likeahero | [For Derek; January 7]

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[For Derek; January 7]

It feels good to be suited up and out at night again without having to watch his back every single second. Whatever was going on with the animals seems to have stopped; Oliver still keeps an eye out, but not to the degree he had been for the past week.

Everything going back to normal has allowed him to go back to what he's been doing recently-- namely, stalking his boss. Oliver's trusted enough now that Alexei includes him in the planning of certain deals, though they each come with the expectation and warning that he needs to step up and actually use his rank once more, or sever his ties to the bratva entirely.

Considering that means they intend to kill Oliver if he doesn't take on his role as a true avtoritet, he's got a bit of a dilemma on his hands.

He's come up with stalking Alexei, collecting intel in order to shut him down for good. While it will mean an end to his job and the connections he's come by thanks to the bratva, Oliver gets to live at the end of it.

Alexei has spent most of his night in rather innocent pursuits, leading Oliver around half the city as he checks in on employees and rivals alike. While he doesn't seem to realize that anyone is on his tail, Oliver has had the feeling lately that someone is on his. He hasn't let on that he knows he's being followed, but the night is drawing to a close and Oliver's grown tired of it.

When Alexei's car rounds a corner to head back to Lush, Oliver doesn't follow; he drops into an alleyway instead, bow up as he blends into the shadows behind a large dumpster. It doesn't take long before he hears careful movement follow, and he lets his arrow fly, aiming low to disable whoever it is.

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Derek is relieved that all the nonsense with the animals seems to be over. The puff is back to normal, if incredibly clingy in what Derek suspects is in an apologetic way. Which is funny, considering all the bites that Derek sustained have all healed.

He's out in his wolf form, and it feels good to stretch those muscles. He's kept in his human form since before the new year due to all the stuff going on, but now he's on the street on four paws. He's just doing some rounds, checking on familiar places, when he catches Oliver's scent. He turns to follow his friend, and cocks his shaggy head when he finds him in full Arrow garb.

And then, because Derek is a little bored, he decides to follow him. He doesn't know what Oliver is doing, but Derek plods along behind him, ducking behind buildings and cars whenever Oliver looks back. It's a rat that trips him up, because the thing runs over Derek's front paws and he flicks it away, getting momentarily distracted by what his animal brain perceives as tiny prey.

He goes to catch up to Oliver, and maybe finally make his presence known, and he sees him pulling his arm back just too late. He lets out a bark that turns into a yip when the arrow sinks into his ribs, and he whines when he falls to the ground in a mound of black fur.

Well, this sucks.

It's the yip of pain that has Oliver realizing that he's taken down an animal, not a person, and he frowns as he steps out of the shadow and walks toward the dark shape on the ground. He feels a touch guilty, but considering the week the city's had, he still approaches with caution, bow still up.

When he's finally close enough to a better look at the animal, he stops and stares for a long moment, then sighs as he lowers his bow. He recognizes the wolf, and the fact that it isn't trying to scramble away or keep attacking him seals it.

"Derek."

There's pain radiating throughout Derek's side, and he can't even begin to heal until the arrow is removed. Were he out in the woods, he'd just reach over and use his teeth to rip it out, but he just lays there as Oliver approaches.

He looks over at him, red eyes glowing in a wary expression, and he lets out a huff when Oliver lowers his bow. Derek can't be mad, he supposes. He was following him, but he was just doing it for kicks, and he was just about to reveal himself. It has been a long time since he was shot. Maybe he was just overdue.

But still, that doesn't mean that he isn't going to do his best to make Oliver feel like crap. He could have at least shouted or something. Oliver says Derek's name and Derek lets out a low, sad whine and curls in on himself a little, ears flat against his head.

Now Oliver feels terrible, even though he's pretty sure Derek stalking him when he's out as the Arrow is a pretty bad life choice to make.

Oliver collapses his bow and puts it away, leaving his hands free as he crouches down beside Derek. He quickly flicks off his voice modulator and sighs again, reaching out to feel around the arrow. Derek's fur is pretty thick and dark, and it takes a few gentle touches before Oliver is sure of the angle of the arrow and how to get it out with the least amount of pain.

At least he knows Derek will be able to heal from this pretty quickly.

"You're an idiot," he tells him, looking into the red eyes before shaking his head. Much of the Arrow has faded away for the moment and it's just Oliver, exasperated and worried for his friend. "I'm going to take the arrow out. It's going to hurt."

Derek curls his lip back over his fangs on instinct when Oliver starts poking around his wound, and he knows that he can't do this in this form. His animal instincts will do their best to take over, so when Oliver calls him an idiot Derek just shoots him a glare and shifts into his human form with Oliver's hands still on his side.

"You're an idiot," Derek shoots back, hissing and doing his best to sit up. "Would you have shot any stray dog or am I special?"

"You're that special," Oliver retorts, pushing Derek back. "Stay still. I have an angle on it so I can take the arrow out without making anything worse."

Oliver is just as good at taking arrows out of people as he is putting them in, but that never makes the task pleasant.

"Also," he adds, pulling a hand away for a moment so he can point it at Derek, "you were stalking me."

"Pretty sure I'd be dead if I were human, Bullseye," Derek tells him. "Or some poor little puppy."

He braces himself for Oliver to pull the arrow out, and then lets out a huge sigh when he's pointed at instead. He throws a flat look Oliver's way and smacks his finger out of the way. "I was out having an evening stroll when I saw you and decided to see what you were up to, you paranoid asshole."

Yes, he was stalking him a little, but he isn't going to admit it.

"I was aiming for a leg if you were human. Your center mass just happened to be down there." He turns his attention back to the arrow, one hand on Derek's stomach and the other wrapping around the arrow shaft. He doesn't give Derek a warning this time, not wanting him to tense up again. Oliver pulls the arrow out as cleanly as possible, the head only making a slight bit more of a cut when it comes through.

"And being a paranoid asshole is what keeps me alive."

Oliver presses his hand against the wound immediately, grimacing at the blood.

Derek lets out a growl when Oliver tugs the arrow free, gasping and reaching up to grip Oliver's shoulder. Oliver presses his hand to the wound and Derek takes in a ragged breath before blinking and looking up at him. "This is intimate."

Oliver rolls his eyes. He uses his free hand to work his glove off, leaving the material over the wound to making easier to press down to stop the bleeding.

"You're buying me a new set of gloves, buddy." When he glances up and out toward the street, Oliver sighs. "Our place is only a few blocks away. Think we can make it there before you bleed out or get arrested for indecent exposure?"

The last is a joke; Oliver knows his way around this area like the back of his hand, but he can't help needling Derek just a bit.

"What? You shot me," Derek replies indignantly, huffing and pressing against Oliver's glove like he can bleed on it that much more just to spite him. He turns and rests on his hands and knees for a moment, catching his breath and then getting to his feet.

"I can make it," Derek says, cutting Oliver a look. "And man up, Queen. It's nothing you haven't seen before."

Oliver chooses not to reward that with any sort of response.

"Come on," he says, starting to move deeper into the alley. It'll make the walk back quicker, at least, though he keeps his gait slow, waiting to see if Derek can make it under his own power. "It'll only be a couple of minutes back."

Derek nods and starts walking, wincing at the pressure on his wound. He steadies himself and presses his hand to the wound, following Oliver into the alley. "Walking around naked is way less awkward with fur."

The wound is starting to heal, but it's deep enough that it'll take awhile. Still, the telltale tingling sensation is a welcome one, and he catches up to Oliver within a few moments. "If you let me borrow some sweats, I'll consider forgiving you."

"I'm the one needing forgiveness?" Oliver snorts. Yes, he's a bit apologetic about shooting Derek, but the guy walked right into it. Literally. "I'll let you borrow some sweats anyway."

"You shot me in the lung," Derek tells him, leaning in close so Oliver can hear his rattling breath. "Listen to me. I'm wheezing."

He breathes out hotly against Oliver's face in an admittedly unsettling way, and he shuffles along behind him. Derek will be fine, even with the taste of blood in his mouth, and he feels okay enough to give Oliver shit about it, but he's still relieved when they make it to his building.

There's sweat on Derek's brow and he takes in a deep, wheezing breath, lurking in the shadows and pushing Oliver ahead. "Scope it out. Make sure I won't indecently expose myself."

Oliver grimaces, but resists pushing Derek away. "I've been shot in the lung before and I didn't have the ability to heal right away, so stop whining. You'll be fine."

The fact that Derek can be so annoying at the moment leaves Oliver confident enough in letting his concern fall away for the moment.

It doesn't take long for Oliver to work the back door of the building open and check things out. He prefers this entrance, where most building tenants don't go, probably because the garbage chute leads right into a small room just near the entrance. It's quiet, as Oliver knew it would be, and always dark enough that he's been able to stash a go bag for a quick change before heading back out and in the front door as though nothing's amiss.

"Sorry about the smell," he tells Derek when he holds the door open, knowing it'll be worse for him.

"Oh, that you're sorry about," Derek says, rolling his eyes before making his way inside. It does smell god awful, but Derek lived in Manhattan for years. He can deal with some unsavory smells. "Not the grievous bodily harm, but the trash that you had very little to do with. I see."

The wound hasn't stopped bleeding yet, and Derek knows that it probably won't until he stops moving. He's putting too much strain on it for the healing process to really quick in, and Oliver's glove, Derek notes with a bit of smug satisfaction, is nearly soaked through.

"Here's to hoping that the elevator doesn't have cameras," Derek says as he keeps moving. "Because I am so not in the mood for stairs."

"I will put you in the dumpster and leave you there," Oliver warns Derek with exasperation. He pushes him through another door just down the hall anyway, a small utility closet where Oliver stashes a quick go-bag in a vent in the corner.

He has his clothes out in a moment, handing the jeans and sweatshirt over to Derek but keeping the shirt for himself. They'll look ridiculous, he realizes as he begins to unzip his jacket and pull off the hood, but not as suspicious as they otherwise might.

"No you won't," Derek says confidently. There are a few people in Darrow that Derek knows, unequivocally, have his back and Oliver is definitely one of them. They may bitch and bicker (and shoot each other with arrows), but Derek's trust in Oliver runs deep.

He throws the bloody glove in the dumpster and pulls the jeans on, leaving them unbuttoned before pulling the sweatshirt on. He zips it up almost all the way, hissing as the material brushes over the wound.

"This looks untoward," Derek says as they walk up the hallway together. "Like a reverse walk of shame. Your eyeshadow is even all smudged."

Edited 2016-01-04 06:26 (UTC)

"It's greasepaint," Oliver responds, even though he knows the protest will never stop Derek from commenting on it.

He's uncomfortable, half Oliver, half Arrow with a t-shirt over his pants, and the inability to shed one skin for the other is an itch he can't scratch. It feels even worse to have his bow and quiver put away in a duffel bag slung over his shoulder when he still has the leather pants and boots on, his heavier steps a sound associated with a having a hood over his head and a bow in his hand.

Oliver keeps up a steady pace as he leads the way down the hall to the elevators, one eye on Derek. "We can go up in separate elevator rides if you're that concerned."

"Sure it is," Derek replies, though he's just giving Oliver shit. The more they walk, the more Derek can sense Oliver's unease. He does seem a little stuck between two personas right now, and Derek is eager to get them out of a communal space.

"I'm not ashamed of us," Derek says flatly, hitting the button for the elevator. It opens quickly, and it's thankfully empty. Derek trudges inside and leans against the back of it, tilting his head back as he presses his hand to the wound. "I will wash your sweater. I can get bloodstains out of pretty much anything."

Oliver waves a hand, not caring much for the cleanliness of the sweater. It's nothing special, just something a little old and worn to stash away for the brief few minutes he needs it. "Don't worry about it."

The ride is brief, and when they stop on his floor, Oliver takes a moment to look out into the hallway before stepping out and heading for their door, keys already in hand. "Felicity's late at work tonight. We'd be getting a whole bunch of questions otherwise." (It's not something Oliver will ever admit out loud, but there's a part of him that enjoys Felicity fussing over him.)

"Is she not used to you showing up bloody by now?" Derek asks, huffing out a laugh as he follows Oliver into the apartment. "Maybe not with a bloody werewolf in tow."

He stands in the middle of the living room, looking around awkwardly, unsure of what to do.

"The first time I told her who I was, I'd been shot and was bleeding out all over her back seat," Oliver says, very well aware of how terrible the story sounds. He hadn't exactly been one for gently breaking the news to someone at the time, though Felicity took his near death pretty well. He'd done his research on her before choosing to trust her, but there had always been a little tug since the first time they met, some instinct that drew him to her again and again.

"I'm pretty sure she doesn't like being used to seeing me come home bloodied up."

That, at least, is something he can make easier for her in Darrow. His injuries are rarer, mostly just scratches and bruises to be patched up.

"Sit down," he tells Derek, gesturing to the kitchen table and one of the chairs there as he heads down the hall and into the bathroom. "I'll grab the med kit."

“Yikes,” Derek says simply, trying to imagine Felicity’s reaction. He assumes that it wasn’t a very good one. But everyone seems to have worked out for them. “No one likes seeing someone that they love hurt.”

Oliver tells him to sit and Derek huffs, hobbling over to the table while Oliver heads to the bathroom. “I will heal, you know. I’ve had way worse injuries than this.”

He thinks of those seeing stones, and how he can still remember what it felt like to be impaled through the back with a metal pipe and stuck to the floor, blood dripping down. It was just a vision; it didn’t really happen. But sometimes it really feels like it did.

Peter’s shoving his claws through his back, splintering bone and tearing through muscle to get to the other side—that happened. Derek shudders at the sudden memory and lays the sweatshirt on the table, looking down at the hole on his chest. Yeah, he’ll take an arrow any day.

Oliver's made that very same excuse himself, but it rarely works on Felicity, and he can't blame her. She's been hurt enough times in their line of work that he understands exactly what it feels like to see her or Thea bloodied and beaten.

At least he can be grateful that of the memories they seem to have gained, she didn't have to see him go down by Ra's al Ghul's sword.

"You still have a hole in your stomach," Oliver calls out as he heads back down the hall, med kit in hand. It's a small black bag with everything they could possibly need, thanks to Oliver's storied past with various weapons. "Do you need stitches, or will a bandage do?"

"My lung," Derek reminds him in a cheerful tone. "You shot me in the lung."

He gives Oliver a wry look as he returns, and then looks down at the wound, mouth twisting unpleasantly. "It'll probably heal a lot faster if it gets a few stitches."

"You're still talking," Oliver points out, which is evidence enough that Derek is and will be fine.

He sets the med kit on the table beside Derek, and it's not hard to find the stitching kit-- he gets banged up enough that Felicity probably has a technique that could outdo most med students in the city by now.

"Sorry, by the way," he says as he pulls a chair out to sit facing Derek. He keeps his eye on the wound, grimacing slightly now that he has a decent look at it. "For shooting you."

Derek has his head tipped back, studying the ceiling. There’s a fine crack in the plaster that probably only he can see. He’s waiting for a sting of antiseptic, or the sharp pierce of a needle, and he blinks at the apology. When he looks down to see the top of Oliver’s head, he smiles a bit fondly.

“It’s okay,” Derek says easily, because he was never actually mad at Oliver. He was just protecting himself. “I’m sorry for following you around in the middle of the night. I was just curious.”

He tilts his head, blinking as he sits up a bit straighter to make things easier on Oliver. “What were you doing anyway?”

Oliver snorts and shakes his head as pulls out the smaller stitching kit. His days and nights are now a far cry from his first year back home in Starling. He'd had his eyes opened to some of the stranger aspects of the world on Lian Yu, but his life as changed so drastically in the last two years alone it almost feels unreal.

"I was following a courier. I've been keeping an eye on the Russian mafia."

Derek huffs out a laugh and waits for Oliver to tell him what he was really doing, but then he looks up to see the serious expression on his face.

"The mafia," he says flatly. "Obviously. Remind me why you're keeping tabs on the mafia?"

"Ya kapitan Bratva," Oliver responds, slipping into Russian with ease. He's perfected the accent and kept up his fluency thanks to Alexei, though he's pretty sure this is all leading to a severing of his connections with the Bratva. It wouldn't be the first time.

"I spent five years away from home before I started up as the Arrow," he tells Derek, keeping his eyes lowered as he focuses on stitching him up. "I made friends in interesting places, and I banked on a connection to get me a job when I first got here."

"Gesundheit," Derek jokes, hissing slightly as the needle first pierces his skin. After that it just turns into a dull sort of ache, and Derek watches as Oliver stitches him up. There are very, very few people that Derek would trust enough to stick a needle into his skin, and Oliver is apparently one of them.

"So, you're working with the mob?" Derek asks after a moment, genuinely curious "Why are you keeping tabs on them then?"

"The Bratva," he corrects and clarifies, glancing up at Derek briefly. There's not much to tell when it comes down to it, considering this has only recently become an issue and there are parts of the story he hasn't even told Felicity just yet. "The owner of Lush has been trying to throw me at a crew to start expanding their influence. Things are about to get a whole lot dirtier, but he won't tell me anything directly until I say yes. I'm running out of time, so I had to step up my surveillance."

Edited 2016-01-30 11:32 (UTC)

"The Bratva," Derek repeats, frowning a little as Oliver talks about it. "So you're trying to take them down from the inside, is that it?"

It's not like he has any doubts about Oliver being able to take care of himself. The hole in his chest is evidence enough of that. But still, he is concerned for his friend. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Oliver nods and ties off the thread, leaving Derek with a few neat stitches. "Something like that."

He puts the kit away and rubs his eyes, grimacing when he realizes he still has greasepaint on.

"I could use your help." He'd always kept Barbara in the back of his mind for when things got this far, but she's gone and Oliver knows he'll need backup eventually. Derek will definitely work, and he knows he has Barry to ask now as well.

"I'm trying to get enough on their activities to take them down without any major problems, but their patience with me is starting to wear thin." Alexei has no choice but to kill Oliver when he finally decides he's no use to him anymore (which, in Alexei's terms, means he won't step up to fulfill his proper Avtoritet duties). "I'll need backup when the time comes."

Derek looks down at the stitches and the foreign sight of them on his own body. He'll probably just have to remove them tomorrow, but they'll help him to heal faster. Oliver did a good job, and Derek can't help but to wish that he wasn't quite so good at it.

"Anything you need," Derek says easily. For all their bickering and joking around, Oliver is one of his people. He's pack, in Derek's eyes at least, and he'll do whatever he can to help him. "Just let me know."

He watches as Oliver packs the med kit back up, smiling a little at the smear of greasepaint on his face. "You know if you need a job, you'd have one at Semele's, right? I know it isn't much, but it's yours if you want it."

Oliver nods, grateful for the offer. He'd had Roy along with Felicity and Digg, but his newer memories showed an expanded team, more people he could count on than he'd ever thought was possible when his whole crusade began. His ideals have shifted slightly over the years, most important of which was knowing he couldn't do anything alone.

He smiles briefly a the job offer, not sure he can remember the last time he took a job that didn't come thanks to a connection or his name. Something small and invisible, probably, when he was being anyone but Oliver Queen. "I might have to take you up on it, the way things are looking."

"Stay alive long enough to tend bar for me, huh?" Derek asks, trying to keep his tone light, but his expression is serious. He reaches out and grips Oliver's shoulder, shaking him a little. "Stay alive or I will totally kick your ass."

"You'll have to get in line behind Felicity," Oliver responds, match Derek's tone and demeanor easily. He doesn't see too much of a threat coming from Alexei, but it would be reckless of him not to take it seriously. "But I don't plan on dying anytime soon."

"Oh, I'd let her help." Derek just sits there shirtless, leaving the bloody heap of Oliver's sweatshirt on the counter. "Good. But keep me in the loop, okay?"

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[For Derek; January 7]

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