literature

This Place is Not My Home (fem!Oliver and Slade)

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Literature Text

It was not something she would ever admit, to anyone, but Olivia had never truly felt like she'd come home.

She'd buried her home on Lian Yu. In its soil and in its water.

Returning to Starling City had felt no different than returning to Hong Kong had after the fishermen had rescued her from Lian Yu. She acted like it was. Acted like she was thrilled and relieved to be back in Starling, back with her family, but deep down, beyond the mask she presented to world, beyond the scars that served to forever remind her of her time in purgatory, she felt wrong. Out of place. Like she was a stranger in the world that had once been her playground.

Diggle was the only one who really noticed anything was amiss.

But Diggle had been a soldier, he understood what it was to return home and have it no longer be home. He understood that sometimes had to make the hell you were living in, fighting in, your home because it was the only way to survive. He understood that sometimes you just couldn't go back.

And despite knowing he understood, that he would listen, Olivia didn't talk to him about it. She pretended not to see the looks he gave her. The ones that told her he would be there when she was ready to talk. She pretended not to see them because she knew she'd never be ready to talk about why home wasn't home anymore or what had taken its place.

She carried that secret like she carried countless others.

It wasn't hard to fake that everything was fine. She'd had lots of practice.

And then Slade Wilson returned from the dead.

Bringing with him memories of home and family and things Olivia had fought for so long to bury. Things that threatened to drag her down and tear her apart more than Slade did.

Seeing him, standing in her mother's house, in that dark suit, hair speckled with silver at his temples, dark patch hiding the ruined eye she had long ago destroyed, looking for all the world like he belonged in the world of millionaires and mayoral candidates, she finally, after nearly two years of being back in Starling, felt a sense of familiarity.

Of family.

Of home.

Even when he threatened the people she cared for, had come to love and let into her life, she still felt it.

When he abducted her and her family, taking them to a secluded spot, leaving her bound, helpless, on the ground as he prowled behind her mother and sister, she felt her heart hammer painfully against her ribs, her stomach rolling as she remembered Ivo doing this. Of forcing her to choose who lived and who died.

Struggling to sit up she looked at Slade trying to see something of the man she had known before Ivo, before the Mirakuru, but all she saw was rage and hate and madness.

"I've often wondered," Slade said, crouching down so they were at eye level. "How you looked, when he pointed the gun at Shado and took her from me."

Olivia made a low, hurt sound. Her pain and fear and anger mixing and clawing through her veins like poison. "Slade..."

"Did she cry? Did she beg you to save her?"

The memory of Shado flashed through her mind. The look on the other woman's face as she'd knelt there, looking up at her with eyes that expressed more than words ever could. She could almost see Shado right in front of her, forced to her knees, hands bound behind her back, looking at her with large dark eyes. Both of them knowing no matter who she chose Ivo was going to kill them all. It was a memory that had haunted her for years.

She drew a breath and shook her head as tears filled her eyes, dotting her lashes with every blink.

"No. She...She didn't say a word."

Slade snarled. "Because she expected you to choose her! To save her!"

"No." Olivia shook her head again, the tears sliding down her cheeks even as Thea sobbed, demanding to know what was going on, what they were talking about. "No that's not it."

Slade's hand curled around her throat, cutting off her air and threatening to crush her windpipe, the fury in his eye was like a living, breathing creature.

"Do not lie to me!"

Her lips were numb and she was lightheaded but she managed to force the words out.

"I'm...I'm not...I'm not, ipo..."

Slade snarled again and his grip tightened a fraction, bruises, in the shape of his fingers, already beginning to form on Olivia's throat. "DO NOT CALL ME THAT!" He shook her and she choked, gasping uselessly for air. "YOU ARE NOTHING TO ME!"

She was surprised when he released her, jerking away from her as though she had burned him and, coughing and gasping for much needed air, she watched him as he stood, towering over her, looking at her as she had seen him look at Wintergreen the day he'd killed the man. She watched as he moved to stand behind her mother and sister, drawing a gun from beneath his coat, cocking the hammer back.

"Choose."

Olivia refused, demanding he kill her instead, that his revenge be against her, not her mother and sister. He roared at her to choose. They were both surprised when Moira, though clearly terrified, managed to get to her feet.

"We both know there's only one way this ends, don't we, Mr Wilson," the eldest Queen woman said as she turned to face Slade. He looked at her even as Thea sobbed, demanding to know what Moira was doing. "Both my children will live."

Slade lifted the gun, aiming at Moira's head, and Olivia began to struggle harder, even as Moira told Thea to close her eyes.

"Slade! Slade, don't...don't do this! Please!" Olivia cried out but Slade didn't so much as glance in her direction. "Please! Please, ipo, please!"

When Slade drew a breath, finger starting to tighten on the trigger, Olivia knew she had only one chance to save her mother.

"We wanted to be with you!"

Slade stilled, though he still didn't look at her, and Olivia pressed on, even though she was sobbing and felt like she was being torn apart form the inside out.

"We...We thought you were dead...thought we'd lost you..." She forced away the memory of him sitting on the submarine's floor, blood streaking from his eyes, still and lifeless. "And we...we knew Ivo wouldn't let us live...We just wanted...wanted to be with you!"

She looked at him, blocking out Thea's cries, her demands to know what she was talking about.

"Shado...Shado looked at me and...and we knew...we both knew what was going to happen and...and we were...okay...with it. Because...Because it meant we'd...we'd be together again. The three of us."

Finally Slade looked at her but she just kept talking, the words flowing like water through a crack in a dam, she couldn't stop it.

"We...We were a family and you were gone and...and we both felt it...felt that our home was gone with...without you...so we were ready...ready to die...to be with you. To go home with you!" She remembered how Shado had smiled at her, how she'd known her friend, her lover, was ready to go. How they'd both been ready. "You...You kept me alive...on that godforsaken island and...and without you...I couldn't breath...I felt like...like my home...my family...had been ripped away. Shado felt it too." She let out a broken sob, hanging her head, body shaking. "We wanted you...wanted to be together...I'm sorry...I'm so...so fucking sorry...we didn't know...and then Shado was gone...and you weren't...and I didn't know what to do...how to tell you...I was so afraid...I...I'm sorry...I'm sorry, ipo..."

"Kid."

The way he said the word had her sobbing harder because it sounded just like before Ivo had destroyed their lives, before they'd been ripped apart by death and lies and half-truths.

"I thought...I thought coming back to Starling would...would feel like coming home but...but it didn't...because you...you and Shado were my home. You were my home...my family...my everything...and I failed you...I failed you both..."

She looked at him, seeing he'd lowered the gun, that he was looking at her with an unreadable expression.

"You're my home, Slade," she whispered. "My family...but...if you need...need to end this so badly...then choose me...kill me...because...because without you and Shado...I'm already dead inside."

Moira cried her name when Slade moved close enough to press the muzzle of the gun to her forehead and Thea screamed, swearing she'd kill Slade if he hurt her sister, but as she looked up at him she found she couldn't hate him for this. Once he squeezed the trigger she'd be with Shado. And they could wait for him together. However long it took they'd wait for him, for the last of their family, their home, to come back to them.

Blinking back her tears she smiled.

" Kei te aroha au ki a koe," she whispered to him.

I love you.

She closed her eyes. She wouldn't make him look her in the eye as he killed her. She'd give him that at least. And she waited for him to finish it.

Nothing happened.

She heard movement, could still hear Thea sobbing, and she had just started to open her eyes when someone wrapped their arms around her, startling her, and she was surprised when her Moira cried in her ear, stroking her hair back as Thea launched herself at them, hugging them both. Looking around she found Slade had disappeared. He'd cut her mother and sister loose and vanished.

Closing her eyes again she felt that aching, hollowness inside her grow a little more.

Her home, her family, was gone again.
Comments2
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DreadWolfDreamer's avatar
Aw. Wow. My heart. Fascinating AU concept - have you ever considered doing more of this? I like it a lot