he muttered, between smacking lips.
As much as the couch was fashionably designed, it was cold and sticky and creaked when you moved… Felicity knew Oliver would not get the deep rested sleep he – they – desperately needed.
“Sleep with me,” she said, her mouth twitching inward when she heard it. “I mean in the bed. I’ll be in the bed too, but we keep our distance,” she corrected, slipping some yoga pants on.
Again, he didn’t want to argue so he nodded and went to climb back in the bed.
“Oliver, please for the love of everything put some pants on,” Felicity smiled.
He snapped back upright, the pillow still pushed in against his privates as he scooted around the bed and walked towards where he had discarded his pants. Felicity watched as he walked in front of her, his rear end completely on display. She couldn’t help but touch a finger to her lip and watch him bend down to collect his boxers. How she missed that….
She jolted her head away as Oliver straightened up and redressed himself in his plaid boxers. Felicity slipped herself back under the covers, clinging to the edge of the bed as best she could.
She felt the bed dip as Oliver got in beside her, keeping himself also tucked to the far side of the bed.
“Goodnight Felicity,” he sighed, finding instant comfort in the familiarity of the bed.
“Goodnight Oliver,” Felicity replied, tapping the light off beside her.
It took only minutes for them to fall asleep, Felicity quietly calmed by the sound of his breathing and Oliver lulled by the sweet scent of her perfume.