[fic] robin hood : mesmerise
Title: Mesmerise
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Robin/everyone not all at once
Summary: They are all a little bit in love with him.
Disclaimer: BBC owns the world. All I own is the season one box set.
Mesmerise
They are all a little bit in love with him.
For Marian, it is the quiet desperation, silently simmering beneath his irrational courage and her own foolish pride, that binds them. She feels it rising inside her, struggling to break free of her self-control. But she’d had years to tame it: she will never let it go. She gave in once, years ago, and let him sweep her away into his dreams of fanciful adventure. But she has learnt push down the fire in her chest, and allowed her heart to freeze over: that’s what you do when you’re betrayed.
For Much, it is different. It is choking him, a bitter acid rising in his throat. It is Robin’s blindness and Much’s loyalty, resentful yet inexorable. It is self-absorption and futile devotion. Much will die an old man and by that time, he will have learnt this one truth: some things run so deeply within one’s person that they never dissipate. This illogical, futile, fervent love that he has for Robin is one of those things.
For Will, it is enough to stand back and observe. Just to watch him, because this man is beautiful. He is fury and grief and passion. He is so insensitive, so vain, so self-centred, but still he is the epitome of attraction. Will is more than a worker, he is an artist, and this man is a work of art.
Alan a Dale is not an open person. He is flippant and shallow, but there is more that people do not see. Once, he allowed Robin Hood a single, fleeting glimpse into a part of his soul that he himself cannot comprehend. It was Tom who started it. “I was like him once. Out of control. But I’ve changed” he’d told Robin, “because of you, because of being here.” There it was: because of you. It wasn’t something he’d thought about consciously, so he was surprised when he heard himself saying it. But surely, it was true. Surely, he’d changed, or these good, decent men would not love him as they did. Surely, it was his brother’s forgiveness he begged Robin for now. Surely, it was not his own.
Djaq, though, Djaq is innocent: Robin is her brother. But Djaq sees everything. She sees Marian’s infatuation and Much’s resentment. She watches as Will stands in the shadows, observing, silent and pensive. She witnesses Allan struggling to prove that he is someone he has not yet discovered. And she understands it all: like a sixth sense, she feels it all. She is crazed and enraged and tormented by the man they all adore: she is in love with him four times over.