Cure: Chapter Six (6/?)
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Summary: Chloe is trying to find a doctor to help her with her meteor infection and a playboy-like Oliver Queen is trying to find a a physician for his Green Arrow wounds. They begin a sexual relationship, which becomes a problem once Ollie's softer side develops.
Chapter Six
He felt like a stupid, stupid man. Oliver had maintained a perfectly pleasant ritual for the past couple of days- day job during the day, night gig at night, and an afternoon delight with Chloe at her place somewhere in between.
Except this time was different- he showed up after he had already washed up from a fairly tame patrol, proud of himself. He was getting the hang of this city, and wasn’t getting lost or running around a wide circle of rooftops so much anymore.
But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t exhausted. It didn’t mean that with the combination of board meetings, endless paperwork, a constantly buzzing phone regarding said paperwork, graphs and layouts being thrown at him in every direction, rooftop running for miles and miles, criminals, and very sweaty sex as a conclusion didn’t make Oliver tired. And it didn’t prevent him from dozing off.
It was pitch black when he drifted off, and the sunlight was blinding his eyes when he finally opened one. And while Oliver had prided himself on leaving her apartment either before or shortly after she did (he normally left as she was getting coffee), today wasn’t the day.
The first thing that he saw when his eyes opened was the clean coffee cup lying out to dry. The woman was changed, and was slinging her bag over one shoulder when he sat up.
“Where are you running off to so quick?” he asked, stretching out a little bit.
“Work”, she answered, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket. “You know, the place that keeps my paycheck hostage.”
“What, no breakfast in bed or good morning kiss? I’m so disappointed”, he joked.
She cracked a smile as she scrolled through the screen. “Five minutes. Sure, what the hell”, she said before pressing a couple of buttons and putting the phone back in her pocket.
She walked back over to him. He wanted to point out that he would never take just five minutes when she stopped him.
“I’ll have you know that I could get you off in five minutes, and by the end of it, you wouldn’t even care about the stopwatch.”
He let out a chuckle. He liked how blunt she was, how completely off she was from the usual women who pretended to be prudes. “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” He laughed
“What makes you think that you’re the only guy?” She tossed back
And all of a sudden, he could only think of three letters that seemed to be flashing in his head.
STD.
He had always been so careful, and he shouldn’t have just assumed that he was the only guy she was sleeping with. And now it wasn’t going to end badly. That would be an awkward conversation with Emil. An even more awkward exam. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to turn his head and cough. Because that would be weird.
“God, Ollie, you’re so fucking gullible”, she said. “But you’re right. We should probably establish some ground rules.”
He leaned back, resting his weight on his elbows. “I’ll warn you now. I’m an excellent negotiator.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to. It’s pretty simple. I really like sex, and I really like having sex with you.”
He smiled. “Yeah, I’ve heard that. But that’s not exactly a rule.”
“Okay, smart ass, here it is. Nothing more than that. We keep it simple.”
“Not looking for the white-picket fence life?” He asked
She shrugged. “Stopped looking for it the instant I was declared dead and woke up in a morgue later.”
And he didn’t have any witty retort or comeback. He didn’t know what to say at all. He was never this quiet, ever. He used to talk to himself on the island, but that got old once he got tired of listening to his own voice.
People were asking him questions all of the time, whether it was in the board room or on camera. He always had an answer, but he didn’t have a speech prepared for the woman in front of him.
“Sorry”, she said, giving him an apologetic smile. “I…did that. Sorry.”
“It’s okay”, he told her. “Simple means, not complicated.”
“Wow”, she laughed. “You should be on tv.”
“What I meant was that simple means no bullshit. No covering up or lying. You gave me a straight up explanation. Nothing wrong with that.”
He watched her stare at a wrinkle on the side of the sheet for a second before she spoke again. “So if I go days without seeing you, and then tell you that it’s because I was busy at work, you wouldn’t care?”
“No.” He answered immediately. “Why, would you care if I went days without seeing you and then told you that it was because I got caught up at work? I know how you women get. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’” He put on a high, squeaky voice at the end.
She smiled and shook her head. “I really like that you’re an ass”, she told him. “Make sure you stay that way, and we shouldn’t have any problems.”
“Don’t worry, I am an ass. And I have a nice one too.”
She rolled her eyes and climbed on top of him, kissing his collar bone and moving up towards his jaw before her phone beeped.
She started to pull away from him, when he grabbed her face and planted a kiss on her lips, deepening it quickly before she pulled back. “Time’s up, and I’ve got to go to work.”
“It’s six in the morning”, he told her.
“Have you noticed the commute yet?”
“Forty horrible minutes”, he agreed. “We’re better off at my place.”
“Too many cameras, and it’s actually an hour and a half commute.” She checked her phone again. “If you want to get to work on time, you should probably leave around now too.”
“What, are you driving the speed limit?” He asked
She turned around as she opened the door. “I’ll see you at the B&B later. See if we can make some old people blush?”
They met at the tiny B&B that she took him to that first time when she knew that it would be a waste to drive all the way to Smallville and then back to Metropolis for a long night at the Planet. It was just out of the city, and he didn’t know if Chloe was friends with the woman who owned the place or what, but they had stayed out of the papers entirely.
“Sure, planning another late night, Sullivan? Wouldn’t kill you to sleep once in a while.”
She froze for a second. “I’m running late, I’ve got to go.”
She was almost out the door when he realized that she was freaking out because he showed a little bit of common decency. He pulled on a pair of boxers and stopped her. “Wait, what just happened?” he asked
She cleared her throat. “What do you mean?”
“I told you to sleep once in a while. I didn’t ask you to marry me. Relax.”
“No, it’s a slippery slope”, she started. “First, you tell me to sleep once in a while, maybe you leave something behind here, we’ll eventually talk about our feelings in some old barn, and oh my god, suddenly we’re in a relationship.”
“First of all, I’m not a fan of chick flick moments, and secondly, I don’t even know where I would find an old barn without breaking into one. The chances of me having a chick flick moment while committing a crime is slim.” He started
She let out a laugh.
“Secondly”, he added. “Everything’s simple, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not friends. And friends are allowed to talk about things other than where they’re going to have sex next. Speaking of, I have a couple of ideas, but since we’re both running a little late for work, that’s for another time.”
She took a breath. “Okay.”
“Good, so I’m going to have a shower, and you’re going to go to work. I’ll see you at the B&B.”
She still stood there slightly awkwardly, almost like she wasn’t sure if she should give him a goodbye kiss. She really didn’t like being too personal, did she?
Oliver gave her a little pat on the ass, and ushered her out the door before heading over to the shower.
He wondered just how right Emil was when he said that her behavior was textbook for a person who could do what she did. His first meeting wasn’t for another couple of hours.
As he was changing back into the clothes that were scattered around the apartment, Oliver realized that Emil would probably know more about these abilities and how she got them. He drove over to the hospital, to find that it was a lot busier than normal.
He walked up to the reception desk, and said hello, ignoring the rolling eyes of the red-head in the back.
“What’s going on?” He asked the larger woman.
“Gun-shot patient came rushing in twenty minutes ago. Dr. Hamilton had to do the surgery, so we had to change around all of his appointments for the day and get some people to come in and cover his patients. Everyone’s a little on edge today”, she warned.
So instead of saving a man or woman from being shot this morning, he was sleeping. Good job, Oliver.
“Who brought him in?”
“I guess it’s that Red-Blue Blur that the papers used mentioned a couple of years ago.”
“The what?” Oliver asked
“Some guy at the Daily Planet caught a Good Samaritan mysteriously saving people a couple of years back. The only evidence that the kid found was a red and blue blur speeding away from the crime.”
“So some guy wearing purple sped away?”
“No, Red and Blue”, the woman answered. “You really are an out-of-towner, aren’t you? He’s one of Metropolis’ mysteries. No one’s heard from him in a while, I guess he’s back. Must have been responsible for that woman randomly showing up here a month ago too.”
The woman? The woman that Oliver got slashed in the leg for? “No, I heard that the woman showing up here was saved by a guy in green.”
“Well, maybe he changed his color then.”
“No”, Oliver corrected. “I think there might be two of them.”
“I really doubt it”, the woman said as the phone rang. “People like that don’t just exist.”
She picked up the phone, and Oliver walked away from reception without another word.
***
There was an in progress museum break-in later that night. Someone had stolen a priceless painting and the Green Arrow was trying to track down the culprits, his composite bow in his hand and loaded. He ran through the hallway, trying to ignore the flickering of the red lights and the incessant noise of the alarm sounding. Focus, Oliver, focus.
Somewhere in this place, there was a group of people trying to haul around a painting. That had to be heavy enough to slow them down. He flipped through different slides on his glasses with the click of a button to get an overview of the blueprints.
Oliver had the nagging feeling that this job would probably be a hell of a lot easier if he had someone helping him out, but unless Emil suddenly became a tech junkie, that idea was a flop. So Oliver kept running, trying to keep the route straight in his mind to avoid circles.
Whoever these guys were, they obviously knew enough to figure out where all of the cameras were. They were all shut off. It saved him time- that’s all he would be thankful for.
At least he knew that the painting was big enough for them to stop them from escaping via the air-ducts. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t use that little trick to help cover more ground. Oliver stuck the arrow back in his quiver, folded up the bow, disassembled one of the vents, and pulled himself into the tiny space. He didn’t bother shining a light around to calm his own claustrophobic nerves.
He pulled out a device, and pressed a couple of buttons, trying to see if the device could wirelessly synch to the cameras so that he could switch them back on now that his identity wasn’t compromised. He put his sunglasses back on and turned on his infrared software to pick up on moving thermal images.
There. Oliver crawled in the direction of the heat signatures and saw them moving towards what looked like the back door. When he ended up a little bit ahead of them, he slid open the cover, and loaded his crossbow with tranquilizer darts, shooting one of the people as they walked past.
He jumped down from the vent, rolling onto the floor, and standing up in front of the group, making sure that his voice distorter was switched on.
“I’d bet a lot of money that that painting doesn’t belong to you”, he said.
“Finders keepers” One of the men said.
Oh, really?
Oliver shot another dart at a person in the back, and waited for the other two to attack him. He threw the one to the left at an empty wall, and grabbed the second one, throwing him down on the floor and punching him in the temple. When the first one recovered from his fall, Oliver pulled out another dart and shot him with it.
He grabbed the painting, changed the screen on his glasses so that he could see where to return it, and inspected the pile of people in front of him. “Sorry guys. Finders keepers.”
Oliver carried the painting gently to the case where it was being held, and was about to get it back in when the blueprint on the side of his glasses disappeared. Before he could wonder what happened to his visual, there was a sudden gust of wind that sent him flying to the wall.
“Well, that’s just not fair”, he said. “I was returning that.”
“Funny. To me, it looks like you’re trying to steal it.”
Oliver got up and looked at the guy in his blue jacket. “What are you doing, trying to score a prom date with a good story? I don’t roll that way, sorry.”
He shot a dart at him, but it didn’t stick. The guy didn’t collapse like they usually did. Oliver never missed. What the hell happened?
Blue jacket, red shirt. Speeding in to save the day. Almost like a Blur.
“You must be the Blur that everyone’s talking about. I’ve got to be honest with you, I think it’s a ridiculous name.”
“There’s a group of people in the next hallway who are knocked out.” The man picked up the dart on the floor, and crushed it in his hand. “And by the looks of it, it’s your doing.”
“They were trying to steal the painting. I saw them with it.”
“Your first instinct was to attack me.”
“You shoved me against the wall! It was self-preservation!”
There was a ringing coming from the man, and he picked up the phone. Oliver picked up the crushed dart on the floor. The titanium tip was crushed where it probably made impact. “I’ve got it.” He heard the man say. “I’m returning it now.”
Oliver scoffed. “Didn’t anyone teach you that lying’s bad?” He grabbed the painting away from the man and stuck it back in the display case.
The man gave him a dirty look before speeding off, and Oliver headed back over to the roof before zip-lining back to his apartment.
***
“What do you know about this Red-Blue Blur guy?” He asked Chloe in bed at the Inn the next day after they had sex.
“The Blur? He hasn’t made an appearance in Metropolis in a while. If you ask me, he doesn’t exist.”
She let out a laugh. “I think it’s actually kind of funny. Jimmy- he’s the guy who wrote the story- I swear he put the blurring colors there on purpose to sell it. He’s a photographer, into special effects and all that. It’s really nothing to look into, Ollie.”
He knew that there was more to it than that. She was ambitious, he at least knew that about her by now. Ambitious enough to not rest if there was the slightest glimmer of a story being there. And it looked like she was giving up a bit too much a story.
“So you don’t think that there are maybe some people who are out saving the people from crime?”
She was silent for a moment before answering. “I think…that it’s a great idea. But it’s just that. An idea.”
Oh, the temptation. Resist it. Don’t tell her that you’re a vigilante just to prove a point. He wished that he had helped that person in the hospital instead of wasting time.
“Yeah, you’re probably right”, he said instead. “I just think that it might be nice. Even though I donate money to charities.” Donate money to charities, jump around rooftops, same thing. “It sometimes just doesn’t feel like I’m doing enough.”
“Does this usually work for you?” she asked
“What?”
“The self-pitying thing. Does it usually work for you? Be all deep and emotional and women just fall at your feet?”
So much for trying to open up a little bit, even if Oliver didn’t know why he was trying to. Probably a thing that friends did, except friends were rarely naked together.
“Why, is it working on you?” He asked, kissing her. “Does self-pitying get you hot?”
“Nah”, she said, kissing his collarbone. “But this does.” She climbed on top of him and kissed him. He grabbed her and switched places so that he was on top, but she just kept pushing him to the bottom.
They were both so focused on being in control that they both toppled out of bed onto the floor, laughing.