Hellooooo fellow (let'scallus) arrowians. or wait. do we have a name?
This is my first attempt of an Arrow Fanfic; I've previously only done stuff for Doctor Who, but it was a long time ago and my writing has developed something so immensely since then, so please don't judge me by that. This is, as you already may have read, completely AU—even though I like to throw some canon stuff into mix, like characters and their relationships and story arcs, if yet slightly adapted to fit my own selfish purposes.
For those of you wondering, yes, this will (eventually) be an olicity story, but since i'm starting from scratch here it will be slow-burn but totally worth it. in my opinion then, which might be a bit biased since i'm the writer. hm.
I've already written the second chapter, which is about five times as long as this one, and will probably post it later tonight (because yes, it is night here in sweden aka north of the wall). Which reminds me; English is so not my first language and I am human so there will most certainly be mistakes. Please point them out for me, so that I can improve both my writing and language skills, even though it's probably just the result me being lazy.
So, this text turned out to be longer than intended. I'm gonna stop now. But lastly; reviews is for me what blood is for vampires. just a little something to think of.

Yet man is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upward
— Job 5:7

I.
That What Makes Our Sins Unwritten

Oliver Queen had been at Lian Yu for five years.

Five years of Hell.

Five years spent in Purgatory, as the Chinese so cleverly had named it.

He hadn't always been alone in his cell, not as he was now, and the people he had met had permanently changed him forever. Apart from a few exceptions, Oliver had met men and women whose souls he was sure couldn't be of this Earth, and even if they were, they would now burn for an eternity in whatever hells there were. They had been the kind of people whom always had that vicious spark in their eyes, as if they were eagerly waiting for the right moment or the right sharpened fork to stab him in the eye. Some had been madly righteous in all the wrong ways, some had just been mad, out of longing for vengeance or world domination or simply another purpose than the one they had now.

First, when he had been placed here, there had already been a man named Yao Fei living in his cell for quite sometime. The asian elder hadn't spoken to him at first, only looked at him silently with those black, searching eyes. Then one day, moments after their daily meal had roughly been dropped through the hatch and Oliver had stared at it with longing in his gaze as he used all his willpower to remain firm in his decision not to eat anything these men gave him, the Chinese had picked up both their plates and shoved Oliver's hard against his chest, more or less forcing him to take it.

"Shengcún," he'd said, not dropping Oliver's gaze.

"What?" Oliver had said, dumfounded. The man had pointedly looked down at the food and then up at Oliver again.

"Shengcún."

"I don't speak Chinese," Oliver had said dryly, exhausted from several days without anything to settle his roaring stomach. He'd peered down at his plate and examined the grayish food. The smell had somewhat reminded him of chicken. "Bird?" he'd asked. "Shengcún; bird?"

"Shengcún," the man had said again, starting to make Oliver irritated.

"Yeah, well I'm not going to eat any shengcún only 'cause it's got a fancy name in Chinese," he'd snapped, throwing his plate against the wall and tried not to flinch at the sharp sound that echoed through the cell as hard metal hit even harder stone. He'd spun away from the older man and stalked to his bed, which was only a few feet way in the narrow cell, and sat down with such force that the rusty, old springs squeaked loudly in protest. The mattress was so thin that he could feel each and every one of them poking him in the behind.

Staring down at his hands, he'd in the corner of his eyes seen how the other man slowly bent down to collect the wide-spread food back on the plate and then put it back in front of the hatch. Steadily, he'd walked up to Oliver, only to stop so close to him that their toes nearly were touching, but Oliver had continued to defiantly stare down at his thigh-knit hands, refusing to look up. Then a plate had been held out in front of him, the Chinese's plate, and out of jaw-dropping surprise he'd forgotten all about his irritation and stared up at the weathered face.

"Shengcún," the man had said slowly, as if every word was very important and could not be misheard, "not bird." Oliver had blinked. "Shengcún... survive." Then he'd pushed his plate into Oliver's hands and had without another word climbed up to his part of the bunk bead.

Oliver had sat staring down at his plate for awhile, his jaw silently working but the words had failed him. It wasn't until after a good minute had passed that he had come back to himself, the smell of the chicken had filled his nose and made him drool worse than Pavlov's dogs. He'd taken a bite and even though it probably hadn't tasted anything at all, it was at that moment the best he'd ever eaten. He'd even had to bite himself in the tongue not to let out a groan of satisfaction.

Even though he'd known that he'd feel sick later if he ate it all at once, he hadn't found enough strength to stop himself and in less than a minute the plate had been licked clean. Slowly, and without making a sound, he'd put it down on the floor beside his bed and then leaned back against his headboard. He'd heard the man above him breathing, and it wasn't the breathe of someone already asleep.

"Thank you," he'd whispered, and even though he hadn't gotten an answer, he'd known that his words had pierced the tense silence and had been heard by the man up above.

Later he'd learned that the man's name was Yao Fei, that he had a daughter named Shado and seconds before the guards had shot him between the eyes he'd learned that he had been forced to take the blame for a terrible crime he'd had nothing to do with. The similarities between them had nearly been ridiculously clear, and Oliver could nothing do when the thoughts of him ending up the same way came late at night.

Only days after Yao Fei's death the guards had brought in another man, an Australian, named Slade Wilson. Oliver had become good friends with him during the year that had passed, even as close as brothers, and Slade had taught him more than he could ever thank him for, things that over and over had saved his life. Together they had planned an escape. Slade had been in the military and knew the buildings blueprints by heart. He had also known how to fight and kill, and even though Oliver hadn't been able to bring much to the table Slade had insisted that he'd never be able to do it all by himself. The night of the escape came and they successfully broke out of the cell. They made it far, further than Oliver ever truly had allowed himself to believe that they would make it, but as Slade had headed to the laundry to steel the face-covering uniforms, Oliver had caught a glimpse of the monitoring screens. One cell stood out. One name. One girl. Shado. He'd never been able to repay Yao Fei for everything he'd done, but seeing that black-haired girl crumbling in fetal position on her thin mattress lit a fire within Oliver like nothing else ever had. He was going to rescue her. He was going to take her with them. He was going to save Yao Fei's daughter, because he hadn't been able to save Yao Fei.

As Slade had come back, Oliver had only offered him a half-worthy explanation and pointed towards the screen. Then Slade's face had gone pale, and before Oliver had been able to react, he had taken of in a sprint towards cell 52. Oliver had hurried after him, and somewhere along the way, during the following fifteen minutes, he'd learned that Slade loved Shado and that he'd travel to the end of the world and back for her. But then Shado died, killed by same guard that had killed her father. Fyers. He'd pointed a gun at her, and Slade had thrown himself in the way. But Oliver had thrown himself after his friend. In his attempt to save the man who he loved like a brother, he'd indadvertedly killed the woman Slade loved more than life itself. And oh, had Slade blamed him.

They had been brought back to their cell and before the guards even fully had let him go, Slade had been in front of Oliver, his strong hands wrapped around Oliver's neck. There had been tears in his eyes, tears of such an immense pain that Oliver had known he had been the one to cause, so for a few seconds he'd stopped struggling. He'd looked down at Slade, the man who was his brother who wanted him dead, and felt no need to fight as Death prepared to welcome him as his own. Then something had taken over. Call it whatever you want, a final act of remorse or pure survival instinct, but somehow he'd managed to push away from Slade and gripped whatever had been nearby, and driven it with all his strength into Slade's body.

It had turned out to be a fork, and he had hit Slade's left eye.

Panting, he'd sacked against the wall, staring at something far ahead as the guards had lifted away Slade's twisting form as he'd screamed in agony. They'd probably killed him, both punishing him for trying to leave and ending his suffering all at once. Or they'd let him be, watched him die a most painful death, being the monsters he knew they were. Oliver hadn't know. He still didn't know. All he knew was that he'd never see Slade Wilson, his brother, ever again.

There had been many after Yao Fei and Slade—Ivo, Sarah, Collins, Kwon, Idrina, Louis, only to mention a few—but he would always come to remember his mentor and his brother the strongest. Their actions and their words had had such a great impact on him, forming him during those five years, making him the man he was now. They had made him not only stronger, but smarter, and with his eyes set on a higher prize than the short-lived kick of adrenaline. He'd come to Lian Yu as a common thief, a silly boy with no ambitions whatsoever, but these five years had shown him that he was so much more than that. He'd be greater than what the world had ever seen, greater than his father, and would start by taking down the man who had put him here in the first place.

And that's why, after the bomb had gone off and left a sizable hole in his isolated cell's otherwise so grim wall, Oliver Queen put a hand on each side of the enormous crack and breathed in the city's lukewarm night air before leaving the Lian Yu Prison without ever even thinking about looking back.