Tell Me... (Guy/Marian one-shot) PG
TITLE: “Tell Me”
FANDOM: BBC Robin Hood 2006
PAIRING: Guy/ Marian
AUTHOR: lexie aka lillianschild
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: “There are secrets in my heart, tears in my eyes and a person on my mind.”
A/N: This fic is set at the beginning of Series I. It's a rehashing of an old work of mine while I gather momentum to finish a new one-shot for my Guy/Marian Acrostic Series.
TELL ME…
“There are secrets in my heart, tears in my eyes and a person on my mind.” Sato Haruo
Dark and mysterious are his eyes. They’re blue-grey like the sea when it’s choppy and the skies when they're overcast; the silent and yet ominous announcement of a raging storm on the horizon. They can get as dark as the night from which he wishes he could escape, the pitch black which is synonymous with the henchman working for an unscrupulous and cruel master. She has seen his pupils darken with barely restrained power in the aftermath of a Sheriff-and-Master-at-Arms' confrontation and blacken with that all-consuming passion which she has experienced first-hand- a secret she’s been hiding zealously from the world.
He’s always been a riddle and she’s always been one for seeking the truth and unearthing the deepest darkest secrets. And she’s aware that those intense eyes of his hold a hundred untold secrets in their hidden depths. She’s been able to discover several of them with her relentlessly curious and investigative nature- he’s good at burying what might taint the image he’s been striving to create in his eagerness to earn his place in this world, but she’s never taken any prisoners when uncovering the truth can make the world she lives in a better one. And there are one too many people like Vasey and his Black Knights not to feel the need to make a difference. She got burnt bad last summer and wants to believe she’s learnt her lesson well. And yet there are times when she wonders if she isn’t going too far; looking for and finding secrets she isn’t sure she’s entitled to be privy to.
There are a hundred untold secrets in his eyes and she’s been the keeper of one of his most closely-guarded for almost a year now. She wishes she could give this one secret back because it’s too personal; it makes him too human and she can’t afford that. She can’t afford to see him that way if she wants to shelter her heart and protect the key to the mystery which has been hanging like a sword of Damocles over their fragile friendship. Lately, when they chance to cross their paths at the castle and she raises her eyes to find him leaning against a wall behind the sheriff, she wonders if he hasn’t discovered the truth already. And today when their gazes lock for a fraction of a second across the room she can feel his all-seeing eyes boring deep into her, searching for her little secrets. Vasey's Master-at-Arms doesn’t beg but she knows Guy well enough to understand he’s silently asking her to trust him with them, and there’s a fleeting moment when she remembers a summer morning and feels tempted to give in.
She feels herself drown in those eyes she’s seen at very close range, so close she could count the greenish and golden freckles in them. Tell me you love me. Tell me you need me. Tell me your secrets. Tell me what I want to hear. Tell me that you really care, said those eyes she’s been doing her best to dodge ever since Robin's return from the Holy Land. She remembers the desperation and the vulnerability reflected in them as his lithe body hovered over hers and she welcomed him in hers. She had known then there was a fair chance he’d sever all ties between them when he realised what had happened in that bed once his fever broke. She was aware he’d have never willingly let another human being see the secret fears he’d been hiding since he was a kid, and that it was only thanks to the high temperature caused by the infection of that ugly wound in his upper arm he’d let the final mask slip.
The Sheriff's sudden outburst on hearing a noble explain why the taxes levied this month have come up short of the Crown's expectations brings Marian back to the present. Sir Guy’s face, which had relaxed somehow, turns cold and impassive again when he sees her close up, but not before she notices the hurt in his stormy blue-grey eyes. Vasey starts prattling his eternal spiel about the great unwashed and their outlaw champion, Robin Hood, and she feels a sudden bout of resentment and a treacherous pricking of tears behind her eyelids as she places a hand on her father's shoulder and squeezes gently. Her secret identity and her spying for Robin at the castle and at Locksley weighs a ton on her shoulders and is breaking her heart into a million pieces. She loves the boy, but she can't help experience the anguish of being pulled in two directions. She is no longer the naïve girl she was when she bid farewell to Robin all those years ago, and she knows that Guy paddles in murky waters and that he can be as heartless as his sleazy master. And yet, that knowledge doesn’t make her choice any easier.
Robin speaks of sacrifices, of doing what’s best for the King and the people of Nottingham, and she can barely keep it together. She wonders what his reaction and that of the noblemen gathered at the castle would be if she started laughing hysterically at the irony of it all. Every word feels like a fresh stab in her already bleeding heart. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Guy straighten up and head towards her and Sir Edward; suddenly Vasey’s voice becomes a distant drone. She tells herself she has to put her defences up again because Guy might see more than just her secret alliance with the outlaws in her eyes. He can’t know, he must never know because if he ever finds out the secret she’s been harbouring in her chest since that morning in his room at Locksley her resolve might waver. She wishes she could be selfish and give in; she wishes she could be plain Marian and help save one soul now before it’s too late instead of the lives of anonymous thousands as Robin Hood’s sidekick.
By the time the knight joins father and daughter, Marian’s managed to control her queasiness somehow and answers his greeting with polite civility. She steals a look at his profile as he speaks with Sir Edward and smiles at something her father says. Suddenly she feels the need to flee before he sees too much since she can sense her mask is starting to crack again. She kisses her dad on the cheek and, issuing a hurried goodbye, excuses herself saying she promised an old friend to help her sort out some clothes to donate to Kirklee Abbey.
Rushing out of the castle, she blinks away a couple of tears and fumbles with the reins to mount her mare. She has to keep it together for just a few months; King Richard's return is close according to Robin. She takes refuge in the thought that the chances of her having to socialise with Guy will be slimmer now that her father's health is deteriorating. Perhaps she’s just deceiving herself, considering Sir Guy's clear intentions to woo her. She’s just buying some time, hoping that distance will help her forget what might have been if Sir Roger had never come home a leper and if the young Earl of Huntingdon hadn't got a vow of eternal love from her before marching off to fight in a foreign land .
“Marian?”
Her hand tightens the grip on the reins and she closes her eyes as she hears him stop just a couple of feet away. I love you. I need you. I’ll tell you my secrets. I’ll tell you what you want to hear. I really care. This she knows he’d see if she were to turn around and look him in the eye now. She’d betray Robin in a heartbeat. She’d save three people a lot of pain and heartbreak because she knows what will happen; Guy’s been getting deeper into Vasey's web of intrigue in the hope of regaining what he was stripped off as a boy and everything will end up exploding in his face.
“Marian?”
She hears an undisguised trace of trembling in his voice. Doubt gives her hope, and she turns around back in control.
“Sir Guy?”
“We need to talk.”
Tell me your secrets.
THE END