Oliver maintains a certain amount of personal space.
Three points drive home the reason for it: five years with virtually no hugs did not irreparably damage him; far too many people have left permanent scars on him; and physical closeness is an intimacy as painful as it is pleasurable, leaving him vulnerable to other people. He doesn't like being vulnerable to other people. Too often, vulnerability is too much trust, trust misplaced, trust unquestioned.
Barry has it in spades.
Whereas Oliver sleeps privately, preferably under deep cover of darkness when no one else is awake to contest his level of awareness, Barry makes himself cozy in public spaces. He has no qualms with falling asleep when others are awake, unlike Oliver, who refuses to be the first guard to take off his gun. He trusts people – any person, it seems, no matter how dubious their smiles are – to not hurt him. He sleeps with a soft underbelly facing up, like he's waiting for someone to kill him.
Oliver wants to put him on guard, to make him understand that one day he will trust the wrong person, who will throw him into a place Oliver can't rescue him from, and they will torture him. They will render his kindness inert, his optimism obsolete. They will dim the joy in his smile and the light in his eyes. They will do everything in their power to destroy him.
Oliver knows it will because he remembers what it was like to see himself in a full-length mirror for the first time in five years. He saw himself reflected in the glassy windows of his hospital room and stared, mesmerized, at his own body. Once he overcome the initial shock, he noted the differences: he was stronger, had a better posture, and filled his frame more fully. He had a soldier's steady stance, at attention even at rest. Most importantly, he did not meet the expectation of a starved, beaten castaway. Somehow, rather than taking away, the island had given him strength.
The scars reinforced that image. You are not the person you were before the island, they said. You will never be that person again. He was the person who survived. Everything and anything.
The strength was misleading.
It masked pain.
Oliver maintains a certain amount of personal space. That rule does not apply after two in the morning.
The stairs do not creak underfoot – Oliver knows them too well to make such a casual mistake – but Barry still stirs on the couch when he reaches the living room. Sitting up with fuzzy-haired sleepiness, Barry asks through a yawn, "Ollie? What's wrong?"
Nothing, he half-wants to say, go back to sleep.
Keep him in the dark. Let him live a peaceful lie.
But Barry doesn't live a peaceful lie, not anymore: the lightning strike changed him. For him fighting crime used to be a day job; now it's an inescapable fact of his life and the stakes couldn't be higher for him. When he regards Oliver, he's tired, but he's alert, becoming more so by the second.
"Ollie?" he repeats, climbing to his feet ponderously. The horse tranquilizers were a low blow, to be sure, but there were no rules against leveling the playing field. Oliver would never say it out loud, but speedsters were a real threat to him: he couldn't underestimate them. Give Barry the full benefit of his powers and he could crush Oliver. By taking an opportunity to weaken him, Oliver gained an opportunity to take him down. Only then did the game become winnable.
"Your thoughts are so loud," Barry grunts, peevishly but not unpleasantly tired, more come-back-to-bed than shut-up-or-else. He walks – stumbles – over and catches Oliver's sleeve. "C'mon," he insists, dragging him back to the couch, and Oliver could break free at any moment but he's curious and hungry enough for another human being's presence that he doesn't fight him.
Besides, he acknowledges, albeit not freely, as Barry cuddles down into the couch cushions and he settles beside him, it's nice. He slept with a lot of people not only to fulfill a different need but to receive that irresistible shot of dopamine. Nature's very own be nice to other humans drug.
Barry must have it in abundance, he thinks, too tired himself to care as he settles on top of him, mostly crushing him. Barry talks about chemistry a lot when they're down in the lab. Foundry. Cave. Whatever. He knows about dopamine. And he must know exactly how dangerous it is to be vulnerable, given his line of work, and yet, contradictorily, he retains the inherently rewarding trust-people attitude with the more rigorous be-careful lifestyle.
Barry pushes him around a little, whimpering once when Oliver plants an elbow in his lower gut, eliciting a quiet Sorry. With an unintelligible mumble, Barry forgives him. He forgives everyone, Oliver thinks, even those people who shoot him in the back with two arrows to prove a point.
Better scraped knees than closed coffins, Oliver thinks. Painful though it might be, he'd much rather Barry learn the most difficult lessons under a controlled environment than in actual combat.
"Dude, you gotta turn your brain off," Barry says huskily. "Even it's gotta rest sometimes."
"You should mind your own business," Oliver suggests, stupid with sleep.
"You are my business," Barry replies.
Oliver's stomach hurts. "Go to sleep," he responds, quiet, deflective.
Eyes closed, Barry fires back, "You first."
Oliver waits thirty-seconds, feeling the steady rise and fall of Barry's chest precipitate closer and closer to sleep until he's out, unresponsive to the light prod Oliver gives his ribs. Bar, it tries. When nothing changes, Oliver rubs slow circles against Barry's side, relaxing with all the speedster heat around him. It's hard not to feel relaxed around Barry, he reflects groggily. He's a personal space heater. Whose greatest ambition in life is to make friends and save people, mutually incompatible goals.
They don't have to be.
Lian Yu is not every man's island, just as Oliver's life need not be Barry's.
You can be better, Oliver told him once.
You can inspire people in a way I never could.
Pillowing his head on Barry's chest, Oliver thinks, Go back to bed, but leaving Barry means leaving his warmth, his sanity, and his unconditional trust behind.
Go back to sleep, he amends, closing his eyes and exhaling slowly.
The bruises hurt, but he knows Barry is hurting, too, and still the most comfortable place to be is with him.
He'll slip past a woozy Barry's hold around sunrise, well before Thea comes downstairs and finds only one person on the couch, but for now, he lets sleep – however fleeting, however good – claim him.