Chapter Text
“This is the stupidest thing to ever stupid.”
“Just do it already, Felicity.”
Reluctantly, the teenager inserted her index finger into the designated slot and winced when a needle—damn needles—pricked the pad of her finger. The large machine, almost photobooth-sized, audibly churned for a moment before spitting out a strip of paper into a lower slot, just like a photobooth.
Using her uninjured hand, Felicity retrieved the paper and rolled her eyes as her friend Francesca—they’d bonded over multisyllabic F names—admonished her to wait to read them together. As Francesca took her turn, she stood back a moment, wondering what tools she’d need to get at the guts of the thing and reverse engineer what made it tick. Because, really, it was just one giant computer processing a blood sample. Finally, Francesca was ready, and Felicity glanced down at the simply printed word, her forehead wrinkling in confusion then veiled disappointment.
“It says pit.” She shrugged and tossed the note into the nearest trashcan. Well, that was a waste of $19.99 plus tax. At least her mom wouldn’t mind; she’d been trying to drag Felicity to a Love Machine since her dad split to “restore her faith in the world”.
“Like Brad Pitt?” her friend asked with a hopeful lilt.
Felicity sighed. “No, like peach or Pit of Despair. One T.”
“Oh.” Francesca was obviously disappointed and, instead of dwelling, began waxing poetic about her own word—rain—and assigning ludicrous romantic connotations to it.
MIT really couldn’t come soon enough.
No one seemed to know exactly how it worked.
Scientists in Japan—no, Germany? Switzerland? somewhere at any rate—had devised a machine that would reveal a person’s soulmate based on a single drop of blood. It was unclear what they had been trying to develop in the first place, and it was even more unclear what they had actually built for years, if not decades. The earliest lab rats had received a slip of paper with a single—often mundane, usually English—word printed on it. They’d then gone on about their lives, giving little to no thought to that random word—book, tiger, night—until one day, it became obvious.
Those random words connected—sometimes in the most unexpected of ways—to the person they considered their soulmate.
Some intrepid, or rather desperate and bored, reporter had done a follow-up story on the study, and with only a few probing questions, each subject realized that just a few degrees of word association connected the seemingly random word to a defining characteristic of their loved one.
Book to page to Paige.
Tiger to an actual tiger tattoo.
Night to M. Night Shyamalan to horror movie buff.
Really, a needle in a haystack would have been equally as precise, but society went mad with it. A shortcut to finding your soulmate? Who wouldn't fork over a fortune for the information? The original team of scientists had long dispersed, some had even passed, but the original prototype was still sitting in storage, just waiting for new trials. People the world over volunteered to test the machine, but the research company was strategic. They only tested couples who'd been happily married for over half a century. And for those lucky people, the word association was obvious. After a brief look at their slip, just a shared glance was all they needed to break out in knowing chuckles. Once the confirmation trials were complete, the machine was rushed into mass production—under very closely guarded trade secret protection.
Find your perfect match with the Love Machine! became the slogan of dreams and nightmares.
brook
It had been his easiest pick-up line for, well, girls named Brooke. He just helpfully omitted the part where his word technically referred to a small stream. Besides, the Love Machine was rarely ever that straightforward.
He’d gone to get matched with Tommy as a lark. Most girls in school were desperate to know who the Queen and Merlyn heirs were destined to be with—and how they could become that girl.
Tommy’s had been as obvious as they came though it still felt like a sucker punch to Oliver. Handcuffs, an obvious reference to Detective Lance, Laurel’s determination to become a district attorney, and the last weekend’s escapade which somehow ended with Tommy and Laurel handcuffed to each other even before the police cruiser arrived to respond to the noise complaint. After Oliver had snuck a peek over Tommy’s shoulder, his best friend had looked an overwhelming mixture of guilty, mortified, and relieved, and Oliver knew then that the Love Machine was right. Still, the next day he offered to take Laurel, then on-again girlfriend, to the mall and convinced her to get matched. The machine printed the word magic, and she’d blushed, stuttered through a nonsensical explanation of sorts, then finally blew out a long sigh of relief.
Admittedly, Oliver didn’t react well. It wasn’t really that he believed Laurel was his soulmate, but the realization that she’d been faking wanting to be with him was painful. Then there was his regret that his selfish reliance on Laurel as a sure thing had kept apart two people who he cared about and who were apparently meant to be together.
So Oliver latched onto his dad’s offer of one last hurrah before attempting to adult, invited Sara to join, and learned real pain and regret.
Now, in the rare moments of quiet, the word haunted him. Every time he turned it over in his mind, he couldn’t figure out what the hell an actual small stream had to do with a living, breathing person. When he’d met Shado, Oliver had tried to connect it to her strongest characteristics—peace and serenity—but that hadn’t felt right. He’d asked once if she’d ever been matched, but their family philosophy discouraged that predetermined approach to life.
In the end, it hadn’t been right at all, and he’d unwittingly ruined yet another perfect match.
On the selfish side of things, Oliver often grieved his own perfect match because how was he ever going to meet her if he never got off this cursed island again. And who’s to say she’d want to put up with his crusade to save Starling City, or that he would, could, or should be in a relationship while undertaking this dangerous of a mission? Or, worst case scenario, if he died tomorrow on this stinking rock, would she live out her days with the false hope that she’d one day meet her perfect match?
“I was right!” Felicity exclaimed, her phone loudly clattering onto the desk. “That is the stupidest thing to ever stupid.”
Oliver dropped down from the bottom rung of the salmon ladder and stripped off his gloves. “I’m missing something?” It was a statement that still came out like a question because Felicity.
“Pit. Olive pit. Oliver,” Felicity rattled off, her palm solidly connecting with her forehead. “That elderly woman you helped with her groceries did call you a peach yesterday. And I guess you’re basically a Pit of Despair unto yourself so that works too.”
“What? Is that a, uh, Princess—um?” he trailed off uncertainly, even as she stood and wrapped her arms around his waist in a tight hug.
“Bride, not Diaries. The superior movie hands down, though Princess Diaries is solid and has its own redeeming qualities. Anne Hathway before Hathahate became a thing, the beginning of Mandy Moore’s acting career—who knew that would take off?—Sandra Oh pre-Grey’s, Julie Andrews, duh—”
Oliver smiled softly as her gesturing hands counted off redeeming qualities of a Disney movie Thea had adored. “You’re losing me.”
“I was just on Facebook, and my high school friend Francesca is visiting her wife’s family in Seattle. Apparently, it hasn’t stopped raining since she got there, which is a hard adjustment for a Vegas girl, let me tell you. Anyway, rain, Seattle.” Felicity sighed at his continued look of confusion. “You’re my perfect match. Like registered trademark, hashtag, heart emoji, capital letters Perfect Match.”
Oliver stilled for a moment before he grinned, chuckling in disbelief. “And you’re my babbling brook.”