Title: The Sun is Ahead of You Now

Author: OpheliacAngel

Pairing: Shado/Slade

Genres: Romance/Angst

Rating: Teen

Summary: He ran after her even though his legs could no longer hold him. A broken man. But he still loved her.

A/N: Written for Rare Ship Swap for crookedspoon. Just wanted to say thanks so much for giving me a chance to write Slade. His story has been so moving thus far and I have just adored getting inside his head. This one's set during 'Keep your Enemies Closer.'

He was a burnt husk of a man and he still loved her with all the breath Oliver took from him.

Slade had been a fool for believing Shado would break her gaze away from Oliver and look at him one day and suddenly fall in love. She had made a choice and he wouldn't begrudge her that; he had made a choice too: to stop trying. He couldn't break Oliver like that, his friend, even though Oliver was breaking him more and more every day. So what was he? Was he still a weapon when Shado and Oliver sneaked off for some alone time, did he still matter or could the three be broken down sufficiently into two?

He tried not to think about it, but trying wasn't necessarily doing. His mind wouldn't cooperate and eventually his body wouldn't cooperate either. But neither had to after a point. Slade had woken up and Oliver was gone, and he screamed the kid's name for a while as he lay back in the grass, body burning, his soul burning to a crisp until he was nothing but cinders sinking into the blades of grass beneath him. Smoldering. Exhaustible. Dying. Suddenly the guilt was a weight on his chest, crushing him down into the dirt. If Oliver was gone then he had failed him. If Oliver was gone then he would never forgive himself for his harsh thoughts.

"Oliver!"

Then a voice rang out in the distance and Slade, who had never prayed before in his life, prayed with newfound ferocity. "Hey!" A long pause and Slade couldn't tell if tears were leaking from his eyes. The man couldn't feel anything but physical agony and the frustration of feeling too many emotions at once. He should have known what Oliver would do, he should have run faster, he shouldn't have left Shado, he should have been stronger.

Should haves would do nothing for him now.

There was a body dropping beside him in the grass, hands on his shoulders and face, hands cupping every part of him that he could still miraculously feel. "Slade!" Not Oliver. His eyes honed in on the face and he knew it could only be a dream; he prayed for that too. She wouldn't be here. She should be running, far, far away from here. No. Not her.

Shado.

Here they were. The two of them. Together. Alone together.

No, he shouldn't be thinking about it like that. Oliver had been taken, ripped away from him. From her too. The poor kid could be screaming from torture and it would be his fault. Shado must hate him for not protecting Oliver. She must think him pretty stupid now, he was no good to her anymore after all. Not like this, burned to the point where he must be nearly unrecognizable. The fire had taken all the fight from him but the rage and irrepressible guilt were still there. There was so much sadness in him that just had to be replaced by anger.

But Shado had come for him.

She spread something on his face but he could hardly feel it; he was far beyond the point of feeling warm or cold, hot or freezing, and he was drifting despite wanting to stay with her. There was nothing that could repair him now. Shado curled around him when she was finished trying to heal his face, saying he needed body heat and Slade wanted to sob all over again. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. He wasn't supposed to fall in love with Shado when she was in love with someone else. His first love should be all his own.

He didn't deserve to have Shado take care of him either. He was a broken shell, anyone else would have left him to die in that field, screaming out Oliver's name until he passed out and then having Shado flash before his eyes before she was taken from him forever.

But if Slade didn't survive the night, as he suspected, then he wanted to say goodbye to Shado while she was wrapped around him, trying to keep him alive. She had been keeping him alive too, for all this time, even though she probably didn't know it. Every morning Slade woke up was another day he could look at her from afar and long for her to be his. Every day was another chance.

Slade lay there trembling in her arms for a long time. He screamed at his body to quiet but he had no control over it any longer. There was no coming back from this, no coming back from this degree of damage, this madness. Hours went by but Shado didn't move from her position, not to get food or to stretch her legs, not to get up and tell him it was hopeless, that there was no point in staying with a dying man.

"Shado," Slade rasped, surprised that his voice came through. "I know you love Oliver." His voice cracked on the last word because he loved Oliver too, like a brother, like a piece of himself that was missing now. A piece of himself that he had to protect. Had failed to protect.

She stirred against him, face no longer pressed against his neck but her small form still giving him warmth. Her eyes were wet as she glanced down at him, and Slade realized he had never seen her so vulnerable before. She had been crying as she had held him, and Slade wished more than anything that it had come from a much kinder turn of events. "I love you too, Slade." Sure. He turned his head to the side as much as he could, not able to see the look on her face any longer. Shado only moved until he was glancing up at her again, and her hands were pressed against the ruined skin of his neck but she didn't notice or didn't care. Didn't recoil back as she touched someone so tainted.

How could she bear to look at him now?

She wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing dirt and the concoction she had mixed up for him across her cheek, and never had he seen her more beautiful than she was now, gazing down at him. He could be dreaming all of this but he knew somehow deep down that he wasn't. That she was his, right now and that he could pretend it was forever.

"You don't get it, do you?" Her hair brushed his face and more than anything he wished he could feel again, feel it tickle his nose, feel it sweep across his forehead. She didn't stop there, even though he expected her to. "It doesn't work with just me and Oliver. We need you too. I need you, Slade." He didn't doubt that, he knew the team of three didn't work minus one. At least, that's what he had been telling himself. But his mind kept flashing back mercilessly to Oliver falling down in the grass, legs tangling underneath him and Slade's mind had frozen, had locked completely so that he couldn't think about Shado anymore.

He hadn't run fast enough.

"Oliver's dead," his hoarse voice nearly shouted. "Oliver's dead and it's my fault. The kid wasn't strong enough. I should have protected him."

"He's not dead, Slade. He's not. We will get you better and we will go get him back. Whatever it takes. However long it takes for you to heal. You haven't lost the fight yet, have you?" There was a determination in her voice that Slade knew wasn't fake, he knew that she wasn't just saying it to get Oliver back. Shado was a woman of few words and whenever she talked he listened. He hung on every word now as if it were the water of life, pouring into his veins, igniting the fire within him so he could once more be the man he was.

"No," he admitted, fingers curling slightly around her leg. She believed in him and that was all that mattered.

She nodded and wrapped herself around him again. "Good. Now let's get your body temperate regulated." Her head tucked itself underneath his own, and if he closed his eyes he could almost say that everything was as it should be. But it wasn't. "I thought you were dead, Slade," she whispered, and Slade suddenly realized he had never heard her speak so much in such a short amount of time. She wasn't giving up on him, and that meant he wouldn't either. "Don't tell me that's what you want."

"I don't. I don't, Shado." His head moved toward her until he was breathing in her hair, knowing it smelled good but unable to smell anything but the burning of his own flesh. He could hardly hold it together and yet here Shado was, risking her life to hold onto the hope that he would be alright again. He smiled even though his lips were so cracked it probably came out as a grimace. He smiled and thought of her as he drifted again, knowing sleep couldn't be too far off.

She moved abruptly, beginning to talk again. "You love him too. I can see it."

He breathed in, waiting, waiting until he woke up from the dream that he knew this wasn't. "Not in the way that I love you." You're the only one for me. The first and the last. "I'm not what I used to be. Can't be." She moved closer even though he thought that hadn't been possible, and Slade almost believed she was going to smack him until her lips closed against her own. She didn't move them so it wasn't technically a kiss, she just left there pressed there, and Slade breathed heavily into her partially open mouth. He wasn't prepared for this.

And then the kiss became a kiss.

Slowly, so slowly it made him dizzy, Shado moved her lips against his own softly, careful not to upset the skin around his mouth. She couldn't make him hurt though, no, she wasn't capable. Slade kissed her back, hand trembling violently as it reached up to stroke though her silky black hair. She held it there, pressing tighter against him, and her kiss was like a thousand promises pressed into his skin.

And his own was a thousand promises that he would keep.

FIN