Title: lips pressed to the beating heart
Fandom: Arrow
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 135
Content notes: mentions of food scarcity
Summary: Oliver adjusts to life off the island.


The second thing that Oliver notices about food in the real world (other than its overwhelming presence, everywhere he looks, and sheer variety) is ... that it's food. Not just nourishment. Not just gamey meat, or the overwhelming sweetness of fruit in the handful of weeks that its ripe or the same tired mixture of the three herbs he can find on Lian Yu that are edible.

Oliver can taste the chemicals in the burger. The slight plastic of the cheese, the steroids in the meat, the salted crunch of the pickle between his teeth - he's never liked pickle, but if he had his wallet he'd gladly buy an entire jar for sheer nostalgia/novelty - and the spices in the sauce. He freezes, face buried.

He's never had anything so wonderful in his life.