open post for pic prompts, starters, and texts. f/m or f/f for shipping. see here for more permissions. please link nsfw images. compatible with all seasons of wynonna earp.
I might've maybe had reason to hear about it before. [ And she, in turn, is keeping her tone light, breezy, limited to the kind of casual flirting she tends to fall back on that can be as much of a defense mechanism as it is to prevent herself from treading into certain territory faster than she's ready for. Her face, however, is more of a giveaway, breath halting somewhat as she pivots back to face him where he's seated, hands coming to brace down against the bartop as she briefly studies him in profile.
He's changed, she knows he has; he doesn't need to tell her anything for her to see that, because the hints of it play across his face even when he glances away from her. She hasn't had to look long and hard to see that he hasn't been seeking out the company of those he knows from home — with Felicity a shared friend between them, she's heard that side of things too — but she's positive that it remains more complicated than she'll ever likely know. And maybe, right now, he doesn't want complicated, and she gets that too.
If she stopped to think, really paused and thought about it, she'd realize that being on the receiving end of that stare, wavering as it is sometimes, still makes a subtle heat unfurl low within her, to say nothing of how her body unconsciously responds to his question, fingers curving against the wood beneath her hands, between them, and suddenly all she can think about now is how to pass the time until those, well, about seventeen minutes or so are up. It's nothing explicit, because that's just not them, but it's enough to do something for her.
She nods once, a quick jerking of her head, because she doesn't really see the point in hedging her answer when honesty will work better in her favor. ]
Think we might be overdue for some catching up, anyway.
( he keeps felicity as close as he can — miles away from him, clear on the other side of the city ( until she isn’t ). he’s capable of surviving this way because of the chain around his neck with his wedding band on it, perpetually hanging near to his heart. enduring here, dreaming of some day arriving at living means putting parts of yourself away. she needed to do that. oliver will need to before he’s through and he suspects that wynonna is no different. she makes it look like a cakewalk but he’d bet money ( if he had any ) that there are aspects of duplicity that chafe against her softer edges.
wynonna’s hands are a point of fascination for him. they’re always moving. that in and of itself captures him, creature of paranoia that he is, and while her hands are more than capable of making the transformation into weapons, she seems to use them more for telegraphing things. what, precisely, he’s still pinpointing. he nudges his glass forward with his knuckles, pushing it towards her side of the bar and stops when he's close enough to brush his pinky against her thumb; he doesn't. he's tempted. )
Something like that. ( he withdraws, fishing in his pocket for his wallet and settles up with borrowed money. he scrubs a hand over the lower half of his face, rubs his mouth, before announcing: ) I'll be outside. I could use the air. Come find me when you— ( get off, really? ) When you're through in here.
( what? it's the truth. he does need the cool breeze on his skin. also, if he's outside she can't refuse payment for the drinks, someone else will swipe it if she does. that's simply that, except for the glance he casts over his shoulder on the way out the front door. it's a lingering look and maybe, if she's observant, she'll catch that they flick downward and take in more than her face. he may not be lewd but he's only subtle when something requires a delicate touch. he's generally fairly straight forward in what he's after. when she does come looking for him, assuming she doesn't slip out the back, he'll be leaning over the railing outside or leaning against a wall ( or whatever the exterior happens to lend itself to ). )
[ She likes to joke that she works at the bar because it's one of the few things she's actually skilled at — after years of drinking alcohol, she's bound to have picked up a few tricks for serving it along the way, right? — but the truth is she needs a place like this to ground her, a room that bears enough reminders of Shorty's back home to tether her amidst the chaos, the sex-fueled mindset that seems to plague whoever runs this city. Yet somehow she's found real connection here too, in spite of it all or maybe because of it, those people who have been thrust into a less-than-ideal situation needing those cornerstones to reach for.
She'd tried the emptiness routine when she first got here, tried losing herself in a pattern of too much drinking and casual sex, but all it had served to do was make her feel more and more like she was abandoning her purpose. Now, with people she cares about here — not just Waverly and Dolls, but the ones who don't exist for her back home as far as she knows: Frank, Felicity, Sam, Quill, Oliver — she's got more to endure for, more to roll out of bed for, more to consider when she thinks about her designation and what that means for the ones she needs to be looking out for. And maybe, every now and then, that involves shutting her brain off and not thinking about any of it. It doesn't mean she'll tune it out forever, but for the next few hours at least, she doesn't need to wallow.
Really, it doesn't take much to care about Oliver Queen; it takes even less to be curious about what he's thinking, and he doesn't stray far from her thought as she works through the end of her shift, definitely replaying the gaze he'd left her on the receiving end of (had she imagined that brief sweep down over the length of her, or not?), and by the time she clocks out and fetches her coat from the office, shrugging it over her shoulders and sliding a hand beneath her hair to clear it from the collar, he's there waiting for her.
She isn't quite holding her breath on approach, but she's very conscious of the lack of a bar between them now as she stops to stand in front of where he's leaning, tilting her head back to glance up at him under the streetlights and resisting the urge to shove her hands into her jacket pockets. ] Found you.
I had every faith that you would. ( light but with conviction. intensity tends to seep out of him, he’s trying to keep somewhat of a handle on that. he pushes away from the rail and straightens up, also acutely aware of the lack of a divider between them. they’ve always had something to fall back on: running, sparring, dancing, drinks. there aren’t any distractions left. it’s oliver and wynonna, and the night. just because he’s had a fair amount of time to put himself back together and cool off ( so to speak ) doesn’t mean he’s taken himself out of the mindset he’d been in on that stool. )
Do you want to get out of here? ( he presents wynonna with the crook of his elbow, raising his arm; she doesn’t have to take it and loop her arm through his but he’ll give her a few moments to decide. whichever she chooses, he wants to travel away from the 13th step and head somewhere else. destination anywhere, just somewhere less populated.
oliver likes wynonna’s company. he’d enjoyed her presence before he knew her and while there’s still so much to learn and absorb and take in, he trusts her. for keeping felicity close, for being a friend to her, for being there for him, and for never making anything that cropped up seem like as huge of a deal as it could have been. as a man that’s seemingly vetted his friends and allies, that’s a vital quality to him. )
There’s just one thing I have to tell you first. ( it’s time, isn’t it? star city knows and it goes beyond that with the fbi involved, who he is and what he’s done is known nationally. ( and truthfully, if this progresses the way he hopes and he loses his shirt, the amount of scars on his body isn’t going to match up with: i took a few self-defense classes. ) this can go any number of ways and perhaps he doesn't owe her this explanation because he'd never planned to stick around long enough for anyone to find out, but he wants to. ) When we were sharing our collective pasts, I didn't tell you everything. I'm not a philanthropist and I'm definitely not a pacifist.
Although, I did get elected for mayor somewhere in there, so... ( kinda wishy-washy hand gesture? not a total lie? jesus, why is he so bad at this? he's kept this from a dozen people and he's had to drop the truth bomb on all of them; he should have a perfected speech. ) What I'm trying to say is that this is me. This guy you've gotten to know. It's a part of who I am, but the bigger part is the Green Arrow. I'm a ( super hero??? shut the front door. ) —vigilante. And I should have told you that a long time ago, before you were willing to draft up a contract with me. But I'm telling you now, Wynonna.
( and he's prepared for anger, annoyance, her being upset, or point blank laughing in his face. )
[ There it is, that seemingly all-too-easy rhythm they manage to fall into — conversationally-speaking, of course, because she can't speak to any other rhythm between them save for those times they step into the ring down in the Arena, those fights marked by just the right timing and the uncanny sense she can't seem to shake that he's still holding back from giving her one hundred percent in that scenario, not that she can actually prove that he's pulling his punches or has even directly called him out aside from a few sidelong glances. Besides, maybe she's been keeping herself at a distance too, letting the drinking and the sparring serve as a substitute for getting too close, letting him feel like he's got the space to breathe whenever he does want to do the actual talking thing.
He offers her his arm and she doesn't know what it says about her that she actually considers taking it; there's almost no hesitation in her glancing down to view the held-out crook of his arm and the moment when her fingers twitch at her side, like she almost may not stuff her hands away before giving one to him instead, to create a further tether between them in the time it takes them to go from here to anywhere else, but the second she actually ditches thinking about it and decides to just do it, his follow-up stills her altogether.
And she almost makes a crack before he can get through his spiel ("no wait, don't tell me, you've got a deep dark secret you've been hiding from me this whole time"), but the more he goes on the more she realizes that maybe she's veered a little closer to the truth in her perception, however teasing, than she realized. He ventures that confession out loud and it all hits her like a ton of bricks in terms of how the puzzle pieces start to slot together, everything he's told her that hadn't added up before doing it all at once now, and for a few seconds all she can do is look at him dumbly, gaze sweeping over him and then back up to his face, trying to reconcile what he's telling her with what she'd seen, sensed even — and finally she just pushes out a breath, soft and slow and between slightly pursed lips. ]
Uh, okay. You're gonna need to give me a minute here, just to — to process all of — [ She gestures to him with the hand that would have reached out to slip through that extended arm, vaguely indicating his entire situation before her hand smacks back down against her thigh. ] — this.
[ Granted, he is talking to the girl for whom demons are a regular phenomenon, literally on the days ending in Y, so in the grand scheme of things a guy with basically a superhero moniker — shut up, he's totally a superhero, don't deny it — and a penchant for inhabiting the midnight hour isn't really that difficult for her to wrap her head around. ]
Goddamn it. Everything makes sense now. It's — [ And she does laugh, now, but it comes out more as a slightly dazed chuckle while she shakes her head, somehow understanding but still partly at a loss — and then she reaches out to gently prod her fingers against his shoulder, a shove of protest. ]
Okay, why the shift into honesty hour? I'm not naive enough to think it completely has to do with the fact that we were just in there hinting around between-the-sheets action.
Take as much time as you need. ( something to put out there. obviously, she doesn’t need his permission to deal with what he’s confessing after omitting it. he nods and lowers his arm, hands at his side, resolute in his patience. he’s been here before and while nearly every time holds crippling fear ( what will happen, who it will hurt ), he isn’t afraid. every single person in his life knows. he’s been held accountable for his actions and decisions, his duplicitous life, and he’s tried more recently to act in the light of day. he looks down at the ground, their feet, biding his time. he won’t rush this. just because he assumes wynonna is capable of handling and accepting the truth does not mean that she has to get on his projected timeline to do it — if she ever does.
she laughs and he looks up, allowing a smidgen of hope to slip through. he rocks with the shove but overall, he takes it and remains planted in front of her. how does he even begin to answer that? he rolls his bottom lip between his teeth to hide a smile at being called out and the rush of being put under a spotlight is like being stuck with pins and needles. )
That’s not completely why, no. ( he rubs at the side of his face, like he can physically force the words out. ) When I left, I went home to Star City and for me at least, years went by. ( from the way that he’s heard it, he’s been missing from this city for mere months. ) My secret doesn’t belong to me anymore. I turned myself in on national television and because of that, because of the deal I made, I went to prison. When I got out, I worked alongside the SCPD — I was deputized. ( he shrugs. ) I've changed since the last time you saw me. I'm not living in the shadows anymore. I don't really see the point of going back into them here.
( he has kids. )
You're the first person I've told about what I remember from home. ( he crosses his arms then, not because he's drawing some imaginary line between them. it's an unconscious action, one meant to bind the mixed emotions he's experiencing. he knows what he's placing at her feet or wrapping around her shoulders. oliver's not asking her to keep it for him, to be complicit in his burial of the truth, but he's also not not asking her. ) Considering the kinds of choices we're forced to make and the secrets about us that come to light, I thought I'd be upfront with you this time around. I don't want to hide who I am from you.
( a forced admission of sorts but then again, oliver feels it's long overdue. )
I would have told you, at or after the fort. ( no, but it would have come out in very violent and telling ways, so same difference. )
Edited (i forgot to finish a damn sentence :|) 2019-06-24 06:20 (UTC)
[ It's not the first time Wynonna's heard a story like this one — when Frank disappeared for only a week, he went back and somehow managed to live a whole year out on the other side, came back to the return of all of his memories from this place and plenty of new ones added in to boot. They haven't gone into all the ins and outs of what he went through there, but she's seen enough to know that it's changed him, helped him to bury some ghosts in the process, brought him back to her more whole than he was before he left. But he also doesn't have those touchstones from his past here to wrestle through, people who don't necessarily know what's to come from a future they haven't yet lived.
And so she can't help thinking that this might be the reason she's the one hearing the truth from Oliver now — because it's not her world he's telling her about, because she doesn't come from a place that knows the Green Arrow or what he'd given up in finally owning up to his other half. He tells it to her straight and in one sense, she appreciates it more than he might realize; she's used to people hedging the truth, stopping just short of actually being fully honest with her, and regardless of how long it's taken him, how much he might've weighed over whether or not to reveal this to her before actually doing it, the point is that he's doing it now without any caveats or attempts to downplay it.
She can see how much it's taking from him to even get this far out loud, the folding of his arms across his front reading very much like what she tries to do to close herself off when she's trying to grit through the truth, the unspoken part that's requesting she keep it buried from their mutuals — at least as long as he decides to withhold it on his end — and she presses out another sigh, idly casting her gaze down the street ahead of them for somewhere to put it that isn't his face. ]
Not to make this sound like any kind of corny line, but — [ When she reaches out to him finally, it's to curve her hand around his forearm where he's still got them folded across his chest, an imperceptible squeeze that only the two of them are going to pick up on. ] The truth goes a long way. Regardless of however long it takes you to feel comfortable with saying it, the point is that you said it, so — thank you.
[ Okay, maybe she's lightly trying to pry his arms free after a beat so she can sway closer into his space, but she isn't moving to do anything beyond the small circle of her fingers around his wrist — a small tug, a promise on her end. ] You don't need to worry about hiding, alright? Not with me.
( full picture: there are things oliver still withholds, details he doesn’t find significant enough to uncover. he’s married, he has a son and a daughter he will never get to watch grow up, and he’s working alongside a man that calls himself the monitor to save a world that will, eventually, vilify him and the people he cares about. ( and he knows that he’s meant to die in 2019, so there’s that, too. ) none of that seems quite as relevant here in duplicity — not his marriage, not his children, not the future. he won’t lie to wynonna if she asks but he’s not interjecting it into the conversation because he’s already decided those things can’t matter if he’s to have any chance here.
she steps towards him and gets a hand around his arm and he softens, feeling less like someone weathering a storm and more like he’s going to come out on the other side. it’s a nice gesture on her part. oliver doesn’t glance down to confirm their connection because he’s watching her face, reading her lips and searching her eyes. it feels impossible somehow, to make a friend like this in a universe that isn’t either of theirs, but here they are.
he exhales when she wedges his arm down and away from his body while the other follows, giving her the room to do as she likes. they haven’t crossed this line yet — standing this close, walls down. )
Yeah. ( as if confirmation alone is an adequate reply. he nods once, gives her a tiny reassuring smile and then turns his hand over from where she's holding his wrist so that he can grab hers in return. they must look weird, holding wrists instead of hands but oliver doesn't care. tethering himself to wynonna feels so much more intimate than the other actions he could take that spring to mind. he attributes that to brushing his fingertips over her pulse. ) But if anyone should be grateful, it's me.
( he could do it. one pull and he could try and yank wynonna right into him but he doesn't. he cocks his head slightly, needing to know first. )
You're more understanding than I thought you'd be. Must be all that revenant-wrangling you were telling me about. You're—hah—sort of unbelievable. ( and it's less of a laugh, more a means to offset his nerves again. ) And I say that while recognizing that I'm the one admitting to fighting crime and egomaniacs.
( he may not believe he deserves wynonna's kindness but he basks in it, and that is the biggest difference between who he was and who he is. )
[ And real talk: there are still plenty of people here in Duplicity that don't know what Wynonna's had to give up, what she had to send away to protect back home, who she still thinks about when the nights are quiet enough to bring back the memory of that new baby smell and a tiny hand closing around her finger. Some people have shared her memories unwillingly, bear the weight of them right alongside her, but it's nothing she really chooses to offer up front and chances are it won't necessarily swirl to the surface between them either. Sometimes she has to content herself in the knowledge that a partial picture is better than being kept in the dark — or being lied to, which somehow hurts even more than omission.
He might still be withholding things from her but she doesn't get that sense of him trying to deliberately mislead her, or making the choice to tell her the truth based on what he thinks she can handle. She's never been a fan of that decision being made for her and she never will be, especially considering how often it's happened; people want to spare her, think they're acting in her best interest, but it takes away her right to decide for herself and it has never not ended badly for everyone involved.
But here they stand, establishing that tether, and she's not sure she can feel his pulse stuttering in his wrist but she's pretty positive hers does, especially when he slides his fingers over that point and looks at her with a tilt of his head, almost questioning. Her breath catches in her throat and she glances down to whatever stretch of space still exists between them. It's not much anymore, certainly no closer than they've necessarily been when sparring before, but she's even more aware of what it would mean to close that distance altogether now.
He turns her words back around on her and she chuckles, a self-deprecating sound paired with a duck of her chin before she lifts her gaze to him without tipping her head back, gazing up from underneath her eyelashes. It's supposed to be a product of her hesitation; she's nervous. They both are. ]
Look, I've been lied to more times than I can count. You get pretty sick of it after a while, so — it makes the reverse stick out even more, when it happens. And I'm really not one to judge what people get up to in their spare time, unless it's something that affects me and mine. [ That's code for Waverly, especially; anyone who comes for her is going to have to deal with big sister wrath; she pauses, as if she's trying to work up the nerve for what comes next. ]
So why don't we just skip past the part where we argue over who's the more tolerant between the two of us and come back in right around you kissing me instead?
( he respects wynonna too much to handle her as though she’s some sort of equation on a white board that he’s worked out every possible variable of. oliver’s seen firsthand what keeping people in the dark to his crusade does to them — tommy, most notably. as with laurel, quentin, and thea ( two of whom are deceased ), he also knows what bringing them into the fold does. it doesn’t get any less terrifying, wondering if someone is going to reject him for the person he’s become, for failing to be who they thought he was but he’s learning that relationships mean more when people choose to open or shut a door with all of the facts.
if he’s supposed to be brushed off by the duck of her head and the bittersweet laugh, she misses her mark. he’s only more enamored by her. an honest display for a vulnerable topic, it seems fair. the realization that he ought to glance away, ease the tension for her, dawns on him but he doesn’t lessen the awkwardness for her. though it would help assuage her of her nerves, it feels rude somehow to disengage now. )
I know what you mean. ( as often as he’s been the man cultivating his secrets, he has also had his heart and organization infiltrated by people he cared for and trusted blindly. he likes to think that means he won’t trust with his eyes closed anymore but which is worse? seeing shadows where there aren’t any, enemies in the faces of friends, or never again lowering that wall? ) It's been a really long and winding road to get me here, but if I've learned anything from those struggles, it's that I can't expect trust without giving it first.
( that's all he has time to insert into wynonna's pause. she casts out a line, hooking him, and he feels the slow drag of being reeled towards her down to his bones. there's no shrinking back. she calls it like it is and oliver grins freely, unwilling to mask it. his hand around her wrist briefly clenches in order to enact his previous impulse. he pulls her into him, precise and quick, while his other hand finds the small of her back to balance her out if she needs the assist. just because it happens in a span of seconds doesn't mean she can't react, he gives her that moment when he releases her wrist to cup the side of her face, caressing her cheek with the pad of his thumb. )
But for the record, you'd win. ( although he feels like he's the one that's victorious here, once he leans down and does as he's told. he finally gets to discover what her lips feel like upon his and he can put a name to what she tastes like. kissing her feels slightly like flirting with disaster—she isn't one, he is—because oliver's emotions and desire are a lot like a damn and once something slips through the cracks, everything does. he's all or nothing. curiosity grips him, keeping him temporarily reined, so that he's catching her upper lip between his and then trading it for her lower lip in the lingering press of his mouth instead of rushing to swipe his tongue along the divide of hers. )
[ Even from their first meeting, when she'd approached him back on the cruise ship before everything had gone ghosty and she'd had the feel-good side effects from one too many glasses of whiskey coursing through her, their conversation had felt easy. Sure, some of that had definitely been the alcohol, which tends to make even the less talkative of their twosome (not her) feel more inclined towards sharing; maybe a piece of it had been her, she of the eternally inclined towards self-effacing humor and the tendency to wheedle others into just loosening up. But even after that conversation and the dancing that had followed, they'd continued to seek each other out, coaxing out pieces of one another in the process.
So he probably knows that when he voices a compliment like that, she's going to try to brush it off, to downplay it as is her tendency, sidestepping anything that could border too close to sincerity in favor of keeping things light, chill, not too genuine. But try as she might, they're veering into that territory, prompting a small shrug from her, a reflexive curve of her fingertips to tuck some of her hair back behind her ear with the hand that isn't currently grasping onto him. ]
Yeah. Next we can totally do some of those falls they always tried to make us pull off in gym class. [ Guess who always got dropped because no one wanted to stick their hands out to catch the weird Earp girl? It's a joke to try and mask the quickening in her breathing, especially when he goes and tugs her into him in a move she definitely would've paused to give him props for if she hadn't felt entirely uninclined to pump the brakes. One second there's still claimable space between their bodies and the next, she's right up in his business, and she can't disguise the flutter of her eyelashes or the way she unconsciously tilts her head into the touch of his hand, the sweep of his thumb across her face. ]
That's — [ She doesn't get far enough to argue her case, damn it, because he's already leaning down to cover her mouth with his, warm and tasting of vodka, and she can't help it, she practically melts, curving into him with a soft sigh that gets lost somewhere in the middle of it all. He kisses her like he's been curious about it for a while, learning her lips with his own, and she doesn't rush it either for once in her life, tilting her head slightly to deepen the kiss in a firmer press before inviting him further with the subtle part of her lips. ]
( he hopes that wynonna will forgive him for keeping the i’d catch you in his head. perhaps it’s one of those unspoken truths shared between two people. truthfully, oliver’s style of bonding consists of breaking people to pieces over the rocks of reality—life is tough, be tougher. luckily, wynonna isn’t a friend trying to get on his level on the battlefield. she doesn’t seem to require the reassurance, judging by how she leans into him; her sigh a vibration that almost tickles upon his lips. oh, but it’s perfect. her unhurried pace, how she turns her face to give or take more, and oliver surrenders even as a part of him compartmentalizes how wrong ( right ) this is.
his fingers twist in the back of her jacket, anchoring himself to his decision and to wynonna. they’re out in the open and that means he can’t participate with reckless abandon, but he can respond to how she opens her mouth under his by doing the same. he brushes the tip of his tongue through that divide, seeking hers, and pushes his palm across her cheek back into her hair. it’s as soft as it looks — which is great, except that oliver gets more of a thrill from her mouth than that tidbit about her. it’s up to her, really, how far she wants to take this out on the street. he’s content with learning how to navigate this new territory, how the wet heat from her tongue sparks the beginning of a new hunger ( one that’s cropped up during banter or sparring ) and fans those flames gently.
this is a yearning he’s felt since that first dance and again, later, when each person discovered their dualcam counterparts. not to mention the risqué photograph that had been sent to him by mistake. actually doing this sends him spinning because it’s heady and wonderful, and exactly what he needs. unfortunately, he does kind of have to breathe eventually. barry and kara got all those pesky superpowers. oliver’s only human so he breaks for air, not far enough to put a stop to anything. )
[ It speaks to the possibility that she's maybe thought about what this would be like already, because she doesn't move to do anything just beyond kiss him while they're still standing here right out on the street — but jeez, she's really not complaining about this part of it, his hand fisting a grip in the leather of her jacket hard enough to make it squeak between his fingers and the other sweeping back into the waves of her hair, combing against her scalp and making her turn into that touch with a tilt that doesn't seek to peel her mouth away from his.
And if she'd wondered about what kissing him would actually feel like, those early thoughts pale in comparison to what he actually does, making both her scalp and her lips tingle from the intensity of it, his tongue dipping into her mouth to taste her and prompting another quiet sound from her in turn. She rocks up onto her tiptoes to close more of the height difference between them and her arms wind around his neck, fingers of one hand gently stroking across the short hair down across his nape.
It's where she hovers when the kiss inevitably breaks, but she doesn't shift back down right away, hasn't even opened her eyes yet to take him in from this close, so when she whispers across his mouth it's relying on everything by feel alone, the tip of her nose barely brushing his. ] You know, I might be a little biased, but my place is pretty good for more of this talking thing.
( sometimes, what you build up in your head doesn’t live up to the actuality. that’s not the case here. more often than not, oliver’s body is like a taut wire with no slack, pulled tight and fixed. he relaxes when wynonna’s arms come up over his shoulders and around his neck. her fingers are hypnotic and the sole point of focus with his eyes shut. is she looking at him? is she waiting for him to open his eyes? is she as comfortable as he is? oliver can’t quite bring himself to open his and discover the truth.
he chuckles, more air than depth, and drags her upper lip between his. one more languid kiss, selfish and warm; he tries to avoid to get around the scratch of his facial hair on her skin though it’s somewhat unavoidable. when he pulls back a second time, he retracts his hands from the small of her back and her head to lower her arms from around his neck delicately. he’s fairly certain he could scoop her up in a fireman’s hold, however he’s also convinced there’s no way, no how that she would allow that for the entire length of the walk to her place. )
I see your bias and raise you: then what are we waiting for? ( oh, sorry. did she think he kept the illusion of being prim and proper up 24/7? he's polite because it's beneficial to him. if he's perceived one way, then it's incredibly simple to conduct his private life in another. ) I've wanted to be alone with you from the moment I stepped into your bar.
( closer to the truth. he's not positive he wants to be so forthcoming with himself, let alone wynonna, to admit he sought her out with one purpose in mind. he can be himself around her, now more than ever. )
[ He might be trying to avoid the scratch of facial hair against her chin but she doesn't lean away from it, doesn't avoid the instinct to slant their mouths together solely because she's worried about a little razor burn; if anything, it only adds to the sensation of what kissing him already feels like, that rasp that somehow works in tandem with the firm warmth of his lips on hers for those few minutes that they're entwined like this, standing out on the street bathed in lamplight.
He's slowly winding her arms down from around his neck but not moving to separate himself from her beyond that; she can faintly perceive the warmth of his skin where her front just barely grazes his, permeates through the thin cotton of her shirt, tantalizingly close enough to make her want to draw in even more, to peel all the layers away until there's nothing between his body and hers anymore. ]
Honestly? Might have been even earlier than that, for me. [ If he's going to fess up to feeling a certain way about wanting to see her naked after tonight, then she can raise him even more truthfulness; she'd be lying if she said this hadn't been on her mind, playing somewhere in the background, even if it hasn't necessarily rocketed to the forefront of her awareness until now, when she knows what his mouth tastes like.
But they're not waiting anymore, if that's the agreement they've each navigated towards, and when she finally rocks back onto her heels it's with an accompanying jerk of her head down the street; she's never not appreciated that the bar is a short walk away from the high-rises, and she appreciates it even more at a time like this one. ] But we can get even more alone than this.
For how long? ( try as he might not to come across as overeager, the curiosity cuts through effortlessly. her body serves as a stronger temptation, right there, even as his hands retract from her wrists. he’d forgotten in a way, what this felt like with someone new. a current of excitement and anticipation so varied from being with someone you have mapped out. he wonders idly ( though it doesn’t particularly matter when ) if it had been as early as out on the dance floor or if it had been during his endless drills of exercise. sex is a pretty inarguable defense against running another mile. it would have worked.
he hates himself for breaking away from her and for living in the reality of the moment, for needing privacy and four walls. wynnona doesn’t seem too bothered when she indicates their direction with a tilt of her head and oliver falls into step with her with ease, delighting in the allure of her invitation. more alone than this is what he's after. is that fire going to dwindle on the walk over? is she going to cool off and change her mind? is she going to be the sort of person that needs a glass of wine to jump in once the moment's in front of her and it's not impulsive? there's a lot of details he doesn't know about wynonna at all. ) Because I'll admit after seeing that photograph, which I deleted, I was curious.
( he shrugs, not ashamed of the truth albeit a little awkward in regards to being the first to take the plunge and confess. )
[ Her hands almost instantly slip back into the pockets of her jacket — not to preserve any warmth, since it feels like it's radiating out of her now in a way that's almost impossible to ignore in the immediate aftermath of their kissing, the drink she still tastes on her tongue, but rather for lack of anything to do with them in the right now. She'll have plenty to do with them eventually, but right now, she curves her fingers in against her palms and casually sweeps her tongue across her lower lip, as if trying to subdue her reaction to the rising anticipation of it all, the spreading crookedness of her grin. ]
Maybe I was curious if you'd actually done anything with that picture after all. [ She knew he hadn't, had taken him at his word when he'd said he'd gotten rid of it then, but the thought of what it could have potentially led to had given her more than one image to dwell on. ]
Before that, though, the sparring. Watching, learning how you fought, how you moved. Sort of made me wonder how you'd handle yourself some other way. [ And how they'd move together by the very nature of a different tangling of limbs; if he'd let her bear him down or refuse to go easy on her, apply that same kind of concentrated focus once her thighs were wrapped around his hips or if he'd let himself lose control a little more like she knows he's capable of, had glimpsed hints of down in the Arena. She shrugs one shoulder, hair spilling forward across her profile with the movement, forcing her to toss her head slightly when she finally gives him a sidelong glance, trying to gauge his reaction to what she's implying by not saying. ]
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He's changed, she knows he has; he doesn't need to tell her anything for her to see that, because the hints of it play across his face even when he glances away from her. She hasn't had to look long and hard to see that he hasn't been seeking out the company of those he knows from home — with Felicity a shared friend between them, she's heard that side of things too — but she's positive that it remains more complicated than she'll ever likely know. And maybe, right now, he doesn't want complicated, and she gets that too.
If she stopped to think, really paused and thought about it, she'd realize that being on the receiving end of that stare, wavering as it is sometimes, still makes a subtle heat unfurl low within her, to say nothing of how her body unconsciously responds to his question, fingers curving against the wood beneath her hands, between them, and suddenly all she can think about now is how to pass the time until those, well, about seventeen minutes or so are up. It's nothing explicit, because that's just not them, but it's enough to do something for her.
She nods once, a quick jerking of her head, because she doesn't really see the point in hedging her answer when honesty will work better in her favor. ]
Think we might be overdue for some catching up, anyway.
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wynonna’s hands are a point of fascination for him. they’re always moving. that in and of itself captures him, creature of paranoia that he is, and while her hands are more than capable of making the transformation into weapons, she seems to use them more for telegraphing things. what, precisely, he’s still pinpointing. he nudges his glass forward with his knuckles, pushing it towards her side of the bar and stops when he's close enough to brush his pinky against her thumb; he doesn't. he's tempted. )
Something like that. ( he withdraws, fishing in his pocket for his wallet and settles up with borrowed money. he scrubs a hand over the lower half of his face, rubs his mouth, before announcing: ) I'll be outside. I could use the air. Come find me when you— ( get off, really? ) When you're through in here.
( what? it's the truth. he does need the cool breeze on his skin. also, if he's outside she can't refuse payment for the drinks, someone else will swipe it if she does. that's simply that, except for the glance he casts over his shoulder on the way out the front door. it's a lingering look and maybe, if she's observant, she'll catch that they flick downward and take in more than her face. he may not be lewd but he's only subtle when something requires a delicate touch. he's generally fairly straight forward in what he's after. when she does come looking for him, assuming she doesn't slip out the back, he'll be leaning over the railing outside or leaning against a wall ( or whatever the exterior happens to lend itself to ). )
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She'd tried the emptiness routine when she first got here, tried losing herself in a pattern of too much drinking and casual sex, but all it had served to do was make her feel more and more like she was abandoning her purpose. Now, with people she cares about here — not just Waverly and Dolls, but the ones who don't exist for her back home as far as she knows: Frank, Felicity, Sam, Quill, Oliver — she's got more to endure for, more to roll out of bed for, more to consider when she thinks about her designation and what that means for the ones she needs to be looking out for. And maybe, every now and then, that involves shutting her brain off and not thinking about any of it. It doesn't mean she'll tune it out forever, but for the next few hours at least, she doesn't need to wallow.
Really, it doesn't take much to care about Oliver Queen; it takes even less to be curious about what he's thinking, and he doesn't stray far from her thought as she works through the end of her shift, definitely replaying the gaze he'd left her on the receiving end of (had she imagined that brief sweep down over the length of her, or not?), and by the time she clocks out and fetches her coat from the office, shrugging it over her shoulders and sliding a hand beneath her hair to clear it from the collar, he's there waiting for her.
She isn't quite holding her breath on approach, but she's very conscious of the lack of a bar between them now as she stops to stand in front of where he's leaning, tilting her head back to glance up at him under the streetlights and resisting the urge to shove her hands into her jacket pockets. ] Found you.
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Do you want to get out of here? ( he presents wynonna with the crook of his elbow, raising his arm; she doesn’t have to take it and loop her arm through his but he’ll give her a few moments to decide. whichever she chooses, he wants to travel away from the 13th step and head somewhere else. destination anywhere, just somewhere less populated.
oliver likes wynonna’s company. he’d enjoyed her presence before he knew her and while there’s still so much to learn and absorb and take in, he trusts her. for keeping felicity close, for being a friend to her, for being there for him, and for never making anything that cropped up seem like as huge of a deal as it could have been. as a man that’s seemingly vetted his friends and allies, that’s a vital quality to him. )
There’s just one thing I have to tell you first. ( it’s time, isn’t it? star city knows and it goes beyond that with the fbi involved, who he is and what he’s done is known nationally. ( and truthfully, if this progresses the way he hopes and he loses his shirt, the amount of scars on his body isn’t going to match up with: i took a few self-defense classes. ) this can go any number of ways and perhaps he doesn't owe her this explanation because he'd never planned to stick around long enough for anyone to find out, but he wants to. ) When we were sharing our collective pasts, I didn't tell you everything. I'm not a philanthropist and I'm definitely not a pacifist.
Although, I did get elected for mayor somewhere in there, so... ( kinda wishy-washy hand gesture? not a total lie? jesus, why is he so bad at this? he's kept this from a dozen people and he's had to drop the truth bomb on all of them; he should have a perfected speech. ) What I'm trying to say is that this is me. This guy you've gotten to know. It's a part of who I am, but the bigger part is the Green Arrow. I'm a ( super hero??? shut the front door. ) —vigilante. And I should have told you that a long time ago, before you were willing to draft up a contract with me. But I'm telling you now, Wynonna.
( and he's prepared for anger, annoyance, her being upset, or point blank laughing in his face. )
Before we— Before anything else happens.
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He offers her his arm and she doesn't know what it says about her that she actually considers taking it; there's almost no hesitation in her glancing down to view the held-out crook of his arm and the moment when her fingers twitch at her side, like she almost may not stuff her hands away before giving one to him instead, to create a further tether between them in the time it takes them to go from here to anywhere else, but the second she actually ditches thinking about it and decides to just do it, his follow-up stills her altogether.
And she almost makes a crack before he can get through his spiel ("no wait, don't tell me, you've got a deep dark secret you've been hiding from me this whole time"), but the more he goes on the more she realizes that maybe she's veered a little closer to the truth in her perception, however teasing, than she realized. He ventures that confession out loud and it all hits her like a ton of bricks in terms of how the puzzle pieces start to slot together, everything he's told her that hadn't added up before doing it all at once now, and for a few seconds all she can do is look at him dumbly, gaze sweeping over him and then back up to his face, trying to reconcile what he's telling her with what she'd seen, sensed even — and finally she just pushes out a breath, soft and slow and between slightly pursed lips. ]
Uh, okay. You're gonna need to give me a minute here, just to — to process all of — [ She gestures to him with the hand that would have reached out to slip through that extended arm, vaguely indicating his entire situation before her hand smacks back down against her thigh. ] — this.
[ Granted, he is talking to the girl for whom demons are a regular phenomenon, literally on the days ending in Y, so in the grand scheme of things a guy with basically a superhero moniker — shut up, he's totally a superhero, don't deny it — and a penchant for inhabiting the midnight hour isn't really that difficult for her to wrap her head around. ]
Goddamn it. Everything makes sense now. It's — [ And she does laugh, now, but it comes out more as a slightly dazed chuckle while she shakes her head, somehow understanding but still partly at a loss — and then she reaches out to gently prod her fingers against his shoulder, a shove of protest. ]
Okay, why the shift into honesty hour? I'm not naive enough to think it completely has to do with the fact that we were just in there hinting around between-the-sheets action.
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she laughs and he looks up, allowing a smidgen of hope to slip through. he rocks with the shove but overall, he takes it and remains planted in front of her. how does he even begin to answer that? he rolls his bottom lip between his teeth to hide a smile at being called out and the rush of being put under a spotlight is like being stuck with pins and needles. )
That’s not completely why, no. ( he rubs at the side of his face, like he can physically force the words out. ) When I left, I went home to Star City and for me at least, years went by. ( from the way that he’s heard it, he’s been missing from this city for mere months. ) My secret doesn’t belong to me anymore. I turned myself in on national television and because of that, because of the deal I made, I went to prison. When I got out, I worked alongside the SCPD — I was deputized. ( he shrugs. ) I've changed since the last time you saw me. I'm not living in the shadows anymore. I don't really see the point of going back into them here.
( he has kids. )
You're the first person I've told about what I remember from home. ( he crosses his arms then, not because he's drawing some imaginary line between them. it's an unconscious action, one meant to bind the mixed emotions he's experiencing. he knows what he's placing at her feet or wrapping around her shoulders. oliver's not asking her to keep it for him, to be complicit in his burial of the truth, but he's also not not asking her. ) Considering the kinds of choices we're forced to make and the secrets about us that come to light, I thought I'd be upfront with you this time around. I don't want to hide who I am from you.
( a forced admission of sorts but then again, oliver feels it's long overdue. )
I would have told you, at or after the fort. ( no, but it would have come out in very violent and telling ways, so same difference. )
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And so she can't help thinking that this might be the reason she's the one hearing the truth from Oliver now — because it's not her world he's telling her about, because she doesn't come from a place that knows the Green Arrow or what he'd given up in finally owning up to his other half. He tells it to her straight and in one sense, she appreciates it more than he might realize; she's used to people hedging the truth, stopping just short of actually being fully honest with her, and regardless of how long it's taken him, how much he might've weighed over whether or not to reveal this to her before actually doing it, the point is that he's doing it now without any caveats or attempts to downplay it.
She can see how much it's taking from him to even get this far out loud, the folding of his arms across his front reading very much like what she tries to do to close herself off when she's trying to grit through the truth, the unspoken part that's requesting she keep it buried from their mutuals — at least as long as he decides to withhold it on his end — and she presses out another sigh, idly casting her gaze down the street ahead of them for somewhere to put it that isn't his face. ]
Not to make this sound like any kind of corny line, but — [ When she reaches out to him finally, it's to curve her hand around his forearm where he's still got them folded across his chest, an imperceptible squeeze that only the two of them are going to pick up on. ] The truth goes a long way. Regardless of however long it takes you to feel comfortable with saying it, the point is that you said it, so — thank you.
[ Okay, maybe she's lightly trying to pry his arms free after a beat so she can sway closer into his space, but she isn't moving to do anything beyond the small circle of her fingers around his wrist — a small tug, a promise on her end. ] You don't need to worry about hiding, alright? Not with me.
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she steps towards him and gets a hand around his arm and he softens, feeling less like someone weathering a storm and more like he’s going to come out on the other side. it’s a nice gesture on her part. oliver doesn’t glance down to confirm their connection because he’s watching her face, reading her lips and searching her eyes. it feels impossible somehow, to make a friend like this in a universe that isn’t either of theirs, but here they are.
he exhales when she wedges his arm down and away from his body while the other follows, giving her the room to do as she likes. they haven’t crossed this line yet — standing this close, walls down. )
Yeah. ( as if confirmation alone is an adequate reply. he nods once, gives her a tiny reassuring smile and then turns his hand over from where she's holding his wrist so that he can grab hers in return. they must look weird, holding wrists instead of hands but oliver doesn't care. tethering himself to wynonna feels so much more intimate than the other actions he could take that spring to mind. he attributes that to brushing his fingertips over her pulse. ) But if anyone should be grateful, it's me.
( he could do it. one pull and he could try and yank wynonna right into him but he doesn't. he cocks his head slightly, needing to know first. )
You're more understanding than I thought you'd be. Must be all that revenant-wrangling you were telling me about. You're—hah—sort of unbelievable. ( and it's less of a laugh, more a means to offset his nerves again. ) And I say that while recognizing that I'm the one admitting to fighting crime and egomaniacs.
( he may not believe he deserves wynonna's kindness but he basks in it, and that is the biggest difference between who he was and who he is. )
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He might still be withholding things from her but she doesn't get that sense of him trying to deliberately mislead her, or making the choice to tell her the truth based on what he thinks she can handle. She's never been a fan of that decision being made for her and she never will be, especially considering how often it's happened; people want to spare her, think they're acting in her best interest, but it takes away her right to decide for herself and it has never not ended badly for everyone involved.
But here they stand, establishing that tether, and she's not sure she can feel his pulse stuttering in his wrist but she's pretty positive hers does, especially when he slides his fingers over that point and looks at her with a tilt of his head, almost questioning. Her breath catches in her throat and she glances down to whatever stretch of space still exists between them. It's not much anymore, certainly no closer than they've necessarily been when sparring before, but she's even more aware of what it would mean to close that distance altogether now.
He turns her words back around on her and she chuckles, a self-deprecating sound paired with a duck of her chin before she lifts her gaze to him without tipping her head back, gazing up from underneath her eyelashes. It's supposed to be a product of her hesitation; she's nervous. They both are. ]
Look, I've been lied to more times than I can count. You get pretty sick of it after a while, so — it makes the reverse stick out even more, when it happens. And I'm really not one to judge what people get up to in their spare time, unless it's something that affects me and mine. [ That's code for Waverly, especially; anyone who comes for her is going to have to deal with big sister wrath; she pauses, as if she's trying to work up the nerve for what comes next. ]
So why don't we just skip past the part where we argue over who's the more tolerant between the two of us and come back in right around you kissing me instead?
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if he’s supposed to be brushed off by the duck of her head and the bittersweet laugh, she misses her mark. he’s only more enamored by her. an honest display for a vulnerable topic, it seems fair. the realization that he ought to glance away, ease the tension for her, dawns on him but he doesn’t lessen the awkwardness for her. though it would help assuage her of her nerves, it feels rude somehow to disengage now. )
I know what you mean. ( as often as he’s been the man cultivating his secrets, he has also had his heart and organization infiltrated by people he cared for and trusted blindly. he likes to think that means he won’t trust with his eyes closed anymore but which is worse? seeing shadows where there aren’t any, enemies in the faces of friends, or never again lowering that wall? ) It's been a really long and winding road to get me here, but if I've learned anything from those struggles, it's that I can't expect trust without giving it first.
( that's all he has time to insert into wynonna's pause. she casts out a line, hooking him, and he feels the slow drag of being reeled towards her down to his bones. there's no shrinking back. she calls it like it is and oliver grins freely, unwilling to mask it. his hand around her wrist briefly clenches in order to enact his previous impulse. he pulls her into him, precise and quick, while his other hand finds the small of her back to balance her out if she needs the assist. just because it happens in a span of seconds doesn't mean she can't react, he gives her that moment when he releases her wrist to cup the side of her face, caressing her cheek with the pad of his thumb. )
But for the record, you'd win. ( although he feels like he's the one that's victorious here, once he leans down and does as he's told. he finally gets to discover what her lips feel like upon his and he can put a name to what she tastes like. kissing her feels slightly like flirting with disaster—she isn't one, he is—because oliver's emotions and desire are a lot like a damn and once something slips through the cracks, everything does. he's all or nothing. curiosity grips him, keeping him temporarily reined, so that he's catching her upper lip between his and then trading it for her lower lip in the lingering press of his mouth instead of rushing to swipe his tongue along the divide of hers. )
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So he probably knows that when he voices a compliment like that, she's going to try to brush it off, to downplay it as is her tendency, sidestepping anything that could border too close to sincerity in favor of keeping things light, chill, not too genuine. But try as she might, they're veering into that territory, prompting a small shrug from her, a reflexive curve of her fingertips to tuck some of her hair back behind her ear with the hand that isn't currently grasping onto him. ]
Yeah. Next we can totally do some of those falls they always tried to make us pull off in gym class. [ Guess who always got dropped because no one wanted to stick their hands out to catch the weird Earp girl? It's a joke to try and mask the quickening in her breathing, especially when he goes and tugs her into him in a move she definitely would've paused to give him props for if she hadn't felt entirely uninclined to pump the brakes. One second there's still claimable space between their bodies and the next, she's right up in his business, and she can't disguise the flutter of her eyelashes or the way she unconsciously tilts her head into the touch of his hand, the sweep of his thumb across her face. ]
That's — [ She doesn't get far enough to argue her case, damn it, because he's already leaning down to cover her mouth with his, warm and tasting of vodka, and she can't help it, she practically melts, curving into him with a soft sigh that gets lost somewhere in the middle of it all. He kisses her like he's been curious about it for a while, learning her lips with his own, and she doesn't rush it either for once in her life, tilting her head slightly to deepen the kiss in a firmer press before inviting him further with the subtle part of her lips. ]
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his fingers twist in the back of her jacket, anchoring himself to his decision and to wynonna. they’re out in the open and that means he can’t participate with reckless abandon, but he can respond to how she opens her mouth under his by doing the same. he brushes the tip of his tongue through that divide, seeking hers, and pushes his palm across her cheek back into her hair. it’s as soft as it looks — which is great, except that oliver gets more of a thrill from her mouth than that tidbit about her. it’s up to her, really, how far she wants to take this out on the street. he’s content with learning how to navigate this new territory, how the wet heat from her tongue sparks the beginning of a new hunger ( one that’s cropped up during banter or sparring ) and fans those flames gently.
this is a yearning he’s felt since that first dance and again, later, when each person discovered their dualcam counterparts. not to mention the risqué photograph that had been sent to him by mistake. actually doing this sends him spinning because it’s heady and wonderful, and exactly what he needs. unfortunately, he does kind of have to breathe eventually. barry and kara got all those pesky superpowers. oliver’s only human so he breaks for air, not far enough to put a stop to anything. )
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And if she'd wondered about what kissing him would actually feel like, those early thoughts pale in comparison to what he actually does, making both her scalp and her lips tingle from the intensity of it, his tongue dipping into her mouth to taste her and prompting another quiet sound from her in turn. She rocks up onto her tiptoes to close more of the height difference between them and her arms wind around his neck, fingers of one hand gently stroking across the short hair down across his nape.
It's where she hovers when the kiss inevitably breaks, but she doesn't shift back down right away, hasn't even opened her eyes yet to take him in from this close, so when she whispers across his mouth it's relying on everything by feel alone, the tip of her nose barely brushing his. ] You know, I might be a little biased, but my place is pretty good for more of this talking thing.
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he chuckles, more air than depth, and drags her upper lip between his. one more languid kiss, selfish and warm; he tries to avoid to get around the scratch of his facial hair on her skin though it’s somewhat unavoidable. when he pulls back a second time, he retracts his hands from the small of her back and her head to lower her arms from around his neck delicately. he’s fairly certain he could scoop her up in a fireman’s hold, however he’s also convinced there’s no way, no how that she would allow that for the entire length of the walk to her place. )
I see your bias and raise you: then what are we waiting for? ( oh, sorry. did she think he kept the illusion of being prim and proper up 24/7? he's polite because it's beneficial to him. if he's perceived one way, then it's incredibly simple to conduct his private life in another. ) I've wanted to be alone with you from the moment I stepped into your bar.
( closer to the truth. he's not positive he wants to be so forthcoming with himself, let alone wynonna, to admit he sought her out with one purpose in mind. he can be himself around her, now more than ever. )
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He's slowly winding her arms down from around his neck but not moving to separate himself from her beyond that; she can faintly perceive the warmth of his skin where her front just barely grazes his, permeates through the thin cotton of her shirt, tantalizingly close enough to make her want to draw in even more, to peel all the layers away until there's nothing between his body and hers anymore. ]
Honestly? Might have been even earlier than that, for me. [ If he's going to fess up to feeling a certain way about wanting to see her naked after tonight, then she can raise him even more truthfulness; she'd be lying if she said this hadn't been on her mind, playing somewhere in the background, even if it hasn't necessarily rocketed to the forefront of her awareness until now, when she knows what his mouth tastes like.
But they're not waiting anymore, if that's the agreement they've each navigated towards, and when she finally rocks back onto her heels it's with an accompanying jerk of her head down the street; she's never not appreciated that the bar is a short walk away from the high-rises, and she appreciates it even more at a time like this one. ] But we can get even more alone than this.
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he hates himself for breaking away from her and for living in the reality of the moment, for needing privacy and four walls. wynnona doesn’t seem too bothered when she indicates their direction with a tilt of her head and oliver falls into step with her with ease, delighting in the allure of her invitation. more alone than this is what he's after. is that fire going to dwindle on the walk over? is she going to cool off and change her mind? is she going to be the sort of person that needs a glass of wine to jump in once the moment's in front of her and it's not impulsive? there's a lot of details he doesn't know about wynonna at all. ) Because I'll admit after seeing that photograph, which I deleted, I was curious.
( he shrugs, not ashamed of the truth albeit a little awkward in regards to being the first to take the plunge and confess. )
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Maybe I was curious if you'd actually done anything with that picture after all. [ She knew he hadn't, had taken him at his word when he'd said he'd gotten rid of it then, but the thought of what it could have potentially led to had given her more than one image to dwell on. ]
Before that, though, the sparring. Watching, learning how you fought, how you moved. Sort of made me wonder how you'd handle yourself some other way. [ And how they'd move together by the very nature of a different tangling of limbs; if he'd let her bear him down or refuse to go easy on her, apply that same kind of concentrated focus once her thighs were wrapped around his hips or if he'd let himself lose control a little more like she knows he's capable of, had glimpsed hints of down in the Arena. She shrugs one shoulder, hair spilling forward across her profile with the movement, forcing her to toss her head slightly when she finally gives him a sidelong glance, trying to gauge his reaction to what she's implying by not saying. ]