A\N: I'm dabbling in this universe for the first time, so… Yay for me? I hope?

And I'm sure the circumstances in which this happens have to be cannon-compliant somewhere.

DISCLAIMER: Do not own Arrow, or any other franchise, for that matter.

When he was asleep, when it dared come alone, the pain forgot to bother him.

He hadn't slept properly in many, many years. He could pop his eyes open if someone so much as twitched in his vicinity. He could also keep them shut, but only if the noise was expected – if he fell asleep with someone by his side, he would know he could relax and sleep through their tosses and turns. He would know he could sleep through their getting up and leaving, and he could sleep through his stretching over the extra space that would be freed.

He didn't toss or turn, because, even while dreaming, he was very well aware of reality still. It wasn't as though he'd purposefully developed the skill – he just got so used to going to bed worried, with problems on his mind, that he used even his time of rest to mull them over. It was either that or die of sleep deprivation, if those problems didn't kill him first.

It was practical, really, it was multitasking.

And then there were those nights, the nights when he closed his eyes and fell too under, like he was high, drunk or had a concussion, perhaps a combination of all three. It generally happened when she snuggled into him, when her hair caught on his beard, when she didn't open her mouth to let out all the words that she had surely swallowed in buckets because she was shockingly not a sleep-talker. (He hadn't felt the restful benefits the first time it had happened because he'd been worried at her silence.)

He stayed oblivious all through the night. Completely and utterly asleep, without any idea of what he was doing. It was both terrifying and thrilling, and he would wake up the way he'd woken up before everything, before the problems – he let it go on, let her make him pretend this was permanent, mostly because he knew she expected him to split his problems with her so that they let him sleep, and he had unwittingly come to expect the same.

It was reckless. It only was at all because he was stubborn and in denial. He let it go on.

When he was with her and it was too dark outside for even people who had an arrow coming (which wouldn't come at all) to be awake, it wasn't the pain that forgot him, it was he who forgot the pain. It was too clichéd to possibly be real, but he still fell asleep, and he still didn't wake until her hair wasn't the only bright thing in the room, and the in-between was still a forgotten and non-alert blur.

He knew it wasn't fair to share problems when he could make the toughest psychiatrist recoil, and her biggest woe before he'd come into her life and ruined everything were the inappropriate comments she earned and offered at the IT department, which was not the place for a beautiful woman.

He let it go on. Till she put a stop to it.

"Oliver, we need to talk."

He stilled his typing, because he remembered that that was supposed to sound ominous, even though she only made it sound breathless and a little bit squeaky.

He tried to appear as nonchalant as he was nervous when he turned to face her. "I have ordered the new processor you wanted for the lair already, Felicity-"

It was as though she couldn't control herself. "It's not a processor, it's a video-card- Never mind, I'm the one who makes all the orders for you anyway." She blew her hair out of her face, shook her head quickly and nearly stumbled twice on her way to the chair in front of his desk. "You haven't been sleeping properly." She accused, getting back on track.

He was so surprised he forgot to pretend he had no emotions. "What?"

She looked around nervously as though she expected someone to be forcefully pressing themselves against the glass panels in order to hear about her opinion on his sleeping habits, but she was also biting her lip, so he couldn't muster up enough focus to mock her for it.

"I haven't been letting you sleep properly." She elaborated.

He paused, thinking very carefully of a response to that. "What?"

"I'm-" She wrung her hands. "I know I roll around a lot, and I'm always reaching out with my hand for something, and-"

"Felicity, take a seat, please." She complied, looking grateful that he'd stopped her while she was ahead. "Now, start over – slowly. What is it about you that you think bothers me while I'm asleep?"

She looked really reluctant to open her mouth. "The island."

He blinked. "Sorry?"

"Lian Yu. The island. Where you picked up a few nightmares that probably make it really alarming to sleep with someone, and you worry about that, so you can't fall asleep properly, and I-"

"You were the one who came to me." He pointed out.

"I know! Why do you think I'm bringing this up?"

He ignored that. "And I thought you slept better when you were with someone?" He asked, confused.

"If I just wanted a random someone, I could've easily gone to Dig. Much less complicated man." She grumbled under her breath, and he got the feeling it wasn't for his oversensitive ears. "Well, this- secret life I've come to embrace, it's still not very easy for me." She said aloud. "I mean, I didn't spent five years in purgatory, and I didn't serve any country except for the one I have online."

"You have a country online?"

"Several of them, but that's not the point." She took a deep breath. "If I'm bothering you, all you have to do is say the word, and I'll go away."

"But then you'd still have nightmares." He answered reasonably.

"And I was dealing with them! I just - figured out I could do it much more easily if you happened to be nearby." She said defensively.

"Well, nearby might be a little bit of an understatement-"

"Fine!" She snapped. "I get it! This is amusing to you!"

"Not at all." He was suddenly very serious. "Felicity, you were the one who asked me to do this. If it's making you uncomfortable in any way-"

"N- no, it's not." She stammered. "I- I brought this onto myself, anyway. I shouldn't have fallen asleep on you. Oh my God, that sentence is a really good one if I'm trying for retrospect, and a really bad one if taken out of context. I'm sorry, what is wrong with me, I should've never asked you for this-"

"Felicity-" He tried to cut across her, but she didn't seem to want to hear any of it.

She looked as though she were trying to justify herself for something she appeared to think of as terribly inappropriate. Then again, maybe it was, but he wasn't sure if she knew, exactly, who was being inappropriate toward whom, because he was trying a more truthful approach to life (hoods and arrows non-withstanding) and he wasn't about to say he hadn't enjoyed every minute of it. "And, I mean, it was a total accident, falling asleep on you, but it was the first time in months I didn't have a nightmare – then again, maybe it was just the couch, which was a very comfortable couch, even though I was leaning more on you than on it-" She cleared her throat and he took his chance.

"Felicity, let me ease you into your point with the short version, for both our sakes." He cut her off swiftly, hoping that being over-analytical would soothe her over-analytical mind. It certainly sounded as though it could work. Plus, it was the simple approach, and right then, he was all about simple, because being complicated had the potential to bring up things he didn't want to talk about just yet. "You fell asleep on my shoulder in the lair. You found out you had no nightmares when that happened. You decided to make a habit of it, because, shockingly, you do want to sleep. I agreed to it. We're both adults, and I see no problems. I do know how we got here."

"I'm not very sure you do." She muttered, and he narrowed his eyes, but she'd started off again. "So- So, I promise I won't do it again, and I can't believe it hasn't crossed my mind how incredibly improper and non-platonic this is-" She stopped abruptly. "Not that I've been thinking about that – at all, I mean, we haven't done anything, and we're not doing anything-"

Sometimes he thought she needed to be saved from herself. Other times he thought he was very interested in what she was saying.

"Anyway." She said, a lot louder than she strictly needed to, and changed the subject (her subject, because Oliver couldn't remember adding two important words to the conversation). "We'll stop, which is probably for the best. You can't be okay with this, and-" She tittered slightly, like she was somehow vibrating with energy that just wouldn't let her get out of embarrassing situations.

He let it go on.

"And I understand perfectly, you know, because you probably have all these issues from when you were on that island and you weren't sleeping with anybody – n-not that you're, you know, crazy or mentally unstable, it's just, it's perfectly normal, I mean, you didn't even have anyone there to sleep with – I mean, not always anyway, because obviously there was Shado and Sara and Slade-"

He made his lips stay in an un-twitching line with a ludicrous amount of force and will-power. "I wasn't very interested in cuddling with Slade."

Her eyes widened because it was just too easy to get a rise out of her. "No! No, of course not! That's- I mean, you're not- Not that I'd have any problem with it if you were, b- but you don't look at Dig all that often, not even when he's shirtless, and it's not like he's anywhere near bad-looking-"

She was already redder than her fingernails, but she was talking about how good Diggle looked without a shirt on, so he was feeling merciless. "You notice Dig a lot when he's half-naked, huh?" He asked, grinning, because his control over his facial muscles had to end somewhere.

"Well, no, because whenever he's shirtless he's usually sparring with you, and when that happens you're shirtless too." She clamped a hand to her mouth, and if her temperature got any higher she was going to start steaming.

He had the most supreme inner calm and self-control, he really did. "Good to know." He answered cheerfully, and she closed her eyes, but Oliver knew the floor was too solid for her to melt through.

She stood up. "Since it took a lot out of me to come in here and try to get you to have a conversation – and to not listen to one of my monologues - I'm going outside," She said, her voice stiff and wavering at the same time. "and I'm going to pretend I haven't come inside this morning yet, and you're going to do the same. And then we're going to start over this talk."

He leaned back on his chair. "I'm perfectly comfortable right here."

"I didn't mean you had to come with me outside, only that you had to pretend-" She cut herself off, glaring at him. "Stop inducing my babbling!"

"It's funny." He defended himself mildly. "Cute, too." She chose – possibly wisely – to ignore that, but he wasn't done. "And you don't have to go outside to do that."

She took a deep breath and finally opened her eyes. "Fine. Look, Oliver," She was speaking very slowly, as though she was weighting the embarrassment potential in each word she said. "I just – I don't want you to be sleeping badly on my account, and-"

Her voice was speeding up and she was fast-losing control, so he took charge before any more damage could be done. "Felicity," He said loudly and she brusquely cut off. "if you're done assuming what goes on in my mind and working yourself into a panic – it's starting to worry me, leaving you alone any amount of time, if you can get to that point just by talking all by yourself – it would probably benefit you – and me - if I told you it's been over five years since I've slept as well as I have in the past five days."

Her mouth was still open from her latest would-be rant, and she let it close quickly. "But-" She protested weakly. "You're always out of bed when I wake up!"

He raised his eyebrows. "I'm an early-morning kind of guy."

Her frown deepened. "You – You never seem to be fully asleep!"

"What do you mean?"

"You move a lot! I've seen you asleep in the lair a couple of times, like the day I slept on you-" She flushed and he smirked. "And you never move there!"

Now it was his turn to frown. "Do I wake you up?"

"No, I see you tossing and turning a little when I wake up to go to the bathroom or something."

"Then it's nothing to worry about."

"What do you mean, it's nothing to worry about? You're not sleeping!"

"Felicity," He interrupted. "only when I consciously prevent myself from moving while resting am I not sound asleep."

She took a few moments to mull over that. "Huh?"

He stood up and walked around the desk toward her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I sleep just fine. Much better than that, actually, which would be your fault, terrible person that you are."

She ducked her head and blushed, but seemed to be much more at ease. "Shut up."

His lips quirked. "What even brought all of this on? You've been sleeping with me for almost a week now."

The way he'd phrased it made her face red again, which had been his goal. "Well… It was last night." She said hesitantly, but seemed to need encouragement to continue.

"You did seem strange this morning. What about it?"

"Well, I woke up and I wanted water, so I was getting up, only I must have jostled you too much." She appeared as though she preferred to let her mouth run the show, which she usually didn't want (for obvious reasons) – the words were tumbling unbidden. "And you just sort of – grabbed my waist." She colored. "It's kind of hard to move with a few dozen pounds of muscle preventing you."

He tried not to laugh. "I'm sorry?"

She hit his chest and then eyed his arm as though reprimanding those muscles. "Don't you laugh at me! It's not funny! It could've been accidental, but you told me to stay. Literally. I mean, you turned your head to me, didn't even open your eyes and said, in that army-captain-or-whatever-it-is-the-army-has voice of yours, 'Felicity, stay'. Not funny!"

He stopped snickering abruptly.

"I mean, you had to have been awake, right?"

He shrugged casually, crossing his arms and leaning against his desk. "No."

She scowled at him, looking a little stunned. "No?"

His lips twitched again. "No."

"But-"

"Felicity," He was making a bad habit out of interrupting her. "I was asleep, and I don't remember that. Did I prevent you from getting water?"

"No, but that's not the point!"

He shrugged, and then grinned. "Then I guess have my priorities straight, even in sleep."

She huffed. "The subconscious mind doesn't prioritize-"

He made a split-second decision and tugged her to him, which surprised her into silence, because she was barely three inches from him now. "My conscious one does, at the very least."

She swallowed dry. "Uh-huh – Oliver, you're really close to me-"

Oliver raised his eyebrows and snaked both arms around her. "Really? I hadn't noticed."

She glared up at him, but it was very feeble, and her irises were rather smaller than usual.

"What are we doing?" She sounded almost scared, and could feel two quickened heartbeats instead of only one against his chest.

He was no longer feeling playful - he shifted so that she had room to maneuver away, but she stayed right there, and all of a sudden he knew the answer to her question.

He put a palm to her cheek, and the way she reacted, pressing herself further into it like it was second nature to be attached to him, it made him want her even closer, even though there couldn't possibly be any more room for that.

"I don't know." He murmured. "Then again, I haven't done something this recklessly instinctive in a while, so I suppose that's sort of to be expected."

She chuckled quietly and a little hysterically. "Apparently that's what I do, lead you to be who you were before the ship-"

"Not at all." He answered very seriously. "You lead me to be someone new entirely, who hopefully embodies the good parts of me from both worlds, before and after."

She swallowed and he could feel her flush warming him as much as it was heating her up. "Well, look at that." She smiled feebly. "I'm a good influence."

"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me." He admitted. "And what's more, I haven't ruined it yet. That's usually what tends to happen when I say things like that."

Felicity's lips trembled. "Sometimes you say the most miserable things, and I want to hit you as much as I want to hug you for them."

He only hesitated briefly, because he had come a long way from purposefully hurting people so that they wouldn't get close to him and end up hurt anyway. But she was right there, warm and happy and bubbly and light-hearted, and it was such a fascination, because he was all dark.

He kissed her, and it felt like he should have done it long before. Probably since the moment she'd snuggled into his bed and shared his personal space. And every other space he had too. And then again, maybe not. Maybe he should have done it when he'd informed her that hot lattes could burn bullet holes through laptops.

One of her hands went to his hair apparently out of its own accord, and the other slid way down, and he couldn't seem to focus on his thoughts after that. Not the proper ones, anyway. Certainly not the ones that reminded him he was still at the office, and, for all accounts and purposes, heavily making out with his assistant on his desk, because he'd somehow ended up switching their positions completely around.

He let it go on.

He still had one hand cupping her face, but the other was exploring, and it wasn't until it was sliding under the hem of her shirt that she pulled back with a gasp.

"Uh-oh-" She breathed, wide-eyed. "Oh, no-"

"Felicity-"

"No, no, no." She shook her head emphatically. "Don't speak, please, because there's lipstick on your face and oh my God-"

He thought about rubbing it out, but then he realized Felicity had not moved from his grasp, and came to the conclusion that what he'd just done might actually change things. The fact that his ego was not taking a hit meant that the lipstick stayed right where it was.

"You know, roughly about a minute ago, you seemed to think it a good idea."

"My libido doesn't make for the best thinker!"

He tried hard to keep a straight face for her sake, because she was clearly in the middle of a panic attack.

That was about when he realized that he wasn't.

He supposed that he took her so much for granted already – what, with helping a vigilante outside the law – that pushing his luck with this didn't seem too terribly far-fetched. Then again, it might also be because she was still clinging to him for support while freaking out, and he was the source of her problem.

But he wasn't completely self-absorbed.

"I'm sorry for… Bringing out your libido." He sighed, shifting, this time, painfully away from her.

"You – I'm not-" She stuttered.

"Felicity, if you want, I can pretend nothing ever happened-"

"Yes, well, unfortunately for me, I don't have that same wonderfully magical ability. Believe me, I've spent a lot of time wishing on it."

He paused then, and he was honestly confused, because she was moving closer to him as he moved away (and wasn't that the story of his life on reverse), and she was so incredibly complicated that he couldn't help but want to press kisses to her again, all over her face. He settled for reaching out and pushing a bang out of her eyes.

"For something so unfortunate, you sure seem to want to be as close to it as you possibly can." He let his arm drop to her waist to illustrate his point.

She didn't complain, but she did huff. "Like you actually thought the panic was going to last."

He hadn't, but it was very self-satisfying to hear her admit it.

"Sure it's over yet?" He asked lightly.

"No." She hesitated. "Oliver- I- Are you sure you want to do this?"

He pulled back so she could see his raised eyebrows properly. "Funny. I was assuming you were panicking because you were asking yourself that question the other way around."

She flushed. "Maybe I was – a little. And then you were, just, too calm, and that only made me more nervous, and-"

"Felicity-" He just really seemed to enjoy saying her name. "Would you like to go to dinner with me?"

"What?"

"A one-worded answer, that's a first."

"Not funny - how many times am I going to have to say that tonight?"

"I'm not sure, it depends on how often you say it and how long it'll be before you give me an answer."

"Answer to what?"

"See, now who's being funny?"

"Well, when I'm funny, I'm usually not trying to be, and I also don't enjoy it, so there's that."

"I will ask you out in front of Diggle. And he will mock us for eternity for it, and you will be the only one bothered by it."

"Yes." It was a murmur, but he neither could nor wanted to pretend not to hear it.

He was grinning, but then again so was she, so it was all okay, and the mood wasn't in panic-attack mode because her cheeks were warm when he put his hands there, and blushing people can't panic. "Just so we're clear, you're saying yes to my dinner invitation?"

"Don't push it. I'm very good with computers and scandalous reports on smirking billionaires."

He smiled. "I think I've successfully changed the subject."

Something shifted in her eyes, just like it did with the atmosphere. "Is that all you were trying to do?"

"Is it?"

She shook her head and he somehow ended up with half the distance he originally had between them, which he didn't think was any. "Are we going to answer questions with more questions for the rest of the night?"

He arched a brow at her. "Still worried about my sleeping habits?" He countered.

"Why? Are you under the delusion that you're employing them tonight?"

He blinked at her. She wasn't blushing, so he gathered that wasn't a Freudian slip, though he was positive he'd just found what part of her those came from.

"And here I was thinking you were a prude." He mused.

"Only before cute guys kiss me."

"Well, you don't seem like much of a prude right now, so are you saying I'm not a cute guy, or that I'm not going to kiss you? Because, just so you know, you'd be wrong on both counts."

"Don't I know it."

He didn't waste any more usable time, because she was still right there, and still smiling, and he was still just a piece of brightened dark.

Diggle didn't interrupt anything that he would have been fine seeing, but he did interrupt something.

His sleep didn't change, because his sleeping habits didn't change, except that now he didn't purposefully get out of bed before she woke, and let her discover what it was, exactly, that she tended to reach for during the night instead. She didn't seem overly fazed by it, and he had never been fazed. If she wanted to burrow into him, she was tiny enough to do it, and he was much more comfortable when he let her.

He couldn't say the same for daytime, because she managed to change that too. And every other time that he could fit in the definition of life.

It hadn't been until he'd left home that he'd come to realize exactly how it was that he thought, and it wasn't until he'd gotten back that he'd realized how much that had changed. But he forgot that, in the island, thinking worked different that it worked in Starling city. But then, maybe because he was sleeping better, he saw it all quite clearly. In large part, because she liked to point it all out to him in a casual way that made it seem as though the information was written on a white board somewhere.

She was very blunt, and that part of her only seemed to increase when she found herself dating him with full meddling benefits. She developed a habit of picking out whatever truths he didn't want to be told and hand them to him in the middle of a babbling spree that had possibly started with the topic of processors or video-cards.

And it helped. Because, all the grays that he always saw blurring the white and black together, she pixelized them, and sorted them into shades, and then split all those shades in half and made one completely white and the other pitch black. Computer metaphors suited her nicely.

The thing with her was that she reminded him there was a middle ground, because she stepped on it all the time – she couldn't be completely appropriate, so she was mildly inappropriate, and he couldn't be the party boy that couldn't kill a bird, so he became the broody man that took lives only when she had needles to her neck.

It worked for them. He let it go on.