My first Robin Hood fic. Lots of angst. Hope you like it!
Void
Robin Hood screams out in his sleep, straining against the manacles chaining him to the wall of the Nottingham cell. Gisbourne watches from the other side of the bars as his enemy is tortured by his dreams, and thinks of the blood-drenched scenes that will be flashing through the man's mind. He knows that he is the reason Robin is dying in his heart. And he doesn't care.
Gisbourne remembers Hood's little band of followers, fighting the Sheriff's soldiers – and losing. The Moor woman as she lay dying on the ground, the carpenter's son cut down as he defended her body, Robin's loyal manservant beaten to death in front of his eyes. The thief from Lancashire and the big outlaw, knocked out with their master and brought to the torture chambers in the bowels of Nottingham Castle.
Not surprisingly, the thief broke first – Allan, his name had been. After three days of the Sheriff's hospitality, he had given up and been found hanged by his own belt. Nottingham and Gisbourne had taken great pleasure in having the outlaw John Little executed slowly with the man's family and Robin present. Now the Hood himself is the only one left; alone, despairing, slowly losing his hold on life.
Robin gasps and wakes, his eyes red with tears and nightmares. He sees Gisbourne outside his cell and his face twists with hatred. Gisbourne puts on a smile and stands, unlocking the cell door and stepping inside. Robin gets up as best he can to face him, his chains only just long enough.
"Gisbourne," he rasps. "I hope you're satisfied."
"Oh, don't worry, Hood," Gisbourne says, but he sounds hollow to himself. "Marian and I will be perfectly happy together, and as for the children…"
Robin makes as if to lash out, rage and hopelessness in his eyes. Gisbourne hits him viciously in the stomach, making the defeated outlaw fall to his knees, groaning. But the void inside him isn't content. The black, screaming abyss left inside him by the knowledge Marian will never love him shrieks for more pain, for the agonising death of the man who stole the love that should have been his. Gisbourne punches and kicks him over and over, losing control as the faces of Marian and Robin's twin children torment him. He can bring them up as if they were his own, but he will know they aren't – they are the son and daughter of his worst enemy. And if he knows Marian, she will make sure they know too that their real father was a brave, noble outlaw murdered by their mother's husband.
Robin slumps to the floor, unconscious, blood running from the side of his mouth. Gisbourne leaves the prison, fists clenched, eyes bright, the void inside him screaming for release.
A/N: R&R please!