Denial, Chapter 46: Oxford Blues
Title: Denial, Ch. 46: Oxford Blues
Author: wastingyourgum
Characters/Pairings: Legrand, Robin, Will/Djaq, Little John
Mentions: Allan/Djaq, Guy/Marian, Much, Alice, Queen Eleanor, Carter/King Richard
Rating: M
Genre: Angst, Het, Slash
Words: 3008
Disclaimer: BBC & TA own; we just want to play in their universe
Notes: This continues the 'Round-Robin' fic 'Denial'. Takes place immediately after 2x12 on the road to Portsmouth. Beta'ed by the lovely robinfanatic .
Summary: The gang stop for the night at an inn near Oxford. Their concerns manifest themselves through some troubling dreams...
Want to play? Come join us! Check out the Rules and join in the Round Robin fun!
Previous Chapters: Summary of previous chapters...
Oxford Blues
by wastingyourgum
"Robin, we must stop!" Legrand called after him. "It's getting too dark to see the road and if one of the horses is lamed we'll never reach Portsmouth tomorrow. We're nearly to Oxford - there's bound to be an inn there we can get a couple of rooms in."
Robin pulled his horse up. His eyes gazed down the road reluctantly but he knew Legrand was right. "Fine - next inn we come to, we'll ask."
When they found one Robin quickly dismounted and went inside to see if there were any rooms free. Will made sure the long cloak he had given to Djaq was still sufficiently covering her to not draw any unwanted attention. John went a short way into the trees and came back with a thick branch which he carefully inspected and decided would make a decent staff. Will promised him he would be able to shape it properly on the boat and John, somewhat reluctantly, handed the larger crafted and studded weapon back to Legrand.
There were two rooms available and after stabling the horses and a short, unappetising meal including some very suspicious cheese, they headed up the inn's rickety stairs towards them. Though nothing was said somehow Will and Djaq found themselves standing awkwardly alone in the first room. In the other John and Legrand both looked at the too-small bed and agreed Robin should have it and they would sleep on the floor. The young noble was on the point of collapse anyway - the nervous energy that had been driving him all day had suddenly deserted him. Robin was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
The bed was in the centre of the room and John waited for Legrand to decide which side of it he would sleep before moving to the other. He rolled his jacket under his head, pulled a blanket over himself and he too was asleep almost instantly.
As he heard John's breathing change to a deeper rhythm, Legrand opened his eyes again and looked across the floor under the bed at the older outlaw. These last few minutes of the day, when he could look at John as he truly wanted to without fear of being caught, were something he treasured. He fought the heaviness of his eyelids as long as possible before sleep claimed him as well.
Will and Djaq kicked off their footwear and lay stiffly side by side on top of the bed, neither willing to be the first to start getting undressed. The tension between them from the barn still hung thickly in the air. Djaq eventually leaned her head against Will's shoulder and he lifted his arm allowing her to put her head on his chest.
"Djaq...about what happened...Djaq?" he looked down. She'd already fallen asleep. He sighed and closed his eyes, soon joining her.
>>>------------------------->
Will was proud of their camp. Planning it and building it had been a huge undertaking but the end result had been well worth it. He was glad he had been able to show it to his father before he had lost him. It was no longer just a collection of carefully constructed timber frames and coverings - it was home. Not least because she was there and now they could openly be together and not hide from their comrades as they'd been forced to do for so long.
He pulled on the lever to open the door and it smoothly swung up into the air with a soft breath of rustling leaves...and his heart turned to ice in his chest.
His beautiful Saracen lover was standing in the middle of the camp, wearing only the scraps of silk she had used to entice the mercenaries attention away from the barn in Nettlestone. She was leaning over with her hands against the side of his bunk.
Behind her with his black jacket casually unbuckled to show his smooth chest and his equally dark leggings pooled around his ankles, his former friend stood grinding against her like a rutting animal. His hands were cupping her small, perfect breasts and far from resisting the traitor she was actively pushing back at him. She moaned in ecstasy as he thrust firmly into her, whispering not the words of love that Will always spoke to her, but degrading, demeaning names and filthy descriptions of both what he was doing at that moment and what he planned to do later.
And she was begging him for more. He'd thought she was only his, so pure and chaste but she was everything Allan had said she was.
He turned and ran from the camp with the sounds of their passion ringing in his ears...
>>>------------------------->
Marian was lying on a simple cot in a whitewashed room. It looked like any room in many houses he'd seen in the Holy Land. He heard her crying softly and reached out for her, to comfort her, soothe her and protect her but his hands passed through her as if he were made of air.
She sat up suddenly as the door opened and Gisborne entered, filling the room with his menacing presence. "Have you thought on my offer Marian? Hood is dead. Your only way to escape death at the Sheriff's hands is to let me take yours in marriage."
She bowed her head in resignation and nodded. "Yes, Guy, I will be your wife."
"No! Marian! I'm not dead!" Robin hurled himself at Gisborne but seemed to run straight through him and collided instead with the wall. When he spun round the scene had changed and he was in his room in Locksley. His room - and Gisborne and Marian were in his bed.
He saw the same wedding dress she had worn on that fateful day in Locksley, only now it was dropped in a heap on the floor, starkly pale against a forbidding pile of black leather. The fine linens on the bed moved in the gentle, undulating and unmistakable rhythm of two bodies in marital congress.
But her voice...it was her voice that broke his heart.
"Oh, Guy...yes...yes..."
He tried to reach them to stop this travesty but the hangings around the bed wrapped around him and he thrashed against the enfolding material, feeling it choking him, suffocating him. Despite being completely wrapped in the clinging cloth he could still clearly hear Marian give her most precious gift to the man who had almost killed her.
Then he felt the wrappings being lifted and Much was there. He was in their tent in the Holy Land and Much was looking at him with concern as he lifted the blankets away.
"Were you having a bad dream, Master?"
"Yes, I...I was dreaming I lost Marian."
"Oh." Much turned away and started folding the blankets. "Well I'm sure she's fine, Master."
"No, Gisborne has her and she probably thinks I'm dead. You probably think I'm dead too."
"I don't think that, Master."
"You don't?"
"No, I don't think anything. I'm already dead myself. You let me go back with Carter, remember?"
When Much turned back Robin could already see his sunken cheeks and the pallor of death on his skin.
"You let me go back to die, Master."
"No..." Robin scrambled backwards from the stench of decay as Much approached him.
"Why did you let me go, Master? I loved you."
"No!" Robin screamed as Much took his face in his hands - hands that were as cold as the grave...
>>>------------------------->
John was standing in the doorway of his old house and Alice stood before him, young and beautiful, her hair a soft halo lit from behind by the warm fire. "Come back quickly, my love," she said to him.
"How could any man stay long from your side?" he replied as he took her in his arms and they kissed, then he turned and headed into the darkness.
When he glanced back to see her one last time the house was gone - he was alone in the woods, covered in another man's blood and the braying of hounds and hunters sounded close behind him. "Murderer! Find him! Hang him!" and he ran - ran till he felt his lungs would burst, ran through an endless forest night of dark trees with the dogs and a waiting noose always only one step behind and Alice lost to him forever...
He ran and when he finally fell, as he'd known he must, he felt iron around his wrists, cold stone under his cheek and knew he would face the gallows in the morning. He looked up, half expecting to see Roy sitting opposite him, but it was a dream taking images from memory and not the memory itself so Roy was not there.
He turned at the soft voice.
"I want him."
"Are you sure, Milady?" It was Djaq's slave trader, not the Nottingham jailer who appeared. "We have several others; younger, more handsome..."
He got up onto his knees and Queen Eleanor lifted his head and smiled down at him.
"No, I want him."
John turned to the slave trader as he unlocked his manacles. When he turned back it wasn't the Queen who stood before him but Legrand, naked to the waist.
"I want you, John." He joined John on his knees so they were facing each other barely a hands breadth apart. John knew this at least was definitely a dream because Legrand's long torso didn't have a mark on it. No sign of the arrows or blades that had pierced his skin while protecting his Queen and over many years of battle. He was perfect; smooth, muscled, flawless - a body that spoke of hard exercise and healthy living and all the privileges his noble birth had given him in life. And his smile...having it directed at him took John's breath away.
He hesitantly ran his fingers over his new comrade's stomach, feeling the taut muscles rippling under them as Legrand softly laughed at his touch. John knew he shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be so fascinated by another man and yet he was...and he was.
He closed his eyes and when he opened them again he was face down on a large bed and he could feel Legrand's strong fingers skimming down his back. He shivered as he felt Legrand's body cover his, the hardness pressing against him making Legrand's intentions clear.
"I want you, John."
And it should have felt all wrong but it didn't. He should have been running from the room at this point, fighting back, something - but instead he just lay there, enjoying the feel of warm, soft skin against his own.
"John!"
He looked up and Alice was standing in the doorway, a look of utter revulsion on her face. She turned and ran from the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
"Alice! Wait, please!" He tried to get up but Legrand's solid weight pressed him back into the mattress.
"Let her go, John. She doesn't want you any more - I do."
"Alice..."
"Let her go..."
>>>------------------------->
She loved to just watch his hands when he was working on something. He would get so engrossed in his task and his long fingers would constantly twist and turn the wood in his hands as if he could see the object he wanted inside the timber. He wasn't so much carving it as setting it free into what it had always wanted to be.
She had longed for so many nights for those hands to set her free into what she wanted to be. Now between them they were creating something far more beautiful than anything ever crafted.
"Will - I have some news."
He looked up instantly - his handsome, honest face giving her his full attention.
"What is it? You can tell me."
"I-I think I may be with child."
She may as well have told him it was she who held the sword that killed his father. His face drained of all colour. He leapt to his feet and backed nervously away from her.
"What? Are you sure? Maybe you're mistaken?" he stammered, frantically looking about as if it is a trap he can escape from. "And anyway it can't be mine! I'm...I'm not ready! It...It must be Allan's. It's Allan's, isn't it!" His shock swiftly turned to rage. "I knew it - knew you were his all along!"
"No, Will, my love - I swear, there has never been anything between Allan and I except friendship. You are my only love and the father of my child."
"No, you're lying - you have to be. I...I can't...I'm not..." he suddenly turned and fled, dropping his tools.
"Will!" She called after him but he ran off, heedless to her cries. "Will, come back! I need you! Will!"
"You're pregnant?"
She turned to face Robin who was looking at her with almost as much shock on his face as Will had had. John stood beside him with his fiercest look of disapproval.
"Djaq - you can't be part of the gang if you're pregnant. It's too dangerous - for you, the baby and all of us! I'm sorry - you'll have to leave."
"W-What?"
"You'll be useless to us. We can't have a pregnant woman slowing us down. Sorry." He turned and walked back into the camp. John just shook his head and followed him.
The door swung closed behind them and Djaq ran to the wall frantically searching for the lever to re-open it but the wall was just smooth rock and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't find a way back in...
>>>------------------------->
The "promised land"...He'd certainly thought so.
Away from the rules and regulations and stifling weight of tradition and expectation at court. Death, or more likely disease, may take you tomorrow so who took you tonight became both so much less and so much more important.
And now he found himself here, where he'd hardly dared hope he'd ever be again. The tent, the chests, the bed - all so familiar. No longer a wet field somewhere in France, sharing nights of passion with the young Duke as he vied for his father's throne. This was a different war, a different enemy, a different country - but the body beside his had changed very little in twenty years. He worshipped it still.
Legrand rolled over and slid his arm under Richard's neck. Richard cupped his chin with one hand and Legrand leaned over and kissed him. He draped one long leg over Richard's then slid his arm around Richard's waist, pulling their bodies closer. For one blissful moment it was as if he had never been away.
"Do you love me, Legrand?"
"You know I do, Sire. With all my heart."
Richard reached up to his face and his thumb brushed against the scar across Legrand's cheek, a souvenir from their first days in the Holy Land. "Such a pity. You used to be so handsome I could overlook the rest..." He rolled away with a sigh then abruptly stood up and looked down imperiously at the new and vivid scars across Legrand's body. "Get up."
Legrand swung his legs off the side of the bed and got to his feet, towering over Richard. Richard looked him up and down then shook his head.
"No. There is just too much of you to love, Legrand." He signalled to the entrance and Legrand turned to see Carter. He was grinning like the cat that got the cream.
Richard got back onto his bed and lay against the soft pillows. Carter joined him and Richard pulled Carter protectively towards him. The younger man laid his head on the monarch's broad chest and curled against him in a way Legrand knew he never could.
"I think of all the men I have been close to, you are the most beautiful, Carter. So young, so...flexible," he growled.
Carter smiled and kissed him. "Thank you, Sire."
Richard looked up and seemed surprised that Legrand was still standing there. "I don't need you any more, Legrand. You may go."
"But, Your Majesty...I love you!"
"I know, I know. Make sure we're not disturbed, would you?" Richard casually dismissed him.
Legrand bowed and backed out of the tent.
"You'll always be young to me."
Legrand turned from the blinding desert and found himself in a forest glade, softly dappled by sunlight. John stood in his shirt sleeves, arms folded, leaning against a large tree and smiling at him.
"Is growing old really so terrifying if you have someone to do it with? Richard clings to his youth through the pretty boys who share his bed but he's still alone. You've grown up. You need more."
"Is that why I want you?"
"Not the only reason...but partly."
"Then...why?"
John stepped forward with a grin and pushed Legrand backwards. He fell but there was no impact as he landed, he was just suddenly on his back on his bed in his old room at Poitiers. John was leaning over him, a knowing smile on his face and eyes full of dark intent.
"Because I can tame you...and you want that."
"What?" He tried to get up but discovered he was unable to move, though he couldn't see any reason why. He gasped as John shoved his head to one side and bit hard at his neck and he couldn't do anything to stop him. It was terrifying.
It was wonderful...
Legrand's eyes snapped open and he realised he was breathing hard into the cool night air. Somewhere above him he heard Robin fitfully tossing in his sleep and directly across the floor he could see John's face illuminated in the soft moonlight. John was frowning but as Legrand watched his face relaxed and he dropped into a deeper, dreamless sleep.
Legrand rolled onto his back and rubbed his eyes. Sometimes he was glad of the dreams because they were all he had. Sometimes he hated them...
>>>------------------------->
On to Chapter 47...
Author: wastingyourgum
Characters/Pairings: Legrand, Robin, Will/Djaq, Little John
Mentions: Allan/Djaq, Guy/Marian, Much, Alice, Queen Eleanor, Carter/King Richard
Rating: M
Genre: Angst, Het, Slash
Words: 3008
Disclaimer: BBC & TA own; we just want to play in their universe
Notes: This continues the 'Round-Robin' fic 'Denial'. Takes place immediately after 2x12 on the road to Portsmouth. Beta'ed by the lovely robinfanatic .
Summary: The gang stop for the night at an inn near Oxford. Their concerns manifest themselves through some troubling dreams...
Want to play? Come join us! Check out the Rules and join in the Round Robin fun!
Previous Chapters: Summary of previous chapters...
Oxford Blues
by wastingyourgum
"Robin, we must stop!" Legrand called after him. "It's getting too dark to see the road and if one of the horses is lamed we'll never reach Portsmouth tomorrow. We're nearly to Oxford - there's bound to be an inn there we can get a couple of rooms in."
Robin pulled his horse up. His eyes gazed down the road reluctantly but he knew Legrand was right. "Fine - next inn we come to, we'll ask."
When they found one Robin quickly dismounted and went inside to see if there were any rooms free. Will made sure the long cloak he had given to Djaq was still sufficiently covering her to not draw any unwanted attention. John went a short way into the trees and came back with a thick branch which he carefully inspected and decided would make a decent staff. Will promised him he would be able to shape it properly on the boat and John, somewhat reluctantly, handed the larger crafted and studded weapon back to Legrand.
There were two rooms available and after stabling the horses and a short, unappetising meal including some very suspicious cheese, they headed up the inn's rickety stairs towards them. Though nothing was said somehow Will and Djaq found themselves standing awkwardly alone in the first room. In the other John and Legrand both looked at the too-small bed and agreed Robin should have it and they would sleep on the floor. The young noble was on the point of collapse anyway - the nervous energy that had been driving him all day had suddenly deserted him. Robin was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
The bed was in the centre of the room and John waited for Legrand to decide which side of it he would sleep before moving to the other. He rolled his jacket under his head, pulled a blanket over himself and he too was asleep almost instantly.
As he heard John's breathing change to a deeper rhythm, Legrand opened his eyes again and looked across the floor under the bed at the older outlaw. These last few minutes of the day, when he could look at John as he truly wanted to without fear of being caught, were something he treasured. He fought the heaviness of his eyelids as long as possible before sleep claimed him as well.
Will and Djaq kicked off their footwear and lay stiffly side by side on top of the bed, neither willing to be the first to start getting undressed. The tension between them from the barn still hung thickly in the air. Djaq eventually leaned her head against Will's shoulder and he lifted his arm allowing her to put her head on his chest.
"Djaq...about what happened...Djaq?" he looked down. She'd already fallen asleep. He sighed and closed his eyes, soon joining her.
>>>------------------------->
Will was proud of their camp. Planning it and building it had been a huge undertaking but the end result had been well worth it. He was glad he had been able to show it to his father before he had lost him. It was no longer just a collection of carefully constructed timber frames and coverings - it was home. Not least because she was there and now they could openly be together and not hide from their comrades as they'd been forced to do for so long.
He pulled on the lever to open the door and it smoothly swung up into the air with a soft breath of rustling leaves...and his heart turned to ice in his chest.
His beautiful Saracen lover was standing in the middle of the camp, wearing only the scraps of silk she had used to entice the mercenaries attention away from the barn in Nettlestone. She was leaning over with her hands against the side of his bunk.
Behind her with his black jacket casually unbuckled to show his smooth chest and his equally dark leggings pooled around his ankles, his former friend stood grinding against her like a rutting animal. His hands were cupping her small, perfect breasts and far from resisting the traitor she was actively pushing back at him. She moaned in ecstasy as he thrust firmly into her, whispering not the words of love that Will always spoke to her, but degrading, demeaning names and filthy descriptions of both what he was doing at that moment and what he planned to do later.
And she was begging him for more. He'd thought she was only his, so pure and chaste but she was everything Allan had said she was.
He turned and ran from the camp with the sounds of their passion ringing in his ears...
>>>------------------------->
Marian was lying on a simple cot in a whitewashed room. It looked like any room in many houses he'd seen in the Holy Land. He heard her crying softly and reached out for her, to comfort her, soothe her and protect her but his hands passed through her as if he were made of air.
She sat up suddenly as the door opened and Gisborne entered, filling the room with his menacing presence. "Have you thought on my offer Marian? Hood is dead. Your only way to escape death at the Sheriff's hands is to let me take yours in marriage."
She bowed her head in resignation and nodded. "Yes, Guy, I will be your wife."
"No! Marian! I'm not dead!" Robin hurled himself at Gisborne but seemed to run straight through him and collided instead with the wall. When he spun round the scene had changed and he was in his room in Locksley. His room - and Gisborne and Marian were in his bed.
He saw the same wedding dress she had worn on that fateful day in Locksley, only now it was dropped in a heap on the floor, starkly pale against a forbidding pile of black leather. The fine linens on the bed moved in the gentle, undulating and unmistakable rhythm of two bodies in marital congress.
But her voice...it was her voice that broke his heart.
"Oh, Guy...yes...yes..."
He tried to reach them to stop this travesty but the hangings around the bed wrapped around him and he thrashed against the enfolding material, feeling it choking him, suffocating him. Despite being completely wrapped in the clinging cloth he could still clearly hear Marian give her most precious gift to the man who had almost killed her.
Then he felt the wrappings being lifted and Much was there. He was in their tent in the Holy Land and Much was looking at him with concern as he lifted the blankets away.
"Were you having a bad dream, Master?"
"Yes, I...I was dreaming I lost Marian."
"Oh." Much turned away and started folding the blankets. "Well I'm sure she's fine, Master."
"No, Gisborne has her and she probably thinks I'm dead. You probably think I'm dead too."
"I don't think that, Master."
"You don't?"
"No, I don't think anything. I'm already dead myself. You let me go back with Carter, remember?"
When Much turned back Robin could already see his sunken cheeks and the pallor of death on his skin.
"You let me go back to die, Master."
"No..." Robin scrambled backwards from the stench of decay as Much approached him.
"Why did you let me go, Master? I loved you."
"No!" Robin screamed as Much took his face in his hands - hands that were as cold as the grave...
>>>------------------------->
John was standing in the doorway of his old house and Alice stood before him, young and beautiful, her hair a soft halo lit from behind by the warm fire. "Come back quickly, my love," she said to him.
"How could any man stay long from your side?" he replied as he took her in his arms and they kissed, then he turned and headed into the darkness.
When he glanced back to see her one last time the house was gone - he was alone in the woods, covered in another man's blood and the braying of hounds and hunters sounded close behind him. "Murderer! Find him! Hang him!" and he ran - ran till he felt his lungs would burst, ran through an endless forest night of dark trees with the dogs and a waiting noose always only one step behind and Alice lost to him forever...
He ran and when he finally fell, as he'd known he must, he felt iron around his wrists, cold stone under his cheek and knew he would face the gallows in the morning. He looked up, half expecting to see Roy sitting opposite him, but it was a dream taking images from memory and not the memory itself so Roy was not there.
He turned at the soft voice.
"I want him."
"Are you sure, Milady?" It was Djaq's slave trader, not the Nottingham jailer who appeared. "We have several others; younger, more handsome..."
He got up onto his knees and Queen Eleanor lifted his head and smiled down at him.
"No, I want him."
John turned to the slave trader as he unlocked his manacles. When he turned back it wasn't the Queen who stood before him but Legrand, naked to the waist.
"I want you, John." He joined John on his knees so they were facing each other barely a hands breadth apart. John knew this at least was definitely a dream because Legrand's long torso didn't have a mark on it. No sign of the arrows or blades that had pierced his skin while protecting his Queen and over many years of battle. He was perfect; smooth, muscled, flawless - a body that spoke of hard exercise and healthy living and all the privileges his noble birth had given him in life. And his smile...having it directed at him took John's breath away.
He hesitantly ran his fingers over his new comrade's stomach, feeling the taut muscles rippling under them as Legrand softly laughed at his touch. John knew he shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be so fascinated by another man and yet he was...and he was.
He closed his eyes and when he opened them again he was face down on a large bed and he could feel Legrand's strong fingers skimming down his back. He shivered as he felt Legrand's body cover his, the hardness pressing against him making Legrand's intentions clear.
"I want you, John."
And it should have felt all wrong but it didn't. He should have been running from the room at this point, fighting back, something - but instead he just lay there, enjoying the feel of warm, soft skin against his own.
"John!"
He looked up and Alice was standing in the doorway, a look of utter revulsion on her face. She turned and ran from the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
"Alice! Wait, please!" He tried to get up but Legrand's solid weight pressed him back into the mattress.
"Let her go, John. She doesn't want you any more - I do."
"Alice..."
"Let her go..."
>>>------------------------->
She loved to just watch his hands when he was working on something. He would get so engrossed in his task and his long fingers would constantly twist and turn the wood in his hands as if he could see the object he wanted inside the timber. He wasn't so much carving it as setting it free into what it had always wanted to be.
She had longed for so many nights for those hands to set her free into what she wanted to be. Now between them they were creating something far more beautiful than anything ever crafted.
"Will - I have some news."
He looked up instantly - his handsome, honest face giving her his full attention.
"What is it? You can tell me."
"I-I think I may be with child."
She may as well have told him it was she who held the sword that killed his father. His face drained of all colour. He leapt to his feet and backed nervously away from her.
"What? Are you sure? Maybe you're mistaken?" he stammered, frantically looking about as if it is a trap he can escape from. "And anyway it can't be mine! I'm...I'm not ready! It...It must be Allan's. It's Allan's, isn't it!" His shock swiftly turned to rage. "I knew it - knew you were his all along!"
"No, Will, my love - I swear, there has never been anything between Allan and I except friendship. You are my only love and the father of my child."
"No, you're lying - you have to be. I...I can't...I'm not..." he suddenly turned and fled, dropping his tools.
"Will!" She called after him but he ran off, heedless to her cries. "Will, come back! I need you! Will!"
"You're pregnant?"
She turned to face Robin who was looking at her with almost as much shock on his face as Will had had. John stood beside him with his fiercest look of disapproval.
"Djaq - you can't be part of the gang if you're pregnant. It's too dangerous - for you, the baby and all of us! I'm sorry - you'll have to leave."
"W-What?"
"You'll be useless to us. We can't have a pregnant woman slowing us down. Sorry." He turned and walked back into the camp. John just shook his head and followed him.
The door swung closed behind them and Djaq ran to the wall frantically searching for the lever to re-open it but the wall was just smooth rock and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't find a way back in...
>>>------------------------->
The "promised land"...He'd certainly thought so.
Away from the rules and regulations and stifling weight of tradition and expectation at court. Death, or more likely disease, may take you tomorrow so who took you tonight became both so much less and so much more important.
And now he found himself here, where he'd hardly dared hope he'd ever be again. The tent, the chests, the bed - all so familiar. No longer a wet field somewhere in France, sharing nights of passion with the young Duke as he vied for his father's throne. This was a different war, a different enemy, a different country - but the body beside his had changed very little in twenty years. He worshipped it still.
Legrand rolled over and slid his arm under Richard's neck. Richard cupped his chin with one hand and Legrand leaned over and kissed him. He draped one long leg over Richard's then slid his arm around Richard's waist, pulling their bodies closer. For one blissful moment it was as if he had never been away.
"Do you love me, Legrand?"
"You know I do, Sire. With all my heart."
Richard reached up to his face and his thumb brushed against the scar across Legrand's cheek, a souvenir from their first days in the Holy Land. "Such a pity. You used to be so handsome I could overlook the rest..." He rolled away with a sigh then abruptly stood up and looked down imperiously at the new and vivid scars across Legrand's body. "Get up."
Legrand swung his legs off the side of the bed and got to his feet, towering over Richard. Richard looked him up and down then shook his head.
"No. There is just too much of you to love, Legrand." He signalled to the entrance and Legrand turned to see Carter. He was grinning like the cat that got the cream.
Richard got back onto his bed and lay against the soft pillows. Carter joined him and Richard pulled Carter protectively towards him. The younger man laid his head on the monarch's broad chest and curled against him in a way Legrand knew he never could.
"I think of all the men I have been close to, you are the most beautiful, Carter. So young, so...flexible," he growled.
Carter smiled and kissed him. "Thank you, Sire."
Richard looked up and seemed surprised that Legrand was still standing there. "I don't need you any more, Legrand. You may go."
"But, Your Majesty...I love you!"
"I know, I know. Make sure we're not disturbed, would you?" Richard casually dismissed him.
Legrand bowed and backed out of the tent.
"You'll always be young to me."
Legrand turned from the blinding desert and found himself in a forest glade, softly dappled by sunlight. John stood in his shirt sleeves, arms folded, leaning against a large tree and smiling at him.
"Is growing old really so terrifying if you have someone to do it with? Richard clings to his youth through the pretty boys who share his bed but he's still alone. You've grown up. You need more."
"Is that why I want you?"
"Not the only reason...but partly."
"Then...why?"
John stepped forward with a grin and pushed Legrand backwards. He fell but there was no impact as he landed, he was just suddenly on his back on his bed in his old room at Poitiers. John was leaning over him, a knowing smile on his face and eyes full of dark intent.
"Because I can tame you...and you want that."
"What?" He tried to get up but discovered he was unable to move, though he couldn't see any reason why. He gasped as John shoved his head to one side and bit hard at his neck and he couldn't do anything to stop him. It was terrifying.
It was wonderful...
Legrand's eyes snapped open and he realised he was breathing hard into the cool night air. Somewhere above him he heard Robin fitfully tossing in his sleep and directly across the floor he could see John's face illuminated in the soft moonlight. John was frowning but as Legrand watched his face relaxed and he dropped into a deeper, dreamless sleep.
Legrand rolled onto his back and rubbed his eyes. Sometimes he was glad of the dreams because they were all he had. Sometimes he hated them...
>>>------------------------->
On to Chapter 47...