[fic] : robin hood (bbc) - [RPF] - Not Quite Bonnie And Clyde
Title: Not Quite Bonnie And Clyde
Rating: PG-13 (three swear words)
Word count: 1590 words
Characters: Richard and Lucy. And Guy/Marian discussion.
Summary: Post-finale catch-up session at a London bar. Which results in Lucy and Richard contemplating a pub-break-in. For the best of reasons, of course. You can blame/thank my flist for this. But especially hulamoth, who read an early draft and told me it was indeed not pants.
Warning: RPF
Disclaimer: I neither claim this fic to be any more than a product of my own imagination, nor assert it to be truthful beyond (hopefully) a semi-accurate suggestion of the cast's personalities.
---
In retrospect, Richard blames those little blue shots.
Richard can’t believe he agreed to the drinking games that Harry suggested and Lucy, laughing in such a familiar way, had seconded. Perhaps it was the laughing that had persuaded him. They’d talked about everything; work, politics, the latest tabloid rumours, and a little about how the show had ended. But only briefly. Anjali had made some joke about Holy Land real estate prices and no-one wanting to live in that part of town and the conversation had moved on.
It was that time where the streets are silent; too early for airport cars and too late for taxis taking drunken people home. That time when going to sleep begins to seem less sensible than just continuing on into the day. Richard and Lucy are standing outside the pub.
“So, then,” says Richard, “I don’t think Marian should have died.” He doesn't know why he says it exactly. It's not like he hasn't said it before, to her at least. But suddenly, he finds he wants, maybe needs to say it again. As if he's been wanting to say it for a while.
“You and me both,” says Lucy, sitting down with a whumph on the pavement beside him. He likes that about her; that unaffectedness, the lack of disguise. She used to say to him, sometimes, that he was utterly unreadable (usually with a slap on the arm). She’d say she preferred Guy to him, because at least he came out and said what he was thinking before long.
“Whereas you, Richard, you just...think. I can see it in your eyes, that your head is somewhere else, can see it in your face that something is preoccupying you. But you never say anything…!” She had grimaced in mock-frustration. He was about to reply, to defend himself - he told her things, sometimes - and then they had been summoned back into a scene.
There is a small silence then. They sit amidst it, comfortable. London is never quiet. Even now, there is a sense of hum and rush in the distance. But here and now, there is a pause, a respite. Like a breath of breeze in a stifle-hot summer.
“It was nice,” he says. “Seeing everyone again...?” It turns into a question and he isn’t quite sure how.
“Yesss,” Lucy replies, the ‘s’ stretching in her mouth as her mind and fingers focus on the zip of her boot. She pulls. It sticks, stubborn. She looks up. Richard is watching her with a half-smile. There’s a pause where he might have offered to give her a hand, in the way men do when women are struggling with jam jars and bottle tops. But he doesn’t. She yanks, hard, and it catches her stocking as it zips to the top.
“Well, shit,” says Lucy. “I’ve got an audition tomorrow too. And I was going to wear these. All the tights I have left in my house are footless, it’s as if when I go looking for them, they hide, and all I can find are the footless type, as if all my tights went out on the town and got legless, I don’t know...”
He’d forgotten she rambles when she’s drunk. It’s endearing, in a way, though it makes her seem younger. Usually she’s more considered, especially during interviews. He remembers watching her from the side, on set. On one of those media days, when the set was a flurry of journos and swarms of cameramen looking askance at his leather pants.
So had he, when he first saw them.
“What’s the audition for?” he asks.
There’s still people left in the bar behind them. The others moved on to another bar a while back...surely only a half-hour ago? Lucy had said she couldn’t walk in these boots and after that many strange blue shots; not quite yet.
“Just - just give me five...” she’d said, and whumphed down onto the pavement. The others had moved on, and Richard had stayed “to keep an eye out for her...we’ll follow you in a bit...”
“It is,” says Lucy, with an air of solemnity, “a Very Important Documentary. I think it’s going to be voiced by David Attenborough. And I,” she pauses again, as if to build up suspense, “am playing one of Henry VIII’s seven wives.”
“Six,” corrects Richard, before he can stop himself.
“No, no,” says Lucy. “This is...what did they call it? Revisionist. Henry VIII’s secret love child, secret mistress, his unexpected connections to current leaders. That sort of thing.”
Richard would like to say it sounds great, but he’s not sure he could do so honestly. He satisfies himself with a raise of the eyebrows that he hopes conveys interest and vague approval.
Lucy is not convinced.
“Go on, Richard,” she says. “Say it’s shite. I would probably agree with you.” He laughs.
“Yeah, it is a bit,” there’s a pause, and he senses that somewhere in the corner of it, Lucy is less amused by all this than she pretends to be. “I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you think,” he says, somewhat lamely. “I’ve done that sort of thing in my time...Cats.”
“Cats?”
“Cats. Not that I regret it, you understand. But, y’know, more months in lycra than I would fancy, strictly speaking.”
The corner of Lucy’s mouth twitches up. “Ah yes, I’d forgotten you could dance. Too bad no writer ever worked that in.” She stands up, and wobbles. The heels of her boots feel far less sturdy than they did at the beginning of the night. That last couple of drinks seem to have just kicked in. The bastards. They’ll never find the others now…
“I need some food,” she says. “To soak some of this up.” Richard opens his mouth to say everything’ll be closed by now, but Lucy beats him to it.
“There’s a little place I know, it’s open late - ” and she’s off, tottering only briefly before being more drunkenly steady on heels than he could ever hope to be sober. He can’t help but be impressed. She waves away his offered arm as they make their way down the street.
“I am fine. Fine.”
They wander around one corner, two, four, down another street Richard thinks he might recognize. Maybe. And then Lucy stops suddenly. Richard’s long legs carry him on several more steps before he realizes Lucy isn’t beside him anymore.
“Oh,” she says, looking up at the frontage of a shop. The lettering of ‘STEVEN’S EATERIE’ is freshly-painted at one end and peeling at the other. It is also very, very closed.
“Never mind,” says Richard. “We’ll go find the others.” She doesn’t move. Standing behind her, he can’t see her face. “Lucy. Luce?” She turns slowly.
“Oh, Richard.” Her expression is a mix of frustration and guilt. “I...I’ve left my bag back in that bar. That first one.”
Of course, it’s closed when they get there. Richard thinks there’s a light on at the back, but closer observation reveals it to be from the restaurant behind. Lucy looks despairing.
“Dammit,” she says, and her body slumps. “What the hell am I going to do?” It’s not about the handbag, not really. It’s about the audition that she doesn’t want to go to, missing larking about with them all. Oh, they pretended to be grown-up, called her the baby, but really, quietly, they were all of them gloriously high on the fun of it. She misses it. Running about being valiant, pretending to fight, and speaking terrible Hungarian after one two many pints.
“Dammit, Richard, I want to be back. Sunny Hungary, where the beer is cheap and the days and cardboard castles are far too hot.” He grimaces. “Make them bring me back.”
“I couldn’t stop them killing you. What makes you think I can bring you back?”
“Zombies,” says Lucy. “She can come back as a zombie. Go get her back from the Holy Land. Do it.” Richard laughs, and the sound of it seems to cheer Lucy slightly.
“What are you going to do?” he asks, his voice taking on a more pragmatic tone. “If you can’t get home,” he amends. “I do have a sofa if you’re desperate.”
“I’d have to be, wouldn’t I?” she says, unable to resist.
“Hey, now.” He stands up, and for a moment Lucy worries she’s offended him. But his expression doesn’t seem wounded. He’s assessing the building.
“Perhaps...” he says, and then stops. “No.”
“Maybe there’s an open window somewhere,” she says, catching his train of thought. “Or maybe their security system isn’t up to much.”
“Hang on, Lucy, I’m not suggesting - ” But it’s too late. She’s already off around the edge of the building.
“I can see it through this window,” she says. “On that seat, there, do you see?” He can’t, but he nods as if he can. And then wonders if he should have. Whether he should be encouraging this. Bonnie and Clyde didn’t end well, he recalls.
“Look," she says, continuing along the side of the pub, "maybe if we disable the power to the alarm - oh wait!” She’s gone right around the corner of the building, now, but her exclamation comes clear to his ear in the quiet night. As does the tinkle of breaking glass. And, moments later, a blaring alarm.
“Oh, fuck.”
Their hasty retreat is more stumble than flight. Lucy trips more times than she can count, and Richard almost contemplates offering her a piggyback. They halt before too long.
“They’ll never,” pants Richard, bent double and far less fit than he’d hoped, “let you play one of Henry’s wives now...hardly royal behaviour...” Lucy slaps him on the arm, straightened up but breathing hard.
“Just as well I was going to play the mistress, then,” she says, raising one eyebrow at nobody in particular.
---
end.
Rating: PG-13 (three swear words)
Word count: 1590 words
Characters: Richard and Lucy. And Guy/Marian discussion.
Summary: Post-finale catch-up session at a London bar. Which results in Lucy and Richard contemplating a pub-break-in. For the best of reasons, of course. You can blame/thank my flist for this. But especially hulamoth, who read an early draft and told me it was indeed not pants.
Warning: RPF
Disclaimer: I neither claim this fic to be any more than a product of my own imagination, nor assert it to be truthful beyond (hopefully) a semi-accurate suggestion of the cast's personalities.
---
In retrospect, Richard blames those little blue shots.
Richard can’t believe he agreed to the drinking games that Harry suggested and Lucy, laughing in such a familiar way, had seconded. Perhaps it was the laughing that had persuaded him. They’d talked about everything; work, politics, the latest tabloid rumours, and a little about how the show had ended. But only briefly. Anjali had made some joke about Holy Land real estate prices and no-one wanting to live in that part of town and the conversation had moved on.
It was that time where the streets are silent; too early for airport cars and too late for taxis taking drunken people home. That time when going to sleep begins to seem less sensible than just continuing on into the day. Richard and Lucy are standing outside the pub.
“So, then,” says Richard, “I don’t think Marian should have died.” He doesn't know why he says it exactly. It's not like he hasn't said it before, to her at least. But suddenly, he finds he wants, maybe needs to say it again. As if he's been wanting to say it for a while.
“You and me both,” says Lucy, sitting down with a whumph on the pavement beside him. He likes that about her; that unaffectedness, the lack of disguise. She used to say to him, sometimes, that he was utterly unreadable (usually with a slap on the arm). She’d say she preferred Guy to him, because at least he came out and said what he was thinking before long.
“Whereas you, Richard, you just...think. I can see it in your eyes, that your head is somewhere else, can see it in your face that something is preoccupying you. But you never say anything…!” She had grimaced in mock-frustration. He was about to reply, to defend himself - he told her things, sometimes - and then they had been summoned back into a scene.
There is a small silence then. They sit amidst it, comfortable. London is never quiet. Even now, there is a sense of hum and rush in the distance. But here and now, there is a pause, a respite. Like a breath of breeze in a stifle-hot summer.
“It was nice,” he says. “Seeing everyone again...?” It turns into a question and he isn’t quite sure how.
“Yesss,” Lucy replies, the ‘s’ stretching in her mouth as her mind and fingers focus on the zip of her boot. She pulls. It sticks, stubborn. She looks up. Richard is watching her with a half-smile. There’s a pause where he might have offered to give her a hand, in the way men do when women are struggling with jam jars and bottle tops. But he doesn’t. She yanks, hard, and it catches her stocking as it zips to the top.
“Well, shit,” says Lucy. “I’ve got an audition tomorrow too. And I was going to wear these. All the tights I have left in my house are footless, it’s as if when I go looking for them, they hide, and all I can find are the footless type, as if all my tights went out on the town and got legless, I don’t know...”
He’d forgotten she rambles when she’s drunk. It’s endearing, in a way, though it makes her seem younger. Usually she’s more considered, especially during interviews. He remembers watching her from the side, on set. On one of those media days, when the set was a flurry of journos and swarms of cameramen looking askance at his leather pants.
So had he, when he first saw them.
“What’s the audition for?” he asks.
There’s still people left in the bar behind them. The others moved on to another bar a while back...surely only a half-hour ago? Lucy had said she couldn’t walk in these boots and after that many strange blue shots; not quite yet.
“Just - just give me five...” she’d said, and whumphed down onto the pavement. The others had moved on, and Richard had stayed “to keep an eye out for her...we’ll follow you in a bit...”
“It is,” says Lucy, with an air of solemnity, “a Very Important Documentary. I think it’s going to be voiced by David Attenborough. And I,” she pauses again, as if to build up suspense, “am playing one of Henry VIII’s seven wives.”
“Six,” corrects Richard, before he can stop himself.
“No, no,” says Lucy. “This is...what did they call it? Revisionist. Henry VIII’s secret love child, secret mistress, his unexpected connections to current leaders. That sort of thing.”
Richard would like to say it sounds great, but he’s not sure he could do so honestly. He satisfies himself with a raise of the eyebrows that he hopes conveys interest and vague approval.
Lucy is not convinced.
“Go on, Richard,” she says. “Say it’s shite. I would probably agree with you.” He laughs.
“Yeah, it is a bit,” there’s a pause, and he senses that somewhere in the corner of it, Lucy is less amused by all this than she pretends to be. “I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you think,” he says, somewhat lamely. “I’ve done that sort of thing in my time...Cats.”
“Cats?”
“Cats. Not that I regret it, you understand. But, y’know, more months in lycra than I would fancy, strictly speaking.”
The corner of Lucy’s mouth twitches up. “Ah yes, I’d forgotten you could dance. Too bad no writer ever worked that in.” She stands up, and wobbles. The heels of her boots feel far less sturdy than they did at the beginning of the night. That last couple of drinks seem to have just kicked in. The bastards. They’ll never find the others now…
“I need some food,” she says. “To soak some of this up.” Richard opens his mouth to say everything’ll be closed by now, but Lucy beats him to it.
“There’s a little place I know, it’s open late - ” and she’s off, tottering only briefly before being more drunkenly steady on heels than he could ever hope to be sober. He can’t help but be impressed. She waves away his offered arm as they make their way down the street.
“I am fine. Fine.”
They wander around one corner, two, four, down another street Richard thinks he might recognize. Maybe. And then Lucy stops suddenly. Richard’s long legs carry him on several more steps before he realizes Lucy isn’t beside him anymore.
“Oh,” she says, looking up at the frontage of a shop. The lettering of ‘STEVEN’S EATERIE’ is freshly-painted at one end and peeling at the other. It is also very, very closed.
“Never mind,” says Richard. “We’ll go find the others.” She doesn’t move. Standing behind her, he can’t see her face. “Lucy. Luce?” She turns slowly.
“Oh, Richard.” Her expression is a mix of frustration and guilt. “I...I’ve left my bag back in that bar. That first one.”
Of course, it’s closed when they get there. Richard thinks there’s a light on at the back, but closer observation reveals it to be from the restaurant behind. Lucy looks despairing.
“Dammit,” she says, and her body slumps. “What the hell am I going to do?” It’s not about the handbag, not really. It’s about the audition that she doesn’t want to go to, missing larking about with them all. Oh, they pretended to be grown-up, called her the baby, but really, quietly, they were all of them gloriously high on the fun of it. She misses it. Running about being valiant, pretending to fight, and speaking terrible Hungarian after one two many pints.
“Dammit, Richard, I want to be back. Sunny Hungary, where the beer is cheap and the days and cardboard castles are far too hot.” He grimaces. “Make them bring me back.”
“I couldn’t stop them killing you. What makes you think I can bring you back?”
“Zombies,” says Lucy. “She can come back as a zombie. Go get her back from the Holy Land. Do it.” Richard laughs, and the sound of it seems to cheer Lucy slightly.
“What are you going to do?” he asks, his voice taking on a more pragmatic tone. “If you can’t get home,” he amends. “I do have a sofa if you’re desperate.”
“I’d have to be, wouldn’t I?” she says, unable to resist.
“Hey, now.” He stands up, and for a moment Lucy worries she’s offended him. But his expression doesn’t seem wounded. He’s assessing the building.
“Perhaps...” he says, and then stops. “No.”
“Maybe there’s an open window somewhere,” she says, catching his train of thought. “Or maybe their security system isn’t up to much.”
“Hang on, Lucy, I’m not suggesting - ” But it’s too late. She’s already off around the edge of the building.
“I can see it through this window,” she says. “On that seat, there, do you see?” He can’t, but he nods as if he can. And then wonders if he should have. Whether he should be encouraging this. Bonnie and Clyde didn’t end well, he recalls.
“Look," she says, continuing along the side of the pub, "maybe if we disable the power to the alarm - oh wait!” She’s gone right around the corner of the building, now, but her exclamation comes clear to his ear in the quiet night. As does the tinkle of breaking glass. And, moments later, a blaring alarm.
“Oh, fuck.”
Their hasty retreat is more stumble than flight. Lucy trips more times than she can count, and Richard almost contemplates offering her a piggyback. They halt before too long.
“They’ll never,” pants Richard, bent double and far less fit than he’d hoped, “let you play one of Henry’s wives now...hardly royal behaviour...” Lucy slaps him on the arm, straightened up but breathing hard.
“Just as well I was going to play the mistress, then,” she says, raising one eyebrow at nobody in particular.
---
end.