"all bets are off, we're on the dark side of the sun", Robin Hood, Guy/Robin
Title: all bets are off, we’re on the dark side of the sun
Fandom: Robin Hood
Pairing: Guy/Robin [slight Guy/Allan, boys/Marian]
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3560
Genre: Slash
Copyright: Title is from Dark Side Of The Sun by Tori Amos.
Warnings: Spoilers up to 3x01, major character deaths.
Summary: AU. Hood’s men are killed, England is once again protected from the outlaws, and Guy knows that no one can stop them now.
Author’s Notes: Oh My God, Richard Armitage has got yummier than ever; oh, that hair. Oh, that eye make-up. Oh, the new clothes. *fans self* Obviously Guy/Allan is my OTP, but I couldn’t resist writing this anyway. Basic premise is: what if there was no Tuck to be all Jedi? Features lots and lots of madness, and maybe it’s OOC, and maybe it isn’t, but I had a crazy fun time writing it anyway.
Is there a way out of this?
If there is I can’t see it.
Can Heaven and Hell co-exist?
- Tori Amos
The sun winks out during the execution; darkness drawing like a curtain across the world. Guy closes his eyes. He’s had this dream before, had his demons claw over his eyes and leave him in shadow, but then this isn’t a dream. He’s almost certain it isn’t.
When the sunlight returns, Much has three arrows shot through him, John’s corpse is burning, and Allan is staring at Guy with blood dripping down his chin and through his fingers. His eyes have a shade of something like betrayal in them, which Guy thinks is a little rich, but although he opens his mouth to point this out the words die on his tongue. Allan is pinned to the board, arrows shot through his shoulders and stomach and arms and he looks scared and pathetic and oh so defiant.
Curious, he takes a step or two closer. Allan’s lips are curled back over his teeth, mouth stained scarlet. Guy wants to say something to him, but doesn’t know what; the words don’t come, and Allan manages to conjure up a sneer in spite of the way his breath rattles in his chest. Guy reaches for a knife, willing to afford Allan a faster death in spite of everything. Allan sucks in a sharp breath and spits a mouthful of blood in Guy’s face; he feels it spatter crimson across his cheek and then Allan slumps, his head limp. Gone.
The Sheriff’s smile splits his face, wide as though all his dreams have come true. Guy isn’t sure what to say; after all they’ve been through, it’s almost an anticlimax.
^
The desire to find Hood’s body never fades. His men are killed, England is once again protected from the outlaws, and Guy knows that no one can stop them now. But in fits in the night, when Marian’s eyes are too blue and his hands are too heavy and Allan spews blood across his skin, when the memories itch and sting, Guy becomes ever more determined to prove to himself that this is all over. He needs the proof, and bodies don’t just vanish.
Days pass, and he spends every minute he can searching the forest, searching the river. He doesn’t care what state the corpse is in, just as long as he finds it. He needs to know.
Hood’s laughter mocks him through the trees and recollection is sour as bile. He thinks about Allan, who he dared to trust, though he should not have done, and thinks about what loyalty even means these days. He’s tired, and betrayed, and he no longer really cares about anything any more. Once upon a time, there was the desire for power, the desire for Marian, the desire to have his fingers in every little bit of the world and to grip it tight.
These days, every breath is a chore, and his world lingers in shadows.
^
“You,” the Sheriff drawls, “Are pissing on my party, Gisborne. Pissing all over it.”
Guy’s teeth clench. “Yes,” he mutters, though he’s not really sure what he’s agreeing to. His head hurts.
The Sheriff sighs, waving a gloved hand dismissively. “Get out,” he orders, though he doesn’t seem angry with Guy; more bored. Guy obediently walks towards the door. “Oh, and Gisborne?”
Guy turns. “My lord?”
The Sheriff grins at him, all teeth and mindless destruction and Guy reflects that he’s always despised him and it doesn’t matter. Not really.
“Cut your hair, would you?”
Guy ignores him, and the door closes with a childish slam.
^
“I will find you, Hood,” he promises the stagnant water.
There will be a body somewhere; bloated and ugly and probably half-rotted and half-eaten, but it doesn’t matter. All he needs is the corpse, because he will go mad if he does not find it.
Well, there is always the possibility that he is mad already, but he tries not to think about that because his world is fragile enough as it is.
Wind shivers through the leaves, and he turns his head too fast. For a moment, men linger in the long grass, crouched by the trees, arrows in hand. Men who are dead and gone; men who bled and burned ages ago.
“You’re dead,” he informs them bitterly, wishing his voice held more triumph. Guy kneads his eyes, his fingers coming back smudged black, and the memories are gone when he looks back.
Too many things have happened and the world is not the place it once was.
“HOOD!” he yells, and birds take frightened flight. He receives no reply, and tries hard not to be disappointed. Dead men don’t ever respond, after all.
^
The world won’t ever be saved. Oh, it was unlikely that Robin Hood and his little band of children were ever going to accomplish freedom and salvation for all, and they must have known that as much as anyone, but they pretended and it was very nearly enough for everyone.
Guy doesn’t feel guilt because if he’s honest with himself he doesn’t really feel anything any more.
Still, they’re all damned to this game now, damned to this course. Guy wouldn’t have had a space in the shining new world Robin Hood wanted but his place in this world now seems to have become more uncertain.
“Gisborne,” the Sheriff says on a grin, “This is…” He makes a face, waves a dismissive black gloved hand towards a quiet-looking young man. Dark eyed, pale, but the set of his jaw is determined and tells Guy enough. “Well, no matter. I just thought you might like to meet him.”
Guy inclines his head, just barely. He’s never been one for formalities, politeness.
“Don’t you want to know why you should meet him?” the Sheriff presses.
Obedient out of habit rather than out of any sort of investment, Guy suppresses a sigh. “Why?”
“I’m going to give him a job,” the Sheriff tells him. The smile curves wider, all teeth and viciousness. “I thought I might give him your job.”
Guy isn’t going to fight for something that was never worth it in the first place. “Very well,” he murmurs, trying to sound submissive and not plain bored.
^
The air is thick with the perfume of flowers; it makes Guy dizzy. He walks through the grass, the blades shimmering wet beneath his boots, the river lying patient and coy beside him. He has been here hours, and he suspects that he has neglected something the Sheriff thinks important to wander aimlessly in search of a body. Not that it matters; the Sheriff has a new favourite now, and Guy wonders if he will be obedient enough to bend over and keep his mouth shut in the way Guy never could.
“I know you’re here,” he hisses to the corpse, the corpse that cannot have vanished because there is no one left who could have recovered it.
He walks on and on, head full of the sickly scent of flowers, skin crawling beneath his clothes. He’s probably mad now, he concedes, lost to grief and fury and exhaustion. Well, he’s mad, but he’s not stupid; he knows when he’s being watched. Guy turns quickly, blinking hair from his eyes, and though it’s only a moment, he sees. He sees the man who ducks out of sight; and he knows.
It’s almost too much; here with the dappled sunlight and the air thick with sour perfume and the awful, blinding truth wrapping around him like ropes.
“He’s alive,” he says hoarsely, because there’s no one to tell, not any more. “Hood’s alive.”
^
Guy loses the lands in much the same way Robin lost them; he forfeits the sir and the home and decides not to return to the castle. He has places to take shelter, he still has more than enough money, and he’s quite happy to let broken by the Holy Land be thrown about as an excuse because it’s more truth than lie and none of it really matters.
Sherwood Forest is home as much as anything; he wanders it wildly for an indeterminate amount of time, looking for something. No; looking for Hood. He doesn’t know why; he’s got the strength but certainly not the sanity to kill him for sure, and actively looking for someone who intends to murder him is not a sensible idea. Guy hasn’t lost everything, after all. Just most of it.
“I could’ve had everything,” he remarks. He’s taken to talking to himself, talking to trees; far more loquacious than he was when he actually had people to say things to. Then he considers the words. No, he would never have had anything. It would have been kept from him, kept conditional, as everything always was.
This is not better, and he is sure of it. But it is new, and it is different, and it is entirely up to him.
^
In the end, it is Hood who seeks him out. Guy is sleeping an uneasy sleep beneath an oak tree, and when his eyes open he finds he is being watched.
The man sitting cross-legged a few feet away from him does not look anything like the Robin Hood he has come to know over the last couple of years.
“Going to finish the job?” Guy asks.
Hood’s jaw clenches; he’s lost his smart words and smug smile and shiny determination. He’s stripped bare, quiet, angry, lost.
“I want to kill you for what you’ve done,” he says.
Guy sighs and sits up, resisting the urge to roll his eyes because this is not news.
“Go on then,” he murmurs. There’s no point in fighting this any longer; no point at all.
Hood considers him for a long moment, then gets to his feet. He takes a few steps, and vanishes into the trees.
^
“I should hate you,” a voice says behind him. It is night, and there is a meagre fire, and Guy hasn’t eaten in some time. “You took everything from me.”
Guy doesn’t bother turning. “Then hate me,” he says. He feels as though he’s had this conversation a dozen times over, though he hasn’t.
“I haven’t got anything left to hate you with.”
Leaves crackle as Hood walks closer, comes to sit by the fire. He keeps a wary space between himself and Guy. His face is lit with strips of light and shadow, eyes glittering hollowly.
Guy doesn’t know what to say. “Well then, Hood,” he begins, but is cut off.
“Robin Hood is dead,” the man tells him.
For a while, Guy turns this concept over in his mind, and realises that it is entirely true. The man sitting gaunt and quiet is not about to try and steal anything from anyone. Who he once was has faded.
“Robin Hood is dead,” he agrees, because he needs to say the words aloud.
A smile twists the man’s lips; it’s impossible to tell the emotion behind it, if there is indeed an emotion there.
“I’m free now,” he says.
Guy frowns. “You call this freedom?”
The man laughs bitterly. “It’s close enough.”
^
Robin - just plain Robin now; not Robin Hood, not Robin Of Locksley, not anything - has changed, but Guy knows that he has changed too. Almost certainly not for the better.
“England’s going to hell,” he mutters.
“It was always going to hell,” Guy replies, voice clipped short.
Cold comfort, and Robin’s lips curve anyway.
“I could have…”
“What could you have done?” Guy asks, into the silence left behind.
Robin arches an eyebrow; for a moment he’s the man with the clever words and the easy come easy go amusement. “Are you trying to make me feel better?”
“No.”
They walk in silence for a while longer; two men in Sherwood Forest, wandering aimlessly because there will never be a destination.
“I could have been you,” Guy says, later.
Robin’s lips curve wryly. “No, you couldn’t.”
Guy thinks about choices, about integrity, about determination.
“No,” he agrees slowly, “I couldn’t.”
^
He wakes in the night, in the shallow dirty cave they’re using for shelter, clawing at his face and screaming Allan’s name.
When Guy collects himself, he finds Robin watching him expressionlessly.
“He’s dead, isn’t he.” Robin’s voice is flat, matter-of-fact. “They’re all dead.”
Guy’s cheek still feels sticky and wet with the memory of blood that wasn’t his.
“They are,” he confirms softly.
Robin nods, face betraying nothing; this is, as far as Guy can tell, because he doesn’t feel anything any more.
“You really are the cruellest bastard in the whole of this godforsaken country, Gisborne.”
“Guy,” he corrects.
Robin laughs a little bitterly. “Guy,” he repeats. “Yes, I keep forgetting that you don’t have anything left either.”
He rolls over to get some sleep, leaving Guy to the shadows, to the nausea, to the sharp memories that don’t ever uncurl their claws.
^
Robin Hood and his men were supposed to have a camp; somewhere safe to stay since they had to live away from the law in the forest. Guy would never have been stupid enough to assume that Robin would take him there, and he suspects the place holds all kinds of jagged memories for the man, but the constant wandering shreds his nerves anyway. They never stay in one place for long, never linger anywhere; they just wander through the trees, and there is no telling where they are half the time.
“Why are you doing this, Guy?” Robin asks. He’s been bathing in a stream and looks unusually clean; eyes bright, though still hollow, lengthening dark hair pressed wet to his skull.
Guy doesn’t want to answer; doesn’t want to give him that much of himself. He stares at the sunlight glancing off Robin’s damp skin, the way his hair is starting to curl at the ends as it begins to dry.
“Without you, I’m nothing,” he replies, and tries to make it sound as though it does not matter. “I have nothing to fight for, nothing to fight against. I am just a man, and it is nowhere near enough.”
Robin’s smile is just a little cruel, but there’s also understanding in his expression. He doesn’t press the issue, anyway.
“Why did you seek me out?” Guy asks after a while, though he does not think he will like the answer. “You know these woods well; you could have lived here and never crossed my path.”
Robin laughs, a choked sort of sound. “I intend to kill you one day, Guy,” he explains calmly, “I thought I might as well keep you close at hand.”
Guy laughs too. “I look forward to it,” he says.
Robin’s smile reaches his deadened eyes for perhaps the first time. “I know.”
He lies back in the grass, one arm shielding his eyes against the bitter sunlight. Guy stares at him for a long moment, and then sighs and lies down too. They remain in silence for a long time, though it is not nearly as restful as it should be. After a while, Guy opens his eyes and turns his head, to find that Robin has already done so, and has apparently been watching him for some time.
Guy opens his mouth to demand an explanation and Robin mirrors the action; when he exhales his breath ghosts over Guy’s face and the simplicity of it scares him in ways he cannot name, not even to himself.
He sits up angrily, pushes himself to his feet and storms off into the trees, needing the space, needing the solitude. It’s futile; Guy knows that Robin will find him. He always bloody does.
^
They seem to have lost their desire to kill each other, which is strange and unsettling. Guy loses track of days and nights; the forest seems to distort time. Occasionally, soldiers ride through, their armour glinting, their heads held high. Guy wonders if they’re looking for him; he does know too much, after all. The Sheriff would like him dead for his peace of mind, if nothing else. Robin merely rolls his eyes and knows all the places to hide.
The only time it breaks is when one of them misjudges a word; Guy’s not even sure of the reason, but there’s too much animosity, and it stings. Then they have at each other all nails and teeth, tearing and smashing and trying to cause as much damage as possible.
Robin laughs beneath him, teeth stained crimson, trapped between Guy’s thighs, fallen leaves muddy in his hair. The nature of the fight changes somewhat after that; Robin’s thin lithe fingers tangle in the unkempt mass of Guy’s dark hair, his nails leave marks in Guy’s back, and Guy leaves him crumpled and used on the forest floor, staggering away to vomit until his body feels empty.
That night, face dipped in shadow, Robin remarks: “You really only have yourself to blame, you know.”
“This is not my fault,” Guy grits; it’s his story and he’ll stick to it. “None of this is my fault.”
Robin sighs, lying back, staring up at the uncaring stars. “All of this is your fault, Guy,” he says.
His left eye is swollen purple and shut, and Guy looks away from him, trying not to recall the way Robin’s grazed knees skidded in the dirt because it will not help.
^
They’re in another cave; or perhaps it is the same cave as before, and Guy is losing his memory too. He remembers some things too clearly, like the give of Marian’s flesh beneath his sword, but so many other things are tumbling away, stripped and lost. He hasn’t seen his reflection in a long time, but Guy can imagine what he looks like; Robin is a wreck, and he suspects he can’t look much better.
“Are we going to do this forever?” he asks.
“I’m not,” Robin says. “I’m not going to say here much longer.”
This is the first time he has mentioned this, but then they have not exactly made plans.
“Where will you go?”
Robin shrugs, not looking at him. His eye is still a little greeny-yellow, though the bruise is mainly gone, and it’s almost funny that Guy once had his life entirely in control.
“Somewhere,” Robin shrugs. “Anywhere. Anywhere not here.”
It’s an appealing enough prospect.
^
Another night, another fire. It’s almost becoming their routine, and Guy knows that the towns resonate with rumours of mad heathen wildmen who live in the forest, because he overheard two guardsmen discussing it. He and Robin are making themselves rather well known, if for all the wrong reasons. Or maybe there are no right reasons.
“When you leave,” he begins, gazing into the crackling orange flames, “Take me with you.”
Robin looks incredulous. “Why?”
Guy shrugs, and doesn’t look at him. “There’s nothing left for me here,” he says. “I’m mad. I’m mad because I always hated you for everything you were not, for every quality that I lacked. Because Marian was always yours and never mine and because I wanted Allan A Dale in ways that I should not have. Because there’s nothing left for me and nothing left of me. So, when you go, I want to come too. Please.”
Robin is silent for a long while, feeding leaves to the fire to make it spit and hiss.
“You didn’t have to tell me the truth,” he says at last. His grin twists. “And really, all you had to do was ask.”
Guy grits his teeth.
After a while, Robin sighs, but his smile stretches a little more, rueful and tired. “I suppose it was too much to hope that I’d ever get away from you.”
^
In time, the soldiers establish that Sherwood Forest is well and truly empty; the madmen in the forest have moved on. They linger in children’s games; little boys and girls who play amongst the trees, leaping out at one another, snarling and yelling.
Robin Hood becomes a legend, whispered at night, his goodness shining constant and bright. The Sheriff and his steady stream of right-hand men (who never last more than a few months, and who always seem to become victims of the most unlikely accidents) are crueller than ever, taxes continue to rise, and homes and people burn for assumed transgressions. No one gets away with anything, and England continues to crumble.
On the roads, travellers sometimes meet two men. They look like beggars, only they never beg; they don’t talk to people they pass and they are never seen to talk to each other. One man dresses in black and the other in green and all they ever seem to do is walk, heads bowed. They look tired, broken; manes of matted dark hair half-concealing their features, as they stumble on refusing to acknowledge each other.
Sometimes, a traveller will catch sight of their eyes, though, and those tell a different story entirely. There’s something still there; something glittering bright and untarnished and fierce, something that has not ever died and will not ever die. Those who are pinned by those unrelenting gazes find themselves thinking that the men are waiting for something; though what it could be, they cannot begin to imagine.
For the moment, the men keep walking; after all, there is nothing else to do.
^
Fandom: Robin Hood
Pairing: Guy/Robin [slight Guy/Allan, boys/Marian]
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3560
Genre: Slash
Copyright: Title is from Dark Side Of The Sun by Tori Amos.
Warnings: Spoilers up to 3x01, major character deaths.
Summary: AU. Hood’s men are killed, England is once again protected from the outlaws, and Guy knows that no one can stop them now.
Author’s Notes: Oh My God, Richard Armitage has got yummier than ever; oh, that hair. Oh, that eye make-up. Oh, the new clothes. *fans self* Obviously Guy/Allan is my OTP, but I couldn’t resist writing this anyway. Basic premise is: what if there was no Tuck to be all Jedi? Features lots and lots of madness, and maybe it’s OOC, and maybe it isn’t, but I had a crazy fun time writing it anyway.
Is there a way out of this?
If there is I can’t see it.
Can Heaven and Hell co-exist?
- Tori Amos
The sun winks out during the execution; darkness drawing like a curtain across the world. Guy closes his eyes. He’s had this dream before, had his demons claw over his eyes and leave him in shadow, but then this isn’t a dream. He’s almost certain it isn’t.
When the sunlight returns, Much has three arrows shot through him, John’s corpse is burning, and Allan is staring at Guy with blood dripping down his chin and through his fingers. His eyes have a shade of something like betrayal in them, which Guy thinks is a little rich, but although he opens his mouth to point this out the words die on his tongue. Allan is pinned to the board, arrows shot through his shoulders and stomach and arms and he looks scared and pathetic and oh so defiant.
Curious, he takes a step or two closer. Allan’s lips are curled back over his teeth, mouth stained scarlet. Guy wants to say something to him, but doesn’t know what; the words don’t come, and Allan manages to conjure up a sneer in spite of the way his breath rattles in his chest. Guy reaches for a knife, willing to afford Allan a faster death in spite of everything. Allan sucks in a sharp breath and spits a mouthful of blood in Guy’s face; he feels it spatter crimson across his cheek and then Allan slumps, his head limp. Gone.
The Sheriff’s smile splits his face, wide as though all his dreams have come true. Guy isn’t sure what to say; after all they’ve been through, it’s almost an anticlimax.
^
The desire to find Hood’s body never fades. His men are killed, England is once again protected from the outlaws, and Guy knows that no one can stop them now. But in fits in the night, when Marian’s eyes are too blue and his hands are too heavy and Allan spews blood across his skin, when the memories itch and sting, Guy becomes ever more determined to prove to himself that this is all over. He needs the proof, and bodies don’t just vanish.
Days pass, and he spends every minute he can searching the forest, searching the river. He doesn’t care what state the corpse is in, just as long as he finds it. He needs to know.
Hood’s laughter mocks him through the trees and recollection is sour as bile. He thinks about Allan, who he dared to trust, though he should not have done, and thinks about what loyalty even means these days. He’s tired, and betrayed, and he no longer really cares about anything any more. Once upon a time, there was the desire for power, the desire for Marian, the desire to have his fingers in every little bit of the world and to grip it tight.
These days, every breath is a chore, and his world lingers in shadows.
^
“You,” the Sheriff drawls, “Are pissing on my party, Gisborne. Pissing all over it.”
Guy’s teeth clench. “Yes,” he mutters, though he’s not really sure what he’s agreeing to. His head hurts.
The Sheriff sighs, waving a gloved hand dismissively. “Get out,” he orders, though he doesn’t seem angry with Guy; more bored. Guy obediently walks towards the door. “Oh, and Gisborne?”
Guy turns. “My lord?”
The Sheriff grins at him, all teeth and mindless destruction and Guy reflects that he’s always despised him and it doesn’t matter. Not really.
“Cut your hair, would you?”
Guy ignores him, and the door closes with a childish slam.
^
“I will find you, Hood,” he promises the stagnant water.
There will be a body somewhere; bloated and ugly and probably half-rotted and half-eaten, but it doesn’t matter. All he needs is the corpse, because he will go mad if he does not find it.
Well, there is always the possibility that he is mad already, but he tries not to think about that because his world is fragile enough as it is.
Wind shivers through the leaves, and he turns his head too fast. For a moment, men linger in the long grass, crouched by the trees, arrows in hand. Men who are dead and gone; men who bled and burned ages ago.
“You’re dead,” he informs them bitterly, wishing his voice held more triumph. Guy kneads his eyes, his fingers coming back smudged black, and the memories are gone when he looks back.
Too many things have happened and the world is not the place it once was.
“HOOD!” he yells, and birds take frightened flight. He receives no reply, and tries hard not to be disappointed. Dead men don’t ever respond, after all.
^
The world won’t ever be saved. Oh, it was unlikely that Robin Hood and his little band of children were ever going to accomplish freedom and salvation for all, and they must have known that as much as anyone, but they pretended and it was very nearly enough for everyone.
Guy doesn’t feel guilt because if he’s honest with himself he doesn’t really feel anything any more.
Still, they’re all damned to this game now, damned to this course. Guy wouldn’t have had a space in the shining new world Robin Hood wanted but his place in this world now seems to have become more uncertain.
“Gisborne,” the Sheriff says on a grin, “This is…” He makes a face, waves a dismissive black gloved hand towards a quiet-looking young man. Dark eyed, pale, but the set of his jaw is determined and tells Guy enough. “Well, no matter. I just thought you might like to meet him.”
Guy inclines his head, just barely. He’s never been one for formalities, politeness.
“Don’t you want to know why you should meet him?” the Sheriff presses.
Obedient out of habit rather than out of any sort of investment, Guy suppresses a sigh. “Why?”
“I’m going to give him a job,” the Sheriff tells him. The smile curves wider, all teeth and viciousness. “I thought I might give him your job.”
Guy isn’t going to fight for something that was never worth it in the first place. “Very well,” he murmurs, trying to sound submissive and not plain bored.
^
The air is thick with the perfume of flowers; it makes Guy dizzy. He walks through the grass, the blades shimmering wet beneath his boots, the river lying patient and coy beside him. He has been here hours, and he suspects that he has neglected something the Sheriff thinks important to wander aimlessly in search of a body. Not that it matters; the Sheriff has a new favourite now, and Guy wonders if he will be obedient enough to bend over and keep his mouth shut in the way Guy never could.
“I know you’re here,” he hisses to the corpse, the corpse that cannot have vanished because there is no one left who could have recovered it.
He walks on and on, head full of the sickly scent of flowers, skin crawling beneath his clothes. He’s probably mad now, he concedes, lost to grief and fury and exhaustion. Well, he’s mad, but he’s not stupid; he knows when he’s being watched. Guy turns quickly, blinking hair from his eyes, and though it’s only a moment, he sees. He sees the man who ducks out of sight; and he knows.
It’s almost too much; here with the dappled sunlight and the air thick with sour perfume and the awful, blinding truth wrapping around him like ropes.
“He’s alive,” he says hoarsely, because there’s no one to tell, not any more. “Hood’s alive.”
^
Guy loses the lands in much the same way Robin lost them; he forfeits the sir and the home and decides not to return to the castle. He has places to take shelter, he still has more than enough money, and he’s quite happy to let broken by the Holy Land be thrown about as an excuse because it’s more truth than lie and none of it really matters.
Sherwood Forest is home as much as anything; he wanders it wildly for an indeterminate amount of time, looking for something. No; looking for Hood. He doesn’t know why; he’s got the strength but certainly not the sanity to kill him for sure, and actively looking for someone who intends to murder him is not a sensible idea. Guy hasn’t lost everything, after all. Just most of it.
“I could’ve had everything,” he remarks. He’s taken to talking to himself, talking to trees; far more loquacious than he was when he actually had people to say things to. Then he considers the words. No, he would never have had anything. It would have been kept from him, kept conditional, as everything always was.
This is not better, and he is sure of it. But it is new, and it is different, and it is entirely up to him.
^
In the end, it is Hood who seeks him out. Guy is sleeping an uneasy sleep beneath an oak tree, and when his eyes open he finds he is being watched.
The man sitting cross-legged a few feet away from him does not look anything like the Robin Hood he has come to know over the last couple of years.
“Going to finish the job?” Guy asks.
Hood’s jaw clenches; he’s lost his smart words and smug smile and shiny determination. He’s stripped bare, quiet, angry, lost.
“I want to kill you for what you’ve done,” he says.
Guy sighs and sits up, resisting the urge to roll his eyes because this is not news.
“Go on then,” he murmurs. There’s no point in fighting this any longer; no point at all.
Hood considers him for a long moment, then gets to his feet. He takes a few steps, and vanishes into the trees.
^
“I should hate you,” a voice says behind him. It is night, and there is a meagre fire, and Guy hasn’t eaten in some time. “You took everything from me.”
Guy doesn’t bother turning. “Then hate me,” he says. He feels as though he’s had this conversation a dozen times over, though he hasn’t.
“I haven’t got anything left to hate you with.”
Leaves crackle as Hood walks closer, comes to sit by the fire. He keeps a wary space between himself and Guy. His face is lit with strips of light and shadow, eyes glittering hollowly.
Guy doesn’t know what to say. “Well then, Hood,” he begins, but is cut off.
“Robin Hood is dead,” the man tells him.
For a while, Guy turns this concept over in his mind, and realises that it is entirely true. The man sitting gaunt and quiet is not about to try and steal anything from anyone. Who he once was has faded.
“Robin Hood is dead,” he agrees, because he needs to say the words aloud.
A smile twists the man’s lips; it’s impossible to tell the emotion behind it, if there is indeed an emotion there.
“I’m free now,” he says.
Guy frowns. “You call this freedom?”
The man laughs bitterly. “It’s close enough.”
^
Robin - just plain Robin now; not Robin Hood, not Robin Of Locksley, not anything - has changed, but Guy knows that he has changed too. Almost certainly not for the better.
“England’s going to hell,” he mutters.
“It was always going to hell,” Guy replies, voice clipped short.
Cold comfort, and Robin’s lips curve anyway.
“I could have…”
“What could you have done?” Guy asks, into the silence left behind.
Robin arches an eyebrow; for a moment he’s the man with the clever words and the easy come easy go amusement. “Are you trying to make me feel better?”
“No.”
They walk in silence for a while longer; two men in Sherwood Forest, wandering aimlessly because there will never be a destination.
“I could have been you,” Guy says, later.
Robin’s lips curve wryly. “No, you couldn’t.”
Guy thinks about choices, about integrity, about determination.
“No,” he agrees slowly, “I couldn’t.”
^
He wakes in the night, in the shallow dirty cave they’re using for shelter, clawing at his face and screaming Allan’s name.
When Guy collects himself, he finds Robin watching him expressionlessly.
“He’s dead, isn’t he.” Robin’s voice is flat, matter-of-fact. “They’re all dead.”
Guy’s cheek still feels sticky and wet with the memory of blood that wasn’t his.
“They are,” he confirms softly.
Robin nods, face betraying nothing; this is, as far as Guy can tell, because he doesn’t feel anything any more.
“You really are the cruellest bastard in the whole of this godforsaken country, Gisborne.”
“Guy,” he corrects.
Robin laughs a little bitterly. “Guy,” he repeats. “Yes, I keep forgetting that you don’t have anything left either.”
He rolls over to get some sleep, leaving Guy to the shadows, to the nausea, to the sharp memories that don’t ever uncurl their claws.
^
Robin Hood and his men were supposed to have a camp; somewhere safe to stay since they had to live away from the law in the forest. Guy would never have been stupid enough to assume that Robin would take him there, and he suspects the place holds all kinds of jagged memories for the man, but the constant wandering shreds his nerves anyway. They never stay in one place for long, never linger anywhere; they just wander through the trees, and there is no telling where they are half the time.
“Why are you doing this, Guy?” Robin asks. He’s been bathing in a stream and looks unusually clean; eyes bright, though still hollow, lengthening dark hair pressed wet to his skull.
Guy doesn’t want to answer; doesn’t want to give him that much of himself. He stares at the sunlight glancing off Robin’s damp skin, the way his hair is starting to curl at the ends as it begins to dry.
“Without you, I’m nothing,” he replies, and tries to make it sound as though it does not matter. “I have nothing to fight for, nothing to fight against. I am just a man, and it is nowhere near enough.”
Robin’s smile is just a little cruel, but there’s also understanding in his expression. He doesn’t press the issue, anyway.
“Why did you seek me out?” Guy asks after a while, though he does not think he will like the answer. “You know these woods well; you could have lived here and never crossed my path.”
Robin laughs, a choked sort of sound. “I intend to kill you one day, Guy,” he explains calmly, “I thought I might as well keep you close at hand.”
Guy laughs too. “I look forward to it,” he says.
Robin’s smile reaches his deadened eyes for perhaps the first time. “I know.”
He lies back in the grass, one arm shielding his eyes against the bitter sunlight. Guy stares at him for a long moment, and then sighs and lies down too. They remain in silence for a long time, though it is not nearly as restful as it should be. After a while, Guy opens his eyes and turns his head, to find that Robin has already done so, and has apparently been watching him for some time.
Guy opens his mouth to demand an explanation and Robin mirrors the action; when he exhales his breath ghosts over Guy’s face and the simplicity of it scares him in ways he cannot name, not even to himself.
He sits up angrily, pushes himself to his feet and storms off into the trees, needing the space, needing the solitude. It’s futile; Guy knows that Robin will find him. He always bloody does.
^
They seem to have lost their desire to kill each other, which is strange and unsettling. Guy loses track of days and nights; the forest seems to distort time. Occasionally, soldiers ride through, their armour glinting, their heads held high. Guy wonders if they’re looking for him; he does know too much, after all. The Sheriff would like him dead for his peace of mind, if nothing else. Robin merely rolls his eyes and knows all the places to hide.
The only time it breaks is when one of them misjudges a word; Guy’s not even sure of the reason, but there’s too much animosity, and it stings. Then they have at each other all nails and teeth, tearing and smashing and trying to cause as much damage as possible.
Robin laughs beneath him, teeth stained crimson, trapped between Guy’s thighs, fallen leaves muddy in his hair. The nature of the fight changes somewhat after that; Robin’s thin lithe fingers tangle in the unkempt mass of Guy’s dark hair, his nails leave marks in Guy’s back, and Guy leaves him crumpled and used on the forest floor, staggering away to vomit until his body feels empty.
That night, face dipped in shadow, Robin remarks: “You really only have yourself to blame, you know.”
“This is not my fault,” Guy grits; it’s his story and he’ll stick to it. “None of this is my fault.”
Robin sighs, lying back, staring up at the uncaring stars. “All of this is your fault, Guy,” he says.
His left eye is swollen purple and shut, and Guy looks away from him, trying not to recall the way Robin’s grazed knees skidded in the dirt because it will not help.
^
They’re in another cave; or perhaps it is the same cave as before, and Guy is losing his memory too. He remembers some things too clearly, like the give of Marian’s flesh beneath his sword, but so many other things are tumbling away, stripped and lost. He hasn’t seen his reflection in a long time, but Guy can imagine what he looks like; Robin is a wreck, and he suspects he can’t look much better.
“Are we going to do this forever?” he asks.
“I’m not,” Robin says. “I’m not going to say here much longer.”
This is the first time he has mentioned this, but then they have not exactly made plans.
“Where will you go?”
Robin shrugs, not looking at him. His eye is still a little greeny-yellow, though the bruise is mainly gone, and it’s almost funny that Guy once had his life entirely in control.
“Somewhere,” Robin shrugs. “Anywhere. Anywhere not here.”
It’s an appealing enough prospect.
^
Another night, another fire. It’s almost becoming their routine, and Guy knows that the towns resonate with rumours of mad heathen wildmen who live in the forest, because he overheard two guardsmen discussing it. He and Robin are making themselves rather well known, if for all the wrong reasons. Or maybe there are no right reasons.
“When you leave,” he begins, gazing into the crackling orange flames, “Take me with you.”
Robin looks incredulous. “Why?”
Guy shrugs, and doesn’t look at him. “There’s nothing left for me here,” he says. “I’m mad. I’m mad because I always hated you for everything you were not, for every quality that I lacked. Because Marian was always yours and never mine and because I wanted Allan A Dale in ways that I should not have. Because there’s nothing left for me and nothing left of me. So, when you go, I want to come too. Please.”
Robin is silent for a long while, feeding leaves to the fire to make it spit and hiss.
“You didn’t have to tell me the truth,” he says at last. His grin twists. “And really, all you had to do was ask.”
Guy grits his teeth.
After a while, Robin sighs, but his smile stretches a little more, rueful and tired. “I suppose it was too much to hope that I’d ever get away from you.”
^
In time, the soldiers establish that Sherwood Forest is well and truly empty; the madmen in the forest have moved on. They linger in children’s games; little boys and girls who play amongst the trees, leaping out at one another, snarling and yelling.
Robin Hood becomes a legend, whispered at night, his goodness shining constant and bright. The Sheriff and his steady stream of right-hand men (who never last more than a few months, and who always seem to become victims of the most unlikely accidents) are crueller than ever, taxes continue to rise, and homes and people burn for assumed transgressions. No one gets away with anything, and England continues to crumble.
On the roads, travellers sometimes meet two men. They look like beggars, only they never beg; they don’t talk to people they pass and they are never seen to talk to each other. One man dresses in black and the other in green and all they ever seem to do is walk, heads bowed. They look tired, broken; manes of matted dark hair half-concealing their features, as they stumble on refusing to acknowledge each other.
Sometimes, a traveller will catch sight of their eyes, though, and those tell a different story entirely. There’s something still there; something glittering bright and untarnished and fierce, something that has not ever died and will not ever die. Those who are pinned by those unrelenting gazes find themselves thinking that the men are waiting for something; though what it could be, they cannot begin to imagine.
For the moment, the men keep walking; after all, there is nothing else to do.
^