3 "Merry Men in Trees"
"Goddammit, Martin squealed on us!"
If there were, hypothetically, anybody in the vicinity of Sherwood Forest that morning who, unbeknownst to anybody outside themselves and possibly their inner circle, was hypothetically engaging in a moderately-to-severely illegal activity or conspiracy to do so, and this hypothetical person heard the very real non-hypothetical police cars and helicopters enclosing on the area from seemingly all directions, and this person who was hypothetically doing naughty things in a private venue assured themselves that the sirens could not be coming for themselves and their hypothetical/theoretical cohort on the grounds that there was no plausible way for the authorities to become privy to such well-guarded information of illicit activities, but then this hypothetical person was suddenly overcome with doubt regarding their security from retributionary punishment, the doubt manifesting itself as either an internal spark of dismay or a paranoid lament from one of their co-conspirators (whom it should be noted may [like this entire scenario] have never existed) itself complemented by a theoretical theory on how the authorities may have gained awareness of the hypothetical shady operation, such a hypothetical theory not even necessarily being likely or unlikely but in some hypothetical chain of events indeed possible, if such a person - and may it be reiterated that this is all purely hypothetical - if such a person existed, even if they were a fourteen-year-old amateur-cum-aspiring con-artist fox-boy who would not have such a destructive Napoleon complex if he were to physically embody the size of his megalomania and who had a long and documented track record of being wrong about a lot of things, even if heaven forbid such a hypothetical wretched soul were to actually exist, then such a person should really listen to their gut.
Because the police were not searching for any small-time schemers that Saturday morning. Instead, they were in pursuit of two costumed characters who presently were running through the forest, jumping fences, dodging trees, and trying to get away, these characters all the while contemplating nothing but escape, and how usually by now they would have made it, but the helicopters were certainly a curveball they were not expecting to be thrown.
They weren't simply running aimlessly in hopes of getting the cops off their tails. The plan was to reach one specific destination before any ground units caught sight of them. If they could get even close to that spot, they would be in a part of the forest where the canopy was so thick that the helicopters above probably wouldn't be able to catch even a glimpse of them, and they'd be home free, hiding in plain sight. Or at least they hoped that it would work out that way; they really were novices when it came to dealing with helicopters, but it was nothing that a little quick thinking and a leap of faith couldn't beat.
"Alright, Johnny!" the fox panted, "How well do you know this forest?" He was by no means out of shape and was certainly no stranger to making a hasty exit, but he was pushing himself to run at a speed that would find anybody having difficulty speaking and breathing concurrently; the greater-than-usual number of pursuants had in equal parts spooked, invigorated, and flattered him.
"Uh, pr-" the bear sputtered, having an even harder time multitasking with his respiratory system, "Pretty good…"
"Excellent! Then… think of… think of a line of trees… thick trees!... Between here and… and the Major Oak!"
"A li- a line of… trees?"
"Don't waste your breath, Johnny! Just… just run with me! And don't… don't let the choppers see you!"
The world seemed to squeeze in on them. The roar of the helicopters faded in and out as they zoomed by in lines overhead, not knowing that their suspects were right under their noses. Far-off yelling and walkie-talkie chatter and squeaks seemed to be converging on them from all directions. And as they drew closer and closer to the big oak tree at the heart of the forest, the canopy upon which they relied for shelter just started to feel suffocating.
And that was when they saw it. The clearing that served as their own backyard, punctuated by one of the largest trees either of them had ever seen outside of a primeval jungle. Its trunk was wide enough for them to make a cavity to hold all their worldly possessions. Its branches were thick enough to support the weight of very large mammals who might need to hide in a pinch. Its canopy was expansive enough to keep them cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Its realm was large enough to call home.
The tree's one major flaw, however, was that it would stick out like a sore thumb in the heretofore unheard-of event of an unwelcome outsider trekking deep enough into the dizzying and disorienting wildwood and happening upon it by sheer dumb luck. Everything about it and its immediate surroundings screamed that it was somebody's camp, and few could see it and not correctly deduce that that was the case. Honestly, it was probably the firepit that gave it away; Robin, John and company had never found a good way to conceal it without permanently ruining it, and after years of not coming even close to getting caught at their own home base, they eventually stopped trying.
When Little John saw them, he nearly let out a yelp squeakier than the one he'd heard Robin make that one time a few years ago when he'd gotten his tail caught in a revolving door; poor Robin had been shown in a rare moment of weakness then, and was again now that his eyes, which always did prefer the nighttime to that of the dawn, failed to register that there were two uniformed men making their way through the trees on the other side of the clearing.
Little John simply had too much inertia going for him to stop soon enough, so he collapsed his knees and slid to a halt like a baseball player sliding feet-first into second. Robin was running ahead of him, and when he heard the sound of dirt and turf swishing at his backside, his first thought was that John had tripped on something and fell forward so hard and with so much speed that he hydroplaned on the dewy grass.
"Little John!" Robin cried out as he tried to kill his own inertia by twisting his body backward and kicking his knees progressively higher so he wouldn't make any more forward progress.
"Shhh!" Little John pointed to the figures through the trees. "Don't you see them?"
Robin squinted and tried to look for any motion he could sense. It took a second, but he did soon notice what his friend was talking about. "It's the Boys!"
"No shit, ya blind bat," Little John grumbled as he got himself up. "C'mon, we gotta pick a different tree to climb." He looked up at the one right next to him. "This one look good?"
"I can climb it if you can!" Robin wasted no time making his way up. "Hurry!"
"I'm not a fucking elephant, Rob," Little John barked; after feeling like the little rich kid from the SUV had betrayed him, he wasn't in the mood for much of anything. He began inching his own way up. But while luck might have screwed them over with the oak tree, it gave them a little back when a helicopter passed over again, ensuring that the two officers wouldn't hear the grumbling grizzly grunting just a short ways-away.
The boys made themselves a nice little makeshift perch in the tree, Robin standing on one branch and holding onto another one at chest-level - he would have much preferred to sit down for the first time in awhile, but he stayed on his feet just in case he needed a quick escape - and Little John hugging the base of the tree in the biggest gap between branches he could find. They were still well below the top of the tree, so the helicopters should have been none the wiser, and high up enough off the ground that somebody would really have to be craning their neck at the exact right angle in the exact right spot to snuff them out.
"Can you see them from up there?" John asked.
"Ah… not as well as I'd like, but as long as they can't see us, I won't be complaining. Are you sturdy down there?"
"I can stay here for awhile, but I can't stay here forever."
"I've got a nasty feeling that we're going to be here a little more than awhile and just shy of forever."
"Just tell me what's going on."
"Alright, but if I'm not saying anything, assume there's a good reason I'm being quiet."
"Roger."
And so the stake-out began in earnest. Robin watched as the two officers entered the sphere of sanctuary, visibly astounded by their discovery before they had even found the good stuff. They seemed enthralled by how nature had set one enormous tree in this precise spot and let nothing but grass and weeds grow in the dirt encircling it, forming an almost perfect circumference of space; but the firepit gave away that there was a mammalian connection to this place. The two officers, a light-gray rhino and an black-gray wolf who were wearing the blue and black of policial laymen, walked slowly around the tree, as if overcome by a sudden awareness that they were in the open in enemy territory and that spying eyes might be watching their every move. They weren't talking to one another, but it was not immediately clear whether this was due to them having nothing to say, or their fears of being overheard.
"Curses, I knew I should have reset that trap!" the fox muttered to himself.
"Oh, the only person who ever got caught in that net was you when you were sloshed like I'd never seen before."
Robin didn't say a word. He was too busy keeping focus to even entertain the idea of being mortified.
"That was a fun nigh-"
"Shhh! I think they're about to find- oh, no…"
Yes, they had found it. The little notch that had started life as a tiny knot hole when the Merry Men sawed off the lowest branch and was soon carved into a cubby hole where the bandits kept their life supplies. The wolf turned on his flashlight and illuminated the cavity as the rhino fished around with his billy club; Robin couldn't see what they saw from his angle, but the looks on their faces showed that they were astounded to find clothes, bedsheets, cookery, toiletries, and anything else a civilized person would have when they just so happened to be living in the forest - or at least it contained all that which could fit in the bountiful base of the tree. As spacious as it was, it still couldn't fit, say, a mattress or a sophisticated plumbing system.
"Huh. You'd think they'd never seen an outlaw's camp before."
"Whaddaya mean?"
"They've got a look on their faces like they just opened a treasure chest."
"They must be new to the force. I mean, most cops would probably've seen something similar, like a bums' hideout, right?"
"Or maybe they're just astounded that the legends are true."
"Oh don't get so big-headed, Rob."
"As if I could ever get a bigger head than yours."
"Jealous?"
"Pshaw. Hardly."
The officers were clearly being careful not to touch what they'd found, for they had no idea where it had been. They kept on digging deeper and deeper with their flashlight and baton, their arms almost entirely swallowed by the hole and their heads fighting for space to see inside, their mouths agape as they took in the small labyrinth that had opened up before them.
"Come on, get out of there!" Robin grumbled.
"They're still in there?"
"Like you said, I wish they'd just write it off as some homeless people's camp and leave us alone."
Eventually, the two officers grew disinterested in fishing any further into the cache of conveniences, and they retracted themselves from it. They put their flashlight and baton back on their respective belts and started conversing with each other, but they were two far away for Robin and John to hear anything.
"Alright, they're discussing something, but I can't make out a word of what they're saying. I'm hoping they just decide that it's nondescript and they walk away."
"We both want them to decide it's nondescript and just walk away; we've already discussed this."
"Well forgive me for my sins, Johnny, I'm a bit tense right now."
"You're not the one whose arms and legs are chafing like hell, now are ya?"
At this point, Robin felt the need to look down to make sure his partner was holding up well. "Are you sure you can hang on there?"
"My ancestors were lumberjacks; we know how to hang on in a tree."
Robin just sighed in exasperation. "If you say so-"
That was when the both of them heard a voice that was strikingly familiar despite being coated with feedback and static.
"Where the hell were you two!?"
Robin looked back up at the officers, and John tried to make out what he could through the leaves and branches. The two officers were looking down at the walkie-talkie in the wolf's hand.
"Oh, not this son of a bitch again," Little John moaned. "How is he still in power?"
"Big-city politics is a soap opera that even my grandmother would find poorly-written and overwrought with vindictiveness."
Little John didn't have much to say about that.
"Why did you turn your radios off!?" hollered the man with a Southern accent that could make Little John sound like he was a New Yorker, and a high-pitched snarl on certain syllables that could make Robin sound like he was a lounge singer.
Little John even felt the need to ask, "Jeez, how can anybody take orders from a voice like that?"
The two officers were murmuring their answers especially quietly, and the Merry Men still couldn't make out a single syllable that was coming out of their mouths, but the hothead on the other end of the frequency was hollering his head off so that nothing he said was left up to to ambiguity.
"Why were you trying to be quiet!?"
"Murmur murmur murmur."
"Then you should have called for backup, shouldn''tja have!?"
"Murmur murmur murmur."
"Just tell me where you are and stay put until we find you!"
"Murmur murmur murmur."
"Well then figure out where you are, and tell me!"
"Murmur murmur murmur."
"Now, you made a point earlier that you have family members in law enforcement; tell me, why would anybody subject themselves to abuse like this?"
"I don't think this kind of behavior is normal. At least… at least not this bad. Police chiefs are hardasses, but they're not always hard assholes."
"Alright, now stay the fuck there until we find you and we'll go from there!"
"Yes, but how does the Nottingham P. D. retain any of its new members in an environment like this?"
"Oh, I don't know. Job security? Sucking it up to serve the greater good? Fu- I dunno, maybe they'd never live it down if they quit… Rob, you heard me say I'm related to cops, not that I was one, right? I don't know their ways inside and out."
"Yes, but you probably still know more about them than I do."
"Christ Almighty, sometimes I wonder if you ever met a blue-collar person before you came over here."
"We were all fools in our past, Johnny. And over there, we use the term working class."
"Oh, well excuse me, m'lord…"
And now it was time to test how good they were at waiting.
-IllI-
Robin was growing bored watching the two officers mill about by the Major Oak, themselves clearly bored out of their minds. He was almost relieved when he heard that infernal voice again.
"What the fuck were you two idiots doing!?"
A few birds squawked and ejected themselves from the trees when that scratchy voice pierced the silence. Little John, who had almost fallen asleep in his spot trying to count the individual lines in the bark in front of his face to kill time, was stirred back into reality with this unwelcome racket.
"God, dammi-! I-I'm back, Rob… what did I miss?"
"Nothing much. Chief Woodland's grand entrance."
"No, I don't think I missed that."
The City of Nottingham Chief of Police emerged from the density of the forest into the clearing, from around the same spot as the two officers before him did, and the slovenly gray wolf was followed by a few more officers in tow. The two who awaited him looked at once nervous and annoyed.
"I'm amazed he didn't get stuck between a couple trees," Robin laughed to himself.
To his credit, Ward Woodland was an imposing figure before you got to know him and pieced together how incompetent he was. The first time he had laid eyes on him, Robin had wondered whether a wolf-bear hybrid could exist. The guy was freakishly large in every dimension, but not so flatteringly so on the x- and z-axes. Yes, he was roughly a foot taller than the average wolf, and while a bear like Little John was still comfortably taller by at least a head, when John's posture was poor (as a bear's posture often is, especially when they spend extended amounts of time hanging out with shorter creatures) and Woodland was standing fully upright, the height gap seemed a lot lesser; but Woodland's posture was typically even worse, forward-leaning more severely than Little John did, and burdened by more dead weight on his person than John had, proportionately speaking. There was one altercation in the distant past where the boys got in close quarters with a stranger who, judging by appearance, simply must have been a pre-Force Ward, since they'd never seen before or since another person who looked and sounded even remotely like him; suffice it to say that that altercation began with Robin secretly freaking out about the sheer volume of this stranger when he caught a glimpse of him where the wolf was standing closer to him than Little John was and something about the angle and the optical distance and the ambient lighting and everybody's posture all being just right made it seem like this wolf was the exact same size and shape as the damn grizzly bear right next to him and that sent a shiver down his spine, but suffice it to say that the altercation ended with Little John insisting that the stranger was a lot lighter than he looked by virtue of not having any muscle mass. Surely it must have been Ward that day so many years ago, who has since become their most frequently-appearing enemy short of the Prince Mayor himself; it really is a small world after all, evidently. Actually, between being a disproportionately tall member of a canid species and having a rather ursine physique, one might note that Woodland looked like a hybrid of Robin and John, quite fitting for their foil.
"So what the hell have we here?" Chief Woodland asked in a way that suggested he was still livid with his officers but losing the energy to express it.
"A campsite, Chief," the smaller black wolf answered. "It looks pretty permanently set up, but obviously nobody's around right now."
"At least we hope not," the rhino interjected. "That's why we killed the radios."
"Because you thought you might be bein' watched," Woodland finished.
"By highly-skilled criminals, yes. Exactly," the rhino said.
"Hm. Impressive deduction skills, Edward!" Robin chuckled. He wasn't aware of the eccentric way Chief Woodland's first name was spelled.
"And Jesse and I were talking," the rhino continued, "this could be their camp, or this could just be where some bums live."
"Oh, c'mon, Rob, this guy might be a dumb son of a bitch, but I don't think he's completely stupid," Little John retorted.
"Or maybe this place is abandoned and none of this matters," said Officer Jesse Surname-Unknown.
"Are you just standing up for your people, Johnny?" Robin whispered with a smirk.
"But there's a firepit that looks pretty recently-used, and in the tree there's a hole full of clothes and, like, dishes and cups and things like that. We're thinking somebody's still here, Chief." Jesse the Wolf was standing as straight as possible so as not to look intimidated by his hulking commander who against all logic belonged to his same species.
"'My people,' what's that supposed to-!?" Little John stopped himself, knowing that an argument would be a waste of time and a risk of security. "I'm just saying, Rob… Even a stupid S.O.B. like him probably has flashes of brilliance, and it might bite us in the ass one day. You know, broken clocks. I guess… what I'm trying to say is nobody likes to be underestimated. You know, in a weird way, I feel like I can relate to him."
Woodland started moving around the campsite with a suspicious eye, trying to see if there was anything his boys missed. He started over to the firepit and leaned over as far as he could to get a close-up look at it. All the while, Jesse and the rhino looked like they were debating whether they should argue their case further or just acquiesce, while the other two officers who got dragged along, a spotted jaguar and a hippopotamus, kept glancing at one another every two seconds as if exchanging some witty nonverbal banter about how there was absolutely no reason for them to be there.
"And you don't just mean you relate to him because you buy your clothes from the same aisle in the store?"
Chief Woodland stood up from the firepit and walked off, not giving any hints about whether he found it to be credible evidence. He meandered his way toward the tree's cavity while looking all around the space, to see what he could see.
"And those stumps… Maybe someone's been using them for chairs?" Woodland surmised.
"Hm! Didn't even think about that one, Chief," praised Jesse.
"Ya see, what I tell ya?" ribbed Little John.
Finally, the wolf's quirky bouncy-waddle-motion brought him to the hole in the tree.
"And what did you say you found in here?"
"Everything, Chief."
"We didn't touch it with our hands so we wouldn't get prints on th-"
But Ward Woodland was not a wolf willing to wait. He stuck his arm into the hole and pulled out the first thing he grabbed, which was a ratty old piece of cloth.
"What's this?"
"I… think that's a hand-towel, Chief."
"He would know that if washed his hands when he was done in the loo."
"I swear, you've been such a smart-ass tonight."
"What can I say? The von Bartonschmeers gave me so much material to work with, and now I'm finding inspiration everywhere."
The next thing that Woodland pulled out was polo shirt, a little on the small side, a shade of green that looked like it was biased a tinge toward yellow. "Now we're gettin' somewhere."
"Oh, don't you get my shirt dirty, I just had that washed."
"You're welcome for that…"
Woodland held up the shirt to get a better idea of its size. "What kind of person would wear this shirt?"
"Uh… a white-collar work-"
"No, you idiot, I meant what species!? Because the kid in the van said he saw a fox with a brown bear."
"I toldja Martin squealed on us."
"Oh, Johnny, I just didn't want to believe you. But perhaps we can't blame him."
"I offered to drug him; you said no…"
"Now this can't be the bear's shirt, but is this fox sized? It looks kind of bigger than I'd think. How big are foxes usually? They're up to like…" Woodland put out a hand and started moving it up and down to suggest a height range, but he was moving it all the way down and then back up to the level of his forearms and back down and up and down again, so he really wasn't helping anybody visualize anything other than his own confusion. He finally stopped moving his hand around gut-level and proposed, "Hereabouts?" He grabbed the shirt with both hands and looked down at it pensively for a second, then tossed it to the ground. "Well they all look pretty small from up here, now don't they?"
Everybody who heard that either rolled their eyes or really, really wanted to.
"Perhaps there's more than two of them, Chief?"
"That's a damn good point, kid!" Woodland went exploring in the hole again, and this time pulled out a huge jacket; this one was a darker shade of green. It seemed to be a lighter springtime or autumnal jacket, but the sleeves were cut off. "Now this is bear-sized!"
"He has my jacket, doesn't he?"
"That he does."
Then for a little something unexpected: Woodland proceeded to put on the jacket. All four of the officers were visibly confused and perhaps a tad repulsed, but they all knew that there wasn't going to be any way to get through to him.
"Oh, come now, Edward, you don't know where that thing's been."
"Wait, what's he doing?"
"Trying your jacket on for size."
"What!?"
"Same aisle of the store. I called it."
"If he does something to it, I'm-!"
"No, you won't. You're going to stay here and keep covered."
"You're not the boss of me."
The jacket was mostly well-fitting on him, being a bit long in the back but using the extra space well in the front. The bottom of the jacket looked like it was going up at a forty-five-degree angle from back to front.
"Yeah, I'd say this is about the right size," the grotesque wolf concluded as he began to take it off. "Well, the descriptions match the clues here, I'd say. Whoever left here, left here quick. They'll be back. Let's try around sunset to see if we can catch them."
"So we're coming back here tonight, Chief?"
"Yup. Even if it is just a bunch of bums, we can bag 'em for vagrancy. But I don't think this is just a bunch of bums."
"Yessir, Chief."
"Y'know," Woodland pondered, "we really oughta have some waste management people out here to clean up this litter, but then the fuckers might just move on… So instead!"
The ending to that sentence fragment was a demonstration of passion. Chief Woodland returned to the hole and simply started pulling out everything he could reach and dispersing it all over the ground without prejudice. Most things landed harmlessly, but some metalware clanged and some dishes cracked and chipped, and the chief of police successfully achieved his goal of thoroughly inconveniencing his sworn enemies.
"What's he doing now!?"
"I swear this man was raised in a barn."
"Is he just throwing our shit everywhere?"
"As much as he can."
"I really just want to kick this guy's ass."
"And I want to watch that happen. But in times like these, we must restrain ourselves for our long-term goals."
"Can you stop talking like a philosopher? I'm really not in the mood."
"Sorry, Johnny, old habits are hard to break I suppose."
Little John wanted to remark on the fact that Robin's overeducated ass used suppose instead of guess, but he bit his tongue. He didn't need any more conflict in this spot he was in. An evil man was making a lame but spirited attempt to ruin their day, his closest friend in the world was seriously getting on his nerves, he was stuck in a tree losing the feeling in his limbs, and he was starting to get hungry. He didn't think he was in hell, but the idea that he was in purgatory wasn't completely off the table.
Chief Woodland stopped grabbing into the hole and put his hand up on the tree to take a breather. He looked around and the beautiful little mess he had made; he hadn't depleted the contents of the hole, but he had made a pretty good dent into it.
"Welp, I think my job here is about done."
"So, Chief, just so we understand you right… we're doing this in order to…?"
"To let 'em know we know they're here! Even if they aren't here when we come back, we'll know if they've been back because they'd've cleaned their stuff up. Genius, ain't it?"
"So we're just going to stop searching for them, Chief?"
"For now," Woodland affirmed as he kicked a can of beans at the tree, popping the can open on impact. He smiled at this. "I don't hate these scoundrels because they're stupid; I hate them because they're smart, but they think I'm stupid. They think that we're stupid!"
"Edward, you flatter me."
"Goddamn, I'm hungry."
"They know that we ain't found them for almost seven years, we ain't gonna find them in seven minutes. But now we got us a harder lead than we ever had. We'll find 'em soon. But let's let 'em get comfortable for just a li'l bit longer before they move into their new prison cells."
The four officers seemed to accept this as a good excuse to get the hell out of this forest. The Chief extracted his walkie-talkie as he lead the way out of the clearing back the way they came in from.
"Alright, boys, kill the helicopters. They got away for now, but we'll get 'em soon. Everybody back to your patrols and precincts."
The wolf turned his back to the watchful eyes and his subordinates took one last gander around the space, confused about the plan but not caring enough to risk it, before following him out.
Robin breathed a sigh of relief and spoke in something more than a whisper for the first time in almost an hour. "Finally, they're-"
Grrrbrrgrrbbbrrrgggh.
The officers stopped in their tracks and turned to face the noise behind them. Robin's blood ran cold. Little John just looked down shamefully at his stomach.
"I told you I was hungry."
"Little John, you may have just doomed us all."
"What the hell was that noise!?" exclaimed the Chief. "Are there gators in this swamp?"
"I… wouldn't call this much of a swamp, Chief."
"I think we're too far north, aren't we?"
"I mean it's mucky in some parts, but-"
"Fuck this, I'm getting out of here!" And that was how Chief Ward Woodland made his exit.
The four officers behind him kept their eyes peeled, glancing in every direction and keeping a hand on their guns, but they hastily followed all the same.
And then there were only the two Merry Men of Sherwood Forest.
Robin Hood was stunned. "Amazing," was all he could think to say.
"Can we go down now? My arms are falling asleep. And the rest of my body is falling asleep, too. We've been up all night, ain't we?"
"Let's give them a few more minutes just to make sure the coast is clear. And why didn't you just eat something before we went hunting? Like you've always done?"
"Because honestly I'm still spooked by the Leftover Pizza Incident from a few weeks b-"
"Okay! Okay. I understand your point. You don't need to remind me of that."
"I'm just saying, something a lot grosser could have-"
"John, We can talk about something else while we wait."
"Alright then."
Robin and John then proceeded to exchange exactly zero words for the next seventeen excruciating seconds before Little John had a thought he believed was powerful enough to break the thick silence:
"Y'know, Rob, there actually has been something on my mind."
"Is it something less unpleasant this time?"
"Well… I guess it all depends on what conclusion you draw from it."
"Oh, hell's bells, if I can handle dozens of near-death experiences in half a decade, I can probably handle whatever you want to talk about."
"Now that's more like the Rob I know. So… you, uh… you remember that one time, awhile back, I forget what we were running from, but we were running from something just like today, and we wound up in a tree just like this, and…"
"I remember a few times like that."
"Yeah, but do you remember after we had a minute to mellow out, we were just hanging out there in the tree, talking about life, and… I thought, hey, I've got a tough question on my mind, and I'm here with one of my closest buds in the world, probably one of the smartest guys I know, and as long as there's nobody else around to judge me-"
"It was just the two of us?"
"Yeah, I remember it was just the two of us, but… um…" Little John wished he had paid more attention to his friend's vast vocabulary so that maybe he could have learned some fancy words himself to find a delicate way to bring up some not-so-delicate details. "I think I remember that it wasn't really, uh, normal yet for it to just be the two of us."
"...I see."
"I'm sorry, Rob, I couldn't think of a better-"
"It's alright, John, the past can't hurt me now."
"Rob-"
"Continue, Johnny, I'm on the edge of my seat seeing where this is going. I don't think I remember this conversation we had quite yet."
"...I asked you, 'Hey, Rob, are we the good guys, or are we the bad guys?'"
"I remember!"
"You remember?"
"I do! I remember you asking that and me thinking, what kind of question is that?"
"And that's what I was afraid of."
"...What do you mean?"
"I think I mentioned something about our whole 'rob from the rich to give from the poor' thing, because I remember you just responded with your little 'Oh, silly Johnny, rob is such a dirty word, we're just borrowing from people who can afford it.'"
"I remember that! And I still think that the only use for those three letters should be when a very close friend calls me by my-"
"Yeah. Yeah. Rob. I know. I remember. Well I was trying to ask my very close friend about something that was wracking my brain. Something that was seriously bugging me. And you laughed it off with a smart-alec little quip."
"Oh…"
"Eeyup."
"Little John, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were-"
"'The past can't hurt me now, Rob.'"
"...Yes. Right. B-but tell me, now it's bugging me - do you still have apprehensi-"
"Robin, cut it out, that's not my question anymore. I've got a better question now."
"Ah. Alright. Well… what can I answer for you?"
"...Son of a bitch, now I forgot."
"Maybe it'll come back to you."
"It better! I've been thinking about it for forever now, and now I can't make a sentence out of it."
Robin just looked morosely down at his friend while Little John stared determinedly into space thinking about what it was he wanted to say.
"...We were soaking wet," Robin recalled.
"What?"
"I'm starting to remember that exchange of ours; I could have sworn we were wet for some reason."
"...We bumped each other into the river!"
"We did?"
"Yeah, on the log bridge!"
"On a log… Yeah, we did! A-and I think I remember that it was because we were joking around and being all gentlemanly to make up for that time that we first met, and-"
"We both thought the other was gonna go first!"
"Precisely! And we were being so silly and chipper that we didn't even look where we were going."
"There ya go!"
"This… heh, this is amazing, Johnny; it's all flooding in at once. And then we had to get out of the river because a cop saw us and started shooting at us, and… and we got out of the tree when we saw a motorcade for the Prince Mayor and we just had to make ourselves pretty and loot him."
"What was he even doing in these parts again?"
"I think he was trying to make some statement about the environment and nature - some propaganda to look like a good guy. And then they had to cancel the event because of us! Huh-ha!"
"Oh yeah, that's why the cop was in the forest, he was keeping watch!"
"Exactly as I recall, Johnny. Exactly as I recall…" The mood was successfully brightened for a moment as the two reminisced about times past, and the guys just sighed contently as they stared at the forest in front of their eyes, thinking of all the other wacky adventures they'd been through in its sanctuary. But the tension that was brewing earlier couldn't be held off for long, and they knew that there was still some unresolved conflict that needed to be addressed eventually. Robin stepped up to the plate:
"So we got distracted… that's why I never answered your question. Or at least I didn't do it thoroughly enough."
"Rob, it's fine. It's not the past I'm concerned about."
"Have you remembered what's ailing you?"
"I… I still don't have the right words for it, but here goes: what are the rest of our lives gonna be like?"
"...What do you mean?"
"What do I me-!? Rob, it's the most straightforward question I've heard all day. Where do we go from here?"
"I-I mean, yes, I understand that, but how does one even go about answering such a question?"
"Say words, make sentences. I thought you were the smart one."
"John, none of us have all the answers. All I can say is that I know that I'm going to keep fighting until The Prince Mayor either stops ruining the lives of helpless people, or… he stops doing anything at all, if you gather my meaning. And I trust that you'll be right there beside me."
"Okay. I'm with you so far. But then what happens?"
"Well… when our jobs are truly done, we can return to our normal li-"
"Rob, I'm starting to seriously wonder if you don't know squat about the American justice system. And I'm no expert on how it works in England, but over here, well-intentioned crime is still frowned upon, and it don't get pardoned very often."
"Then our jobs will not be done until the new government is fair and just-"
"So what, we fight corruption with more corruption to get a guy we like in City Hall? We switch gears from being outlaws to being a fuckin' underground political machine?"
Robin looked down at Little John and for the first time in a few minutes he made eye contact with him that lasted more than a passing moment.
"Little John… please don't tell me you're getting cold feet now."
"Are you seriously accusing me of being a coward because I'm thinking about our long-term safety!?"
"Little John…" - a deep breath made clear that he wasn't going to answer that question, for he had something bigger to say - "...when I chose this life, I did it because I thought it was something that needed to be done, but nobody was doing it. I saw that something was wrong and I wanted to try to fix it in a way nobody else was trying. But I was young. I was stupid. I-"
"No shit! And you still are young, and sometimes you're still stupid too!"
"I didn't have a plan, Little John, I was just living in the moment. I was trying to be as selfless as possible, because I thought that that was what the kind of person I wanted to be would do." He broke eye contact and gave his attention to his left elbow, propping him up from a branch. "And maybe I was wrong."
"Rob, I'm not holding that against you. I'm just worried that it's been seven years of our lives and we still haven't made any progress-"
"Do you think I don't worry about that, too!?" They were making eye contact again. "Do you think I knew it would take so many years? Do you think I'm happy knowing that I've had to abandon my family and lose so many of my friends and lay awake at night wondering whatever happened to that girl I loved? Do you-?"
"Rob! Rob, simmer down. Listen to me. When I asked you that day 'are we the good guys or the bad guys?' I didn't need a lesson in fucking moral grayness - I was asking for reassurance that we were closer to good than bad and not just the lesser of two evils. I was trying to see if you had any of the same… fucking… I don't know, 'insecurities'? Is that the word? I wanted to know if for even one passing second your charismatic ass was unsure of yourself even a little. I wanted to know that I wasn't fucking alone, Rob. And you laughed it off and turned it into another chance to rally the troops with your army of one fucking guy. Just like you always do. And all I could say to that was 'Oh, we're just borrowing? Well, boy are we in debt!' because I didn't want you thinking I was some whiny little bitch. Should I have to feel like that when I'm talking to you? Do I have to feel like you're going to lord over me with your unfailing frickin' self-confidence?"
Robin looked away again. He was still in disbelief that this conversation was even happening.
"Well showing a lack of confidence isn't a good leadership quality, now is it?"
"Rob, I haven't stuck with you through all of this because I think you're a good leader! I hung around because we were fucking friends! We were all friends! Maybe you thought we were just followers in your merry little band of badasses, but I wouldn't have stuck around for more than a week if I didn't think that on some level you thought of me as your equal. Am I a fuckin' friend to you? Because I know that when things were good, and we were an unstoppable force and nothing could get us down, the rest of us didn't think we worked so well because we were an army under a colonel - we thought we were a team. Of friends."
That was a lot of information to take in, and Robin's brain was inundated. But he knew he had to say something before too long, lest he let the embers in Little John's heart burst into another tirade. The full truth was that ever since he himself invoked the memories of the one he loved, he was trying to quell any forlorn feelings that might distract him, but he was failing at keeping them at bay so distract him they did; however, surely Little John wouldn't take an explanation of this as an acceptable answer. So he tried to piece together the key words he'd heard and formulate a passable response. This is the best he could come up with:
"Well as they say, never go into business with your friends."
"Oh, shut the hell up!" Little John took an arm off the tree and socked Robin square in the shin; Robin's leg got knocked off the branch and his other foot went with it. Robin yelped a bit as the impact almost tossed him out of the tree, but he caught himself on the upper branch with his chin and armpits. He flailed and grunted quietly and shamefully as he kicked his legs up to catch the lower branch again and stand himself up, burdened by the pig disguise he was still wearing, but Little John didn't let this distract him.
"Wrong answer, Rob," he pressed on. "At least you have a girl to miss. Let's say by some miracle Jesus himself takes the escalator down from heaven and personally makes Norman pardon us. Then what do I do? Go join Tuck and become a goddamn priest? While you use your pretty-boy charm to win Marian back over and then you two live happily ever after and you never fucking think to me again?"
"Johnny - hrm - my friend - hmmp!..." Robin was finally getting the footing to prop himself back up in the branches. "...You've been the most loyal companion I've had in my time out here. You've stuck with me through thick and thin, and even when I didn't deserve you. And I've wondered whether I would have ever have met a man as great as you if I didn't throw away my future and turn to a life of… a life like this. I'm indebted to you, Johnny. Even after the day that one of us is burying the other, I'm not going to abandon you. I don't think I could live with myself if I did."
Little John needed to breathe for a second and collect his thoughts, because clearly this conversation wasn't accomplishing what he'd hoped. The way that Robin may or may not have suggested he thought John was going to be the first of them to die wasn't making it any easier.
"That's not what I'm worried about, Rob." Little John glanced up at him to see if he was looking down at him, and he was. "Let me try putting it this way: You asked do I think that you don't feel a little bad about spending your life this way? I. Don't. Really. Know. You seem so obsessed with showing the world that you're a cross between Jesus and Superman, even I don't know what your problems are - besides Marian. Don't mention Marian. She's the exception that proves the rule. But really, Rob, I've shown you my… uh… 'insecurities,' I guess, in ways that I would be downright mortified to do with anybody else. The boys back home would beat my ass half to death, my father would just glare at me without saying a goddamn word, my mom would be apologizing to my dad for making me a softie, and my brother… he wouldn't understand. The dumb son of a bitch fundamentally wouldn't understand that I have worries; he would just tell me to forget them and chill out like him. So Rob… maybe you aren't obligated to share your own fears and worries with me, but… I'd feel better about myself if you did. I'd feel less weird feeling bad about things if I knew you did too. And for Christ's sakes, some heroic flaw like lovesickness doesn't count. I'm not trying to take that away from you. But it doesn't count."
Little John needed to catch his breath after that speech, giving Robin some time to think about what to say.
"...So… you think I should be more… what, 'vulnerable'?"
"I don't care what word you use, Rob. Just be a person. Be a friend."
"Johnny, I really do apologize if I can come across as… 'condescending,' shall we say? I just-"
"Rob, you're a smart guy with smart ideas, and a lot of times it makes sense to listen to you. But…" - a sigh as big as he was - "Rob, I love ya, man. You know you're my brother."
"As are you to I, Little Jo-"
"But I have another brother. A real one. A - what's the word? - a biological one. And everybody likes him, too. And everybody wants to be around him, too. And he tries to be a good guy and he thinks he is a good guy, too. But when he fucks up, he still thinks he's being a good guy. And that's why I can't stand the son of a bitch."
"I see."
"..."
"Well I don't want to lose a brother again."
"Oh-! Fuck, Rob, I'm sorry, I didn't even think about-"
"You have nothing to apologize for, John. My feelings are my own responsibility."
"...If you insist…"
They could feel that the heat was dying down - not just in their argument, but in the fact that their outright yelling hadn't attracted anybody, law enforcement or otherwise, to their location.
"I think there were still three of us."
"What?"
"That day you asked the question about good and bad. I could swear that when that happened, there were still three of us."
"It was only two of us in the tree."
"Yes, but I think while we were there, he was off on his own little exploits."
"Oh, yeah," Little John recalled. "Dumb son of a gun… I'm sorry I brought up all these bad memories, Rob, honest."
"Johnny, no, it's fine. I actually rather enjoyed it. There's nothing like memories so vivid that they can take you right back to a happier time."
"...That you're right, Rob."
One last helicopter passed overhead. It would be the last one they'd hear that day.
Hhhrrrrhghhihhrrgrrdrrrr...
"...I'm still hungry."
-IllI-
After about half and hour of hanging out in a tree and playing a very low-energy game of 20 Questions, the duo agreed that it was finally safe to come out of their makeshift perch and investigate the damage done to their real home.
It wasn't so much that the mess itself was devastating, but more-so what it represented: the end of an era of peace and prosperity. For the longest time the Major Oak was a safe haven for those who dared oppose the regime of John Norman and his cronies, a little slice of the world all to their own that nobody else had ever managed to find and that nobody, they thought, ever would. It was a representation of a time when it seemed like the self-proclaimed Merry Men were just on the verge of compelling the Prince Mayor to get the hell out of Dodge for fear of his life.
But things fall apart. Each time that the gang was pared down a member, they had to reconvene and restrategize to accommodate for their new group dynamic. All of their momentum was lost, time and time again, and Mayor John was instilled with a new sense of confidence, convinced that these mysterious menaces actually had no idea what they were doing and that their guerrilla tactics would eventually become unsustainable. And now there were two, resorting to simple robbery and redistribution to and from people and places, hoping such disobedience would get the job done. And now their perfect hideout was compromised. Even among vagabonds, they were homeless.
Robin and Little John walked slowly through the debris, careful to sidestep their possessions. "It's gonna take awhile to clean up this mess," Little John lamented.
"That's the thing, Johnny," said Robin, "I don't think we should. We know they're coming back to see if it's really us. So I say if we just leave everything where it is while we're away, perhaps they'll think this camp was abandoned after all. Does that sound logical?"
Little John gave him a sideways look. "Alright, a couple questions. First off, 'while we're away'? Where are we going? I thought we were just gonna hold down the fort and defend our turf."
"I find that tempting, too, Little John, but I think we're just simply outnumbered."
"Hrmph. Don't remind me," Little John growled. "But as for the plan, here's my thing with it: it makes sense and all to throw them off, but…" Little John gestured to his Reginald Chutney costume. "...I really want to get changed right about now."
Robin looked down at his own blind-rich-pig getup. "Yeah, I could probably maneuver better without this thing on." The two of them were standing almost perfectly still as they conversed, not having much else to do but occasionally turning their heads again to see what more of the mess they'd missed.
"How much do you think Martin told the cops? Do you think I gotta retire the character?"
"Perhaps it is for the best; we've had some good times with old Reggie, but we may have been pushing our luck by not taking him out of our rotation after a bit." The thought occurred to him that they had been pushing their luck a lot more than usual lately, but he didn't want to stray from the pressing issue of their immediate safety. "And if they're looking for us, it's probably best we're not in the costumes we were seen in. I for one welcome the chance to never have to wear this thing again."
"Wait, where did your mask for that thing go?"
Robin's eyes pursed open and he examined his person, patting himself down to see if he had somehow squeezed it into one of his pockets and forgotten about it.
"You didn't leave it where we lost the loot, did ya?"
"Now I'm afraid I left it at the side of the road by Martin's car. All I know is I don't have it now. Oh, bloody hell, bloody hell…" Robin cursed himself. "That's another issue, isn't it? If we take these off, what do we do with them? Leave them here for them to find key evidence?"
"Well, I think they already have plenty of evidence against us, it's just a matter of finding us…" Little John kept scouring his surroundings to see what had gotten dirty. "Actually, it looks like Ward tossed out a bunch of our costumes and didn't even put two and two together!" John picked up a wig that was under a fallen bag of potato chips - and while he was bending over, he picked up the chips as well. "Goddammit, I can't wait any longer," he grumbled as he went to town on the party-sized bag of Carolina Barbecue.
"Shall we just hide these clothes with the important stuff?"
"Oh, there's another question," Little John coughed through a full mouth. "What should we take with us? How long we gonna be gone for?"
"Oh, at least a few nights until the trail goes cold…" Robin pondered.
"Should we take our weapons?"
"Oh, most definitely."
"All of them, or just ours?"
"Hm… I'm not sure myself…"
"Because-" -gulp- "I don't want to risk losing them, but I don't think we will, either. I mean, are they going to climb a tree in the dark looking for something that might not even be up there?"
"Johnny, you make a good point."
"How about our documents? I know you don't like having them on you, but I think it's better than risking letting them find out exactly who we are. We can risk losing their stuff, but I don't want my SSN card getting lost."
"Hey, you should've burned it then!"
"Rob," -stuff, crunch- "remember, I don't know how things are in the U.K., but here you really don't want to be running around without papers."
Robin just sort of stared up at his friend contemplatively.
"What?" Little John offered the open end of the bag to Robin. "Ya want some?"
"You know what, Little John?" Robin put one hand on his hip and wagged a finger on his other hand at John. "I'll defer to you. You call the shots this time."
Little John stopped chewing when he heard that. "Really?" he asked through a full mouth.
"I mean, my decisions have gotten us into a bit of a mess lately, so… maybe your decisions can get us out of it."
Swallow. "You sure?" Little John looked intrigued by what was transpiring.
"Hey, Johnny, I've been on a cold streak. Maybe I should step down from being The Ideas Guy. At least for a bit."
"Well, uh…" Little John chuckled to himself. "I don't know if I can trade you the role of The Big Guy."
"Then I'll just be The Right-Hand Man," Robin said with a smirk. He could tell that after the row they had earlier that Little John was seriously liking where this was headed, and watching the bear's face light up made his own face light up. As he often did, he felt good about making others feel good. If anything, he almost felt too good about it.
"Oh, uh… alright, then! Um… so where do we start?"
"Why, at the beginning," Robin joked. He was halfway uncertain that that remark would set John off again, but it was already halfway out of his mouth when he figured that, so he just let it finish and hoped for the best.
"Alright," was all Little John said at first.
Robin breathed a mental sigh of relief. Okay then, this actually might go pretty well, he thought.
"So we're taking our pieces and our papers…" Little John looked pensively up at the tree as he threw another chip in his maw. Crunch, crunch. Gulp.
Hopefully this will make him feel better about himself; he's no good to me as a sad-sack, Robin's mind meandered.
"...We can't wear our costumes - we don't want to wear our costumes - but we can't leave them here, either…"
I still can't believe that he was acting like such a baby up there.
Crinkle… crunch, crunch, gulp.
Has he secretly somewhat resented me all these years, or is this a new development?
"...and we need to make them think that we were never here. Hmm…"
Oh, what am I thinking!? This lad's had my back more times than I can count. Surely if he had a real problem with me, he wouldn't have hesitated to say so. I mustn't be thinking so lowly of him.
Robin waited with bated breath and tried his hardest to maintain a neutral countenance.
"Hmm…" Little John kept pondering to himself. "You know what? ...I don't think ol' Ward's got a photographic memory. I'd wager we could probably get away with taking a few things and he wouldn't tell the difference."
Robin acted intrigued. "Oh, but what if his deputies can tell?" C'mon, Johnny, don't back down. Think of an answer and stick with it.
"Uh… you know, tell me. Tell me if you can name one thing yourself that you can tell isn't on the ground now, that was on the ground earlier. Can you tell the difference?"
Robin looked about the things strewn around. "Is- is this a hypothetical? Is there actually something that got moved?" Ooh, caught me by surprise there, Little John!
"Yup. Wait. Actually, two things." Little John scarfed another handful of chips as he gave Robin some time to unravel the riddle. Gulp.
Hm, he may have actually stumped me- oh. Oh, he's talking about the crisp bag. Chip bag. Whatever it's called. The other thing must be the wig, right? Was he giving me a clue or could he just not contain himself?
"Because if someone as sharp-eyed as you can't even tell, then I'm sure Ward and his goons don't have a chance." Crink, crinkle… crunch, crunch.
"Uh, I… I submit. What am I missing?" I'll let him have this one. He's earned it.
Little John just grinned as he held up the bag of chips with one paw and the old blonde wig in the other.
"Huh. You actually threw me for a loop there, Johnny!" Good lord, he goes off on me for being a condescending prick, and now that I know I'm being condescending, he seems to be loving it.
"Did you actually get stumped or were you just playing dumb for me?"
"Johnny, you stumped me like a truncated tree." And Little John believed that; Robin could tell.
"Alright, then it's settled! We can get changed, and take a few other things we need as long as we don't take too much to make it suspicious."
"Sounds splendid." Although I really didn't care for that comment that missing Marian was too romantic to count as legitimate sorrow, or whatever it was he said.
"And- actually…" Little John dropped the wig and the bag of chips and started yanking up at his collar to doff the ill-fitting Reginald Chutney dress-shirt.
"Uh… where're you going with this, Johnny?" I know right now I could say that I'd never wish to choose to cut either of them out of my life, but if he were to force me to pick between having her or himself in my life… that would just about make my mind up for me. Wait… does he just not understand what I'm feeling? Oh my God, he doesn't understand, does he? My, my, I almost find that pitiful. But then again, I must be quite the lucky one…
Little John held the stretched-out shirt in his hands and examined it, with special attention given to the corners of the garment. "Do you think we could tie these into bags to carry our stuff in?"
"Good question. I don't see why not." But none of this matters because Little John would never be jealous and childish enough to pose an ultimatum between a man's best friend and a man's true love, right? Right… right?
"Well, there's gotta be some sticks in the forest, right? We'll carry them like bandanas on bindles."
"That way we won't be leaving them behind, but we won't have to wear them either!" There's a simpler solution than gathering sticks, but he still has time to have it come to him. In all, I'd say this went pretty smoothly. If a bit slowly, but I suppose I did put him on the spot a bit. That can spook even the wittiest man.
"And they won't look like the clothes when they're all balled up, neither!"
"Ooh, I didn't even think of that! I'm liking this idea, Johnny." Robin gave a pedagogical, you did good, kid kind of smirk up at the bear who nevertheless had six years of age and a solid meter of height over him.
"Oh! Well, uh…" Little John chuckled nervously, "I'm glad you like it." He was almost blushing through his fur as he looked down at the fox; John was seriously amazed by the quick turnaround of attitude from just a little while earlier. This wasn't the first time that John was given the reins to come up with and implement an idea, but most of the past instances were instantaneous moments of brilliance when he beat Robin to the punch before the fox could think of his own solutions; this was the first time in a long time that Robin specifically abdicated decision-making responsibilities to him, and certainly the instance where John received the most encouraging feedback on his choices. And it was so much like what he wanted that he didn't even think to consider that maybe Robin was playing into him.
"Excellent! I'll get what we need from upstairs and then we'll start packing!" Robin squirmed out of his cumbersome Glenjamin Glutton getup and walked a jagged path to collect his regular clothes en route to the base of the Major Oak.
Oh, damn it to hell, why do I keep thinking like this!? Little John is one of the best blokes I've ever met, easily the loyalest, he's smarter than I give him credit for, and I cannot figure out why I keep thinking of him as some younger guy. Heh, maybe his nickname is having that sort of effect on me after all this time…
He stopped at the foot of the tree to wiggle into his green polo shirt. I feel like I'm betraying him just thinking these thoughts, but… something just isn't sitting right about all of that. That was unlike him. At least the him that I know. I'm certain a professional would have something to say about how I can't stop dwelling on it.
He took an extended moment to check for and brush off any dirt that may have stuck to his shirt from its time on the ground. Actually, I'd like to hear and expert's opinion on how it was that when I called myself a leader, John didn't deny it, he just said he didn't like me using that term; I imagine it would speak volumes about how he sees himself. Now, would we consult a psychologist or a psychiatrist for that? Gee, I haven't had to think about distinguishing different types of doctors in years…
Finally he was ready to ascend. He glanced over and saw Little John just outside of the circle, starting to gather suitable sticks which they would never need to use. Robin forced himself to stop stalling and start climbing toward the sight that never got any easier to look at. But I don't have time for such thoughts now and I won't in the future. There's too much to be done.
Toward the top of the tree, there was a spot where the branches bent and converged at all the right angles to build some sturdy shelving. It wasn't quite invisible from the ground below, but unless you had a reason to look up, you'd never have a clue it was there. On the shelving were two sets of items.
One group was mostly contained inside of one other object, a mailbox ripped off its post and still sporting the address "1192" on its sides, each digit on an individual sticker. Inside the mailbox were two birth certificates, two expired driver's licences, two social security cards (one clearly printed much more recently than the other), one green card, one hardly-used passport issued by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (also expired), all of which were kept around just in case a situation should arise where they would decide they'd be more screwed without these pieces of paper and plastic than with them, plus a bunch of polaroids of friends and family (mostly Robin's) and a scrunched-up envelope containing even more documents belonging to people who would not be coming back to retrieve them for one reason or another. Along with the mailbox was a felt pencil-case that contained other trinkets of sentimental value which would only clutter the mailbox, mixed in with some basic first-aid supplies.
The other category of objects occupied the majority of the shelf, being mostly long and cumbersome things. Five of these six items were originally sourced from one of their earliest involuntary donors, whose hobby had been collecting classical-style weaponry: there was a bundle set of an archer's bow and a quiver full of arrows (the arrows being a mix of those original to the set which had been gathered, mended when applicable, and recycled after previous usages; others which were sourced and scavenged from places ranging from poorly-guarded renaissance faires to prep-school physical education departments' storage rooms; and a few arrows that were homemade, the product of many years of self-education and trial-and-error); two long quarterstaffs (colloquially known as big fucking sticks), one about two-thirds the length of the other; and a sheathed broadsword, the scabbard concealing a blade which was reddened by rust and other substances, and which for all Robin and John knew was only ever actually used exactly twice. The outlying sixth object was a modern hunting slingshot complete with a wrist support, provided by its original owner. The best weapons were the hardest to trace.
"Hey, Johnny!" called Robin, "I don't think we need any sticks for our load!" He grabbed the longer of the two quarterstaffs and offered it down below. "We've got one big one right here!"
Little John looked intrigued by the idea when he heard Robin call, and dropped all the sticks he had been holding and lumbered over, staring as if awestruck. "Huh, why didn't I think of that?"
Little John grabbed the staff and examined it in his hands as if beholding it for the first time. Robin reached back up to retrieve the mailbox and pencil pouch and tossed them down to John.
"You might want to finish getting changed; I just need to grab mine and I'll be ready to go."
"Right-o."
Robin turned back to the shelf and grabbed his bow and arrows, trying not to look at the things he was going to be leaving behind, lest he start thinking too much about them. Maybe this was the side of him that John wanted more proof of existing, because Robin wouldn't want anybody to see his troubled face at this moment. He tried to reason with himself that in all likelihood, these things would be safe here. They had left them here for longer intervals than they were planning to leave them now, and the worst that had ever happened to the items while they were away is that sometimes some rainwater would leak through the tree and get them damp. Oh, but now they know about the this place!, he worried. But he kept reasoning with himself. This was the same police force that had never been competent enough to catch them over the course of over half a decade; it wasn't even a guarantee that they would be able to relocate the tree again in the dusklight, let alone get the inkling that there may be precious items on a perch several dozen feet in the air. He thought was giving them too much credit.
"H-hey, Johnny?"
"Uh- I'm not decent, Rob."
"Th-that's fine, Little John, I won't look. I just need you to grab my bow for me; I need to, uh, make sure my arrows are all holding up alright. I've not inspected them in awhile."
"Oh, alright, just toss it down."
Robin shuffled the bow down in his paws until he was only grasping the top, and blindly shoved it down for Little John to reach it. After a few moments, he felt the bow stabilize, telling him that Little John had a safe hold of it.
"Be gentle with her," he said as he let go.
"Don't worry, I know how to play nice with other people's toys."
Robin threw the quiver's strap over himself so it was snugly on his back, and climbed onto the empty space on the shelf. He looked down to the ground below just for some added peace of mind. Sure enough, he could barely see the forest floor from the perch. He was sure that the items would more likely than not be safe here.
If anything, he told himself, perhaps it would be a good thing if they came back and the abandoned weapons were gone. It would be three fewer things hanging over his head, literally, when he tried to sleep at night. Three fewer unpleasant memories embodied in physical objects, suddenly gone away from him. How fitting that a master of disguise could stand to receive a blessing in disguise.
Robin climbed down to find that now it was Little John who was waiting on him. John was wearing his favorite forest-green cut-sleeve football jacket and had his quarterstaff balancing on his shoulder, with their costumes tied into bundles at each end containing all that they would need and any frivolities that would fit.
He tied them together already? God, how long was I up there?
"I got the mailbox, the pouch, some food, some clean underwear…" He handed Robin his bow back. "Honestly, if there's anything I'm missing, I'm sure we can find it somewhere else."
"I think I'd agree to that." Robin accepted his bow, which was a smidge taller than he was and was going to be a pain in the ass to keep hidden if he should need to, but he'd much rather be with it than without. "So where shall we go seeking shelter?"
"Well, my first idea was to go hit up Tuck at his church, but…"
"But that's in the city, and we can't be seen there right about now." C'mon, Johnny, use your head… Well, I suppose he did say "but"... I'm doing it again, aren't I?
"That's what I was afraid of. Are we sure we shouldn't be wearing some other disguises?"
"No, no, there's no time for overthinking. We can't stray too far from the safety of the Forest." Or maybe we should be wearing disguises, but this is the plan you came up- No. No, I'm not doing this again.
"Maybe we should cross the river and be closer to the suburbs. I mean, those were all city cops, right? We could just run out of their jurisdiction if we have to."
"Bingo! And by the time they coordinate with the suburban Boys, we'll have had plenty of time to find a hiding spot!" Good lord, did I just say "bingo"? I guess Little John's vernacular was going to rub off on me eventually. Actually, I'm surprised it took this long.
"Alright, should we get going?"
"Let's!" Robin wasted no time to take the lead and start walking westward, but Little John grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him.
"Hey…" Little John looked down upon him with a melancholy anxiousness. "Are you sure you're alright with leaving the guys' stuff behind?"
Oh, for the love of God, Little John, I just got over this…
"Or is it like you said," John continued, "'the past can't hurt you now'?"
"Ah… well, it's that…" Robin held up his bow. "...and I think we have enough to carry already."
"Are you sure? Because I can always carry more."
"John, no-"
"Rob, this is me we're talking about. I can handle it."
"John, John, please… no. We mustn't concern ourselves with the past when we have a future to worry about. Now let's go exploring to see what we can see." And Robin walked off before he could think about it any further.
"'To see what we can see'? Heh… am I gonna be going over a mountain?"
And so the Merry Men of the Sherwood Forest of Southern Delaware walked westward toward the quiet satellite cites at the far end of the wildland, the sleepy sun to their backs and their shadows leading the way, leaving their beloved home and its precious memories to whatever fate may befall it. But they had begun this time of their lives as nomads, and so they had become nomads again. For all they knew, this could be a sign that the things were finally coming full-circle, and this long and tumultuous chapter of their lives may finally come to its bookend.
'...I should have said yes to the crisps; now I'm hungry…'
*A.N.* At this point I want to reiterate that I really want to know what you think, dear reader. If you're hate-reading this out of morbid fascination, tell me so. If you think that you should go tell it on the mountain that some madman made this crossover work, tell me (and everyone else) that too. But as long as I've got myself worked up over this, it'll keep going till it needn't go any more. Peace and love and I'll see ya around. -Doby