InsaneJournal

Leila sat on that floor for some time before steadying herself back on her feet, those heels she was normally so comfortable in quickly becoming difficult. She walked out towards the back, once again finding herself hiding from Gisborne in case his patrol car was out waiting for her. She didn't have the strength to actually face him again, her brain addled with more than wine. She knew he'd slipped something in her drink, and she should be thankful that more had not happened, but honestly, would she be sure of that when her mind was clear? Her head hurt and she had to keep stopping to look at her surroundings. She looked at that picture Much had sent her on the phone, knowing he was probably hanging out with the boys at the Sly Fox about now. She did not question whether or not she should bother him, but Robin would want to know what she did find out----

Honestly, Leila was not in the mindset to appear distressed and out of it. She could not bare seeing Robin disappointed with her. Had she just failed this assignment? She swallowed heavily feeling her eyes prick with tears, the drugs in her system making her hysterical, and that was not normal for her. She called Much, but as soon as he picked up the phone she instantly hung up.

She tried that again at least three times, hanging up every single time. She hugged the phone to her chest and found herself at a coffee shop where she rushed inside, looking behind her and all around her. She hid in the corner with her cup of coffee and hoped that it put some sense in her head.



Much had googley eyed several things around the Sly Fox with a borderline angry air about him. Fuck you he thought to the Sheriff, as he anthropomorphised a couple of Marian's oranges. I'm having fun. Fuck you, you can't get to me. Last night at the Fox, surrounded by most of the others, had been a night of wired energy, a hell of a lot of swearing, and some powerful hugs. Much both did, and absolutely did not, want to be looked after, which made him feel both moody and manic, and playing videogames with Marian had kind of, sort of helped. It'd been the only thing he really felt like doing, anyway, so he'd come back to the Fox after his shift at the Theban Cycle tonight determined to be less moody, less twitchy, more himself.

Thus, googley eyes.

It was sort of working? Maybe? Much was trying not to look too hard at people like Marian and Tuck because they were too good at looking too hard back at him and he didn't want to deal with that.

So he grinned viciously at the googley eyes he'd stuck to the underside of the lid of the toilet upstairs (the downstairs one being, apparently, very out of order) and left it to surprise whoever came to piss next, and was making his way back toward the others when Leila rang and everything inside him jumped. He knew she was with Guy tonight and he really wanted her to be finished with that and just come over. He wanted to be an idiot around her and make her laugh. He missed being an idiot.

But she hung up on him, and again, and again, and it felt like a terrible sign. Trying not to freak out, he rang her back, and the googley eyed toilet stared mockinkly back at him.



She expected him to call her back, and she expected she would be able to hold back from answering. She had the coffee there to try and calm herself, but she realized tea would have been a much better option. That relentless ring, she finally picked up the phone and answered with a meeker voice than usual. She didn't call him by name, nor did she say her usual nickname. She was hyper cautious from whatever Gisborne had slipped into her wine and she felt afraid. Leila was not a girl to feel afraid or shrink back into the back of a room, but also messing with her mind was the fact that she'd been caught. Gisborne did not have a name, he did not know where she lived, but it was the fact that he knew she was not who she said she was----and she'd slipped up. Her heart was pulling her one way, and it was clouding her judgement, because simply put, Leila did not want to be in this position. She was someone's girlfriend wasn't she?



"Leila!" He hissed her name down the phone, one hand braced against the edge of the sink. Her name came out all frantic and too intense, projecting his own feelings about himself and the Sheriff (and to some extent, Marcie and the Sheriff and the way he'd laced his disgusting fingers through her hair and yuk) onto Leila's situation with Guy. The second time he said her name it sounded a little less wild, like he was a person in charge of his own emotions. "Leila? Are you alright?"


She was quiet for a moment, the distress in his own voice causing her throat to close up. There was this intense urge to cry, but she was afraid to do that here, where there were still other people to look. She held her hand over her mouth to still herself, no matter how much it still shook. "I messed up," she said so softly, the voice he didn't like when she was not so strong.


"What's happened?" his voice was a little softer again, though still sounded so much stronger than hers. "Leila, where are you? I'm at the Fox with some of the others - we can come and get you, tell me where you are."


"No, no, no---" She sounded much more stern on that last "no". She could not let Robin know she failed, and who knew what would happen from here. "I don't need to be rescued like a damsel in distress." Yes she had called Much to help her on her feet last time when she twisted her ankle, but that had been part of selling the image to Gisborne. This was not part of the plan, and she didn't need it rubbed in her face; she was tricked. "I don't want to see Robin right now." He would not understand, she had compromised the situation and he would handle it poorly.


Much wanted to scream, a little bit, and paced a circle around the little bathroom with his knuckle bitten between his teeth (what the fuck had Robin done) before he got himself under control again. "Okay," he said, raking his hand through his hair. "Okay... what do you need, Leila? Talk to me."


Leila kept her hand over her mouth as she kept herself from getting pummeled by emotions and feelings of failure. This entire situation had spiraled very quickly and she had to keep her head! She stared down into her coffee cup, that dark liquid a steadying place. Or was it the sound of his voice as it broke through her barrier's of control? Tears would completely destroy her confidence right now, but there they were threatening her. She slipped once she tried to talk because with Much it was real, and he was concerned where Robin or even herself had not been. There was a horrid noise that came gasping from her throat and once the tears started she couldn't stop.


Oh god - hearing her cry was one of the worst sounds in the world. "Leila, babe, tell me where you are? Please -" he didn't know what to do, especially if she didn't want Robin knowing anything. But the others would skin him if he went after her by himself - unless the Sheriff got there first. Fuck everything!

I’m in a coffee shop,” and she couldn’t stand that her confidence was shattered by someone as vile as Gisborne. That she’d failed her mission already when she was usually so level-headed. Was it the drugs or just her heart hadn’t been in this from the first day. She took a deep breath and tried to get herself calm, but she couldn’t.


"Okay, good, that's good. Do you need me to come and get you? Do you want to come here?" He was trying to keep it calm too. Or if not 'calm' then at least 'under control'. Or if not 'under control' then at least more steady than Leila so he could look after her.


“I forgot you’re there with everyone—-“ she felt that panic swell back up inside, “I don’t want Robin to know I’m coming—“ her voice was so anxious and spastic. “He’s going to be so angry,” as he should be.


Oh fucking fucking fuck. "Don't know if I can hide you from him in this place, it's not that big. And everyone's so on edge about the Sheriff, no one's going to let me leave on my own. If you don't want to see Rob... Can you get a taxi here? Then I can tell the others I'm leaving, and we can go back to your place. Okay? Is that a plan?"


“Yes,” she croaked out, the idea of getting to see him making her feel a little better. A little less on edge. She was not sure what the reaction would be when she saw him face to face, but she in no way was going to be that strong confident girl he loved.

It took a little time before she could get there, covering her tracks, making sure that old black-hearted arse was not hiding somewhere. She didn’t want to be caught. Eventually, the cab pulled up and she messaged her boyfriend. Outside.


Much had tramped back to the others and threw himself down next to Marian, watching her destroy some aliens without really watching the screen at all. He told the others the truth, that Leila was heading over in a cab and that he was going back to her place with her, and kicked Will goodnaturedly when he teased him about it. What he did not do was look too hard at Robin, because what he really wanted to do was pin Robin down on the floor and demand "What've you made her DO!?"

He didn't, though. Leila clearly didn't want Robin to know that something had backfired on her.

When the cab arrived, he piled into the back, his eyes demanding to know what was going on - she looked a mess, and he slid both his hands around her face, thumbs on her cheeks and his fingers curled around the back of her neck. "I got you," he said. "Are you alright?"


The cab driver left after she told him to go, there was no reason to wait around once Much got inside. As soon as his hands were on her, she grabbed his wrists and she lost it. What had happened to her? How could she crumble and fold so quickly when this man showed her an ounce of sweetness. Her face scrunched and the tears just fell, choking her throat.


Her cheek, under one of his hands, was hotter than the other, and Much slid his hand away in horror, staring at the red mark just before Leila dissolved in tears. Fuck fuck fuck! He bundled Leila into his arms, pulling her in close and tight. Since his run in with the Sheriff, he'd been wanting to hug her this hard, and just... bury his face in her neck and hold on and breathe for a while, and now it was Leila that needed the comforting. He pressed a kiss hard onto the top of her head, closing his eyes as she cried. "I'm gonna kill him," he whispered, rocking her slightly. "He's dead."

She would tell him when they were not surrounded by foreign ears. Whatever she had to say to Much was only for him. He was the only one to see her this weak, this crumbled. Her arms were tight around his middle where she clung so tightly. It seemed like she cried forever until the car came to a stop right outside her apartment—-and she questioned if she’d have the strength to get out because she had practically melted against Much’s chest. The stain on his shirt was a mix of tears and makeup.


It was starting to feel like every time he saw this girl, she was breaking even harder. From her moody sullenness when she first told him Robin's plan, to her twisted ankle, to her collapsing into tears now in his arms. He couldn't let her break any more - he couldn't let any of them break, but Leila, most of all, he felt responsible for. Leila who held herself so strong and distant, except around him.

Much paid the driver and got her, as gently as he could, out of the car. "Almost home," he said, his arms still tightly around her so she wouldn't fall. "You've got your key somewhere? Want me to do it?"


There was something very safe about Much, very earnest and endearing. More importantly he’d gotten close. Not quite as close as the others maybe thought, but intimate enough. More than that, Much was something more than a bunch of sexual energy between them, and she wished they could go back to that first date, even the second, before everything got so complicated around them.

She took her keys out and handed them to her as she let him ease her out of the car and towards her apartment building. She couldn’t remember the walk to the door or even inside, but it felt so terribly long. She insisted he lock the door behind him, she had to see him do it to feel like it was safe to breathe.


Once inside, Much locked the door and double checked it, making sure it was as secure as he could make it. The Sheriff, he had to hope, didn't know about this place, just as he didn't know about the Sly Fox... Much had to hope, or else he was going to live all his life in fear. He could handle (could he??) the Sheriff knowing where he lived, where he worked, but knowing where Marian and Leila lived? That was too far. There was enough of the old 'protect the damsels' vibe in him that keeping them safe had to come first.

"Let me look at that cheek," he said, gently tilting her face toward the light, and hissing. "Did he hurt you anywhere else?" God, if he had...



She hadn’t said a word since he got in the car, so she just shook her head. Not much actually scared her, but hanging on the edge of some drugs in her body that were still trying to keep her mentally unstable, and everything else she was a mess. “He did put something in my drink, I stepped away when you messaged me and—-“ she’s been distracted, “I didn’t stop and think—-“ she sniffled, her little nose wiggling as she tried to remember and didn’t know where else to start.


He put something in her drink.

For a moment, Much almost couldn't see he was so angry.

"Fuck - fuck, Leila. You need - okay, sit down," he said, leading her toward the couch and sitting her down. He rushed back to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and was back with her in seconds, kneeling on the floor in front of her as he passed her the glass. "Just drink this to start with, okay?"

He put something in her drink. Much was going to kill him.


She followed his instructions of just because she needed someone to give her direction—right now she was too scattered. She held the glass tightly and took a swallow, big brown eyes liking back at him as if he could take everything away. “I hated it. I felt like—-“ she paused and shook her head, “I felt like I was cheating and somehow he found me out. He realized I wasn’t who I said I was—“


Horror widened Much's eyes. "He worked out you're one of us?" he asked, feeling just a little less like this place was still safe, but relieved, too, that the game was up and she could stop. Much shifted even closer to her on his knees, his hand stroking her arm like he needed to touch her to prove to himself she was here.


“I don’t think he knows I’m one of you, but he knows I put on an act—he’s been at that apartment building many times the one he thought I lived at” she took another heavy swallow of water, her hand shaking, but she steadied it when Much touched her. His touch was always so sweet and comforting. “Robin was there in plain sight earlier as an old bag lady.” It was Robin’s insistence that pressured her to go, “He’d been watching Gisborne too, with the Sheriff back I couldn’t keep hanging back, so I went on that horrible bloody date with Gisborne, and I hated it. I kept thinking about our date and when you texted I lit up.” It was when she’d stepped away and given Gisborne access to her drink. “After dinner I didn’t even remember going back to that apartment building.” Her hand started to shake again. “He wanted to see my apartment so I pretended I couldn’t get in the door. That was after the wrong guy answered the first door. I ran. I didn’t know what else to do...” and she wasn’t easily scared, but drugged up it had messed with her head, “I don’t get scared Much. Why did I run?”


"Cos it was smart," Much said, setting the empty glass on the coffee table behind him and taking both of her hands, hold them to still her shaking. "He drugged you, getting out wasn't being scared, it was being smart. You're so, so smart."

Robin's getup as an old woman would have amused him, but where had Robin been when Guy was slipping something into Leila's drink? There was nothing funny about any of this.