Fic: Shelter from the Storm: But If You Close Your Eyes (Arrow)
Title: But If You Close Your Eyes
Fandom: Arrow
Rating: T
Genres: het
Summary: Lyla and John, after the events in Blast Radius.
A/N: Ah, yes, finally. This one took me a bit longer because I coudn't seem to figure out how much Lyla knows about Team Arrow and Digg's part in it (was it ever mentioned? Like, I know that Amanda Waller knows about it and that Lyla is one of her most important agents but that doesn't mean that she'd have to tell her everything she knows about Oliver and John, right?) and I hope I did it right (also, I hope we're going to see her again this season, and it better not be because she and Digg break up, okay?). Also, a great many thanks to sajina because she sacrificed a few brain cells and found usable quotes from Fifty Shades of Grey for me. Thank you!
And, err, enjoy?
But If You Close Your Eyes
“And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love
Grey clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above
But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You've been here before?”
Bastille, “Pompeii”
So you just finished your first mission in the field after Russia and you’d never tell anyone but when you stepped off the Air Force C-130 A.R.G.U.S. put you on in the disguise of a soldier just back from her latest deployment to Djibouti, you could have really done without the debriefing. Especially when they told you that some madman just nearly blew up a plaza in Starling City.
That is, if every security agency’s best friend, the Arrow, hadn’t stopped the guy yet again. You just wished they’d have let you analyze the press coverage and security camera feeds to confirm a theory of yours; a theory that has been steadily building up ever since Russia. You were asleep for most of the flight back and you were in pain and pretty sure they’d also pumped something to keep you subdued into your veins in Koshmar but you weren’t blind.
You saw who climbed into the jeep that took you away from Koshmar with you and you saw that it was the rich boy that John is supposed to babysit. Wearing a Russian police uniform and maybe your brain was addled by pain and fatigue and drugs but you sure as hell saw who downed the armed guards outside the prison.
Yes, you have a few theories about Oliver Queen and being forced on light duty for over four weeks didn’t help with that, either. A few times you were tempted to directly confront John about it but you like this newfound closeness too much to sacrifice it for your curiosity. You’ll probably go through the footage about the shooting again, anyway.
But you won’t do that now because it’s oh dark hundred and you can still feel Djibouti all over you. You washed off the sweat and sand and grime of six days in East Africa in an A.R.G.U.S. shower and the feeling of failure and shame of losing Lawton’s trail again in the A.R.G.U.S. debriefing room but you still felt it a little harder than usually to strip off the mission at the front gate. Everyone has bad days, don’t they?
Or at least that’s a more comfortable explanation than anything having to do with Russia.
More logical, too. Russia wasn’t the first time you fucked up, neither in your time in the Army, nor as an agent. It wasn’t even the worst fuck up. It was just the first time you got burned. On the plane home, John told you about how it was Waller that got him involved, in a shady snag and bag op, before he gave you a kiss on the forehead and told you to call if there was anything you wanted or needed. You were nearly exhausted enough to tell him that you wanted nothing more than to fall asleep with him right next to you on that bed in the back of the Queen company jet but you were also so exhausted that you’d started to believe that “Always have, always will” was a trick your fucked up mind played on you.
You smile as you drag yourself up to your apartment. You woke up at some point, startled and disoriented, your heart pounding hard against your ribcage and a steady, velvety voice murmuring, “Just a dream, Lyla. You’re safe now,” in the twilight of a darkened plane. It nearly gave you a heart attack at first but then your eyes adjusted to the low lighting and you saw him sitting in a seat by the window opposite the bed.
You put your head back on the pillow and curled up under sheets that probably cost more than you make in a month and maybe it was the semi-dark or the aftermath of a nightmare you still don’t remember messing with your head but you kind of extended your hand towards him, fingertips curling into the sheet and because he’s John Diggle, he didn’t even ask, just got up and walked over to the bed, laid down and put his arms around you as if nothing changed ever since he did so for the last time before you called it quits.
When he held you, you could feel that he wanted to hold you tight, shield you, protect you and even half asleep you had the suspicion that he needed to do it as much for himself as for you. It scared you that you didn’t mind at all.
You’re in front of your door now and you wonder if walking up the stairs was always this exhausting but it’s easy to tell yourself that you’re not twenty-two anymore and that you just spent six days in a place everyone just abbreviates to SHD. Well then, you think and unlock your door, your senses going alert the moment the lock clicks. Someone’s inside and you keep your gun in your hands until you see John’s shoes placed against the wall in your hall.
Forcing yourself to relax, you put away your gun, drop your bag and your jacket along with it and walk into the living room. There he is, sitting on your couch, feet propped up on your coffee table, another paperback in his left hand… and his right in a sling.
You really need to get a hold of that security camera footage.
“So,” you say, “I leave you alone for a mere six days and you manage to get yourself beaten up?”
Before he answers, he closes the paperback - a hot spike of embarrassment pushes through your veins because you can’t believe that you left that one lying around out in the open when you knew that you aren’t the only one who can pick locks in this relationship - and gives you one of his patented “Trying to fuck with me, Captain?” looks that even back in Afghanistan only served to make you want him harder. Then, “Shot up, actually.”
Shot… it’s too late at night and you’re too winded after a too long flight for that shit. You consider actually going off on him for getting himself fucking shot up but in the end, you only have enough energy left for walking into your bedroom, putting your gun in the safe and changing into something a little more comfortable than your present clothes. While you pull out a pair of sweat pants and a yoga shirt from your dresser, you can hear him getting up and coming over and you’re pretty sure that the only reason that you can hear it is that you don’t freak out when you hear him say, “Just a through and through, Lyla. No reason to get pissed off about it,” from behind you.
Suddenly tired of all the shit the job threw at you in Djibouti, you turn around and the bits of your anger that were still left fizzle out when you see him leaning against the jamb of your bedroom’s door. The only light is coming from behind him but you can somehow see in the way he stands, the way he subconsciously cradles the arm in the sling with his uninjured one. He’s tired, too and it’s probably more than just the painkillers. If he even took them.
You want to ask him if he’s okay but you know that he’ll just give you a useless affirmative, so you walk over to him and give him a kiss, standing on your tiptoes, careful with the arm in the sling. He reacts instantaneously, leaning down and putting his good hand behind your neck and you realize that things really haven’t changed that much altogether since you kissed him in a seedy, half broken down mud hut in Helmand after not seeing him for ten days straight after you shared your quarters with him for the first time.
He breaks the kiss after not half enough time but you still don’t miss your cue to prompt, “Now that is a much better welcome.”
The first thing he does is smirk at you, in that infuriating way of his, as if he knows something that only he alone knows, something embarrassing about you and it’s not really a surprise to you that the next thing he does is say a little off-handedly, “You know… your taste in books still really sucks.” Right. Old habits die hard. You knew that, of course. “Fifty Shades of Grey? Really, Agent Michaels?” And you probably deserved that, too.
Of course you know that it’s mostly meant to keep you from asking about what kind of life the rich boy he babysits leads if it ends up with him coming home bone tired and/or sporting one or more bruises, broken skin and broken bones every so often. Of course you know that he knows that you know that.
There’s no reason, though, not to give him what he wants, so you squeeze past him, towards your kitchen to get something to drink and throw, “What if I told you it was for research?” over your shoulder.
You’re not sure how that got out because let’s face it, neither of you is a bore in bed but you definitely do not read that stuff as inspiration. You’re not really sure why you read it but… “I’d tell you to get better resources than this.”
Oh. Oh good. Turns out that it takes only one hand on your hip and that same low, velvety voice that has been calmly getting you back into the here and now after another nightmare ever since Afghanistan to wonder if he wouldn’t mind providing resources after all.
But you’re tired and as much as you like it when he puts an arm around your waist and kisses the crook of your neck from behind, you don’t feel in shape for anything besides maybe a glass of wine and falling asleep curled up to him on the couch. And he sure doesn’t look to be, either. You’ve both been past your early twenties for a while now.
You pull the cap off the bottle, turning around and making face. “Judging much, Johnny?”
He gives you another smirk, this time indicating that he knows very well that you haven’t been serious, at all. “Just looking out for you.”
“How considerate of you, Mr. Diggle,” you reply, pouring about half an inch for yourself and then offering him a second glass. He declines and opts for a bottle of water from your fridge, so maybe he did take the painkillers after all. When it comes down to it, John Diggle is still one of the most sensible men you know. You take entirely too much comfort in that knowledge.
You make your way over to your couch and he resumes his place at one end, neatly giving you his entire left side to curl up against, glass in your hand, taking a little sip and you realize you must have opened the bottle of ridiculously expensive 2008 German Pinot Noir that came with a note from one Oliver Queen suggesting that even though it’s not John’s brand of drink, maybe you’d enjoy it, about a week after Russia. You decide not to comment on it.
Instead, you carefully put it back on your coffee table and look at John and you realize that he’s more tired than you thought and that the sight of his arm in a sling is doing worse things to you than you first thought, now that you’re firmly back home and Djibouti’s starting to fade into your operational memory, the one that you keep firmly away from everything you don’t do for A.R.G.U.S. It occurs to you that you both could use a bit of cheering up before going to bed.
So you grin and reach past him towards that offending piece of literature and you’re glad to see that he still tries to put up a bit of a fight before you can claim your prize with a little triumphant laugh and you’re glad that you keep making sure than none of your fellow agents see you in your home persona. You worked too hard to let them see anything but proficiency, determination and drive.
“Okay then,” you say and you feel his groan of desperation reverberate through his entire body. Pity that you’re both so tired, you think and ignore the other continuing sounds of protest as you try to keep a straight face while reading out loud, “I had no idea giving pleasure could be such a turn-on,” alright, screw that straight face, anyway, “No, no, wait, it’s getting even better. I had no idea giving pleasure could be such a turn-on, watching him writhe subtly with carnal longing.”
“Really?” he says, sounding genuinely disbelieving and even a bit of horrified, “Carnal longing?”
You ignore him and just plow on with, “My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves,” but that’s really as far as you get the second time around because he somehow manages to snatch the book away from you and the only reason you don’t immediately disarm him with something really painful is the bullet wound he somehow managed to acquire today.
Instead you try to wrestle the book away from him half-heartedly but before you can resort to dirty tactics that involve kissing and your hand under his shirt, he throws the book on the coffee table and makes you laugh hard enough that you’re out of commission just long enough for him to snatch it back and turn to a random page. You still rue the day you told him about the one spot right above your hip that you are ticklish at.
“Okay,” he says, “you wanna read that shit tonight, we’re gonna do it my way.”
Oh right, you want to say, who made you king around this place but you figure he’d probably just make some quip related to being the one with an arm in a sling here and you really don’t want to be reminded of that more than absolutely necessary, so you simply settle back against him and fold your legs on the couch, so that he can use your knee as a support for the book in his hand. “Alright,” you tell him, “knock yourself out.”
You feel him take a deep breath and you consider saying something about getting more than you bargained for and “Hey, that’s not where I stopped!” but in the end, it’s absolutely irrelevant anyway when he starts reading out the ridiculousness that is Fifty Shades of Grey.
At first, both of you can’t stop laughing and you take turns, taking on the roles of Miss Steele and Mr. Grey but then you feel Djibouti coming back to take its due and it’s enough for you to listen to him softly reciting from your guilty pleasure with your eyes closed. Right now, he could read from the phone book and you’d still be feeling the same drowsiness slowly soaking your body.
Once, in Afghanistan, you thought that was a bad thing. Once, in Afghanistan, you thought closing your eyes and giving in to peace would get you both killed. Once, at Fort Bragg, you forgot how to unlearn keeping your eyes open and staying alert always and forever and it killed your marriage.
Once, in Russia, you got a second chance you’re still not sure you deserve.
So you think, as you bury a little deeper into his embrace and you feel him put a kiss on the top of your head, maybe one day I’ll ask him what kind of life Oliver Queen leads that gets his bodyguard wounded in one way or the other so often. Today is not that day, though. Today, you close your eyes and forget about the world outside because all that counts is right here with you, right now. You are determined not to let it go again and that’s really all you can do, anyway.
Fandom: Arrow
Rating: T
Genres: het
Summary: Lyla and John, after the events in Blast Radius.
A/N: Ah, yes, finally. This one took me a bit longer because I coudn't seem to figure out how much Lyla knows about Team Arrow and Digg's part in it (was it ever mentioned? Like, I know that Amanda Waller knows about it and that Lyla is one of her most important agents but that doesn't mean that she'd have to tell her everything she knows about Oliver and John, right?) and I hope I did it right (also, I hope we're going to see her again this season, and it better not be because she and Digg break up, okay?). Also, a great many thanks to sajina because she sacrificed a few brain cells and found usable quotes from Fifty Shades of Grey for me. Thank you!
And, err, enjoy?
But If You Close Your Eyes
“And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love
Grey clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above
But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You've been here before?”
Bastille, “Pompeii”
So you just finished your first mission in the field after Russia and you’d never tell anyone but when you stepped off the Air Force C-130 A.R.G.U.S. put you on in the disguise of a soldier just back from her latest deployment to Djibouti, you could have really done without the debriefing. Especially when they told you that some madman just nearly blew up a plaza in Starling City.
That is, if every security agency’s best friend, the Arrow, hadn’t stopped the guy yet again. You just wished they’d have let you analyze the press coverage and security camera feeds to confirm a theory of yours; a theory that has been steadily building up ever since Russia. You were asleep for most of the flight back and you were in pain and pretty sure they’d also pumped something to keep you subdued into your veins in Koshmar but you weren’t blind.
You saw who climbed into the jeep that took you away from Koshmar with you and you saw that it was the rich boy that John is supposed to babysit. Wearing a Russian police uniform and maybe your brain was addled by pain and fatigue and drugs but you sure as hell saw who downed the armed guards outside the prison.
Yes, you have a few theories about Oliver Queen and being forced on light duty for over four weeks didn’t help with that, either. A few times you were tempted to directly confront John about it but you like this newfound closeness too much to sacrifice it for your curiosity. You’ll probably go through the footage about the shooting again, anyway.
But you won’t do that now because it’s oh dark hundred and you can still feel Djibouti all over you. You washed off the sweat and sand and grime of six days in East Africa in an A.R.G.U.S. shower and the feeling of failure and shame of losing Lawton’s trail again in the A.R.G.U.S. debriefing room but you still felt it a little harder than usually to strip off the mission at the front gate. Everyone has bad days, don’t they?
Or at least that’s a more comfortable explanation than anything having to do with Russia.
More logical, too. Russia wasn’t the first time you fucked up, neither in your time in the Army, nor as an agent. It wasn’t even the worst fuck up. It was just the first time you got burned. On the plane home, John told you about how it was Waller that got him involved, in a shady snag and bag op, before he gave you a kiss on the forehead and told you to call if there was anything you wanted or needed. You were nearly exhausted enough to tell him that you wanted nothing more than to fall asleep with him right next to you on that bed in the back of the Queen company jet but you were also so exhausted that you’d started to believe that “Always have, always will” was a trick your fucked up mind played on you.
You smile as you drag yourself up to your apartment. You woke up at some point, startled and disoriented, your heart pounding hard against your ribcage and a steady, velvety voice murmuring, “Just a dream, Lyla. You’re safe now,” in the twilight of a darkened plane. It nearly gave you a heart attack at first but then your eyes adjusted to the low lighting and you saw him sitting in a seat by the window opposite the bed.
You put your head back on the pillow and curled up under sheets that probably cost more than you make in a month and maybe it was the semi-dark or the aftermath of a nightmare you still don’t remember messing with your head but you kind of extended your hand towards him, fingertips curling into the sheet and because he’s John Diggle, he didn’t even ask, just got up and walked over to the bed, laid down and put his arms around you as if nothing changed ever since he did so for the last time before you called it quits.
When he held you, you could feel that he wanted to hold you tight, shield you, protect you and even half asleep you had the suspicion that he needed to do it as much for himself as for you. It scared you that you didn’t mind at all.
You’re in front of your door now and you wonder if walking up the stairs was always this exhausting but it’s easy to tell yourself that you’re not twenty-two anymore and that you just spent six days in a place everyone just abbreviates to SHD. Well then, you think and unlock your door, your senses going alert the moment the lock clicks. Someone’s inside and you keep your gun in your hands until you see John’s shoes placed against the wall in your hall.
Forcing yourself to relax, you put away your gun, drop your bag and your jacket along with it and walk into the living room. There he is, sitting on your couch, feet propped up on your coffee table, another paperback in his left hand… and his right in a sling.
You really need to get a hold of that security camera footage.
“So,” you say, “I leave you alone for a mere six days and you manage to get yourself beaten up?”
Before he answers, he closes the paperback - a hot spike of embarrassment pushes through your veins because you can’t believe that you left that one lying around out in the open when you knew that you aren’t the only one who can pick locks in this relationship - and gives you one of his patented “Trying to fuck with me, Captain?” looks that even back in Afghanistan only served to make you want him harder. Then, “Shot up, actually.”
Shot… it’s too late at night and you’re too winded after a too long flight for that shit. You consider actually going off on him for getting himself fucking shot up but in the end, you only have enough energy left for walking into your bedroom, putting your gun in the safe and changing into something a little more comfortable than your present clothes. While you pull out a pair of sweat pants and a yoga shirt from your dresser, you can hear him getting up and coming over and you’re pretty sure that the only reason that you can hear it is that you don’t freak out when you hear him say, “Just a through and through, Lyla. No reason to get pissed off about it,” from behind you.
Suddenly tired of all the shit the job threw at you in Djibouti, you turn around and the bits of your anger that were still left fizzle out when you see him leaning against the jamb of your bedroom’s door. The only light is coming from behind him but you can somehow see in the way he stands, the way he subconsciously cradles the arm in the sling with his uninjured one. He’s tired, too and it’s probably more than just the painkillers. If he even took them.
You want to ask him if he’s okay but you know that he’ll just give you a useless affirmative, so you walk over to him and give him a kiss, standing on your tiptoes, careful with the arm in the sling. He reacts instantaneously, leaning down and putting his good hand behind your neck and you realize that things really haven’t changed that much altogether since you kissed him in a seedy, half broken down mud hut in Helmand after not seeing him for ten days straight after you shared your quarters with him for the first time.
He breaks the kiss after not half enough time but you still don’t miss your cue to prompt, “Now that is a much better welcome.”
The first thing he does is smirk at you, in that infuriating way of his, as if he knows something that only he alone knows, something embarrassing about you and it’s not really a surprise to you that the next thing he does is say a little off-handedly, “You know… your taste in books still really sucks.” Right. Old habits die hard. You knew that, of course. “Fifty Shades of Grey? Really, Agent Michaels?” And you probably deserved that, too.
Of course you know that it’s mostly meant to keep you from asking about what kind of life the rich boy he babysits leads if it ends up with him coming home bone tired and/or sporting one or more bruises, broken skin and broken bones every so often. Of course you know that he knows that you know that.
There’s no reason, though, not to give him what he wants, so you squeeze past him, towards your kitchen to get something to drink and throw, “What if I told you it was for research?” over your shoulder.
You’re not sure how that got out because let’s face it, neither of you is a bore in bed but you definitely do not read that stuff as inspiration. You’re not really sure why you read it but… “I’d tell you to get better resources than this.”
Oh. Oh good. Turns out that it takes only one hand on your hip and that same low, velvety voice that has been calmly getting you back into the here and now after another nightmare ever since Afghanistan to wonder if he wouldn’t mind providing resources after all.
But you’re tired and as much as you like it when he puts an arm around your waist and kisses the crook of your neck from behind, you don’t feel in shape for anything besides maybe a glass of wine and falling asleep curled up to him on the couch. And he sure doesn’t look to be, either. You’ve both been past your early twenties for a while now.
You pull the cap off the bottle, turning around and making face. “Judging much, Johnny?”
He gives you another smirk, this time indicating that he knows very well that you haven’t been serious, at all. “Just looking out for you.”
“How considerate of you, Mr. Diggle,” you reply, pouring about half an inch for yourself and then offering him a second glass. He declines and opts for a bottle of water from your fridge, so maybe he did take the painkillers after all. When it comes down to it, John Diggle is still one of the most sensible men you know. You take entirely too much comfort in that knowledge.
You make your way over to your couch and he resumes his place at one end, neatly giving you his entire left side to curl up against, glass in your hand, taking a little sip and you realize you must have opened the bottle of ridiculously expensive 2008 German Pinot Noir that came with a note from one Oliver Queen suggesting that even though it’s not John’s brand of drink, maybe you’d enjoy it, about a week after Russia. You decide not to comment on it.
Instead, you carefully put it back on your coffee table and look at John and you realize that he’s more tired than you thought and that the sight of his arm in a sling is doing worse things to you than you first thought, now that you’re firmly back home and Djibouti’s starting to fade into your operational memory, the one that you keep firmly away from everything you don’t do for A.R.G.U.S. It occurs to you that you both could use a bit of cheering up before going to bed.
So you grin and reach past him towards that offending piece of literature and you’re glad to see that he still tries to put up a bit of a fight before you can claim your prize with a little triumphant laugh and you’re glad that you keep making sure than none of your fellow agents see you in your home persona. You worked too hard to let them see anything but proficiency, determination and drive.
“Okay then,” you say and you feel his groan of desperation reverberate through his entire body. Pity that you’re both so tired, you think and ignore the other continuing sounds of protest as you try to keep a straight face while reading out loud, “I had no idea giving pleasure could be such a turn-on,” alright, screw that straight face, anyway, “No, no, wait, it’s getting even better. I had no idea giving pleasure could be such a turn-on, watching him writhe subtly with carnal longing.”
“Really?” he says, sounding genuinely disbelieving and even a bit of horrified, “Carnal longing?”
You ignore him and just plow on with, “My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves,” but that’s really as far as you get the second time around because he somehow manages to snatch the book away from you and the only reason you don’t immediately disarm him with something really painful is the bullet wound he somehow managed to acquire today.
Instead you try to wrestle the book away from him half-heartedly but before you can resort to dirty tactics that involve kissing and your hand under his shirt, he throws the book on the coffee table and makes you laugh hard enough that you’re out of commission just long enough for him to snatch it back and turn to a random page. You still rue the day you told him about the one spot right above your hip that you are ticklish at.
“Okay,” he says, “you wanna read that shit tonight, we’re gonna do it my way.”
Oh right, you want to say, who made you king around this place but you figure he’d probably just make some quip related to being the one with an arm in a sling here and you really don’t want to be reminded of that more than absolutely necessary, so you simply settle back against him and fold your legs on the couch, so that he can use your knee as a support for the book in his hand. “Alright,” you tell him, “knock yourself out.”
You feel him take a deep breath and you consider saying something about getting more than you bargained for and “Hey, that’s not where I stopped!” but in the end, it’s absolutely irrelevant anyway when he starts reading out the ridiculousness that is Fifty Shades of Grey.
At first, both of you can’t stop laughing and you take turns, taking on the roles of Miss Steele and Mr. Grey but then you feel Djibouti coming back to take its due and it’s enough for you to listen to him softly reciting from your guilty pleasure with your eyes closed. Right now, he could read from the phone book and you’d still be feeling the same drowsiness slowly soaking your body.
Once, in Afghanistan, you thought that was a bad thing. Once, in Afghanistan, you thought closing your eyes and giving in to peace would get you both killed. Once, at Fort Bragg, you forgot how to unlearn keeping your eyes open and staying alert always and forever and it killed your marriage.
Once, in Russia, you got a second chance you’re still not sure you deserve.
So you think, as you bury a little deeper into his embrace and you feel him put a kiss on the top of your head, maybe one day I’ll ask him what kind of life Oliver Queen leads that gets his bodyguard wounded in one way or the other so often. Today is not that day, though. Today, you close your eyes and forget about the world outside because all that counts is right here with you, right now. You are determined not to let it go again and that’s really all you can do, anyway.