Bite
Before he spent five years on a hellish island, at least that was the sanitized version of the story he told to all but a select few, the thing Oliver hated most was beets. He'd eaten hundreds if not thousands of pounds of the root vegetable over the course of his life because it was the only food he could imbibe without getting a reading from it. Yes, he was one of the unlucky few cibopaths. You would think the ability to chew on your food and get a psychic impression would at least be a fun talent to pull out at parties for a laugh, which admittedly he considered back during his feckless playboy days, but he was more likely to catch a glimpse of the butchering process then a pastoral scene of his hamburger munching down on grass. Most everything, including vegetables – and it wasn't even worth discussing the organic crazy as the use of manure was an unpleasant experience he loath to repeat – gave him a flash. Since most culinary experiences were disagreeable Oliver found himself eating a ton of beets, which just tasted like beets, earthy and depending on the variety either a little bitter or a tad sweet.
He usually ate them raw because the second it was cooked (in something other than unsalted water or zapped in the microwave) or manipulated in some other manner like pickling he'd pick up something from the other ingredients. Oliver could recall with perfect clarity the odd moment of shock he experienced eating a beet for the first time as a young boy. How it slowly dawned on him that he was partaking of sustenance without any unwanted impressions assailing him. It had been bliss. Over the infinite amounts of beets he ate since that first glorious bite his appreciation for the beetroot dwindled. The monotonous flavor and hard crunch of raw beet lost its novelty (just thinking about the ginormous piles of them he'd consumed made him sick) and became a reminder of all the variety he was missing out on, which may have been why he looked for it via other activities. Now there was a euphemism for his reckless and lurid behavior pre-island.
He earned his scoundrel status with gusto because one of life's great pleasures was off the table for him. Oliver only ate because nutrition was required for survival otherwise he could leave food. Which made his five years away, with just shy of three years of it trapped on Lian Yu, without any beets to be a downright nightmare.
Feeling the twist of his own fingers as he ate his first meal on the island had been a new level of discomfort. And that ended up being only the tip of the iceberg when it came to the horrors he would encounter on the island. Coming to miss beets had been a minor trauma compared to everything else.
The island had stripped him of civilities and any way to hide what he was, something his family had been successfully doing for the entirety of his life, from his compatriot. Slade Wilson, an Australian counter intelligence agent, who had been stranded on the island during his attempted liberation of the man who had first rescued him – if you could call shooting him with an arrow rescue, but Yao Fei had a particular way of doing things. He had needed to know that Oliver wasn't a stooge and that he could be a survivor. Once he'd been sure of those things Yao Fei had taken him under his wing and begun training him. It had been his direction that lead him to find Slade and a way off the island, leaving him there if necessary, which had been not an option as far as Oliver was concerned.
Slade had not been impressed with his limited abilities, which was a kind understatement for the completely helpless sack he'd been. Even with Slade's expert, albeit accelerated, instruction he'd been unable to learn fast enough to offer the kind of support that was needed to see them successfully off the island. Which is probably why after discovering his unique ability Slade pressed, "Anything you eat?"
"So far," he answered, unwilling to share the detail about beets. Oliver was uncomfortable with anyone outside of his family knowing about his ability. While he was slowly beginning to think of Slade as a friend and not just a useful ally, the only person outside his immediate family who knew about his extra special taste buds was his best friend, Tommy. And really, with the amount of time they'd spent together growing up – Tommy all but lived with them after his mother was murdered and his father flaked on him – Oliver felt like the other man was his brother, not just his oldest friend.
What transpired next would come to define the rest of his life more than being born a Queen ever could, more than watching his father end his own life to see to it that he survived or than being shipwrecked on Lian Yu … this was his turning point.
He watched, completely perplexed as Slade pulled out his knife, sucked in a deep breath to steel himself before slicing into his left forearm. He hissed out the air he had breathed in as the knife tore through his flesh, peeling a small chunk from his arm. Slade left the piece of himself on the blade of his knife as he set it down long enough to wrap a questionable piece of cloth around the wound to stem the bleeding. Once he was satisfied with the bandaging, he picked up the knife and offered him the hunk as if was a morsel of bird they'd managed to catch and eat the day before and not human epidermis.
"I'm not eating that," he said his stomach twisting in knots at the mere thought.
"You are." His hard order matched his dark eyes which dared him to challenge his instruction.
Oliver could feel saliva pooling in his mouth as he fought the urge to gag. A wad of it settled on the back of this tongue, where muscle delved into the esophagus, and he could taste the acerbic bite of acid that was fighting its way up this throat. Considering the man had willing cut into himself, he didn't doubt that Slade would shove the chunk into his mouth forcibly.
He had been forced fed enough as a child to never want to relive the experience as an adult, which was why he reached out and delicately picked up the hunk between his thumb and index finger. He held it up and examined the tan skin flecked with red. Oliver tried telling himself that it was just raw meat, he and Slade had devour some fish that way a few weeks back. Desperation, he was learning, made people capable of doing things they'd never consider otherwise.
He closed his eyes and told himself that that it was just sushi. He repeated that thought on loop – it's sushi, it's sushi, it is sushi – as he popped the piece into his mouth and chewed. He heard the jokes, people tasting of pork or chicken, but the metallic tang of blood is what hit his taste buds and caused him to choke. Slade clamped a hand over his mouth, ensuring that he swallowed instead of losing the mostly empty contents of his stomach.
Oliver barely registered that happening, as his mind was lost in a memory that was not his own. He saw himself bound to a chair by his wrists, could feel Slade's apprehension – was this another gambit by Fyers to recapture or kill him and if so how had he known the exact location of his base? – he saw himself stir and knew he; he-as-Slade knew that the safest option was to permanently end the potential threat.
His own need for oxygen pulled him from the vision and he kicked out his legs, separating himself from Slade so that he could gasp in air. Unperturbed by recent events Slade merely asked, "See anything Kid?"
Looking back on it Oliver should have lied and told Slade that he'd not seen anything upon consuming his flesh. But what he'd experienced was still vividly playing in his mind and he hadn't just seen an event through Slade's eyes, but he'd know how his confederate felt and what he thought – the sheer magnitude of that discovery was somersaulting through him and before he could think the wiser of it and shared the truth. He would come to regret many things but his own stupidity, naivety really, would haunt him with what ifs for the rest of his life. So much misery could have been prevented if he had just lied.
Slade's next test had been to dig up one of the men he had previously killed. Oliver had actually run when the decaying muscle was thrust in face. He had not managed to sprint far before he was tackled to the ground and Slade slammed the sour smelling mass into his mouth. He tried, unsuccessfully, to roll Slade off of him and spit out the offending portion, but even in his desperation he was no match for the weight and skill of the man atop him.
The information he'd garnered from the assault, complaints about shift changes and duties because of a man who'd gone missing – Oliver assumed that either Yao Fei or Slade had taken him out – was deemed useful and there were a lot of valuable things dead men could know or living ones if they managed to capture and not kill one.
He had been vehemently against it, but Slade laid it out simply, he could eat and be useful of his own accord or not, and Slade would be more than happy to use him and leave him on the island. Whatever sense of camaraderie that had been developing between them withered and died for Oliver in that moment. Either way Slade would be using him, but he could choose how awful the whole undertaking would be. Short of his own death, which without the promise his father requested of him he'd welcome, he knew there was no escape.
He suppressed his bile and his rage and ate. Human flesh. Over and over again, learning the ins and outs of Fyers camp and gleaning just enough to know that without Yao Fei his plans would crumble into dust. It made Oliver desperate to get to his mentor and thwart Fyers plans; if he managed to achieve that then perhaps he could find a way off the island without Slade. His grand notion never came to fruition and what Slade had done to him was he was a cakewalk compared to falling into the clutches of Amanda Waller.
Where Slade had a single minded purpose that benefited them both or at least that is how Oliver figured he justified his actions, Waller was in it for the experimentation and what it could possibly do for ARGUS. He'd gladly take being strung up and stabbed by Billy Wintergreen as a means of torture than what the super-secret spy service put him through. He'd been gorged on people, stuffed so full that he actually absorbed their skills. The archery and fighting techniques he learned from Yao Fei, his daughter Shado – who had also ended up on the island, and Slade or the bits of Chinese and Russian (thanks to Anatoly and their misadventures on a freighter that made port at the island with nefarious purpose) he picked was nothing compared to what saturated into his knowledge-base from the agents and underworld thugs Waller rammed down his throat.
It turned him into a living breathing instrument of destruction, one that eventually Waller could not contain or manipulate. When he finally managed his escape, Oliver had given serious thought to disappearing, he had been transformed into a monster, honed into a weapon and it felt as if he had no humanity left. But the desperate plea of his father echoed through his mind and the thought of failing his last request … there was still a tiny sliver of the person he'd once been alive inside of him and Oliver knew it would be obliterated if he didn't at least try.
So he had set up is own rescue from Lian Yu and returned home prepared to do anything to fulfill his father's dying wish and use the list of names he entrusted him with to bring down the people poisoning his city. He donned Yao Fei's hood, honoring the man who'd seen to his survival, giving him this opportunity to make up for the atrocities he committed by working to save Starling City.
Of all the aptitudes he had mastered through his indentured service to ARGUS the ability to repair and recover a shot up laptop was not one of them. He knew enough to setup is own network and he stored enough ARGUS passwords that he could enter their system if he really needed to and while his very public return made his location known, tapping into their system could lead the spy organization to his lair. Oliver wanted to avoid that possibility as long as he could.
He'd been unable to predict or anticipate the series of events that would lead him to Felicity Smoak, he could only be grateful that he'd come across the blonde genius. In more ways than he could count Felicity enriched his life, not to mention having saved it. He was alive and not in jail today because when he crawled in the back of her Mini she'd done has he asked and taken him to the old steel foundry his father had owned where his bodyguard turned partner, John Diggle, was waiting for him. With a little assistance from her Dig managed to remove the bullet his own mother had fired into him.
Up until that moment Felicity had been a part of his crusade without truly realizing it. She may had told Dig that she wasn't that blonde, but in all her supposition – particularly since he used the Starling City police department to clear his name – equating the public persona he'd been projecting with the vigilante was a leap. Even if he trouble presenting that façade to Felicity. From the very beginning she'd thrown him off. It wasn't just the bright colors that surround her or the way she babbled nervously, but her willingness to question his ludicrous excuses, shrug her shoulders and just roll with them. He found it, her, remarkable.
After she officially joined his team, albeit initially on a temporary basis to find his step-father Walter, and setup his new and vastly improved system, one that allowed her to hack into AGRUS and numerous other local, state and federal databases that she asked in her roundabout teasing way why he had the entire (well all but her last article, but that was banned for safety purposes) Megan Mintz collection bookmarked.
Mintz had been an online food blogger who'd gained popularity just a few months before he'd gone missing. The term saboscrivner was coined just for the elusive author who was able to write about food in such a way that you'd actually experience the meal she was describing. For a man whose culinary experiences were mostly ghastly, being able to taste food without consuming it and getting a reading had been a heady thing. Her weekly posts, even the more out there ones like her time eating crickets, had become his favorite thing. Even Waller using the articles as the treat in her carrot and stick approach with him had not diminished his enjoyment of her work.
He had been disappointed to discover that while he'd been away that she stopped writing. He learned, when he bookmarked the collection the very same night he finished setting up his network, that she'd been forced into retirement because of an incident with her last blog entry, which was barred from being distributed, because she'd written about an unfortunate peanut eating experience. Unfortunate because she'd been allergic and her description of what had transpired after eating the offending nut sent her readers, even those without the allergy, into anaphylactic shock nearly killing them. Anyone found hosting or distributing that article was arrested for willful endangerment and if a person went into shock attempted murder. The whole debacle had led to his favorite writer retiring, but whenever he was in the mood for the sensation of eating a good meal, Oliver would pull up one her still available posts and partake.
He hadn't explained any of that to Felicity at the time. Diggle knew about his ability, had learned about it in the most gruesome way, when he'd bitten a drug dealer during his frantic search to find the Count. He'd been so intent on saving his baby sister from being an example a judge could use to illustrate his hard on substance abusers philosophy that he hadn't cared that he was crossing a line he had promised himself he'd never traverse again. Protecting Thea had been his priority, would always be one, so he used any means at his disposal to keep her safe.
If things had been tense between him and Diggle after he first revealed his nighttime activities, they'd been downright frosty after that discovery. Honestly if his mother hadn't shot him and Felicity hadn't joined them, things very easily could have fallen apart between him and John. But after getting assurances that he would never take a bite out of him or Felicity, things had settled back to normal between them.
It had been Dig's off-handed comment about tracking down the Dark Archer and getting a taste of the him as a means to learning who his boss was that had led him to explaining to Felicity that he was a cibopath. He had not been pleased with Diggle at that moment, but Felicity's acceptance of what he was and the implication of what he could and had done – eat from a person – had muted his ire. She hadn't looked at him any differently; he was still just Oliver to her.
Which came in handy a few days later when he'd failed to come through for Dig. He was meant to be helping him capture his brother's killer, but aided his ex, Laurel, instead. Diggle had been convinced that if Laurel was involved he would always choose her, abandoning the mission and those helping him, so he left the team. In the tense days that followed Oliver had stolen a drive off of the accountant to Starling's most disreputable. It was during Felicity's search of Backman's files, one that ultimately led them to finding Walter and learning that not only was Malcolm Merlyn behind the Undertaking but that his mother was involved; that Felicity once again brought up Megan Mintz. It was idle chatter while she worked her way through the encrypted drive, but Oliver felt comfortable answering her inquisitiveness because he wasn't some lab experiment to her. Her curiosity was genuine and a part of her and since she had accepted him and his ability, Oliver had been looking for a way to show her how much he appreciated it. Being honest with her about this, well that was easy, as there were no dark connotations or truly horrific memories attached to his love of Mintz's articles.
Later after discovering the wrenching truth about his mother, he found a note Felicity had left for him. He nearly glanced over her neat scrawl, not ready for sympathy to be expressed in any manner, but it was Felicity so he found himself taking the time to stop and read the missive. It had started with the words: We all secrets, not all of them are bad. She then went on about the most heartening and tasty matzo ball soup. It wasn't until he could feel the warm flavor of it seeping through him, easing the weight of his day, that he understood – not just the comfort she offered – but the piece of herself, her own secret, that she'd given him. The writing style was known and precious to him, as were the effects of them, Felicity was Megan Mintz.
After being unable to stop the Undertaking and losing Tommy, Oliver had retreated from the world. He'd failed his father and his best friend. Returning to Lian Yu seemed like suitable penance, but Dig and Felicity refused to accept that and pulled him back home again. His mission had changed, no longer crossing names off of his father's list, but truly helping the people of the city by taking on the criminal element. And in Tommy's name, he went about his work in a non-lethal manner.
They had been going about saving the city in that manner for a few months when Waller came to him about an AGRUS target known only as The Vampire. Felicity's response to the news when he shared it with her and Diggle had been, "That's a horrible name." He had agreed but it had been apt. The so-called Vampire AGRUS had been tracking had been drinking the blood of his victims, but what had alarmed his former tormentor was the thing all his targets had in common. They all had a food-related ability, which had been news to Oliver. Other than a few other cibopaths who'd been reported and Felicity's pseudonym, he'd been unaware of other capabilities.
But there were more. A man by the name of Fantanyeros was able to communicate through food; Waller had called him a cibolocutor. Then there was a voresoph, someone who became smarter the more they ate, by the name of Daniel Migdalo who had been another fatality. Waller had thrown out other terms (and names) at him – xocoscalpere, tortaespadero, cipropanthropatic, sabopictor – the list went on and on.
"He's collecting them," Diggle said filling the silence they'd been sitting in once he had finished recapping the information he'd been given.
"He's killing them," Felicity corrected, "not adding them to a collection."
"But he is," he hissed as the truth of what was happening hit him. This Vampire was gorging himself on special people, taking from them not only their lives, but their abilities just as he absorbed the knowledge and skills of the people Waller forced upon him. They were dealing with another cibopath, one with very particular tastes.
Oliver couldn't help but look at Felicity, bright and beautiful and on the menu if anyone else outside their team should discover her ability. Icy fear took hold of him. He could not allow that to happen. He'd left ARUGS hell-bent on giving Waller the shaft and letting her fix her own damn mess, because he was certain she knew more than she was telling him.
The possibility of Felicity being in the crosshairs changed all that. He'd sworn to himself that he'd never work for or with Waller again, but the only way to ensure Felicity's safety and lives of other people like them was to once again enter the belly of the beast and work with the devil herself.
As if reading his thoughts Felicity said, "Don't even think about it Oliver."
"I'm not letting anything happen to you," he replied his voice hard even as his eyes implored her to understand.
"Not for me," she insisted. "I'm not worth it."
Oliver leaned forward and clasped her hands, "You are to me, Felicity." He saw her resolve break and something else flashed in her sapphire eyes that he was too much of a coward to even try and name. "It's my choice," he reminded her.
She held his penetrating gaze and replied, "Then you're not doing it alone." Oliver opened his mouth to protest. The last thing he wanted was her anywhere near Waller. There was too much of a risk in her being found out and used by AGRUS, but Felicity rolled right over his attempt. "That's my choice."
"It's ours," Diggle interjected, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. "You're not in any of this alone anymore Oliver. You know that."
After a long moment his gaze drifted to Dig. His friend's dark eyes bore into his own and Oliver accepted that this was not a fight he could win no matter how much he wanted to, at least when it came to Felicity's involvement. He nodded his assent, earning a squeeze of his hands by Felicity that drew his attention back to her.
"Let's go catch a vampire." Neither he nor Diggle could stop themselves from releasing anxious chuckles at her words.