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It wasn’t much of a vacation, thought Barry grumpily, if you couldn’t get any sleep.
His phone glowed 3:14 AM. He’d kept it on the nightstand half an hour ago, trying to make an honest effort at catching the Sandman. Thirty minutes of unwelcome thoughts whirling in his head and of memorizing the shadow patterns the leaves outside made against the moonlit ceiling - and no sleep yet in sight. He turned on his side and pounded the pillow in frustration.
The phone began buzzing on the table. Either the person at the other end knew he was an insomniac who’d be awake at this time, or it was some jerk who didn't care if he wasn’t.
INCOMING CALL - OLIVER. Oh well. Right on both counts.
He stared at the screen, pulse racing, torn between irritation and need. This was the opposite of being given space from...whatever they were having right now. On the other hand, Oliver had been very good about not calling for the last twelve days.
On the other, other hand - Barry had a flash of Oliver slumped in an alley, the green leather of his vest soaked in blood, teeth gritted against the pain.
His fingers slid across the screen of their own volition. “Hello.”
A beat. “Hi.” Warmth flooded him at the sound of Oliver’s voice. Damn it. “How are you?”
A ball of suck, that’s how he was. “Mmm.” He didn’t have the energy to lie to him.
A long exhalation. “That’s descriptive.”
“Is everyone all right?” Barry asked. Oliver didn’t sound like a man with a mortal wound. That didn’t mean he was the best at interpersonal communication when he was in crisis.
“Everyone’s fine,” Oliver assured him and some of the tension in his muscles escaped. “Well, my mother is being arrainged next week, but you knew that.”
“Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll be there in time for that.” Barry’s heart was heavy with sympathy at what Oliver and Thea were going through. They weren’t children like he had been when he’d watched his father being crucified in court, but somehow he didn’t think seeing a parent charged with murder got any easier as an adult. Oliver always set his jaw with a steely determination when he spoke of it, like he was going to bend fate to his will with his bare hands if he had to, but Barry could see the fear at his core.
Oliver had never been able to hide anything from him. Barry sometimes thought it was only because he had never really wanted to.
Right. He was getting sucked back into Queen drama again.
“Why did you call?”
That was a stupid way to change the subject. Oliver was going to think he didn’t want him calling, when the opposite was true. But then Barry had been the one who had asked for space. Because he was a fool who had no idea what he wanted.
There was a silence. “I missed you,” Oliver said softly.
A lump rose in Barry’s throat. “I miss you too.” So much.
“Then come home.”
Barry was technically home. He was in Central City, safely ensconced in his childhood bedroom at the West house. “I am coming back to Starling on Monday. I’m almost out of sick days anyway.”
“I meant,” Oliver drew a frustrated breath, “come home to me.”
Barry swallowed, staring up at the ceiling in the dark. "It's not that simple."
“Are you still mad at me?”
He burrowed his head in the pillows, frustration welling. “I wasn't mad.”
“Yes you were.”
“Okay, yes I was,” gritted Barry in irritation. “You left. I told you I was in love with you, you pulled me out of the rubble, kissed me and then left.”
“I know, and said I was sorry-”
“For three months, Oliver!”
“I thought you said you weren’t mad.”
Barry deflated. “It’s not so much that I’m mad. I’m not even sure it’s so much about what you did.”
“Is this about Iris?” Careful and hesitant. “Is it because you’re still in love with her?”
Damn it. It was not about Iris.
Except maybe it was. A little.
“Why do you think I’m still in love with her?”
“Because I know what you look like when you’re in love,” Oliver sounded sad. Barry’s heart hurt. “You get this look, like you can’t get close enough to her voice, so you try to cradle the phone against your face like it’s her you’re holding to you.”
Barry became aware of the way he had wedged his phone between the mattress and his head, trying to get as close to Oliver’s voice as possible. "Oliver?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s how I’m holding my phone right now.”
A pause. “Yeah?” Oliver breathed with note of hope.
“Yeah,” Barry admitted. I’m in love with you too, idiot. He had already told Oliver he loved him, that inauspicious day they had barely managed to stop the Undertaking, but he had never added that “too”. It exposed his secret shame, that he was in love with two people, one of whom didn’t even want him.
Maybe even three.
“Barr, please explain this to me,” Oliver’s voice sounded frustrated now. “If you’re asking for time to get over her, I don’t think it’s going to happen. Or at least it’s going to take longer than a couple of months. It’s been years since she turned you down, you’ve already had a long term relationship after, and you still haven't stopped loving her.” There is a pause. “Honestly, I don’t think you ever will.”
“Then why are you still here, trying to get me to go out with you?” Barry demanded. “Anyone else would be running for the hills right now.”
“I did!” said Oliver, laughing ruefully. “I ran for the hills all the way back to the North China Sea. It didn’t work out so well for me. All I could think about was being back with you.”
“Oliver,” The lump in Barry's throat swelled, his eyes beginning to well up. “I’m not- I’m damaged goods, all right? I - I fall in love and then they leave and I just stay there. I don’t move on, I don’t heal and I get more miserable and broken and -”
“Whoa, whoa,” interrupted Oliver. “Back up there. First of all, if you’re damaged goods, what the fuck am I?" He sighed deeply. "I was damaged before I ever got on the Gambit, Barry. I had no direction in life, I hated myself and covered it up with booze and partying and I was so afraid of failing at life that I actively sabotaged my relationships with people who believed in me. I was a selfish jerk. And now...I’m no prize, Barr. Whatever is going on with you, it can’t be worse than what’s going on with me.
“As for not healing or moving on - bullshit. You went back to college after Iris turned you down. You had a serious relationship. You told me you were happy with him.”
Barry’s heart twisted painfully. “Oliver, don’t -”
“And let’s not forget you slept with me too.”
“Are you seriously being smug about that right now?” Barry said incredulously.
“I took your virginity." He could just picture Oliver’s frat boy grin that even Lian Yu hadn’t been able to erase completely. It was so rare now. Barry wanted to kiss him. “I’m always going to be smug about that.”
“Um, you were a complete stranger I had a one night stand with trying to get over Iris,” he couldn’t help but point out. “And you were cheating on Laurel with me.”
“Ouch, Allen.” He knew Oliver was smirking, still in that carefree pre-Gambit voice. “Tell it like it is."
“I’m telling it like it was,” said Barry, softening his tone. He bit his lip. In the interests of full disclosure - “Len was a kind of rebound too.” At least it had started out that way.
He rarely spoke of Len to Oliver. Maybe because, unlike Iris, he was a man and Barry had actually been with him. It was...awkward.
“Are you telling me I’m a rebound from Len?” Oliver sounded hurt.
“God, no!” said Barry immediately, although his stomach dropped a little. But Len had been out of his life for two years by the time he had found Oliver again and they had established that Barry wasn’t a moving on kind of person. Pathetic heap that he was. “You were the whole reason I came to Starling in the first place.” That at least was completely true.
There was a silence. Had Barry never told him that before?
“I didn’t know that,” said Oliver finally.
“You thought your one night stand from five years before just happened to be in town the same week you were found?” he teased.
“Uh. Yeah?”
“Well, I wasn't,” It was Barry's turn to be smug. “I was watching TV with Iris in Central City when I saw the news. Caught the train to Starling in time to gatecrash your...very eventful welcome home bash."
"You stalked me?" the glee in Oliver’s voice made him sound so young that Barry would let him tease him forever just to hear it. "I was that good our first time, huh?"
"You were adequate," said Barry aloofly. "And the green leather guy I saw zip-lining into the building was...interesting."
This failed to deter the other man. "So hold on. When you sidled up to me at the bar after Lance had stormed off -”
“‘Hello, beautiful stranger, glad you aren’t dead, we banged five years ago, wanna go again?’” Barry had to grin through his mortification. “Yeah, I practiced that.”
“That is distinctly not how I remember it going down,” Oliver told him skeptically. “I noticed this cute guy trying very hard not to check me out-”
“I'm sure that’s never happened to you before,” Barry snorted.
“- and I bought you a drink, then recognized you immediately -”
“I remembered, after our first time, you turned over and told me ‘dude, you are the sweetest thing I’ve ever fucked’” said Barry drily. “That was charming. Figured I might be memorable.”
“God, did I really say that?” said Oliver with a shudder in his voice. “What is wrong with you. You came looking for a guy who called you ‘dude’ after taking your virginity.”
Barry had the fleeting realization that the Oliver that had become the vigilante was not a person who would now ever say “dude” again. It was like that entire aspect of his personality had died on the island. Barry enjoyed Oliver’s new, sexy, adult gravitas but couldn’t help but be saddened that it was so dearly bought.
“Like I said. You're very adequate in bed,” he answered seriously.
Oliver snorted. "Is that why you were so easy to seduce?”
“Excuse me?” exclaimed Barry in mock outrage, “I think we just established that I’d been running the show the whole time. I seduced you!”
“You mean I wasted all my best moves?”
“Moves - Oliver, you looked at me like you wanted to eat me alive and asked me if I 'wanted to have a repeat of our last encounter.'” Barry vividly remembered looking for the rambunctious boy of five years agone and being shocked to find instead a perfectly coiffed man with eyes that pierced into him. “I assure you, there weren’t any moves involved.”
He had been arrested by the way Oliver had moved like a tiger stalking through the grass, entire body coiled to to spring at a moment’s notice. Barry never understood how he managed to move among normal people without them immediately noticing that the man wasn’t remotely one of them.
"Still counts," said Oliver, with a definite pout in his voice. "And I'm pretty sure it was me seducing you the time after that!"
Crouching tiger, hidden dork.
“Which time?” Barry chuckled. “There was the first time, at the hotel. Then the next morning -”
“-in the jacuzzi” continued Oliver smugly. “Then the whole weekend at the Marriott."
"I put in my request for a transfer from the CCPD after that one," remarked Barry, nonchalant.
"Huh. Seems I'm much more adequate than even I knew. You told me you were already in the middle of moving."
"I was," Barry reiterated with dignity. "...after I met you. And saw the crazy man jumping around rooftops. And heard about Martin Somers."
"Aw, and here I thought it was because I was special."
"To be fair, after I moved to Starling properly, your... adequacies did distract me from the Hood guy."
Presumably the sex haze had been to blame for that fact that it took almost three weeks for him, professional CSI, to put together the evidence in the bow callouses on Oliver’s fingers, the scars and fresh bruises on his body, the night time disappearances and accept their natural conclusion.
"Damn right," said Oliver solemnly. "The Hood guy wishes he was as adequate as me. Remember when we christened your whole apartment?"
"The kitchen counter holds fond memories," agreed Barry. "And the shower. And the balcony. And old Mrs. Suarez from the apartment across the balcony."
"You were so mortified!" Oliver was laughing. "You swore we were never having sex outside of a bed again!"
"Just because you are about as capable of shame as a cat -"
"I'm just saying that it was barely three days later I had you bent over my desk at the factory," said Oliver in that butter-wouldn't-melt voice that made cops want to arrest him on principle. "Stalking, public indecency...I know I'm good but I don't think even I can take all the credit here, Barr."
Barry hadn’t known two humans could be that horny. The whole first month he had moved to Starling he had felt like his dick had woken up from nearly two years of celibacy and was making up for it by trying to kill him. He wasn't sure what Oliver's excuse was, but they had been so unable to keep their hands off each other that it was a miracle they hadn't been found out by anyone other than Digg.
"At least we managed to cool off after traumatizing poor Diggle," said Barry wryly. "Honestly I lost track of where and when we did it those first few weeks."
“I remember all the places I took you that first month” said Oliver softly. “I felt like I was drowning unless I was with you. I think that’s when I fell for you.”
Barry snorted in disbelief. “Oliver, you broke into my apartment just before Christmas as the Hood and threatened to arrow me.”
Oh fuck. He instantly regretted bringing that up. He had forgiven it as soon as he had started working with Oliver and Digg, but Barry knew it still haunted him. “You really should have thought the whole sleeping-with-a-curious-CSI-while vigilante-ing thing through,” he tried to joke flippantly.
It didn’t work. Damn it.
“I would never have done it,” Oliver said urgently, and Barry’s regret mounted.
“I know, Oliver,” he reassured. He did know that. But he also knew that Oliver didn’t. Not truly. Oliver used to have nightmares about having actually had put an arrow through Barry's heart afterwards, while sleeping next to him. Those would be the nights that he had woken to the other man chanting his name and bolting upright in a sweat to pull Barry into a crushing embrace, shaking.
He ached to hold Oliver now, forgetting his current doubts and dilemmas. To to take the next train to Starling and run into his arms.
“Are you all right?” asked Barry softly, tenderly cradling the phone against him.
“I’m fine,” came the gruff answer, all traces of the light-hearted playboy vanished. “We were talking about why you aren’t coming home.”
Ah, yes. Deflect. Repress. Ignore until it blew up in your face. He remembered all the reasons they were a bad idea.
“Because if I do,” said Barry wearily, “I’m just going to fall into your arms and let you sweep me off my feet. And we’d probably be happy for a while. But then you’ll to get tired of being in a relationship with someone who's in love with other people and not just you. Or you’ll decide that it’s too dangerous for me to be with you again, and push me away “for my own good’”
Oliver processed this. “Wow,” he said finally. “I thought I was supposed to be the pessimist in this relationship.”
“That’s the problem, isn't it?” Fatigue settled back into every bone in his body. “Neither of us have the best track record with relationships. Face it, sooner or later, one of us will say the L-word and it will all come crashing down around our ears.”
“The L-word?” said Oliver. “You mean “I love you”?”
All the breath whooshed out of Barry’s lungs and his throat went tight with fear. “Oliver-”
“You’ve already told me that,” Oliver ploughed on ruthlessly. “And it’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I love you. It’s why I came back to Starling after three months of trying to run. It’s why I’ve been trying everything to persuade you to come back to me ever since. It’s why I didn’t talk to you for two weeks while you went back to Central and Iris West, even though it’s killing me, because you wanted space. It’s why I finally called you now, because it’s been two weeks and I can’t sleep, worrying I’ve lost you for good, aching for your voice - Barry, I love you.”
He was stunned. Distantly, he could feel tears sliding down his face, heart in his throat.
“Barr,” Oliver’s tone sounded defeated now, and no no no that’s not what he wanted. “These are all my cards on the table, okay? I don’t care that you’re in love with Iris. I don’t care that Len broke your heart. I don’t care that your Dad’s in prison, or that you’re damaged or whatever else makes you think you can’t be with me. You’re the first thing I’ve really wanted for myself in five years, other than coming home.
"You make me want to be selfish. I know that sounds like it’s a bad thing, but really it’s - I had forgotten what it’s like to want something for myself without feeling guilty for wanting it. I feel like you’re the only thing I’m allowed to be selfish about, because it makes all the other stuff...bearable. I can’t push you away again. It would kill me.” After months of trying to get through his walls, Oliver was just...stripping naked in front of him. For him. And. Barry couldn’t.
He actually couldn’t breathe.
Oliver took a deep breath. “So for the last time, please, please, babe. Come home to me.”
A beat passed.
“Okay.”
There was a disbelieving silence.
“Okay?”
“Yeah,” Barry laughed tremulously through his tears, electrified with both fear and excitement. “Okay. That’s one hell of a pitch, Queen. Jesus. I forgot what an all-or-nothing guy you are.”
“Look who’s talking,” Oliver sounded stunned, like a man unable to believe his own good fortune. “So, what does “okay” mean exactly?”
“I guess...okay, I’ll come back and I’ll go on a date with you?”
Oliver was laughing now, almost hysterically. “Crap, we’ve never been on a date, have we?”
“We’ve had sex in some really fancy places with room service,” Barry chuckled, wiping his eyes. “Maybe those count.”
“God,” exhaled Oliver. Barry could picture him running his hands through his hair. “I don’t know how I thought I could just have sex without strings with you. How did I think I wouldn’t fall for you?”
“It's true," he agreed solemnly. "I'm just that good."
“Yeah," Oliver's smile was back in his voice and Barry pressed the phone to his ear tighter, imagining the blue of his eyes growing loving and soft. “You're pretty adequate too."
......
(Later)
“So, “babe”, huh?”
“Babe. Do you like it?”
“...I don’t hate it.”
“I’ll save it for special occasions.”
“I could live with that. Honeybunch.”
“Shut up.”