Inspired by Arrow fic queen latbfan's How Was Your Day? and All I Want for Christmas, as well as the positively wonderful and affirming book by Anne Jamison, Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World, I offer you this, a slash pairing that chose me. And me, hopeless smut romantic that I am, I chose it right back. Many thanks to latbfan and CreepingMuse, sisters in smut and enablers of the highest order.

On the Mat

"Again?"

"Again."

Oliver launches himself from a dead stillness, chest first, at Digg. He grapples for a hold, but Digg slips right out of Oliver's hands. "Come on," Oliver complains to the room. And to himself.

Digg lost his patience for this ten minutes ago. "How about some Tai Chi? Meditation?"

"Digg."

"It's a waste of time if you don't leave it all on the mat."

Oliver swipes a towel over his face. "That's the problem." He throws the towel behind him; it lands on Felicity's chair. She's going to say something about it but not the right thing, not that it was careless to leave it there – no, she won't mean to but she'll say it smells good. She always manages to be honest with him, even when he can see that it's devastatingly embarrassing for her, even when she has to scramble to get her dignity back afterwards, and still he doesn't have the decency to retrieve the towel.

Digg is wiping a matching towel down his own neck, across his chest. "I'll buy you a cup of coffee. Let's get out of here."

Oliver shakes his head.

Digg takes a few slow steps toward him, dropping the towel at their feet. He's just slightly the taller of the pair, wider across his shoulders, and although the competition could be said to be neck and neck, right now at least he's the calmer of the two. "Oliver. You're good enough with that bow that you don't have to master hand to hand."

"What, are you going to come save me when I get the bow knocked out of my grip?"

Digg looks away, stung. "How many times have I offered -?"

"I need you here."

Digg finishes the sentence for him. "Protecting Felicity."

"Protecting yourself!" Oliver erupts.

Digg would give it right back if this were anyone else. If he didn't know the weight Oliver always, always carried. "So I'm here. And you're out there, ragged, used up, spooked if a body gets too close to you."

A grimace begins on Oliver's face – Digg can see the problem, of course he can, but it's good that he does. Oliver looks Digg right in the eye. "I can get over this. I can. It's just… it will pass."

Digg leans back on his heels, crossing his arms over his chest. "Besides this training session, when was the last time anyone touched you?"

"Felicity did that cheek thing yesterday," Oliver is quick to mention, as if the faster he says it the more satisfying it must have been.

"I know you think you can't afford to be with her, and man, I get it. I know it's a risk. But she's signed on, and it's obvious you -"

"Diggle!" Oliver clenches his fists - closed, open, closed, open – until his throat is will let him speak. "Right now, the way I am right now? I would crush her. I wouldn't be able to – she can't handle me like this, even if I was stupid enough to take that chance."

Digg knows there's more he's not saying. Not that he's wrong – he's not – but there's more to this.

Oliver continues, exasperated. "You're right. This training is the closest I'm going to get to what I really need so quit looking at me like that and let's go again."

Digg doesn't move. He just looks at him, 'like that,' the look that always seems to focus him. But today it's doing something else and impossibly, Digg seems to know what. And why.

"Again," Oliver tries to insist. "Please." It comes out begging.

Digg reaches across the small chasm between them, resting his palm against Oliver's bicep, letting his hand fall the length of Oliver's arm to his wrist. Digg lifts it, heavy as granite, to his chest.

Oliver exhales. He sounds defeated.

"I know what it's like, Oliver." Digg reaches for his other hand, depositing it on the naked skin just above his hip. "I've been there."

Oliver closes his eyes. Leaves them closed while he breathes in, slow and thick and loud, like a furnace.

"There are times when you don't have enough in you to be with… someone who doesn't understand."

And you don't have it in you to fight it, Oliver thinks, nodding.

Digg watches him as he wraps his hand around the nape of Oliver's neck. "You can't hurt me," he assures him.

Oliver wilts, letting his head rest against Digg's sternum, the center of his wide chest, solid as a boulder, slick with sweat. But it isn't until Digg drags his fingers along Oliver's spine to the small of his back that Oliver exhales again.

There is trust between them, admiration and the kind of love they would never call love but it is and the proof is in the hits and punches and bullets they take for each other. There is enough trust between them even for this: Oliver presses a tense kiss into Digg's chest and hears Digg's breath tremble, slightly derailed. Okay. He stands up inside the curve of Digg's arms, into this sudden embrace that's humid and real. He's only an inch or so shorter than Digg but in this moment Digg seems like a mountain, and thank fuck for it, because only a mountain could withstand the volcano inside Oliver.

They push at each other, pull against each other, anchored hips to hips. It's different with Digg, of course it is, but better-different. He knows Oliver's secrets; what's one more? Like the way Oliver hisses when his nipple is even so much as grazed. Like the way his hips answer when Digg finally tips Oliver's head back and takes his lips with his own, just takes them like they belong to him. Digg knows what Oliver needs because he needed it once too, maybe more than once, and Oliver can feel it in the way Digg's palm cups the back of his head.

Oliver holds on where Digg is strongest: arms, chest, shoulders, thighs. He needs the reassuring resistance of muscle under his hands. Digg allows himself to be gripped, tugged down to the mat along with their sweatpants, which Oliver throws with their shoes in a tangle beside them.

Bare, Digg is pure, blessed animal. Oliver gapes, catching his shallow breath, but when Digg reaches for his face, Oliver pushes him back against the mat. He lays Digg's shoulders flat, burying his face against Digg's chest for a breath, two, then shifts, sliding his mouth over Digg's cock. It leaps against his teeth – it's bigger than his, bigger than his mouth wants to stretch, but he punches the mat and opens his throat for him.

Digg is silent but Oliver can feel his pulse race against his lips. He braces himself over Digg's hips, between his thick, forgotten thighs. He sucks mercilessly and fuck the gag reflex. Oliver is so hard his cock is poundingly heavy, hanging desperate and twitching toward the mat.

Digg is close and Oliver is ready for him, but he pushes Oliver away with one hand and twists to reach Oliver's cock with the other. He pulls, leads him up his body, until they are face to face.

The expression Digg sees reflected back at him is nearly dread. That same awareness of something inevitable, but tinged with relief instead of fear. Oliver doesn't know quite how to take this next step, but Digg blinks his eyes slowly, a kind of benediction, and puts him right where he needs to be. Oliver's head hangs low, forehead touches forehead as Digg curls himself to meet him. Oliver groans, pressing past resistance to get inside. Digg is still silent.

This is also better-different. Oliver has to shove, has to flex and strain; he can't be careful and with Digg he doesn't have to be. And Digg is demanding, too, grabbing and clutching at Oliver's shoulders and hips, insisting like he always does on this mat that Oliver give him everything. Nothing about this is slow – Oliver's heart is too close to the surface for that, but exertion keeps it busy. Oliver finds Digg's cock pressed between them and grips it hard, pulling along its length with each thrust. He doesn't have to wait – they are both there, just about there. Oliver explodes into Digg; Digg's head falls back hard onto the mat as he comes into Oliver's palm.

After a few breaths, Oliver rolls off onto his back. Digg grabs his clothes and heads to the john, nudging Oliver's shoulder on the way.

Oliver lets his eyes flutter closed. His mind is clear for the first time since he can remember.