Title: Smile With the Risin' Sun
Rating: R
Pairing: Chloe/Oliver
Summary: Mornings had never really been her cup of tea, the only way she got through them was fully fueled on coffee. That all changed when he entered her mornings.
Spoilers: Everything.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Got the title from this song that never fails to uplift me when I wake up and have to face a difficult day - Three Little Birds, by the ONE and ONLY Bob Marley. Rise up this morning, Smiled with the risin' sun... Enjoy!
"As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment."
- John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
Mornings had never really been her cup of tea, the only way she got through them was fully fueled on coffee.
She didn't get up early, she stayed up late. She grunted if the shutters had not been pulled down, letting through the violent rays of light. She whimpered pitifully when the phone rang or the alarm went off with its snooze button out of her reach. She buried her head under the pillow or squeezed her eyes closed with the extra padding of her arm just to stay a few moments longer under that blanket of darkness.
The last thing she wanted was to face that initial stillness of the morning. Those instants suspended in time when the world was created anew under the sun. If she gave in to wakefulness then, before she had to run off on her merry, busy way, she would have no choice but to pause and reflect. Who was she? What was she doing? Where was she going? Morning found her stripped of all her social layers. And in that stillness, all she would feel was loneliness.
So, she hid from the rising sun, and when she did wake, she fell into a familiar, comforting routine. Coffee. Shower. Make-up. Coffee. Newspaper. And she was ready to take on the day's challenges.
That all changed when he entered her mornings.
Her first morning with him was nothing short of reality shifting.
Light filtered through Watchtower's vitrail in soft nuances to pour into her bare skin, nurturing her peaceful slumber. She woke slowly, all sensory stimuli crawling up her nerves.
There was the faint taste of whisky in her mouth, good whisky if the lack of throbbing temples was anything to go by.
There was the background sound of computers, which meant she had probably dropped dead in her Techno Temple in the middle of the night again. But eventually, the less familiar sounds of a heart beat and of deep breathing other than her own made themselves known.
Her nostrils flared in response to the confusion, in a subconscious attempt to reorient her in her surroundings, but the smell roused her even further. It was a mix of freshly cut wood, sandalwood, and rich leather, and something spicy she couldn't put her finger on - a heady combo that actually made her sniff to take more of the essence in. It was vaguely familiar, along with a certain musky scent that she hadn't been bathed in for a while.
Somewhere in the abyss of her mind, a small light had started blinking in warning, but she was way too at ease to acknowledge it. Not only was her bed intoxicatingly fragrant, but really warm and cozy. She actually felt relaxed, sated. Her usually tightly wound muscles after hours of standing and sitting in front of the monitors were languidly stretched. She was even exquisitely sore and in the right places. And with that last input, the overlooked blinking light was steadily growing bigger.
Instinctively, she tried to bring her thighs together to silence the echoing ache. That's when the cowardly touch parlor hiding behind the Central Sulcus of her brain finally decided to put up the Open for Business sign: an actual leg between hers trounced the proverbial foot in the door after all. Suddenly, the pile of information her slowly-adapting skin receptors had checked in at the higher counter during the off hours fell on her awareness like a waterfall. The warmth and softness she was feeling all over - from her cheek, across her torso, all the way down to her toes - was not accompanied by the texture of a fluffy or Egyptian cotton bedding. Fact of the matter was, it was most likely flesh and it was heaving right beneath her ear. Wait, WHAT?
That was it, the switch now definitely flipped in her mind. All lights blared inside, urging her to open the windows, and she couldn't, wouldn't resist. Her eyelids jolted open with the spike in her pulse, and the view she was met with did not do her blood pressure any favors. She knew that chest, those finely carved muscles with their mouthwatering dips. Her eyes had strayed to that chest often enough, and lately, she had been called upon a few times to patch up minor cuts marring its smooth surface. She never expected to get V.I.P. access to it, however.
And with that thought, other images invaded her: his hand gliding frothily against hers, the arrow embedding itself in its designated target, the raging fire in his eyes before she lost sight of everything but him and the patterns moonlight streaming through in soft hues drew on his skin. She pictured with a shortness of breath the frame of his statuesque figure as he had poised himself above her, the tickling spikes of his hair as he had slid down on her to imprint his mouth on every inch of her body, the lines of his neck as she had buried her face in it in a poor attempt to muffle sounds she never knew she could make before he would tug on her hair and suck her into the scathing pools of his eyes again. Sensations his touch had brought, be it ethereal caresses or zealous grips of her hips and rear, she could not begin to reconstruct. By this time, a heavy flush had colored her cheeks, and a resounding alarm had joined the flashing lights in her head. Oh, no, what have I done?
She resolved to get final confirmation - not that she needed it really, because she couldn't possibly dream up a fantasy that vivid, regardless of whether he would be the one featured. Not to mention that she was literally lying on the proof. Nevertheless, she lifted her head almost resignedly, and for a moment, all anxiety and doubt and embarrassment was knocked out of her.
The planes of his handsome face were set in the most peaceful expression she had seen him bear in a long time, quite possibly ever. Granted, drowsing off against his jet's window aside, she had never seen him sleep before, but the frown of concentration and worry in his eyebrows was ironed out and his sensuous lips were missing their determined folds, instead distended in a way that somehow made them even more kissable. He looked - dare she think it - boyish, and Oliver Queen had always ranked pretty up there in her definition of manly.
An inexplicable wave of tenderness swept over her, making her fingers itch to stroke his face and swift through his hair. Where did THAT come from? She shook her head at herself, snapping out of it, and deciding then and there that she needed to flee the crime scene, regroup, then nip this thing in the bud before it got messy so she could salvage one of the only relationships she had managed to resurrect.
Tentatively, she uncurled the hand wrapped around his shoulder to flatten it by his right side. With some reluctancy, she repeated the process on her right with the hand that had laid contentedly on his chest, splaying it near the edge of the small sofa. The legs were even worse, because she wanted nothing more but to leave them entangled, but with diligence, she slightly bent her right leg, cradled between both of his, at the knee. Finally in position, she lifted herself slowly, holding her breath as a harsh feeling of bareness flared inside her with every dissolving point of contact. She watched him attentively when she pushed her weight up even further, and, predictably, the arm settled on her waist slid compliantly down her back. She ignored the ridiculous pang of regret at being able to so easily shred the anchor to his body - was this muddled state of mind normal for women the morning after a night with the billionaire boy wonder? - and shifted more decisively.
She was almost ready to extirpate herself completely, when his falling palm hit the curve above her ass, and then she scarcely registered what happened. All she knew was that less than a second later, she was pressed firmly to him again, the so called feeble anchor now turned full on lasso as it tightly encircled her whole upper body. The abruptness of the movement pried a yelp out of her, and instantly, she flashed her eyes up to his face to find him blinking his own open in adorable confusion.
Adorable? Really, Chloe? Now you're calling Star City's most eligible bachelor adorable. In all honesty though, she had found Oliver to be increasingly adorable over the last few weeks, but who would have guessed that all the sweet morning coffee runs and tasty takeout dinners, quirky texts and even quirkier nicknames were leading up to this?
As soon as his gaze focused on her, the hazy brown of his irises melted into their heartwarming chocolaty shade, and his lips crooked at the corner to give her a soft sleepy smile.
"Good morning," he said huskily, and his voice alone was enough to make her slip down the slope of reminiscence, down to the less innocent words he had slurred into her ear mere hours ago.
She swallowed heavily before croaking: "Good morning," and she immediately wanted to slap herself for sounding like she was walking on eggshells - which I probably am, but not the point. Clearing her throat, she took another shot at it, plastering on a smile as she was well practiced to: "Did you sleep well?"
What the hell was she supposed to say after sleeping with her boss/close friend? Hey, thanks for the best sex of my life, now let's get back to work!
He smirked knowingly at her, and for some reason, she simultaneously wanted to smack it off his face and kill it with a kiss. "I don't bite, you know," he professed amusedly, before pulling her level with him and lifting his head to gently nibble her earlobe. "Not unless you ask, anyway," he whispered and drifted down to administer similar treatment to her neck.
She had to bite her lip to suppress a moan, but there wasn't much she could do to quell the shiver that ran through her. "Ollie," she protested unconvincingly, and the smile against her skin showed he wasn't buying it.
Truth be told, she couldn't fully process the situation, let alone being in it with him of all people. Unrealistic was an understatement (this coming from the creator of the Wall of Weird); only waking up in bed with Clark would rival it, waking up as Lois pretty much tied with it. Oh, god. Congratulations Sullivan, you slept with your cousin's ex! And you don't even know if he's over her yet. "Oliver," she said more firmly, ordering herself not to freak out, "we need to talk about this!"
When he just hmm-ed and switched to sucking kisses, she grabbed his hair and rammed his head back on the couch underneath her. He stared at her dumbfounded, then he pursed his lips childishly as if she had just pulled out the candy from his mouth.
"You're pouting, really?" she asked in disbelief. "I should give the Inquisitor an exclusive: Playboy Pouts to Get What He Wants in Bed," she joked, chuckling, all the while thinking he was outrageously adorable.
His eyes seemed to warm at the sound of her laugh, and he nodded mock thoughtfully. "You know, it might have something to do with said ex-playboy not used to being denied in bed," he explained, giving her the panty-dropping, drool-inducing, charming grin he was famed for.
Her breath hitched under its potency. Hadn't she developed immunity to that charm of his? Get it together! Since her getaway plan hadn't panned out, unless she somehow managed to make a run for it, she needed to deal with the consequences of this... this... this sexcapade or whatever it was.
"Be serious," she chided, smacking his shoulder.
"Ow," he whined, even though she had put virtually no force in her blow. "You're even bossy in the morning. Who would've thought? I think we need to work on your bedside manner."
She blinked at him owlishly, wondering at how they could possibly pick up their mill-of-the-day quips and cranks when they had just gone and replaced water with lava in said mill. He simply smiled at her, as he always did, almost eagerly awaiting a comeback. And, try as she might, her eyes locked with his, her lips trembling with the effort, her features involuntarily pulled up in a genuine smile at the ridiculousness of it all. His own broadened at her response.
After a while, he brought his hand up to caress her cheek and when her lips parted at the still uncustomary gesture, his gaze dropped and his thumb moved to graze over them. Enigmatically, the touch had much the same effect on her as it had had last night: she shifted closer to him as a metal would to a magnet, and as soon as she was in his immediate vicinity, they both bridged that last tiny gap. Unlike last night however, instead of directly devouring each other, they met delicately, with light brushes and lighter tugs, even as her hand moved to hold his jaw in place and his swifted through her blond locks until it found purchase on the nape of her neck.
She couldn't tell how long the kiss lasted, because right then and there, she was floating in that stillness of the morning. She forgot time and place, and was happy just to be as a new day dawned. Even if she had no idea what she, what they were doing.
Eventually, when they parted, breaths still mingling, a regretful sigh escaped her, and she lowly uttered the obvious: "We do need to talk, Ollie".
"I know," he confessed, smiling at her affectionately. "But how about we shelve the discussion while it's still early. Just... Enjoy the morning?"
And she caved in, losing herself in him again - experiencing blitheness as he flipped them over; exhilaration as he called the blood to amp up her cutaneous nerves with every kiss, lick, suckle, bite, nibble, nuzzle, grasp, flick, pinch and teasing blow; fullness as he embedded himself inside her as deeply as he could go at a languid pace; weightlessness as he took her to great heights and left her free falling only to catch her again. By the end of the morning, she was almost happy to face the day's challenges.
Friends with benefits or not, any night with him was inevitably followed by all the morning perks a girl could wish for.
There wasn't one morning after she didn't succumb to consciousness while cocooned in his snug and soothing embrace. Whether she was lounging on top of him, his arm acting as a bonus cover to the sheets, or spooned in his large and strong body, his arm then draped across her stomach (and occasionally waking her by its extremity exploring below), they were always entwined. She had no idea whether they sought each other out in the middle of the night, all she knew was that she didn't mind his solid presence being the first object of her awareness, and thought nothing else of it.
Sometimes, however, particularly if the previous day had been relatively bumpy, she would unconsciously roll away in remaining restlessness or in the midst of worrisome dreams. But any such unfortunate maneuver was quickly remedied by him.
Today was one of those occasions, and this one was a singularly precarious one, at least from her vantage point. It was the morning after she had been invited back into his bed for the first time since the kryptonite weapons fiasco. Angry sex, further arguing and, to her dismay, tear-filled eyes on both sides had led to a cessez-le-feu grounded on her promise to put all her cards on the table and his word not to use their arrangement to punish or question her. Last night had been intense and healing, but even though they had forgiven each other, on some level, she must have felt she didn't deserve his welcoming hold in the morning. She was still driving, and he was gladly sitting beside her, letting her steer, but asking her to let him shift gears. She felt rotten for hurting him, knew he could do much better than entrap himself in her twisted ropes, yet she didn't have it in her to release him and for some reason, he wasn't inclined to follow his usual M.O. of flying the coop. So, she must have rolled away in a subliminal attempt to give him some breathing space.
No dice, because as she lay asleep on her stomach on her own side of the king sized bed, hands stashed under the pillow, she awoke to the feel of his lips trailing butterfly kisses from her neck to her shoulder. When she stirred, he brushed the hair away from her ear and slowly moved his mouth to it.
"Wake up," he cooed, his breath hitting her ear. "I know you're awake," he teased prompting a trace of a smile to grace her lips.
"Let me sleep," she groaned softly.
He chuckled, before continuing his assault, dragging the sheet covering her down, until he hived himself above her, nudging her legs apart with his knee. His hand, meanwhile, had dug under her pillow to lace fingers with hers, while the other buried itself under her belly to lightly rub it in circles.
"You know, if you wanted to sleep, you shouldn't have rolled away," he murmured in an unlawfully seductive bass.
Her heart was already racing and her body begging her to lift her bottom and find him once more, but she plowed on, albeit in a breathy voice: "How so? It seems pretty counter-intuitive to me."
"Well, you see, if you're not in my arms, I wake up. And then you're laying here, just within reach, blissfully unaware," he explained, purposefully pausing between each statement to kiss the sensitive area beneath her ear. "So, since I have nothing to do but watch you, knowing there is nothing beneath the sheet... Let's just say odds are not looking great for you."
She snickered at his logic, and felt his smile at the juncture of her jaw and ear, before she felt a lot more of him press at the juncture of her thighs. Her eyes opened wide at the delightful sensation. She noted abstractly that the room was colored in the reddish shade of the rising sun before sliding deliberately along his length, and accepting his unspoken reassurance.
After their dysfunctional but disclosive weekend escape, with their status no longer a secret - at least not to their closest friends - and some of their daunting relationship baggage sorted out, he became much more expressive.
Virtually every night was now spent with him, be it at Watchtower on the more tedious days at the office or at his clock tower penthouse. The mornings, in addition to the luxurious lovemaking at dawn she had come to think of as the desert of the nightly feast, now carried the aroma of a panoply of exotic coffee blends and palatable breakfast meals, more often than not served to her in bed.
They effortlessly coordinated their morning routines as if they had been living together for lord knows how long. If they got up at the same time, they would shower together and perform a synchronized dance around the sink as they brushed teeth and pampered. She even had her own drawer and shelf in his closet, a fact she discarded as convenient. If he happened to get up before for his morning workout, she would linger reading the newspaper or admiring the view. In the former case, he flirtatiously nagged her and extended the invitation to join him so he could get her in shape, to which she inevitably answered: "I think our indoor games are already achieving that purpose," an assessment neither of them denied as her flexibility and endurance had increased tenfold since they started this.
After they almost lost each other the same day, pretenses and flippancy were rapidly fading. They both knew they were in deep, only she was unwilling to admit it, holding that last little bit of her back because timing could not have been more mal à propos.
She knew she was in trouble when all it took for her to light up in the morning was a text from him. He could trigger a mega-watt smile from thousands of miles away with a few words, words she would reread until they were tattooed on her retina, words that would make her wish she had taken him up on his offer to tag along on the business trip.
She knew she was screwed when it occurred to her that she saw nothing amiss in waking up to him for the rest of her life.
Their first morning together after her return, she realized she'd already been in love with him the first morning they had spent together.
She'd roused gently and early, enveloped by the familiar sound of his heart and breath, his delicious smell, his warmth below and around her. She eagerly opened her eyes to take in the precious view she had acutely missed, lifting her head to look down at him as they lay glued to each other in a makeshift bed on the floor where it all began.
The light was streaming in tentatively through the small windows upstairs, as their large colored glass stayed hidden behind the massive metal shutter by necessity.
His features were molded in a good approximation of the peaceful expression she had come to love the most, but there was a faint crease between his brows. Her heart clenched with the thought of the pain she had put him, them through, and she was overwhelmed by tenderness. This time, she didn't hesitate to act on it, bringing her thumb up to smooth the valley of his forehead before plunging her fingers in his (still) surprisingly soft hair. He shifted minutely beneath her, and she was worried for a second that he would move away; instead, he tightened his hold on her. Suddenly, all the parallels with their first time hit her - the affection, the urge to touch him, the reluctancy to detangle herself from him - and she just knew. She knew the love had already been there, she had just shied away from it for as long as she could. She smiled happily because now, it didn't matter that the morning light was shy, since her sun would rise anytime.
On cue, Oliver's eyelids fluttered open, and when he caught sight of her hovering above him and her unguarded amorousness, she was gratified with that sleepy, crooked smile of his. His own fingers gravitated to her hair, and without a second thought, she pressed a lingering kiss full of promise to his lips. Pulling back just a fraction, she noted his already dilated pupils and did her best to present him the clearest view into her soul before whispering the words she had forever longed to say to his face, but had waited for that moment suspended in time, in the morning, when only they existed: "I love you".
He blinked rapidly, then captured her lips in a kiss so searing that she felt it in her bones, and faster than ever before, he had her on her back. When he broke away for a much needed air intake, he stole her breath with the brightest grin.
"Well, it took you long enough," he exhaled, voice full of relief and joy. She laughed with abandon and watched his look morph into pure, unadulterated adoration. "And, in case it hasn't been glaringly obvious... I love you, too."
The bed was shaking rhythmically under her, spurring her to rise. She held back a groan, and opened her eyes to see Oliver in front of her, still holding her, doing the same.
Simultaneously, they looked down to the edge of the bed where their energy ball of a son was jumping shamelessly.
"Mom, Dad, get up! It's my birthday! Come on!" he exclaimed as he threw himself between them, nudging them apart to lay down.
He looked from one to the other, both of them still dazed, having only moved back together to include him in their cuddling. Artfully, the blonde boy issued a reminder with no small amount of pleading: "You promised me we would go to Metropolis, where you two met."
"Connor, your birthday's tomorrow, honey," Chloe said softly. "We have work to do today."
Not skipping a beat, Connor turned to Oliver: "Daddy," he drawled. "Why can't you take a day off today?"
Behind him, Chloe pinned Oliver with a warning look, so he swallowed before answering: "Because we have responsibilities, Con. We can't just pick up and leave whenever we feel like it."
"But if we don't go today, I won't get my present."
Her husband looked askance at her, but she was equally puzzled, so she tickled her son lightly, savoring his childish giggles, before asking: "What is it that Mr. Queen wants?"
"Well, this Mr. Queen here knows exactly what he wants," Oliver offered, his eyes boring into hers before they both turned their attention back to the almost 4-year old center of their universe.
"I want a baby brother," he told them bluntly.
They stared at him surprised, then Oliver chuckled: "I can work on that right here, son, trust me," he admitted, sending Chloe a wink when her mouth fell open. "Why do you think we need to go to Metropolis for that?"
"Well, I told Auntie Lois what I wanted, and she told me that all I had to do is get you two in that Watchtower and leave you alone, and that you would..." he paused, deep in thought, trying to remember while his audience froze. "That you would steam up the place, and I would get a brother."
Chloe chocked on air, and Oliver erupted in a roaring laugh. When she regained speech, she smiled warmly at Connor, and tried to explain: "That present takes a bit more time than a day, honey."
"Okay, but I still wanna go to Metropolis. I haven't seen Auntie Lois and Uncle Clark forever," he argued, making puppy eyes at her and Oliver alternatively. "And you two have been working a lot since that bald man is everywhere."
That last statement got him astonished expressions, and he seized the opportunity to deploy his most powerful weapon: "Pleeaaase."
"All right," they conceded, defeatedly, at the same time.
"Yes!" he boomed, bouncing up and off the bed to run to his room and, presumably, gather his most treasured belongings including his first set of bow and arrows.
Chloe looked intently at Oliver, a mildly reproachful expression in her eyes: "It's your dimple's fault," she accused.
"What?" he demanded, falsely offended. "No, I plead innocent. It's your eyes' fault. And if not that, your observation skills."
At that, she couldn't resist exhibiting clear pride, then smiled softly at her husband of seven years. "Hi," she whispered.
He returned her smile with a loving one of his own: "Hi."
She moved in to kiss him, like she always did, and she wouldn't trade that moment for anything.
She'd realized this long ago: love doesn't need a snooze button, because when its alarm goes off for the first time in the morning, the thought of your loved ones makes it impossible to fall back asleep.