anythingbutgrey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
anythingbutgrey) wrote2007-11-18 01:41 am
anythingbutgrey) wrote2007-11-18 01:41 am
Entry tags:
Robin Hood -- In the Desert Sun I Watched My Nerves Come Undone
(this has the longest title ever)
it is also important to note that i don't really like this, but the first fic in every fandom is always the hardest and i will release this demon from its cage in the hope it shall foster future joy.
or angst, because this is me we're talking about.
Title: In the Desert Sun I Watched My Nerves Come Undone
Ship: Robin/Marian
Spoilers: Haha pilot, if that.
A/N: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
three_nails for the beta! This is my first Robin Hood fic. There will be many more, so get your concrit in now before i fall into a pattern. Title is from the Daphne Loves Derby song, 'Cue the Sun'
Summary: Everyone he has ever met is pan-seared into his mind, but she has always burned the most. Pre-series.
Part of him knows he’ll regret it later – all the years he could have had with her. The rest of him doesn’t care, and that’s the part that signs the forms, packs his bags, walks him out the door.
*
She knows he expects her to wait by the window with soft tears and threading. She has always been a smart girl, too headstrong, never knew her place.
Robin had kissed her lips while hidden in high grass – “Your place is with me. My place, with you.”
And she had believed him, which simply proves wrong what she had always thought about herself. Stupid, stupid girl. She doesn’t shed a single tear.
(After the first two days, that is.)
*
She discovers the Night Watchman the day he discovers a cowering nest of Saracen children crying words he doesn’t understand.
“I’m sorry, I can’t – I don’t – Here, no, have some bread, no one will hurt you.”
But they had hurt them, of course, their ruined surroundings as exhibits A through Z.
Glory begins to get sick that day. The idea of it never quite dies, though.
*
What she doesn’t know (what it would hurt her to know) is that he doesn’t expect her to wait, not really. He knows what he’s leaving. He knows he leaves her with houses of broken promises. He doesn’t know why he left, knowing these things. But there’s no turning back, and he’ll take her as intangible night images where he can be with her until waking hours.
Much eyes him in the morning. “You called out for her again last night. If you just asked the king – ”
“No,” he says with the grating harshness of a stubborn man. “We can’t leave, Much. We can’t leave.”
Much sighs and keeps sharpening a sword. The grating sound seems to ask why not?
Robin doesn’t have the response, and has learned not to dwell on unanswerable questions. War teaches you these things in a world where there are questions like why him – why this blood? There are no reasons, no logic, nothing but red liquid pools and destruction and he just wanted an escape, an adventure, a way out.
Marian did always say he was an idiot – and he can’t help the light smile on his face at the sound of her name ringing in his head.
*
He realizes he loves her too late, drowning in feverish death in foreign lands. Certainly he thought he loved her before. But of course he didn’t – if he had, truly, really, he wouldn’t have left. Things are so clear near death, though. There’s a lot of time to think when every thought might be your last, one of those truly horrific ironies. Too late to change the past – here, reflect on it.
He prays with feverish words of I promise, Marian, I promise to make it right. Just – let me live.
Much cries when the fever breaks. Robin never tells him about his blasphemous plea.
(Much has ears, you know. He heard.)
*
A week later, Robin throws his few things into a bag.
“Time to go home,” he says. Much smiles with the staggering relief of unexpected salvation.
He doesn’t expect her to have waited.
Much thinks he’s quiet because of too many memories of battle. It’s memories that silence him, certainly, but not those kinds.
*
The trip home feels longer than the war itself.
The nights keep coming and the nightmares don’t stop. He gets closer to her and the nightmares won’t stop, simply refuse, drive a stake into the ground and hold on tight. And now she’s there too, in the nightmares, his former salvation of dreams now inserted into black visions of the past and possibilities of death.
Fever brings on delusions. Imagine what he saw, and here’s a hint: her, blood, her, intertwined. Those memories have gone nowhere. The nightmares won’t stop.
*
He kisses Sarah and pretends it’s Marian, because there have been five years without anyone and after a while his hands can only do so much for him. If he closes his eyes he can pretend Marian’s face isn’t crystalline and frozen in his mind, that instead it has faded into a soggy image of any woman, transplantable.
He lets out a soft whisper of Marian into the base of Sarah’s neck, but she doesn’t hear him or she doesn’t care.
The rest of their march he spends thinking of excuses to find her, hide in the shadows and guess at how old her children are now – three? Four?
How much time does it take to forget a human being? He wouldn’t know. Everyone he has ever met is pan-seared into his mind, but she has always burned the most.
*
He finds his excuse to find out her present secrets between corrupt officials and nervous servants. It’s too easy, really – he doesn’t know what’s to come, of course, the woods, the running, the constantly looming gallows. He doesn’t know he’ll miss her the most when he’s close enough to touch her and can’t.
*
feedback?
it is also important to note that i don't really like this, but the first fic in every fandom is always the hardest and i will release this demon from its cage in the hope it shall foster future joy.
or angst, because this is me we're talking about.
Title: In the Desert Sun I Watched My Nerves Come Undone
Ship: Robin/Marian
Spoilers: Haha pilot, if that.
A/N: Thanks to
three_nails for the beta! This is my first Robin Hood fic. There will be many more, so get your concrit in now before i fall into a pattern. Title is from the Daphne Loves Derby song, 'Cue the Sun'Summary: Everyone he has ever met is pan-seared into his mind, but she has always burned the most. Pre-series.
Part of him knows he’ll regret it later – all the years he could have had with her. The rest of him doesn’t care, and that’s the part that signs the forms, packs his bags, walks him out the door.
*
She knows he expects her to wait by the window with soft tears and threading. She has always been a smart girl, too headstrong, never knew her place.
Robin had kissed her lips while hidden in high grass – “Your place is with me. My place, with you.”
And she had believed him, which simply proves wrong what she had always thought about herself. Stupid, stupid girl. She doesn’t shed a single tear.
(After the first two days, that is.)
*
She discovers the Night Watchman the day he discovers a cowering nest of Saracen children crying words he doesn’t understand.
“I’m sorry, I can’t – I don’t – Here, no, have some bread, no one will hurt you.”
But they had hurt them, of course, their ruined surroundings as exhibits A through Z.
Glory begins to get sick that day. The idea of it never quite dies, though.
*
What she doesn’t know (what it would hurt her to know) is that he doesn’t expect her to wait, not really. He knows what he’s leaving. He knows he leaves her with houses of broken promises. He doesn’t know why he left, knowing these things. But there’s no turning back, and he’ll take her as intangible night images where he can be with her until waking hours.
Much eyes him in the morning. “You called out for her again last night. If you just asked the king – ”
“No,” he says with the grating harshness of a stubborn man. “We can’t leave, Much. We can’t leave.”
Much sighs and keeps sharpening a sword. The grating sound seems to ask why not?
Robin doesn’t have the response, and has learned not to dwell on unanswerable questions. War teaches you these things in a world where there are questions like why him – why this blood? There are no reasons, no logic, nothing but red liquid pools and destruction and he just wanted an escape, an adventure, a way out.
Marian did always say he was an idiot – and he can’t help the light smile on his face at the sound of her name ringing in his head.
*
He realizes he loves her too late, drowning in feverish death in foreign lands. Certainly he thought he loved her before. But of course he didn’t – if he had, truly, really, he wouldn’t have left. Things are so clear near death, though. There’s a lot of time to think when every thought might be your last, one of those truly horrific ironies. Too late to change the past – here, reflect on it.
He prays with feverish words of I promise, Marian, I promise to make it right. Just – let me live.
Much cries when the fever breaks. Robin never tells him about his blasphemous plea.
(Much has ears, you know. He heard.)
*
A week later, Robin throws his few things into a bag.
“Time to go home,” he says. Much smiles with the staggering relief of unexpected salvation.
He doesn’t expect her to have waited.
Much thinks he’s quiet because of too many memories of battle. It’s memories that silence him, certainly, but not those kinds.
*
The trip home feels longer than the war itself.
The nights keep coming and the nightmares don’t stop. He gets closer to her and the nightmares won’t stop, simply refuse, drive a stake into the ground and hold on tight. And now she’s there too, in the nightmares, his former salvation of dreams now inserted into black visions of the past and possibilities of death.
Fever brings on delusions. Imagine what he saw, and here’s a hint: her, blood, her, intertwined. Those memories have gone nowhere. The nightmares won’t stop.
*
He kisses Sarah and pretends it’s Marian, because there have been five years without anyone and after a while his hands can only do so much for him. If he closes his eyes he can pretend Marian’s face isn’t crystalline and frozen in his mind, that instead it has faded into a soggy image of any woman, transplantable.
He lets out a soft whisper of Marian into the base of Sarah’s neck, but she doesn’t hear him or she doesn’t care.
The rest of their march he spends thinking of excuses to find her, hide in the shadows and guess at how old her children are now – three? Four?
How much time does it take to forget a human being? He wouldn’t know. Everyone he has ever met is pan-seared into his mind, but she has always burned the most.
*
He finds his excuse to find out her present secrets between corrupt officials and nervous servants. It’s too easy, really – he doesn’t know what’s to come, of course, the woods, the running, the constantly looming gallows. He doesn’t know he’ll miss her the most when he’s close enough to touch her and can’t.
*
feedback?
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