#koy

“Hey,” Roy said, settling at Kaldur’s side. Their legs pressed close, swinging into the air as they kicked idly at the edge of a Star City rooftop. Debris of Atlantis floated by, bobbing gently on the currents. Somewhere, very far away, a woman was speaking.

Kaldur took Roy’s hand in his, wrapping his fingers around Roy’s own in their customary variant. He wondered, as he looked at Roy’s blunt, ragged nails, what it would be like to twine fingers with the man. How the calluses from his bow would feel, sliding against digits unfettered by webbing, intimate and wonderful.

Kaldur looked out at the horizon. The scenery had shifted—they were overlooking Shayeris, now, rather than Posiedonis’ wreckage.

“You loved me,” Kaldur said, clasping Roy’s palm with a hand that could never twine. “It feels like a long time ago.”

Roy was silent, his knee knocking against Kaldur’s own. It hadn’t gone like this, Kaldur remembered. They’d been in Central City, at the end of a joint Team and League mission. Neutral territory, which worked with Kaldur’s plan. He’d asked Roy to wait until the rest of the squad had departed through the Zeta. 

Kaldur turned to Roy, the Roy with him now. He considered the refractions of stars and apartment lights in his wet, blue eyes. Those, at least, were accurate to the true memory—if there was such a thing as true memory, now, in the wreckage of this mind.

Kaldur had watched those eyes, months back. Had considered worlds, and small universes made of even smaller lives gathered close, an inextricable web of everything he’d ever wanted to throw himself to the wolves to protect. 

“But I want you to know it mattered,” Kaldur repeated, words following the script exactly. It had been a break-up, yes. But it’d also been a goodbye. 

It should have been impossible to taste salt, in the background of the ocean. But the copper tang of tears had been strong in the back of his throat, back then, and their memory was a powerful ghost now. “To me,” Kaldur finished, raising Roy’s scarred knuckles to his lips. He kissed them, like he’d wanted to do then. Like he hadn’t dared. “It mattered to me.” 

“Where are you going?” Roy asked, and Kaldur paused. 

That wasn’t the next line. That wasn’t what Roy had said—and he certainly hadn’t said it like that, angry and affronted. Like Kaldur had just announced a suicide plan.

(hadn’t he?)

Kaldur turned away from Shayeris, which was burning now, and looked Roy Harper in the eye. 

“I have to do this,” he said, which was truthful. “I know you’ll understand,” he said next, which was a lie. Roy wouldn’t understand—no one would. That was what would sell the lie, make it believable. 

Roy’s hand twisted in his own, flipping their grip so it was Kaldur’s hand clasped tight in the archer’s. “You’re coming back,” Roy said. It wasn’t a question. 

“I wanted to,” Kaldur said, honest. The lies all dropped away, eventually, under those blue eyes. Under that warm touch. “But I don’t think so. Not anymore.”

Roy didn’t look surprised. Just fierce. Unaccepting, because Roy Harper had never accepted defeat as long as Kaldur had known him. It was a full half of how he’d fallen in love with the man. Roy’s hand tightened, harder. Kaldur could feel the bones creak. “You are coming back.”

“I’m sorry, my friend.” Kaldur smiled weakly. He took a breath, choked on the blood clouding the water before coughing, powering through. “I can’t be this person any longer. I can’t live through the things I know I have to do. It’s time to let go, now.” 

Roy’s eyes were like chips of ice. Kaldur’s hand felt like it was caught in a vice. 

“You’re the only one who ever really knew me,” Kaldur explained, tugging. It was like pulling against the grip of a mountain, or fate. “Everyone else—they think I’m so much better than what I am. But you know me, so it has to be you. You have to let me go.” 

“You want me to give up on you?” Roy spat, his mouth that same, stubborn line whose righteous anger had captured Kaldur’s heart like a conquering army. “After everything?” 

“You can’t save us both, my love,” Kaldur sighed, leaning in. Roy’s breath was warm against his cheek, stale with cigarette smoke and cheap whiskey. It was a scent that Kaldur still woke up chasing the traces of, warm and familiar in the sterile steel and ozone of the Manta Flyer. “Speedy is an innocent. He never had a choice in this. I’ve made mine, so I’m asking you to stay your course. I can’t be your next ghost.”

(I publish it there anyway)

Koy, stripped down to lines and decisions. He is 17 yo there..

Not the final version just the structure, this is the part where everything either holds together or falls apart, heh.

(I was honestly so worried about the lineart on this one, but I’m lowkey obsessed with how the flow turned out)

The hair was a struggle, but we got there!

— Lian 🤍