If You Can't Be With the One You Love

A New Darkness

Barry watches as Oliver tries his hardest to fight the tears that sit in his eyelids. As Oliver had finished talking, his voice resembled a whisper. It shook as his lips quivered. Pain had completely taken over his expressions. Oliver takes a deep breath before he finishes his thought, capping off his words with a smile. "You persevered. That isn't a failure-- that is a win."

Barry's mind had been overtook by a void of hopelessness. He could not see past the accident. He dwelt on the idea that he was crippled by something that he was supposed to stop but did not. He wallowed in the thought that he was stuck in this state of paralysis. But something about Oliver's words sparked a light in that void.

"What if I don't get better?" Barry asks with worry.

Oliver gives him a nod of assurance. "You will. Just keep fighting."

Barry buries his head back into Oliver's chest, a grin creeping across his lips. The subtle smile may not have been in Oliver's line of vision but Barry felt it. He believed it. He wrapped his arms around Oliver's torso, feeling the warmth and security of his body next to his. "You didn't go all 'Hood' on the shooters asses did you?"

Oliver laughs. "I spent too much time worrying about you to even consider picking up my bow."

"Well you should have." Barry's tone suddenly shifted into one of morbidity. "Those kinds of criminals? That's the kind of justice they deserve."

Oliver had been rubbing around Barry's shoulder blade. He immediately stopped following Barry's words. Taken back, he replies, "what's that supposed to mean?"

"They've been assaulting and murdering innocent people for extra cash. Just throwing them in the back of a police car isn't going to teach them a lesson. Or bring them to justice."

"I get that, trust me." Oliver tells him knowingly. "Star City is no Gotham but we have some of the worst violent crime rates in the country. I've dealt and still deal with some really inhumane people. You cannot teach these people 'lessons.' "

Barry loosens his grip on Oliver and slowly turns onto his back, feeling the struggle but refusing Oliver's attempts to help him. He turns his head and looks at Oliver intently. "Then why not just rid of them entirely?"

"That isn't your decision to make."

"It became mine when I took a bullet to the spine." Barry responds in an angry manner. The volume of his voice continues to rise. "It became mine when my naivety cost so many lives. It almost cost me my own!"

Oliver takes a deep breath before continuing. "I get you're angry. I know you are afraid. But you cannot let those emotions control you and turn you into something you can never come back from."

"You did." Barry says under his breath, immediately regretting the compulsive statement. He keeps talking despite his instincts that told him to stop. "You inflict fear into your targets. And violent crime rates have plummeted since you became active."

Oliver purses his lips before speaking. "I'm not that person anymore, Barry. And even when I was, people still died."

"You didn't have my abilities."

"Barry-"

"You have no room to tell me that I'm in the wrong for thinking this is the right way to go about this." Barry interrupts.

"Of course I don't!" Oliver screams. He begins to speak another word before looking over to Barry, his eyes showing remorse. He clenches his hand into a fist and brings it to his lips in an attempt to restrain the words he wanted to say from leaving his mouth. He takes a breath to cool down. His voice lowered but the anger still seeped into his tone. "I just don't want to see you to live with the same demons that I do every fucking day. That's all."

As Oliver tosses his legs off the side of the bed, Barry reaches out to take Oliver's hand, he ignores the gesture. He walks out of the room, dragging his palms down his face in frustration.

Barry brings his attention to the ceiling above him. He gets lost in his thoughts while sitting in the all-consuming silence. Deep down, Barry knew Oliver was right. Killing was never the answer, it should never be the answer. But there was this inkling of desperation that slowly was growing into this hungry desire for vengeance. As much as his right conscience tried to deny the feeling, it kept growing as the days had gone by.

Barry dedicated his entire life to criminal justice. His career and quite literally the other half of his life revolved around putting those with ill intentions behind bars. He has had to make sacrifices in order to keep his city and the people closest to him safe. Time with friends, time with family, time with Oliver-- all of the things he wanted to do were compromised for this. He was more than willing to do this.

But in the midst of it all, he felt as if the universe owed him.

He was put into a situation where he should not have been at risk. He went to a crime scene as he did everyday. It was not like he was throwing himself into the cross hairs of criminal activity as he did as The Flash. He simply showed up to work-- and he got shot by a couple of cop-hating dipshits. It is what those kinds of lowlifes do. They have no consideration for human life. No consideration for the families and loved ones of those they harm. They are so absorbed in their own lunacy that even simple logic is unattainable for them.

Hours after the accident, the men who shot Barry were alive, breathing, walking(even if it was in a holding cell.) Barry, on the other hand, was on the edge of life. He could smell death. He could taste it. The worlds of his loved ones fell apart. And today? The men who shot him are walking. Barry? Paralyzed from the lower back down. The thought enraged him. It made his heart wrench. In his mind, these people didn't deserve that right. They don't deserve to have the ability to do what Barry can't.

The perpetrators take vital necessities from their victims while theirs remain intact. They break families apart while simultaneously going back to their own.

They did not deserve that right.

They deserved nothing. Not even a breath.

Barry felt the rage inside him ensue. It was slowly consuming him and he knew it. The feeling was screaming, begging him to act upon it. But he couldn't. He couldn't move. He felt completely powerless, only adding more fuel to the flame that was his fury.

Oliver walked back into the room with a glass of water and set on a nightstand that rested next to Barry's side of the bed. As Oliver returned to his own side, Barry once again weakly reached out for Oliver's hand. He hesitantly took it, the two men exchanging smiles as he did. Oliver got back underneath the covers, keeping his smile as he laid his head right next to Barry's.

"I know you're not that person anymore, Ollie." Barry told him, beginning to fiddle with his fingertips.

"I know. Sometimes we say things in the heat of the moment. . ." Oliver places his had on Barry's cheek and caresses it lightly. "But you were right. I was being hypocritical."

"You were looking out for me." Barry told him with a smile. "And I love you for it. But this is my fight."

Oliver lets out a hesitant grin while nodding. "You're absolutely right. I just care about you too much to watch you go down that path."

Barry smiles again as he brings his face to Oliver's. He places his lips on his, closing his eyes as he soaks in the serenity of the moment. The rage inside him subsided temporarily. Everything in that second felt pure, right, and good. Oliver was his grounding point when it came to uncontrollable sentiments.

This vendetta, in Barry's mind, was justified.

He wasn't going to allow anyone to take him away from Oliver ever again-- and this was the only way.