Do I look like a pillow to you?
The words are half-wheezed, barely enough air left in Dean’s lungs to form them. From where Oliver’s sprawled over Dean’s torso, he’s not doing much better. There’s a sharp pain at his side that might be a cracked rib, and for all that Dean had been a slightly softer landing than the asphalt, he’s seeing stars.
“I was rapidly running out of options.”
The hood is on; the voice from within the shadow of it is deep and gravelled. Oliver shifts, ignores the hot spark of pain that it entails. In the darkness, there are shouts, and running feet; when Dean opens his mouth to complain some more, Oliver pulls himself far enough up Dean’s body to press a hand over his mouth.
If anyone rounded the corner now, they might assume that Starling City’s vigilante had taken to mugging men in out-of-the-way alleys in his spare time. Oliver is practically straddling Dean, leaning heavy down on him against the pain in his side. They stay there, in tense silence, for a full minute, until the sound of pursuit fades.
And then, another minute, despite Dean’s fingers doing their best to pry Oliver’s hand away from his mouth.
“Stop wriggling,” Oliver says, voice low but still managing to bounce off brick walls. Dean, surprisingly, does. Another beat, and then Oliver finally removes his hand from over Dean’s mouth, head tipping to one side. Even with the hood up, his questioning gaze is clear.
Dean shrugs a shoulder, flashes a smile in the darkness that says ‘what can you do?’
“There’s a time and a place,” Oliver says, and it’s odd to hear amusement in the Hood’s voice.
“Yeah. Apparently, it’s here, and now.” Oliver levers himself up. Dean is left feeling oddly exposed. There’s something undignified about the entire affair. Oliver seems to hear something, and attention is diverted from Dean as he tips his head, bends to grasp his bow with only a slight harshness of breath to suggest that he’s in any pain.
Dean watches him disappear into the darkness and lets his head fall back. “It’s the fucking voice,” he mutters to himself. “Never should have opened that can of worms.”
And then, because it seems somehow ungracious to lie on the floor with bruised ribs and a hard-on while Oliver fights some bad dudes, Dean pushes himself up off the damp street, and clears his throat.
“Time and a place,” he tells himself. “Let’s go, Winchester.”