These Golden Days

Disclaimer: Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves belongs to Warner Brothers, et al.

These Golden Days

Will tells himself he need not be jealous of Marian.

He’s sure that she could never have known this – the scratch of bark digging into her back as Robin pressed her against a tree, his breath hot and harsh in her ear. She never could, he thinks, groping the front of Rob’s trousers. He strokes up Rob’s prick, bucks and keens as Rob’s hand closes rough and callused around his own.

She couldn’t have strained against him like this, panting, swearing. Rob shudders, his completion a warm “Will,” exhaled against his ear, and Will gasps as it pulls him over.

***

Will doesn’t like to go to DuBois Manor, because there are times he believes Marian is between them somehow.

Her ghost haunts the halls she guarded in her brother’s absence, and Rob is silent and withdrawn. He won’t let Will make him feel better; blistered Will’s ears the one time he mentioned it, threatened worse when Will crawled into bed beside him.

Will has learned to keep his hands to himself, much as he hates it. But he still goes, because Rob needs someone, and better him than another, right?

It takes days of Rob’s attention to chase her away.

***

Will knows he should be content, but his heart is dark.

Rob’s arm is draped over him, one of his long legs tangled with Will’s own. His breath tickles the back of Will’s neck; he’s a blaze of warmth behind him, the blankets a great weight covering them, and Will knows he should happily dreaming, for he now has all he ever wished.

Yet sleep eludes him, because he cannot stop thinking about how often Marian had enjoyed this same heat, this same man.

Rob shifts, nuzzles his neck, settles into deeper slumber. Will wonders if he dreams of her.

***

It’s stupid and foolish, but there are times Will wishes Rob had not come back to England. If he’d stayed away, he reasons, staring down into eyes the mirror of his own, he never would have seen her, or she him, and I could have kept on hating him, because he never would have shown that he was anything other than what I thought. I’d have died hating him, and he’d have died in prison, and I never would have loved him…

Will stops then, buries his face against Rob’s chest, and wishes instead that he never had that thought.

***

The breeze catches in his hair atop Locksley Castle, but it can’t blow hard enough to clear the darkness in his heart. Will stares at the faraway ground and considers his multitude of sins.

“Will?”

He flinches. Rob is beside him, leaning against the stone.

“Will, you have to let her go.”

He turns to Rob in shock. “I…”

Rob’s eyes are blue and clear, and Will realizes Rob has already let Marian go, would never have turned to him had he not.

Rob brushes his cheek. “I’d have died for her,” he says softly, “but I live for you.”