This work of fiction is not intended to infringe upon the rights of the creators of Robin of Sherwood. I make no profit off the work.
Author's Note: This story follows Brothers.
By Christine Ethier
After the near hanging. After the rescue. After the confrontation. After the hurt in Much's eyes, the anger in Will's. After the reconciliation.
After all that.
When he had the time. The time which a leader so rarely gets. The time to be by himself.
When he had that time, he sat by the stream, where two years ago Tuck had dunked him, and sorrowed.
He grieved for the death of possibility.
He always knew that the longing for a relationship with Gisburne had come from a naive innocent part of his soul.
Now he sorrowed at the death of that dream.
He had prepared himself for hatred, for raw anger, and for hot denial.
But not for such wrath filled venom, not such cold and calculating loathing. That wrath and calculation filled him with fear. Gisburne would now be a greater enemy.
He wished it could have been another way.
His brother hated and envied him. The undersheriff blamed him for being the heir. For having what Gisburne considered rightfully his.
He wished it could have been different.
That small, naive part of him once dreamed of some sort of acknowledgment between the two of them once Gisburne had discovered the truth. He knew it was folly, a dangerous folly, but he had not been able to stop himself. Not once had he let himself go so far as to believe they would exchange true brotherly affection; not once did he even imagine they would fight on the same side. But he thought, perhaps of an unspoken pact not to kill each other.
But apparently his brother did not share that view.
That made Guy dangerous.
Should he tell his father about Gisburne?
At first he had not, for the Lady Maraget still lived. It had been her secret to tell.
Why had she kept silent all these years?
But now, with her death, he lacked un-selfish excuses. Once he feared being supplanted in his father's love. That the presence of a second son would take the place of the disgraced first. He now knew these fears to be false and unworthy of the Earl
The more cynical part of him worried that acknowledgment by his father would push Gisburne to hunt the outlaws more harshly, more determinedly.
To kill the legitimate heir and take his place.
Now he worried that Gisburne, once accepted by David, would kill the Earl. And after the death of the Earl, try to lay claim to the lands.
His father could do nothing about the fact that one son wanted the other dead.
He did not want to put his father though that much pain.
He knew that he could not kill his brother.
He knew that his men, out of respect and love for him, would refrain from killing the under-sheriff. He also knew that Will would kill Gisburne if the situation called for it. As would Nasir. As would John.
The thought made him feel safer even as he tried to shrink from it.
He did not want his brother dead.
But he did not want to die either.
He would trust his man, as they trusted him.
Knowing, as he rose from his seat, that if he must chose between Gisburne's life and the life, or lives, of one of his men, he would chose that of his friend. For he realized, even as the naive part of him sorrowed for the death of if, that they were his true brothers. And his blood brother was a deadly enemy.