Looper

By TheLostMaximoff

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. R/R.

Roy Harper stopped trying to move what seems like forever ago. His body won't function right anyway. He vaguely remembers Oliver shooting him in the chest with some of his arrows. He assumes they were the kind he used on Slade, the ones with the snake venom that are meant to take down those that are more than human. Roy doesn't feel more than human. He never felt that way after being injected with the Mirakuru. He never really felt human before that either. He can take gunshots to the chest without flinching. He can shatter steel with one punch. He can break a human being in half without trying. He's never felt special though. The only time Roy felt anything close to good was when he was with Thea.

'I messed it all up, Roy. I deserve to die.'

The sensation of his hand around her throat lingers in his mind. It would have been so easy. All he had to do was squeeze. He pictures it even now, pictures what it would be like to kill her. It's the closest thing he can get to dreaming given the state that he's in. He wants to kill her. He wants to squeeze the life out of her so her voice can stop haunting him. His life was so much better before her.

Roy Harper is a great liar. It's kept him alive all these years but it's so dangerous to lie so deeply to yourself. Who was he trying to fool by thinking he could be a hero? Roy is and always has been gutter trash from The Glades. Trying to think he could be anything more than that is just a delusion, just another lie.

'I drove you away, Roy. I don't want to live anymore.'

All Roy wants to do is die. He can feel something in him starting to slowly break. His memories twist themselves inside out. It's so much easier to blame someone else for your own mistakes. He shouldn't have listened to Oliver and broken up with Thea as a result of that advice. He shouldn't have started believing in himself. It's such a dangerous thing to give a broken man some hope to cling to. The second you try to pry it away from him, you see him turn into nothing more than a rabid animal. Roy knows how to fight to hang onto things but now the one thing he's always clung to wants him to let go.

'Just do it, Roy!'

He feels his hand around Thea's throat. One squeeze to crush her frail, little windpipe. Humans break so easily. They shatter like glass and then they cut you while you try to pick up the pieces. Luckily for Roy, he heals faster now. He sees Thea laying dead and broken and then his mind snaps back into focus. He remembers their first kiss, both the time at the doctor's office that he doesn't count and the kiss that he does count. He remembers the two of them finding each other after the earthquake. It was the night they first had sex with each other. He remembers that every single time his world was falling apart, he always had her. He remembers the last time his world fell apart and it was all because he didn't have her anymore. He remembers it all and screams until his throat is raw. No one hears him and it makes him wish he could kill himself.

"No change?"

Roy can barely hear Diggle's voice. It sounds too far away and he's too busy drowning in his own sorrow. He wants to make someone understand the nightmare he's trapped in and the agony he must continuously endure.

"No. I know it's stupid but I've been wondering what he's been dreaming about."

Roy Harper screams again but just like before, no one hears him. The sight of Thea's dead body vanishes before his eyes. He knows this isn't going to end. He's stuck in some hellish loop for all eternity.

"I don't think he's dreaming about anything good, Felicity."

Roy Harper braces himself for the inevitable as his nightmare rewinds itself back to the beginning and starts all over again. He can feel that lingering sensation of his hand around her throat again.

'I messed it all up, Roy. I deserve to die.'