Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow and intend no copyright infringement.
Oliver barely managed to clamber onto the lair's metal treatment table. His activities of the last few hours hadn't ended well, especially not for his back. Only prone position was possible. He closed his eyes and lowered his forehead onto the table with a groan of agony. The cold metal provided a little relief by numbing the pain, but really only a little.
His back was riddled with lots of sharp splinters of glass. Luckily the leather jacket had prevented even worse damage, none of the splinters had penetrated his skin too deeply, but they were stuck, requiring a steady hand and a pair of tweezers to get them out again. Sara was good with tweezers. And needles.
Oliver could feel the table's surface turn moist under his breath. He decided it wasn't worth to bother with opening his eyes. The lids were so heavy… Someone switched on the lamp built into the table, meant for providing warmth just as well as improved illumination. Yes, that was better. The moist feeling on his face dissipated and a touch of warmth spread from his stomach area to the rest of his body. Unfortunately only the part close to the lamp. His back was still uncomfortably exposed to the lair's cold and slightly damp air.
Insulation was not great in the Arrowcave.
He could really do with someone covering him with a blanket. But first those damn splinters needed to be removed. Diggle had a very methodic way of going about such things. Always the battle-hardened soldier he quickly cleaned, disinfected, stitched up with as little fuss as possible and just as few words.
Felicity sometimes used too much disinfectant. Her stitches were not as straight as Diggle's and her hand not as steady as Sara's. Full of compassion and terribly worried about hurting him, in combination with her general nervousness whenever he was shirtless and within touching distance presented a sure recipe to actually do hurt him with whatever medical instrument she was using, but really just a little more than necessary anyway.
Her words made up for those slight inconveniences a hundred times. Her voice, reminding him of a flock of chirpy birds. Colorful birds, that kind you encounter in Tahiti. Her endless stream of sentences with its frequent Freudian slips, never failing to make him smile. When she spoke he could concentrate on something beside the pain. Even thinking about it now made him feel slightly better.
GAAAAH!
Searing pain shot through his body. Someone had just removed one of the splinters from his back. Without warning. Without any kind of local anesthesia. Without a friendly word.
"Sorry. Thought you were sleeping." Roy's voice.
Yeah. Roy.
With a groan Oliver remembered that the others were all gone. Felicity had headed off to Central City to sit by "sleeping" Barry's side – again - , Diggle had gotten himself busy with some ARGUS affair, Sara was helping her mother packing up and moving back to Starling City.
"Guess I'm on medical duty tonight." Roy picked at another splinter with all the sensitivity of a hippopotamus.
"ROY!"
"Not my fault you're stuck with me playing Florence Nightingale", Roy shrugged.
Unfortunately he was right.
Slade Wilson was still circling him like a vulture, ready to hurt everyone dear to his heart. Oliver wanted them safe, so he had driven all of them away, one by one. Except for Roy. Roy was pretty much indestructible.
Yes, he had sworn up and down to Sara that they would make it through this together. But you can't make a leopard change its spots.
Or an Arrow get rid of his protective instinct.
"ROY! The idea is to RETRIEVE the splinters, not to push them deeper into my skin."
"Sorry, man, but this is fiddly business. Reminds me of that dog dish exercise you once put me through. "
Oh yeah. And hadn't Roy mastered it flawlessly?
Twenty-seven minutes of pain later Roy was finally done and Oliver alone in the lair. A phone call from Thea, some emergency at the club: "At least there's one Queen who knows how to accept help – it's pretty clear who's got the brains in the family, if you ask me…"
He had thrown a blanket over him before heading off. Would have been nicer if he had unfolded it, though.
Hard to believe but although a floor above Oliver it was party time at Club Verdant, the silence in the lair was absolute. No sound except for the occasional hiss of one of the computers. Nothing to divert his attention from the pain in his back or his windmilling thoughts. Especially not a Freudian slip stricken stream of chirpy words.
He was alone.
This was worse than any kind of "treatment" Roy could put him through. This was worse than the loneliness on the island, after everyone else had left.
He. Needed. Them. His team.
Team Arrow.
As much as Oliver hated to admit it, it was high time for some major apologies.
Again.
And maybe some flowers for Felicity.