Six Men Who've Lost Their Hearts (Because of Someone Else)
Title: Six Men Who've Lost Their Hearts (Because of Someone Else).
Fandom: Robin Hood (BBC series), Twilight, Repo! the Genetic Opera, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Dark Knight and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog.
Characters: Robin/Marian, Jacob/Bella, Nathan/Marni with hints of Nathan/Shilo, Riley/Buffy, Harvey/Rachel and Billy/Penny.
Rating: PG.
Word Count: 2,085.
Spoilers: Though there are some pieces that are mostly AU, it's safe to say that there are some pretty major spoilers for all of these fandoms.
Summary: He doesn’t speak her name for weeks, but it weighs heavily on his mind.
Author's Note/Disclaimer: Completely unbeated, includes some fandoms I've barely touched/not touched at all. I'm also considering revamping all my posts/tags/etc here at pantlesspockets, so consider this your warning.
001. Robin of Locksley/Marian (Robin Hood, BBC)
He doesn’t speak her name for weeks, but it weighs heavily on his mind. He finds himself pushing away thoughts of her, shying away from any kind of memory (be it her laugh or her smile or the way she felt in his arms) like he had done with the horrors from the Holy Land. He could feel her inside of him, though, aching in his heart; he knew she’d always have a place there, and he was fairly certain no other person could change that.
His men filter in and out of the camp, watching as he stares into nothingness, his lips curled into a hard frown. They don’t say anything, though they place food and water in front of him, touch his shoulders every once and a while. Much finds it the hardest to keep quiet, words bubbling in his throat as he paces outside the camp. “It’s not right,” he tells Allan and Little John, “we have to fix it.” They had grabbed his arms before he made it inside, though, and he watched with worried eyes as John shook his head. “Time,” the man said with a nod.
He stopped going on the ambushes, he let the responsibilities as leader fall onto John’s wide shoulders, and his bow mocked him from beside his bed. When he picked it up, his hand shook as Marian’s words filled his mind, the memory of her body going limp in his arms causing his breath to catch in his throat. He nearly snapped it in two one evening when the nightmares were too much to handle, his breath ragged, but he stopped himself. Instead, he threw it against the ground and stomped out, unaware of Much’s eyes on his retreating back.
One day, the following winter, he finally fell to pieces at the bank of a nearby river. Much had followed him, ignoring protests from Allan and John, and found Robin clutching his stomach as though he were afraid his sobs would split him in two. He didn’t say anything, but as his arms went around Robin, he felt that it was a tiny step towards a healed heart.
Three days later, Robin joined Little John behind a tree, waiting for a wagon of gold that was on its way to the Sherriff. Neither one said anything, but John noticed the small fire burning in Robin’s eyes as he picked up his bow.
002. Jacob Black/Bella Swan (Twilight)
He has nightmares every night; she’s dead in that bloodsucker’s arms or she’s turned into stone, her red eyes nearly glowing in the trees. He wakes up panting, his heart racing against his ribcage from the idea of his sweet, gentle Bella killing humans, snapping their necks like they’re toothpicks. It gets so bad that he stops sleeping, just haunts the forest he’d ran to, searching for something.
After three days, with his eyelids dropping, he collapses in his human form (in clothes he stole off a clothes line) on the edge of some town. He wakes up in a stranger’s bed, his mind hazy with exhaustion and hunger. As he sits up, he feels a cool hand press against his forehead and he wonders just how hot he feels. His eyes land on the girl who found him and he feels his empty stomach heaving; she looks just like Bella. She almost falls off her chair as he rushes passed; ignoring the fact that he’s only wearing pants now.
As soon as the pavement beneath his feet changes into dirt, his whole body quivers in broad daylight and he changes into his wolf form. He runs without a direction, without a purpose, until his paws are so worn that he leaves behind bloody prints in the earth. It isn’t until he limps to a halt that he realizes he’s back home, the thoughts of the pack filling his mind, cramming it full of worried thoughts about him.
It hurts to realize that he caused anyone pain, but it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as the news of Bella’s death. He refuses to acknowledge that she lives without a heartbeat; his Bella, the one that changed colours when embarrassed and was actually affected by changes in weather is gone.
His chest heavy with emptiness, Jacob does his best to support her choice, to still be there for her. But the scent of her cold skin, the stillness of her is enough to drive him mad. He nearly attacks her one day before he finally leaves, back turned to her yelling his name. She doesn’t even try to chase after him, though they both know she’d be able to catch up to him easily.
The last time he sees her, he’s old and wrinkled, his black hair turned gray. His eyes are worse for the wear now and he has to squint to read signs a few feet from him, but the instant that Bella turns the corner to his street, he knows exactly who it is. She asks him for forgiveness, pleads for him to say something to her, but he gets lost in the idea of how things should have been.
He slams the door in her face, surprised his aching hands have the strength anymore. When he looks back, she’s already left.
Legend has it; he died of a broken heart.
003. Nathan Wallace/Marni Wallce, slight Nathan Wallace/Shilo Wallace (Repo! The Genetic Opera)
He blames himself because there’s no one else to accuse. He considered blaming Shilo (if Marni hadn’t been pregnant, she wouldn’t have died) but that still comes back to him. If it wasn’t for him marrying her, impregnating her with his child, she would still be alive and well. It’s one of the only times he prayed to go back in time, to erase their past and have her choose Rotti.
It gets harder to face Shilo as she ages, her features morphing into near cut-outs of Marni’s, but he forces himself to. He loves her harder, stronger, more intensely than he imagined he would’ve had his wife survived. It’s hard, but as time goes on, he stops comparing Shilo to Marni and instead compares Marni to Shilo. The way she looks at him, the way she speaks; everything seems heavier, more tainted in his memories.
He poisons her because he knows, without realizing it that if he keeps Shilo close to him and protects her from everything that could harm her, he won’t have to suffer again. It’s terrible and it’s selfish, but he clings to her like a life line, like protecting her could somehow go back and undo the past, bring his Marni back to him.
It isn’t until he’s dying in Shilo’s arms that he realizes his mistake; the line between father and daughter blurred in his maniacal desire to protect her. He dies knowing that he lost two women who could’ve been the world to him.
004. Riley Finn/Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
It’s hard for him to admit that he’s lost without her, but he is. He doesn’t know how to survive without her strength, without her fierce attitude. When he was with her, even when he lost his super-military-strength, he felt like he could take on anything. With her hand in his or her body pressed against his own, he felt strong and good and worthy. Without that, he’s just another guy trying to survive the horrors of the world.
He left because he couldn’t face not being with her. Everything in Sunnydale meant Buffy to him, and he knew he was too weak to try to deal with the pain. It was hard enough to fly away, imagining Spike sweeping in to comfort her or her running back to Angel. Though it killed him to even think it, he knew she was missing something with him, that danger that set her on edge with Angel.
Eventually, the pain begins to ease up a little. It’s replaced by physical aches, his muscles screaming at him for working too hard or his body wanting to collapse from exhaustion. But it’s nice; he can focus on fighting evils without thinking about her, is able to fall back into the mindless routines that the army throws his way.
But at night, when he lies awake staring at the ceiling, he can’t get the idea of Buffy and Spike or Buffy and Angel out of his head and that’s when it hurts the most.
005. Harvey Dent/Rachel Dawes (The Dark Knight)
He turns the coin over slowly in his hand, remembering the way Rachel smiled after she realized it was one-sided. The metal feels heavier against his palm, as if his guilt settled into it instead of his stomach and his heart, hardening his insides to stones. His thumb ran over the burnt side, anger gnawing at the frayed, fragile edges of his mind; he couldn’t live without her, couldn’t even fathom breathing without her. She had been everything to him; his reason to be a great man, the one thing he looked forward to every day. And she had agreed to be his wife.
The coin clattered against the wall, his outstretched hand curling into a tight fist. The burnt skin on the back of his hand stretched, cracked and he scowled with the good side of his face. He wouldn’t be the type of man who curled up into a ball and cried. No, he was more than that; he’d hurt every single person who could’ve saved her life, starting with that damned Batman and Gordon, and make them pay. He could shove his anger and his pain down their throats, watch as they choked on his destroyed life.
In the back of his mind, he envisioned Rachel’s frown of disappointment, the way her eyebrows pulled together whenever he was being ridiculous. She wouldn’t want this; she’d want him to go on with his life, to find happiness without her. But there was no such thing to him; she was the only thing that brought happiness into his life and, without her, he may as well be dead.
It hurt to move as he got out of the hospital bed, the Joker’s demented words playing over and over again in his head, but it was a relief; the pain of his body could take away the pain in his heart.
006. Billy/Penny (Dr. Horrible)
He doesn’t speak of what happened, even with Moist. He can’t bring himself to form the words ‘It was my fault’ with his mouth; thinking them is hard enough. He becomes numb to normal, mortal feelings. Happiness, sadness, anger; they’re all cast aside into a pile, forgotten like the idea of his Freeze Ray. When he gets accepted into the league, he wears a red coat instead of a white, not because he’s finally the villain he longed to be but because he doesn’t deserve anything pure or innocent to be attached to his name. Penny was the only pure part of his life, and look what happened with that.
He doesn’t feel anything when hostages scream, doesn’t have a single caring bone in his body when he sees the fear in their eyes. None of it really even matters to him anymore; the only thing that does is the glory, the sight of his name splashed across headlines alongside words like “Bank Robbery” and “Money Heist Successful.” Eventually he forgets what it was like to be Billy, to be simple and human and unsure. He gets so lost in Dr. Horrible that he seems to become a whole other person.
The smell of dryer sheets always brings painful memories back to the surface, though, and he hasn’t touched frozen yogurt since the last time they ate it together. He still can’t go to the Laundromat, either, or face Captain Hammer. If he does, he’ll break down and all the feelings he cast aside and hid from will take over. He’ll lose control and everything else he ever dreamed of will crumble to pieces, falls to shards around his feet.
He’s even found a small hatred for the homeless blooming in his chest, but he doesn’t ever hurt them; Penny wouldn’t have wanted that. Instead, he steers clear of them like they’re disease-ridden or he’s afraid they’ll bite him.
If someone looked close enough (which no one does, either because they’re afraid or they just don’t care), they could see the cracks in his hard exterior. She was the only one who cared to look that close, though, and all it got him was a repetition of “Don’t worry, Captain Hammer will save us” in his head, her dying whisper carving into his memory over and over again.
Fandom: Robin Hood (BBC series), Twilight, Repo! the Genetic Opera, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Dark Knight and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog.
Characters: Robin/Marian, Jacob/Bella, Nathan/Marni with hints of Nathan/Shilo, Riley/Buffy, Harvey/Rachel and Billy/Penny.
Rating: PG.
Word Count: 2,085.
Spoilers: Though there are some pieces that are mostly AU, it's safe to say that there are some pretty major spoilers for all of these fandoms.
Summary: He doesn’t speak her name for weeks, but it weighs heavily on his mind.
Author's Note/Disclaimer: Completely unbeated, includes some fandoms I've barely touched/not touched at all. I'm also considering revamping all my posts/tags/etc here at pantlesspockets, so consider this your warning.
001. Robin of Locksley/Marian (Robin Hood, BBC)
He doesn’t speak her name for weeks, but it weighs heavily on his mind. He finds himself pushing away thoughts of her, shying away from any kind of memory (be it her laugh or her smile or the way she felt in his arms) like he had done with the horrors from the Holy Land. He could feel her inside of him, though, aching in his heart; he knew she’d always have a place there, and he was fairly certain no other person could change that.
His men filter in and out of the camp, watching as he stares into nothingness, his lips curled into a hard frown. They don’t say anything, though they place food and water in front of him, touch his shoulders every once and a while. Much finds it the hardest to keep quiet, words bubbling in his throat as he paces outside the camp. “It’s not right,” he tells Allan and Little John, “we have to fix it.” They had grabbed his arms before he made it inside, though, and he watched with worried eyes as John shook his head. “Time,” the man said with a nod.
He stopped going on the ambushes, he let the responsibilities as leader fall onto John’s wide shoulders, and his bow mocked him from beside his bed. When he picked it up, his hand shook as Marian’s words filled his mind, the memory of her body going limp in his arms causing his breath to catch in his throat. He nearly snapped it in two one evening when the nightmares were too much to handle, his breath ragged, but he stopped himself. Instead, he threw it against the ground and stomped out, unaware of Much’s eyes on his retreating back.
One day, the following winter, he finally fell to pieces at the bank of a nearby river. Much had followed him, ignoring protests from Allan and John, and found Robin clutching his stomach as though he were afraid his sobs would split him in two. He didn’t say anything, but as his arms went around Robin, he felt that it was a tiny step towards a healed heart.
Three days later, Robin joined Little John behind a tree, waiting for a wagon of gold that was on its way to the Sherriff. Neither one said anything, but John noticed the small fire burning in Robin’s eyes as he picked up his bow.
002. Jacob Black/Bella Swan (Twilight)
He has nightmares every night; she’s dead in that bloodsucker’s arms or she’s turned into stone, her red eyes nearly glowing in the trees. He wakes up panting, his heart racing against his ribcage from the idea of his sweet, gentle Bella killing humans, snapping their necks like they’re toothpicks. It gets so bad that he stops sleeping, just haunts the forest he’d ran to, searching for something.
After three days, with his eyelids dropping, he collapses in his human form (in clothes he stole off a clothes line) on the edge of some town. He wakes up in a stranger’s bed, his mind hazy with exhaustion and hunger. As he sits up, he feels a cool hand press against his forehead and he wonders just how hot he feels. His eyes land on the girl who found him and he feels his empty stomach heaving; she looks just like Bella. She almost falls off her chair as he rushes passed; ignoring the fact that he’s only wearing pants now.
As soon as the pavement beneath his feet changes into dirt, his whole body quivers in broad daylight and he changes into his wolf form. He runs without a direction, without a purpose, until his paws are so worn that he leaves behind bloody prints in the earth. It isn’t until he limps to a halt that he realizes he’s back home, the thoughts of the pack filling his mind, cramming it full of worried thoughts about him.
It hurts to realize that he caused anyone pain, but it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as the news of Bella’s death. He refuses to acknowledge that she lives without a heartbeat; his Bella, the one that changed colours when embarrassed and was actually affected by changes in weather is gone.
His chest heavy with emptiness, Jacob does his best to support her choice, to still be there for her. But the scent of her cold skin, the stillness of her is enough to drive him mad. He nearly attacks her one day before he finally leaves, back turned to her yelling his name. She doesn’t even try to chase after him, though they both know she’d be able to catch up to him easily.
The last time he sees her, he’s old and wrinkled, his black hair turned gray. His eyes are worse for the wear now and he has to squint to read signs a few feet from him, but the instant that Bella turns the corner to his street, he knows exactly who it is. She asks him for forgiveness, pleads for him to say something to her, but he gets lost in the idea of how things should have been.
He slams the door in her face, surprised his aching hands have the strength anymore. When he looks back, she’s already left.
Legend has it; he died of a broken heart.
003. Nathan Wallace/Marni Wallce, slight Nathan Wallace/Shilo Wallace (Repo! The Genetic Opera)
He blames himself because there’s no one else to accuse. He considered blaming Shilo (if Marni hadn’t been pregnant, she wouldn’t have died) but that still comes back to him. If it wasn’t for him marrying her, impregnating her with his child, she would still be alive and well. It’s one of the only times he prayed to go back in time, to erase their past and have her choose Rotti.
It gets harder to face Shilo as she ages, her features morphing into near cut-outs of Marni’s, but he forces himself to. He loves her harder, stronger, more intensely than he imagined he would’ve had his wife survived. It’s hard, but as time goes on, he stops comparing Shilo to Marni and instead compares Marni to Shilo. The way she looks at him, the way she speaks; everything seems heavier, more tainted in his memories.
He poisons her because he knows, without realizing it that if he keeps Shilo close to him and protects her from everything that could harm her, he won’t have to suffer again. It’s terrible and it’s selfish, but he clings to her like a life line, like protecting her could somehow go back and undo the past, bring his Marni back to him.
It isn’t until he’s dying in Shilo’s arms that he realizes his mistake; the line between father and daughter blurred in his maniacal desire to protect her. He dies knowing that he lost two women who could’ve been the world to him.
004. Riley Finn/Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
It’s hard for him to admit that he’s lost without her, but he is. He doesn’t know how to survive without her strength, without her fierce attitude. When he was with her, even when he lost his super-military-strength, he felt like he could take on anything. With her hand in his or her body pressed against his own, he felt strong and good and worthy. Without that, he’s just another guy trying to survive the horrors of the world.
He left because he couldn’t face not being with her. Everything in Sunnydale meant Buffy to him, and he knew he was too weak to try to deal with the pain. It was hard enough to fly away, imagining Spike sweeping in to comfort her or her running back to Angel. Though it killed him to even think it, he knew she was missing something with him, that danger that set her on edge with Angel.
Eventually, the pain begins to ease up a little. It’s replaced by physical aches, his muscles screaming at him for working too hard or his body wanting to collapse from exhaustion. But it’s nice; he can focus on fighting evils without thinking about her, is able to fall back into the mindless routines that the army throws his way.
But at night, when he lies awake staring at the ceiling, he can’t get the idea of Buffy and Spike or Buffy and Angel out of his head and that’s when it hurts the most.
005. Harvey Dent/Rachel Dawes (The Dark Knight)
He turns the coin over slowly in his hand, remembering the way Rachel smiled after she realized it was one-sided. The metal feels heavier against his palm, as if his guilt settled into it instead of his stomach and his heart, hardening his insides to stones. His thumb ran over the burnt side, anger gnawing at the frayed, fragile edges of his mind; he couldn’t live without her, couldn’t even fathom breathing without her. She had been everything to him; his reason to be a great man, the one thing he looked forward to every day. And she had agreed to be his wife.
The coin clattered against the wall, his outstretched hand curling into a tight fist. The burnt skin on the back of his hand stretched, cracked and he scowled with the good side of his face. He wouldn’t be the type of man who curled up into a ball and cried. No, he was more than that; he’d hurt every single person who could’ve saved her life, starting with that damned Batman and Gordon, and make them pay. He could shove his anger and his pain down their throats, watch as they choked on his destroyed life.
In the back of his mind, he envisioned Rachel’s frown of disappointment, the way her eyebrows pulled together whenever he was being ridiculous. She wouldn’t want this; she’d want him to go on with his life, to find happiness without her. But there was no such thing to him; she was the only thing that brought happiness into his life and, without her, he may as well be dead.
It hurt to move as he got out of the hospital bed, the Joker’s demented words playing over and over again in his head, but it was a relief; the pain of his body could take away the pain in his heart.
006. Billy/Penny (Dr. Horrible)
He doesn’t speak of what happened, even with Moist. He can’t bring himself to form the words ‘It was my fault’ with his mouth; thinking them is hard enough. He becomes numb to normal, mortal feelings. Happiness, sadness, anger; they’re all cast aside into a pile, forgotten like the idea of his Freeze Ray. When he gets accepted into the league, he wears a red coat instead of a white, not because he’s finally the villain he longed to be but because he doesn’t deserve anything pure or innocent to be attached to his name. Penny was the only pure part of his life, and look what happened with that.
He doesn’t feel anything when hostages scream, doesn’t have a single caring bone in his body when he sees the fear in their eyes. None of it really even matters to him anymore; the only thing that does is the glory, the sight of his name splashed across headlines alongside words like “Bank Robbery” and “Money Heist Successful.” Eventually he forgets what it was like to be Billy, to be simple and human and unsure. He gets so lost in Dr. Horrible that he seems to become a whole other person.
The smell of dryer sheets always brings painful memories back to the surface, though, and he hasn’t touched frozen yogurt since the last time they ate it together. He still can’t go to the Laundromat, either, or face Captain Hammer. If he does, he’ll break down and all the feelings he cast aside and hid from will take over. He’ll lose control and everything else he ever dreamed of will crumble to pieces, falls to shards around his feet.
He’s even found a small hatred for the homeless blooming in his chest, but he doesn’t ever hurt them; Penny wouldn’t have wanted that. Instead, he steers clear of them like they’re disease-ridden or he’s afraid they’ll bite him.
If someone looked close enough (which no one does, either because they’re afraid or they just don’t care), they could see the cracks in his hard exterior. She was the only one who cared to look that close, though, and all it got him was a repetition of “Don’t worry, Captain Hammer will save us” in his head, her dying whisper carving into his memory over and over again.