19. "Anxiety"

That thing was happening where no matter what they did, they had a funny feeling that it wasn't the best way they could be spending their time. But neither of them confessed this feeling lest it jeopardize their confidence in one another.

After a very long day showing the boys around yesterday in eighty-seven degree heat, the two of them decided they might as well turn in early; as they say, "Early to bed, early to rise, and we'll hit Prince John right between the eyes." They overslept and woke up less than an hour before sunrise. They made a journey toward Sherwood Forest Road, not actually planning to conduct business that morning, just going to see if it was still being patrolled like bees guarding a hive. Sure enough, they saw red and blue lights through the trees, not even moving, just parked there, and they swallowed their pride and accepted that it would be awhile before their highwaymen act would be a risk worth the reward. As they left the area, they theorized that maybe word about the fate of the von Bartonschmeers got around in upper-class circles and now the rich folks who frequented the road were finally taking the urban legends seriously; perhaps there was no one to rob on that road anyway, and there might not be until everyone forgot.

Since they were relatively close by, they made their way to the Major Oak; amid all the insanity, they just wanted to make sure it was still there. They chuckled to themselves that of course the Sheriff and his men would be such cowards to avoid journeying to that place at night to ambush them, even if it would have been the most logical move on the Law's part; then they wondered if their charade of acting like the camp was abandoned had worked too well, and their self-impressed chuckles trailed off.

While they were there, they grabbed a book that they had been reading together; they needed something to do to pass their down time in that godforsaken van, and since everything they'd done the last few days seemed to tie back to waiting for the heat to die down, they were going to have a lot more down time than usual. They got back to the van and brainstormed how they wanted to spend their day. Robin wanted to get down to the financial district in time for the morning commute, but they resolved that they'd never make it in time; Little John suggested they go back to bed for awhile and wake up fully refreshed for some action all day long and into the night, but they both agreed that they were just too awake now to fall back asleep. Then Little John asked if Robin knew when the heat wave was going to end, and Robin thought that was a damn good question. They went around the junkyard looking for recent newspapers and soon found a Sunday edition that forecast that this particular day was going to be the hottest of the week, topping out in the low nineties despite strong winds. Little John mused that the people of the city would probably understand if they took it easy that day so they didn't die of heatstroke, and he was fully expecting Robin to dismiss that as cowardice, but much to his surprise, Robin agreed that they shouldn't overwork themselves on this particular day, but also stated that they couldn't stay in that godforsaken van all day as it baked in the sun. Little John proposed that they head back to the Major Oak and spend the day playing defense, or at least until they came up with a better plan of what they could do with their day, adding that for all they knew, those nutty kids might come out of the literal woodwork and tell them they were ready to get down to business. Robin consciously remembered the previous day when he saw the mural in the warehouse and felt reinvigorated in his mission, but for some reason, when he woke this morning, fully aware of yesterday's memory, he just wasn't feeling it. He agreed with Little John and they hoofed it back to Sherwood, weapons drawn just in case the cops grew a pair.

They sat perched in the branches to hide themselves, and they stayed there for a bit before they realized that they were so bored that they might as well gamble their safety to have something to do, so they climbed down, found a serviceably comfortable spot to sit next to one another, and cracked open the book.

The book was a recommendation from their drug supplier, who described it as a literary Blair Witch Project - a film that was released the second summer of the Merry Men's adventures and which they had never had the time or interest to see. In the highly-experimental novel, a young man becomes obsessed with an old, blind, mononymous hermit who recently passed away in his friend's apartment building, leaving behind scraps of a faux scholarly examination (complete with copious amounts of false citations to nonexistent sources) on a fictional documentary about a house that changed dimensions and ultimately turns out to contain a supernatural second house inside itself. The book was structured as the report being presented with footnotes from the guy who discovered it, detailing his process of finding out more information on the dead guy and how all this research on the dead guy was causing him to lose his mind, regularly further interrupted by long incoherent rambles about the discoverer's sexual exploits. All the while the author would mess around with the formatting, with words being spelled out one letter per page or entire sentences being printed upside-down and backwards. Robin and Little John had on several occasions asked their drug guy just what the hell kind of book he had recommended them, but he insisted they push through, as it was considered a modern classic. Indeed it was considered a modern classic at the time, but about a year after the events of our story, Dear Reader, the novel's author would release another experimental novel that was even more gimmicky, and the wide consensus among readers and critics alike was that the author was just an overly-pretentious madman who had been given too much credit the first time.

The main character of the dead man's story-within-a-story was the inhabitant of the haunted house, who was a successful photographer who was most infamous for taking a photo of a starving child in Africa being eyed by a vulture - which was a detail that some readers found bogus, Robin and John included, because that was a very real photograph and the real-life photographer had committed suicide after being guilted for taking a photo instead of helping the child. But in any case, in the part of the book Robin and John were at, this photographer is bravely venturing into the supernatural anti-house inside his own to rescue a team of explorers who got lost inside it, and the photographer is reluctantly being assisted by his estranged, bumbling, unaccomplished non-identical twin brother, who admires the photographer so much that he refers to him by his last name, even though they are twins and are equals and have the same last name. Again, Dear Reader, none of this was actually even happening within the continuity of the story the Merry Men were reading. In this particular part, the narrator of the hoax dissertation was discussing the rocky nature of the twins' relationship leading up to this botched rescue mission, and the boys were taking turns reading aloud, trying to playfully one-up one another on their narration skills to keep themselves entertained.

"'During their childhood,'" Robin read, "'Tom and Will were seldom apart. They gave each other the support, encouragement, and strength to preserve in-'"

"That's per-ser-vere, dumbass," Little John teased.

"Actually, Johnny, we're both wrong. It's persevere. Only two R's."

"Oh, kiss my ass, Robin."

"Anyway; '...the strength to persevere in the face of parental indifference.' ...Hm."

"You alright?"

"Yes, yes, er… 'Footnote two-thirty-one: Terry Borowska interview... Of course, their intertwining adolescent years eventually unraveled as they reached adulthood, Will pursuing photography and fame in an attempt to fill the emotional void, Tom drifting into an unremarkable and for the most part internal existence.'"

"Well, shit, I can relate."

"To whom?"

"Rob, who do you think? C'mon, it's my turn. Ahem… 'ER-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh,'" John verbalized the bizarre break between fragments in the report because the old man in the story evidently tore up this part of the essay and tried to flush it down the toilet, leaving the discoverer to piece the shards together (I'm not making this up, Dear Reader). "'Tom, however, never hid behind the… add-junked'? Is he even using that word right?... 'the adjunct meaning of a career. He never required the rhe-tor-ic of achievement. In fact, his life never moved much beyond the here and now. Nevertheless, in spite of a brutal struggle with alcohol-' glug, glug, glug... '-Tom did manage to per-ser-vere his sense of humor-'"

"'Preserve his sense of humor,' Johnny."

"Goddammit. '...and in his twelve-step program inspired many admirers who to this day speak highly of him.'"

"Oh, well good for him!"

"Before the A. A. part, I was seriously wondering if my brother changed his name to Will and became a photographer. Aight. 'Of the hard times that came his way, he experiiiiiienced the greatest grief during those eight years when he was estranged from his brother or, in his words, 'when the old rug was pulled out from under old Tom."' Okay, nevermind, this guy refers to himself in the third person, I can't relate to him anymore."

"Indeed."

"'It's hardly a coincidence that during this period of-' Wait. '...that during this period, he succumbed to chemical dependencies, went on unemployment, and prematurely ended a budding relationship with a young schoolteacher.' It's… kinda creepy how they clarify she was young, ain't it?"

"Agreed."

"'The Navidson Record never explains what came between Tom and Will, though it implies Tom envied Navy's success and was increasingly dissatisfied with his own accomplishments." ...Hm."

"Now are you alright, Johnny?"

"Yeah, yeah, just… the footnote's not important. 'ER-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh!' Aight, your turn."

"Thaaank you, Johnny… 'In his article "Brothers in Arms No More", published in The Village Voice' - which is a real publication - 'Carlos Brilliant observes that Tom-'"

"I think it's pronounced Bree-ont. Look, there's no I."

"Sure there is, Johnny! It's after the R!"

"Jesus, Rob, you know what I mean!"

"Oh, behave, Johnny. He observed that… 'Tom and Will's estrangement began with the birth of Chad-' Help me here, Johnny; Chad is the photographer's son, right? I don't quite remember."

"He'd better be the son; that's the assumption I'm operating under."

"'Quote, "While it's complete speculation on my part, I wonder if the large amount of energy required to raise a family pulled Will's attention away from his brother. Suddenly Tom discovered that his brother, his only sympathizer and supporter, was devoting more and more time to his son. Tom may have felt abandoned," unquote.' Footnote two-thirty-three… is lost. Splendid. 'Annabelle Whitten echoes these sentiments when she points out that Tom occasionally referred to himself as, quote, "orphaned at the age of forty," unquote.'"

"Pathetic and yet completely relatable."

"How so?"

"...Is that another footnote?"

"Ah, yes! Erm… it's also lost."

"I don't think less of Thor because he's a registered sex offender, I think less of him for his taste in literature. The storybook I made in third-grade art class was probably better than this. It was about an astronaut that got his foot stuck in a crater on the moon and the entire world has to put its differences aside to save him before he runs out of air. I call dibs on the movie rights."

"Johnny, we can stop reading the book if you really want to."

"I'm perversely interested. So let's per-ser-vere. Keep reading."

"'The year Tom - and Will, for that matter - turned forty was the year Chad was born.' Alright, your turn, Johnny… Johnny, are you sure you're alright?"

"...I'm trying not to be a crybaby again, Rob."

"I won't think you're being a crybaby, Johnny."

"Yeah, but I gotta consider that everyone else on Planet Fucking Earth would and that you're just the weird one."

"Well, bollocks to what other people think! Tell me what's on your mind."

"...Hrmh…"

"All that about Will having a son and ignoring his brother is making you think about what will happen to you if I ever get together with Marian again, isn't it?"

"...Honestly, yeah."

"Johnny, you know I would never-"

"I know you wouldn't, but it's all the… it's the way they stress, 'oh, the only person in the entire fucking world who cared about Tom didn't have time for him anymore,' and me wondering if I'm too fucked up in the head after all the shit I went through to diversify my friend portfolio without using you as a liaison… I'm not afraid you'd consciously cut me out of your life to focus on your lady, I'm afraid that it would just sort of happen."

"Johnny, I would never let that happen."

"I know you keep saying that, motherfucker, that's why I'm trying not to think about it! But I… keep thinking about it."

"...If it makes you feel better, Johnny, this section sort of gummed up my head as well."

"Why, because they're talking about brothers and one of them's named Will?"

"Er… yes, but, more specifically, the part where they helped each other get through a childhood of 'parental indifference'-"

"-Which I still don't fully understand about you two's childhood."

"One day I'll finally be up for explaining it, Johnny. But that and how they drifted apart, and then one envied the other for their success… and I wonder, maybe you're not the only one who got sick of me lording over them."

"Wh-whaddaya mean?"

"Hrmhrm… that passage got me thinking that maybe you were right that I can sometimes take my self-aggrandizing too far. Maybe that's why he was so… so bloody irritable that day."

"Aw, Jesus, Rob, I'm sorry I ever-"

"No, no! You've done nothing wrong, Johnny. If anything, I should thank you. Clearly I needed this moment of… well, clarity."

"For fuck's sake, this book was supposed to take our minds off our lives, not make us sad! Maybe if you sit on my shoulders, you can knock Thor's teeth in for the both of us..." Little John waited a moment, listening to the sounds of the forest, making sure there were no audible clues of anybody around before he put his arm around Robin and pulled him into himself once again. "I love ya, little guy."

"I love you, too, big guy."

THUMP-tha-thump! The two jumped as a substantially-sized rock sailed from out of the density of the forest and landed at their feet.

"GODDAMMIT!" Little John jumped to his feet, grabbing his staff and scanning the direction that the rock had come from. "Does another fucking teenager think we're a gay couple and now they're throwing rocks at us again!? How does this keep happening!?"

"Little John, mind your voice-!"

"What the fuck is wrong with the kids in this town!? Tennessee wasn't even this bad!"

"Shhh!" Robin begged, and after a moment, Little John turned back to the fox.

"Sorry, Rob, I'm just tense right now."

"Look," Robin continued. "There seems to be a note tied to the rock!"

It was actually rubber-banded, but there was indeed a piece of loose-leaf paper attached to the stone. Robin leaned forward to retrieve it (though John noticed that Robin still had his hand on his bow as he did) and sat back as he began unraveling the message.

"What's it say?" Little John asked as he leaned in.

"Oh, well this is interesting! 'Give us until the end of the week to make a decision.' Signed, our friend Eddy."

"EDDY!" Little John roared in the general direction of Peach Creek. "YOU SERIOUSLY COULDN'T JUST TALK TO US LIKE A NORMAL PERSON INSTEAD OF SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF US!?"

"Little John, quiet!"

"I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!"

"Little John?"

"What's up?"

"...I believe this has made up my mind for me. Now that we know we mustn't wait on the lads, I think I know what I need to do today."

"What's that?"

"Today shall be the day I finally face my fears and see Missus Foote."

"Oh… I see. Uh… what did you want to do besides that?"

"Well, Johnny, depending on how well or how poorly it goes, it might take up the rest of the day. Just look at the shadows."

So he did; it was already early afternoon. "...Jeez, where did the time go? Hell, we musta been reading that book for longer than we thought!"

"Strange as it is, that story sure is engrossing. But, er… Little John, if it's alright with you… I'd like to go alone for this one."

"Y-you do? Are you sure?"

"I alone was the one who gave him the bow and arrow. I was the one who inspired him. I was the one who should have known better. And if she's so merciful as to guide me toward Toby's parents, I'll go and tell them the same thing. This is my cross to bear, Johnny, and I beg you not take this as some sort of arrogance thing."

"No, no, I get it, I, uh… come to think of it, there's someone I need to see myself. Alone."

"Ah, who is it?"

"...It's personal, Rob."

"Ah. Okay. I see. Are you taking your weapons?"

"Nah, I'm thinking I'll blend in better if I don't. I'm probably gonna go get changed into something less conspicuous while I'm at it - I mean, all our clothes are right here."

"Right. I think I'll steal that idea from you. Shall we reconvene here, or at the van?"

"Honestly, Rob, with all that police presence, I think it'd be best if we meet up somewhere in town and head back together. Safety in numbers and all that."

"Fair point, Johnny, fair point. Perhaps we should meet back together at Ott-"

"The church."

"...The… the church?"

"St. Ursula's. In the little mini side-chapel they never lock up because there's nothing worth stealing in there. And Tuck'll be somewhere around just to keep watch over whoever gets there first and winds up waiting on the other one."

"Er... if you insist, Johnny. But are you sure you'd rather not just meet at Otto's house? His house has no closing time, and I for one likely won't be done until after he's home from work anyway."

And Little John just gave Robin one of those you motherfucker looks. "Well, I won't be started until he gets home from work."

"Oh… I see," Robin murmured meekly, realizing he'd just accidentally figured out what John didn't want him to. Considering his own private conversation with Otto, Robin had a hunch he knew what - or who - Little John needed to vent about without him around.

-IllI-

It's funny; as he was on his way to specifically discuss his feelings of inferiority to Robin with an impartial arbiter, if he had just looked down at his shirt, he would have realized that there was at least one thing that he had always been in charge of between the two of them.

They were in hardcore undercover mode. Not only did they not bring their weapons with them into town, but they hopped on the bus to save them some time and keep them out of the oppressive heat; this was almost always a safe move, since not only did it keep them from being seen out in the open, but many of the other passengers on the bus (and most of the drivers) recognized them, and either actively supported them or at the very least respected their efforts enough not to blow their cover. But in the highly unlikely chance that someone riding a city bus through Georgetown saw the duo and recognized them as their enemy, Rob and Johnny had an extra layer of camouflage, as they were dressed as blue-collared as they could be, and Little John had always been the one in charge of arranging their "hardcore undercover" wardrobe.

Robin originally deferred the task to Little John since he thought John would know American working-class garb better than he did. Little John had a pretty good strategy for this: sports fan apparel. Despite what they had told Alex a few days prior about how wearing a specific sports team's logo was a great way to get caught if people were looking for you, it was also a great way to hide if people weren't looking for you. After all, what's a better way to blend in than to dress like people whose only joy in life is watching people who were bigger, fitter, and better-paid than oneself playing games for the commoners' amusement?

Robin agreed that this was a good idea, but seeing as he definitely wasn't an expert on North American sports, he left the curation up to John. It was a good thing that they operated out of a city like Nottingham which, despite its population and because of its poor geography, had no major-league sports franchises of its own; this way, they could wear gear from all around the country and not look too out-of-place, since sports fans around town were left on their own to pick and choose their favorite clubs. All of these pieces of merchandise came courtesy of the employees of the Sports Authority downtown, which didn't have that vast of an in-store selection of clothes for teams outside of the mid-Atlantic, but whose employees would gladly place a special order from the distributor for the local heroes who overpaid them in much the same way they overpaid the employees of all the other chain stores and fast-food restaurants whose staff were on their good side.

Of course, they still followed one self-imposed rule for these clothes: stick to their favorite colors. If you were to see Robin and Little John walking down the street, neither armed for self-defense nor wearing their trademark garb, you would likely still recognize them because of the hues they donned. This was partially for their own preference, partially to tip off their allies that it was really them, and partially because the same daredevilry that inspired them to lead their lives of crime in the first place also led them to want to drop hints of their identity to their enemies, just to mess with them when those enemies didn't realize how obvious those hints really were.

Little John's sports wardrobe was much more elaborate than Robin's; it was a small indulgence of selfishness in an otherwise selfless way of life. While his "regular" attire was well-known to be an Eagles shirt and a Jets jacket with the logos scratched off both of them, John also owned some Eagles and Jets shirts and hats that didn't have their insignias scratched off. Keeping with his favorite color of forest green, he also found himself with a bunch of hockey gear despite not having any emotional connection to the sport, with Sharks stuff, Stars stuff, Wild stuff and Mighty Ducks stuff. He wasn't against wearing teal every so often, with a Marlins hat and a Jaguars shirt and a Diamondbacks hat, plus a sea-green Dan Marino jersey he found on a clearance rack once. Then there was his second-favorite color, that silvery-gray shade of blue like his backup bycocket hat used to be; he had Mariners stuff and Seahawks stuff and Magic stuff, and was debating getting some Lions stuff before he decided that he didn't want to even tangentially support the mayor (for similar reasons he passed on getting a Timberwolves shirt with their old color scheme when he had the chance). Once in a blue moon he would be in a mood for dark red, not unlike the red that Will always preferred, so somewhere in the hollow of the Major Oak were a brick-red Astros hat and a scarlet Cardinals shirt - Arizona Cardinals, not St. Louis, since the Little family had always been Cubs fans (not just because of the ursine connection, but because Cubs games had always been nationally televised on WGN). The ursine connection was, however, the sole reason why the Littles were also Bears fans, and although their navy shade of blue wasn't quite John's favorite, they would do just fine in a pinch.

But today, he was wearing two articles of gray-blue clothing that were very deliberately chosen: a Tennessee Titans hat and a Memphis Grizzlies shirt. Even though neither of these teams played in his home state when he lived there (hell, they didn't even play there back when he was a free man seven years ago), when he found out that the Volunteer State was getting put on the national sports map and they were going to be wearing some of his favorite colors (and especially when he found out the basketball team was named after his people), he just had to get some. Imagine his surprise when that past autumn, the Grizzlies rebranded and retired their old teal and emerald, now using a shade of blue much like the one the Titans used; he immediately went and updated his apparel, and at first he thought that the Grizzlies/Titans gear went very well together. But in just the last few days, Little John had started to make bizarre connections about it that were starting to bug him.

That shade of blue kinda-sorta reminded him of his brother. Now, under ideal lighting conditions, someone whose rods and cones were all functioning correctly could clearly see that the other Little twin's fur was as gray as graphite, but oftentimes it appeared to have a bluish tint to it, and indeed some of the kids the twins grew up with would have described John's brother as being straight-up blue; God knows that was a contributing factor to his nickname. The shade of blue John was currently sporting was still discernibly different from the blue of his brother, but the idea of a bear who is blue from Tennessee, no, from Memphis no less - John's brother loved music more than anything, and while the guy always had a soft spot for the country tunes that made their hometown famous, he had always expressed jealousy of their state's larger major city for having the more metropolitan blues and jazz sound. It was entirely possible that Little John's brother wound up in Memphis after John left Nashville - but John wouldn't know, because he hadn't spoken to his family in nearly twenty years. And the look on the mascot's face: stern, intimidating, confident, all things Little John had always wanted to be and was always shamed by his father and the neighborhood kids for not being, things that he arguably was now (or at least was a helluva lot closer than he was when he left home) but nevertheless things that he had always seen reflected in his brother. John's brother was known as probably the friendliest of the large predators in the neighborhood, but if you did something to piss him off, that big, strong, powerful, angry bear could come out of him in a heartbeat, and when it did, he'd look a lot like the Grizzlies' new logo. And Little John was always heartbroken that he couldn't be like that when his brother could. A big blue bruiser bear from Memphis… was Little John unknowingly wearing a tribute to his brother on his shirt? Wait, shit, hell, now Little John was wondering if he subconsciously only liked that shade of blue because his inner child still wished he could be his brother. But he tried to keep his mind off it. He had specifically chosen the Tennessee wardrobe combo as part of a test: when he got off the bus and he and Robin went their separate ways, would strangers on the street still recognize him if he didn't have the five-foot fox by his side? He was giving them an enormous hint by wearing Tennessee-themed gear; they knew he was from Nashville, right?

Robin's American sports clothing collection wasn't nearly as extensive as Little John's. He liked John's idea to blend in with licensed merchandise well enough, but he didn't want to always be wearing such things, for he still thought of them as a wee bit gaudy, so you could still spot him trying to blend in by wearing regular clothes with no logos anywhere on them. But when he did wear the clothes John recommended for him, he made a point to keep it with his trademark green and yellow. Robin had an Eagles shirt just like John did, albeit Robin's used the older color scheme utilizing a kelly green with yellow highlights. Little John also begrudgingly got Robin a Packers shirt just because he knew Rob would love the colors, although when Robin found out from Alan about the rivalry between Green Bay and Little John's favorite childhood football team, he started wearing it more sparingly. Robin had some shirts with the logos of the SuperSonics, as well as one for the Bucks from before they switched to purple a decade ago, and a Celtics shirt which bore no yellow but Robin wore it anyway as a tribute to his mother's Irish extraction, which was always kept hush-hush back at home; many people on the street saw Robin wearing these basketball teams' logos and remarked that Robin was definitely tall enough to play for those franchises' small-mammal-division clubs. One thing Robin almost never wore anymore was a cheapie Mexico national soccer team jersey-shirt he had found somewhere, which he stopped wearing because Latin-American denizens kept trying to speak to him in Spanish; it wasn't that Robin was offended, quite the opposite, for one of the few things about himself that Robin was genuinely embarrassed about was that he had completely failed to pick up Spanish despite having plenty of opportunities to immerse himself in the language during his time in the States (on at least one occasion, he panicked and found himself responding in the broken French he faintly remembered from his schooling in England, trying to explain that he was only wearing the shirt pourquoi j'aime le vert et le jaune before he realized that he was speaking the wrong Romance language, and Little John just had to stand there watching awkwardly, lamenting that he had chosen to take German as his required foreign language in high school at the behest of his ambiguously xenophobic father, not that he remembered much sprechen sie Deutsch either). Robin particularly liked the A's stuff that John had found for him, particularly the more retro stuff with a lighter shade of green more toward his liking, and on this particular day Robin was wearing the green-on-yellow A's cap which was a pain in the ass for Little John to find for him since even the Sports Authority employees couldn't find one in their nationwide system (ultimately one employee had to hit up a friend of his who worked at a Lids in a mall in Lemon Brook and had their distributor deliver it there, at which point the Lids employee brought it over and the Men grossly over-overpaid him for his troubles), but which was well worth the effort because the green-yellow hue reminded Robin of that stupid awesome bycocket he used to always wear back when times were good.

Today was a strange day, though. A rare sight indeed could be seen, as in addition to the yellow Oakland cap, Robin was wearing the only piece of North American sports apparel he owned which wasn't green in some capacity. It was a red Angels shirt that he and Little John had randomly found when they were incidentally in a Kmart in Rehoboth Beach two years back, the shirt commemorating Anaheim winning the World Series the previous October. Robin saw the shirt and he wanted it immediately, which confused Little John at the time, but later made a lot of sense. It wasn't quite the same shade of red that Will always wore, and indeed the Angels didn't even start using that color scheme until a couple of years after Will passed, but something about that specific red shirt compelled Robin to want to own a shirt it seemed like his brother might wear; Robin later added that he also liked how it had the word "CHAMPIONS" emblazoned on it. He wore the shirt only on special occasions, and this day was one such occasion. Still thinking of the mural he'd seen yesterday, and given his current mission to atone for ruining another young life, he most assuredly had a red angel on his mind, one who was certainly a champion in his eyes.

They both got off the Montana Avenue bus at 45th Street, just south of the Bethlehem General Hospital campus. From there, they silently wished one another luck before they walked in opposite directions. Little John crossed the street to catch the eastbound 45th Street bus to take him twelve more blocks down to Iowa Street, and Robin headed two blocks west before cutting south on the exact side-street he needed.

Residents of the 4000 block of North Idaho Street knew that if they ever wanted to be granted the gifts of the Merry Men of Sherwood Forest ever again, they'd have to get lucky running into them somewhere else, because they weren't going to be making housecalls on their stretch of street anytime soon. Ever since that fateful Halloween, the neighbors knew that Robin Hood knew that he had messed up badly, and he dared not show his face again around the site of his greatest shame. That said, the Footes didn't actually live on the 4000 block of Idaho, but they did live in a corner lot at the intersection facing 40th Street, and if there was some commotion happening on the side street, they could see it from their concrete backyard. Whereas it would be much less attention-grabbing if they breezed past on the main thoroughfare, which the Merry Men had had to do a few times in the intervening years, Robin always trying not to look at the gray row house on the corner.

Robin looked both ways and crossed 43rd Street. As he approached the Foote residence, he found himself feeling oddly helpless and he didn't quite know why. On the rare occasion that he experienced intense, unmitigated, preemptive nervousness, a simple chit-chat had never been the cause; hey, maybe this was how Little John felt all those years before Robin helped him rediscover his outgoing side. But while Robin could understand his own apprehensions that it would be a most awkward conversation, he was thoroughly confused by why he felt afraid. What was there to fear? Was Amanda going to say something that vindicated this newfound feeling of permeating self-doubt? No, no, no… she couldn't. She couldn't because he was going in there expecting her to verbally eviscerate him, and therefore there was nothing she could say that would make him feel even worse. Right? Come now, Robin, he told himself, now is not the time to trip over your own laces! Remember that mural! Be strong for Will! Be strong for Marian! Be strong for Alan and Tuck! And be strong for all the friends you haven't met yet!

He looked less attentively as he crossed 42nd Street; he knew that few people in this neighborhood could afford a car, and even fewer would have a place to park it amid these concrete row homes with no grass in sight. He kept changing his mind on how he wanted to handle the conversation with Amanda, but he knew that the best laid plans would surely fall apart, as she'd surely not follow any script he had written in his head. And besides, improvisation was one of his strong suits, wasn't it? Therefore he decided to spend his mental energy on another question: what the hell would he say to Toby's parents if he found them today? Hello there! Pleasure to meet you for the first time ever! Surely you've heard of me, they call me Robin Hood and I'm the reason your son is in juvie! Even a blind man could see that would go over poorly… hey, wait, now that he thought of it, maybe that would have been a better plan: dress up in his blind man outfit and talk about himself to the raccoons to weed out how they feel about him. No, no… too pusillanimous. They would deserve to see the real him. But… shite, what did he even know about Toby? Okay, he knew that Toby's real name was Tobin (and the lad was cerebral enough to observe how odd it was that Tobin and Robin didn't rhyme); he was nearly a year older than Skippy, despite his timidness; his parents made him wear a turtleneck sweater all throughout the year; he (like Skippy) wasn't allowed to drink caffeinated soda or iced tea, while decaf soft drinks were allowed but still discouraged; and this may have just been conjecture on the Men's part, but Robin and John were pretty certain that Skippy and his siblings were the only kids Toby was allowed to hang out with. That was it. They didn't even know the kid's last name. Heck, maybe the kid was adopted and his parents were a buffalo and a chipmunk.

Robin halfheartedly looked both ways before crossing 41st Street, but he was glad he did. While he was in no danger of getting struck by a motorist, parallel to him, some guy in an old shitbox Honda Civic blew the stop sign and raced ahead toward the main street, and as Robin looked up to give him the evil eye, he noticed a young badger boy kicking around a soccer ball on the sidewalk in front of his house, down and on the other side of Idaho Street. Maybe the loud sputtering noises from the car spooked him, but one way or another, the kid lost control of his ball, and as stray balls always seem to do, it bounced right into the path of the oncoming vehicle. And the boy wanted his ball back.

"LOOK OUT, LAD!" Robin hollered as he ran down the sidewalk toward the boy; there was no way he was going to make it in time, but he had to try. From his vantage point, the car obscured his view of the boy as it came to a screeching halt, and Robin's heart nearly stopped when he heard a loud thump.

Then, as if volleyed over by an angel, the ball rose over the roof of the car and back into Robin's line of vision, bounding right toward him. Left speechless by the sight, Robin felt the wind blowing into his slack-jawed mouth as the ball landed gently in his waiting arms. He looked up to see the car pull off, revealing the boy to be standing at the edge of the street, safe and sound.

"CONNER!" came a woman's muffled cry. A door burst open on the boy's side of the street and a badger woman ran out and wrapped her arms around the boy, collapsing into tears. "Conner! Conner, what did I tell you about playing in the street!? You… you scared the shit outta me…" she wept.

"Mommy, that fox has my ball," Conner said as he pointed.

Robin took a breath to come down from the moment and walked over to the boy and his mother. "Apologies, Master Conner," he said as he presented the soccer ball. "I do believe this belongs to you."

The mother relinquished her hug as she stood to face the legend before her. "Oh- Oh, my God, I… I knew I recognized that voice I heard somewhere!"

And Robin - whose brain was still a bit scrambled from the excitement, both that which he had just witnessed and that which was impending - was surprised to find himself not knowing what to say to that; his etiquette classes had taught him how to respond to I know you, not I know your voice, and he was struggling to think on the fly, so he just replied with a charmingly bashful smile. Judging by the look on the mother's face, it worked.

"Thank you- so, so much for saving my son, I… I don't know how to thank you-"

"Madam, I appreciate your kind words, but I cannot take the credit for saving your son; I merely helped him to save himself." There, that was better. He was back on the ball. At this point, he could feel more eyes upon him; the ruckus must have brought some of the neighbors to their doors and windows to see if it was indeed really him.

"Mom, do you know him?"

"Oh, apologies, Master Conner! How rude of me not to introduce myself! Robin Hood of Loxley, South Yorkshire, England."

"And he's one of the best people you'll ever meet in your life!" the mother added. "He's a good guy, and if you ever see him, you can know he's gonna keep you safe, just like Mommy will, okay, sweetheart?"

The boy just stared up at the towering fox.

"That's quite a nice ball you have there, Master Conner," Robin said as he got down on one knee to put the boy at ease. "You know, soccer's quite the popular sport back where I'm from. Tell me, lad; do you want to be a soccer player when you grow up?"

The boy gasped. "I didn't know grown-ups played soccer!"

And Robin tried really hard not to break his warm smile and give the kid a sideways look. He remembered a conversation he'd had once with Little John about how Americans rejected association football, and Johnny theorized that seeing how there were so many peewee leagues but nobody cared about the MLS, perhaps the same simple premise of the game that made it so accessible around the world made Americans think it was a children's sport. Robin was so wrapped up in thinking about how uncannily Little John had called his shot that he completely forgot to answer the boy.

"Uh… not to interrupt you two, but… I thought you didn't come around here anymore," the mother couldn't help but mention.

Robin stood again and looked down at her. "That's precisely what I've come to remedy."

"Oh… you mean-?" She cut herself off as she pointed down the street. Robin turned and looked over his right shoulder. In the backyard of the corner lot by the alleyway stood a bespectacled widow rabbit glaring at Robin, along with about half a dozen of her brood, plus some other young children who weren't rabbits.

"Oh, dear," Robin murmured, trying to go for cheeky sarcasm but coming across as too genuinely concerned. "It appears as though I've been spotted. I must ask though… did I perchance come on the day of another birthday party?"

"N-no? What do you mean?"

"All those other children; are they friends of her children?"

"Whah? Oh… you really haven't been here in awhile. She turned her home into a daycare to make money. As opposed to… you know, not having money to feed and clothe her own kids."

"And considering her situation, I must say that's a brilliant idea. But it's a situation I should have been around to help. I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't catch your name."

"Julia."

"Julia, the pleasure is mine. Now, please do be blunt with me," he said, noticeably quieter. "Does she still hate me?"

"...Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"Oh, she wants to kill you."

And Robin's eyes pursed open so wide that some regions of his eyeballs were exposed to fresh air for the first time in his life.

"Ah, don't worry, though," Julia continued. "She's not actually gonna shank ya or anything. She's too religious to do that. Did you want me to maybe come over there to back you up in case she loses it?"

"Oh- No, Miz Julia, I must handle her wrath all my own; I mustn't bring others into it. I do appreciate your bravery, though."

"And we all appreciate your bravery, Robin. Except for her and her people."

"'H-her people'? What, rabbits? Did I turn them against foxes?"

"Nono, it's not a race thing. I think. I'm sure she'll explain it all in annoying detail; that woman loves to talk. Good luck with her," she said as she walked back to her door, dragging her son by the arm.

"I wanna play basketball when I grow up!" said the little badger boy.

"Well we can't afford a hoop, now come on inside, Conner!"

"I wanna be as tall as you when I grow up so I can play basketball!" the boy exclaimed, eyes locked on Robin.

"Eat all your vegetables, young man, and it might just happen!" Robin answered as the badgers closed the door behind them. He stared at their house for a moment before turning to face his destiny.

He locked eyes with Amanda, refusing to cower away from her view. She looked unimpressed more than anything, but it was hard to see her eyes as the sun glared off the lenses of her glasses, which were tucked into the purple babushka-like scarf that may have seemed to be an odd fashion choice, but she had always dressed conservatively - actually, the scarf was probably actually a brilliant way of beating the heat. As he stepped off the asphalt and back onto the sidewalk, he waved politely. She turned to the children and muttered something to them, and they all sheepishly went back into their home through the back door. She turned back to Robin just as he got to the point where he couldn't help but speak, and when he did, he didn't have a clue what he was going to say, so he was going to do what he did best and play it by ear.

"Good afternoon, Missus Foote," he began. "If I may trouble you to ask, how are you doing today?"

"I was doing fine before I heard screaming in the street," she said, crossing her arms and starting to tap her foot. "Shall I bother to ask why you're here?"

"Amanda, I-"

"Amanda is my name to my friends; you can call me Missus Foote."

"Er- My apologies. Missus Foote, I will not beat around the bush; I-"

"Then don't beat around the bush by telling me you're not beating around the bush. Just spit it out, Hood."

Robin's vast experience in all sorts of tough social situations had not prepared him for a customer quite as tough as this. He realized he was starting to feel eyes upon him again. "Missus Foote, perhaps we should take this inside-"

"I'm not making the mistake of welcoming you into my home again. And I don't care how smooth everyone else thinks you are; it doesn't work on me anymore and you're not going to win me over by inviting yourself into my own house."

"And I understand that, Missus Foote, but the neighbors might hear-"

"Then let them hear! If you don't want a street full of people hearing it, then maybe you shouldn't be saying it!"

Perplexed, Robin glanced back at the crowded street full of ogling eyes from every door and window. The thought crossed his mind how depressing it was that it was mid-afternoon on a Tuesday and not a single one of these people had a job to be at, but then again, neither did he. To give themselves more privacy, he scooted a few steps further into the alley.

"Oh, no, don't you try to hide from your public, Mister Hood!"

"Missus Foote, I am trying to apologize. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for my past recklessness and I'm sorry that Skippy got involved."

"'Got involved'? Is that what you call it?"

"I'm sorry that- I'm sorry that I failed him as a mentor. I'm sorry I put it in his head that he was invincible and that no harm could come to him because he was on the side of good. And I'm sorry that I wasn't there to save him from the police when they arrested him for trying to be like me."

"And it took you four years to find the decency to apologize?"

"And I also apologize for being so tardy to… realizing that you were looking for more than my condolences about the situation. I'm sorry it took me so long to realize that you blamed me for what happened to your son… and that you were right to do so. And I apologize for putting off telling you so for… far too long."

She didn't say a word. Robin had indeed tried to apologize to Amanda back during that hellish autumn, but it was a very much a third-person apology. I'm sorry to hear that, this is an outrage, we'll avenge him somehow, to paraphrase. But Amanda had told him that she didn't want to talk about it and that she wanted some time alone. So he left and returned to talk another day, only to be told again that she was in no mood. He tried a third time only to be told that when she wanted to talk to him, she'd let him know; by this time, her grief seemed to be shifting from sadness to anger. At first, Robin thought that she was simply annoyed by his insistence to speak to her, but when weeks and months passed and he'd never gotten word that she was ready to talk about it, the lightbulb went off: she meant she would initiate conversation when and if she was willing to talk to him. That's when Robin realized that there was another way of interpreting who was truly at fault. By that point, so much time had passed that Robin was afraid it was too late to rebuild a rotted and decayed bridge. That only left the question of whether telling Robin to leave her alone was some sort of test to see if he would come to her and apologize against her specific wishes, but considering everything, he couldn't imagine she was in the mood to be asked that.

"Missus Foote, I'm not used to people I think to be good disliking me, and quite frankly… I was afraid to come talk to you about it, because I knew that with every second that passed, you would have more reason to hate me. I was afraid you would be right to believe that I'm not capable of being as good of a person as I wish I could be. That is why I delayed. I can't expect you to forgive me, but I couldn't live with myself much longer unless I tried to ask for your forgiveness."

"So this apology is entirely for your comfort and not for mine?"

Good lord, where is she getting these retorts from? "Er… as I have heard said, Missus Foote, follow your moral compass and at least one person is pleased. Though I do hope to please the both of us, and that would have no chance of happening had I not tried."

The look on the mother rabbit's face had not changed. After a moment of silence, she spoke again: "You busted me and a small village's worth of people out of jail when we actually did something illegal, and two months later you couldn't figure out how to bust out an innocent child?"

Robin was visibly flabbergasted by the logic of her accusation; of all the things he expected him to hurl at him, he had never for a moment expected that. "Amanda, it's much easier to break open an entire holding cell from a poorly-guarded precinct than to free one individual from a penitentiary, especially one that's competently guarded and halfway to Maryland!"

"Don't call me Amanda, fox."

"Then don't call me fox, Amanda!" And Robin was just as surprised as you and I to catch himself hollering. And so was Amanda. Her scowl was gone and she flinched a little bit. She looked scared. And Robin was scared that he had scared her.

"Er- Missus Foote, I'm dreadfully sorry, I don't know what came over me-"

"I think we both know what came over you, fox," she answered, looking like she was trying - and succeeding - to overcome her fear to confront someone she was now afraid of.

Robin really wanted to interrogate her about what exactly that was supposed to mean, but he knew that conversation would go nowhere. "Please, ma'am, if there's anything I can do to even… begin my journey down the path to redemption, tell me, please tell me, and it shall be done. You have my word."

Her fear was dissolving to annoyance once more. "You come here asking for my mercy and you come dressed like you just got out of a ballgame?"

Oh. Robin had completely forgotten about his urban-camouflage duds. "Please disregard my manner of dress, ma'am, it's merely a safety precaution-"

"And if you're such a gentleman, why aren't you at least holding your hat in your hands?"

Okie dokie, now Robin was starting to get irritated. He had expected her to kick him while he begged at her feet, but not quite like… this. He slowly reached for his baseball cap with both hands, pulled it down and held it in front of his chest, a bit above eye-level with the rabbit, who couldn't help but notice his wringing the hat as he spoke. "The thought to remove my hat to beg your graces may not have slipped my mind had you not interrupted me… to be completely candid…"

And Amanda thought of accusing him of turning the blame for his insolence on her, but decided to go a different route. "Such a gentleman… such, a, gentleman… That's what they say about you, don't you know?" She turned to her right slightly and started slowly moving back toward the street, probably to make the two of them both more visible to the neighbors. "Such a gentleman… so mature for someone so young. How old were you when you started doing all this?"

"Twenty-four," Robin said, still wringing his A's hat.

"Twenty-four," she mused; she wasn't facing him. "Still a boy, really. So that would make you how old now?"

"Thirty-one, ma'am."

"Pah! You may not think it, but you're still young. Still just a boy… just like my Skippy. The neighbors thought it was cute that you let him and the raccoon boy tag along with you. They said it was like you were a father figure they desperately needed. But I would have called it more of you being their favorite older brother. You were simply too youthful to be a father figure. And at the time, I also thought that was cute, but… I should have warned myself. That was the big hint. You really weren't responsible enough to keep those kids safe." She turned her head back to Robin, but not her body. "You may have convinced everybody that you were so mature, so intelligent, so moral… but that doesn't mean you were any of those things. Remind me what you wanted to do before you became everybody's favorite criminal?"

Robin took a deep breath of frustration, knowing exactly why she was forcing him to declare such information. "Acting. I wanted to be an actor."

"A professional pretender. A liar for a living. Sounds about right." She turned her body back toward him, but she kept her distance. "I was a fool for being taken by your charm. You gave me a gift and made my children happy and tricked me into thinking you were going to be the one to keep us all safe. But I know better now. People think you're invincible, but you're really just a reckless little kid, a crazy little boy who only keeps escaping danger because the world doesn't know how to handle your energy… Do you remember the Vietnam War, Hood?"

"It was a bit before my time, ma'am."

"Well the most powerful army in the world went up against a bunch of crazy guerrilla fighters whose moves they could not predict. And the guerilla fighters put up a great fight punching above their weight, but they still couldn't win. Instead, it dragged on for years, a lot of lives were ruined that didn't need to be ruined, and it all just resulted in a stalemate. Does that remind you of anything?"

It did. "I see the parallel you're drawing, Missus Foote, but if you're comparing the U. S. Army to the metropolitan police, didn't the Americans eventually submit?"

"Did you not hear me!? They quit after a decade of innocent men, women, and children were killed for what was a massive men's ego contest that solved nothing! And that number included a lot of scared little boys on both sides of the conflict who were forced to pick up a gun and die for their country before their lives had even begun! Do you really think all those cops you keep scaring the bejeebers out of have any personal stake in oppressing the poor? I am the poor and even I know that most of them don't care about any of this! It's just another job to them."

"Er- ma'am, I need to stop you there," Robin said, putting his cap back on crookedly before he might compulsively tear it up. "The police do have a personal stake in maintaining the inequality in this town. Getting bonuses under the table or meeting quotas to keep their jobs-"

"-Which they do because without them, they'd be poor just like us. They're just like us, Hood. They were desperate people who needed an out and employment with the police was the out. And you're punishing these desperate people for daring to get out."

"And that's another thing! We don't kill the cops. Nor the rich people we rob. In fact, we take every precaution to avoid permanently injuring them as much as possible! We don't need any more enemies, we don't want any more enemies, we merely see that… that…"

"That what?"

"Good lord, I'm flustered here. We see that they're standing in the way and we do the best we can. And toward this end, we don't see anyone doing any better than us. If you have a better strategy for how we can handle things even better, I'd love to hear it!" he scoffed.

"What about all of us poor people you've sworn to protect? You realize that they're taking their frustration with you out on us, right? It came to a head once, then the bubble popped, and now it's festering up again. Taxes are rising, people are being arrested over nothing, and even for people who're in the same spot as they were seven years ago, that seven years of no progress has destroyed the hope they once had. The hope you once promised them, the hope they once believed you would deliver."

"What on earth are you talking about!? Every single day we meet countless new people who know who we are and their faces light up when they see that we're-"

"Robin," Amanda nearly growled. "They're faking it. They're faking it so you'll keep going and giving them the small gifts that fix their short-term problems. But these are my people, Hood, not yours, and I know them better than you do. I know that none of them actually believe that you're going to be able to fix the big problems in this town. Not anymore. You had a shot a few years ago and you blew it."

Robin really wanted to contest that it wasn't their fault that things fell apart that fateful September, but he knew that she wasn't going to care.

"Your ways aren't working, Hood," she continued. "Either come up with a new plan like the strategic genius everybody thinks you are, or get the heck out of the way and let someone else do it - someone who knows what they're doing."

Robin was losing his patience with himself for losing his patience with her. "Missus Foote, you're far from the first person to tell us that you don't have faith in the efficacy of our methods!"

"Well, with any luck, maybe I'll be the first one you'll have the mind to listen to." And then she turned and made her way back to her door, many of the children crowded at the glass to witness the altercation. "You've wasted enough of my time. Now please don't ever show your face around my house ever again."

"So there's nothing at all I can do for you, is there?" Robin felt the need to at least try to ask.

SLAM! Click.

And then he was alone. Wow. That was… that sure was something, alright. It was brutal and it tested his emotional strength, but he didn't know many people who could have handled it better.

Oh, yeah, there was the other thing he came here to ask.

"Missus Foote?" he asked as he knocked on the door; the home was very much scaled down for the habitation of smaller species, so he was nearly as tall as the doorframe. "Missus Foote, please, I have one more question to ask. This is nothing self-serving; I must know this for someone else's benefit!"

As he expected, there was no answer.

"Missus Foote, please, tell me where Toby's parents live! I've never even met them, and they deserve an apology as well! Please, ma'am, be gracious."

No answer. Robin turned and looked at the window, which because of the smaller scale of the house was entirely below his line of vision. A bunch of toddlers and early-elementary-aged children seemed to be clambering on top of one another to get up high enough to catch a glimpse of the legendary fox. Many of the children were rabbits, the youngest of whom couldn't have been Footes since Roy had passed seven years ago; in the daycare there was also a beaver, a badger, a sheep, an otter, and still others he couldn't get a good view of. But he couldn't help but notice that there wasn't a fox kit anywhere among them. He told himself that with all the diversity of species in this town that that was purely incidental.

Upon further inspection, he realized the window wasn't even locked. Robin had no plans to break into her home (as easily as he could have done that), but he did have a more polite idea. He put his paws on the window's glass and slid up, managing to get it open just a tinge.

"Hi, Robin," said a little rabbit girl dressed in pink. She was just big enough to talk through the gap. Oddly enough, she also seemed mildly disinterested; she wasn't glaring or anything, but she looked like she was only talking to him to do him a favor.

"Tagalong?" Robin asked, faintly recognizing the little girl as the youngest of the Foote children, the one with whom Amanda was newly pregnant when Roy passed. "My, how much you've grown! You must be… how old now?" he asked, fully knowing the answer.

"I'm six."

"My, six! You're almost as old as Skippy was when we met him. Now, Tagalong, can you do me a great favor? Please ask your mummy where Toby the Turtle's parents live so I can see them. Tell her she doesn't have to speak to me; she just has to give their address to you so you can tell it to me. Can you do that for me?"

"Okay," she said, and she hopped away from the window. Robin stood there for a moment waiting, saying hello to the children who said hello to him. He wished he had a logical spot in that exchange to ask what Skippy's real name was, but whatever, he would surely have another chance eventually. He could feel through the gap in the open window that the home had functioning air conditioning, but it wasn't functioning well.

After a minute, Amanda would be the one coming to the window, looking thoroughly annoyed with Robin's antics. As she approached, Robin debated whether he should make an embittered joke about how he could have easily burglarized their home but he was just too gentlemanly for such a thing, but as she opened the window, he didn't even have a chance to get the first word.

"Phoenix," she said flatly as she slid the window up.

"Wh-what?" Robin asked. And to be fair, it was kind of hard to hear Amanda over the sound of her window squeaking open.

"The raccoons. They live in Phoenix now… Children! Go! The grown-ups are talking!" she shooed the kids away, then looked back at a dumbfounded Robin. "Phoenix. It's a boomtown, you know. Population's exploding. Roger heard from Church authorities that they were splitting a ward in two and building a new meetinghouse, and he felt compelled to go and serve the Lord."

Robin was seriously questioning whether this woman was speaking English. "I… I don't follow."

"Did you not know Roger was a bishop?"

"Missus Foote, I never even knew their names - I'd never met them. And what's all this about wards and meetinghouses? I've never heard this terminology before in my life. At least not with regards to a church."

"Wards and meetinghouses are what people of your faith may think as equivalent to parishes and chapels."

Robin turned his head very slowly and gave her a funny look. "Pardon my ignorance, but… what church would you happen to belong to?"

She didn't look like she would pardon his ignorance. "If you'd been paying any attention all these years, you would know. We belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

And when he heard that, it all just retroactively made too much sense. What Robin knew of the faith he knew from Alan, who had learned much about it during his exploits in the Mountain states, which was the heartland of that most distinctly American religion. Robin had always known that Amanda was religious, but he had always assumed that she was some type of Protestant. But all the clues he never picked up on: her obsession with family and togetherness; the way she alluded to being obligated to give a specific cut of her meager income to her church; her allusions to Roy's time as a missionary in Belgium when he was younger, and her allusions to her own volunteer teaching of Sunday school, which she oddly referred to as "Primary"; the way she prayed with her arms folded like a pretzel; the way all of the Footes plus Toby were forbidden from drinking caffeinated sodas or eating chocolate; the way Amanda never partook in alcohol; the irresponsible quantity of children, as if Amanda and Roy belonged to a faith that not only believed that a woman was at her holiest when pregnant but which seemed dead-set on out-producing the Catholics; the excessively conservative manner of dress for the entire family, as if they belonged to a faith that required them to wear special undergarments at all times as a uniform for heaven; the way that despite Amanda's religiosity she always seemed a tad bit uncomfortable with Tuck's explicit Catholicism; the fact that the dinner table at Skippy's seventh birthday held a dish of peas, carrots, and white grapes suspended in lime Jello and topped with Cool Whip. He should have been able to see it from space, but he just hadn't been looking for it.

"You've been fucking Mormons this whole time?" He couldn't help it, he just blurted it out. His shock was so profound that he almost sounded like an American on the word fucking.

"We don't care to be called Mormons, Robin, and we certainly don't care to hear that other word you used right before that. Especially with children around. Now goodbye."

"So the raccoons just moved across the country with their son still-?"

"I said goodbye," she said aggressively as she slammed the window shut, either not knowing or not caring that Robin's hands were parked on the windowsill.

"GHEEEaaahhh-!" he yelped before biting hard into his own tongue. Screaming his head off wouldn't have been a good look for him. "A-A-Amanda! Please! Please come back to the window! My hands are stuck! A-Amanda! My hands are stuck in the window! Please let me go!" He tried to simply push up on the window, but it was actually rather heavy. He leaned down to get his mouth close to the gap. "Children! Children, please! Can one of you open the window!? I-I'll run to the store and I'll get you all toys and candy if you can open the window!"

Through the window, he could see the kids staring at him, but he could faintly hear what sounded like Amanda saying something to the effect of Don't you dare go near that window. And the children, still looking at Robin, all walked out of the room.

This had certainly not been his day. "Will somebody PLEASE open the bloody fucking window!?" he screamed with his head leaned back, facing the sky and the sweltering sun beaming down upon him. At this point, he would take his chances screaming openly for a neighbor to come over and help him. As he was wondering what the hell was up with the way he kept incurring window-related injuries lately, he felt the vinyl windowsill vibrating, suggesting angry footsteps coming from inside the house. He looked down to see Amanda returning to the window, absolutely livid, with a small aerosol can in her hand. There was a split second where he was able to read the can's label before she opened the window, and to say that he was in disbelief would have been an understatement.

The second she opened the window, Robin jumped backward and twisted his body around. As he hit the ground, he felt a strange moisture spray upon the back of his shirt and tail, and could smell a very pungent odor that stung his eyes and burned his nostrils.

"Stay away from my family, you evil fox!" he heard her say from behind him, followed by the window slamming shut one more time. He propped himself up - a tad painful with his smashed hands - and turned to see that this time, she had closed the curtains.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" He screamed as he turned himself over onto his bottom, glaring incredulously at the vacant window. "You get my hands stuck in your window, you accuse me of harassing you, and then you try to- you do realize that's just regular pepper spray sold at a ridiculous markup for its racist label, don't you!? But what should I have expected from a member of a church who only let predator species become clergy when the government threatened to revoke their tax exemption!? Yes, I know about that!" Robin got himself to his feet gingerly, trying not to put too much pressure on his paws. "Perhaps it's for the best that I never came back to take the blame for your son if this is what your true colors are! And I should have known!" He made his way over to the hose on the wall and turned it on to soak the mace off of his clothes and body. "You told me to stay away until you were ready to speak to me, and then you blame me for not taking the initiative to come to you anyway! What was that, some kind of vindictive test!? I don't care what happened to your son, a good person doesn't do that, you duplicitous bi-"

And that's when he caught himself. This wasn't who he was. Or, rather - it wasn't the person he strove to always be. And yet here he was being some other kind of person. He tried to think how he should have handled this situation; maybe the polite thing to do would have been to take the verbal abuse submissively, but at a certain point, he didn't think he deserved all that, and Robin had never been one to take injustice lying down. But while screaming his head off at her wasn't going to make her regret her unjust behavior, talking to her rationally just didn't seem to be working much better. She had always seemed like such a sweet lady, and he didn't like giving up on people he cared about, but if this is who she really was… what else could he do?

As he turned off the water and started to roll the hose back up, he dwelled on his sheer shock that that had indeed just happened. He had heard that anti-fox sentiment was a lot worse in the States than it was back home, and he had seen some hints of that with some smaller prey species taking longer to warm up to him than others did, but this was by far the most straightforward bigotry he'd ever been subject to. And this was for a guy who had grown up in a country where "fox hunting" was an infamous pastime, wherein aristocratic prey with nothing better to do would roam the countryside looking for a lone fox to recreationally assault (usually just beatings or throwing projectiles at them, but in some rare extreme cases violating and/or murdering their victim); it was something Will had had to deal with regularly at boarding school, but Robin had never been so unlucky, thanks in no small part to his mother and Oliver refusing Robert's offer to send Robin to the same institution, opting instead for the private day-school near their fox-majority village. Robin had to consider that maybe the experience of foxes in the British Isles wasn't typical of their species globally: on the one hand, foxes were far and away the most common predator species in Britain, so most anti-predator sentiment there was heavily implied to be about them specifically; on the other hand, there were so many foxes in England that basically everybody who wasn't a hermit knew a few personally and knew most of them weren't bad people, so it seemed like most people back home knew better when thinking with a cooler head. Was that all not normal? Was this what it was like when you lived in a big city in a big country where someone could go their entire lives without actually getting to know a fox as anything more than a passing stranger? At a certain point, Robin got bored of being polite and stopped recoiling the hose, dropping the last few feet on the cement.

His backside was completely soaked, but in the intense heat, it actually felt kind of good. as he walked back out of the alley and into the street, he again felt the eyes upon him. And it was the strangest thing; he didn't want to meet their gaze. He felt so goddamned narcissistic thinking it, but, yes, he had an image to maintain. His success and survival was reliant on his audience seeing him as an endlessly generous, infinitely patient man of the people, and he had just caught himself acting wildly off-brand. Yes, the circumstances would not have rewarded him for engaging in mature behavior, but the behavior he chose instead didn't do anything better, and everybody knew it. These people hadn't seen him on their street in years, and this was their reintroduction to him. And he knew he might have been making it even worse by not returning their gazes with his famous winning smile, but much like with Amanda, he didn't think good behavior would have fixed much. He had gained a reputation of being a lovable rogue and badass rebel who didn't care what other people thought about him, and he cared a lot that people continued to think that way about him.

"Mom, isn't that the guy who you said was a good guy?" came a young voice. Robin turned; it was Conner, standing at an open window.

Julia appeared behind him. "Yeah, I… I thought so." She grabbed Conner and pulled him away from the window.

"But I heard him screaming at Missus Bunny…" said Conner, his confused voice fading as his mother dragged him away.

Then Robin's heart skipped a beat when he realized that most of the people on this street probably didn't see what Amanda did at the very end. They only could have heard him screaming about it, and with the acoustics of this street, who knows how clearly they could have heard him.

"D-does everybody understand that Amanda Foote slammed her window on my hands and then sprayed me with Fox Repellent?" he projected his voice to the street. "You all heard me saying that, yes?"

As his eyes scanned the people watching him, they meekly turned and left their doors and windows, none of them even giving him so much as a nod for an answer.

"Amanda- I-I mean, Julia?" he asked the open window, his mind completely knackered. "What did you mean by her and her people didn't like me? She didn't clarify." No answer. "Did you mean her church? ...Are you sure you didn't mean rabbits? Because she fox-sprayed me." Still no answer. Dejected, Robin nevertheless tried to be the positive force he aimed to be, and realizing that he neglected to give her a gift earlier, he pulled out one of the miniature faux-velvet pouches of cash that he kept on him at all times. He tossed it into the open window - which, as a trick of the light, he didn't realize had an outer screen on it. He thought the window was just dark because it was in the shade. The baggie bounced off the screen and back on the pavement, rolling a bit back toward him.

Now he was glad everyone had left their windows. He picked up the bag and walked down the street. His back was drying fast in the immense heat. Even as he crossed 41st Street and was now away from the scene of the incident, he cursed that he had chosen to wear such distinctive clothing; he was hoping to be able to go a bit without being recognized. At least until he could get his head straight and was no longer in the mood to berate a woman he had done wrong, be her vindictive or otherwise. He wasn't feeling like Robert Edward Hood; he was feeling more like Robert Edward Scarlett. And as he walked along Idaho Street, knowing that certain physical features about himself made him stick out like a sore thumb, he once again wondered if his great height wasn't the only thing he inherited from his biological father. For these reasons, he found himself wishing desperately that Little John were there right then, both to keep him in line when the evil in his blood began to show itself and to give him someone larger than himself to hide behind now when he didn't want to be seen.

Was she right? Were all the people that he and John were helping just pretending to believe in them because they benefited from doing so? These people were desperate; it wouldn't be that much of a stretch at all that a large chunk of these people were faking it. But he couldn't let himself think that; he had to have faith in their faith. Otherwise this would all have been an enormous waste of time and quite literally a waste of a few lives.

But then he thought of Skippy. He thought of his parting words when he left his seventh birthday party. After their day had been ruined, he swooped in and remedied it, and he left them with a message of hope. What exactly had he said? 'Don't worry; happy times will soon be here again.' He thought those were the words he used.

And as he crossed 42nd Street, Robin still believed that there was hope that he and Little John would succeed; God knows they almost did it once. But he hadn't said happy times could return; he said they would. He said that with one hundred percent certainty that his mission would be a success. And when he scanned the Footes' living room one last time, he could see in their eyes that they believed him, too. Amanda had believed him, as did Skippy, as did all the other brothers and sisters who looked upon him with awe. And Robin knew in that moment that there were a lot of other people in Nottingham who believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that he and his men would be the ones to bring happiness back into their lives. And Robin, of course, believed it, too. When he made that promise to Skippy that things would soon get better, Robin really did feel as though that with his skills, his smarts, his determination, and the best friends a man could have backing him up, there was no way the Merry Men wouldn't succeed eventually. Robin didn't feel that way anymore.

-IllI-

When Otto turned the key in the deadbolt of his front door, he got worried when he realized it was already disengaged. The regular lock was also undone. He looked down at the foundation of his house to see the piece of concrete that hid the spare key; if anybody had used it, they were courteous enough to put it back.

"Hello?" he asked as he tiptoed into his living room. He grabbed the bat from underneath the couch cushion and slowly made his way through his house toward the back door. Absolutely nothing seemed out of place; had he simply forgotten to lock his door? As he got to the kitchen, he saw a figure outside the window. He let out a loud sigh of relief when he realized who it was.

Little John heard the back door open and turned to greet the old dog. "Hey, Otto," he waved, keeping his two fingers together so he didn't drop his cigarette. "I remembered where the spare key was! Pretty good hiding spot, I gotta say."

"John? Uh… what're you doing smoking outside my house?"

Little John took a quick drag and blew the smoke out the side of his snout. "Well, shit, man, you want me to smoke inside your house?"

"I thought you quit years ago."

Drag. "I did!" Puff. "That's the great thing about quitting. Now I can have one whenever I want. Because I quit!"

"Hm. That's… that's clever, John."

"Thanks, I stole it from a movie." Drag, puff. "Oh, don't give me that look. I'm a thief, hombre. It's what I do." Drag, puff. "Got it from some arthouse short film my old roommate made me watch once. It was literally just Tom Waits and… Tom Waits, aaand... fuck, that old punker who never wears a shirt. I forget his name. Except he was wearing a shirt in this. It was literally just them two sitting around in a diner and shooting the shit for, like, eight minutes, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. And it wasn't even bad, it was just, who would wanna sit through all that talking and no action? And speaking of sitting around and shooting the shit! You got some time for that chit-chat you agreed to? About how Robin's driving me fuckin' bonkers?"

"Uh… I was about to make myself dinner."

Drag. "KFC's in the fridge." Puff.

"Oh, uh… thank you, John, that was very nice of you!"

"Hey, don't thank me too much, I already ate my share when it was warm. Speaking of warm, can we head inside now? It's hotter than hell out here."

Little John stamped out his cigarette and ducked under the doorway. He maneuvered his way around the ceiling fan and moved a chair out of the way at the kitchen table, sitting himself down and propping himself up against the wall; with his proportions, it was the most suitable arrangement for him. As Otto was messing around getting his food ready, he asked John, "Did you want a beer?"

"Uh- I wasn't gonna ask, but if you're gonna offer."

"Alright, I've got-"

"I said yes, Otto."

And Otto understood, grabbing the first bottle he saw and untwisting the cap with a dishtowel. He brought the beer over with his plate and handed John the bottle. "For the record, John, I did remember you said you wanted to talk sometime this week, but I didn't think it would be the very next day."

"And I'm sorry for dropping by unannounced, man, but the opportunity presented itself. Robin had to go off on a solo mission. Voluntarily."

Otto leaned forward. "He's not in any danger, is he?"

"No, he shouldn't be." Swig. "But I appreciate the concern, and I'm sure he does, too. I wasn't gonna tell him I was coming to see you, but the sneaky little shit found out anyway."

"Speaking of Robin, you said you needed to talk about him to me? And that you weren't feeling yourself?"

Little John took another swig. "The short answer is yes. The long answer is I have absolutely no idea where to start. Y'know, I ain't Robin, I'm a helluva lot better at talking on the fly than I used to be, especially back before I met him, but I still can't piece together an entire fucking narrative out of everything that's in my head."

"Don't worry, John, I understand. Just-"

"Which… hell, come to think of it… that perfectly sums up everything I wanted to tell you… I'm just gonna unload some thoughts for a second. Stop me if you have any questions, alright?"

"Sure. Now I'll have a chance to eat my food while it's hot out of the microwave."

"Perfect, perfect…" Little John took one more long swig to wet his whistle before he let loose. "So. Robin's been kind of a dick lately. And the whole thing is I don't know if this is anything new or if I'm just starting to see it differently. So the other day he just plain called himself the leader. Which, okay, when there were five of us, five wildly different personalities, he was the nucleus keeping us together. We needed someone to step up if he were gonna be operating as one cohesive unit, and it was all his big idea, so sure, Robin's the leader of the club he founded. Completely fair, totally cool. But now there's only two of us. There's no more big wily group needing guidance, it's just A and B. And really, ever since Tuck tapped out and Alan got busted…" Swig. "...that's when I started feeling less cool with him acting like the one in charge, because, again, there's just two of us. And I didn't really… I couldn't put it into words for years until the other day when we were really close to getting busted, and I was opening up about how I felt bad about, like… fuck, how could this end well for us? Even if we're on the right side of history, we're still criminals with a rap sheet longer than the Golden Gate Bridge. So best case scenario, we might get to be free men who're unemployable. So while we're talking about this, fucking Robin starts saying he'll find a happy ending for us because he won't fail me as the leader, and it's like, uh, buddy? What the fuck are you talking about? Because that's the thing. He doesn't seem like he thinks he's taking the role of the 'leader' because someone needs to step up - he seems like he's getting off on it. He's fucking arrogant about it. It's clear that he doesn't think my contributions are equal. And I'm just thinking, okay, Rob, ol' buddy ol' pal, sure, sure this little club of ours was your idea, but we've been doing this for seven fucking years, motherfucker! SEVEN FUCKING YEARS! I-"

"Shh!" Otto said with a full mouth before he swallowed. "My neighbor's trying to sleep. He works odd hours."

"Sorry, man. But… yeah. At this point, I kind of do expect that I be regarded as an equal member of the team as Robin. I've thrown away as much of my life as he has to help these people out. And what really cemented this was just yesterday when I saw a graffiti mural of all of the gang together, but Robin's front and center while I'm literally in the background with a retarded look on my face - a-and I'm not trying to be a dick, but I do mean that I literally look like I have an intellectual impairment in that graffiti. And… shit, if I'm being completely honest, I'm… I'm kind of afraid that he's right. I'm… I think every so often that the guy might be better than me. Maybe there's a reason why he's the main man and I'm the sidekick. Man, I don't know…" Little John looked up at Otto for the first time in about a minute, and Otto responded by stopping mid-chew and staring back at him like a spooked deer. "I've given you a lot to think about, haven't I?"

Otto swallowed. "Y-yeah. You have. But that's for the best. Let it all out."

"What's on your mind so far, Otto?"

"Uh, well…" he said with his mouth full, then swallowed again. "I guess my first question is why you feel so inferior to him."

"Oh, Jesus, dude, it's a long story-"

"I have nothing but time." Buckle up, Dear Reader.

Little John groaned and took another swig. "I mean... part of it is kinda a self-fulfilling prophecy. And by that I mean… he walks the walk, he talks the talk, he's gotten the world to think he's the head honcho, and that's just as good as actually being the head motherfucker in charge. But… sometimes I wonder, gee, what if he's earned the right to be cocky because he really is the best there is? My God, Otto, the kid's just good at everything."

"I can't help but notice you're calling him a kid."

"I mean, yeah, part of it is that I feel even worse about being this guy's lackey because he's six years younger than me. I have memories from before he was even conceived. And… I'm not usually one to load up on random tidbits of information, so don't recruit me for your bar trivia team, but I just keep running into things that came and went in the gap between when I was born and when he was. Like, my dad's favorite band, Creedence Clearwater Revival; they came and went in those six years. I think The Brady Bunch squeezed into that window, too - I might be off by a year or two, I don't know, but the world changed a lot in those six years, and every time I find out more about that, the more I feel bad about… what's with that look?"

"Uh… remind me how old you are?"

Little John gave him an appropriately sideways look. "I'll be thirty-eight in October."

"That's it?"

"How fucking old did you think I was?"

"Oh, older than Alan, at least. Pushing Tuck's age."

"Do I act like a fucking geriatric?"

"Well, hey, John, in my defense, you do have a very… mature sounding voice."

"Hm." Swig. "Well, a lot of people also tell me I have a teddy-bear face, so I'm glad it balances out. But yeah, let's count Robin's talents and gifts. Let's see… he never misses with a bow and arrow, and he's pretty handy with a sword, too-"

"Yes, because he's been practicing them his whole life."

"I'm not so sure Otto. The guy just seems to have the ability to pick up anything fast. Way, way, way back in the day, we all tried to go bowling once. The five of us. We knew the owner and he was friendly. Apparently Robin'd never bowled before. He started out with a couple of gutter balls, but by the eighth frame he'd just scored a turkey and was about to pass Tuck for the lead. He had failed at something, figured out what he was doing wrong, remedied it, and excelled at it all in the span of thirty minutes."

"...Really?"

"Ask Tuck if you don't believe me."

"Uh… wow. Did Robin end up winning?"

"Cops showed up and we split. Never finished our game."

"I see…"

"And that's what I really envy about the guy. The guy's got confidence even when he has absolutely no logical reason to. Not to say he's never lost his confidence - God knows he's had his bad days - but it takes a really bad day to get him down, and even then, it doesn't last for long. It took his fucking brother committing suicide right in front of his eyes for him to even get close to long-term self-doubt, and even then, he miraculously pushed through it. And he's so goddamn confident that he can teach himself new skills on the fly! Now, I'm not as unconfident as I used to be - I know I don't sound too confident complaining about somebody else's confidence, but just play along - but there's still a scared, dinky little cub inside of me who just can't wrap his head around how anybody could ever get to be that good at believing in themselves."

"Well, I-"

"And then there's the way he gets along with everybody. If he wants to be your friend, whether you think you want to or not, tough shit, he's gonna make you his friend, and you're gonna like it. God knows it worked on me when I was at my most jaded. And then there's the leadership thing and how he's just so good at it, but we already talked about that."

"Well, listen, John-"

"Shut up and eat your chicken while it's hot, Otto. So for all of those, you could debate whether it was a case of nature or nurture that he turned out that perfect, but do you know what's not up for debate? How did that guy get to look so goddamn good? That's one hundred percent a nature thing. And I live with the motherfucker in the forest, so I know he doesn't have any special beautification routine. And he's in the perfect middle ground between being, like, 'bodybuilder' hot and 'boy band' hot; it's like he's perfectly classically handsome. And the dude's gigantic. Like, I guess it makes sense that a smaller species could produce a gigantic specimen without a bunch of health problems since they have nowhere to go but up, but it just seems like another way that he was put on this earth to command attention. So you take all these good things about him that I know he didn't have to work on and now it's like, well, if this is all natural, how do I know the other stuff isn't? It's at the point where I could seriously imagine some reality where we win, we get our freedom back, we decide to celebrate by showing each other where we grew up, he takes me back to England, we meet his parents - probably half his size - and they decide to be polite and show us his baby pictures, and I can already envision one where it looks like someone's trying to play peekaboo with him, but Baby Rob's not having it, just staring at his mom or his dad like they're fuckin' crazy, because even as a literal baby he understood object fucking permanence. I can just imagine it. I know the guy ain't perfect, but the way he flaunts his stuff..." Swig. "...he's close enough."

Otto was absentmindedly stirring the gravy into his mashed potatoes as he made a point to keep his eyes on Little John, just in case the bear wanted to return the eye contact. "You know… before you went on all that about his physical stuff… I was gonna say-"

"I know you're a Jesus freak, Otto, so I'm sorry if all this talk about a guy's body is making you uncomfortable, but for the love of God, don't tell me you were getting the impression that I was nyeh, like the sociopathic fucking kid in the woods thought we were."

Otto had stopped stirring. "I… wasn't gonna say that. And although I would be confused at first and a little bit weirded out, I wouldn't be offended if that turned out to be the case. Please don't mix me up with those people who make a mockery of my faith by calling their hatred virtuous."

"Oh. Uh, alright. That's good to know, I guess. Well, what were you gonna say, then?"

"I was gonna say it was interesting that you wanted to talk about things Robin was good at, and besides archery, you mostly just listed characteristics rather than actual skills."

"Well, like I said, the guy's good at everything he tries because he's the single most self-confident person I've ever met, and since he never really loses at anything major, that just makes him more self-confident. And I don't know if that's a case of he got lucky in life and he always got dealt the best cards or if his brain is just wired differently, but-"

Otto leaned in as he cut John off. "You really think he's never really lost at anything?"

Little John chose his words carefully before answering. "You know what? If he has, he hasn't told me. Shit, that's something I forgot to mention earlier; sorry, I toldja I didn't have a script for this." Swig. "Part of the arrogance thing is that he doesn't ever seem to share his weaknesses with me. Or at least not the things he's really embarrassed about. Either he tells me flaws of his that he's just meh about, like how he can barely drive a car because he never really had to, or if he's really embarrassed about it, I have to find it out by accident, like how we got in close quarters with some drug pushers once and he didn't have an offhand knowledge of how much an ounce went for or how to smoke it, 'cuz he was just never into the stuff. Granted, I didn't know either as a result of my own upbringing, but I digress." Swig. "That's what I mean by lording over me. I'm his best friend - I think - and it's like he still wants me to admire him and think he's a flawless hero, just like all the people in this town seem to think. And I sometimes I wonder, does he really see me as a friend, or just a business partner? With a clear mind, I know it's the first one, but… my mind ain't been too clear lately. And he's not helping." Swig. "Got another?"

"Sure thing." Otto got up to retrieve another beer. "So, just to be crystal clear," he said as he rummaged in the fridge, "you're frustrated because Robin doesn't treat you as an equal, not the townspeople?"

"No, both. Like in that godforsaken mural. Thanks," Little John added as he accepted the bottle. "And I tell myself if Rob started treating me like an equal part of the team, maybe all the people who adore him will follow their lead. After all, his great leadership - that's one of those things that people always say about him to symbolically suck his dick. Wait, I already mentioned that..."

Otto was seriously considering finding a notebook and pencil somewhere to start taking notes. "So… are you ready for me to be completely honest with you?"

Little John was about to take another sip, but he stopped the bottle right before his lips. "Well, when you start out like that, I think I need to hear what's on your mind whether I can handle it or not."

"Alright. So… I think when most people in this town think of you and Robin… they think of the archery tournament a few years back."

John still hadn't taken a sip. "...Go on?"

"Because that was where the most people altogether at once saw you two in action. And during that tourney… well… Robin was the center of attention, putting himself in the crosshairs, and you were, uh… quite literally sitting on the sidelines."

Little John slowly lowered the beer and even more slowly turned his head toward the window. "God, dammit," he seethed.

"I mean, don't get me wrong, John, we all knew you were still helping, but it was very much a… a supporting role, I guess."

John picked up the beer again and angrily took a swig. "Now ya see, I was thinking it was the party afterwards. I was starting to worry that I was acting like too much of a goofball for these people to take me seriously. I mean, hell, it doesn't help that I was singing a song was literally about him - sure, Alan helped me write it, but Alan was a lot more comfortable being in the background, and I'm not the person I was four years ago. Back then I was content to be with Robin. Now, I'm pissed that I can't be like him. Like, shit, do I just not have that natural leeeaderrrshiiiip people always rant and rave about in him?"

"Well, in some ways, that's good that you're driven to be like him, John. He's a great guy to strive to be like."

The look on the bear's face made it clear that that was a poor choice of words.

"That… that didn't help, did it?" Otto choked out.

"Nope."

"Well, uh… hey, it's still good you have a clear goal of who you want to be like, and that you want to improve. That's more than a lot of people."

"But you don't understand. I've been trying for years now to be more like he is. Back when I wrote that song with Alan, I was in a transition period where I was happy to be around the guy specifically so he could rub off on me. Now I'm getting worried that it's not happening fast enough, and that it's not going to."

"These things take time, John."

"But seven fucking years, man! I'm pushing forty! I'm running out of time!"

"Well, I'm fifty-nine, how do you think that makes me feel?"

"Well, why aren't you panicking that you aren't more like him!? Like you just said, he's a great person to want to be like!"

"I- you know what? That's a good point, John." And Otto was silent as he thought for a second.

"What is?"

"Now, John… please, please, please don't think this is condescending to you, but… you do realize… you realize most people don't want to be heroes, right?"

Little John was visibly surprised.

"And by that I mean…" Otto continued, "...most people are content with just being normal, so long as their lives are comfortable. I mean, sure, everyone would like to be called a hero, but to do the things you've got to do to actually be one… most people would rather sit back and admire a hero than be one."

John looked a tad bit embarrassed. "I-I, uh… I… that's something that… I think I knew that in the back of my head, but… not the front of my head."

"I mean, sure, if I really thought about it, I could overthink it and get really depressed that I'm not an amazing guy like Robin is. But I have a roof over my head, a line of work I enjoy, I had the privilege to have a woman I loved in my life for thirty years, and I'm lucky to live in a world where people like Robin exist - no, people Robin and you exist - to be heroes and keep me safe so I don't have to."

Little John opened his mouth for a second to say something, but nothing came out.

"You say you were in the background in that graffiti mural? John, you were still in the mural. I wasn't. That's nothing to shake a stick at."

"...Well, I appreciate that, man," Little John forced himself to say.

"And for what it's worth, I'm just gonna say it: regarding Robin's infinite confidence in the face of danger? Me and a bunch of other civilians've always just thought the guy was crazy. But John… you're not doing anything wrong. You're a hero to this town, too."

"And I appreciate that."

Otto sighed. "John… when people talk about how great Robin is… it's not to tear you down, it's to prop him up, for being the kind of guy you only come across maybe once in a lifetime. You want to be remembered as a hero? Then please don't be the kind of guy who can't handle hearing someone else get a compliment. That wouldn't be very heroic."

The bear looked further embarrassed, and was having trouble maintaining eye contact. "I'm gonna be completely honest with you, Otto… I hear you say that and I just think, 'Well, shit, why can't I be one of those once-in-a-lifetime people?'"

"I mean… the big, cosmic answer is that then he wouldn't be special, but I know that's not what you mean. You mean why can't you be that special person."

"Exactly! If anyone can be like that, why can't I?"

"Because not everyone can."

"Jesus, you know what I meant. If… if an individual - any individual - could live that kind of life, why can't I?"

"Alright, alright, much better wording. I understand you better now. Uh…"

As Otto was thinking of an answer, Little John beat him to the punch:

"Do you think I'm being immature?"

"...What?"

"Do you think I'm being immature? For not being content with being a good friend and a good sidekick to a great hero?"

"Uh-um… well… John, it's good that you're being introspective about this-"

"No, I don't think that I'm being immature. I think that you think I'm being immature, and I don't want that to be the case."

"Oh… That's fair."

A moment of silence passed. Little John took another sip.

"This is my dilemma, Otto. I don't know whether Robin's being a bad friend… or if I'm being a bad friend for thinking he's being a bad friend."

"And I do not think that dilemma is a sign of a lack of maturity, John." The old dog sat back in his chair, only because leaning forward was starting to hurt his back. "But I have to say, it's quite frankly a miracle it took this long for you two to start getting on each other's nerves."

"...Whaddaya mean?"

Otto leaned forward again; he couldn't help it. "Now - this isn't a backhanded joke about the two of you, please don't think that it is - you two spend more time together than most married couples. And you two either have more patience for one another than those couples or you two just plain like one another's company more than they do, but one way or another, there haven't been many times in the last few years when I've seen you without him somewhere nearby, or at least when it's not part of divide-and-conquer strategy for a plan."

Little John couldn't help but chuckle a little, still a tad embarrassed. "I guess that kid who threw rocks at us was on to something. But hey, if you were to tell Rob that, he'd probably tell you it was strictly strategy. Back when there were a few of us, we could split into smaller groups so we wouldn't be stuck with the same personalities all the time. Then Tuck got sick and Alan fucked off, and now, boom, it's just the two of us, and for safety reasons, we quite literally gotta have each other's back. The fact that we get along great purely coincidental and honestly kind of a miracle. But you know what?" Swig. "Knowing him, he'd never have a problem with this arrangement. He's almost… he's almost sociable to a fault. I'm talking like cripplingly extroverted. If he didn't have someone around to bounce ideas off of whenever he wanted, he'd lose his goddamn mind. He always needs someone to talk to for the sake of it. To my understanding, him and his girlfriend might have been almost as inseparable as we are now, or at least as much as their adult lives would allow." Swig. "As for me… I know me and my shit, too. I don't feel too weird being tethered to the guy like other straight guys might be because… hey, if I can spill my guts?"

"You may."

"...I spent so much of my life wishing I had a good friend, I wasn't gonna complain when I fell ass-backwards into having a great friend. But that's part of what's bugging me: what if this guy who I'm stuck spending most of my waking hours with isn't the great friend he got me thinking he was?"

"And honestly, John? You two seem to be tight like few I've ever seen before. And I do mean seem, and I'm saying that because even if you two aren't as perfect friends as it seems to both of you and all of us outside observers, that wouldn't be shameful, that would just be bringing you back towards normal. Like I said, you two're still way ahead of most married couples, and I don't mean that in any disparaging way."

"No, no, I believe ya, I believe ya…" Little John was tempted to ask if Otto thought he and Robin got along better than Otto and his wife, but he couldn't imagine an answer to that being anything other than awkward. So instead, he asked this: "How much have you gathered about my childhood over the years?"

Otto thought about it for a second. "Uh… I know you and your father didn't get along, and… I think you've mentioned having a brother you didn't speak charitably about, either."

"Alright, so…" Swig. "...Goddammit, I'm sorry. Can I get another one?"

"I think I'll get myself one, too," Otto said as he did so.

"So this oughta make everything make a lot more sense. So for reference, my pop was… actively, actually an asshole, but he's not too important. What you gotta know is that my brother was actually my non-identical twin."

"Wait, really?"

"Yes. And thank you." Swig. "And basically the same reasons why my dad… hated him less, I guess… were the same reasons I was jealous of him."

"What's your brother's name?"

"Mister Dumb-Motherfucker-Who-You'll-Hopefully-Never-Meet. But it wasn't so much that he was an asshole that it was he just didn't know how to be a good brother. Like, when I say non-identical… I'm embarrassed to tell people who I've met as a full-grown adult this, but I was a really, really, really late bloomer, Otto. I was tiny and my brother was gigantic. People refused to believe we were twins - hell, we even had a pediatrician as kids who even he refused to believe it. And this was an even bigger problem because we grew up in an area with a lot of big predators."

"Jeez, I… if he was huge compared to you, I'm… honestly really curious how big this guy must be."

"Oh, no, we're probably roughly the same size now. Assuming he didn't keep growing after I moved out - which, hell, if I did, he might have too. Watch me meet him one day and he's twelve fuckin' feet tall. I'll be fucking fuming and I won't even try to hide it."

"I, uh… I see."

"Okay, wait, now I'm kinda afraid that might've actually happened. Because he always took after our dad more than I did. Did I mention my dad was half-polar?"

"...You did not. And looking at you, I never would have guessed you were a quarter."

"Well, you can see it more in my brother; his fur's just plain gray. And yeah, our pops was something like nine-seven, and if you know anything about my people, you know they think size lines up with your worth as a person. So for that reason, my dad always preferred my brother, and my mom- bless her heart, she tried so hard not to play favorites like her husband, but to be completely, one hundred percent honest, I kinda wish she did, because that would've been the one thing that I woulda had over him. But that's the thing. Because he never felt starved for love from his family, and because he literally fit in in society, he never had any self-esteem problems. I did. He got to be Mister Cool Guy who everyone loved and who everyone wanted to be around, who everybody wanted to be friends with, and that's all on top of how he was big and strong and I know at least a few girls in our high school thought he was hot…" Swig. "This all sounding familiar yet, Otto? Does my brother sound kinda like somebody else we know?"

Otto nodded.

"I mean, granted, he wasn't exactly like Robin. Rob's a certifiable genius - shit, that's another thing he's good at that I just forgot to mention earlier - but my brother…" Swig. "It wasn't that he was stupid, it's just that he didn't apply himself, because he lived for fun and applying himself in school wasn't fun. As for me? I didn't fall behind in school, but I didn't pull ahead either - I didn't think I was ever gonna be good at anything physically or socially, so I tried to be good at school, but…" Swig. "...even though I was trying my best, and he just scraped by so our dad wouldn't beat his ass, we still got the same grades. Maybe I edged him out a little, but there were still actually smart kids who weren't trying at all, and their grades were still better than mine or my brother's. And it's just, fuck, are our people really as stupid as people think we are? And yet! And yet…" Swig. "...the fact that he felt so confident that life would be fine even if he didn't take his education seriously… that was another thing about him I was jealous of." Swig. "And Christ alive, my brother definitely wasn't as noble as Rob is. You know what his biggest flaw was? He was easygoing to a fault. He was such a social butterfly that he couldn't relate to me as somebody who had trouble making friends. You see, my brother, he liked to fight. For fun, I mean. His favorite sport was boxing, and the only other reason he bothered to maintain a C-average was so that he could stay on the school wrestling team. So when he saw me getting my ass kicked by his friends - which happened a lot - he just thought it was for fun. He thought we were just playing. Hell, sometimes he'd start whaling on me with this stupid childlike smile on his face - he thought, as a bear, there was no way I wouldn't be enjoying this. And it's not even that he didn't understand what pre-fucking-meditated assault was; one of his smaller friends was this panther kid who moved to Nashville from India in the fourth grade, and whenever people messed with that guy, oopsie!, here comes the big behemoth to make these sorry-looking motherfuckers regret ever laying a hand on him. It was just with me that he couldn't understand why I wasn't more like him. And sometimes I think, hey, maybe if I just mellowed out and stopped being so goddamn anxious about looking like an eight-year-old, maybe if I was just confident in who I was like he was, then maybe people would respect me and then they wouldn't care that I was four feet tall. And maybe my brother knew that, and he was trying to lead by example. And that's another thing about him I was jealous of. And how he could and would stick up for his friends, not just because he was big enough but because he was confident enough, too. Goddamn, I need a drink." Swig.

Otto kept nodding, trying to focus on the details of the story and not focus on envisioning how ridiculously little Little John apparently used to be. He was starting to wonder whether the giant bear's nickname started out as something completely unironic.

"What I'm trying to say, Otto, is that this ain't the first time I've had to live with somebody who just… embodies everything I wish I could be. I've always had a specific person I could point to and say, 'Him. I want to be like him, and I'm sad because I'm not like him.' It used to be my brother, but then I found someone better than him. Somebody who I should actually be jealous of."

"...Can I say one thing about that?"

"Well, we're having a conversation, so I'd hope you have something to say about that."

"Right. So you mention you had trouble in school. Well… John, I work in a blue-collar field. Not to disparage my colleagues and clients, but I'm met a lot of people who seem genuinely unintelligent, and a lot of people who just seem uneducated - through no fault of their own, of course, because education is a luxury and a lot of people in this town don't have access to much of it. But John, you don't strike me as unintelligent. Heck, you just used the word 'embody'. I don't think a truly stupid person would use words like that."

"Oh, I just learned that word from Rob."

"But still: you learned it."

Little John glanced at a crack in the tile floor. "Yeah, yeah, I… alright, I get what you're saying."

Otto took a sip of his own drink. "So… I think I have an idea of what's going on here. You've always felt like you're not good enough because there's always been someone around who you feel like is better than you in every way."

"Yessir, Dr. Smith!" Swig. "And for awhile after I met Rob, I started feeling good about myself because I finally had somebody backing me up, but now I'm starting to feel like he's still on some higher echelon and the both of us know it."

"See? Now you just used the word 'echelon'."

"Also from Rob. Or Will. Probably both; they were both well-educated."

"But on the topic of backing people up… uh… you… you know Robin's not actually perfect, right?"

"Oh, absolutely. I probably know the guy's flaws more than anybody at this point. But knowing his public image, that might not be saying much."

"But listen, John… don't tell him I said this, but I can tell that Robin's going through some stuff right now, too. You say you're not feeling yourself? Well, I don't think he's feeling himself, either."

"Oh, sweetheart, you don't need to tell me twice. I've seen the guy cry more in the last few days than I have in the seven years before that."

And Otto was going to take another swig, but that statement surprised him. "Y-you have?"

"I mean, that's probably an exaggeration, but I'm probably not far off." Swig. "He's been thinking a lot about his brother and his girlfriend, but he's been thinking about the lack of progress we've been making these last few years. Like, we ran into this really bitchy porcupine lady the other day who told us that apparently some people who robbed a liquor store got gunned down by the cops because they thought they were with us, and Robin was shaken like a martini for the rest of the night…" Swig. "Actually, wait. Do you know if that thing about the liquor store actually happened?"

"Uh… doesn't sound familiar, but knowing the cops in this town, I don't doubt it."

"Well, it had him fucked up either way. But yeah, the thought does cross my mind that maybe me telling him off for being such an arrogant prick to his one irreplaceable friend is getting him down, and it goes back to what I said earlier: I don't want to be a bad friend, but I'm not happy with the way things are shaking out.

Otto readjusted in his chair. "Well, it's funny you should say that, John, because you may have just proven the point I was about to make."

"And what's that?"

Otto leaned forward to stress his argument. "Maybe Robin's always been this endless barrel of confidence… because he had people like you to back him up," he said as he pointed. "Your confidence in him gave him confidence in himself, and you know what? The other way around, too: you were feeling great when you believed he felt great about you. But it seems like… I'm not pointing fingers, but one of you initiated something to make the other feel like… like the shared confidence wasn't there anymore. I don't know if it was him being condescending to you or you telling him he was arrogant, but… you two were playing so well off each other for so long, and now something broke that. And it's not necessarily anybody's fault, but it clearly happened."

Little John's face revealed he had mixed feelings about that analysis. "Now, that makes a lot of sense… but it's not airtight. When I first met the guy, he was completely alone in the forest. Who was backing him up then?"

"I dunno. Residual support from his girlfriend? He's an actor by trade, isn't he? Maybe he was faking it."

Swig. "Well, even if you're right, then how do you propose we fix it?"

"You're not gonna like hearing this, John."

"Just fucking say it."

"Alright. So… Robin sees you as a sidekick? Fine. Be his sidekick. And when he feels better about himself, maybe he'll be more in the mood to talk about how you want to be seen and treated."

"Great, more talking."

"Because for better or worse, John, we've all come to be reliant on you two, so we need you both to be on the top of your game. Hey, you want to know what I think would be heroic? If you - if you, John - were to bite the bullet and play the role of the sidekick against your wishes, but for the greater good. After all, they say heroism takes sacrifice."

"So I gotta sacrifice my own happiness?"

"Well, I mean-"

"No, I get it, Otto. What you said makes sense. But damn if I can't shake the feeling of, 'shit, how much more do I have to sacrifice to be regarded as equal to Robin?' And you see, just like that, we're back in the big-picture issues. If I take the role of the sidekick in stride, that might be all they ever see me as. They might start to think I'm okay with being the second banana. And after all this selfless shit we do, the one selfish thing I want is… goddammit, I just want to be recognized."

"I recognize you, John."

"You'd fucking better! I'm an eight-foot grizzly bear sitting at your kitchen table!"

"C'mon, John, you know what I meant."

Little John sort of ran the lip of the beer bottle with his tongue as he stared at the ceiling fan in front of his face; it was spinning slowly to compliment the air conditioning, which was running on low to save electricity. "In some ways, though, Otto… I kinda don't know what you mean. I-I mean… mixed messages. So… you did say, Rob's a good person to want to be like, right?"

"John, please, I didn't mean any harm-"

"No, Otto, I'm not fighting it, I just wanted to make sure that's what you said."

"Uh… y-yeah, I did say that."

"And a few pages later you said I should just… accept the role of the sidekick."

"For now. As a means to an end. But to answer your question, yes, I said that."

"Okay, so which is it?"

"...How do you mean?"

"You said be more like him and you also said stay under him. I can't do both."

"Hm…" Sip. "Actually, John, I'd argue you can only do both, and that that's only one option. The idea is you can either try to emulate him while you take the role of his protégé, and then you can be ready to be more like he is for when your work in this town is done and you can reenter the civilian world-"

"Well, wait. Stop." Swig. "For one thing, Rob's skillset only lends itself well to his outlaw lifestyle. That's one of the few things he's actually ashamed of: he didn't get very far in the real world before he fucked off to Sherwood. And because of our outlaw lifestyle, we're not so sure there's ever gonna be a time when we can just up and reenter the civilian world."

"Well then, there's your second option for more immediate results. Pretend to be okay with taking a backseat, but make it clear that you want him and everyone else to start giving you co-star billing. And you can get that co-star billing easier by not trying to emulate him at all, just be yourself - your best self - and bring to the table what he can't. If you two were really two equal parts - and I agree you should be - then it would be boring at best and wasteful and redundant at worst if you two were exactly the same person."

"Okay. Otto. Again, that makes sense, but for Christ's sakes, I've been trying that for years! It hasn't worked."

"I… thought you said you were trying to copy him? I-I-I mean, I'm not trying to be difficult, that's just the impression that I-"

"I was trying to do both. I was trying to copy his confidence more than anything. I had it in my mind that if I really wanted to be like him, I should play to my strengths and not dwell on my weaknesses, just like he did. But like I said, all other things being equal, people just love him more."

"Well, I-"

"And I keep thinking, goddamn, I shoulda been focusing on fixing my weaknesses, because I had a lot of them. Like - this is fucking embarrassing to admit - for the longest time, I was the timid one between us. When Rob wanted to loot the mayor's procession, I said nuh-uh, no way, there's a law against robbing politicians, but he basically called me a pussy in the most debonair way possible and I said fuck it and went along with it. And when we heard about the archery contest and we both knew immediately that it was a sting operation, I warned him against it, he went on about how a faint heart never won a fair lady, and so again, I said screw it, there's no stopping this kid's libido. And that whole time, I wasn't consciously trying to be overcautious, that's just who I was. My truth was that I thought things like that were suicide missions. And I still remember the day, just a few years ago at this point, when we were talking to some teenagers we met - not the ones you met, you're probably never gonna see those kids again - and they were telling us how they'd grown up with legends of us, and you know what the legends about me were? That I was a grump-ass. That I was such a pussy who never really wanted to go through with Rob's plans and I only did begrudgingly. Sure, the kids still thought I was cool and they respected that I still went through with all the plans anyway, but their idea of me was that I was the member of the team who bitched and moaned all the time. And I heard that and I thought, that. That was the reason people always thought I was under Robin. He makes the plans, I complain about them before eventually just following his word. That's why nobody ever mistook me for the leader. That and me being a goofball at the party. That and me being a big dumb bear who's all brawn and no brains. That and the fact that Rob just had natural social skills and I was still relatively new to the concept that I was capable of making friends. And the only reason I was able to make friends was because I was trying really, really hard to loosen up and be as cool as some hybrid of Rob and my brother. You see? Even in life, he just… be's himself and I just follow his lead. This is the real me I brought to the table, Otto. I can't afford to be the real me anymore."

Dear Reader, is there a term to describe when someone clasps their hands together, but keeps their index fingers extended and pressed against one another, all bumped up in front of pursed lips? Because that's what Otto was doing. "I understand your frustration, John, truly I do. But… you might hear me say this and think it's the most unhelpful thing ever, but… I know one thing: don't spend your entire life trying to be somebody else. That's the fastest way to guarantee you'll never be happy with who you are."

Little John took a sip and debated whether he wanted to go down another rabbit hole.

"Does that make sense, John?"

He decided he did. "So about that… so… I don't know how much you remember about Will, but… part of what - for me at least - part of what hurt so much about losing him was that he really was just a kid. And I mean that in the best way possible. Hey, don't tell Rob I said this, but… as much as Robin is probably a better friend on paper, Will was more fun to be around. Being around him made me feel like I was getting back the youth I never got to enjoy. Robin might have been the responsible friend I needed as an adult, but Will was like the wild and irresponsible childhood friend I never had. Only reason I didn't go to pieces like Rob did when he left was because, quite frankly, I was used to being miserable."

"Uh… I-I see," Otto affirmed, trying really hard to contain his shock.

"And one of the things about Will just being a big kid was that… the guy really loved cartoons. Hell, for Christ's sakes, it was his idea to start using oo-de-lally as a codeword, and he stole it from some show on The Cartoon Network that I'd never even fucking heard of. But I'm telling you this because I remember that second summer, when we were rockin' and rollin' and nothing could get us down, there was some cartoon movie that was getting rave reviews that Will really wanted to see. I think it was based on some book he read as a kid. It wasn't Sidney, it wasn't PixArt, it wasn't FantasyFactory, it was some company that doesn't usually mess around with animation. But me and Rob agree to go with Will to a theater - we snuck in, sue us - and Will loved it, Rob thought it was cute, but I was just shook by how profound it was. And by that I mean this… So it was a movie about a boy befriending a giant robot, but it turns out the robot's an alien or something that was built to destroy the earth - motherfucker got amnesia when he crash-landed, I forgot to mention, but he starts remembering his intended purpose. But now he loves this kid and he doesn't want to be a killing machine. Then when the government tries to kill the son of a bitch with a fucking nuclear missle, he's gotta sacrifice himself to save everybody."

"And this was a kid's movie?"

"It was a cartoon movie, yes, but it wasn't just for kids. C'mon, Otto, that's a really old-fashioned way of thinking. Actually, I think it was rated PG-13 if I remember correctly. But... all throughout the movie, the running theme was… 'you are who you choose to be.' It didn't matter that the robot was built to kill, he chose to be somebody that didn't kill. And while Will's on the edge of his seat and Rob's trying not to fall asleep, I'm just sitting there during the climax thinking to myself… jeez, you are who you choose to be… Why didn't anybody tell me that? Why the FUCK didn't anybody ever-!?"

"Shh! I'm sorry John, but your voice carries."

"Shit, sorry, man. But yeah… nobody had ever taken the time and care to sit me down and tell me to my face, 'Hey, Johnny, you are who you choose to be. Not who you're born as, not who other people try to make you into, but who you choose to be.' And I'd had some inklings of that before, especially when I decided I wanted to take some notes from Rob, but goddamn, there was something about just… hearing those words strung together as a sentence like that for the first time, like it validated my suspicions that I wasn't stuck where the world wanted me to be. Now… this isn't an attack on you, Otto; a lot of people've told me this over the years. But contrast that to you and a bunch of other people telling me… 'Oh, Johnny, don't ever try to be somebody you're not.' Well, shit, which one is it? Am I supposed to try to be who I wish I could be, or am I supposed to just make peace with who nature made me and find my place in the world? I mean, am I just being childish for believing that cartoon movie contained some legitimate life guidance? Because I've heard-" He stopped suddenly, glanced at his beer, and took another swig. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling again. But do you see what I mean?"

"Yeah… yes, I see what you mean." Otto finished his beer. "Need another?"

"Please."

Otto pondered as he got the both of them another round, and had this to say as he returned to the table: "Okay, John, maybe I'm naive for thinking this, but… what if both statements are right? What if the real you… is who you choose to be? What if who you're raised as is just what everybody else wants you to be, but… that feeling inside you… that nagging that you want to be somebody else… what if that's your mind's way of saying… that's who you really are? That's who you're meant to be, not this composite of who everybody else wanted you to be. The person you feel you should be… is your true nature, and that's why you want to be that kind of person so bad. Your nature's calling, John. And I might not be an expert, but I encourage you to follow it."

John looked down at Otto, who had a Robinesque smile, looking very pleased with the advice he had just dispensed. And Little John wanted to likewise give a warm smile in return, but he still had one burning question on his mind. "So tying this all back to the big problem… my insatiable urge is to be just like Robin. Maybe put my own spin on his personality, give it a little of my Southern charm, but I more or less want what he has. Would that still be me being my true self, or would that be straying from this journey of self-discovery?"

Otto maintained his pedagogical smile. "You know what, John? I think you almost had it the first time all those years ago. You can be more like Robin… by being more like yourself. Sorry if I sound like a hippie, but… follow your heart, John."

And Dear Reader, you will have to pardon this narrator's lack of subtlety, but Little John himself was one millisecond's hesitation away from saying this to Otto point-blank: he didn't know who he was. He had been so many people and had tried to act like so many more that he didn't know if any of them were his authentic self. He had been brave and he had been cowardly; he had been shy and he had been antisocial, and he had been a party animal after that; he had gone through phases in his life where his resting states had been sad, then mad, then glad, and he had gone through phases in his life where he was chiefly motivated by fear, then by hatred, then by love. He had been self-satisfied and yet jealous; loyal and yet begrudging; inspiring and yet destructive; a lover and a fighter, and both and neither. He had long harbored a desire to be seen and heard and regaled as a hero, but was fully aware that this desire was inherently unheroic. He wanted to be who he felt he truly was, but he had only ever felt like he should have been someone else.

And perhaps that was the biggest thing: despite Otto's well-intentioned advice, the old dog didn't seem to grasp the concept that Little John did not consciously feel like he had a sense of self. Since day one, he had always existed in reference to someone else; first his brother, and now the fox. Whether or not he was psychologically born as an empty vessel to only exhibit the traits others put upon him was irrelevant, because if he had some inner calling leading him his own way completely independent of others, John had never heard its siren song; if it ever existed, it was gone now. Now the closest thing he had to a sense of personal fulfillment was to be like Robin because he wanted the love and adoration and talent and confidence and purpose and sheer sense of self that Robin had. Little John knew exactly why he wanted so badly for strangers to think highly of him; it's hard not to care what other people think when other people are all you've ever been.

But when he glanced at the clock, he decided that if he took the conversation in that direction, he'd be there all night. He had some important questions he had to ask.

"Alright, so I need to ask a neutral party. I've been thinking a lot about the differences between me and Rob; you tell me if I'm doing something wrong, something right, or if it's just a matter of us being different and nobody's doing anything wrong. Sound good?"

"Al-alright."

"Okay, first: am I too much of a goofball? Do people not feel like they need to take me seriously?"

"Uh… what do you mean?"

"Like at the party that everyone remembers after the archery contest where I was playing the song-"

"No. No, you're fine. You were definitely a lot more energetic than Robin, but that's not a bad thing. Not to most people, at least."

"So it wasn't immature? Not… spazzy?"

"What? Oh, lord, no. You're so hung up on leadership? Well you were the leader of that party. The entire town needed that to loosen up. If anything, I kind of remember Robin being too straightlaced-"

"Oh, shut the fuck up, Otto, he was not being too straightlaced. I've heard people talking about that party for years afterwards. Robin was being a more chill, cool kind of fun - almost a more mature kind of fun you could say. And on at least three occasions we've met civilians who specifically bring up how they remember him playing the fiddle with his bow, and just how badass that was. That's what I was thinking of when I asked."

Sip. "...If you say so."

"Next: do I speak too stupidly?"

"Uh… a-again, I beg your-"

"Do I talk like a stupid person? Especially compared to Robin, who talks like James Fucking Bond?"

"...I-I mean-"

"Or is it just impossible to compete with his accent?"

"...Well, that might be part of it. But while we established earlier, your vocabulary isn't necessarily unintelligent, I gotta say… honestly… you do swear a lot."

Little John was incredulous. "...Really?"

"I'm just saying, John, some people associate that with a lack of smarts and a lack of class. And I know Robin swears, too, but… really not that often."

"...God, dammit! ...Oh, wait. I guess I just proved your point. Okay, but fuck it- I-I-I mean, nevermind that. Next question: am I too negative?"

"...So one more time, I need you to be more specif-"

"Jesus fuck, Otto, I mean do I get angry too often and frustrated too easily? Or do people just think that about me because I'm a grizzly bear? ...Hm…" Swig. "...Well, that question answered itself."

"John, considering the nature of your work, it's perfectly reasonable that you would lose your temper every now and again."

"I don't want to just be reasonable. I want to be great like Rob."

"Well, sure, Robin hardly ever gets angry, but he's not normal like that."

"I don't want to be normal, motherfucker, I want to be-!"

"Shh! John, your voice is projecting again!"

"It fucking better be, a big bear without a big voice isn't really that big." Swig. "But I apologize. I'm just-"

"You're just severely overthinking this is what you're doing. You don't need to completely reconstruct your personality to be a good and likeable person - people already think you're good and they like you just as well. And you definitely shouldn't be trying to copy him beat-for-beat - you want to have confidence, John? Thinking you need to be exactly like somebody else to feel fulfilled isn't very confident; it takes confidence to be who you really are."

And again Little John was debating just outright telling Otto that his fundamental lack of a sense of self was the key problem, but Otto kept going.

"You know what? All this about how you… you really seem to think Robin is perfect, don't you?" Otto asked.

"Not completely, but as close as anybody can get in practicality."

"Well, this is all reminding me of something I saw on TV once that reminded me of… well, there was somebody who was a hell of a lot like Robin, except in one key detail: he wasn't exactly a good guy."

Little John winced. "What did you see?"

"So... there's this TV show where they take a bunch of people and they put them on a desert island and they make them vote each other out and-"

"Oh, do not tell me you watch that crap!" Little John slammed his beer on the table. "Do not! Aren't you too old for trash reality television?"

"Hey now, it's actually damned fascinating. Still better than a bunch of the other garbage on in primetime. Besides, how do you even know that show exists if it didn't even come on until after you started living in Sherwood?"

"Because we still live in society, brother, we've heard of it. And what we've heard is that it was a pop-culture phenomenon, what, four-five years ago? Then everyone got bored of the concept and now only weird people still watch it."

And Otto leaned forward and gave Little John a very serious look. "Well, I can tell you one thing, John: I don't think Robin wouldn't try to shame me for my choices in television when it's not bothering him."

They could both tell that Little John felt thoroughly put in his place. He glanced down at his beer sheepishly, not even attempting to reply.

"As I was saying," Otto continued, leaning back to comfort, "on that show about, eh, a year ago?, there was a guy who… I don't know what made it snap in my brain, but something about him kind of reminded me of Robin. He was smart; he was charming. He seemed like he was good in all the challenges; he didn't win all of them, but there wasn't anything he was bad at. As he put it, he wasn't the strongest guy out there, but he was the toughest and the craftiest. Hell, when they all had to shoot a bow and arrow, all of them weren't great shots, but he was the only one who could even hit the board."

"This isn't too important, but was he a fox?"

"He was nowhere near as tall as Robin, but yes, he was."

"Jeez, was his name Robin, too? Or Robert?"

"No, it was- Oh. Oh, wait, it was, actually."

Little John threw his head back and rolled his eyes. "And was his last name Hood?"

"No, his last name was…" Otto began, but he trailed off when he realized that the contestant's surname was the source of another bizarre coincidence, nothing related to Robin's name but rather related to Marian's. "I-I don't remember his last name, actually. But what topped it all off was that everyone liked him. He was most assuredly the leader of his tribe. And he was a good one; his team almost never lost, and they were almost always happy. They goofed around and sang and danced all around their makeshift shelter in the woods; even in the middle of a typhoon, while the other teams were miserable at their camps, he and his team were singing "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" - and CBS had to pay royalties to Fogerty and company to use that scene, so you know they wanted you to see it. And even though he was clearly running the show, people never thought to vote him out, because they were loyal to him. He even once won a chance to read a letter from his brother back home, but he surrendered it so everyone else could read theirs instead. Incidentally, one of his strongest alliances was with a great big grizzly bear with a thick Southern accent-"

"'A fox and a bear make a great pair,' that's what they say, ain't it?" Little John mused, stoically pretending not to notice the ridiculous quantity of parallels.

"-but his closest bond by far was with a pretty vixen who, at first, yeah, they were just pretending to accept the other's flirting because having an alliance was good for their game. But by the end of the game, they were in love, and everyone could see it - and I do mean the end of the game, because they wound up being the last two standing. He proposed at the live finale and she said yes. And it was clear to everybody that what he had been doing - his great leadership, his upbeat attitude, all the right moves he made - he had done it for love. It was love that drove him through all that hardship."

"Hardship he signed up for."

"Fair point, but so far, do all those details sound familiar?"

Swig. "They ring a bell. But what I got the most out of all of this is that a long, long time before you and me had this conversation, you already had the thought yourself that Rob was a fuckin' superhero."

"Uh- not quite a superhero, but a spectacular guy, yes."

"And this is the part where I'd tell you again that this sets off my deep-seated inferiority complex, but I'm sure you're sick of hearing about that. So okay, you saw Robin reflected in this other fox on TV who was written to be perfect?"

"...N-no, John, I know it sounds ridiculous, but it really isn't scripted."

Little John gave him a look like he had just said the earth was flat. "You really think I believe that?"

And Otto was none too pleased by his skepticism. "John I'm serious. When the show first came on the air, people thought it was fake, but it's been long proven to be a lot more fact than fiction. If you don't believe that, then lie to me. You asked earlier if you're too negative as a person? Right now, you're being too negative, and it's definitely not heroic."

But John had something else on his mind that prevented him from being embarrassed by that tell-off. "Well, it's kind of hard to believe that a real person could also be that perfect. It's fucking me up upstairs to think there are multiple perfect people running around on this planet - or are all foxes some sort of flawless species and we've just never noticed because they're all the way down there?"

"But you're forgetting two things: for one, I never said either Robin nor this other fox were perfect. Because I don't believe they are. In fact, the second thing you forgot is that I did say this other guy's biggest flaw… was that he wasn't a good guy. His charisma and confidence bit him in the ass. He successfully got everybody in the game to think they were his friend, and then he betrayed all of them, and because he assumed - correctly - that he was talented enough to run the table, he didn't feel an ounce of shame about it. Then when it came time for the jury to vote for a winner, they didn't forgive him. They didn't vote for him. They voted for his girlfriend - or should I say, fiancée."

And Little John was indeed surprised to hear this.

"Not to say, though," Otto continued, "that she didn't play well herself, but it seemed clear to everybody that he had it in the bag. Even the host said he was the main character of that season, and when the girl won, the host asked the guy point-blank if he thought she deserved it. My point, John, is that you could be exactly like Robin - down to ridiculous details - and still not necessarily be a good person if you don't make good decisions about how to use your talents. And I believe that part of the reason so many people think Robin is downright saintly is because he has friends-" (and he gave a bad and obvious mug to Little John) "-to help him make sound decisions. So don't focus on being just like Robin, John; focus on following your moral compass. That's what I admire."

Little John glanced at the clock again and felt compelled to down the rest of his beer. He just wanted to get out of there. He had come here looking for guidance, for a specific goal of what he should try to do with himself or with Robin, but now he was just even more confused, and he was starting to feel like this had all been an enormous waste of time. "Well, Otto, according to your theory, I'd best be getting out of here soon, since Robin's waiting on me, and evidently he needs me by his side to keep his own composure."

"That's the spirit!" Otto beamed without an ounce of irony, much to John's chagrin. "Even Jesus needed his Saint Peter!"

And that one hurt for some reason. That was the one that made Little John wonder if Otto seriously had not been listening this entire time. Had Otto simply not believed him when he referred multiple times to the delusions that plagued him, telling him he had been constantly surrounded by inimitable greatness his entire life, and although he knew that these were delusions, such deification of his friend was not helping? Or had John himself simply failed to make that clear?

In any case, he had come looking for an unbiased opinion, and whether he liked it or not, he got it. All he had wanted was to feel reassured that he and Robin were like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, two great friends who were not only partners in crime and brothers in arms but also, at the end of the day, equals. But no; by the old dog's decree, Robin was Jesus and Little John was merely Saint Peter, someone who was content to follow in the footsteps of the greatest person who had ever lived, and whose own greatness was only legitimized in reference to his leader. And Robin was that fox on that reality show and Little John was that redneck grizzly bear he cut loose, trusting blindly until the bitter end that the fox would choose him over the woman he fell in love with. And Robin was Will from the book they were reading while Little John was Tom, his failure of a twin brother who was still a great guy but just couldn't hold a candle to the one with whom he had shared a womb, who he admired as a superior person, who he could have actually been if the DNA had shook out differently. And Robin was The Fonz and Little John was just Richie, who was already no longer the main character of his own story and who would eventually be written out of it entirely. And Robin was Batman and Little John was Robin, confusingly enough, always striving to emulate his hero. And Robin was Karl Malone and Little John was John Stockton, an invaluable member of a great team to be sure but nevertheless someone who was never greater than its second-best member and who would be best remembered as the guy who quite literally set the league's career record for assists. And Robin was Dean Moriarty and Little John was Jack Kerouac, who much like Little John was most famous for a piece of art exalting the greatness of his friend while unambiguously referring to oneself in that art as a secondary character who was more than happy to stare on in awe and always follow his much more badass friend's lead; for Little John, it was the song he sang at the hoedown that evidently became what many came to chiefly associate with him, and for Kerouac, it was that terrible novel that just regurgitated real events with the names changed, which John had to struggle through in senior-year English during their unit on the Beat Generation, during which time his teacher thought it would be interesting to point out to the whole class that much like the diminutive Little twin, Jack in his youth had also been nicknamed Little John.

Nonono, he figured it out: Robin was George Bailey. Robin was the guy from It's a Wonderful Life, someone who abandoned their own dreams to help the people of Bedford Falls, but was now starting to have second thoughts about whether it was all worth it and if the life that had passed him by was so meaningful after all. And Little John was Clarence, someone who may have actually been more powerful on paper but whose express role, his explicit purpose as dictated by God Almighty, was to serve, to submit himself, to stand behind him and remind him that his life was indeed important, the entire town would be in disarray without him, he had done nothing but benefit the lives of those he loved, and he must keep going, because there was so much more work to be done; even a guardian angel needs a guardian angel.

And because he was too insecure, too immature, too stupid, too ungrateful, too greedy to accept his place, a place next to greatness, a place that most others on this earth would kill for the chance to occupy, Little John was destined to lose him. Because he had steadfastly refused to treat Robin with his due reverence, he would be punished for his insolence. He had been an unloyal friend and Robin would surely abandon him once his presence was no longer needed. And Little John knew he deserved it because he had dared to dream, to imagine that he could overcome his nature and achieve more than his natural place as the right-hand man to someone superior to himself. After all, Otto said that this was the way it was supposed to be, so John had to accept it, because surely the wise old dog knew what he was talking about, and Little John was just being a silly little cub who didn't really know how to be an adult and that's why he would ultimately one day find himself alone again and - goddammit, he was crying again.

"Uh, J-John, are you alright?"

Little John laid his paw over his eyes, not daring to look at him. He coughed out the tears that had run down his nose and into the crevice of his lips. "I-" Sniff. "-I just don't wanna be alone again, man!"

"Wh-what do you mean?"

Cough, cough. "I just don't want to be left all alone again!" And he heard himself whimpering, a peculiar sound with the timbre of his voice, but he needed to get the air out of his lungs; it simply stung too much. "I-I'm sorry, Otto, I'm drunk." But considering his size and the quantity of bottles on the table, neither of them had to do much mental math to realize that wasn't quite accurate. "C-can I use your bathroom, man?" Sniff, cough. "I-I gotta piss like a racehorse."

He slowly got to his feet without waiting for Otto's permission, then stood upright, promptly banging his head into the ceiling with enormous force. "GAHHH!"

Otto didn't bother telling the bear to keep his voice down. He just watched him as he walked down the hall, the backs of his paws sliding across the ceiling as his palms grasped his aching head, still muttering confused whimpers as he squeezed through the bathroom entrance and shut the door behind him. Otto decided to start cleaning up his dishes.

-IllI-

As she prayed, she prayed for patience. She asked the Lord to give her the strength to not go up to that fox sitting a few seats down and smack him upside the head for hogging space reserved for larger species.

The elephant had come to the chapel on a Tuesday afternoon to find peace, but she was having trouble finding it, being thoroughly bothered by the rudeness of that fox. The side chapel didn't have regular pews; it had wooden chairs that were daisy-chained together at the legs with zip-ties. The seats were arranged so the front row facing the tabernacle was for the smallest of creatures and every successive row was for larger and larger people. The chairs in the last few rows weren't even entirely wooden; they were reinforced with titanium for people whose weight was closer to four digits than two. And while this fox was noticeably very… stretched-looking, he was still a svelte figure, so she refused to believe he could even tip the scales at a hundred pounds.

It was disrespectful enough that he was dressed in sports apparel, but he didn't even seem to be praying. He was just sitting in the back row, terrible seating posture, his head tilted back on what was supposed to be a large mammal's lumbar rest, staring at the ceiling, looking bored out of his mind; if his eyes weren't half-open and he wasn't adjusting every few minutes, she'd think he was asleep.

Was he homeless? That would explain the ragged and haphazard clothing as well as the callous attitude. Seriously, Fox, there was literally nobody else in there, and he had to be sitting there of all places? Okay, sure, he could probably have used the same point to argue that she shouldn't care, and he was already there when she arrived anyway, but for spatial reasons there were only about six or eight seats suitable for an adult elephant, whereas there were three times as many a few rows forward that would be more suitable for someone his size. Someone as small as him could sit almost anywhere, but if a family of rhinos or hippos walked in right now, they wouldn't have as many options. She tried not to make it too obvious that she glanced at him again and went back to bowing her head with her hands folded and eyes closed.

She heard the door open and heard heavy footsteps approach. She tried not to smirk too much as she imagined that somebody her size had just entered and was about to call the fox out, thereby relieving her of the duty of being the bad guy.

"Hey," said a heavy male voice. The syllable was spoken softly and quietly, but the depth of the voice was still nothing you'd ever hear from someone the fox's size. It sounded civil enough; was this man going to kindly ask this homeless canine to find a more appropriate spot? How saintly of him! He certainly had more patience than she had. She kept her eyes closed and fingers laced, but she wasn't praying.

She heard the fox's clothes scratching along the chair's cushioning as he repositioned himself. "Hey there, Johnny," said an Englishman who sounded downright exasperated.

Wait, what? Her eyes burst open and without turning her head, she looked as far to the left as she could. She could see that the fox was sitting upright now, and was regarding a brown bear who stood over him, also decked out in fangear, all of which was a misty shade of blue.

The fox patted the seat next to him. "Sit down here for a moment with me, would you please?" This confirmed the fox was the one with the British accent.

"Uh… alright," the bear (Johnny?) murmured as he obliged; he would probably have been more suited for the row or two ahead, but his size was much more fitting for the chair than the fox's. "But the next bus west of here leaves in seven minutes, so we can't be here too long."

"Johnny, you and I both know that bus won't be on time."

"Hey, a man can dream, can't he?"

And that's when she realized who they were, at which point she stopped praying for patience and started praying for forgiveness.

"You actually been praying, man?" the bear asked. "I-I mean… no judgment, I just thought after all the times we'd teamed up arguing with Tuck, we just agreed we weren't into that."

(Okay, admittedly, now the elephant was praying for patience again, but then revised it to praying for guidance on how to accept this revelation that the duo she admired didn't share her faith as she'd presumed.)

"No, not praying. Just thinking. Pondering." The fox was speaking rather solemnly, almost monotone.

"I can already tell whatever went down between you and Amanda didn't end well. Did you find the raccoon's parents?"

"We'll have plenty of time for me to give you the play-by-play on the journey home. After all, don't we have ourselves a bus to catch?"

"...Then why did I just sit down?"

The chapel was quiet enough that the fox's deep breath through his nose reverberated a bit through the room. "Should we have tried to get Skippy and Toby out of the pen?"

"...What? No. Fuck, no. We wouldn't even've known where to begin with such a big mission like that! Like… what would we need? A ride, for one. Then probably a map of the juvie complex, then a directory telling us specifically where their cells are-"

"What about Alan?"

"What about Alan?"

"Should we have tried to get him out of prison? Because he was our friend?"

"No, and for a lot of the same reasons. Plus how he blew us off, got sloppy, made us look bad and made us a lotta new enemies we didn't need. Honestly, the motherfucker deserved it."

"And the poor lad in the woods? The hyena boy?"

"...You mean the little psycho who called us fags and threw rocks at us because he thought we were fags and he didn't like fags?"

"Who shortly thereafter was beaten into a coma by corrupt police? Yes, the very same."

The elephant was tempted to glance at them when she didn't hear either of them talk for a second. She was very curious about what they were saying; was this the same kid whose assault made the news?

"Did we fail to be the bigger men?" the fox asked. "He surely did not deserve such severe retribution; should we have tried to save him? Perhaps with him indebted to us, we could have made a good man out of him yet."

"I-I get what you're saying Rob," the bear finally answered. "And in some ways, that makes sense. But we were vulnerable, it was dark, those cops were looking for a fight, we were outnumbered-"

"We've always been outnumbered, Johnny, and we've always made it work."

"Well as I was trying to say, somebody was gonna get beat the fuck up that night, and if it had to be anybody, it might as well have been that evil little shit. I-I mean- Rob, you wanted to get the fuck out of there when you realized it was them, too, didn't you?"

"That I did. And now I wonder if that was an act of cowardice. I wonder if that contradicts all the praise that the people give me."

"Well even if we coulda done more, considering what that kid was doing, what the cops wanted to do, and how little we coulda done, I'd wager most people would give you a pass on that one."

"But we mustn't assume we'll know how others will perceive us, now can we, Johnny?"

A moment passed. "...Jesus, Rob, what happened between you and Amanda that's making you think all this stuff?"

"They call us heroes, Johnny. Would they still call us heroes if they knew the names of all the people we failed to help as much as we could?"

"Rob, you're talking like a fucking poet and it's scaring the shit outta me. What happened at the rabbits' house?"

The swishing of fabrics brushing against one another was heard as the fox (presumably) stood from his seat. "I'm ready to go now. I'll tell you everything along the way." She could hear his footsteps making their way toward the door.

"You know that nobody expects us to be perfect to a fuckin' T, right?" the bear asked, almost pleading.

"I expect that of myself, Little John."

And the elephant dared to sneak a glance in their direction. The fox was out of sight around the corner, but she was able to see the bear rolling his eyes, looking wildly annoyed as he stood to exit; He almost looked more annoyed with himself for the way he handled that conversation than he looked annoyed with his fox friend. He turned the corner and was gone. Upon hearing the door slam shut, she once more bowed her head and closed her eyes, and decided to pray for forgiveness in advance for gossipping about this to all her friends.

-IllI-

They were seeing spots as they walked westward through Sherwood Forest Nature Preserve. The sun was still safely above the horizon, though its blinding light did bleed through the gaps in the leaves and branches, enough to obscure their vision for some fleeting moments. They were nearly back to base camp.

Robin had already relayed all the important details of his conversation with Amanda and was now filling in the blanks with interesting tidbits; he was feeling much better now. "...and the lad looks me dead in the eye and says, 'I didn't know grown-ups played soccer!'" he said, doing his best impression of an American toddler.

The sheer ridiculousness of the story caught Little John off guard, and although he otherwise would have been in no mood to laugh so heartily, he couldn't help but belt out a deep guffaw. "Hey!" he said after a moment. "I called that shot, now didn't I?"

"I had exactly the same thought-"

"WHO'S THERE!?" someone hollered from far away.

That certainly put an end to their witty banter. They didn't need to tell one another to shush and listen; they just knew. They couldn't see anybody through the trees, so whoever screamed that wasn't immediately nearby. Still, they listened.

"It was probably just a bird," said another voice, though this one was much quieter; this one wasn't yelling. Both of the strangers sounded like males, but nobody they recognized.

"I heard someone laughing, are you deaf!?" the first voice retorted. They still heard the distant voices after that, but they were too quiet to be intelligible.

"Shit, we shoulda brought our weapons!" Little John cursed in a harsh whisper.

"Well, then, let's go retrieve them!" Robin answered as he started climbing a tree without any signs of hesitance. "I'll take the high road and you take the low road!"

And as you may have imagined when you read that, Dear Reader, Little John just thought that Robin's persistently upbeat attitude was inappropriate at that moment and borderline obnoxious. But he forced himself to suppress his annoyance and told himself that it was for the greater good that he should swallow his pride and play the role of the sidekick.

"You stay a few trees back," Robin said from even higher up in the branches. "If I can grab your staff and get it back to you, I will."

"You don't have to tell me, Rob," John answered, trying not to sound too vexed.

"I know I don't, Johnny," Robin said as he climbed even higher. "I just like talking to you."

And Little John didn't know how to feel about that statement, so he chose not to feel anything at all, and instead decided to tell Robin something entirely different: "Yo, Rob. If they're easier for you to grab, you can get somebody else's weapons for me."

"You want Tuck's staff?"

"Or I can use the slingshot." And John knew this was going to be a tough sell, but he had to pitch it: "Or the sword."

And Little John could faintly see Robin's face far up among the branches and leaves, looking for a moment not quite so confident. "I'd think your paw's too big to fit in the handle, Johnny, but I'll consider it," Robin said; neither of them believed those last four words.

Robin started his way through the treetops, jumping from branch to branch, and although Little John could barely see him from the forest floor, he followed the sounds of rustling leaves. As the voices grew closer, however, the exposition they delivered was as nerve-wracking as it was convenient to the plot:

Clickclickclick, clickclickclick… "...Did you forget to refill this thing?"

"Naw, man, you're just not pulling the handle hard enough."

"Then you do it, Mr. Brawny Man!"

"Fine, I will!" Clickclickclick, clickclickclick, clickclickclick… "Okay, I specifically remember checking if this one had gas in it."

"Are you sure it was that one?"

Robin hopped to another tree but lost his footing; miraculously, another branch was right below it for him to catch himself on. He looked down to see Little John staring up at him, looking like he just about had a heart attack watching that near-disaster; Robin gave him a thumbs up.

"...It wasn't this one!" The other voice hadn't replied.

"Well, hey, man, you coulda checked it, too."

"Where in my job description does it say I have to babysit you and do your job for you?"

"Hey, don't talk to me like I'm stupid just because I don't care about my job!"

"Why don't you care about your job!?"

"Why do you care, motherfucker? They're sending us out here to die in the woods at sunset because they can't wait till morning to do this shit!"

"Then get the fuck out of here and let somebody else have your job! Someone else could use the paycheck!"

"Oh, fuck, no. It's a pretty cushy gig when Sheriff Fatfuck isn't calling the boss to make us carry out his harebrained schemes at seven-thirty in the afternoon."

"Seven-thirty in the evening."

"Take your semantics and shove them up your ass."

Little John almost made a very loud noise when he stepped on a large fallen branch. Then he was especially glad he didn't. "Robin!" he whisper-screamed. He got the fox's attention and pointed at the branch as he hoisted it. They looked pleased with one another.

Clickclickclick, clickclickclick… "I think we got the green light to get the hell outta here," said the one who had just insisted his partner autosodomize his words.

"And tell them what? That we fucked up?"

"Yes, and that we know goddamn well that they won't fire us because we're still the most competent people they have."

Finally, they were within sight. It was a yak and an ox wearing City of Nottingham Public Works uniforms with protective eyewear, and the ox holding a Husqvarna chainsaw. Little John's eyes were getting a workout as they darted up and down, making sure he wasn't going to step on anything crunchy while also making sure that he hadn't been sighted yet, and still looking for a thick tree to hide his wide rump behind. As for Robin, he was only one degree of separation from the Major Oak, but that separation was the clearing itself, so he had to move laterally in a semicircle to get to the tree, all the while trying to find sturdy enough branches and not rustling too many leaves.

"That probably isn't the best idea," said the yak.

"Oh, c'mon. You ain't gonna get very far in life unless you prove you don't take crap from nobody," said the ox. They seemed to just be having a spat and doing absolutely nothing constructive.

"Well sometimes you gotta eat shit to make sure you don't starve."

"Then I'll starve. You work this job because your life sucks, too, dickcheese. I'm not taking advice from you."

"Well maybe if you did, we could help each other out."

"Nah, I wanna be better than you."

"You're an asshole. Do you know that?"

"Assholes succeed in this world."

"Are you so sure about that?" said a voice from above.

"Huh!?"

"Who was th-!?"

Fwip! sang the arrow as it pierced the dirt between their feet.

"GWAH!"

"HOLY SHIT!"

And on that note, Little John emerged into the clearing, tapping the large branch in his opposite palm like a mobster with a baseball bat. "Run toward me and ya get conked. Run away from me and ya get an arrow in the back."

"Thanks for explaining the rules, Johnny!" Robin said as he hopped down to the lowest branch on the Major Oak, holding his bow and wearing his quiver. "'Arseholes succeed in this world…' I really must thank you for that, I was starting to worry you weren't going to give me a good opportunity for a segue!"

"Holy shit, they're real," the yak murmured.

"Pay up," the ox grumbled to his partner. He was still holding the chainsaw in his left hand.

"Now, do pardon the cliche, gentlemen, but it is a good one: we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way," Robin teased. "You can show us your IDs and then be on your merry way, knowing well and good that if you ever tell anybody you saw us, we will be paying you a visit…"

"...or we can beat the everloving shit out of you and force-feed you some candy that'll make you forget you ever did see us," added Little John. "We hear they taste like lemon drops, but we've never actually tried them ourselves."

"Oh, Johnny, now you've gotten a song stuck in my head," Robin said, and he sang softly to himself as he slowly and calmly produced an arrow and loaded his bow. "Where trouble meeelts like lemon drooops, high abooove the chiiimney tops, that's wheeere… you'll fiii-i-iiind meee, oooh…" He cooly lined up the arrow with his dominant eye and pointed at the two municipal workers. "So, what'll it be, gentlemen?"

"Okay! Okay! Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" the yak sputtered as he dug around in his back pocket for his wallet. "I-I-I-I got it right here!"

"And if you'd like to make a charitable donation to the poor and hungry, we'd me much obliged!" Little John sneered.

"Nick, wait," the ox said to the yak, and he began fiddling with the chainsaw, once again flicking the ignition switch on and off and jiggling the gear handle. "I got this."

"Chris, what the fuck are you doing!?"

"I told you, I got this. Just chill for, like, two seconds." He said almost nonchalantly, holding the instrument out in front of him to get a better look in the waning light.

Fwip! Chris looked down to see that another arrow had pierced the dirt right below him, narrowly splitting the gap between the chainsaw, his arms, and his crotch.

"Consider that a warning shot!" bragged Robin.

The ox looked up very slowly, and more than anything, he looked annoyed. "No shit it's a warning shot."

And the sheer incongruity of that response caused Robin's indomitable smile to fail him. As far as responses go, suffice it to say, that was a new one. "Wh-what was that?"

"No shit that was a warning shot!" the ox grumbled. (As for the yak, he was so enthralled that he had stopped searching for his wallet to watch the scene unfold.) "Everyone knows you guys don't kill people! Everyone knows you idiots think you're too classy for that, but everyone says that's the reason you guys've been in a standstill since the last fucking decade! You guys are too afraid to step up and seal the deal!" Robin was having trouble finding the words to speak, and Little John and Nick the yak didn't have anything to add, so Chris continued: "You wanna shoot at me again?" He spread his arms out and presented his front side completely unprotected. "Go on! Do it! I'm not fucking afraid of you! Shoot me right in the heart, you pussy!"

Robin was trying really hard to call upon his acting chops and bullshit a commanding persona when he really wasn't feeling it. "S-so… has the Sheriff told you of us? O-or your superiors, perhaps?"

"I know you! You talk about giving a charitable donation to the poor? I am the poor! I met you motherfuckers, like, three years ago when I was still in high school!"

Something compelled Robin to lower his bow a little bit, and Little John similarly found the arm holding the branch getting a bit tired.

"Wait, you met these guys before!?" screeched the yak. "I-I woulda believed you about them living here if you told me you knew for a fact they were real!"

"Well, maybe you shoulda just believed me anyway," the ox said to the yak, then turned back to Robin and John in succession. "Don't mind Nick here, he grew up a rich kid. He just can't get a better job than this because he got a felony for wrecking into a squad car."

"Hey, don't air out my fucking details!" the yak protested.

"So… you've met us, Master Chris?" asked Robin, trying to be gentlemanly. "Tell us, what were the circumstances?"

"My friends and I were playing basketball in Godin Park after dark and the cops tried to come and arrest us or fine us or something for trespassing after closing, and you two walked up dressed as homeless men and told them there was a gang fight happening a few blocks away. And it worked. And then you asked us where we were from, we told you we were from the 'hood, and you gave us the money you got from one of the officer's wallets that he left in his car. And then you gave us some pep talk about doing the right thing. I remember it like it was fucking yesterday, and I still think about it when I think about how dumb I was for thinking you idiots were actually helping… Oh, and you also told us that if we really wanted to get laid, a confident smile was a lot more badass than a confident frown."

Robin and John's jaws had dropped. They remembered.

"Which worked, by the way," Chris continued, "but that bitch Stephanie gave me chlamydia, so yeah, thanks for that."

"Eww…" Nick muttered as he scooted a smidge away from Chris.

"And even when we met you there, we knew of you, and we told you so," the ox continued. He pointed to Robin: "You were the cool guy who could pull off insane plans and stunts and make it all look easy; hell, I knew some nerds in school who were nervous that they could never be as good as you because they weren't as cool as you." And he pointed to Little John: "And you were the big dumb brawn who bitched and moaned a lot and didn't really want to be doing any of this, but you followed his lead anyway because otherwise you had nothing going for you in your life."

And suddenly, Little John was pissed again. He stomped over to the ox and raised the branch above his head. "Oh, you disrespectful little shit!"

Clickclickclick, clickclickclick… RRRRR! Tikkatikkatikkatikkatikkatikkatikka…

Bzzzzzzzzzz!

"GAH!" Little John shut his eyes and turned his head just in time to protect himself from the flying shards of wood. When the buzzing sound stopped, he looked down to see a small fraction of the branch left in his paws.

"You gotta love this city-owned equipment, taking twenty minutes to get its ass in gear!" the ox beamed with much the same energy as one would usually expect from the fox. He had to yell, however, as the chainsaw was still running. Speaking of which, he lunged at Little John with it.

"Oh, holy SHIT!" John hollered as he jumped backwards and soon found himself running out of the clearing.

But the ox had his eyes on other sights. He turned toward Robin standing on the branch and charged at him. Robin reached for an arrow and looked down for a split second to thread it in the string, but when he looked up again and saw just how close Chris was, he fumbled it and dropped his bow as well as he fell backward off the branch and yelped as he landed funny, bending his tail and bruising his lower back. He heard the chainsaw briefly cutting into the branch he was standing on, but then it stopped, and he looked up just in time to see the ox coming down on his long, thick tail with the chainsaw. He turned to get on his feet and run, but his foot slipped in a patch of dirt where grass had never grown.

"AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!" the fox screamed bloody murder as the chainsaw came down upon the end of his tail. Miraculously, the nervous reflexes in the appendage worked and his tail moved yanked itself free, and he tried to make a run for it. But now his lower back was hurting in another way. When his foot slipped, he must have pulled a muscle. He was still able to force himself through it and amble away, but it was the kind of lower-back pain where you have trouble breathing when you aggravate it. If he had time to think about it, he may have said it was even worse than the pain of someone literally slicing into his tail with a chainsaw; at least that pain ended.

Little John heard the scream and turned to the scene, and immediately realized he had to help his buddy. But he also saw in the corner of his eye something perhaps more dire: Nick the yak was getting away. John didn't want to abandon Robin, but he had been doing this shit for long enough that he knew the risks of leaving an opponent unattended, and the dangerous implications of him getting away and telling everyone what he saw. He had to trust in Robin's talent of escape and hope he could hold his own for a while. But Little John thought he could help him out a bit before he went off in pursuit of the yak.

Thwap! "God… DAMMIT!" Chris had to stop and rub his head where the can of beans Little John had thrown had made contact. This gave Robin a second to clamber up a tree, but with how his back was screaming in agony, he needed a lot more than a second to get up. The way his tail was stinging like it had just been dipped in acid wasn't making things any easier.

John ran off and tried to catch up to Nick. The bear's advantage was his species' deceptive speed, as well as the fact that the yak didn't know the woods and his work uniform didn't make it very easy to be nimble; the bear's disadvantage was that despite being similar in height, yaks were a helluva lot more dense than bears typically were, so when Little John caught up to him, he'd have to rely more on technique to incapacitate him, because brute strength wasn't going to cut it.

"COME AND GET ME!" Chris yelled up into the tree at Robin. "You afraid to die, buddy? I'm not afraid to die! My life sucks! COME AT ME!"

Robin thought he was about to pass out as he ascended the tree; it hurt too much to breathe and move his back at the same time, and since he needed to move his back to climb, he didn't breathe. He finally got up to a branch from which he could get over to the Major Oak and get a new weapon: one of the staffs, or the slingshot, or that infernal sword. But first, he had to stop and catch his breath.

Little John had almost caught up with the yak. He realized that they were running more or less in a straight line, but that the line ended soon as a tree stood right in the way.

John thought fast. "BOO!"

Nick turned his head to see how far behind Little John was, all while still running full speed. Little John was about three feet behind him. He turned back to face the way he was running. The tree was about three feet in front of him.

THWACK! ...Thump.

Nick groaned as he lay face-up on the ground, his eyes barely open and his face smashed in. Little John leaned over and grabbed a hold of his head, and with very deliberate motions thump, thump, thumped it into the ground, just hard enough to make sure he went out but not hard enough to cause brain damage. Then he checked for a pulse. Yup, still ticking. Time to get back to Robin. He didn't know exactly where he was in the woods - if he had a second to think, he'd probably remember - but it didn't matter. He just had to follow the sounds of the chainsaw.

"You ever heard the phrase 'get rich or die trying,' foxy-boy?" Chris taunted. "Just you try to kill me! But I'll be fucking rich when I bring Sheriff Type-2-Diabetes your body! And who's gonna rob me then?"

Robin had finally gotten to the shelf with the other weapons. The pain was so intense that he felt like the pressure was going to make something pop; either his eyes were going to burst or his ears and nose were going to bleed. Or he might just soil his trousers.

And he almost did soil his trousers when he heard the sound again. Bzzzzzzzzzz! But the sound was a lot deeper now, as if cutting into something thicker. He looked down through the branches and, indeed, the ox was going to town on the base of the Major Oak.

Okay, what to do? What to do? Robin looked hastily through the options at hand. Staffs? What could he do with those? The slingshot? What the hell would he shoot, a wad of leaves? The shelf itself? Well, there's an option… okay, no, no there wasn't. But he didn't want to touch the sword. Nobody had unsheathed it since that day. He didn't want to do it now. But he also hadn't wanted to climb the tree when his back was in excruciating pain. And he also hadn't wanted to abandon the love of his life. And he also hadn't wanted to bury his brother. He was no stranger to forcing himself into a tough decision.

"I grew up in a bad neighborhood, Foxy!" the ox jeered. "I am extremely desensitized to death!"

Robin could see that Chris wasn't looking up, only focusing on the chainsaw and the tree. Robin leaned out to get a clear shot.

"And my survivalism skills are probably even better than yours!" Chris continued. "I've survived a drive-by shooting! Have you!?"

Robin pulled back to give it some extra leverage, and he launched it down.

"...AAAAAHHHHH!" The ox dropped the chainsaw as the sword fell from his scalp in front of his face. He felt the top of his head felt moisture; he looked at his hands and saw blood. He felt his head again and wondered if that smooth thing he was feeling was his skull.

Robin tried to scoot back out of his position leaning in the branch. That's when he lost his balance.

Chris heard a thump, a scream, and a whimper. He couldn't believe his good fortune as the wanted criminal materialized at his feet. He wiped away the blood that was running into his eyes and picked up the chainsaw, which had disengaged when he dropped it.

Robin tried to prop himself up to scamper away, but he couldn't put any pressure on the arm he had landed on; it hurt even worse than his back and his tail did. He found himself almost flat on his back, looking up at the hulking ox as he fiddled with the ignition switch and lever once again. Despite being a literal head and shoulders above most members of his species, Robin had long come to terms with the fact that the rest of the world was a lot more diverse than Loxley, and to most people, he was just another little fox. Just like his fellow vulpines who he dwarfed, he was no stranger to feelings of being too small for the world, and in a moment like this, he was feeling very, very tiny.

"You seem like the kind of guy who's not afraid to die painfully if it means you die interestingly," Chris said without a detectable trace of irony. He was still fucking around with getting the chainsaw in gear, but he seemed to not be panicking for want of time.

PPPPPbbbbb! That was the sound that Robin heard when the ox's hand disappeared. Chris dropped the chainsaw and looked down at his left hand, which - for all intents and purposes - ceased to functionally exist.

"OH MY FUCKING GO-!"

PPPPPbbbbb! "AAAAAHHHHH!" Another bullet, this one to his upper knee where it met his thigh, brought him to the ground. His cries dissolved into whimpers as he regarded the pulpy mess where his hand once was, and after a moment of contemplation, he passed out, presumably from shock mixed with severe blood loss.

"ROBIN!" Little John hollered as he ran over to his friend. "Did he hurt you?" He dropped the pistol on the ground and leaned over to try to prop his buddy up, but the movement just made Robin scream.

"NO! No! Johnny! Down! Down, I- I can't move…"

"What!? What's hurting?" Little John looked down for clues, and he realized that Robin's right arm seemed to have one too many joints. "Rob! What the fuck happened to your arm!?"

But Robin had no interest in answering him. He just stared up at Little John and asked his own question. "Johnny… did you… did you just…?"

Little John stood up slowly and nervously, glancing at the sheriff's gun, and then Chris, and then Robin. "I-I can explain!"

Robin simply stared with no discernable emotion.

"I-I-I- Look!" Little John went over to Chris to check if he was still breathing. "H-he's good! He's alright! I- He-he needs to go to the hospital, yeah, but so do you anyway! I'll run to the car park and call an ambulance! Do we know who's working tonight?" he asked, referring to their cause-friendly paramedic friends.

But Robin just kept staring for a few moments. Then he did something that Little John was finding himself becoming uncomfortably familiar with. Robin leaned over on his right side, hooking his good arm around and over his eyes, and wept.

"R-Rob? ...Robin?"

"I-it didn't used to be this way…" Robin choked out between tears. "I-it didn't used to… it didn't used to be this way…"

"...Rob?" Little John knew he had to say something, but he thought of a million things he could say, and he couldn't decide which one would be the best one to say, so he froze up and said none of them.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?" Robin wept. "How-how does this keep happening? ...Whe- where did I go wrong? ...Where did I go wrong, Johnny!? ...Wh-whe- when did we lose our touch…?"

"Robin, you didn't lose your touch! We didn't lose our touch! You haven't done anything wrong!"

But all that came from Robin's mouth were low-pitched sobs and coughs of tears flooding his mouth. He was weeping like the little kit he never really got to be.

And it was funny: in any other situation, what Little John had just noticed would be hilarious. He would josh Robin for it and Robin would play off the embarrassing moment in that cool way that only he could. But that would not be the case in this context, for even among the ghastly wound to his tail, the horribly broken arm, and the tears flowing down from his face, it was the stain running down the insides of Robin's pant legs that made Little John realize that something was horribly, deeply wrong with his friend.

In a moment like this, Little John knew his friend was not perfect. He knew Robin was not infallible, and he knew he was not invincible, and he knew he was not incapable of succumbing to tremendous amounts of pain. But oddly, with that anxiety gone, an opposite one took its place. Little John was now afraid that he wasn't capable of helping Robin. He didn't know whether he could be anything more than a shoulder to lean on; he didn't think he could actually tangibly fix what was broken in him. For all his desires to be truly equal to Robin, he was now being put to the test of whether he could handle helping him when Robin was below him. Little John wanted so badly to be a good friend, to be a capable friend, to remedy what ailed his friend and not just be a crutch to help him deal with things the way they were. And, ironically enough, that was another reason he wanted so desperately to be as perfect as Robin: Robin had been able to fix him in ways nobody else could, and it destroyed him that he couldn't return the favor.

Little John didn't want to leave his friend there crying all by himself, but he had to drug Nick and Chris before they woke up and he had to call paramedics for all three of them. He shoved a few pills down the ox's throat - he would have given the big guy three, but he only gave him two since they were running low - and started off to go find the yak again, but before he left, he glanced over at the fox again. His sobbing was winding down; it almost seemed like he was passing out from sheer exhaustion, though the blood loss probably helped with that. Little John felt terrible for the other day in the tree where he more or less demanded that Robin show his bad feelings more often, because now that he had seen him do that, he was afraid there were more bad feelings inside of Robin than he could handle. Something had to change soon, because this was getting fucking ridiculous.

He couldn't wait until those kids made up their minds.