AN: Thanks so very much to everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, and alerted! It is all greatly appreciated!

And many, many thanks to loved in shades of wrong for being my unofficial mentor :) This wouldn't be half as pretty without you!

The inspiration for this one-shot came from a t-shirt I saw in Skymall magazine. Also, it is somewhat crack-y, and then it gets somewhat angsty (honestly unintentional)... in essence, this is what happens when I try to study for the GRE on a plane and end up procrastinating instead. And to be completely honest, I'm still not sure if I even like what I wrote. It's one of those pieces that makes me cringe every time I read it, but maybe that's because I usually cringe at what I write. Apologies again for any mistakes and/or imperfections I may have made.

Disclaimer: I do not own CW's Arrow... or Skymall Magazine.

The first time they had sex, Oliver turned the lights off.

During that moment, Felicity didn't really notice as she was being preoccupied with more... pressing matters. But when she woke up in his arms the next morning and snuggled deeper into his chest, she meticulously replayed all the amazingness that had happened the night before and distinctly recalled how, in between the nips to her jaw and his trailing fingers to places she had never realized were so sensitive, he had reached over to her lamp with his other hand and switched it off. That little event put a pause in her reminiscing, but then she had dismissed it, eagerly going through the rest of that night's activities. And then he woke up, so she didn't have to think about it anymore.

However, over the course of the week Felicity would wake up each morning, basking in the afterglow, only to remember that one little peculiarity: Oliver always turned off the lights. It wasn't until a week and a half later when they are at the Foundry and she is watching him do push-ups with one arm (and making her think of other certain activities that could be done in such a way) that she comes to the most upsetting realization: she has never seen Oliver completely naked! He always turns off the lights before he got undressed!

Sure, sure, she has been able to feel him in all his glory and such, but after three years of fantasizing, she just wants to see the real deal. After all, what was the point of sleeping with Oliver Queen if you didn't get the chance to ogle him without feeling like a creeper?

Oliver finishes his push-ups and Felicity quickly turns back to her monitors, half hoping he hadn't noticed.

Okay, maybe you can still feel like a creeper (who still uses the word ogle anyway?) And there's definitely more to their relationship than just sex (although if the past couple of weeks are any indication, it would seem their relationship is pretty sexy, and that's totally fine with her... really fine).

Felicity glances back at Oliver and sees him wiping himself off with a towel, traveling first over his shoulders, down his stomach, then around to the small of his back and up again.

Alright, if she has to sum up her feelings into a soy nutshell, she will have to say she feels cheated. Really, it's just not fair that she doesn't get to enjoy all of the perks that come with being Oliver Queen's girlfriend... not that she isn't enjoying other perks that come...

"Felicity, are you feeling okay? You're looking a little flushed."

Felicity jumps, not expecting Oliver to be standing over her shoulder and... smirking?

She turns back to her computers and says quickly, "Fine, just fine! Peachy-keen, jelly bean!"

Oliver lets out one of his little huffs, the one that means he's amused with her, and leans down to drape an arm over her shoulder and presses his lips to her cheek. "Good. Then let's go home."

She briefly melts at his use of the word "home", knowing he's referring to her apartment and that it wouldn't be "home" without each other. His lips move to her neck and then she melts for an entirely different reason when she realizes what they'll be doing when they get home—

And then she gets upset all over again! Honest to goodness, if she doesn't get to do it with the lights on tonight...

He tosses her onto the bed and he's on her before she can even bounce twice. So far everything is going very well, until she sees his arm reach towards the lamp at the right side of the bed. As predicted, he turns it off, and then she feels him pull back briefly to take off his shirt.

Holding him close with one arm and trying to make her lips as distracting as possible, she uses the other arm to turn the lamp back on. She feels him hesitate for the briefest second before reaching out and turning off the light again.

She pulls his bottom lip between her teeth and thinks, Gotcha. Now she knows his intentions are to keep the lights off, but she has no idea as to why. Does he not want her to see him? Is he insecure? For goodness's sake, she thinks it's weird when he puts a shirt on. And in a fleeting moment of doubt and sadness, she thinks, does he not want to see me?

Refusing to let herself go down that road (because she already has, many times, but she'll be darned if she keeps thinking like that while he's reverently caressing every part of her), she lifts her hand again and turns on the light. This time he noticeably pauses and breathes a soft growl of frustration against her lips before turning the light off.

She's being driven crazy in two ways: one by Oliver's superbly talented mouth, and the other by this fixation Oliver has with keeping the lights off.

Felicity Smoak hates mysteries. But she thinks she knows how to solve this one.

So, this time, Felicity attempts to stealthily turn the lamp back on. But Felicity's version of stealth doesn't really compare with Oliver's version, as is evident by the way his hand stealthily darts out and grabs her wrist before she even touches the lamp, pinning it above her head. She then tries to use her other hand, again stealthily... but that doesn't work either and now she has both hands pinned above her head.

She struggles for a moment, her mind still on the lamp, but then he growls again, this time her name, so she knows he means business. Oliver's hands tighten on her wrists and his mouth finds her nipple, and now her mind doesn't know why she's thinking of a stupid lamp. Then he's inside her using a pace that's bit rougher than usual, and she has no idea why she was so fixated on the lights in the first place since Oliver has no trouble with making her see stars anyway...

When it's over, Oliver is slumped over on top of her, their chests heaving in time. She doesn't realize her wrists are still pinned until he releases them and moves to the right to lie beside her. She decides to give him a moment, and then because she can't help it:

"So, uh... you like doing it in the dark, huh?"

She hears him let out a half sigh, half laugh before continuing, "I mean, that's cool. We all have our preferences. I just never pegged you for the shy type considering, you know, the whole training shirtless in front of me before we started dating thing. And I've always heard it's the woman in the relationship who insists on keeping the lights off. Not that I'm calling you a woman... nor would I call you a woman in an insulting way. I'm a woman, as you obviously know by now, and there's nothing wrong with being a woman. You would be very fortunate to be a woman... but I wouldn't be fortunate if you were a woman, since I don't swing that way. Not that there's anything wrong with swinging that way. Again, preferences…"

She can practically feel him stare at her, and who knew the weight of a stare was ten times worse in the dark? She counts down from three and then reaches across him to turn on the light.

He grabs her hand as it slides across his chest and says, "Seriously?"

She sighs. "Oliver. Why do you want the lights off?"

"Why do you want the lights on?"

"Because I finally have a hot boyfriend and I'm kinky like that."

He sighs and laughs again, but with a little more laugh, and he releases her hand. She continues to reach over him and finally turns the light on.

She sits up to face him and sees that his lower half is under the covers. His face is turned away from her and his hands are slowly rubbing up and down his thighs.

Ah.

She puts her hands over his to stop them from moving and cranes her neck so that she can make eye contact.

"Oliver," she says again gently, "I know that there's a lot you still feel like you can't tell me about the island. And that's fine, I get it. But you should know: every time I look your scars, I don't see them as ugly or scary. I see them as strength, courage, and perseverance. And even though I can't imagine all the horror and pain you've been through when you got those scars, I think it's possible you feel like they've… dehumanized you."

Oliver sucks in a shuddering gasp and closes his eyes, and she can feel her own eyes welling up with tears. Oh, if only she knew the names of the people who hurt him (if they were still alive), and all the ways she would use her tablet to make them suffer for hurting him.

But she doesn't know their names, and she figures she never will, so she straddles his lap and brushes a kiss against his forehead, his cheek, his eyelids. "You're not any less of a man, Oliver. If anything, you've had to change into an even greater man to survive all you've been through, and I love you for it. I love everything about you, and no imperfections that you think you have is going to change that."

He crushes her against him; his face buried in her neck and she just holds him for a little while, smoothing a hand through his hair occasionally. Then he gently shifts her off of his lap, takes a deep breath, and lowers the covers…

His legs and thighs are littered with as many scars as his torso, if not more. She recognizes stab and bullet wounds, but there are countless others that she has no idea how they were inflicted, and she doesn't want to know.

He seems pretty anxious, so instead of going over his body and trying to heal each bad memory with a kiss like she really wants to, she instead curls up against his side and holds his hand, giving him the time he needs to get comfortable in his own skin again.

Besides, if she has her way, she'll have plenty of time later in their relationship to worship his body.

She's not sure how much time has passed, but when he presses his lips to the top of her head and says, "Thank you," she thinks he's a little bit better now.

She smiles. "No, no, thank you."

He laughs, and her smile gets bigger.

She runs a finger over the tattoo on his chest and says, "You know, I always I thought scars are cooler than tattoos anyway. And you know how much I love tattoos."

He laughs again, shaking his head slightly, "I actually don't know how much you love tattoos."

She sits up to look at him. "Really? Huh. Well, I think tattoos are pretty darn sexy. This one guy I dated in college was covered, but my favorites were the one on his fingers because whenever we had sex—"

She doesn't get to finish because Oliver tackles her and lays a kiss on her that makes her completely lose her train of thought.

When he pulls back he has a mischievous glint in his eye and he glances at the lamp.

"Oliver Queen, you turn that light off and I will get you drunk one night and make you get finger tattoos."

"What would they be of?" he asks with a kiss to her neck.

"Arrows, of course. And maybe on the other hand computer wires."

He gives her a big smile and says, "You really are kinky, aren't you?"

She blushes again, but says anyway, "Only one way to find out."

End

AN2: The shirt in the Skymall magazine said: "Scars are like tattoos but with better stories." Only, I'm sure all of the stories of Oliver's scars are extremely painful and depressing, so they wouldn't necessarily be better.

Also: I use the word "ogle" all the time.

Thank you very much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!