Title: Sorry To His Skin
Fandom: Arrow
Pairing: Diggle/Oliver
Rating: NC-17
Length: 490 words
Content Notes: Set after Season One's The Undertaking.
Summary: The apology is deep; Diggle's in deeper.


Apologies don’t come easy to Oliver.

The ones he does give out freely, they’re duplicitous things. Oliver means them, he does, but they only scratch the surface of what he thinks he should be apologising for. An offered sorry for missing a lunch with his family hides how sorry he really is for lying to them, keeping secrets, not being the person they want him to be.

The true apologies, the ones that are layered and have no secrets in them, those come harder. Because those involve letting people in, and Diggle knows he’s got deeper than most with Oliver, but there’re still walls there, still defences Oliver doesn’t know how to let down.

Except now. Because Oliver looks wrecked, tired and cracked open. Spread across Diggle’s bed, unfocused and bucking under his hands, teeth marks in his lower lip and pale under the flush that spreads from his face to his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver whispers, and it makes Diggle ache for him.

Because despite what Oliver might think, Diggle didn’t want to be right. He didn’t want Oliver’s mother to be complicit in this Undertaking, didn’t want Oliver to have to bear that pain on top of everything else he carries. And Diggle’s angry, still so angry that Oliver wasn’t there for him, wasn’t there to take down Lawton. But the desire to help Oliver, to stay close to him, that’s bigger and heavier than anything else in Diggle’s life.

He really is in deep.

Oliver’s legs are wrapped loose around Diggle’s waist, Oliver’s right hand locked with Diggle’s left. Holding Oliver’s hip with the other, and he pushes in slow, but it still makes Oliver grunt, still makes him inhale sharply and squeeze Diggle’s fingers.

He’s hot and tight and tense, and Diggle makes himself be careful as he slides in further. Feeling Oliver shiver, ass clenching around him on every gasp, but Diggle keeps moving until his cock is buried as far as it can go, heat crawling up his back and making him sweat.

“Dig, I -” Oliver’s chest is heaving, cock red and curved to his stomach. Opening and closing his mouth, and Diggle doesn’t remember him ever looking this vulnerable before. “John.”

He shakes his head, holds Oliver’s hand tighter, murmurs, “I know.”

He starts to move, then. Shallow thrusts, but hard, solid, and Oliver melts into it. Tension bleeding out of him like it was never there, like he can breathe again now Diggle’s fucking him, holding him down. Body undulating, and Diggle bows over him until they can press their faces together. Mouths moving in something too distracted and needy to be a kiss, just tasting each other’s air.

There’s so much to do, now they know Merlyn’s at the head of things, now they know for sure that Mrs Queen is involved. But for now, Oliver needs this, and Diggle does too, because some apologies are spoken louder without words.