Night and Day (LotR NC-17 slash fic)

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TITLE: Night and Day

AUTHOR: elgrey

EMAIL: lorigrey@aol.com

RATING: NC-17 for explicit sexual content

UNIVERSE: Lord of the Rings (movie)

PAIRING: Aragorn/Legolas

SEASON/SPOILERS: The Two Towers. I felt less as if I were tapdancing on Tolkien's grave if I stuck to movie canon so movie spoilers abound.

CATEGORY:  Romance

DATE: 04.23.03

STATUS:  Complete

SUMMARY: A meeting with Éomer and the apparent death of Aragorn make both Aragorn and Legolas re-examine their feelings for one another.

DISCLAIMER: Everything Rings-related belongs to the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien and New Line Cinema and is only being borrowed temporarily by me in a totally non-profit making albeit somewhat salacious and self-indulgent way. No elves or rangers were damaged during the making of this fic. The lubricant used on page 16 is suitable for vegans.

Night and Day

 

 

Aragorn, son of Arathorn, had never felt jealousy before. Though he loved one who had lived for many centuries before he was born; though he knew Arwen had cared for others before she had come to care for him, he knew well that none had been loved as he was loved, for only to him had she given the light of the Evenstar and the whole of her heart. But there had been lips that touched hers before his had found the soft warmth that awaited him there, yet he had never thought of those others she had caressed and whose caresses she had enjoyed; he had only thought he was not worthy of her love, or her sacrifice, as he drank in the perfume of her long dark hair.

 

But this was jealousy; this stab in his heart, this flicker of anguish, this sudden heat of anger that made him want to snarl like the grey wolf whose den has been invaded. And it was absurd. So absurd he dismissed it at once; telling himself, as he stepped in front of Legolas to break that eye contact between him and Éomer, that he did it for the elf’s protection, not because he could not bear to see that sudden fire in the eyes of Théoden’s nephew as he beheld Aragorn’s best friend. He took a deep breath. There were pressing matters to attend to here; the horrors that could be awaiting the young hobbits a wound in his mind to match the other wound left by the death of Boromir. What failure had his leadership already brought that two lay dead, two were captive, and Frodo had been forced to flee away from the protection he should have received from Isildur’s heir.

 

He could feel his companions, like unbroken horses wanting to lash out, but – although he had expected Gimli to be defiant when tact would better serve their purpose – he always forgot how passionate Legolas could be. There was such a flame of loyalty burning in the elf’s breast that sometimes the natural calm of his race deserted him. So he had drawn on Éomer with the speed of a lightning strike, beautiful and terrible in Gimli’s defence. Aragorn had flashed him a brief look of disbelief, wondering if perhaps his companions suffered from some impediment to their vision that meant only he could see the fifty spears all pointing at their throats. But though he gently pushed down Legolas’s bow and spoke calmly to Éomer, a part of him loved the elf all the more for his ardent devotion to his friends. It had happened in the Council of Elrond when Boromir had dared to speak dismissively of one who was, after all, just as he had said, a ranger out of the wilds. Denethor’s bitterness had no doubt been passed onto his son and Aragorn would never have added such fuel to that fire when agreement needed to be reached; but Legolas had never been able to bear that his friends should be slighted. Always had the elf been passionate in his defence; always had he given Aragorn all the respect he would normally have accorded only another elf; following the commands of one who had walked Middle Earth for a fraction of the time that Legolas had dwelt upon it. Sometimes when he looked at Legolas and saw the youthful purity of his face, the extraordinary innocence of his blue eyes, even Aragorn would forget that the elf was older than most of the trees in Mirkwood, and that he, like Arwen, was ageless, deathless, and immortal, so long as battle or a broken heart did not claim his life.

 

Aragorn tried to keep his voice calm, this situation needing no further fire to fuel it: “We are not spies. We track a party of Uruk-hai westward across the plain. They have taken two of our friends captive.”

 

He saw the regret in Éomer’s eyes and felt the same grief that stabbed through him enter Gimli and Legolas as well as the young rider answered them. If the Uruks were slaughtered then it seemed the hobbits were as well. More failure. More loss. And this was worse even than the death of a brave warrior and good man, whose nobility and compassion had in the end overcome even the dark seduction of the ring; Pippin and Merry had deserved to be protected on this quest, and the warriors who should have kept them safe had failed them.

 

“We left none alive. We piled the carcasses and burned them…”

 

Pain flowed through him then, the loss of hope. Yet even in the midst of grief he noticed Éomer glance at Legolas again; the gaze of an honest man; frank and curious. The first elf he had ever seen close-up or the first elf, perhaps, whose beauty had caught him unawares. Aragorn wondered if Éomer would ever learn that even amongst the elven kind Legolas was considered unusually fair. His beauty was like the spring sunlight and the first birdsong after a dark winter; it made the heart lighter just to look upon it. Long had Aragorn known this, yet thought nothing of it. He had rejoiced in Legolas’s beauty as he had rejoiced in his swiftness and skill in battle; such were the things that made up the whole that was his friend. And long had he known this friend was dear to him; a comfort to him in dark days, his counsel one he looked for when his own mind was troubled. He had thought the pride he took in Legolas’s beauty was of the kind one feels to see a brother admired, or perhaps a sister of whose virtue one was jealous even as one longed to see her courted by another warrior worthy of her love. Now, for the first time, he realized it had always been the pride of possession. In some part of his heart, some corner of his mind, for too long now had he thought of Thranduil’s fairest son as somehow his….

 

 

Standing on the edge of the cliff, Legolas looked down at the river which swirled and coiled away with such savage speed, and tried to make sense of its voice. Though he tried not to hear it, the echo of the orc’s cruelty still resounded through his mind: He’s dead. Took a little tumble off the cliff.

 

Aragorn. Gone. Fallen. Dead.

 

With that he could not grapple; that he could not comprehend. Such a loss could not come to him, to Arwen, or to Middle-Earth. He had seen Aragorn crowned in his mind’s eye; seen him victorious, seen him wed to Arwen, seen him beloved and respected throughout all the land as he was beloved and respected by those friends who knew him best. Although he had not the gift of prophecy, for so long now had Legolas clung to that belief, that shining image, of Aragorn as King of Gondor. It had always been a bittersweet image yet he had cherished it fiercely. And, more even than that, Aragorn could not be lost, for if he were then Legolas was also lost. He would feel his heart tearing; a mortal wound. He was afraid of what this friend had come to mean to him. Afraid of a future in which Aragorn did not feature. He looked into the days beyond and they were wrapped in darkness; there was only shadow now. For the sake of the fellowship that remained, he would yet fight, but a part of him was dying now, a slow bleed of grief the like of which he had never known before. If he accepted this loss, he would be undone. He would not accept it. He would not accept that Aragorn, son of Arathorn, friend to Legolas of Mirkwood, was truly gone. Somehow he must live.

 

Legolas tightened his fingers around the fragile beauty of the Evenstar and prayed that somewhere Arwen was bringing all the grace of the Valar to bear upon Aragorn; that somehow her love would find their fallen friend and carry him to safety. All his strength he would lend to her if it would aid her; she could have the last drop of blood in his veins if it would bring Aragorn back from the churning waters safe and well.

 

Yet though he might yet cling to hope, the orc’s laughter still resounded through his mind. How could anyone survive such a fall? The dwarf’s warmth was the only comfort left to him; the rock of his friendship something he would have to cling to with all his strength in the coming days. He felt Gimli’s disbelief beside him as a tangible thing; their mutual grief was like a netted bird, struggling vainly against the coils of reality. Legolas felt his heart tear. Inside, he was certain he began to bleed.

 

 

Théoden had never cared for elves. They were too remote; too unknowable. And for all their reputed powers, they had done nothing that he could see to stop the rise of darkness across the land. His people were driven from their villages. His son…

 

Always that grief was with him, a black hollow of anguish in his heart. Theodred slept now under the white blooms of Simbelmyne when he should have been riding at his father’s side. So straight and strong and full of hope that evil yet could be defeated. His son’s future still glittered sometimes in his mind; the dreams and hopes he had cherished for him; like the tinkle of a crystal goblet lingering in the echoes even after it has smashed. How could it be that Theodred should never sit upon the throne of Edoras; that the banner of the white horse should never flutter in his name. Even as he tried to save his people from the anger of Isengard, a part of him was still numb with grief.

 

And what had the other peoples of Middle-Earth done to aid his kind? What had they done to avert the death of his son? For all the reputed powers of the first-born, the elves had proven themselves no allies of men at the last. They were leaving the land to Sauron and Saruman, to Uruk-Hai, Orc, and Warg; fleeing to a haven where they could live out their immortal lives in tranquillity, while his people floundered in the mud and blood of defeat. Slavery or death awaited them if this army could not be driven off, and the Men of Gondor were too busy defending their own boundaries to give any thought to the people of Rohan. The tall elven archers cared nothing for their plight, and the dwarves did as they had always done, and stayed in their darkness, like goblins, delving amongst shadows for their glitterings of gold. Except…

 

He looked at them again, these allies of Aragorn, and here was a dwarf; stout-hearted as any man; who had raised his axe in defence of Rohan, and every race of Middle-Earth. Warg blood still gleamed upon the blade. Blood shed that the blood of Théoden’s kind might be spared. In his mind’s eye he saw the elf waiting on the brow of the hill, impassive and fearless, unleashing arrow after arrow to slow the enemy’s advance. Then he had seemed everything ageless and deathless, an ally of worth indeed.

 

Théoden looked at the elf now and could see nothing of that warrior in him. The creature stood gazing into the river with such sorrow upon his face; he looked delicate as a birch before an oncoming storm. In the elf’s blue eyes Théoden saw the same anguish he felt in his heart whenever he thought of his son. A loss that could be endured but not, perhaps, long survived. Against his will and much to his surprise, his heart turned over in pity, for this could have been his own son standing there, slender and fair, undone by the cruelty of a world he had thought kinder than this until now.

 

With an effort Théoden recalled himself to his duties as a king, shouting to his men: “Get the wounded on horses. The wolves of Isengard will return. Leave the dead.”

 

The look the elf gave him then was full of disbelief. He wondered if the poor creature yet understood that the dead could feel no pain, their spirits already departed to the halls of their fathers. It did no hurt to Aragorn to leave this place; nor good to him to linger here, except his friends would join him in the afterworld the sooner. He was gone from all harm now. Théoden’s people were not. And the loss of Aragorn was a grave one for them as well as for these friends of his.

 

Yet he found himself speaking as gently to the elf as he would to Éowyn. There was something of the maid in this elf’s eyes; not in the strength and sinew of his arms, of that Théoden had seen evidence aplenty; but a purity and innocence that reminded him of his niece and of her mother before her. He suspected this elf had never known the comfort of the marriage bed, and that somehow made him seem not ageless at all, but younger than himself. He put a hand on the elf’s shoulder: “Come.”

 

But when he walked away, he left both elf and dwarf still gazing down into the river, still looking in vain for a comrade they would never see again.

 

 

With the image of those ten thousand Uruk-Hai branded into his mind, Aragorn had no thought for anything else; though he glimpsed in passing that his friends had suffered much in thinking him dead, he had no time now to greet even brave Gimli. He must carry this news to Théoden, must tell him of –

 

Legolas appeared like light out of shadow. He looked up and the elf was there. Aragorn stopped dead in his tracks and could only stare at him. So beautiful. It frightened him that this was his first thought. There was an army advancing. It was Arwen who had brought him back from near-death; her love, her kiss…

 

So beautiful.

 

The elf was like a draught of clear spring water to a thirsty man. Unstained, untouched. Aragorn became aware that he was filthy, bleeding, aching in every limb, and that he had smelt a great deal sweeter in his time.

 

“Le ab-dollen.”

 

You’re late. He stared at the tall elf in confusion. Did Legolas think he had been tarrying somewhere?

 

The elf looked him over, taking in his wounds. “You look terrible.”

 

Aragorn laughed. He could not stop himself. He was alive and Legolas was alive, and they could still share a joke together though ten thousand Uruk-Hai were marching towards Helm’s Deep. Elves were maddening things. Like snowflakes you could never grasp in your hand, they always melted away from you, elusive as dreams. Now he gripped the elf’s shoulder, feeling the flesh and bone of an elf who was more than a whisper in his mind, a yearning in his heart, his tangible, touchable, yet still elusive friend, bringing their faces close. He was alive. He could feel it in the pulse of his heart; and read it in the relief dancing in Legolas’s blue eyes.

 

Then suddenly Legolas was holding something out to him and he had no idea what it was. The expression in the elf’s eyes told him nothing. He felt the elf’s fingers in his and clasped them, unwilling to let them go, and only after Legolas had gently slipped his fingers free looked down to find the beauty of the Evenstar undimmed and glittering in his blood-stained palm. At once he felt chilled and warmed all at once. He had thought the Evenstar lost forever and even as he had mourned the dimming of that light in his life, he had wondered if this was a sign that he should let Arwen go; not just in the words he had spoken to her at Rivendell, but from his heart as well. Yet he could not pretend the bond between them was not as strong as ever when her kiss had coaxed him back from the dead and Legolas had given him back this symbol of her undying love.

 

“The light of the Evenstar does not wax and wane… It is mine to give to whom I will... Like my heart.”

 

“Ae ú-esteliach nad... estelio han. Estelio ammen…” If you trust nothing else... trust this. Trust us…

 

And he did. He knew her love was an unbreakable bond. When she was before him and when she was far distant and her voice lingered only in his dreams, he knew he loved her. Yet when he looked into Legolas’s eyes…

 

There was happiness in those elf’s eyes now. So glad that he could give him back the Evenstar. Aragorn realized that he had been hoping for some regret. Was that what he wanted? That his true friend should suffer a bruised heart because of him? Had he become so selfish and so greedy that it was not enough he should keep one elf of whom he was by no means worthy from the peace of the Undying Lands, but he must now hope to capture the heart of another?

 

As Aragorn said “Hannon le” one half of his heart was full of gratitude to have this precious gift given back to him, and another of loss that Legolas could return to him this symbol of Arwen’s love and feel only happiness at being able to do so.

 

When he turned his head he saw Éowyn and on her lips was a smile of relief that he was alive and well, and of joy also, he thought, as she imagined the joy that he must feel to have back the Evenstar, and yet in her eyes he thought he saw a tear.

 

As he hurried to tell Théoden of the Uruk-Hai advancing on Helm’s Deep, he thought what a poor friend he was that he wished that it had been in Legolas’s eyes that he had seen some shadow of that tear.

 

This was the cold dawn of realization when he understood the elf was free, as Aragorn, son of Arathorn was not, free in body, heart, and soul to take wife or lover as he chose. He buried his reaction, impatient with such emotion at such a time. There were other matters to attend to; lives dependent upon his sword and his decisions. As Frodo was forced to bear the terrible burden of the ring, so he must accept the burden of his kingship. The men of Rohan, like the men of Gondor, looked to him for help. Though Théoden might disdain advice of his, still he should have the sword of Aragorn son of Arathorn at his side through the dark night of Isengard’s army. Yet still a new seed of sadness had been planted in his heart and as he fought and fought though the odds were hopeless and the battle surely all but lost, he felt the seed flower into a new sorrow, a permanent ache in a hidden corner of his captive heart.

 

 

Sitting on the narrow bed provided for him, Legolas ached from battle and from grief at the loss of so many of his fellow elves. The loss of Haldir had wounded him deep in his heart. The fear was still raw also; so many times Aragorn could have died; a death he was not sure that he could bear. He had been singed, like a wild hawk by the sun, a foreshadowing of the grief he would endure if Aragorn were ever lost for good. All these things he thought of as he disarmed himself slowly in the chamber to which Éowyn had shown him. She had a kind heart indeed to match her fair face, and he felt for her, that unrequited love for Aragorn one with which he could all too readily empathize. Some, love made small and narrow, envious and bitter, yet he hoped her heart was too pure and too good for it to work such a weakening upon her. Her love for Aragorn had brought her close to despair, he knew, yet still it could make her stronger, as a storm upon a growing oak. He wondered that her menfolk should keep her from battle when such a light of courage shone in her eyes, and he hoped her love for Aragorn should not undo her at the end; that she could understand, as Legolas understood, that it was not that her own light was weak or unworthy of love, but that it had come too late. That she would realize in time for how long had his love for Arwen blazed in Aragorn’s heart.

 

She had never seen Aragorn light up as if a candle had been shone upon his face when Arwen spoke to him; the way he looked when he saw her after absence – be that absence a month, an hour, or a year. With the dark light of the Evenstar few could compete, nor would want to compete if they knew the depth of love that Arwen bore for Aragorn. Yet deep as her love was, Legolas did not think his own was shallow. Éowyn he hoped, might still be able to make it to the shore, but he had seen at once her heart was passionate, and he knew himself how hard it was to retreat from a flame that promised such warmth, even though one knew that, like the wings of some poor moth, shrivelling to a blackened cinder must inevitably follow. Aragorn burned too brightly, that was the problem; Legolas knew he was not the first to be singed by him, and no doubt he would not be the last. Legolas sighed as he unbuckled his quiver and tossed it onto the bed. It was too light and he must collect more arrows, but he was too weary and he could not bear once more to walk amongst the fallen.

 

There were so many dead elves out there in the pitiless daylight; some of them with their heads pillowed on the breasts of slaughtered orc; eyes open but unseeing. As he thought of Haldir he had to close his own eyes or else he might have wept. He ached within and without, for the dead, and for his own bruised heart. Gimli knew; he was sure of it. The dwarf had been too gentle with him after that quarrel with Aragorn that had seared him to the soul. Though he knew their stalwart companion to be kind-hearted, fearless, and loyal, he did not expect soft words from him, yet Gimli had been as gentle with him as if he were some maiden encountering first rejection. He must thank the dwarf later, he thought. He need not name what he thanked him for; but they would both know that Gimli’s consideration had been noticed and appreciated. Though the way ahead was still dark indeed, and perilous, in their companions they had been most fortunate. Elrond had chosen well when he had named them the fellowship of the ring.

 

He remembered Aragorn pressing his lips to Boromir’s dead brow; remembered too that brave warrior at sport with the hobbits, teaching Pippin and Merry to wield a sword, and laughing at their ferocity. The man had sacrificed himself for those two merry-hearted souls in the end and it grieved Legolas greatly not only that it should have happened but that they should have been witnesses to it. That race was not meant to see dark things; they were the happy uncomplicated heart of this land for which the rest of them should make sacrifice that the hobbits’ lives should roll on undisturbed. The failure of warriors had begun when the Nine had made their way to the Shire, and it had been a sad day indeed when such light-hearted creatures as those should witness the death of such a man as Boromir of Gondor and should be forced to see with their own eyes the light go out of his.

 

He bowed his head and murmured a brief hope that Boromir had found the peace in death that had eluded him in life. For such a warrior he hoped there had been many trumpets sounded on the other side, and feasting in his honour, for he imagined it a robust place where such souls as his found their final rest; one where heroes could still fight and win and leave all their weaknesses far behind.

 

When such a fellowship was formed it should not lightly be sundered; thin threads sent out to bind all of them together which, when severed, bled. And certainly he felt as if parts of himself were in disarray; one limb dead; others scattered. His heart was bruised. What was he if not a protector of those not gifted with elven senses, yet he had done nothing to save Frodo and Sam, who now must be struggling on towards Mordor alone, and though he had run until he had thought his heart would burst, Pippin and Merry had been saved through no efforts of his. He felt too restless to sleep although he knew he should take what rest he could. He told himself it was because he needed to see that the two hobbits were as safe as Mithrandir had told them; because they knew not what the fate of the ringbearer might be; and yet in his heart he knew this restlessness was because Aragorn was in another chamber like this one, also heartsore and weary, and had Legolas not foolishly come to love him too well, he would have taken him some mead and made him rest and reassured him that he had done all that could be done and far more. In allowing Aragorn to become more than a friend to him, he had become less than a friend himself. He thought of the pure-spirited loyalty that Sam showed Frodo and felt ashamed that he, one of the first born, should have so much to learn about true friendship from a gentle hobbit out of the Shire who thought himself no hero; who had killed no orc in his time; nor understood the language of birds; yet what stouter heart beat in Middle Earth than his, and what greater loyalty and friendship had anyone shown another than that gardener of the Shire to his dearest friend?

 

I am ashamed of what I have become, Legolas thought to himself. I am not only unworthy of Aragorn’s love; I am unworthy of my blood and kin. So the man cannot love you as you wish to be loved; you are alive, as is he, and the fate of Middle-Earth tilts upon the blade of a knife while you sigh in your bedchamber like a maiden counting flower petals whose rhyme has come out wrong…

 

“May I speak with you?”

 

Legolas turned to find Éomer standing in the doorway of his chamber, looking at him intently. The fellow was taller than he remembered, and his long hair reminded the elf of a horse’s mane; it had the same coarse vigour, the same unexpected beauty when the firelight turned its golden strands to bronze. Éomer’s skin was ruddy, his eyes clear and free of doubt. A handsome man, certainly, broad-shouldered and well made, confident and direct. A man much better as an ally than an enemy and one who had shown himself a true warrior in battle. He was spattered in blood and stank of sweat and death. Nor did Legolas think one would have needed to be an elf to know at once that the young warrior had ridden hard and fast to come to the relief of his uncle’s people.

 

Although Legolas was weary he acknowledged that the son of King Théoden’s dead sister deserved his respect. Without the Riders of Rohan none of them would have survived and if strategy were to be spoken of, or battles planned then certainly his weariness must be put off and the man given all his attention. He inclined his head. “Of course.”

 

The wild trees had killed many of the departing Uruk-Hai who had fled from the Riders of Rohan but still they knew Gondor was in need of their help. He presumed Éomer would want to speak of this. But instead the tall warrior put his head upon one side and said, most unexpectedly, “May I kiss you?”

 

“What?” Legolas stared at him in disbelief. He knew very well that his hearing was excellent and his comprehension of human speech better than that of many humans, yet still he questioned his own ears.

 

Éomer came into the room and shut the door. Legolas realized now that he had that strange scent about him humans got after battle; not just blood and sweat, but arousal; a jut of defiance between their legs because they had survived to see another sunrise. It followed the red mist that came down across their eyes as they strode into battle, sword held valiantly aloft. He had never found a tactful way to ask Aragorn about it; this need humans had to go from grasping one sweaty weapon to another. But he had never seen that need so unguarded as it was in Éomer now. The young warrior looked at him intently, eyes dark with want, lowering his voice to say with an open frankness that was almost disarming: “I never kissed an elf before.”

 

“You will not feel the lack then when I refuse,” Legolas retorted. Had Aragorn been nearby he would have been gesturing to Éomer to take a step back, for the fire in the elf’s eyes was fierce as the setting sun.

 

“Do you refuse?” Éomer did not hide his disappointment. “I hoped you would be as curious as I.”

 

Full of wrath now, Legolas rose to his feet, the tall elf a little irritated to find Éomer his match for height and far broader in the shoulders. “Do you know who and what I am, son of Eomund? I am an elven archer of Mirkwood and son of King Thranduil of that realm. I was walking this world when the timbers from which Edoras is fashioned were not yet acorns waiting to sprout. And in all those centuries I have never yet felt any need for the embrace of a human who smells like his horse!” Even as the words left his lips, Legolas realized they were a lie. There was a chill curl of regret inside him and its name was ‘Aragorn’. And dearly though he loved the heir to Gondor, it could not be denied that at present the man did indeed smell greatly like his horse.

 

A smile played at Éomer’s lips; clearly finding the elf’s anger amusing. “I could bathe.”

 

Legolas opened the door to his chamber and looked pointedly into the corridor beyond. “You may leave now.”

 

As he turned to go, Éomer caught Legolas’s cloak and pulled him close, whispering into his ear, “You are the fairest sight I ever saw, prince of Mirkwood, and my body is a pillar of flame for your embrace.” Then he kissed Legolas, most chastely, on the lips, and then was gone, before Legolas could decide if putting an arrow in Théoden’s heir could be justified to Mithrandir later on the grounds of gross provocation.