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Lance had discovered that Oliver Queen was a remarkably touchy person. Not touchy as in "touchy feely." Well, okay maybe a little bit touchy feely, but not in the emotional way. Let's face it, emotionally that kid could batten down the hatches like a sail boat in a hurricane. Lance more meant physically touchy.
For a person who could physically contain himself like a leper if he had to, Lance had discovered that Oliver could actually be remarkably tactile. That shouldn't actually have been news. Oliver had been a generally touch and movement oriented person for almost as long as Lance could remember.
When Oliver had been little he had nearly crushed Sara's belief in the Tooth Fairy when she had been six by telling her it didn't exist. Lance had asked why, half dreading that Moira and Robert Queen had crushed out things like magic and Santa in their son already. Instead, Oliver had just shrugged and said, "Real stuff is stuff you can hold and see and stuff right? I can't hold the Tooth Fairy."
That had been that. As a little kid Oliver Queen had generally believed in the stuff he could touch and hold to confirm that it was real.
It was probably a handy emotional state for him. Tommy Merlyn and Thea had both been a little bit like that to. All of them were kids whose parents were almost always away or not around. It was easier to split off from people and emotionally separate from them if they were gone so often you could pretend they didn't exist.
When Oliver had been a teenager Lance had noticed that that tactile nature had transitioned into a more reactionary process. The propensity he had for touch had translated in to more direct and often (in Lance's opinion) stupid actions.
If Oliver could punch a member of the paparazzi for being too prying or persistent, then he felt he had made his point. If he could break a window or put some graffiti on a wall teenaged Oliver had seemed to feel that he had made a point or proved something.
Lance refused to even think about how much a tactical nature might effect Oliver's dating life as a teenager. Nope. Nuh-uh. Not going to even try to consider that one. Way too scarring. Quentin Lance was perfectly happy living on the large river in Egypt when it came to considering the equation that went Oliver Queen + Lance's Daughter + Touching.
Oliver Queen was a person who needed concrete action to feel that something had happened. Sometimes it could be something he could just see or hear, but Lance had noticed a long time ago that most of the time it needed to be something he could touch.
On a level Quentin figured it was probably a denial system:
You can hear it? Plug your ears.
See it? No problem. Shut your eyes.
Smell it? Plug your nose.
Taste it? Mouthwash was invented for a reason people!
But if you could actually touch something. If something or someone could touch you.. then yes it had to be real. Oliver used that system to check in his life what exactly he had to actually deal with. Of course, when Oliver had been a stupid teenager/ kid in his early twenties, Lance hadn't really gotten how much he could possibly have to deal with. He was a freaking billionaire after all.
On a brighter side-at least if Lance didn't think through it too hard- Oliver was tactile with the people he cared about or was friendly with. When Thea had been six and Oliver had been sixteen Lance had seen him carry her piggyback for a nearly two hour hike, and while Lance didn't necessarily approve of Queen and his daughter Oliver had never been shy about hugging her and providing comfort when he noticed Laurel having a bad day. Too bad he had only noticed once in a while. He and Tommy had always been cheery about high fives and friendly mock punches. Lance had also had occasion to notice first hand that somewhere along the line the kid's father had made the time to teach his son the value of a proper handshake.
That had been one of Lance's major clues that something was seriously different with Oliver Queen when he had returned to Starling City after being stranded on Lian Yu. The touching had come to a sudden and abrupt stop.
Oliver now seemed to project a bubble around himself. Lance wasn't exactly sure what it was, but the sort of reckless lightness Ollie Queen the tabloid darling had projected had seeped away and frozen over. His eyes had gone cold and each of his movements was contained. It was as though something in his very aura was now projecting a very clear message: Do Not Touch.
Lance saw that Oliver did a good job of covering it over in public or when he thought people were expecting something else from him. It was an artificial warmth that Oliver put on like throwing a blanket over an iceberg. But he was still contained.
Quentin had seen the blanket slip a few times. When it did, a cold almost primal sort of message to back off and keep a safe distance was clearly telegraphed. It was the sort of natural message Lance had seen killers and even a few ex-special forces and army members project. It was a natural caution to keep others safe.
Of course, that wasn't always true immediately after Oliver had arrived home. He still hugged Thea. He still shook hands with businessmen and occasionally provided an arm or his hand for Moira. However, when Tommy patted him on the shoulder, or random people brushed against him in public it was impossible for Lance not to notice that he immediately tensed.
Lance supposed that this was partially Oliver's own personal survival instincts coming in to play. If you've lived for five years in an environment where any touch could inflict pain or death you start to be wary of someone tapping you on the back.
But it was definitely something to notice as a police officer during an interrogation. When a kid was so open to touch, and believed that touch was the only way to confirm that something was real it made an impression. It made an even bigger impression when that same kid suddenly held himself perfectly still with a solid five foot radius from everyone else in the room.
As time passed and Lance was brought in on Oliver's Green Secret he had begun to notice that he was more relaxed tactically with some people than with others. In fact, with most of Team Arrow things that involved touch were generally judged as the most normal way to communicate.
Lance had seen Oliver and Diggle mock fight with large sticks at a level that would have taken most people's entire concentration. The fight had ended with Diggle on the ground still glaring up at Oliver who had let the stick drop and then sighed. They had been talking about the logistics of taking on a few members of the Triad at a gala Charity event before they had started the fight. "Okay you have a good point," Oliver had conceded.
Quentin wasn't the least bit ashamed to admit that it had taken him a solid ten minutes to figure out that those words had connected to the conversation the two men had been having before.
Tactile communication with Thea hadn't actually changed much from when she had been a tiny little girl who charged around in bright pink sneakers. It was actually an incredible relief for Lance to see that going through hell hadn't completely ruined some of the better bits of who he had used to be.
Oliver watched Oliver communicate through touch with Roy a couple of times. Once it had been just one squeeze of the hand that was a little too tight when Harper had been going to take Thea out to dinner. The message had been a very clear, "watch yourself around my sister." Harper had nodded and pulled his hand back. A whole conversation without a word. Other times had been pats on the shoulder that normally said things like "good job tonight" or "go home."
It was strange to see but Oliver's communication with Laurel remained wholly verbal and normally very stilted. On a level as a regular person and witness it was just awkward. As a dad, Lance kind of wanted to thank every major and minor deity anyone had ever believed in. It was really just a left over reflex from his days as a dad who disapproved of Oliver Queen dating his daughter.
With Felicity Smoak though, Oliver's general propensity to touch seemed to hit a new level of oblivious over drive. At least it wasn't inappropriate touching. At least not originally or even now later even though they were together and the inappropriate kind of touch was probably happening Lance could definitely live in obliviousness and pretend it wasn't.
In the beginning of Lance being able to observe Oliver and Felicity interact he had been taken aback by the casualness of how much and how naturally Queen did seem to touch Felicity. It wasn't even just that he was comfortable with it, he actually seemed to expect Felicity to be close enough to him for that to be possible.
When Lance had stopped by Queen Consolidated a few times to deliver notes on whatever crime the kid had somehow gotten himself involved in. Of course, the 'somehow' had been much more clearly defined when Lance found out about the whole Vigilante situation. The first few times he had been around Lance hadn't really noticed. Then things had begun to stack up.
Felicity had walked in to the room just as Lance had been about to leave and greeted him with a bright smile. "Hi Detective Lance," she said, then immediately tried to back up. "I mean, officer. Because now your officer Lance. Not detective. But you definitely should be. A detective that is. Of course I meant Detective what else is there that you should be? Oliver stop me."
Oliver had just smiled at her slightly and swung his jacket on. "Felicity I would never dream of making you stop talking." He had actually sounded a level of sincere that had been surprising to Lance. Then he looked at detective Lance. "Thank you officer for coming to bring me up to speed."
Lance just nodded and moved out in to the wider part of the floor.
Felicity had pulled a face and checked the time on her tablet. "Are you ready to go for lunch? Dig's bringing the car around for Sushi. We thought about Thai, but you know, peanuts. And with peanuts comes me and allergies, and anaphylaxis, and not breathing, which means hospital visits. Then you and Diggle start trying to intimidate all of the food delivery people, and restaurants stop being willing to send us take out."
Queen sighed and moved passed Felicity to prop the door open. Lance saw his other arm come up behind her and brush against the small of her back. It remained there as they walked. Felicity was babbling again, Lance thought she heard something about Emperor Penguins. Oliver was just looking down at her and seemed to be listening to every word. Neither of them seemed to notice.
In fact, one of Oliver's hands seemed to generally magnetize to the small of Felicity's back whenever they walked into or out of a room. When Felicity sat at her computer desk Oliver generally stood behind her with a hand on her shoulder.
Once Lance had been in the foundry watching Team Arrow train and donating the use of his police radio in the tracking of the latest corrupt stockbroker. Felicity was following up on the money trail of the same man. Diggle was cleaning and reassembling his firearms and Oliver was severely punishing a training dummy for crimes unknown. Laurel was running a patrol with Thea to keep the general crime rate down.
Then Felicity fist pumped and let out a shout of glee. "Got him!" she said.
Oliver backed away from the dummy immediately and came to stand behind Felicity to see the screens over her shoulder. "Where is he?" Lance highly doubted that Oliver noticed that the hands he had just used to pummel the heavy canvas sand bag had gravitated to her shoulders, cupping her shoulder blades. "Do you have a concrete location?"
Felicity leaned back in to his hands automatically and reached out to the keyboard. With two clicks the screen then displayed a G.P.S map with a colored marker over a popular hotel. "Greenmark Hotel on 43rd and Birch," Felicity relayed. "Room 609."
Lance saw Oliver's hands constrict slightly on her shoulders and slip up towards her neck as Felicity rolled her head to get rid of stiffness. "I've got it," Oliver said, backing away and walking towards the glass case that held the Arrow suite.
Diggle sighed and glanced over at Lance. "I don't even think they know they do that."
"You mean the whole touching thing?" Lance checked. "Is that as much of an always thing as I think it is or did that just start when they finally pulled their heads out of their asses and started dating?"
"Always," Diggle answered calmly, slotting his gun back together. "Believe it or not it was actually worse before the dating. At least now Oliver doesn't go guiltily brooding and look confused when he realizes he's doing it."
Lance noticed them walk down the street together a few times. Felicity was pretty much always talking emphatically or clicking away on her phone. Oliver simply steered her around a bicyclist and over a rain puddle with a hand on her elbow.
The only kind of touch Oliver actually flat out refused to engage in with Felicity was fighting. And by that Lance didn't mean bickering. Oliver and Felicity could bicker and argue like nobody else Lance had ever seen. Quentin Lance had even once had the chance to witness a complete knockdown, drag out fight between the two of them. It had been a little bit like watching a nuclear bomb implode. Terrifying in the moment, and then deadly quiet in the fallout.
What Lance meant by fight was that Oliver flat out refused to train-fight with Felicity. He trained with Diggle and even Thea plenty. Neither of them ever really seemed to have much of a shot at beating him, but Oliver at least looked like he was getting in a mini-workout. Oliver fighting with Nyssa was terrifying on a whole other level. Laurel had asked Oliver to train her once and received such a vehement "no" hat it just kind of hadn't come up again.
On a level, Lance appreciated that. On another level he thought maybe he should consider the vague possibility of sexism in action. Either way he couldn't really argue with one of the most deadly men in the world not wanting to be in a position where he could possibly murder his daughter. Parental privilege and all.
"I just can't do it Felicity," Oliver explained through clenched teeth. "I know training is a good thing. I would rather you knew how defend yourself than not. Diggle is doing a great job."
"But why not Oliver?" Felicity wondered, sounding frustrated and tired. "I've been watching you put literally everyone you've ever fought against on their asses or in their coffins for the last three years. Everyone always says you're supposed to learn things from people who are good at them."
Lance had seen Oliver clench his jaw even tighter. "Felicity," he said. "The reason I can fight as well as I do is because I don't ever hold back." His fingers reached out and wove into Felicity's without thinking about it. "When I fight it's like complete tunnel vision," he explained. "There is no half way. With Diggle I can have a secondary conversation and I won't have to worry so much. Fighting Nyssa actually means I have to concentrate to not get my ass kicked. Thea I try to avoid fighting with as much as possible but I can basically deal."
"Then why am I any different?" Felicity questioned, throwing up her free hand. Lance noticed that her other hand was still cradled between both of Oliver's. "If you can deal with fighting with your little sister I'm sure you could deal with training with me."
Lance saw Oliver shake his head. "Because there are very few things I'm afraid of. And I am absolutely and completely terrified that I will hurt you by accident." He reached up with one hand and caught the one Felicity had been using to gesture with. He brought it down in to his other hand and cradled them together.
Even Captain Lance who was generally about as sentimental as a desk lamp could grasp the symbolism and imagery there. Oliver's hands were scarred from wrists to fingertips and Lance had personally seen them punch holes in walls. Felicity's by contrast were small, long fingered and delicate. They almost seemed to vanish into Oliver's and Lance was suddenly struck by how easy it would have been for Oliver to crush every single one of the bones there in a matter of seconds if he wanted to.
"So much of your life is already darker, and more dangerous then it ever should be because of me," Oliver murmured. "And if I ever hurt you..." he trailed off and shook his head to locate the right words. "I don't think I would survive."
Felicity visibly wavered and Lance saw her shoulders relax. "Fine," she sighed. "Dig will train me, and maybe even Laurel. We've moved towards a strangely weird friendship bond..." Lance actually had to agree with that. That particular friendship had sort of come out of left field.
"I'm still going to punch you if I feel like you're being an overprotective, stubborn, misogynistic, asshole," Felicity warned.
"I would expect nothing less," Lance heard Oliver reply, brushing a lock of hair out of Felicity's eyes.
"Are you sure?" Felicity double checked. "Because these hands may be small but they're damn strong from all of the typing I do for both of our jobs all the time and I am nothing if not determined enough to keep going until I leave bruises."
Lance saw Oliver smile. "If you feel the need I will stand still and let you. We'll even find you some brass knuckles if you want."
Felicity grinned at him.
So okay maybe it wasn't emotionally touchy in the way some conversations between couples were, but it was still pretty damn adorable.
Bottom line, Oliver Jonas Queen was always the kind of person who needed touch. He used it to confirm that things were real. Each time something went wrong that led to Felicity being in danger Oliver would find her afterward and pull her in to a hug. Felicity had once been kidnapped by the triad and Lance hadn't seen Oliver more than the length of one ruler from her for the next week.
"You're here," Oliver had murmured over her head when they had first gotten to her.
That was actually his recurring comment.
Lance figured that on some level Felicity must have noticed too. Whenever Oliver seemed to be double checking where Felicity was, Lance would notice that she reached out and take his hand. Once when Oliver had recovered from a blow to the head that had knocked him unconscious he had jolted upright and looked around frantically. Felicity had stepped over and hugged him saying, "It's okay. I'm here."
So anyway, Oliver was a tactile person. If something was important and he needed to make sure it was real and actually there he had to touch it. If he was worried that someone was going to fade away he had to hang on to it. Lance could understand that.
Almost everything in the kid's life had been smashed into a million pieces with a sledgehammer time and time again. It made sense that when he needed to hold on to stuff he had to literally, you know, hold on to it. Sometimes that thing had to be people.
"You always do that you know," Lance hold Felicity say to Oliver one night when they were leaving a dinner the entire group had had.
"Do what?" Lance heard Oliver ask.
"Hug me," Felicity explained. "You put an arm around my shoulders when we, or hold my hand, or hold me around the waist. I just kind of wanted to know if you even noticed you did it."
Lance glanced over and saw Oliver frown. "Not really. Does it bother you."
"No," Felicity said with a smile. "It's nice. You're always warm, and honestly you're extremely cuddle-able for someone with as much muscle as you, I just kind of wondered."
"If I can touch you I know you're here," Oliver explained quietly. "It means you're safe, and close, and with me. It makes me feel like..."
Lance saw Felicity tuck herself into his side. "Like I'm safe?" she provided teasingly.
"No," Oliver said with a shake of his head. "It makes me feel like maybe I have a shot at not losing the thing I love most in the world. And that's not something I get to know very often."
Lance happened to think that under the circumstances Felicity was perfectly justified in leaning up to kiss Oliver, even if it was something he couldn't bare to watch given the general context of PDA. That said, some comments no matter who they were from were worth it.
Alright, so maybe Oliver Queen was a little bit emotionally touchy-feely.
A/N: So how did I do? I wasn't completely sure about this chapter but I haven't written for so long and I felt like I needed to do some writing and get something posted. You guys can still always send me suggestions! Arrow is coming back pretty soon! Yay! Did anybody else watch Stephen Amell wrestle on WWE? Because that is just kind of amazing. Review for me! And send me prompts if you want something specific! Review! Review! Review! xoxoxooxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxooooxoxoxoxoxooxoxxxxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxxooxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox