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A warm summer afternoon tints Star City golden with the dying lights of day, and Oliver Queen is lonely, accompanied only by the bottles in his penthouse, some empty, some half full, all scattered around him on the hardwood floor.
And when he's alone, his mind wanders.
It's California, summer of 1989, he's a kid, he's reckless, and he's surfing his first wave ever, he wipes out, and when the wave overtakes him he panics.
It's only a few seconds he spends under the water, however, and he's soon back on land. Feet grounded firmly he meets Bruce's judgemental stare head on. Bruce just sighs and shakes his head, and suggest a different summer activity.
Oliver can't come up with anything to give him his fix of adrenaline that Bruce approves of. It's their first real fight as a couple, and it's also their last.
That night Oliver gets on yatch.
Two weeks later, he's officially pronounced death.
In the present, Oliver's hand palms over the floor before landing on the neck of a half empty bottle of Tequila, he grabs it and takes a swig.
It's Gotham, New Year's Eve, 1988, he and Bruce are kissing sweetly, and less dancing more stepping while holding onto each other in Bruce's balcony, under the stars. Bruce's arms are tight over his shoulders, they hold onto him as if he's afraid that if he lets go Oliver will be gone forever.
Bruce is more than a little bit drunk, and his lips become loose, he whispers soft confessions directly into his open mouth, and Oliver swallows them whole.
They gaze at each other with nothing short of reverence.
And when the clock counts down to zero, they don't stop dancing, they just hold each other closer, press their foreheads together and breathe.
Then Oliver had a lifetime of this waiting for him.
Now Oliver wonders exactly where did things go wrong. Was it the night he got on the yatch? Was it before? Weeks earlier? Months? Or was it after? When he came home to a man he couldn't recognize?
A shallow pathetic imitation of his Bruce, his Bruce who loved apples, and hummed Sinatra on the mornings. His Bruce who drank his coffee black, and spoke softly at night about the things that terrified him.
Maybe it was later.
He takes another swig straight from the bottle, and grimaces.
New York, Spring of 1987, Bruce grabs his hand like he's afraid of Oliver slipping through his fingers like fine sand. Oliver holds onto his with the same frantic desperation, and every word he utters is laced with this horrible fear.
They know the fragility of life. They've seen it first hand now. They've been at the protests, and the hospitals, and the clinics. They've been behind bars for it too.
Bruce cries and Oliver just holds him while the radio plays Madonna in the background.
It's surreal, it feels surreal to exist like this in New York at this exact point in time. It feels surreal now, to know that they were, and how they were, exactly when and were.
It's been years, Oliver has never moved on, his heart weeps for all the years they didn't get to have, for everything they could've been. His heart weeps even when he swears his hatred.
He takes another swig.
They have a cordial relationship, they don't hate each other by any means, and they don't spend most of their time in each other's vicinity arguing like cats and dogs.
They get along pretty well until Oliver gets jealous, and start picking fights over nonsense. They're nothing now, but that coil of jealousy still grows on Oliver's stomach, an ugly emotion rearing it's head to remind him of how much he truly lost on the island.
Sometimes, he wonders if they ever truly had a chance, or if they were doomed from the start. Star-crossed lovers fighting to live a life they would never get.
It makes sense that he knows it before anyone else does. He can just tell, by the soft smile in Bruce's lips and how he hums absentmindedly, the light touches on his hips, the way they stand closer now, the caresses on his shoulders that no one else sees. It makes his chest ache with something he can't identify. A roaring fire he doesn't know how to put out. It pulses in his chest, like a black hole eating him inside out.
Bruce was supposed to be his.
The wedding invitation had felt almost insulting. He'd turned it down. It was supposed to be him, on that aisle, it was supposed to be him the one who put a ring on Bruce's hand. He wanted to elope to Vegas, and live whatever life they could, away from responsibilties and the influences of others, everything would be good as long as they were together anyway.
Somehow still, it feels fitting for Bruce to end up marrying Superman.
A 'guy gets the girl' kind of movie moment but in real life. Light and dark. Hope and vengeance.
"A match made in Heaven." Barry had said when he found out.
But that's the thing, they weren't. It felt like no one understood, Bruce wasn't in any way the opposite of hope, Bruce had always been the definition of clinging onto hope even when everyone else had given up. A man who never believed in lost causes. Symbolically they were everything, the perfect movie match, in reality there was nothing special about their relationship. Maybe it was the jealousy speaking, maybe it was the alcohol, it didn't matter he wanted his bee back.
He takes another swig of Tequila, grimaces as the liquor burns down his throat, heavy and borderline poisonous as his thoughts nowadays always seem to be.
Does Clark know how much Bruce likes apples? Does he know his favorite color is yellow, and that he used to dye his hair black blue? Does he know he hates the way cotton sits on his skin? Does he know how dedicatedly he cares for his mom's flowers? Does he know how he likes to be fucked?
Does Oliver even know him anymore? So much changes in one year alone and it's been decades since the last time he could confidently say he knew Bruce. Does he even like the same things he used to? Does he still hate mood stabilizers and anti depressants because they make his head heavy? Is mulligatawny still his favorite food? Does he still like to be fucked awake with the first rays of sunlight, to be made love to as the sun rises? To be held, and kissed with something like reverence? To have his hair combed before bed?
Does he make him coffee every morning and solves the crossword in the newspaper with him? Does he help him bathe when he's on a mood? Watch repetitions of his favorite show cuddled up with him, listens to him whisper morbid fun facts with a soft smile?
It's fucking superman. Of course he probably does all that and so much more.
The sun hides behind the horizon in Star City almost like it doesn't want to, a city away Bruce and Clark are probably having their first dance as a couple and cutting their wedding cake. Oliver buries his head in his hands and sobs.