Story of Us – Arrow – Ep 1

Reunion

When he heard Oliver was back, his heart stopped. His best friend was coming home. After five years, he was going to be with him again…Not that Oliver would ever know.

They’d both played the playboy, the man-whore. What Oliver had never known, still didn’t know, and would hopefully never know, was that every single woman Tommy Merlin had ever had the pleasure of knowing was never going to be enough for him. He had once told Laurel that he was not a one-woman kind of guy. It was simple. It was only because he was in love with his best friend and his best friend was male.

When he walked through the door to the Queen mansion, he wanted to cry with joy and tackle him. Instead, he made his standard sarcastic comment:

“What’d I tell ya? Yachts suck!” But with that comment, he couldn’t resist going to touch him.

“Tommy Merlyn,” Oliver said softly as he reached out for a hug from his best friend of over twenty years.

“I missed ya, buddy,” Tommy said with tears in his eyes. They held each other tightly for a moment. As soon as Tommy felt Oliver start to relax his grip, he let go reluctantly.

“Dinner is being served,” Oliver said, “Shall we?”

“Lead on!” Tommy said with a chuckle, looking forward to having his friend back after so long.

First Dinner Home

At dinner, Oliver asked questions about what he had missed. Tommy was more than happy to fill him in on the Superbowl and the black president. When Thea asked Ollie what the island had been like, everyone, including Tommy, froze. Tommy knew it had changed Oliver. He knew, just from the very brief talk from the entryway to the dining room that Oliver was a completely different guy.

When Raisa tripped and Ollie responded to her in Russian, Tommy felt his interest rise.

“Dude, you speak Russian?” Tommy said. His thought process continued even though Walter spoke, ‘You have never spoken Russian. You thought it beneath you to learn another language.’ That was something else that had obviously changed on that island.

When Ollie accused Walter of sleeping with his mother, Tommy kept silent. However, he filed another fact about the new Ollie away…way more observant than he used to be as well.

As Ollie got up to leave, Tommy said, “Hey, don’t forget about tomorrow, buddy,” and tapped him on the elbow. Ollie returned the gesture, brushing his hand up his arm and across his shoulder as he walked by, taking Tommy’s heart with him. The silence in the dining room was deafening and Tommy beat a hasty retreat as soon as he was able.

***

The moment between Thea and Oliver was sweet, but he needed to tear him away from his little sister. He needed extended one on one time with Oliver, so he interrupted.

“A rock, that’s sweet!” he said cheekily as he walked into the room, “I want one of those t-shirts that says ‘my friend was a castaway and all I got was this crappy shirt!'”

Thea’s warning for Ollie to keep himself out of trouble while around him didn’t hurt so much as it annoyed…kid always did know him well. As she hugged Ollie, Tommy couldn’t keep his eyes off Oliver. Oliver briefly caught his eye.

“Have you noticed how hot your sister’s gotten,” he threw out as they left Thea’s room, trying to deflect the embarrassment of getting caught staring. It had the desired effect. Oliver’s death stare was positively frightening.

“Not that I have noticed,” Tommy said slyly as he continued to walk past, hoping that Oliver was still watching him walk away.

Out on the Town

They spent the afternoon like old times…well, sort of. He took Oliver to go see Laurel. It was Oliver’s choice, but he knew it would not go well. But once it was over, they headed back to the car. Tommy started to ask Oliver what he wanted to do next when the thugs came around the corner and shot him with something. He hit the ground before he could think to put his hands out to stop his fall.

Tommy woke to some guy yelling at Oliver through a mask. He had the sense to keep his eyes shut. He didn’t know who these guys were or why they had tranquilized and zip-cuffed them, but so far, he was being left alone. Ollie, on the other hand, wasn’t. Tommy cringed as he heard the zapping of a tazer gun. The guy had zapped him with a tazer at least twice. When Oliver got quiet, Tommy stilled his breathing to hear what he said.

“What did he tell you, Mr. Queen?” the guy yelled through the mask.

“He told me I’m gonna kill you,” he heard Ollie reply with a deadly calm. Tommy’s heart stopped. That was not the Oliver Queen he knew. ‘Chalk up another thing that’s changed,‘ he thought. The guy started laughing and his buddies laughed with him.

“You’re delusional…You’re zip cuffed to that chair.”

“Not any more,” Oliver said calmly. And then all hell broke loose. Tommy snuck a peek through his eyelashes as Oliver used a chair and a guy to pretty much destroy all but one guy. He closed his eyes seconds before Ollie checked his pulse and ran off after the guy that ran away. He breathed easier, knowing he was safe, but wondered about Oliver’s new ninja skills.

Finally Back Home

When Detective Lance questioned them about the man in the green hood that Oliver had made up, Tommy did his best to sound like he hadn’t seen or heard anything. He realized he kept looking at Oliver for answers, but he also knew he wasn’t going to get those answers if Lance didn’t believe their stories.  Tommy admitted to the Detective that he was kind of out of it and didn’t say anything about the fact that he had not seen this green-hooded man.  He didn’t know why, but he was pretty sure Oliver didn’t want the detective to know that he could kill a man with a chair.

As the detective left, Oliver caught his eye.  Tommy tried to convey through his eyes that he could and would keep his secret.  He silently begged him to trust him like he used to and share why he’d created the hooded man.  His eyes asked him to explain why this guy needed to exist.  Oliver turned away without acknowledging the questions so easily readable in Tommy’s eyes.

 He’d been drinking for a while now.  Party didn’t technically start until 9 pm, but he and about three hundred of his and Ollie’s “closest friends” had started well before 6.  When he turned from a drink with some random hot chick he didn’t know, Tommy saw Oliver coming down the stairs and grinned.  He knew that anyone who saw him would think he was just happy to see his pal, but the grin was so much more than that.  Oliver was a beautiful man.  There was no other way to put it.  Looking around quickly, hoping he hadn’t given himself away, Tommy signaled the DJ to stop the music and ran up the stairs to meet Ollie.

“Ladies, let’s give this man a proper welcome home!” he yelled.  The cheer went up and Oliver was swallowed by the crowd as the music started back up.

When Laurel showed up about an hour later…which he knew she would, he couldn’t completely conceal the jealousy that raged through him as she took Ollie away from the party.  He was just happy that everyone was too busy having too much fun to see him pining for the man he could never have.

 “Aw, come on, Merlyn, we both know you’re not a one-girl type of guy,” she said.

“Depends on the girl,” he said with a serious look.  He could fall in love with Laurel if she’d let him.  Maybe it’d keep him from obsessing about his best friend…maybe…

Next Episode – Honor Thy Father