Arrow AU's & Drabbles

One-shot: Just for a Single Night

"I don't want to be a woman you love."
The words rang in his ears like repetitive sharp sirens. The brisk breeze hugged his body as he sighed after an uneventful nightly patrol. Tiredness engulfed his body but his mind and heart screamed, allowing him to be dully aching but wide awake. Oliver tightly clenched his jaw when he remembered the crack of her voice, but the confidence of her posture. Felicity has been so disappointed in him. So disapproving. She was always the one who filled him with pride, courage, motivation. She was the one who gave him his bravery. Felicity had always believed in him.

Always until now.

Her change of heart bruised him more than any sword or weapon could. Physical wounds either kill or heal. Emotional wounds were a disease. Slowly and internally contaminating, eating away any spark of hope. He'd chose not to attached to anyone for so long. He'd tried not to love her too. But it just wasn't in his control when it came to Felicity. Felicity was unique. Different. Full of light, determination, intelligence, bravery. The most beautiful part about her was that she reflected her traits into other people too, like she had with Oliver. Several times, she'd given him a new perspective. A perspective from the positive side of things; a perspective he didn't often dwell in. But he realized now that everything Felicity saw in him, the brave, courageous hero, was all a mirage. An illusion she'd painted and believed so fondly in that he'd started falling in love with painted canvases of realities too.

But now she was gone. And As he trudged in the shadows, he felt so utterly hollow that his desire to disappear into the darkness strengthened further. 
Felicity didn't believe in him anymore. 
She didn't want to love him. She probably didn't. 
And she didn't want to be loved by him either.

Hidden in the shadows with an empty heart and a screaming mind was purgatory. He hadn't seen her in so long. Hadn't really seen her, like he usually did. He would usually start with her lips, that brightly curved in a blinding smile. Then move up to her eyes. The eyes that glowed like a thousand suns. Then her finger nails. The bright colours were just so Felicity. They were a reminder of the light she'd brought in his life. Lastly, she'd turn around and he'd smile at her hair. That signature ponytail. Then there were always the guilty glanced he'd steal when she wasn't looking. That's how Oliver saw Felicity. Recently, he hadn't really seen her at all. 
Sometimes, the loneliness was too much to take. He wanted to be with her. He couldn't. The arrow made decisions that Oliver Queen despised but abided by like a slave to his master.

Oliver's heart thrummed. He wanted to be Oliver Queen tonight. If only for a few moments. Just until the last of the darkness of the night evaporated. Just for a single night. Despite all, he smiled. He was going to be Oliver Queen. Just a boy in love with a beautiful girl. A boy irrevocably in love, drunk on the scent of the girl.

He forgot the scars, the pain, the loneliness. Just a boy in love with a girl. His engine revved in sync with his pounding heart.

The window was open. Good. He wouldn't have to cause any extra noise. He saw the curtain wavering in the tranquil breath of the city. 
And then he shot a grappler arrow into the brick just above the glass pane. Once again, he felt a splash of frost on his skin but there was something else that was stirring in him now. 
Nervousness. 
Second thoughts. Was this really such a good idea? Or was it a stupid impulse?
He went with the second, but the opportunity was too beautiful. Oliver quietly slid inside the dark room through the window pain. He hid behind the curtains. 
Oliver smiled. 
Felicity slept on her queen-sized bed in a lavender tank top. Her legs were covered with a white blanket. Felicity's blond hair framed the moon-lot structure of her face like an angelic halo. His eyes moved to her lips. Then to her closed eyes. To the fingernails that clutched the blanket and then the hair. 
Once again, his lips threatened to lift in a smile with warm. He didn't stop them. 
He placed his bow silently on the laminate. Undid his mask. Took off his hood. He cautiously placed one foot ahead of another. The floor creaked, and every muscle in him went rigid.