A/N: I know this concept has been done and redone and probably done better. I haven't actually read any of them because I had this idea before I caught up on the series and I didn't want to be derivative, so if anyone is off put that I'm doing this or feel like I've somehow plagiarized, that isn't my intent and please message me nicely and we can talk it out. Anyway, this will be the first of a few scattered one-shots of Olicity's five months between 3X23 and 4X01, when they were out of Star(ling.) The thoughts I have now fit with canon, but that might change. Please let me know how I'm doing and thank you for reading if you do!
Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow. Title and inspo from 'Follow Me Down' by Lydia.
Said I Need It In the Worst Way (So Run Wild)
Felicity Smoak is a believer, or at the very least someone who keeps an open mind. She stays susceptible to possibility. As they drive the winding route up the coast from Starling City to wherever Oliver's dreams are taking them, she's surprised by two things. The first is she doesn't have much to say. For once, she's contented into silence. She knows they have so many things to talk about, but now they also have the luxury of time to discuss freely and at will—and she doesn't want to right now. Instead, she's focusing all her energy on the incredible man next to her and the feel of his sturdy forearm under her fingertips, solid and sure as he rests his hand on the gearshift.
The second surprise is how wonderful it is to be with him when he isn't brooding or lost to dark thoughts and hateful memories. A happy Oliver is addictively warm and enticing. The real surprise is he hasn't reverted at all and he's practically glowing, centered and quiet in a tranquil way she's never seen. He's open, wide open and vulnerable just for her. Part of her wants to keep him away if this is how he is when he isn't in Starling City. Time will tell, but she thinks it just might be. It's him with all the stress and self-doubt stripped away.
She never could have imagined the effect of crossing the city's northern border with a real future spread out endlessly before them but now that she's witnessing it first-hand, she likes it.
"What are you looking at?" He finally asks, his low and amused voice rough from disuse. He's smiling a little as he flicks a casual glance her way. The sun has long since set but he still radiates its pleasantries and she slips her hand up his arm then rests her head on his hard biceps muscle. He feels just as warm as he looks.
"Are we there yet?" She blurts out in an impatient sigh. There's no deal urgency to it because as much as she wants him, she likes him this way, too.
The laugh that bubbles out of him is new and carefree and it goes straight through her. Like he needed one more way to turn her on. Sometimes, life likes to remind her how unfair it can be.
"No, we still have about another hour," he says once he stops chuckling. "Are you in a hurry?"
She turns her head a little and her kiss lands on his t-shirt. She's sure she'll be able to trace the press of fuchsia color from her lips on the grey cotton later. He's so warm and smells like him—leather and spice and something else she's never been able to place. The smell is almost as addictive as his warmth. She doesn't answer him with words (still a surprise) and gives him a contented little hum instead.
He turns his head, leaving his eyes on the road, and kisses the top of her head.
"Me, too," he says, a spark of something else in his content voice. As sweet as it is to be driving away together, literally leaving all their responsibilities and problems behind, the thought of being able to spend the night together for the first time with an actual tomorrow to follow… well, let's just say she's a little impatient for it to happen.
"I've been thinking," she manages.
"You usually are," he teases right back. She would roll her eyes if she wanted to take them off the profile of his close-lipped smile. He has a dent in his cheek, a dimple she's never seen until now because his smiles have somehow never reached that far into his cheek in the time she's known him. She wants to see that thing for every second it's there because she's earned it. They both have.
In spite of what she's pieced together and been allowed to see as he's come to trust her, she wonders. She wonders about the details of him and she thinks, for the first time, he just might tell her some of them if she asks. They did this completely backwards, falling in love first and asking questions later, but she wants to ask the questions and get to know him, this him, and she wants to start now. At least there's something they can start while he's driving.
She smiles right back. "We don't know each other in all those stupid little ways true intimacy is made of. We should fix that."
"We should," he agrees in that vaguely formal way he always has. It might be the product of his upbringing. He's still smiling. His cheek is still denting. She's still trying to get comfortable and not throw herself at him shamelessly. "What do you want to know about me?"
She could go straight for something heavy. There's so much about the time he was away she doesn't know, so many thoughts he keeps to himself and instincts he fights. She wants to know those things, wants to take the weight of them as much as he'll let her. She's tried in bits in a pieces, to tell him he can share the load or remind him he isn't alone, but now isn't the time for hard and heavy. She definitely doesn't want to wreck the blissful thing they have going.
"Do you have any tattoos I haven't seen?" She goes with instead. It's the first thing that escapes her mouth, and for once not the worst thing she could have asked.
She was pretty thorough with her mouth in Nanda Parbat. The chances he says yes are actually pretty slim.
"No," he says thoughtfully. "Well, maybe. It depends on what you consider a tattoo. There's a… new mark. From a branding iron, basically."
She hears words he doesn't speak, layered into his still-casual tone. Ra's al Guhl marked him as a member of the League. With fire. On his skin. How is he so at ease with that? She grits her teeth a little at the thought.
"Stop it," he says. His voice isn't really heavy or demanding in spite of the nature of his words. Still, he knows what she's doing and he doesn't want it to have any purchase in their perfect moment. "It's okay. It's over. Do you have any tattoos I haven't seen?" He redirects, flipping his hand off its resting spot on the gearshift and onto her leg so he can touch her. There's no way he can reach the tattoo on her hip with the way she's sitting, but she feels the attempt all the same. Damn him.
He spent a good ten minutes licking and sucking her three tattoos when he got her naked, even as he claimed his surprise that she had any because of her open hatred of all things needled. The memory diffuses her anger and helplessness against what he's so recently put himself through and has her shifting impatiently in her seat as his innocent touch instantly stirs a heat low in her belly.
"Nope, I think you found them all," she says. "Not that you should take my word for it. You're free to pull the car over and search right now."
"Do you regret getting any of them?" He asks, laughing as he otherwise bypasses her statement.
"I think it was supposed to be my turn to ask a question." She tries to keep her voice light but it only sort of works because his fingers are stroking the hemline of her skirt on her thigh. "Sneaky."
"Not the worst I've been called this week," he bounces back. It makes her laugh even though it shouldn't. It's a terrible joke for at least four reasons. "You should answer though."
"Fine, but I'm asking you three in a row," she barters. "I would probably rethink the one on my side, but not enough to get it removed. I was young and in love and a complete idiot and no one actually wants binary on their ribs, you know?"
"Is that what it is?" He asks, pulling a face as he looks at her. "What does it say?"
"It says I have two more questions before I'm answering either of those," she replies immediately.
He laughs. "Wow. Binary is really concise then because that sounds like a paragraph and I know for a fact that tattoo is tiny."
It's true. She knows that entire tattoo of hers fits under one swipe of his tongue and the memory makes her shiver. His fingertips are also not getting any lower. Quite the opposite.
"Do you have a middle name?" She asks, trying to focus on anything but the desperation building inside her to take him and somehow make him hers again. Or make him more hers? Does it work like that?
It's like he forgets he's driving and he looks at her in surprise. "You don't know my middle name?"
"I… Should I?" She asks. For as detail oriented as she can be, she somehow missed this one. She really has tried not to pry into his details as much as possible, though. She wants him to tell her those details himself and has only done it when strictly necessary to help him in some backdoor way he didn't know she was attempting. His middle name never seemed that important.
"Jonas," is all he says. He settles back in and focuses on the road. He actually has to correct the course of the car a little when he remembers he's moving forward down a winding highway at about 80 miles per hour and should probably be looking that way, too. "My mother's father's name. He died just before I was born and she always told me she wanted to honor him." There's something gentle in his voice. She thinks maybe he likes having these kinds of innocuous things to share. She isn't asking hard questions, like why he speaks Russian or where he got the mob tattoo. Middle names and funny anecdotes don't hurt. Nothing can hurt them right now because they won't let it.
"Right, Jonas Dearden," she replies immediately, though, because of course she knows some things. She wouldn't be her if she didn't. "He was a helicopter pilot, right?"
"Yes," Oliver confirms, the amusement clear as day in his voice. "That's almost all I know about him though. You probably know better than I do." He smiles at her. "And that's three. My turn."
She laughs a little at his innocent tone. It's such a good look on him, and may be one of her new favorite sounds. He's undeniably a man, a brooding and solemn one most of the time. She's never actually seen him quite like this, this light-hearted. She wonders if he was like this before. She isn't going to ask. She is going to slide her hand over his thigh.
"How are you real?" He asks, breathless.
"That question doesn't have an answer," she teases. "But if you want to take an unscheduled stop in Coast City, you can verify." She bites her lip and moves her hand a little higher.
He groans, but it's like he's straddling the line between turned on and being responsible and sticking to some sort of itinerary – which is ridiculous on this particular trip. "I hate Coast City."
"Why?"
For just a split second, she feels bad for hoping he won't catch on. It's not her turn to ask a question. She's not usually the girl to feel someone up in the name of distraction, but she's not totally above an exception in this case and the fact remains he's not that easy to distract. It makes her feel like she's doing something right. He's already pulling off the highway as her charms work.
"Just… we're not going to a bar and we're definitely not getting any Scotch here, okay? And if you see Amanda Waller, run away. Trust me."
Really, it prompts more questions than it answered. Now she knows he was here at some point and somehow the evil ARGUS manager was involved. She already knew he didn't stay on the island but…
She forces her train of thought to stop chugging. This whole thing is about priorities. He's hers, and she's his.
She rests her chin against his arm again. "I do."
