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keep_countingTitle: Hornets' nest
Characters: Allan, mentions of the gang, Tom & the Sheriff
Genre: Angst
Wordcount: 529
Rating & Warnings: R for serious angsting and mentions of beatings and death. Spoilers for the entire series (you know what that means)!!
A/N: This just came crashing into my head. I've never written Allan before and this is very dark, so he might be completely OOC. This is also written in a style that I've never tried before, so I might have failed at that too. And my bitterness for season 3 might have seeped through. Might have. Well. You've been warned.
Summary: 'When you've grown up with a drunkard for a father, you learn to fend for yourself'
Hornets’ nest
It’s a harsh world. Cruel. Cold. Selfish. Dog eat dog. Every man for himself.
When you’ve grown up with a drunkard for a father, you learn to fend for yourself. You learn that, even if your brother steals and cheats, he’s still your brother (and you try not to replace his face with your own, even if it doesn’t matter to your father which one it is he’s beating up today).
You learn that, just because you’re brothers, it doesn’t mean you have to take care of each other. So when you’re thrown in jail, you don’t sit around and wait for him to come, because he won’t.
Someone else does though and there’s something bright and new in this world (harsh, cruel, cold and selfish) and you have brothers and friends.
But it’s just so easy to slip up. Because just because you’re brothers (friends, my very best friends), it doesn’t mean you have to take care of each other. Every man for himself.
You feel as if you’re walking with a limb, because the bag filled with coins is weighting you down, but then you get another one, and the weight is measured out. Just not the one on your shoulders, which feels like the sky is dropping on you, every time they as much as look at you, because they must notice that you walk is getting heavier with every step you’re taking.
Guilt is what it is, but you don’t admit it to yourself, until after they have forgiven you. You don’t deserve it. The moral compass that has been installed by them (your friends) tells you that you’re lower than dirt, no better than the Sheriff and that John’s indifference, Much’s glare and Robin’s pain is your entire fault. There’s even a small voice that whispers about Will and Djaq and how they stayed, kept away, because they couldn’t stand being near you again.
It’s spiraling downwards, and you can’t help but resent the others for not noticing how you sleep even less than Robin, how you have a harder time finding your way in the forest and how, every time you see your own reflection, you see Tom staring back at you.
So it’s liberating, like the mouthful of fresh air after a dive in the water, like finally getting food after days of being hungry, when you’re running and you don’t stop grinning, even when the first arrow hits home. It’s a sharp pain, but you’re used to pain (getting knocked out by soldiers, accusing eyes of people who trusted you).
Your life don’t flash before your eyes, you just see (feels) Djaq lovingly hug you one last time, Will’s hand on your shoulder before they both say goodbye. You’re helping John escape the guards again, saying things like family and taking care of each other. There is anger in Robin’s voice, but not in his eyes and you think that, if they could have just gotten back home to the forest, you would be forgiven (for the hundredth time). You even think you can remember Much smiling at you once.
Allan is still grinning when he hits the ground.
