(Disclaimer: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves belongs to Warner Bros. I make no profits from this work.)

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Will

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He'd wring that Will Scarlet's scrawny neck when he found him. If he ever bloody found him. John glanced up at the sky again, and the irritation he'd tamped down all evening bubbled to the surface. It was going to rain, and if he had to wade through the mud of Nottingham, to find that boy, then—well, then Scarlet would find it hardly mattered he was half Locksley, because John would box his ears all the same.

A light was moving further down the street, its orange glow bobbing with the rhythm of a man's step. The night watchman was coming up the way, his footsteps a muffled echo. He stopped at a corner, and his voice rang out. "One o'clock and all's well!" The sound was faint and far away, and as if to spite his words, the heavens opened and the first few drops of rain began to fall. The watchman raised a fist to the sky—"All's well, my arse"—and turned up his collar, trudging away into the night.

One o'clock? John felt himself flush, the blood pounding in his ears. The first hour in the new day without the Sheriff, but instead of ringing in the new age with Robin and Fanny and the others, he was wandering the sodden streets at this godforsaken hour. It had only been an offhand comment in the midst of the celebrations. Robin had frowned, suddenly aware of an absence among them. "Where's Will?"

Not that Will's presence had done much to brighten rooms before, surly little bugger that he was. But he meant something to Robin, which was why John had heard himself declare, "I'll find him," because who else would and surely Will couldn't have gone that far.

John sighed. Fool that he was for volunteering, leaving the comfort of the Thatchers inn, its bright fire and good ale for the cold, dark courtyard, which was regrettably empty of half-brothers. So also was the alley beyond it, where someone told John that 'this 'ere Will Scarlet' might've passed by, or he might've not'. And that was why John would give that boy a good drubbing when he found him, one he'd not soon forget. Knock some sense back into that thick skull of his, because—Lord knows—Will didn't have much to begin with. John had seen him bloodied more times than he could count on two hands, always from some fight he'd picked and couldn't win. He'd had a lot of those—followed by a mad leap into the next fray, each time recklessly outmatched.

Fanny had taken pity on him whenever he came out the other side of a scrap. Long ago, in another lifetime, Will had been young enough to bend to her rough care with little more than a toss of his arrogant head. He had tried to look unmoved as she cleaned him up, wincing under the talking-to he deserved. "What were you thinking, Will Scarlet?" she'd say, tutting him. "What would your mother say?"

And Will had accepted all this in a kind of wilting disgrace, a wince of drooping shoulders, until the day he realized he'd rather spare himself the scolding, stalking off somewhere else to lick his wounds.

"A waste of your efforts, Fanny," John had said, irritated by Will's indifference to her charity. John hadn't wanted her to take it to heart, but she had surprised him, shrugging off the petulant slight, and had gone outside to hang laundry, having better things to do than brood over the ungrateful injured. "Not to worry, my heart," she'd said, giving John's chin a meaningful tweak in the doorway, as if she'd known Will's sulk would do more to her husband's humour than hers.

And it had. Until then John had found Will Scarlet a lesser nuisance, an ache that made itself known now and again, like a bad knee in cold weather. The lad had come and gone over the years, a fleeting figure in the lanes, charming his way to hot meals and gifted apples and drifting from one village to the next for…what? Work? It was perhaps unkind to say, but John couldn't imagine Will setting his mind to anything, much less his back to the burden of an honest day's work. Granted he'd been a decent Man of the Woods under John's charge—albeit young and brash and full of terrible ideas—but that had been a different kind of work. Thieving work. A trade John had buried with his fallen brothers in Sherwood. Now he dreamed only of Fanny and their house and the garden, the smell of summer and the curving fields of wheat and rye.

But at the moment, John was standing ankle-deep in mire, with the cold and the wet finding its way through his cloak, and the inn and the fire seemed miles away and years ago. He pulled his hood over his head to keep the rain from his eyes. Patience, he had to remind himself. Will had fought well, and though he was more hot blood than level head, it was half Robin's blood, wasn't it? And who else might better bleed Will of his piss and whinge than Robin Hood, and that was hope, wasn't it? "I'll allow it, Will Scarlet," said John. "Just this once."

There was a muffled shout from somewhere behind him, a burst of voices, a drunken chorus and a fit of clapping. The Hangings, more hovel than tavern, a leaky pit of moulding walls and a sour fire. Someone opened the door, hinges squealing, and a faint orange light spilled out into the street, the voices inside suddenly clear.

"I've always taken care of you."

"Piss off, Munday," was the answer, the voice slurred. "You've never—"

"Then what were all those years? And all those bits of bread? Communion, I thought they were. Alms for the poor boy out in the rain. Wouldn't you call that friends?"

"No."

A sneering laugh. "That's gratitude for you. I should've known not to feed the dogs." A raised voice, addressing the crowd. "This bitch bit my hand."

There was a splintering crash, the door unhinged, and two figures came tumbling out into the dark. They went down in the mud, rolling over each other, scrabbling for a foothold on the slick cobbles. A confused tumult rose from the Hangings, the people lurched through the broken door, swearing. One of the brawlers swung hard, a dull thud of fist to bone—and the other man let out a hiss of pain. "Damn you, Will Scarlet!"

John stopped in disbelief, and there was a moment when the world went silent, and he thought surely he'd been mistaken, surely he'd misheard the name—and then the thin seam of his patience tore, like the skin over boiled milk. This was where the boy would rather spend his night? Knee-deep in the dirt of some ruined tavern?

John pushed through the cheering crowd. By the light of the tavern, he could see a man, Munday presumably, tall and thin and red-haired, pick himself up, and Will, on the ground, far worse, his front muddied, his hands black from where he'd stopped his fall.

Munday laughed and wiped the blood from his split lip with the back of his hand. "Better a thief than a bastard, I always say, Will." He leered. "But then…you're both."

Will staggered up, snarling, and would have lunged if John hadn't grabbed him first. Will faltered in surprise, and Munday took one look at John and clasped his hands, as if in mocking penitence. "Saints preserve us!" he cried, his voice cracking. "God's sent me giants to keep me from harm."

John didn't like the look of him. "Be on your way then."

Munday laughed again. "Hear that, Will? I have the good Lord's favour." And to John. "You've done an honest man a kind deed."

The people laughed, and John had the uneasy feeling that he'd contributed to some ill-gotten gain. Munday grinned and backed away, fading into the dark. The crowd let out a sigh, their excitement gone, and seemed to realise in their stupor that it was cold and the rain was coming down in buckets, and wasn't it better inside by the fire? They muttered something about a 'disappointing end' and ducked back into the Hangings, and there was only John left, and Will, who was suddenly aware of him, the recognition working slowly through the mead. "John?"

"Is this the company you keep, boy?" said John. "Tosspots and fools? You'd rather fight with half-wits than drink with Robin?"

Will flinched and looked vaguely guilty, and John might have felt sorry for him then—the drowned rat, the miserable strop standing pale and cold before him—except that Will seemed to remember his defences in a fleeting moment of clarity. "I'm not your boy, John."

"And thank God for that. I wouldn't want such an ill-tempered whelp under my roof. Even Wulf has enough sense to pick a fight he can win."

"Is that why Robin had to save him from Gisbourne?" Clearly the knocks to his head had done nothing to dull his sharp tongue.

"Say one more word against my boy…"

Will bit his lip. It seemed that whatever bravado had sustained him was fading, and John was the happier for it. Will couldn't put up much of a fight when he'd already winded himself from the first. But it was a problem, John admitted, taking in the younger man's wretched appearance. How could John show him to Robin like this? Will looked as if he had been dragged by horse through the streets of Nottingham.

"Your boy nearly ruined our plans in the square today," said Will.

John couldn't believe his ears. Where was Will's usual stunning sense of self-preservation? "Because he thought you betrayed us. Because he believed you when you said you wanted Robin dead. Because you'd tried before."

"I didn't kill him."

"You almost bloody did." John seized him by the collar. "If Robin hadn't put that arrow through your hand, where would you be? Could you have lived well knowing you'd stuck your brother in the back? You've been a liar and a coward all your life, because you couldn't do better. I've seen your pinched fist and your high head—and I thought, forgive him, John—he knows not what he does."

Will gritted his jaw. "I've never needed your forgiveness."

"Damn you, Will Scarlet." John shook him. "You take everything for an insult. For a moment today I thought you were more. I thought I saw…" Change? Hope? Is that what he'd seen? Had he been wrong? He couldn't see any of that in the young man before him. John let go, giving him a hard shove in the direction of the door to the Hangings. "Go back then to your witless friends and keep their company, for you don't deserve your brother's."

"I know." Will was angry. "I'm not so blind that I can't see that he—" He stopped abruptly, because even in the haze of his addled brain, he seemed to realize what'd he said. He glanced at John, an unclear panic in his eyes, and for a moment—before instinct pulled back over him—he lost all sharpness, and he wasn't the churlish hellion who'd turn the best things sour, or even the angry young man who'd just yesterday confessed his soul to Robin. God help him, he looked like a boy, the fair innocent before the world had wounded him. Will swallowed. "I mean…"

John felt himself softening, despite his best intentions. "What do you know, Will Scarlet?" he asked. "That Robin would turn you away? You think that bleeding heart would turn a mouse from its hole?"

"A-and should I thank him for his mercy?" said Will, slipping back into scorn. "Should I take a knee before His Grace?"

John's lingering irritation stirred. He was tired of this—whatever lie Will was or wasn't telling—and no one would think the less of John for leaving the sullen devil in the dark and going home. And he had just about made up his mind to. "I'll not fetch you for Robin again."

"Don't tell him, John."

"Tell him what? That you prefer your own company to his? I think he knows."

Will's eyebrows were pulled down in a pleading expression. "Please."

John studied him. This wasn't like Will. Will never begged for anything, but now he looked so troubled John had to remind himself this was the same pig-headed little grub who scowled at open hands, who took no man's pity and earned no man's trust. And Will was all those things now—mulish and sullen and woefully unprepared—but for some reason, John didn't believe him. John sighed. "I'll not tell him. You've had too much to drink. Can't hold a man to things he won't remember." Where was this coming from, John? Is that what he did these days, tell gentle lies to beery-eyed sots to make them feel better? John held his people to their words, drunk or sober, and gave the men a good thrashing if they deserved it. And that's probably what Will needed now. What he needed on most days.

"Well then, Will Scarlet," said John and reached out and took him by the shoulder, "Where will you sleep tonight? Or did you forget to think of that as well?"

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