Speedy down the crooked road

[Gothicruby]

For the past six and a half hours, Roy Harper had been waiting patiently for his weekly delivery by the old Star Bridge, ducking under anyone and everyone's radar with a disturbing amount of ease.

It was amazingly easy to keep a low profile, he'd always found, but less of a hassle when there was no-one at home to duck from. In one week Roy had managed to detach himself from everyone he'd ever found himself to care about and, eerily, found he had a knack for it.

Ward of the state, twice over Roy Harper had been nobody's child for as long as he could remember, twice over, and with his adopted father pulling in and out of the picture like a yo-yo it looked like lucky number three was coming right up.

And by the looks of it, that was something he seemed to have already come to terms with. At 7pm on a Wednesday evening, fifteen year old Roy Harper was waiting for his next heroin fix.

"Chrissakes," he swore under his breath "Hurry it up."

Almost fifteen hours since the last hit, and his patience was wearing thinner by the minute. He supposed it would have been easier had it been an arranged fix, person to person, but even now that old Arrow-training was pretty well instilled. It was easier if he didn't see a face or hear a voice; no witnesses, no alibi, no culpability.

No, there was no sense changing a good system; but still, he hated having to kick himself for the unnaturally long waits. Not being an official 'client' came with such inconveniences.

Another half an hour later and finally there was some movement by the place. A stocky, hooded figure sauntered up, casually and took a good five minutes of finishing a cigarette before he saw the money being slipped out from under the usual rock.

A crisp $50 right from the Green Arrow's wallet; Ollie wouldn't notice. He didn't notice anything nowadays about Roy; supposed that was how he coped so easily.

Ten minutes after the scene cleared did Roy struggle not to dash over. Instead, he took calm, careful steps towards the meeting spot. Eagerly he snatched up his prize and, carelessly, took a second to marvel it.

A beautiful 300g block of heroin: his nightly treat.

The trek back to the mansion was quick, cutting through the alleys at this time of night saved an amazing amount of time. By the time the fifteen year old arrived home...or what he thought to be home for now...it was already dark.

The lights were off and all seemed dark, but still; he might have to be careful making an entrance through the front door.

Package tucked safely away, Roy pushed through the door into the lonely parlour.

"Ollie?" He half-heartedly called, not expecting an answer for his troubles. Since the...'incident' involving the sudden lack of a fortune Oliver Queen had been pretty scant around the old house.

Another moment on baited breath, listening for any sort of shifting around the house before Roy figured he was in the clear.

Good. One less thing to worry about.

Stealing away into his bedroom, Roy pulled the neat little package out of his coat and set it carefully atop the bed. Addiction was only addiction if you were careless with it, and right now, Roy was in the habit of admiring the beautiful little blocks. He wasn't addicted, no, he was a good boy; everyone always said so.

So good that he'd been able to pull this off for going on six months.

[Fenrir13]

Ollie arrived much later due to a heavily bleeding shoulder wound that he first had to get treated before he could return from his team up with Green Lantern. The other superhero dropped him off near his house so he could get the rest he needed after fighting Sinestro.

When he entered he found the house in a pretty miserable condition. Everything was dark and there was no sign that anyone had lived there in the past few days. The Green Archer cursed silently and called for his ward, but right now he was more angry at him than concerned even though he should have called Black Canary and told her too look after him while he was gone fighting crime.

Not knowing if he would get any reply Ollie sat down in the kitchen and checked his wound. He was that at least the lights functioned properly when he turned them on. Ever since the crooked business man John Deleon had taken his fortune Ollie lived almost as spartanic as he had on the Island. On the one hand it had inspired him to look after the little people a little more and focus on solving street crime most of the time, but it had also somewhat changed his personality, making him more bitter and angry than he had been while he still could afford to build lots of gadgets and trick arrows, like a more fun loving Batman.

Right now he was already thinking about yelling and possibly spanking Roy for not contacting him all this time. Clearly the boy had needed his help with something and now was lashing out in some way. Ollie thought that he might have started to drink or did something equally reckless like starting to take part in illegal street racing, but he loved the boy too much to seriously consider that he had done something as suicidal as taking a drug like heroin.

„Roy... I´ve run out of patience. Come out boy, we need to have a talk!“, he called once more.and really sounded angry this time. The superhero stood up again and starting to walk up and down the room nervously.

He really missed the good old days where every disagreement between Arrow and Speedy could be solved easily, but they both had become to stubborn for that. Now that father and foster son were living under one roof again a lot of fights could be expected.

„Thats it... I am coming to your room. I know you don´t sleep this early in the evening“, Ollie warned and took his best leather belt with him, just in case...

[Gothicruby]

The ceremony of cooking up the perfect shot of heroin followed two basic rules: time and patience. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, Roy recalled, was a precision about these things afterall. Ollie had taught him that, way back when they had all the time and money to spend crafting those old trick arrows. God that felt so long ago now, and yet whenever it came time to cook he could almost smell the old workshop as if nothing had ever changed.

Lost to the tide of nostalgia, the boy had been deaf to the commotion coming from downstairs until he felt a set of stern footsteps making their way towards his room.

His heart stopped: No that couldn't--Oh hell it was, Ollie was actually home!

'Oh fuck!' The teen swore silently; the one night he thought to bring his hobby home!

He was on his feet in an instant--forgetting everything in the blind panic and managing to knock his 'gear', heroin and all, straight to the floor.

"Oh Fuck! Wait, no! Don't come in!" He all but panicked, dripping to his knees in despair while the wasted mix pooled into a very expensive puddle of mush "I--uh---I'm changing outta my costume! Gimme a sec!"

Ollie couldn't have picked a worse time to start caring: this wasn't like sneaking a swig of whiskey out of the liqueur cabinet or , this was heroin! Heroin smuggled into the Green Arrow's own halls, no less!

Speaking of whom; those footsteps were getting awfully close now, all the Arrow would have to do is open the door, step inside and catch little Speedy red handed.

Scrambling to his feet, the teenager desperately racked his brain for what to do: if he could just hide it long enough to shove Ollie off then he'd have all the time in the world to get the stain out of the carpet. But if he couldn't? With Ollie's temper as it had been lately?

He tried not to shudder. Ollie wouldn't...well he'd been grouchy, sure, but he wouldn't just take it out on him, right?

"Ah hell..." Roy muttered: going with the first thing he could think of, he grabbed Speedy's costume shirt and ran it swiftly over the spill. It wouldn't take the stain out of the carpet, but atleast he could blame the grime on a street fight if it came down to it. But just for good measure, he dropped the bright yellow hat over the worst of the evidence.

From there, he leaped over his bed and hurriedly covered the rest of the unopened packages under the blanket. There wasn't any time to be picky, but for good measure he thought to dive under the covers with the contraband and pull them right up to his chin before Ollie could step into the room; hopefully he could fake sick and just duck subtly back under the blonde man's radar?

"What's up?" He thought to call out at the last minute, trying for all the world to act natural "I-I didn't hear you come home?"

[Fenrir13]

Ollie didn´t take the time to knock, he just went straight into his wards room and grabbed the boy by the shoulder. He began to shake him angrily. "What have you been doing, Speedy?", he demanded to know," My home looks like a frigging crackhouse! You´ve had parties here again, right? With those Titan brats!"

After a short while he calmed down somewhat and gave Roy a chance to regain his breath, at least unless he had noticed that Ollie had knocked away his hat while he shook him, thus revealing the stain on the carpet. After letting the boy go Arrow soon took a look at it. After a while he touched the stain to take a little sample and smelled at it. "I don´t even want to know what that is...", he lied, but in truth he already suspected that it was a drug.

However, Ollie still did not consider that his ward was a junkie. That he had begun selling drugs seemed much more likely to him, but he wanted an experts opinion before he jumped to conclusion. Roys guardian raised his belt threateningly in front of his ward. "I want to see you tidy up here right now, Roy. I am in charge here again.", Ollie reminded the kid and gave him a single strong whack on the bottom of his jeans with the belt. Then he went to the kitchen to call a certain friend....

"Oh, and before I forget it! You are not to leave the house again before I give you permission. Tomorrow after school you will return on the fastest way possible and do your homework right after lunch!", Ollie ordered shouting from the kitchen. He really was not in a good mood...

[Gothicruby]

As Ollie stormed back out into the hallway, Roy could only hold his stinging backside in wide-eyed outrage.

He honestly couldn’t believe that had just happened; that was it? That was all the man had to say after all this time? Some massive explosion about, what, the house he left his unsupervised minor in for weeks on end? And then barge in and blow up like nobody's business?

No asking how he was, what he was up to, not even an iota of concern; just another angry 'my house my rules and it's all your fault' spiel.

The red-head did his best to ignore a stinging pooling up at the back of his eyes and just stood there, glowering resentfully into the doorway. Even when Ollie had been gone, Roy hadn’t felt nearly as abandoned as he did right now.

Well, he wasn't going to just jump to it and tidy up. Pulling the covers back to reveal his coveted blocks of heroin, Speedy decided that he was going to take his sweet, sweet time to 'reflect' on his foster father's so-called-lesson.

Heating up another generous helping of smack, the young ward went ahead to shoot an entire half a gram up into his

And then...."Ohh..."

Oh that felt beautiful. Like having an entire piece of your skull lift and just empty out, while you got to just lie back and let the floor of life roll on out. It was as if an old friend reached down and warmed the very cockles of his heart.

For a short while he just lay back; content to float away on the , until Ollie's last-minute yell caught his ear...and the corners of his mouth suddenly started to perk up into a dopey

“Heh…heheha….” he shifted a little, head lolling awkwardly over towards the empty doorway; Ollie's voice sounded so funny when it went all growly like that..."Hahahaha!"

That little giggle suddenly erupted into a loud, guttural laughter; the mental image of Ollie with that angry face and angry beard was way too much!

"Yessir, ya royal friggin' majesty!" he called down, heaving his shoulders with a drunken shrug "'Cos ya didn't call me 'Speedy' for nothin', right! Hehahaha!"

Lanky legs suddenly started to kick up in uncontrolled hysterics; he could barely even feel his face anymore! Ollie may have been out of his mind with anger, but right now, Roy couldn't have been any merrier.

"You want--You want I should do it hoppin' on one leg too? And I know! Shootin' a bow and arrow with my teeth! Through fire!" Another laugh exploded from Roy's chest "'Cept m'gonna hafta shoot something real expensive so's ya definitely, definitely notice!" he chortled wildly "'Cos I aint even sure you know I exist if I don't do somethin' craa-aazeh! Craa-zeh Ollie!"

[Fenrir13]

(Sorry, that I´ve made you wait for a new post so long... recently writing just doesn´t feel as easy anymore. Or I simply don´t have enough time. )

Ollie heard from the kitchen, alltough he did not understand most of what he said he became concerned this time and returned to the boys room.

His ward seemed to have gone mad the way he was babbling and waving his limbs around. This time Ollie just stared for several moments. His worst fears had been proven right. "Don´t tell me you´ve actually...", Arrow started but did not finish the sentence.

Instead he attempted to restrain Roy on his bed, but while he was busy trying to get the boy to calm down he discovered a bit of the heroin hidden beneah the blankets.

"How could you, Roy? After everything I´ve done...", Ollie said but this time he sounded sad rather than angry. He did not know what to do with an underage junkie like his ward.

Turning him over to the police was an option, but then he might never see the boy again...also this action would further damage his reputation and the last thing he needed after loosing his fortune was another scandal.

"Perhaps we can rid you of that addiction here.... after that there is still time to talk about why you started to use this crap in the first place", Ollie said, his voice now sounding almost gentle.

He stood up, hoping that Roy would remain on his bad and removed the rest of the drugs.

Ollie then rubbed the back of his blond head, not really knowing how he should deal with the situation.

But one thing was certain, he no longer could be really mad at Roy. Surely he would shout at time later on, but he realized that it was not just the teenagers fault that he and the house were in such a bad condition, alltough he was not entirely sure what had made him carry the situation to such extremes.

"Perhaps I´ll call Batman after all... at least he is someone I can trust", the blond man pondered and shook his head in a sad gesture.

[Gothicruby]

While in this blissfully oblivious stupor, Roy was well and truly oblivious to his foster father's .

While Ollie paced the boy was quite content to unhelpfully lay and giggle like a maniac while fragments of conversation floated overhead. What he understood he didn't much care for, and what he didn't care for the heroin had a wonderful way of keeping an entire universe away. It was all so beautiful; to be able to watch how the distressed pieces of Ollie's words lift and shimmer right through the ceiling, while the teen was able to hold on a little longer to this weightlessness and let all the malice and regret and care slip right by.

"After all you done?" The teen chortled out after a moment, tossing quite giddily over onto his side so as to be able to give the blonde his full attention "After all you done I'm lucky I aint started goin' nuts!"

Big, bleary blue eyes kept an eerily gleeful gaze fixed on to Ollie's frame. If it weren't for the red gloss over and slight slur dragging at his lip, then it could almost seem as if fifteen year old Roy Harper had suddenly leapt back about six years to a time where he could idolise Oliver Queen so blindly.


"Nuh-uh, not me; I was'a good boy! Jus' like ya told me to be!" he crowed quite proudly as he managed to roll himself up drunkenly to sit "Kept m'head down and kept it all inside the house; no gossip, no nothin'! Didn't even try and call ya when it got real lonely and I ran outta food. S’ok though! ‘Cos look! Look!"

One arm pointed awkwardly around towards his desk, towards the mess of cooking gear and spilled dope lingering atop the expensive wooden furnish “I always been real careful cooking up! I made it jus' like when you taught me to make those trick arrows! You proud of me, huh, Ollie? You proud of me?"

Despite the utter glee in his tone there were already tears beginning to pool in the corners of his eyes, as if his freckled little face couldn't quite keep up with the want to smile. Half of him keeping it together was only enough to delay the inevitable but, the longer he tried, the faster he began to come down.

[Fenrir13]

"I see what you are trying to say...", Ollie claimed and looked at his poor ward," It was all my fault wasn´t it? You poor boy..."

As Roy started to cry Ollie fell to his knees in front of his bed and pulled his ward into a hug. "I am sorry... so sorry. I should have been a better father to you. The father you deserve to have. But I was too concerned about my own problems to see how I have neglected you."

"Please give me another chance. I will do everything right this time. We may not have much money left but that doesn´t mean that we can´t be a happy family", the Green Aroow promised and slowly let go of his young ward.

"Just try to calm down a little and rest. We´ll talk about everything else once the drugs no longer effect your mind like this.", he explained and lowered his head in shame in front of the teen.

[Gothicruby]

Now, it was a scientifically proven fact that in most cases, a shock to the system could do something to sober an intoxicated mind; for Roy, that shock happened when he felt Ollie reaching out and pulling him into a...a hug. An actual hug.

It had just been so long since Roy had really, well, expected anything of the like. Lately it had been vague touches to the shoulder or a nudge here and there; but a hug just felt so...so warm. So strangely warm that, for a moment, all he could really do was freeze and sort of melt into it while it lasted.

When Ollie pulled back all Roy could do was blink, blearily, up to his foster father; as if he was waking from some vivid dream while looking all too ready to fall back into it at any given moment.

"...Huh...?" he mumbled out, unable to quite recognise why Ollie seemed to have knelt and looked so sullen "Ollie...? S'that...what...?" but before the words could truly make it out, the boy's head was already sinking back towards the foot of bed with a heavy and completely exhausted sigh "Wanna go 'sleep..."

All through this exhaustion, Roy's gaze still managed to have stayed hooked to Ollie's sullen features and, will a trail of tears still drying across his cheeks, the teenager managed to look quite small and needy in that tender moment.

"You gonna stay...?" he mumbled into the quilt.

[Fenrir13]

"Sure, buddy. Just lean back and relax...", Ollie promised and ruffled Roys hair before tucking him in. He seemed a little to old for that, but right now in this condition it looked like he could use this kind of comfort. Ollie remained at Roys bed and watched over the boy, hoping that he would fall asleep, soon. He felt really bad for leaving him alone for so long and now wanted to make up for it.

(Sorry for the short post, can´t write properly anymore somehow.)