He had been silently driving her crazy for the past few days. Striding behind her chair as she worked at her command center, pacing back and forth, stretching his back, his arms, muttering under his breath and issuing quiet grunts.
Today was no different.
The team had returned to the foundry unsuccessful yet again in their hunt for the latest target. The man in the Arrow's crosshairs seemed to be always one step ahead of the team and would taunt Oliver about his failure to snare him. Dig and Roy had left, leaving just the two of them.
She knew Oliver was seriously stressed and he was definitely not on his A game. Oliver was pacing again behind her, rubbing the back of his neck repeatedly and trying to stretch his arms.
Felicity could ignore him no longer and swiveled her chair around to look at him. He had really dark circles under his eyes and his ever present broody frown.
"You know, you're going to wear a rut into our floor if you keep that up".
Oliver paused in his pacing, then slowly turned to look at her, rubbing his hands down his face. He seemed almost confused, like he wasn't sure she was speaking English. He just looked at her.
"You look really, really tired. Not that you don't look good of course, cause you always look good, really, reeaally good, and kinda hot in a broody superhero way and I'm gonna stop now…"
Felicity snapped her mouth shut audibly while her face warmed. God would she ever be able to speak like a normal human being around Oliver?
"I just mean, you look like you haven't been sleeping, and I'm guessing that you're sore with the way you keep trying to stretch your arms and your neck and…". She let her sentence just trail off as Oliver continued to look at her, not saying a word.
Suddenly it seemed almost as if someone had let the air out of him, and Oliver's shoulders slumped and his face took on the look of someone who had been kicked repeatedly while he was already down.
"I haven't been sleeping well", he replied quietly.
Felicity knew he hadn't been. She knew, courtesy of the security cameras installed inside the foundry and her ability to monitor them from home, that Oliver had basically been living in the foundry. She'd noted many nights of little to no sleep, and those sleepless nights were spent working off his demons on the dummy or salmon bar.
Felicity stuck her pen in her mouth and began to chew the end while an idea formed. She missed the look that passed over Oliver's face when he fixated for a moment on said pen, watching her mouth work on it.
"You need to relax you know, and get some sleep", Felicity said around her pen. "I know recent events and not being able to catch up with our target are starting to get to you but you're starting to lose your touch. But really, I mean, only like temporarily of course, cause you could never really lose your touch altogether, and wow I bet your touch feels good and please someone shut me up before….
"Felicity!" Oliver spoke up, blessedly ending her word vomit. "Do we have any aspirin?"
"Yes! Yes we most certainly do!" Felicity was so glad he asked, because it would play right into her idea. She was going to get Oliver to relax, even if it killed him. Well ok, that would be counterproductive wouldn't it, she thought.
She went over to the medicine cabinet and pilfered through the contents. She found the two bottles she wanted and took one pill out of each, making sure Oliver couldn't see what she was doing. She looked at them and they were almost the same size and white, he probably wouldn't notice. She was no doctor, so she wasn't sure if giving him one muscle relaxant and one of Dig's oxycodones would make him sick, but she figured with his muscle mass his body could take it and he could get really, really, relaxed.
She palmed the pills and grabbed a bottle of water out of their fridge and handed everything to Oliver. She held her breath to see if he would notice that he wasn't exactly taking aspirin, but he just popped them in his mouth and took a long swig of the water.
She slowly let out her breath and watched as a dribble of water ran down from the corner of his mouth, down his chin and then worked its way down his throat only to disappear into the top of his green leather jacket. She gulped rather loudly and quickly turned around before being caught staring.
Oliver finished off the water and threw the bottle into the waste can. He unzipped his jacket and took it off, throwing it onto the desk. He'd hang it up later. He started pacing again and rolling his shoulders, trying to relieve the tense muscles. His back and shoulder muscles had really been bothering him. At first he thought he had pulled a muscle on one of his roof jumps, but he was slowly beginning to realize it was stress causing it. Everything was catching up to him, the undertaking, Tommy's death, Sara's death, his mom's death, Thea taking off, and his failure at being able to take down one psychopath who should've been dealt with in one night, it was beginning to be too much.
And in the back of his head, he kept replaying the moment in his house, telling Felicity he loved her, then watching her being held by Slade, then as much as saying he said it all just to catch Slade. The slight crushed look in Felicity's eyes that she covered so fast he'd have missed it if he hadn't been looking right into her beautiful eyes.
He looked over at Felicity. She had gone back to her systems and was running a scan on something. She was still chewing on the pen. God he wished he were that pen. He ran his hands over his head, scratching his scalp. God almighty why was it so freaking hot in here? Maybe it was time to figure out some air conditioning. Although he didn't ever remember it being this hot down here.
He pulled his shirt away from his torso and wiggled it to create a breeze but it didn't help. He really needed to find out why it was so damn hot. He started roaming around the foundry, periodically pulling his shirt away, and searching the walls.
Felicity turned and noticed Oliver walking around looking like he was searching for something. She ignored him at first, her scan was almost finished and fingers crossed it would produce results. When Oliver tripped over the workout mat and squeaked, Felicity looked up sharply and almost started laughing at his "girl squeak".
"Oliver, what are doing? Did you seriously just trip over the mat?"
Oliver got up and looked at her. "Where's the damn thermostat in this place?" He turned around. "Why'sitsohot"..he spun around again and wobbled and looked at Felicity, "iss it hot in 'ere?"
Felicity went bugged eyed and started to laugh when Oliver yanked his shirt off in order to cool off. "We don't have a thermostat, we would need A/C to have one". She almost choked on her own spit when he began to undo his leather pants, but kept fumbling with the button.
"Oliver!" She yelled. "Not that I toooooo-tally wouldn't want to see you out of those yummy green leather pants of yours you can't take them off".
Oliver looked up at her. "But it's hot in here" he said petulantly, almost childlike.
Felicity walked over to him and put a hand to his forehead. She was fairly certain the pills had kicked in she chuckled to herself.
"I tell you what, why don't you come over here and lay down on the med table. It's cold metal so it should feel good."
Oliver let her lead him over to the table, thinking that laying down seemed like a really swell idea. God Felicity was so smart, he thought to himself. Definitely the brains of the group.
"I bet you have pretty brains" he slurred, a totally dopey smile on his face, his eyes drooping.
Felicity looked at him like he'd just sprouted a third eye, then smiled at him.
"Oooh-kay mister, down you go. Time for a nap!"
She helped lay Oliver face down on the table, quickly grabbing his hoodie that was laying nearby and wadding it up under his head as an impromptu pillow. The whole time Oliver was mumbling, but she couldn't quite make out what he was saying, his face was smushed into the jacket.
Felicity, figuring he was high as a kite on the meds, decided he wouldn't notice if she copped a little, teeny tiny feel, and ran her hand down his back. When he moaned, she decided what the heck, and began to rub his back, just to loosen up his tense muscles of course, not because he felt deliciously hot or anything. Really. Well…maybe a little. Another long, satisfied, moan kept her at it until suddenly he flipped his face to the side facing her, eyes closed, breathing deep.
She figured he had finally fallen asleep, and went over to one of the cabinets and grabbed a blanket. As she gently laid it over him, she noticed he was mumbling again. Thinking he was awake, she leaned down and said "What was that?"
Slightly slurry, eyes still closed, Oliver said,
"God I love you 'licity. One of these days I'll work up the nerve to tell you to tell you for real". And with that he began to softly snore, completely dead to the world.
Felicity was standing stiff as a board, hand to her mouth, eyes a little wet.
"Ohhhh myyyy".
AN: OK so I'm no doctor, I have zero idea what would happen in real life to a real person if you took the meds in the story. But it worked for my idea. Little bit of inspiration from the I Love Lucy episode when Lucy gets high shooting the commercial for the Vegetable Vitamin Syrup.