Title: Presents

Rating: PG13

Pairing: Marian/Guy

Summary: Christmas morning came all too soon for him…

Warnings: A little swearing but nothing too bad. And tons and tons of fluff so if that makes you balk, possibly best not to read this on a full stomach! ;-P And possible terribly OOC but it's Christmas and I'm allowed!

Status of Fic: Completed AU one shot

Author's Note: Merry Christmas! XD

Disclaimer: I do not pretend to own anything Robin Hood-esque…but I would like to steal it…

Presents.

Christmas morning came all too soon for him.

It seemed only a few moments ago that he had stumbled into bed after riding home through the bitter December weather and suffering an unforgiving last day of work with the Sheriff ("I hate Christmas, Gisbourne! Ridiculous time of the year. An excuse for the peasants to eat, drink and then be sick all over the castle steps and we can't have that now, can we?…I want you back at the castle the day after boxing day. Can you have until New Year off? Why of course you can after such a year of hard work and devoted servitude to me! A clue, Gisbourne - no you bloody well can't!")

He could have slept for an eternity, a thousand eternities, his body too heavy to move a muscle, too weary and worn…but Marian, it seemed, had other plans.

"Guy?" she breathed, sleep making her own voice dreamy and languid in her throat as if she was speaking through honey.

She wriggled a little closer to him, eyes still closed, tugging at the blankets that they shared until they covered her shoulders against the chill early morning air of their chamber and were securely tucked beneath her chin.

He did not answer straight away, too firmly ensconced in his own exhausted slumber to realise that she was speaking to him at all.

"Guy?" she stated again, slipping an arm up across his chest and partially around his neck so that she could smooth her palm across his stubbled cheek, travel it across his furrow-free brow and sweep back his dark, sleep-mussed hair from his face. "Are you awake? Did you hear me?" she pressed herself closer still, until her body rested against his side, warmth from her skin seeping through the thin cotton of her nightdress, and her lips and smile nestled in the crook of his neck, where it met with his shoulder. "Guy!"

He took a deep, long suffering breath as she continued to squirm beside him, against him, her lips tracing a journey until they reached his earlobe and she, obviously fully awake now and intent upon driving him absolutely insane until she got her own way, took it between her teeth, gently nipping it in another attempt to gain his attention.

"It's Christmas morning." she persisted, the heat of her breath tracing the shell of his ear and back again, all the while her fingertip tracing circles through the hair framing the opposite side of his face.

"I am fully aware of that." he sighed finally, resignedly, defeated, still not willing to open his eyes to the grey early morning light he knew to be streaming in through the wide bedchamber window, and he could almost feel her grinning in triumph beside him as she retreated from her ministrations, placing a final, lingering kiss upon the cheek left unattended by her hand. "Woman, your impatience will be your downfall. Can you not at least let me be for a few more hours?"

"Not really…"

Her laugh was a silent, balmy exhalation that drifted across him in a wave, and as he finally slitted one dark blue, tired eye open, he realised that, whilst she had been waking him at such an ungodly hour of the morning, she had indeed stolen most of the blankets.

He sighed again, deeply through his nose, opening both eyes fully and turning them to regard her as she propped herself up on her elbows against his chest. Her dark hair framed her face with a chaotic halo, backlit by the misty grey of the morning. Her smile was entirely too self satisfied and her eyes, twinkling sapphire blue as she watched him, far too alert for the time that it was.

"Once upon a time you told me not to get you presents." he growled, feigning impatience and she laughed again, this time fully, at his inability to even pretend to be annoyed with her. "And yet now you are pestering me for them?"

"I am your wife now. For that reason alone I deserve them." she retorted cheekily, earning a dig in the ribs from his hands, now unconsciously having made their way from his sides to resting lightly at the small of her back.

"Indeed?" he quirked an eyebrow at that, smirk tugging unbidden at one corner of his mouth and he smothered it only by leaning up, pressing his lips firmly to hers and claiming his first kiss of the morning. "Well, if that is your attitude, perhaps I shall give your presents to the kitchen girls at the castle instead. I'm sure they would be more than happy to-"

"You wouldn't dare!" Marian interrupted, pursing her lips in between his kisses and words, jabbing a finger so hard into the middle of his chest that it ached long after the offending digit had been removed. "Besides, if you did I would give all of yours to Allan!"

"Now that was uncalled for." he snorted, eyebrows leaping up his forehead enough to make her laugh again as she flopped back down beside him and returned her head to the crook of his neck. And for half a second he thought that she was actually going to let him return to sleep and rest for a while longer. His eyes slipped closed once more and just as the beginnings of slumber buzzed at the edge of his consciousness…she began wriggling again, too excited to even keep still any more.

"Marian…" his voice was deep with warning.

"What?! You can rest when we are both dead and buried six feet under, my Lord, for you are a long time in the grave." she retorted slipping away from him and out of their bed completely before standing, staring down at him, hands planted firmly a fists upon her hips.

"Do not tempt me…" he muttered beneath his breath and if she heard him at all she did not dignify him with a response, instead taking hold of their bed clothes and ripping them away from him fiercely.

Icy cold air assaulted him, chasing away the last hopes of sleep he had been gripping onto with an iron fist and finally, grudgingly, he struggled to the edge of the mattress and then to his unsteady feet.

"Fine." he snarled, half heartedly. "Have it your own way…as usual." and Marian hurtled from the room barefoot with a wide grin on her face that made his own lips twitch into a smile as he followed dutifully, tugging a soft woollen black shirt over his head as he went.

-oOo-

He watched her closely from where he was seated in one of the carved oak chairs drawn up close to the fire now crackling happily in the hearth. Watched her sat upon the floor, knees tucked beneath her, before the great tree that she'd had Allan and two of his strongest guards cut down, drag in and spend their afternoon decorating with ribbons and lace and candles.

He'd not seen her eyes light up like this since before her father's death, since before she had agreed to marry him in order to escape the razing of Nottingham…only to find the Sheriff alive and well, seconds after saying 'I do'.

It had taken her a long while to come to terms with their actions and the Sheriff's return and then for him to accept that she had been the Nightwatchman. After all those long, furious months of scouring the countryside for the ghost-like man…it had been her. Right under his nose.

But they had managed it. Both of them. Had forgiven and forgotten and forged on in their new life together. And they were happy.

"Open this one now." he intervened, leaning forwards and directing her view as she glanced around at the piles of empty boxes and wrappings and ribbons that had contained her gifts, to one final box. A large one, mostly hidden beneath the lower branches of the tree and that had escaped her usually sharp, all seeing eyes.

"More?!" she asked, almost incredulously. "You really shouldn't have spent so much, you know. This money could have fed a family, an entire village for-"

He pressed his fingertips lightly to her lips, halting the words that she was about to speak, suddenly guilty of her over excitement and the fact that she had received so many gifts when others had nothing.

"Just open it." he countered, sitting back into his chair once more, elbows resting upon the carved arms, a knuckled of one had resting at his lips.

And for once in their bizarre, topsy-turvy marriage, she obeyed him, clamping her lips tightly closed as she struggled to pull the thing out into the open, setting it on her lap.

The crimson ribbon was knotted tightly on purpose, to prolong the anticipation but eventually her deft, careful fingers mastered it and carefully laid it aside. Possibly she was thinking of saving if for some of the young girls in Locksley Village.

Next she unfolded the matching wine coloured material that he had had the box wrapped in and, as she curled her fingers around the edged of the lid, she flashed him one final, mystified smile…and then she was looking down at it, placing the lid carefully at her side, all the air from her lungs and joyful teasing remarks from her tongue slipping from between her lips in a long exhalation of breath as she studied the present and it's meaning.

Dark shapely eyebrows drew down into a just as confused frown and then blue eyes flashed up to meet his. Questioning him. Asking him silently if he really meant what she thought he did or whether it was all some elaborate hoax.

And Guy couldn't help but laughing at her, her face was such a picture. He would remember that look until the day that he died.

Slowly he moved forwards, slipping from his seat onto his knees before her, reaching into the box and retrieving the skilfully created mask that lay in there on top of the softest leather jacket and breeches.

"If this is who you are," he began, slipping the mask over her feature and tying it's straps slackly behind her head, careful not to pull at any of her still chaotic curls still left loosed about her shoulders. "If this is what truly makes you happy then I will do everything in my power, everything, to aid and protect you."

Blue eyes stared from behind the new Nightwatchman's mask into darker blue eyes. As if she could read the truth of his words deep within his pupils until finally she surged forwards, package and presents and all forgotten, falling to the side as she wound her arms about his neck, pulling herself to him for all that she was worth.

"Thank you." she managed to whisper from where she pressed her newly masked face into his shoulder, touched by his gesture and his support for her.

"You are welcome."

-oOo-