The Matchmaker - M - Chloe/Oliver - Prologue
Title: The Matchmaker
Rating: M (NC17)
Genre: Romance/Humor/Family
Pairing: Chloe/Oliver, Chloe/Other
Warning(s): sexual content, AU, future!fic, omc, harsh language
Summary: He just wanted her to be happy and he knew that Oliver would make her happier than anybody else could.
The Matchmaker
Prologue
One thing Eric Sullivan knew about his mom was that she was ten times better than every guy she ever dated. They were full of themselves, paid too much attention to her looks than her brains, and often only pretended to like kids. One guy though, he was perfect. Her closest friend: Oliver Queen. Growing up in Star City as a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter’s son gave him an edge over a lot of people. He may only be eleven, but he knew how to read people. He never knew his dad, but growing up he had a constant group of men there, willing to help him through life. Most of them were considered uncles: Clark, AC, Bart, and Victor. They took him to little league games, taught him how to swim, and played video games with him. So he wasn’t hard up for a male influence in his life.
But then there was Oliver, who didn’t feel like an uncle. He was different. He’d been there most of his life, give or take a few business meetings out of town. Eric couldn’t remember a big moment that Oliver wasn’t there to share in. His mom and Oliver had been friends and work partners since before Eric was born and it wasn’t long before the curiosity he inherited from his mother had him finding out about their little “save the world” business they had going on the sidelines. He still hadn’t stopped bugging Oliver about the green leather.
His mom was Watchtower: a computer whiz that guided them through every nook and cranny to make sure they got out alive and saved some people in the process. Growing up, he’d seen her in and out of hospitals so much he thought it was a normal part of life. Apparently, his friend’s parents weren’t so accident prone. She’d been shot, stabbed, electrocuted, thrown out of windows, off of buildings, hit by cars, and just plain generally hurt in every way a person could think of. But she survived. That didn’t make him any less scared for her life each time, but he could always tell from the people around him whether it was serious or not. If it was truly life threatening, Oliver’s face clouded over and he walked away from the group of worried waiting friends to be on his own. But if she was sure to pull through, just a little scrape, a bandage, maybe a cast, then he relaxed and he sat with everyone, listening to them tell the many stories of her earlier days in the hospital, before he’d come along.
Eric was five when he asked Oliver to be his dad. Seven when he played minister and made them get fake married. Eight when he told Oliver he wanted a baby brother and it was his job. And eleven when he decided he was done waiting for them to realize they were perfect together. See, Eric was 99.9% sure that Oliver had been in love with his mom since before he was even born. They had a close friendship, one that often got in the way of her relationships with other men. Most guys left because they thought she was cheating on them with Oliver. She made it clear that she wasn’t going to end her friendship with Oliver over anything and they took it to mean he meant more. Which, if Eric was being honest, he was pretty sure Oliver did.
When she was upset, she went to Oliver. He held her and he talked to her and listened while she ranted. When she was hurt, not so much to go to a hospital, he came over to fix her up. She relied on him to take care of Eric when she couldn’t. Pick him up from school, watch him while she was out of town, and that really uncomfortable conversation about sex wasn’t a highlight, but it happened. Sometimes he stayed over when she had a bad night too. She didn’t call whoever her current boyfriend was, but always Oliver. He’d hold her until she fell asleep and then crash on the couch if he hadn’t already fallen asleep next to her. Yup, there was no denying it. As his Auntie Lois always put it, his mom and Oliver were totally together, they just didn’t know it.
But Eric was going to change that.
[Next: Chapter One]
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