Accident
I should be working on my other story, The Wedding Slasher [changed my pen name, by the way, in case you were puzzled], but this little piece just practically wrote itself. So sorry for making the followers of that other story wait, but my muse never does what I tell her to, so there we have it.
I'm a bit on the fence about the story, like it refused to decide whether it wants to be funny or angsty, ending up with a weird mix. Then again, life can't always decide whether it wants to be funny or tragic either, so it might just work, I don't know. Let me know what you think.
Enjoy – I don't own anything you recognize.
"I understand that you're embarrassed, but so am I! After all, I put you in this position!" A perturbed Oliver ran a hand through his short hair, then began to busy himself, preparing to get her out of this pickle. Anything that would keep him from looking at her, lying there on the med bay table on her belly, her face buried in the crook of her arm. He hoped the Oxycodone and the local anesthetic would kick in quickly – seeing her like this caused him so much pain that he would gladly switch places.
Felicity uttered a muffled moan, her body starting to shake slightly. "Please, don't cry. I'll get you some more… Aspirin," Oliver begged her sheepishly, his hand hovering in mid-air, not sure whether he should touch her shoulder to offer some comfort or not. He had never been good at consoling crying women, always afraid to say or do the wrong thing – a moot point, actually, because in most cases he had already said or done the wrong thing, or else the woman in question wouldn't have been crying in the first place.
After a few moments, Felicity lifted her head. "I'm not crying," she forced out, in-between attempts to force air into her lungs, which proved to be hard while having a laughing fit. Amazed at this woman, who never ceased to surprise him, Oliver couldn't help but join in, despite his best attempts to stay serious. Felicity's beautiful smile was already contagious; there was no cure against her full-out laughter. And the situation was pretty ridiculous, if he was being honest. The occasional "ouch" was drawn from her lips, whenever the pain of her injury flared up as laughter rippled through her body, despite her trying to keep her body still.
"Seriously, I should be surprised this hasn't happened sooner. Working with the Arrow, this", she gesticulated nonspecifically around her to encompass the whole situation, "is a professional hazard." Almost as an afterthought, she added, "We really should look into getting Employer's Liability Insurance. Obviously, I'm not going to sue you, but it could ruin you if I did." "Haven't you heard? I'm poor as a church mouse until we manage to get QC and my family's fortune back. There's nothing to ruin anymore." Felicity looked at him incredulously, "A church mouse with a trust fund and a freakin' mansion." Oliver's ability to see the glass as half empty drove her up the walls sometimes.
While speaking, Felicity had propped her body up on her elbows to emphasize her point, which, however, only resulted in another stab of pain and a gasp she couldn't suppress. The seriousness of the situation settled again on Oliver's shoulders as he slumped down on a stool next to where Felicity was lying. She turned her head to the side so she could look at his face. "I'm really sorry. I know it doesn't take your pain away, but I need you to know that I am. Sorry, that is. I still don't know how this could happen…," Oliver spoke softly while resting his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands.
"Well, you aimed, you shot, the guy ducked and the arrow got stuck in me. Things like that happen. Under different working conditions, you might have accidentally stapled my finger to a desk. Water under the bridge." She was successfully making light of the situation, conjuring a smile on Oliver's face. He shook his head in disbelief. "How can you always be so positive? Even in a situation like this."
"I'm high, Oliver, that certainly helps. Don't you think for one second I believe in your little Aspirin lie! I always know when you are not truthful or leaving crucial stuff out." How he wished she was right. She'd always called his bullshit before, only not that one time where it really mattered, on the beach, three months ago, where she chose to take his obvious lie at face value when he made her believe his confession in the mansion had been an act.
Her voice jolted him out of his dark, guilt-ridden reverie. "Can you please duct-tape my mouth shut now?" She looked like she was biting the inside of her cheek. "Felicity, if it helps with the pain and you need to scream, do it. No one's going to hear you down here." His eyes travelled over the concrete walls of their new lair in another basement where they had moved after Slade's army had wreaked havoc on the city. "That's not it." She suppressed a giggle – the medication had clearly taken full effect now. "I have your arrow stuck in my ass. There are so many inappropriate remarks waiting to be made… they are right there at the tip of my tongue; I don't even know where to begin. I think my brain is about to short-circuit... and explode…" Chuckling, she lightly bit into her arm to illustrate the fact that it was a full-on struggle for her to keep quiet.
Oliver had to smile. "I was wondering why that hadn't come up yet. This would be an extremely fit occasion for one of your ambiguous rambles." "I know, it's almost too easy," she conceded, grinning widely. With a sigh, he stood up and moved further down alongside her body, where she couldn't see him anymore. "Can you feel this?" He asked her, softly applying some pressure to her right butt cheek with his thumb. "Nope," was the only reply, with a popping 'p'. "Alright then. I will cut the back of your right pant leg all the way up to get to the wound. Try not to move."
Setting to work, he concentrated just on the pair of scissors in his hand, taking care not to cut into Felicity's skin, which was difficult, considering her pair of jeans fit her like a second skin. Why was today the one day of the year she had decided not to wear a skirt? He shook his head and tried to ignore the inch after inch of beautiful, soft skin that was being exposed. It probably took him only a minute, but it felt like an eternity, which made him wonder whether her legs had always been that long. Whenever his knuckles brushed against her skin, a jolt of electricity would run through his body and he believed – judging from the palpable shivers going up Felicity's spine – that his accidental touches didn't leave her unaffected either. He just hoped he would reach her behind soon, and with it the area that had been numbed by the injection he had given her earlier. Otherwise it would be extremely hard to keep his mind on track.
When he reached the point where her shapely thigh merged into the round of her ass, he had to be even more careful that he didn't graze her skin. He cut as far as possible, before he reached the waistband, which was thick due to the seams and double layers of fabric – the reason why Felicity had suggested cutting the pants open from below with the only (and rather blunt) pair of scissors they had. Carefully removing both sides of the denim as far as it was possible, her right leg and part of her butt cheek were now completely exposed to his gaze. Since he hadn't come across any kind of underwear, she must be wearing a thong. "Stop this train of thought right there," he admonished himself silently, taking a deep breath to calm himself and ensure his voice was steady before letting Felicity know that he had finished cutting, which she only acknowledged with a muffled and drowsy "mmhm".
The bit of metal that was still protruding from her muscle was short. In order to get Felicity home more quickly, he had broken off most of the arrow's shaft in the field already, which had cost him a lot of strength, both physical and emotional, as he couldn't help but cause Felicity to scream out in pain, tears filling her eyes. He hadn't dared to pull it out completely in an environment where he wouldn't have been able to control the bleeding and keep the wound clean. She had been able to walk, slowly, from the warehouse in the harbor district, where the 'incident' had happened, back to the lair in the Glades, one hand around Oliver's shoulder, leaning on him. Stubborn woman, refusing to let him carry her.
"Okay then. Ready to pull it out now. The area is numbed, but you'll probably still feel it. I'm sorry, but there's no other way." "Okay." He could tell she was scared by how quiet and small her voice sounded. "Before I start, let me hear one of those inappropriate remarks, please" he half-teased, half-begged her. He needed to know she was alright. "Well, I was just thinking how sad it actually is that Oliver Queen is touching me up and I can't feel a thing – probably won't even remember tomorrow." An exaggerated mock sigh left her lips, which drew a chuckle from his chest.
Before she could become aware again of what was about to happen, Oliver clenched his teeth and pulled out the arrow with his right hand in one swift move, bracing his left hand on her naked upper thigh for traction. She winced in pain a split-second after his action, once the nerves had transported their unpleasant information to her brain. "The worst is over," he told her, and felt the tension in her body slightly lessen under his touch, which, in turn, allowed him to relax a bit as well.
Pressing gauze on the wound, he was relieved to see that the bleeding wasn't too bad. Under the circumstances, she had been incredibly lucky – no, scratch that. It was really him being lucky because if he had seriously harmed her, he would never have been able to forgive himself. Even this would probably weigh on his conscience for a long time. Anywhere else, an arrow could've caused much more damage. Even if the vital organs had been spared, an arm or a leg would've had more injured arteries, the blood loss would've been worse. His mind played through several worst-case scenarios before Felicity's voice beckoned him back into reality.
"You okay?" She craned her neck to try and see what he was doing. "Um, yeah. Cleaning out the wound now," he proceeded with sure movements. Having picked up needle and thread, he realized her muscles were completely tensed up, which made it very difficult for him to sew her wound closed. "Felicity, I need you to relax your… um… muscles. I cannot make a proper suture like this, it would leave too much scar tissue." "Sorry, it's just that I hate needles. A lot." He placed a hand on her shoulder, hoping that the gesture would reassure her. "You can't even see it. And you can't feel it either." "That's not the point," she mumbled, not bothering to explain what the actual point was in this particular situation, her mind probably going on a tangent. "Please try and relax. I don't want to be the reason for you to have a scar on your… behind."
She sighed, still riding her drug-induced high. "It wouldn't be that bad. I'd always have to think about you when I see it." He swallowed hard, happy she couldn't see his face at that moment, and counted backwards from ten in his head. He had just reached 5, when she added in her cute drowsy voice, "I could get an arrow tattooed over it". He clenched his fists and started again, this time at 20. If she only knew what she did to him sometimes with her rambled remarks and digressions.
To change the topic, he admonished her, "You'll have to take a week off – no discussions! – because you won't be able to sit down. Even after that it will still hurt for a few weeks, I'm afraid." By way of an answer, she expressed her amusement again. "Oh, imagine that. I take a week of holiday, which is practically unheard of, and when I'm back I wince every time I sit down at my desk. If this isn't the perfect breeding ground for more gossip, I don't know what is." Leave it to Felicity to steer the conversation back into suggestive waters single-handedly. He shook his head in disbelief.
When he felt his hands were steady enough again to handle a needle, he realized she had nodded off. Grateful to the side-effects of the medication, he set to work, sowing up the injury quickly, worrying that the local anesthetic would wear off before he finished. He took a minute to inspect his handiwork – which just happened to involve looking a bit longer at an incredibly attractive woman's shapely ass. Forcing himself to finish up, he eventually taped some gauze over the new sutures and fetched a blanket to drape over her, deciding to let her sleep it off.
He had to smile, thinking about how extremely ungracefully she had clambered up onto the med bay table after refusing his help. Maybe she'd be more open to letting him help to get down again. He suppressed a groan when his thoughts turned to what else would happen when she woke up. She would have to change into other clothes – his sweatpants were the only thing around, he conjectured, not having seen Felicity bring in a set of clothes to their new lair. He would actually have to help Felicity Smoak take off her pants… and help her into his sweatpants, which would look endearingly oversized and sexy on her. Maybe she'd even need a hoodie from him, to keep warm. He had often wondered what she would look like in pieces of his clothing. A hoodie or maybe a dress shirt in the morning, after a… busy… night, with disheveled hair and nothing underneath…
Deciding that he needed the most strenuous workout he'd had in a long time to keep his mind from wandering, he turned away from the table where she lay so peacefully and set to work, doing push-ups, crunches and anything else that wouldn't make a sound to wake her up. He had always prided himself on his self-control and discipline, but then he had never been confronted with Felicity in quite such a compromising situation before. Once more, he cursed the fact that their partner had gone away for a weekend with Layla, to see family. "God, please let her be asleep for the next 48 hours until Diggle is back."
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