Fucking Fight Me.

Emily tensed at the tight lipped smile, the forced look, the way he called what she was doing as silly games. Every time Emily tried to connect with him, every time she tried to bring back memories that she cherished with him, he pushed her away as if she were some monster. She bit down on her lip and listened to his news. Her face lit up as he announced his engagement and happily grabbed his hand. “Arrow! Th-That’s great! I’m…I’m so h-happy for you! I…I’m so happy for you!” She exclaimed, wanting to hug him, but she knew he wasn’t into them. “Have you told Mom and Dad? They’re going to be so happy. We should go and tell them after this! This is great! I can help you guys plan, if you want?” 

It was perverse, in a way that even he could admit to, that Emily’s happiness somehow diminished his. He was in love. He was getting married. All of these were good things; all of these were the kinds of things one should want to share. And yet... Sharing it was Emily, the idea of sharing it with his parents - it made him resent having to share at all. And he could probably psychobabble some bullshit about resentment from past unhappiness they’d caused him or whatever, but the truth was, he didn’t want some goddamn reason. Couldn’t it just be enough that he’d lived this long without them? Couldn’t it just be enough that he’d moved back to this god forsaken town? Did they need his life’s blood, too? 

“No, I haven’t told Mom and Dad yet,” he said, allowing her to hold his hands just long enough that she wouldn’t instantly frown when he pulled them away. “I was figuring you could do that. Seems like the kind of thing you’d like, and they’d probably appreciate the new more from you anyway. As for planning, that’s something you’d have to talk to Jade about.” 

                     It took a moment longer for Ophelia to really register and understand the words Aaron had spoken, but when she did, a moment’s numbness washed over her only to be replaced by a stinging feeling in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t explain it—- there was no RATIONAL explanation, she supposed, other than an out of character bitterness perhaps? People were moving on with their lives while Ophelia was stuck in the same rundown apartment she had grown up in, not even close to getting married herself. That could’ve been it, had it been someone else, but not Ophelia… —it’d never been hard for her to be happy for others.

                                                           Then what was it?

                     Surely enough the stinging sensation disappeared as soon as she pulled back and saw the sheer happiness and excitement on Aaron’s face again, only reminding her how much this meant to HIM, and how that was enough reason it itself, to be happy. But she supposed… —there had once been a part of her that thought she would end up with him; perhaps not even in the romantic sense, but in some way, and this felt like she’d been wrong all along. Still, there had always been a deeper, inexplainable CONNECTION to him, and maybe that was why she felt torn for a lingering second there.

                      “Oh please, you’ve been together forever now—- it was bound to happen sooner or later,” she said, smiling softly as she searched his familiar features. She raised a hand and placed it gently against the side of his face, almost familiarly— not sisterly exactly, not motherly either, but familiarly definitely. “I’m so happy for you, Aaron. You deserve this so much.” She held his gaze for a second, the smile staying on her lips even as she let her hand drop down again. “Ah, come on— I don’t want to impose like that. Just save me a seat somewhere at the reception where I won’t have to get up on my chair to get a decent shot of you in a tux.”

It was strange - the way there was just the slightest lingering of tension in the air, small enough to be ignored, but also just enough that even Aaron could pick up on it. Ophelia was, he could safely presume, his best friend, and yet... There was something underlying their happiness, and the weirdest part was, he couldn’t be sure whether it was coming from her or from him. 

“I want you to impose, though,” he insisted. “It’s going to be a day filled with my family, and her family, and I want to be able to know I’ll have at least one person completely on my side...” Because that was what Ophelia was, wasn’t she? The one person who was always there. Even Jade had her misgivings - had threatened to leave more times than he could count. Ophelia was, in one word, his constant. “Y’know, you were that first person for me, Phee,” he admitted almost shyly. There was a time when he had thought it was her brother, but it had always, secretly, been her. “You believed in me when nobody else did. I know I don’t ever... say stuff like this, but I guess since I’m on the cusp of this major change or whatever — you’re pretty damn important to me. You’ve been by my side through a lot, and I really couldn’t imagine my wedding day being any different.” 

“Is that what you’re trying to tell yourself? That you’ve grown up?” She looked at him mercilessly for a long moment, without smiling or even hinting at one like before, but rather studying him instead. “You’ve grown up, that’s obvious. I just didn’t know you were that desperate to be another face in the crowd that you would get offended by me pointing out that you’re not…”

“I’m not another face in the crowd, nor have I ever been desperate to be so, but this notion you’ve got - the one that you’ve been trying to play off so coyly - that you know me better somehow... it isn’t real.” He knew her, back when she was some silly little preteen following him around, pretending to be in love with the big bad wolf. He had to remind himself of that sometimes, but ultimately, she could hold no power over him because of that. 

She laughed without restraint when he said it was the thing people did when they were in an adult relationship. “I don’t know what’s more funny - that you think you’re ‘people’ or that you’re in an adult relationship.” Of course he was people, just not regular people. She knew that. He knew that. 

Aaron’s jaw clenched in annoyance at the liberties she was taking with him; he didn’t remember ever giving her permission to judge him. “Just because you’ve never learned to grow out of your state of perpetual teenage angst, doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t grow up,” he bit out, his tone even, but scathing. 

            Once upon a time, before the abduction, before the end of their innocence, the hopeless romantic Adrian had always been even as a boy, was easily able to imagine this moment. For both of them. There had been a point where he couldn’t imagine either one of them getting married without the other standing beside the other PROUDLY as the best man. Brothers, they had been once. Now they had succumbed to this; Adrian hearing it in passing, giving his congratulations weakly, eyes averted and his lips nearly around a bottle. Some part of him felt bitter. Unable to find himself utterly happy for the man. This wasn’t the way this was supposed to go…

                         Guilt twisted through him. What a horrible thought to have. 

                                                                       Get it together.

             “4 carats, huh?” He finally brought his gaze back to Aaron, not letting it falter this time. For the most part, the other seemed pleasant enough, despite the obvious tension. Adrian would proceed with caution of course, but he’d proceed willingly nonetheless. As long as Aaron did too. “I’m not entirely sure how much that is, but it definitely doesn’t sound small by any means….” He even offered a courteous smile; it short-lived once he realized his next words left him without thought. “Did Jade like the ring?” The hair shot up at the back of his neck. He wasn’t supposed to say that. Maybe Jade had mentioned something about their unlikely friendship to the eldest Pierce, but Adrian doubted it. If she hadn’t, it most definitely wasn’t his place to say, even if the roles had been reversed the last time the two of them had run into each other, right outside Ophelia’s apartment. This wasn’t out of malicious intent. This was out of pure carelessness. “—- I mean. That’s her name, right? I… I think that’s what I heard?”

Aaron’s back stiffened in time with Adrian’s, because Jade’s name out of Adrian’s lips felt like some sort of perversion - two things that should never meet. With Adrian, Jade became an abstract notion; and with Jade, Adrian was erased entirely. The two were never supposed to mix, not beyond Aaron’s announcement and boasting - all of it, still, an abstract concept. 

He’d never even said her name... 

His hackles raised. His tone becoming noticeably less easy. “If you heard it from someone, it wasn’t from me,” he said, his eyes scanning Adrian carefully. It was possible, of course, that Ophelia had told Adrian about her, but even after all these years, he could tell whenever Adrian was nervous. He continued to stare, hoping that with enough time, Adrian would crack. 

Emily loved and loved hard, mainly because so much of her life already had been spent being subjected to such torture. She loved her family so much that it came through in every action, in every way and her perspective on them was something she knew they’d never understand. For years, she just had herself down in that cold, dark basement and she would think about how her big brother had grown up, what he would be, what he would look like, and the same for her father and mother. She pictured them all the time and to see them now, to actually see them, it was mind-blowing to her. She studied them when there were pauses in conversations, or when she was quiet, because Emily still was very quiet. Her parents were naggers, always trying to get her to open up, always bending over backwards to make her comfortable. 

Emily couldn’t blame them exactly—they had lost their daughter.

The one thing they didn’t understand though was that it still wasn’t a happy ending. Her mother cried tears of joy everyday, her father kissed Emily’s forehead, saying he was the luckiest man alive to get his baby girl back, but in truth, Emily wasn’t back. She wasn’t the same little girl they had known and they didn’t want to accept that. Furthermore, what really made Emily mad was that they neglected Aaron all of this time. Emily loved her big brother more than almost anyone and it broke her apart to see her family like this after all this time. 

Aaron, she knew, held something against her. She didn’t know it was just her returning, her even existing, but she knew he did. She could tell by the look in his eyes sometimes and it silently broke her heart, but she’d never reveal that. Ever. 

“Hmm. How about mac and cheese? Remember that was the one thing you would make me when Mom and Dad would go away and you’d babysit? Mac and cheese and french fries.” Emily giggled, putting the menu down and looking up at her older brother. She was so happy that he had invited her to lunch, so happy he wanted to spend time with her. 

“I missed you, Arrow. Here, give me your hands. Remember I used to always wanted to read your palms for fortunes? Maybe I can predict why you used me here!” 

Emily always had this way of bringing the past up with her. And when her mere presence wasn’t enough for it, she would bring it up with her words - with stories she’d no doubt spent years ruminating on while he’d spent years trying to forget. Even a question of what she wanted for fucking lunch was an opportunity for reminiscing, and Aaron felt his grip on his menu tightening in frustration at that fact. But he refused to let it get to him, both because they were in public and because he was here to share good news and he didn’t need to spoil every decent moment with a fight. “Yep, I remember,” he answered shortly, a small tight smile on his face as his eyes flashed over to her quickly in acknowledgement before fixating again on his menu. 

He sighed at the use of that insufferable nickname she refused to stop using - the beleaguered kind that spoke of an argument waged and lost, and best not to bring up again. Arrow - it was like an albatross around his neck; a specter back to haunt him. “There’s really no need for silly games, Emily,” he said, finally setting down his menu and setting his full attention on his sister. “I can just tell you why I brought you here. I’m not trying to make it some sort of secret. Jade and I are getting married. I thought you’d want to hear it from me.” Simple, straight, and to the point. Now, he just had to steel himself for her reaction.