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The sun beat down on Roy’s head and across his shoulders, as brutally hot as it had ever been back in the desert where he’d been born. But in the desert the light of it hadn’t reflected on the surface of the ocean, blinding him even as it scorched him, a final gift from the sea he’d devoted his life to.
Roy had always had a weakness for cruel lovers.
His nose and the back of his neck would crack and peel in this heat, he thought foolishly, before remembering that they wouldn’t have time. Seconds from now, he would be locked in the sea’s final, cool embrace. There would be no more burning. There would be no more pain.
There would be no more loneliness.
Still, it wasn’t in him to go down that easily. He looked over his shoulder—not an easy feat when balancing on a narrow plank, his hands bound behind his back. “You know Captain Queen will kill you for this, Merlyn,” he said.
The dark-bearded man holding the flintlock pistol glowered at him, clearly needled by Roy’s use of the piratical honorific for Ollie—and his eschewing it for Merlyn. Good. As far as Roy was concerned, Malcolm Merlyn wasn’t fit to captain a child’s washtub.
“Oh, he’ll try,” he said. “The minute he hears that I’ve sent his precious foundling to the bottom of the sea, he’ll come howling for my blood—and I’ll give him the same treatment I did you.” He smirked. “Believe me, it will be my pleasure to reunite you.”
Roy shook his head mournfully. “Such optimism. I only regret I won’t be there to see the look on your face when Captain Queen blows this sorry excuse for a ship to splinters.” A lie. He had so very many regrets.
He shook it off and let his gaze scan the crew members gathered behind Merlyn to watch the show. “You realize you’ll all go down with your so-called captain, don’t you?” he asked. “Do you really want to court the vengeance of the Green Arrow?”
“Enough,” Merlyn snarled, and brandished the pistol at him. “You can walk the plank as you are, or you can do it with a lead ball in your gut. Your choice, Harper.”
Roy wasn’t eager for more pain before dying. He sniffed. “Rot in hell, Merlyn,” he said before turning back to face the plank. He walked to the edge and stared down at the sparkling waves below. Infinite shifting shades of blue and green, like a pair of eyes he’d once committed to memory.
This was all Jason’s fault.
No, that wasn’t fair, Roy amended, watching the water dance. It was Roy’s fault, as so many things were. It was Roy’s fault for deciding that he could dally with opium, that he was stronger than the thousands it had broken. It was Roy’s fault for storming off when he and Ollie had fought over his addiction, for choosing the drug over the father who had dedicated his life to scuttling the opium trade.
Perhaps it was Roy’s fault for following that father to sea when Ollie had decided to give up his life as a respectable English gentleman and turn pirate. But no, he couldn’t regret that.
And he couldn’t regret Jason. Not a minute of it.
They’d met off the coast of the Arabian Sea. Roy had been sober as a judge and hating every minute of it. Jason had been little more than a rumor, a whisper of vengeance stalking the ports and souks with a red hooded cape and a smoking flintlock. Roy had known many real-life rumors in his day, but he hadn’t believed in this one.
He’d been a fool.
And then one night Roy had seen him, fighting three English bluecoats who’d been disrespecting a local girl, and losing. Roy hadn’t thought about it, just reacted. Later, when Jason asked him why, Roy had just laughed and said he hated to see an unfair fight, and any enemy of the British navy was an enemy of his.
And that was true, as far as it went. But it was also true that Roy had always had a weakness for a pretty face.
Not that Jason was pretty, exactly. Especially snarling through a fight with blood on his teeth. But there was something about him, something that had cast anchor in Roy’s heart in that moment, and it hadn’t pulled up yet.
They’d spent nearly a year together, fighting their way west, ship to ship and port to port. They had much in common, it turned out. Both poor boys taken in by wealthy English gentlemen. Both betrayed and gone astray. Both lost, even if they pretended they weren’t. Jason said he was a bad man, but he only ever unleashed his fury on worse men, and so Roy was happy to fight by his side. Hadn’t he spent his youth doing the same for Ollie?
It was a little bit different with Jason, of course. Jason took Roy under the shadow of his legend, at least for a little while—one outlaw become two. And Roy took Jason to bed.
For all his rage, for all the blood that stained his hands, Jason was sweetly innocent between the sheets—or wherever else they could find a private moment—and that sweetness captivated Roy even more than the dull flicker of the opium lamp had. Somewhere in between trying to forget that he’d failed Ollie and simply trying to stay alive, Roy had fallen in love.
He’d never said it out loud, of course. Jason wouldn’t have wanted to hear it. But it was true, all the same.
He could have spent his life by Jason’s side, drowning in passion and ignoring the rest of the world, but then he got a Hall pigeon from Dinah: Ollie was wounded. Ollie might not make it. Ollie was sorry. Would Roy come?
Jason didn’t say anything like “If you leave, don’t come back.” That would have been beneath him.
Nothing was beneath Roy anymore, and certainly not groveling. “Come with me,” he’d whispered against Jason’s skin their last night together. “Ollie can always use another good man on his crew.”
“What a shame that I’m not a good man, then,” Jason had said. But he’d held Roy until the dawn anyway.
Roy returned to the Green Arrow alone, and Ollie lived. Back aboard the only home he’d known since he was ten years old, Roy had shed the tears that wouldn’t fall when he’d walked away from Ollie. When he’d walked away from Jason.
But when the Hall pigeon came informing him of Jason’s death, his eyes were dry.
It was Dinah who told him of it, of course. Roy didn’t know who or what the Oracle was or how they came by their information, but they were never wrong. And what the Oracle knew, Dinah knew.
Jason had gotten into a fight with the wrong men, the message that the Hall pigeon carried had said. He’d been beaten with a prybar and thrown overboard. He’d never resurfaced. Roy had nightmares about Jason sinking slowly, his lungs burning as they filled with water. Alone. Roy had left him alone.
He never told anyone on the Green Arrow about Jason. What would be the point? No one could bring him back. Maybe Kyle, in that moment when he’d been something like a god. But the Starheart was locked away, and Roy didn’t have the key to unlock it.
So he smiled, and he joked, and he sang. And if he suspected that Connor or maybe even Mia could see the bloody wreck of his heart behind every smile—well, at least they were polite enough not to mention it.
Sometimes, though, it got to be too much. Sometimes he needed to be somewhere no one knew him and expected him to be always laughing; somewhere he couldn’t see Connor and Kyle smiling shy smiles at each other that they thought no one else noticed.
And so he’d wandered off when they’d pulled into port. He wouldn’t let himself go looking for a drink or a pipe; he couldn’t bring himself to go looking for a fuck. He’d settled for looking for a fight. Just his luck that it turned out to be with several of Merlyn’s men; just his luck that he hadn’t seen the bottle until it was breaking over his head and everything was going dark.
Or maybe, he thought as he stared down at the endless water, swaying on the edge of the plank, he’d known perfectly well what he was doing. Maybe he just wanted it to be over.
He thought he saw something flicker in the depths. Well. Death by sharks would be more painful than drowning, but at least it would be quicker. Although they said that those who drowned at sea became one with the ocean. If he drowned, would he be with Jason again? If he died by other means, would his immortal soul wander alone forever?
Perhaps he should have considered these philosophical questions more than ten seconds before his death.
“Enough of this,” Merlyn snapped behind him, and a shot rang out. The bullet sailed past Roy’s left side. “Next one goes in your leg, Harper. Now move!”
Roy’s eyes flicked across the horizon one last time, searching for a ship with green sails. But no one was coming to his rescue.
Ah, well. It would be finished soon enough.
I’m coming, Jason, he thought, and stepped off the plank.
Foolishly, he took a deep breath as he fell, but the shock of the cold water nearly knocked it from his lungs. He kicked upward instinctively, his eyes stinging in the clear saltwater. Getting to the surface would only delay his death—either he’d tread water until he was too exhausted to hold himself up anymore, or one of Merlyn’s men would simply shoot him to hasten things along. But his body wanted air, even if it was only one more breath.
With his arms bound behind his back, though, he couldn’t point himself in the proper direction. He kicked futilely and went nowhere. His lungs burned.
Movement caught his eye, below him. The flicker he’d seen from the plank. There was something down here with him. Sharks, most likely. Maybe he’d get lucky and it would be a dolphin. He’d heard tales of miraculous rescues before.
It loomed closer, a flash of red in the depths. Not a dolphin, then. And not a shark, either—the shape was wrong. It had a long, sinuous tail and fluttery, scarlet fins, like a tropical fish but much, much larger. And the front of its body…
No. No, Roy had to be hallucinating from lack of air.
But that certainly looked like a mermaid.
No, he amended as the creature came closer. Not a maid but a man, with a powerfully built torso and dark curls and…
And a face Roy knew.
His mouth dropped open in shock and water rushed in. Jason, that was Jason’s face on the creature. His skin was pale and cold, his ears pointed, but that was the mouth Roy had kissed so well. Those were the eyes he had lost hours gazing into, as fathomless and changeable as the sea.
“Jason,” he tried to say, but nothing but bubbles came out. Drowning, he was drowning, and this couldn’t be real.
Unless this was what the legends meant. Was this the fate of every drowning victim?
Was this Roy’s fate?
Jason swam closer. He reached for Roy, and Roy saw that his fingers, his thick fingers with the swollen knuckles Roy had kissed and bandaged, now ended in sharp claws. His ears were pointed. His chest expanded like he was breathing in, and stripes of red gaped against the sides of his pale throat before vanishing—gills.
But his eyes were the same.
Roy’s vision was going black around the edges, but he kept watching as Jason drew closer, close enough to touch. If this was how he died—if this was what killed him—then he welcomed it.
Jason’s mouth sealed over his in a kiss. His lips were cold, but they were still the lips Roy had been longing for. He closed his eyes.
Air rushed into his lungs. He opened his eyes in shock, but Jason was already swimming for the surface, pulling Roy after him with a clawed grip on his shirt. Towed after him like this, Roy could see more of those crimson fins fluttering at his shoulder blades, and he had to fight back a hysterical laugh. Fitting, that his Jaybird should have wings at last.
They broke the surface, and Roy took in several gasping, spluttering breaths. Merlyn’s ship was a tiny speck in the distance. Jason’s claws made short work of the rope around Roy’s wrists, and Roy tried to remember how to tread water before Jason made a strange but distinctly annoyed sound and grabbed him, holding him up effortlessly.
“Jason.” Roy touched his face, and Jason pressed his cheek into Roy’s trembling palm. His skin was cool to the touch. “Is it really you?”
But Jason just looked at him mournfully, and when he opened his mouth, the sounds he made were low and inhuman.
“You can’t speak?” Roy asked. “In English, I mean?”
Jason shook his head.
Roy frowned, thinking. “If you let me go...would I become like you? So that...so that we could be together?”
This time the sounds were loud and angry. Jason always had been able to make his meaning clear, even without words.
“All right, all right, peace!” Roy said. “But I’m not leaving you again, Jaybird. You can’t make me.”
He touched Jason’s cheek again and Jason turned to nip gently at his fingers with sharp, pointed teeth. Roy’s fingers stung. His heart ached—but a new ache, like something coming alive again.
“Do you know where the Green Arrow is?” he asked. “Can you take me there?” Jason nodded. “All right. Let’s go and then we’ll...we’ll figure the rest out when we get there, I suppose.”
Jason made another one of those fierce sounds and kissed Roy again, hard and possessive. Roy opened his mouth to it, opened his heart to it, felt those sharp teeth break his skin. When Jason pulled back, Roy’s mouth tasted like blood.
“Let’s go,” he said again, and tightened his arms around Jason’s neck.
Jason swam faster than the Green Arrow in full sail, as fast as if he’d been born to the sea and not the land. Roy closed his mouth against the spray, but he couldn’t close his eyes, even if they stung from the spray that rushed past them. He couldn’t stop looking at Jason—changed, unfamiliar, but still Jason.
There had to be a way to bring him back, or at least to let them meet somewhere in the middle. Kyle would know something, or Dinah, or the Oracle. Roy would search the seven seas until he found the answer.
Death had taken Jason from him once. But come hell or high water, Roy was taking him back.