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Ready, Aim, Fire!	By : Dhvana Category: DC Verse Comics > Green Arrow Views: 2878 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Green Arrow, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter 2 . . . AIM . . .

My jaw drops so fast it nearly hits the floor. “You. . . you want to go out. . . with me?”

“Again, yes,” he says, impish smile returning. I’m growing awfully fond of that smile. Or scared of it. I’m not quite sure yet. My thought processes don’t seem to be working at the moment, so I can’t really tell. “But I have to warn you, despite everything I’ve told you today, the night won’t end with us in bed.”

He reaches out and pulls me so close, he’s all I can see, feel, hear, smell. . . and oh god, how I want to taste him.

“You’re worth more than that,” he whispers, and my legs feel like they’re about to collapse.

“I. . .” I swallow hard past the sudden lump in my throat, wondering just what it is he’s reading in my eyes. “Connor, I. . .”

Fuck, I don’t know what to say. The man I’ve been trying to think of as my kid brother for years now has suddenly jumped to a whole new level of existence for me. How do I respond to that?

Fortunately, I don’t need to. He seems to have everything under control.

“Is tomorrow all right for you?” he asks, and finding my voice is still unwilling to work, I nod. He smiles.

“I’ll pick you up here at seven. Dress casual, nothing fancy, and I’ll see you then.” He hesitates a moment, then lifts his mouth to kiss my cheek. “Thank you, Roy, not just for the date, but for everything,” he says, and is gone.

The second the door closes, my legs give out from under me and my butt lands rather painfully on the floor.

“Ow,” I say to the empty apartment, and despite the discomfort of sitting on the hardwood floor, I make no effort to move. I’m still sitting there when Donna and Lian return an hour later. Lian gives me a hug and kisses my cheek before running to her room to introduce her new stuffed elephant to all of her other stuffed animals, not finding my behavior at all strange. Donna, on the other hand, instantly suspects something is wrong.

“Roy, are you all right?” she asks, glancing around the apartment, checking for signs of intruders with hostile intentions.

“She doesn’t need any more toys,” I say without any real conviction, and Donna kneels down next to me.

“All right, now I know something’s wrong. You usually give me hell for bringing a new stuffed animal into the house. What’s up?”

My mouth opens and closes a couple of times before I’m finally able to get any words out. “I think that my sweet innocent guileless brother just manipulated me into asking him for a date.”

Donna’s butt quickly joins mine on the floor. “I beg your pardon?”

“He came to me with a serious problem, and then we talked it over, and now. . . now, I’m going on a date. With Connor. Tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” At least, I think I am. Unless I hallucinated the whole thing, which I’m beginning to suspect isn’t as farfetched as I once imagined. “Be honest,” I say, meeting her eyes, “is this as twisted as I think it is?”

“Yes.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Do you like Connor in a dating kind of way?”

“I. . . shoot, Donna, I never really thought about it before. I know half the superheroes in the world would willingly risk their hands to sneak a grope, but to me, he’s Connor. I never even considered thinking about him any other way than as just. . . Connor.”

“Well, you kind of need to think about it now.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So,” she says, her voice filled with an exaggerated patience, “what do you think?”

I frown, picturing Connor in my head. He’s. . . well, he’s beautiful, no mistake about that, with his blond hair and jade green eyes, his honey-brown skin and cheekbones most women would kill for, or at least spend a small fortune and several hours in surgery trying to achieve. And then there’s his body, honed to perfection by all his martial arts training, truly a thing to inspire several hours of intense study accompanied by a can of whipped cream and a bottle of chocolate sauce and oh my god, where the hell did all this come from?

Okay, so he’s damn fuckable, but he’s also more.

He’s kind, caring, steadfast, with a giving nature, a way with kids--he's a great uncle to Lian, and he has a wicked sense of humor lurking underneath you have to be around him long enough to notice. And now I’ve noticed, not just his sense of humor, but all of him. The only thing I can fault him for is that he seems more than a little fond of me, in spite of. . . well. . . me.

I haven’t seriously considered a guy in a very long time, but here I am, seriously considering Connor. God, I’m an idiot.

“If I screw things up between us, I’ll not only lose a friend but a brother. How can I risk that?”

“On the other hand,” Donna says, being the ever present annoying voice of reason, “if you pass up this chance, have you thought about what you could lose?”

Well, let’s see, what could I lose? Someone who will be a good parent to Lian. Someone who will be a good partner for me in life--assuming things get that far. If all else fails, maybe we’ll go out for a couple times, realize we just don’t connect on the right levels, and we’ll be able to stay friends. It’s worth a couple of dates to find that out, isn’t it?

“Donna, could you watch Lian tomorrow night?”

She smiles, squeezing my arm in understanding. “I’d be happy to.”

I guess that settles it. I’m going on a date with Connor.

But enough of this pussy-footing around and letting him make all the decisions in our fledging relationship. First thing I do when I get up the next morning is call him and ask him if he can get here around eight instead of seven. Sounding puzzled and a little amused, he agrees, and at eight o’clock sharp, I open my door to find him standing in the hall.

Until about twenty-four hours ago, I’d never looked and Connor and thought, “Damn, what I wouldn’t give to slam him against the wall and fuck him right here and now.”

Seeing him standing there, my first thought is, “Damn, what I wouldn’t give to slam him against the wall and fuck him right here and now.”

It isn’t that he’s changed physically. He still looks just as lip-smacking good as he always has, but now when I see him, the possibility that I could have him is lurking in my mind, and I REALLY see him.

I see the way his khakis sit on his waist and are loose enough to allow flexibility in case of emergencies--and I offer up a quick prayer that we have none of those tonight--but still manage to highlight his thighs, his calves, and his Charmin-like ass--in other words, it’s just made to be squeezed.

I see the way his olive green tee-shirt highlights his eyes and stretches nicely over his chest and shoulders. The boy is positively made to wear cotton. The fabric clings to him as if it, too, feels a need to caress every inch of his skin.

Even though I’m dressed just as casually as he is, suddenly I feel self-conscious of the jeans and tee-shirt I threw on. The denim is a little worn around the knees and in the back, and the shirt is just a plain black tee-shirt, but they’re both clean, a huge accomplishment for any single parent, which is what I’ll tell him if he says anything. Not that he would. This is Connor, after all.

He seems a little nervous, offering me a shy smile with his hands shoved in his pockets--a dangerous place for them to be, as they pull the fabric a little too tight over his. . . well, we just won’t look there.

“Ready to go?” I ask, shouldering my backpack, and he nods.

“I guess. Where are we going?”

“Out,” I say, closing the door and locking it behind me.

“And here I was looking forward to just sitting in the hall.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Come on, smartass,” I say, hesitating only a moment before taking his hand in mine and pulling him towards the stairs. My entire body flushes when he squeezes my hand and holds on tight. All right, Roy! Very smooth move. Keep this up, and maybe you won’t blow it.

We walk out onto the street and I’m tempted to take my hand from his. I admit, I’m a little reluctant to draw unwanted attention to ourselves. I don’t want anything to spoil this night, but decide that not holding his hand would be much worse than any dirty looks people might send our way.

Now, if I had been in Connor’s place and was being led blindly down the street, I would have demanded to know where we were going. It’s got to be one of those Zen things, how he just accepts the situation without giving in to what would, for me, have been an overwhelming and uncontrollable curiosity. I sneak a glance at him out of the corner of my eye to see if he’s faking it, but no, he seems content.

“You don’t find this to be at all odd?” I ask, and he seems to know I’m not talking about our secret destination.

“A little,” he shrugs. “After all, you’re a good deal older than me—”

“HEY!” I protest, then see the twinkle in his eyes. “You’re going to pay for that.”

“For what?” he asks a little too innocently, and I give him a sharp look. Where the hell did he learn this subtle humor? From the monks? Though the odds on Ollie are a bit higher. Or maybe both?

I don’t know--do monks have a sense of humor? I know Ollie has one, if you can call it that, but what about people who have a reputation of being serious and somber? You’d think the celibacy alone would kill any sense of humor they might have had.

I’ll just add it to my growing list of ‘Questions to Ask Connor’. I’ll put ‘Do monks have a sense of humor?’ right after ‘Why me?’

“If you’re wondering whether or not I think dating my adopted brother is odd,” he continues, “then my answer is no. We didn’t grow up together. We didn’t even know the other existed until we were adults. The only thing we have in common, really, is Ollie.”

“And archery, and being superheroes, and saving the world countless numbers of times. . .”

He smiles. “Besides that. I was sort of speaking about our non-costumed lives, and that just leaves Ollie. While he raised you, and I’ve heard what a bang-up job he did with that--”

“No shit,” I interrupt with a grumble. Even though I’ve long since forgiven Ollie for lending a hand in fucking up my youth, it still hurts when I think about it.

“--he didn’t even know I existed until a short while ago and has been doing his best since to make up his lack of parenting for both of us.”

“Which is much easier since you’re all grown up and already raised.”

“Yes, but my point is that even the one thing we do have in common, we don’t. Let’s face it, Roy, we’d might as well be related, as estranged as families are today. We rarely see each other, and when we do, you’ve got to admit, ‘comfortable’ doesn’t usually describe how we feel.”

“We hold our own,” I protest, and he grins, shaking his head.

“Remember the only sibling outing we’ve gone on? You took me to a strip club!”

“Even then, I knew we were watching the wrong kinds of strippers for you. Next time, we’ll go see Chippendales.”

“My point is, if we’re not truly brothers, and we don’t have enough in common to be friends, then how else am I going to describe this growing need to be near you?”

I swear, if my jaw is going to keep dropping this much, I’d might as well just leave my mouth open. And since my eyes seem to be popping out of my head without any trouble, I’m sure they’ll pop right back in.

“You know, Roy,” he says with laughter in his voice, “I think your friends are going to have to find a new slogan for you. You’re becoming a regular mute. You didn’t go and take a vow of silence on me, did you?”

He definitely got his sense of humor from Ollie.

“Admit it,” I say, looking around us. “You’ve got me on a hidden camera somewhere. You strapped it to Nightwing and he’s lurking on a rooftop taping everything. All right, Dick, you can come out now!”

“This has nothing to do with Dick,” Connor says, a slight flush on his face. He pulls me to a halt and stares deeply into my eyes--he always was a romantic. “I like you, Roy. A lot. I have for some time now. I just need to know if we have a chance.”

Damn me if romance isn’t contagious. I gaze into those beautiful jade eyes and I find myself thinking I could be content looking into his eyes for the rest of my life.

“I want to know, too,” I smile, raising his hand to my lips. “You’ll just have to forgive me these bouts of self-doubt.”

“Of course. Now, do you want to tell me where we’re going?”

HA! I knew it! I knew he had to have a curious bone somewhere in there. No, not that bone, I scold myself when my thoughts instantly wander. A different bone.

“Nope,” I grin, once more heading down the street. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

We pass by my favorite deli and I tell Connor to wait on the sidewalk. I run inside, grab the insulated cooler from Max in exchange for a handful of cash and a yelled thanks, then am back at Connor’s side. He offers one look at the cooler hanging over my shoulder, but doesn’t say anything. He just takes my backpack and slides it over his shoulder, then continues to let me lead him down the street. Maybe the curious bone comes and goes.

Okay, enough with that line of thinking, Roy! What kind of pervert are you?

Well, since you asked. . .

NO! Stop it stop it stop it. Get the boy. . . er, Connor talking about something, anything! I need a distraction here before I do something I’ll regret.

“So,” I say, trying to sound completely at ease, “tell me about your life in the ashram.”

“It was nice.”

I try not to sigh. “Details, Connor. ‘Nice’ isn’t much of a description. Remember how you said we had separate lives? Well, this is me trying to learn about yours.”

“Oh,” he says looking somewhat abashed, then attempts to go into a more detailed description of his life with the monks.

He had it right the first time. It was nice.

The monks were gentle, kind, caring for him in lieu of his true family, and knowing his true family, they were probably the best thing that could have happened to him. He told me about everything the monks taught him, from mastering the bow to various forms of martial arts--and I’ve seen him in a fight. He truly is a master. He told me about his Zen studies, about searching for enlightenment, how the hours of meditation and self-contemplation gave him a sense of peace and taught him to search for the inner meaning of everything around him, but particularly within himself.

“That’s how I realized what I felt for you, Roy,” he says, twining his fingers through mine. “There was an unbalance in my life, a sense that something wasn’t quite right. So I sat, and I meditated on it, but the source of this turmoil remained hidden. That’s when I started coming to visit you. Playing with Lian helped clear my head, and just being around you helped everything click into place once more. It took me longer than I care to admit to recognize that the source of my unbalance was my attraction to you.”

“How flattering,” I say dryly. “Nice to know I can be summed up as a disturbance in the Force.”

“The Force?” he frowns, and there goes my jaw again.

“You’re joking, right? You don’t know about Star Wars? The movie that changed movies for a generation?”

“Monk. Dead guy for a father. I’m a little behind the times.”

“Right, sorry. We’ll rectify that as soon as possible by watching the original trilogy from start to finish. I’ll be generous and not make you sit through the others.”

“Does this mean spending several hours in the dark on the sofa making out instead of watching the movie?”

And again, I have to take a moment to pop my eyes back in. I’m seeing whole new sides of Connor tonight, and I’m finding it difficult to believe I haven’t been chasing his tail the entire time.

“Not to mention,” he continues, “all that buttery popcorn we’ll be eating. Whatever will we do with those slick, slippery fingers?”

Oh, fuck. Another comment like that, and I’ll have to run home for a fresh pair of pants.

“Connor?” I say in a scratchy voice because my throat is a little dry at the moment. “Stop fucking teasing me.”

“Yes, Roy,” he grins. “May I continue?”

“Please.”

“What I was trying to say, before you so kindly gave me the opportunity to tighten your jeans--” I swear, I’m going to tie him to the bed and just leave him there to suffer the first chance I get. “--was that I looked inside of myself, and I found you.”

For a moment, I’m left speechless. That has to be the most amazing, wonderful, loving thing anyone’s ever said to me. So of course I have to go and fuck it up.

“Connor, there’s something you should know. The fastest way to a guy’s heart is not through another guy’s pants.”

“I know,” he says, that quiet blush creeping up his face once more, his eyes filling with pain. Damnit, I was only teasing. For the most part. I hadn’t meant to hurt him. I don’t think. Fuck.

“Okay, let me just lay this out on the table right now so we can get it out of the way before it really starts to mess things up. That you went to someone else because of your confusion over your feelings for me, I admit, it kind of hurts. I wish you’d felt comfortable enough to come to me in the first place, but you know what, that’s why we’re doing this, so we will feel comfortable together, and as far as I’m concerned, what happened that night is not a big deal.”

“Do you mean that?”

“I sure hope so,” I grin. “Otherwise, you’re going to have to start beating me with a sock every time I bring it up.”

A golden eyebrow arches. “A sock?”

“Once you get to know me, you’ll understand. And you’ll probably go through several pairs of socks.”

He chuckles, shaking his head, and I suddenly understand what he means about everything falling into place. That he can accept my stupidity with a laugh means we really do have a chance.

“Come on,” I say, squeezing his hand, “we have to hurry or we’ll be late.”

“Late for what?”

I just smile and pull him into City Park, a nature preserve consisting of several acres of trees and grass and flowers and a pond, all of it to be found smack dab in the center of Star City. It began as part of the City’s beautification program, and is one of the few remaining tranquil spots you can find amidst the glaring lights of the surrounding buildings and the constant traffic.

I lead him deep into the trees to an open spot near the pond. Sliding the backpack from his shoulder, I remove the blanket and spread it out on the grass.

“Sit,” I say and he folds himself onto the blanket, watching me with curious eyes as I sit down next to him and start pulling things out of the cooler.

“What we’ve got here is some of the best picnic fixins’ in Star City. Max’s famous potato salad, coleslaw, a pasta salad you will have wet dreams about, and those are just the side dishes. For me, there’s a pastrami sandwich that I’ve been craving for a week now, because it’s been about a week since my last one. For you, hummus and vegetables on wholegrain bread that Max bakes fresh every day with mayo and mustard on the side, depending on your preference. As for dessert, chocolate chunk cookies that will make you my slave with one bite.”

“Your slave, huh?” he grins, taking a bottle of water from my outstretched hand. “Wouldn’t I be Max’s slave?”

“No,” I whisper huskily as I lean towards him, “because it’ll be my fingers you’ll be licking the chocolate off of.”

His pupils dilate, his breath hitching in his chest, and I grin. Payback is mine.

“Now eat, enjoy, and watch the show.”

“Show?” he frowns, and I point up.

He raises his eyes and gasps. Random streaks of white light cut across the sky, the night’s entertainment brought to us by Mother Nature and a passing meteor shower.

“I’d forgotten this was tonight,” he says softly, his voice filled with awe. He looks almost afraid to blink, knowing that in the split second his eyes close, he’ll miss half a dozen meteors. But then he turns and graces me with an adoring smile that, I swear, nearly causes me to melt into a Roy puddle.

“Thank you,” he says, reaching out to take my hand as his eyes return to the sky. “This is perfect.”

And with those few words, I am complete. I know in that moment that if I look inside of myself, I’ll find Connor looking back at me.

[Completed May 5, 2004]
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Ready, Aim, Fire!