Denial, Chapter 6: Sweeter Than Honey
Title: Denial, Chapter 6: Sweeter Than Honey
Author: darkentwisted
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Will/Djaq, Djaq/Allan
Genre: Het
Words: 2,441 (Cos, I just can't shut up!)
Disclaimer: BBC & TA own; I just want to play in their universe
Summary: Will and Djaq discover more than honey in the forest.
Notes: This continues the 'Round-Robin' fic. 'Denial'. This story takes place in the afternoon just prior to 2x09, Lardner's Ring
Beta'd by robinfanatic
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Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
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Come to Denial... the place we go to make it all better.
“Hurry, Will, while the effect of the rain shower earlier has the bees docile.”
When Djaq had mentioned looking for honey the carpenter admitted he thought it was a euphemism. He felt ridiculous wearing the crude net over his face and he wondered just what Allan would have said had he seen him. Allan, just the name brought back a wave of confused feelings that made his gut hurt.
Only days ago, next to this very spot, they had their stand off. He was sure he had given the traitor what he wanted in some weird way and didn’t like that he had volunteered Much and Carter’s whereabouts so readily.
“Will?”
He looked up to see the female outlaw's delicate lithe form as she shimmied up the tree. Her shirt had ridden up exposing the tiniest sliver of olive skin at her waist and his eyes traveled lower of their own volition. He never really noticed his friend the Saracen from that angle before. Doing so now caused his face to immediately redden and another part of his body noticed as well.
“Will Scarlett!”
He shook with a start and looked away. Did she catch him? Would she be angry? “Yes?” he barely croaked out, not making eye contact
“You can hand me the smoker whenever you stop admiring the view,” she mused with a smile, making his cheeks glow the shade of his surname.
“Oi! I wasn’t…I mean I wouldn’t,” he sputtered. He then looked up at his friend in defeat and handed her the odd container she had him make that held coals from the morning fire and wet leaves. She gently pressed the bellows and dense smoke came out, calming the insects.
She sighed in satisfaction and reached her bare hand into the hive, extracting the honeycomb. She placed it delicately into the crock tied to her waist. “Thank you, my little friends, may Allah bless you with more soon.” She dropped the smoker to Will and proceeded to climb back down the tree.
Before she reached the bottom, she felt strong hands grab her waist as the outlaw carpenter helped her. She smiled shyly as his kind, green eyes swallowed her brown ones. “This will make Little John and Marian’s food taste so much better. I used to do this with Much all the time.” She smiled sadly at the fond memories. “He so loved honey.”
Will couldn’t hide the little pang of jealousy that crept up. “You and Much, in the forest, looking for honey?” The slightly quizzical, wide-eyed expression on his face made hers blush.
"Just what are you implying, Will? Much was always a perfect gentleman." She shot him a half-hearted smirk. “The rest of you outlaws could have learned a lot from him. He was kind and warm and loved to talk.”
“I’ll say!” Will added softly. “He certainly did a lot of that.”
Djaq turned serious. “I think it was because he needed to. You are fine in your own head Will, but I know what he faced because I faced it myself. After going through what he and Robin did, you never want to be alone again." She turned and looked into his eyes. “You never want to be left alone again with your own thoughts, so you must talk to anyone who will listen. It’s the only way to quiet your mind.”
“Robin never talks like Much,” Will stated flatly.
“Some men cannot. For Robin the pain goes beyond words.” The Saracen healer mused, “That Much can talk about the war is good. I only hope Carter can too. Much will always need someone who can.”
Will rubbed her shoulder. “Think that’s why Much left him?”
"Only Much knows why he left. But he is going back to help us, all of us, and we must always be grateful to him for doing so, whatever personal choice made him do it."
Will turned her so they faced each other. “And you, do you ever need to talk about it?”
Djaq looked up and for the first time he saw the nightmares that lingered behind her calm expression. “I have my prayers, I have the gang, and I have you Will Scarlett,. That is enough to keep my mind at peace.”
He saw love there. Love to chase away the pain of a life lived in war. The constant threat of rape and death at the hands of her captors caused her to deny the woman that she was in Palestine. But here in the forest, with the man she found herself becoming more drawn to every day, she was Safia and when he awkwardly brushed his surprisingly soft lips against hers she found herself greedily kissing back.
Thoughts of honey and war were swept away in the carpenter’s arms. He smelled of wood and smoke and need. He rubbed his calloused thumb along her chin and smiled. “Think they will miss us if we stay here awhile?”
She answered with a tinkle of laughter and pulled his arms closer around her. He spread his cloak over the warm still wet, grass and they sat holding each other, kisses getting more intense, hands exploring. Will hesitated as he looked at his unexpected lover, her pupils blown with desire, making her eyes ebony pools of lust It was his first time for this and he was scared.
“You’re shaking,” she mused as she slid effortlessly on top of him. She removed her top and placed his hand on her breast. Will was at once startled and very aroused.
Djaq helped the young carpenter out of his tunic and pulled him to her. “Don't be scared. I want this my love and I want you.” His hands eagerly explored her body. It was so different from his own and yet so natural. He relished the curve of her back as she arched against his thigh. How many lonely nights had he imagined this, let his own hand wander and dealt with the crushing guilt after, now it was her hands on his length and it felt so good.
She reached over and grabbed the jar of rich liquid, still warm from the hive, and let it drizzle down her lover’s naked chest. The colour of Djaq’s eyes echoed the trail of sticky sweetness. She looked up at her lover and lapped at the golden trail.
He gasped at her hot mouth on him. Hands splayed though her dark hair urging her downward yet slowing her, almost fearful of what was coming. Her delicious lips encircled him and his mind exploded. His own touch never felt so good. That he was doing this with someone so close to him added to the excitement and the remorse.
He flung his arm over his face and let her take him to the edge. She stopped tantalizingly short of oblivion and smiled as she removed his leggings and her own. She mounted him and looked into his eyes; his manhood poised at the opening of her womanhood. “I’ve never…been…intimate…with a woman before.” Will looked up at his friend. “I don’t want to take advantage, Djaq. I don’t want to hurt you," he stammered sadly.
The Saracen looked down at him in surprise and almost comic embarrassment. “Me neither.” She smiled at him as he entered her. “We will both go slow and make sure we don’t..." She hissed softly and bit into his shoulder, shivering from the pain as his shaft pierced her maidenhead.
He sighed in awe at the sensation of being so intimately inside another person. Eyes locked and hips moved until they matched rhythm. She reached a finger into the jar of honey and fed her lover as he ravished her, covering his warm sugary lips with her own.
Like waves crashing around them, their first time came to a glorious crescendo as skin newly sensitized to sex, took them both over the edge. He released inside her, huffing against her cheek as she slumped against him babbling incoherently in her native tongue. He didn’t understand a word but his name as she called it over and over, her words resonating against his shoulder, her tears falling like the rain.
They lay next to each other for a while, each glance between them eliciting giggles like children. She trailed her hand down his pale, lean torso, admiring his long neck and strong chin. She got up to his disappointment and started to dress. “Where are you going?” Will’s brow furrowed.
“To take care of things,” she replied sheepishly.
He looked up in confusion, “What things?”
“We don’t want to make a baby our first time, Will. Let’s leave it at that.” She smiled.
The carpenter puzzled at his companion. “But, I would love you to have my children, Djaq.”
She smiled softly. "Yes, but I do not think I’m ready just yet.” She turned to walk away then paused. “Will?”
“Yes my love?”
“When we are alone together, call me Safia. Djaq is a boy’s name and I do not feel like a boy when I am around you.”
He smiled as his heart melted. “I love you, Safia.”
She nodded, “And I love you, Will Scarlett.”
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He ran through the forest crying. Grown men didn't cry but most grown men didn't have to go through what he was going through now. His cheek still stung from the impact of Gisborne's gloved hand in the village as they looked for Lardner's ring. But what hurt worse was the humiliation that followed. He was nothing, Guy's dogsbody, and a traitor. He gave up all his friends and freedom for a few coins and the nightmare he now lived in the dark foreboding walls of the castle.
The black knight used him to suit his will, one minute as a sex surrogate for his twisted lust when Marian spurned him and the next as his punching bag when the outlaws outwitted him. Allan's body was quickly becoming a roadmap of scars, cuts, burns, mended fractures, and healed bruises that were a testament to his new life of servitude.
Many times Guy would leer at him menacingly as he lay in a heap from another assault. "Consider yourself lucky, A' Dale. I could rid myself of you in a heartbeat and no one would even find your body." It would usually be followed by a hard kick to his naked ribs that left him wretching.
He had seen the oubliette and what happened to the most unfortunate of Guy's enemies. At night, as his fresh wounds throbbed, he would have nightmares. He stared up at his loathsome master from the pit, with decaying corpses surrounding him, crying and screaming for redemption. He would wake from the nightmare shivering as the cover was replaced and the lights went out with Guy's menacing laughter echoing around him.
He reminded himself as he sat alone by the creek that this was his fault. It would have been better if Gisborne had just killed him that night instead of turning him, better for all of them. Now all he had was pain. He looked at his reflection in the water and it was someone else. The black doublet echoed his new position as a sellout. He turned and examined the reddening welts on his cheeks. Gis' latest gift, it would bruise nicely. That should please his lordship as he savaged him tonight.
The rustle of leaves behind him broke his thoughts. He remembered to duck this time as the sound of spinning metal came from nowhere. Djaq's disk embedded itself in the tree behind him and he looked at it then back in the direction it came from. "Not bein' funny, but what is it with you outlaws and knife throwin' now?"
"Allan A'Dale!" The young Saracen woman looked at her former friend with large eyes. "I thought you were one of the sheriff's men. I am sorry."
"I am one of the sheriff's men." He sized up the young healer carefully.
Djaq spoke in her usual soft tone but her hand never left the dagger at her side. "But only because you had no other choice." She walked over to the poacher and gingerly touched the welt on his cheek. "Oh Allan, why?"
"Cos, I failed to stop Robin and Marian from getting to the king's messenger. Gis dunnit like being made a fool of." He jerked away with tears stinging his eyes. "It just looks nasty. It dunnit hurt."
"The King sent a messenger for Robin? It must be important." She thought for a moment then looked at he former poacher. "Allan, you must leave that place and come back to the camp."
"You know I can't!"
"I'll speak to Robin. He will listen to me."
"You think so? You're one of them." Words came out faster than he could think them but they hurled as lethal as a throwing knife. "What makes you think he will listen to you? You're just someone else the 'igh an' mighty Lord Loxley can't trust."
She reacted as if the same invisible dagger hit her. "You don't mean that, Allan." He was the last person she expected to discriminate against her or question her loyalty to the gang and it hurt. She turned to walk away. "I must go. Will is waiting for me."
The poacher's hands pulled her to him and his lips crushed against hers, insistent and pleading. "No Djaq. I'm sorry. I dinnit mean any of that. You know how I feel about you."
She foccused on him sadly and pulled out of his embrace. "Yes...I do now and that is exactly why I must go." She turned before she disappeared into the woods, "Take care of yourself, Allan A'Dale. I will pray to Allah for you but I do not wish to ever see you again."
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"You still have feelings for him?" The sudden sound of her lover's voice shocked her.
"You saw?"
"Enough...” Clouds of jealousy boiled behind Will Scarlett's light green eyes. "Enough not to like it."
Djaq slid up next to the woodsman and placed her forehead on his shoulder. "He is so lost, Will, so angry. I cannot help him."
"You didn't answer my question," he said in a soft, almost whispered, voice. "Do you still have feelings for Allan?"
"No, my love. Not anymore."
She cried on his shoulder as he led her back to camp.
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When is the next chapter? We have no idea. YOU haven't written it yet!
Come to Denial...the place we go to make everything better!
( Chapter 7; Forget the World here.)