Lay Down: Chapter Three
Fandom: Robin Hood (New series)
Author: Schemer
Author's Notes: Spoilers! A small multi-chaptered fic, centered on Guy. Missing scenes between the end of S2 and the start of S3. Guy's descent into madness is not a lonely one.
Disclaimer: A friend once gave me a very yummy,signed picture of RA for my 19th birthday. Other than that: no claim.
Earlier chapters: At my journal, under the tag 'Lay Down'.
Lay Down
(The Long Goodnight)
Chapter Three
The apparition followed him back to Locksley. He rode the stallion he’d left in the care of the castle stables-noting he hadn’t been groomed for some days, but saying nothing about it for weariness. He felt her behind him, one hand curled around to his abdomen, the other resting on his shoulder.
“How does your hand feel?” she asked.
He refused to answer, but flexed the bandaged limb to see for himself. It still ached something terrible.
“It would heal faster if you rested it,” she admonished.
“I’ll just sleep in the forest then, until I can ride, shall I?” he muttered dully.
He heard her little ‘Hmm’ of pleasure. “So you are still talking to me, then?”
Immediately he fell silent.
“It might be cosy to sleep in the forest,” she went on cheekily, in that wheedling way he remembered. Like a fond stab in the back.
“So tell me where the outlaws’ camp is. I can stop there for the night.”
“And if I told you, you’d have to believe I was real, wouldn’t you? Because I’d know something you don’t.”
Exactly. He grimaced.
“So where is it?” he said carefully.
“Oh, Guy,” she sighed. “Let’s go home.”
Barely hesitating, he hurried on in a gallop, contemplating…as the hooves beat mercilessly on the earthy floor and the woman behind him did not tighten her grip for needed anchorage…just what she meant when she said ‘home’.
Cries of “My lord!” and “My God!” greeted him as he rode through the gates and on into Locksley. The greetings were not the warmest. He imagined instead his back and abdomen being warmed by her body heat. The enveloping, seductive heat of a woman, softly pressed and pliable in his care. His possession. The heat surrounded him, suffusing the air, fogging his sight and his hearing. He needed nothing else except the rocking, comforting mist of her warming, rocking, caring hold.
A slice of pain skirted around his inner thigh and calf. Two stablemen scurried forward and levered him the rest of the fall from the saddle, unhooking his heel from the stirrup and alleviating the strain.
“My lord,” one murmured, hoisting him upright. “You’re ice cold. My lord!” he demanded, and experimentally slapped Guy’s cheek to the limits of propriety.
Cold. Ice cold. Blazing, painful awareness.
“Thank you,” Guy murmured, supporting his own weight. “I thank you.”
He made it to his bedroom unassisted and aware at all times of a biting, empty loneliness. It began to taste fresher the more steps he took. More easily ingested.
She stepped out from behind the four poster bed, raising one elegant eyebrow. “You’re going to stop believing in me now, aren’t you?”
“It had crossed my mind,” he said, his voice croaking as he walked to meet her. He tried to be shocked, knowing he probably should be, but he wasn’t.
Standing toe to toe, he stared down into her brown eyes. “Maybe you’re the devil.”
“Maybe I am,” she agreed, the unlined softness of her face showing her carefree thoughts. “Maybe I should go,” she added teasingly.
“And leave me,” he whispered. Circling her, he undid his jacket and let it fall to the ground, peeling his shirt off and dropping it as he reached the bath. He stooped to undo his boots, unlacing his trousers and grimacing as he found dried blood trickling from his forearm down to his elbow. Taking off his underwear, he didn’t need to look behind him to know if she was there or not. He heard a shallow intake of breath and the steps she took towards him over the wooden floor. Sliding into the water, he let it soak into his bones and soothe his aches. Closing his eyes, he knew that she was still watching him, hungrily. He submerged and let the heated water cocoon him from the world.
“She never watched me like that,” he announced as he broke the surface, the stinging water melting into his eyes.
“She might have,” she said. She was perched on the chair, her eyes trained not on his face, but on the water that trickled down his chest. “If you’d ever bothered to wonder how often she tricked you, or manipulated you. You’d have known. She was always watching you, just as you were watching her.”
“I was not being manipulated.” Slipping back down under the surface, he watched her flimsy form take on a ghostly quiver through the ripples. “I was not being watched,” he added through clenched teeth, until his lungs ached from air loss.