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Nightmares were nothing new to Oliver. He’d been having them constantly since the day his boat had wrecked on Lian Yu. The nightmares had continued to come and go even when he’d returned home to Star City. Things had definitely gotten better since then, but every now and then the horrifying dreams would come back stronger and more realistic that the previous time.
Something about this round of nightmares though was different. They almost felt like… premonitions; like he was living a scene of great loss over and over again that was yet to come.
And at the center of these latest nightmares was Barry.
He had nightmares of holding an injured and dying Barry in his arms. There was so much blood, and for some reason Barry wasn’t healing. Barry was just lying there in his arms, and Oliver couldn’t figure out how to stop the bleeding. He just remembered seeing Barry smile at him while muttering something he couldn’t hear before his eyes closed. And that’s when he woke up in a puddle of his own sweat. He was loathe to admit that the nightmares had even made him cry.
Every night for the last two weeks he had this nightmare, and now the only question he had was why? Why was he having these dreams? Why was Barry dying? Why Barry at all?
It had all but ruined his focus at Queen Consolidated, and had been an even bigger distraction when patrolling the city at night.
Thea, Laurel, Diggle, Felicity and just about everyone was starting to notice that something was off, but no one had questioned him about it. He could see their bemused and worried glances when they thought his back was turned, but he had no intention of telling them.
Whatever these nightmares were about Barry… they were his alone to deal with. The feelings these nightmares were stirring inside him too were his alone to deal with.
That’s why he was glad when he got a call from Barry after day eight of his recurring nightmares asking him for a favor.
Barry was seated a tall table for two in Jitters, glancing between his phone and door anxiously while letting his large coffee cool off since it was still steaming hot. A full cup of coffee sat opposite him, as he waited for Oliver to walk in.
It still slightly surprised him that Oliver had agreed to come help him with his metahuman problem. He knew Oliver had his own problems to deal with back in Star City, so while he was grateful, something just felt... off. Whatever it was, Barry had felt a strange sense of anxiousness while waiting for him, something he hadn’t felt around Oliver in very long time.
That anxiousness only calmed when he finally saw Oliver walk through the door, dressed in that familiar brown leather jacket. He blatantly ignored the part of his brain that questioned how Oliver’s clothes were so familiar to him that he had favorites now.
But then again, when it came to Oliver Queen, nothing had surprised him anymore.
“Hey, Oliver,” Barry greeted when Oliver approached him.
“Barry,” Oliver replied with a smile before taking a seat.
Barry felt himself grinning too much as he watched Oliver, and he quickly corrected himself, trying to let his smile fade a little.
But it was only Oliver now who seemed to draw this… this emotion out of him. At one time it was Iris, but he had learned to move on from her and let her be happy with Eddie, who he couldn’t deny treated her like she deserved.
But Oliver had come into his life like a second lightning bolt and changed him in ways Barry hadn’t expected. He clung to Oliver’s words and advice like commandments and he found himself always looking to him for answers in problems more than just being a superhero now. Before he knew it, he had started texting Oliver randomly every other day just to talk.
Barry knew what this was.
He was starting to fall in love with Oliver Queen.
And the worst part was that Oliver would never know. Barry would never tell him because he knew that Oliver could never feel that way about him. So instead of ruin the perfectly good friendship they had, he’d just suffer in his feelings alone. He’d learned well enough how to manage those feelings with Iris and Eddie, so he could manage with Oliver too.
“So, you’ve got a metahuman problem?” Oliver started after taking a sip of his coffee.
“Umm—yeah. A very bad metahuman problem,” Barry answered.
That seemed to pique Oliver’s interest a bit. “Okay so what can this meta do that’s such a problem?”
Barry pulled up a picture on his phone before passing it over to Oliver who scrutinized the picture ardently. “Cisco calls him Suppressor. He can take other metas’ powers away… mine included.”
Oliver froze for a second, and Barry swore he could see a brief flicker of fear in his eyes for a second?
“You don’t have your powers?” Oliver asked after a moment, obviously quieter as more people started seating themselves around them.
“Oh I do. This guy— Suppressor— his powers only work when I get within a certain distance of him. If I get too close to him I lose my speed. It’s like—a radius effect or something, but we can’t figure out how far it spreads.”
“So you need my help to to get close to him and take him out,” Oliver supplied. Barry nodded and Oliver took a deep breath. “So what do we know about him?
“His real name is Frankie Melchiorre. He’s an ex-member of the Santini family. Apparently, he got into it with Frank Santini the new head and started his own rival gang before he got hit by the particle accelerator. Now he and his partners are hitting the banks that hold the Santini’s money. And he’s getting away with it because I can’t get close to him.”
Oliver pondered Barry’s words for a moment, and Barry could see the gears turning in his head as he no doubt tried to formulate a plan of attack.
“So what’s his next target?” Oliver inquired.
“Cisco hacked into Frank Santini’s bank account and there was a huge withdrawl and then deposit into an unnamed account at Central City First National. He thinks the Santini is trying to move their money to hide it from Melchiorre, and chances are Melchiorre already knows where the money is.”
Oliver passed his phone back to him and when Barry looked up, he could see something was bothering Oliver. He could see the worry lines in Oliver’s forehead and while he might’ve been looking at Barry it was obvious his mind was elsewhere.
“Hello? Earth to Oliver,” Barry said.
Oliver’s attention snapped back to him.
“Hmm?” Oliver hummed.
“You zoned out. Everything alright?” Barry asked with a smile.
“Yeah. Yeah everything’s fine.” To try and sell it, Oliver smiled as best as he could, but Barry could see right through it. But obviously Oliver didn’t want to talk about it, and Barry didn’t want to push it. “So tonight we stake out the bank?” he continued, clearly trying to steer the conversation in another direction.
“Yeah. The bank ordered a money pickup tonight which means Suppressor will be there tonight to hit it.”
“So, we’ll stake the place out tonight and catch him.” Barry didn’t have much to say to that and so silence passed between them for a few moments, and Barry was starting to wonder if it was something he’d said or done that had Oliver so tense. “Barry, you have to promise me something if I help you with this,” Oliver said, breaking the tense silence.
“What? That you’re in charge,” Barry said jokingly.
Oliver laughed a little, but it stopped almost as quickly as it started. “Yes and no.” That grim look on Oliver’s face returned and now Barry was really wondering what was going through Oliver’s head. “Barry, I need you to promise me that you won’t do anything dangerous or reckless.”
Barry narrowed his eyes confused at Oliver’s request. “Oliver, that’s all we do. We’re heroes. We put our lives on the line every day.”
“I know. It’s just—you said, this guy can disable your powers, which means you’re vulnerable and liable to get hurt.” Barry was about to protest, but Oliver cut him off. “Barry, if you want my help, you have to promise me this.”
Barry considered Oliver for a moment, and while he wanted to believe Oliver was joking he was truly serious. He kept wondering what was wrong with Oliver, and why was he so worried about him. Oliver had seen him take on villains before. They’d even fought against one another several times, and they’d tied each time.
Was he scared about something? Did Oliver think he was going to mess this up somehow? Was it just part of his urge to control missions? Whatever the case was he just nodded out of fear of angering Oliver. He at least knew Oliver well enough that in situations like this, it was best to let Oliver be in control.
“Okay. Okay, I promise I won’t do anything crazy,” he sighed, crossing his arms on the table.
A momentary flit or relief crossed Oliver’s face and Barry was really convinced that Oliver was worried about him and he wasn’t sure why.
“Ollie, you know I can take care of myself, right?” Barry finally asked, hoping it would somehow assuage Oliver’s worries.
Oliver huffed but put on a smile again.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ve seen that firsthand,” he said, and Barry could tell he was trying to joke. Oliver was silent for a moment but Barry could see there was something dancing around on the tip of his tongue that was dying to come out. “I just want you to be safe. That’s all.”
In that moment, Barry’s eyes went wide, but he tried to hide his shock just as quickly as it had come.
This was so different from what he was used to with Oliver.
Oliver cared of course. But this time, it felt like there was some other emotion than concern plaguing the man. Barry didn’t dare hope that maybe it was Oliver possibly returning the feelings Barry had for him. Hell, Oliver didn’t even know he had those feelings. And guys like him, they didn’t get guys like Oliver.
So he did what he did best. He smiled and laughed it off.
“I’ll be fine, Ollie. Besides we’ve handled worse. Seriously what’s the worst that could happen?”
Barry had asked what was the worst that could happen, and Oliver wasn’t sure why he hadn’t taken that as a sign that the worst would indeed come to pass.
It was a little past eleven at night when the truck to pick up the money from Central City First National had arrived. Oliver wasn’t surprised that the truck had come so late. If this guy— Suppressor— or whatever the hell his name was, had been this successful in hitting banks, then it wasn’t a surprise that this bank was trying something else to avoid getting robbed.
Before that, Barry and Oliver had been staking the bank out for the last three hours.
Oliver had noted there was a silent tension between them. It wasn’t anger, but something else. After getting coffee he could tell Barry was worried about him, and Oliver knew it was his fault for being too overprotective of Barry.
But every time he looked at Barry, visions of his nightmares returned.
When Barry smiled at him, in his head all he saw was Barry in his arms, bleeding but grinning as the life drained from his body. He couldn’t shake it no matter how hard he tried. And worse was now they were up against someone who could render Barry helpless.
He was scared. And he had every right to be now.
Melchiorre and his group of thugs they had been waiting. Out of fear of Barry getting stuck without his speed, Oliver had restricted him from using it, lest he get stuck in Suppressor’s range again.
That was why they didn’t see them lying in wait. It was just far enough away that Oliver hadn’t thought to case that far out, and it had caught the two of them by surprise. So when the truck had rolled out after being filled to capacity by bank attendants and armed police, they were caught off guard by the shots raining down in their direction.
“We have to help them!” Barry yelled, reading to take off running.
“We will, but remember what I said, Barry,” Oliver reminded. “You see Melchiorre, you get away as quickly as possible!”
“I got it!” Barry said, and that was it before he’d vanished in a blast of wind, leaving Oliver all alone on their stakeout location on the rooftop of a building overlooking the bank.
Oliver pulled back an arrow and fired away. He had enough of a line of sight on the attackers that he could easily disarm them. So he fired quickly, but he was slower than usual which he chalked up to his distraction of watching Barry run around taking care of Melchiorre’s henchmen waiting for any sign that Melchiorre himself was nearby.
“Cisco, any way to figure out where Melchiorre is?” Oliver inquired over the shared comms system.
“So far nothing’s showing up on the radar,” Cisco replied.
“And Barry’s vitals look normal so nothing’s interfering with his powers so far,” Caitlin chimed in.
“Good. The second you see something off you let me know immediately,” he commanded as though he was their boss.
“Sure thing, Captain Control-Freak,” Cisco teased.
Oliver ignored him before firing another arrow down on the assailants. Melchiorre surprised him by having more working for him than he’d thought. He was wondering how they’d missed this many guys all scoping out one bank to rob. Maybe it was because he was too distracted thinking about Barry.
Now wasn’t the time to think about the fact that he was having… feelings for Barry.
It was still a weird and foreign concept to him.
He cared about Barry. Sure he’d had passing attraction to men. But Barry was the first he’d truly cared for beyond that. And maybe him keeping silent during their stakeout was a way to avoid having to admit that. Because Barry could never love him like that. Barry was in love with Iris or at least had been. And Oliver… he wasn’t the kind of guy Barry needed. Barry needed stability, not someone as damaged as Oliver was.
“Oliver!” Caitlin yelled over the comms, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Barry’s vitals dropped!”
“Where is he?” he demanded, not even bothering to hear what was going on.
“One block away! We’re picking up a strong reading on negative ions near him too which mean Melchiorre is there!”
“I’m on my way!” Oliver growled.
He fished out his grappling arrow and fired away. The sirens from the police were nearby and overall it seemed like the rest of Melchiorre’s men trying to take the truck were losing and scrambling for escape now.
But Oliver’s mind was concerned with one thing only and that was finding Barry.
He let arrow fly, digging into the side of a building, and using his arrow he hang-glided down to the floor, passing over the scene of cops shooting at Melchiorre’s men. When he hit the ground he didn’t stop moving, breaking in a run like his life depended on it to find wherever Barry was.
“Barry!” Oliver yelled as he passed the bank and found himself walking into a building severely under constuction.
He got no reply, but the sound of gunshots had him drawing his bow ready to fire at a moment’s notice.
“Cisco! I don’t see him!” he shouted into the comms when more gunshots rang out.
“He’s on a higher floor! His vitals are still at normal human level!”
Oliver scanned the area and eventually located a crude but usable stairwell up higher into the building. He scaled the stairs quickly, going higher and higher until he eventually caught sight of Barry crouched behind a steel beam, ducking a hail of bullets aimed towards him. He counted about three people all firing at Barry. He couldn’t make out which one was Melchiorre because his attention had quickly shifted to the fear in Barry’s eyes. He all but pinned to the ground behind the beam, and any sudden movement would’ve put him right in the way of a bullet.
“Barry!” he screamed.
Barry looked up almost relieved through the panic strewn across his face. “Don’t worry about me! Stop Melchiorre!”
Just then another spray of bullets came hurtling towards Barry, one dangerous close to clipping Barry’s head.
And in that moment things when dark.
Oliver felt like he was blacking out. Rational though was replaced with a rage he hadn’t felt in a long time. He drew back two arrows and fired them in the direction of the attackers. He didn’t stop at that. He drew back another, and another, and another inching closer and closer to Barry until the gunshots had stopped.
His breathing was heavy. His heartbeat was racing. The adrenaline and blood in his body was pumping furiously. He felt like he could snap at any moment. It reminded him of the time It wasn’t until he felt a hand on his shoulder that reality seemed to come back to him.
“Oliver! You alright?” Barry said, his voice filled with worry.
Oliver could feel his breathing start to steady, and despite the frigid cold around them, his shoulder was warm where Barry’s hand lingered.
When he turned to Barry and looked into the green irises of his hidden behind the cowl, he felt an instant flood of relief. That’s when he realized he was falling for Barry. He was falling hard.
“I’m… I’m fine. What about you?” Oliver asked.
Barry grinned. “I’m fine. Thanks to you. I think I can feel my powers again.”
“Good. That’s good,” Oliver said, at a loss for words because he was too focused on the fact that Barry was okay. He didn’t realize that he had been smiling too until he felt the muscles in his face starting to ache a little. That’s how they stayed for a few moments, just grinning even though the scene outside was no doubt chaos.
That was when it had happened.
Oliver saw Barry’s attention shift to something else, but by the time Oliver had noticed that someone, who he realized all too late was Melchiorre, was stumbling towards them with gun in hand, it was too late.
He heard Barry yell, and then one final gunshot rang out through the building.
The next thing Oliver saw was Barry falling to the ground, a bullet lodged in his stomach, dangerously close to his chest, to his heart.
His body moved on autopilot. He didn’t bother to look and see who it was he was firing at, he just knew they had to die. He wasn’t sure he’d ever moved faster, but an arrow was flying, lodging itself right in between Melchiorre’s eyes in an instant. Oliver watched with dangerous glee as Melchiorre fall to the ground, blood oozing from where the arrow no doubt pierced his skull. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted to kill him again and again and again. Barry was hurt and bleeding, and he wanted him to suffer.
It was a wet cough from Barry that distracted him.
Cisco and Caitlin were shouting over the comms, but he had tuned them out. All he could think about was Barry. Was saving him.
He fell to his knees as Barry cradled the wound in his torso.
“Barry! Barry, you’re gonna be okay,” Oliver assured, voice hushed and shaky as he lifted Barry into his arms.
He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and opened them several time, trying to wish away this latest nightmare. But after the fourth time, he realized this wasn’t a dream. It was real. Barry was dying in his arms.
“Ollie,” Barry muttered.
“Shh. Stop talking, Barr. We’re gonna get you back to Star Labs. We’re gonna fix you up.”
Barry smiled and that’s when Oliver felt the first tear drop down his cheek. He was waiting for Barry to heal. He wasn’t sure how it worked, but with Melchiorre dead his powers should’ve died with him. So why wasn’t he healing?
“Ollie… just in case I don’t make it. I— I wanted to tell you that I think— I love you.”
The words were soft on Barry’s lips, but Oliver heard it loud and clear. He heard words that he never imagined he’d hear uttered from Barry in his lifetime.
Barry loved him.
The tears were falling faster now as he cradled the weak speedster in his arms.
“I love you too, Barry. But you’ve got to hold on for me. You can’t say that and then leave me,” he said, trying his best to smile through the pain.
Barry laughed, but it was too weak to even be heard. “I’ll try.”
Barry closed his eyes, and Oliver could feel his body go slack. Oliver felt his body go numb and his heart sink into his stomach. He could hear footsteps and yelling all belonging to Joe West and his partner, but he couldn’t bring himself to move, even an inch. When Joe and his partner were screaming commands at him, it was only through the sheer willpower alone that Oliver could even react.
He felt catatonic. Lifeless. Barry was dying or dead and he couldn’t save him.
He failed. He failed to save Tommy. He failed to save his mother. And now, he’d failed to save Barry.
Even his nightmares ended better than this.
His eyelids felt like weights as Barry struggled to open his eyes. His mouth was dry and his body practically numb except for the pain that radiated from his stomach.
His mind was blank save for the one thing plaguing his mind, and that was the thought of Oliver dying. He remembered being happy. He remembered looking at Oliver and for a brief moment, everything in his life just seemed to be right. He also remembered lying to Oliver.
His powers hadn’t come back fully yet, but he didn’t want to worry Oliver, so he lied.
Then he saw Melchiorre. The man had been crippled by one of Oliver’s arrows pierced in his stomach. But he saw the gun aimed not at him, but Oliver, and his body immediately reacted.
Oliver deserved to live. Oliver deserved to be happy even if it cost him his life to do so. Because Barry loved him, and in what he figured could be his last moment, that’s how he wanted to show it.
He could hear the beep of a heart monitor nearby, and eventually his brain started to function well enough that he could make out the layout of Star Labs. He hissed as he tried to sit up, the sharp pain in his stomach ringing out.
After a few moments of struggling, he was finally up, and the pain in his stomach had dulled just slightly enough that he wasn’t breathing as harshly.
When he finally took in everything around him, he realized it was nighttime, late night if the darkness in the lab was anything to go by. At first he couldn’t see anyone around, but when he looked forward and squinted he was able to make out the sleeping figure of Oliver sitting in a chair, uncomfortable leaned back.
That’s when he froze solid in place.
He remembered that he’d told Oliver he loved him.
It was a rushed confession, but a confession nonetheless. And if he recalled correctly, Oliver had told him he loved him too.
Every bone and joint in his body ached and screamed to be stretched, so he slowly lifted himself out of the medical cot he’d been lying on for who knows how long, careful not to wake Oliver. The pain was a dull ache still, but now that he could look down he could see that the bullet wound was healing, and fast.
“You shouldn’t be up,” he heard Oliver whisper, voice soft but stern in his admonishment.
Barry’s head snapped up to see Oliver giving him that condemning look, but Barry couldn’t help but smile at it. Oliver stood up and Barry could quickly tell Oliver had hardly moved. His hair was a mess, his beard had lost it’s neatness, and there were huge bags under his eyes, like he’d been deprived of sleep for weeks.
“How long was I out?”
“Two days.” His answer was short and frank and there was still the echoes of anger, pain, and disbelief almost all swirling around in Oliver’s voice. Barry looked around the lab for signs of anyone else, and Oliver seemed to know exactly what he was going to ask. “After you… you got shot, Joe and his partner rushed you back here. Caitlin removed the bullet and then it took hours until you stabilized. Everyone’s been taking turns watching over you, but I sent them home.”
God, he couldn’t even imagine what Joe and Iris were going through again seeing him like this. He could only imagine they were reliving the nightmares from the past. But then he thought about Oliver. He was the one who stood there and watched it all happen. He was the one who no doubt saw his eyes close for what he probably thought was the last time.
An uncomfortable silence lingered in the air for a moment as what Barry could only describe as the world’s biggest elephant sat in the room with them. His throat burned as he tried to swallow and his heart rate was audible in his ears. But with one final sigh, he knew he’d have to confront what had happened.
“I know you said I could talk to you about anything,” Barry finally started.
Oliver nodded. “You always can,” he reaffirmed.
Barry offered a half-grin. “I guess we should talk about what happened then.”
Oliver’s demeanor didn’t change, and Barry hated that he couldn’t really get a read on what was going through Oliver’s head or how he was feeling.
“I had nightmares about you,” Oliver said, and Barry couldn’t tear his attention away from Oliver whose blue eyes were clear.
“You what?” Barry asked.
“Nightmares. On and off for days. It was just like that night. I held you in my arms as you were dying. You were saying something, but I couldn’t tell what it was. All I knew was that you were dying and it was my fault. Then I’d wake up in a cold sweat and I’d look down at my texts to realize that you were okay.”
Barry swallowed again through the dry hurt of his throat.
“Ollie…” Barry said.
“And then that night happened and you got shot,” Oliver said frustrated. “And I kept shutting my eyes, hoping that when I opened them, I’d be back in bed, but it didn’t work. You were still there, dying in my arms. And then you had the nerve to tell me that you loved me when I thought I was going to lose you.”
A swirling of emotions was flowing through Barry’s body. Scared, mortified, tired. All three were buzzing around in his mind as he tried to figure out where this conversation was going.
“Oliver—look—I’m sorry if you didn’t want me to say th—”
“All I’ve wanted to know for the last three days, Barry. All I want to know now is whether you meant it or not,” Oliver interrupted.
His heartbeat was audible in his ears and his breathing was heavy and hard. The feeling wasn’t unlike when he was a kid on trial again, testifying to save his father. He felt like his limbs were going numb. This could change everything between them. His feelings for Oliver were supposed to be his closely guarded secret, and in a moment of weakness he let them out.
“Barry?” Oliver said hesitantly.
“Yeah,” Barry replied resigned. “I meant it.”
The air in the lab was electric, emotions and tensions swirling and Barry wanted nothing more than to disappear. But all he could do was watch carefully as Oliver closed the gap between them, stormy blue eyes locked onto him.
“Say it again, Barry.”
Barry swallowed when Oliver was right in front of him now, close enough that he could feel the older man’s body heat radiating off him.
“Say what?”
“Say exactly what you said that night when I held you in my arms that night.”
His breaths came to him in short, staggered amounts, and he noted something new, something exhilarating, something wild in Oliver’s stare now.
“I—I think I love you,” he whispered.
Then Oliver surprised him with a smile before leaning in to kiss him. Oliver was surprisingly gentle, not at all what Barry had imagined kissing Oliver Queen would be like. In his mind he expected Oliver to be rough, teeth biting as his bottom lips as they kissed, but this Oliver—the non-dream Oliver—he was gentle as a breeze. His lips were chapped, but felt softer than Barry had expected, and Oliver’s tongue easily slid into his mouth sliding against his own. He felt subconscious because he knew his breath was stale, but Oliver didn’t care. Barry could feel it in the older man. Oliver was relaxed. He was relieved.
When Oliver pulled his lips away, Barry couldn’t even feel guilty at the pitiful noise he made at the loss of feeling, so he settled on a confused and dazed glance instead.
Oliver though was smiling. Not just his typical ‘I’m okay’ smile, but one that radiated genuine happiness.
“Barry Allen. I think I love you too.”
Barry stared for a moment, but his lips were curling up into a smile.
“Wow… okay I didn’t think this would ever happen,” he said.
“Well, considering you have the power of super speed, I would think you’d know by now to never say anything’s impossible.”
Barry laughed. “I guess so.” Barry wanted to relish in this moment longer, but he was beginning to feel fatigue set in, and he was beginning to realize he severely overestimated how tired and weak he was. His legs were starting to feel like jelly and the dull ache in his stomach where he’d been shot was returning with a vengeance now.
Oliver seemed to catch on too because Oliver’s arms were wrapped around him, pulling him closer and held him up.
“I told you that you shouldn’t be up,” Oliver chided, this time with a small grin.
“Yeah. I should probably lay back down and let everyone know I’m alright,” Barry said. While he’d be glad to let everyone know he was alright, he knew that would mean everyone would want to see him, and more likely than not, Caitlin was going to want to run tests to make sure he was alright. Right now he just wanted to sleep, if Oliver was with him that’d be even better.
“You know? I think everyone could use a good night’s sleep. Maybe we can tell him first thing in the morning?” Oliver suggested.
“Yeah, I’d much prefer that.” This thing between him and Oliver, it was brand new, and he wasn’t sure what the boundaries would be now, but he really just wanted Oliver close by right now, so he had one last risk to take. “There’s a bed… sort of a little bedroom here that we could use.”
Oliver gave him a confused and slightly horrified glance, and Barry nearly panicked at what his words were no doubt implying.
“Only to sleep!” he quickly interjected.
Oliver just shook his head with a laugh.
“You never fail to surprise me, Barry Allen. Lead the way.”
And Barry did just that, with Oliver close behind, one arm still completely wrapped around Barry for support. Barry would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy every second of it. And when they finally stumbled into the small side room, Barry had to stop himself from collapsing down on the bed. It wasn’t a problem though when Oliver had stripped off his jacket and shirt, leaving his chest bare, scars and all.
Barry tried not to stare, but he couldn’t help it. The strange apart it too was that he was pretty sure seeing Oliver shirtless was going to be a regular occasion for him now. They had a lot to discuss when he wasn’t still injured and weak.
“Are we going to sleep?” Oliver asked breaking him from his staring.
“Yep. Yep, we are definitely sleeping, and I am totally not going to stare at your chest all day.”
Oliver laughed, but kicked his shoes off guiding Barry down onto the small pullout bed. It was weird when Oliver settled right in behind him, wrapping an arm around his waist like it was second-nature to him. There was no blanket, but they didn’t need one because just being snuggled close to Oliver was good enough for him. The man radiated enough heat for the two of them. But what really shocked him was Oliver tucking his face into the crook of Barry’s neck. And it was funny. He never really took Oliver as much of a cuddler, and boy how wrong as he?
Yeah he could get used to this.
“You better not ever do something like that again, Barry,” Oliver muttered into his neck.
“Do what?” Barry asked.
“Throw your life away like that. I’ve got too many things I want to experience with you, and I can’t really do those without you now can I.”
Barry was glad Oliver couldn’t see him because Barry wasn’t sure he wanted Oliver to see how much he was smiling right now. Hearing that Oliver had plans—a future—for them, it lit something inside that he hadn’t felt in a while.
“Don’t worry. You’re pretty much stuck with me now, for good or worse,” Barry teased.
He felt the vibration from Oliver’s amused hum against his neck and he felt himself drifting off to sleep a bit, finally comfortable in a way he wasn’t sure he’d ever feel.
“Save the wedding vows for later,” Oliver said, but Barry could barely make them out.
Wrapping one hand over Oliver’s arm, he closed his eyes and felt peace for a while. Oliver hopefully wouldn’t have any more nightmares about him dying. Not when they had so many new memories to make together.
Together sounded pretty nice.