Gimli
After Boromir's death
"I'll go scout ahead."
"No," Aragorn snapped. "No, I'll go, Legolas, you stay here with Gimli."
Gimli frowned at the man. Legolas was the better choice for scouting and they all knew it. He had the best sight and hearing out of the three of them. Aragorn had never objected to it before.
"I'm fine, Estel."
"No, I'm not letting –"
"Aragorn, what's gotten into you? Someone needs to scout, let Legolas go."
"You don't understand, Gimli, he –" Aragorn turned back only to find Legolas gone already. He cursed and made to hurry after his friend, but Gimli snatched his arm.
"What's wrong with you?"
"I –" Aragorn threw one more glance in the direction Legolas had gone before ceasing trying to pull away, his shoulders slumping. "Too late now. He's gone."
He refused to answer any more questions about the odd incident. Legolas came back a short while later with a strange expression on his face. Gimli had only seen that look on him once before, after Gandalf fell in Moria, in that short time the Fellowship had spent just outside the mine in mourning. He looked so… tentative. Legolas was usually extremely sure of himself – it was damn well annoying – but not now.
"Estel…"
"No, mellon nin," Aragorn groaned. "It wasn't your fault!"
"It was. If I'd been there, Boromir would never – would never –" Legolas broke off, blinking rapidly. "Let's just go, Estel."
Gimli stared between the two of them, completely at a loss. The last time this had happened, the two of them had gone off with Aragorn's healing supplies, Legolas looking guilty and Aragorn looking sad, for a short time before returning and refusing to speak of it.
Gimli had let it go at the time, because he and Legolas hadn't been friends then, but now they were. There was clearly something wrong, and he would know what it was. So when Aragorn sighed and picked up his healing bag, Gimli followed.
"Give us a minute, Gimli," Aragorn said over his shoulder.
"No. There's something wrong with the elf, and I'll see it for myself."
"No you won't," Legolas snapped. "Go away, Gimli."
The dwarf wasn't so easily discouraged and followed anyway, ignoring Legolas' cursing. Gimli folded his arms and waited.
"Fine," Legolas snarled. "What do I care if you see?"
Such animosity hadn't been aimed at him from Legolas in quite a while, which left Gimli even more intrigued than ever, not to mention more than a little worried. Aragorn was calmly getting out a needle and thread.
Legolas pushed back his left sleeve, revealing an arm covered in blood, stemming from a deep cut on the inner forearm, a few inches below the elbow.
Gimli gasped and yanked his axe out of its holder. Had Legolas killed his attackers? Surely the elf wouldn't be so calm if he hadn't, but it wouldn't hurt to check. "How many, Legolas? Where are their bodies?"
Legolas didn't reply, biting his lip and uncharacteristically refusing to meet Gimli's gaze.
"There are no attackers, Gimli." Aragorn handed Legolas some herbs to chew that would presumably numb the pain. With movements that looked far too well-practiced, Aragorn lifted Legolas' arm to rest on his leg and started stitching.
"You went too deep, mellon nin," he murmured. "You won't be able to draw your bow for weeks."
Legolas nodded, seemingly unsurprised. "I'm sorry. I should have been more careful."
Gimli stared between them in horror. Legolas had done this to himself? He'd never questioned why Legolas always wore long sleeved tunics, no matter what the weather was like. Looking at the elf's arms, he could see what had to be hundreds of healed scars, all crisscrossing over each other. One of them looked slightly pink, as though done in recent months. "Why?" His eyes bored into Legolas, who again wouldn't answer.
It was Aragorn who did. "Whenever someone dies and Legolas decides their death is his fault, he marks himself for it. One cut for one person, the depth depending on how much he cared for them."
Gimli's eyes were drawn back to the pink scar. "That one?"
"Mithrandir," Legolas breathed, wincing slightly as Aragorn's stitching tugged at his skin.
Gimli frantically tried to remember whether Legolas had drawn his bow in the month they'd spent at Lothlorien. No, he hadn't, and he had seen the elven healers a couple of times. They must have been healing this wound, the one he'd given himself for Gandalf's death.
"Now listen here, laddie, Gandalf's death wasn't your fault, and neither was Boromir's! That's just crazy thinking. You can't go hurting yourself like this because of some misplaced blame."
Aragorn rolled his eyes. "You don't think I've tried telling him that?"
"I'll thank you not to speak about me as though I'm not here!" Legolas snapped. "Thank you, Estel, for the stitches, I can handle it from here."
He took the bandages from Aragorn's hands and walked several feet away, quickly wrapping his arm in the clean white cloth.
Gimli stared after him, resolving never to leave Legolas alone again after the death of a companion.
Aragorn
After the battle of Helm's Deep
"Aragorn! There you are, I've been looking everywhere for you. I was watching Legolas, but he gave me the slip."
Aragorn let out a resigned sigh. "It was bound to happen sooner or later, Gimli. We can't follow him around every moment of every day. He'll find me when he needs to be stitched up."
"No, you don't understand! He blames himself for not killing the orc that blew up the wall. That means every death when the orcs were within these walls…"
Gimli didn't finish the thought, but he didn't need to. Hundreds died after the fortress was breached. If Legolas blamed himself for all of them… Elves had much greater endurance than men, but even they could only lose so much blood before succumbing to death.
Aragorn left Gimli behind as he ran, searching frantically. He expected to find Legolas in one of the towers, but instead he found his friend stumbling through an abandoned corridor, covered in blood.
As soon as he saw Aragorn, Legolas' eyes filled with relief. "Estel," he breathed. His legs gave out, and Aragorn had to run to catch him. He quickly dragged his friend into the closest empty room and pulled his sleeves up, wincing at what he saw.
Legolas had made some rough attempts at bandaging the wounds himself, which had at least slowed the bleeding, but it wasn't enough. Aragorn assessed the damage in a glance. About half of the wounds weren't deep enough to require stitching; those, he knew, were for the unknown men who had died after the orcs had breached the wall.
The other half would require stitches; these must be for the elves who had died. One gaping wound pumped blood at an alarming rate; it looked to have nicked an artery. Haldir. That one must be for Haldir.
Aragorn didn't have time to give Legolas herbs for the pain. He needed to get that bleeding under control now.
"Sorry," Legolas mumbled, his head falling back onto Aragorn's chest. "Tried to get to you… didn't realize… bleeding…"
Fortunately, at that point he passed out, allowing Aragorn to stitch the largest wound before moving to the others. By the time Legolas woke, all of the stitches were done and Aragorn was spreading a poultice over the mess of his friend's arms.
"Estel."
"Hush, gwador, just rest now. Here, drink this." Aragorn tipped up a water skin, which the prince drank from eagerly.
"You can't keep doing this, mellon nin," he said softly. "You nearly killed yourself."
"I know. I'm sorry, Estel. I was foolish. I will be more careful in future."
"No! This can't happen again, Legolas, you understand? It doesn't matter how careful you are, I can't stand to see you hurt yourself. I've been watching it for years, and I can't take it anymore. You don't deserve this, gwador!"
"I have to. It's the only way to move their weight from my soul."
"You'll have to find another way to remove it, then. You… you didn't finish, did you?" Legolas had spent hours scouring the battlefield, and now Aragorn knew that he hadn't been searching for survivors. He'd been counting, counting how many marks he needed to put on himself.
"No," Legolas admitted. "I knew I had to stop when I started getting dizzy. Don't worry, I'll wait until I've recovered some before doing the rest."
The door burst open at that moment, and Gimli hurried in, huffing and puffing. "Legolas! What have you done, laddie? I followed a blood trail from a tower, through two corridors, to this room."
"He did as you said, trying to give himself one cut for each person who died after the breach. At some point, he realized he'd gone too far and tried to get to me, but he was too weak. It was lucky I found him when I did. Can you stay with him? I need to speak to Gandalf."
"Don't need… wizard healing," Legolas breathed. He was pale as snow and his chest heaved painfully as he spoke; he was clearly weak and exhausted.
"I know that. You just need rest, you'll be fine after a few days. I need to speak to him about something else."
"He won't get away from me again, Aragorn," Gimli promised. Legolas made a face at them talking about him like he wasn't there, but his friend's displeasure was the least of his worries right now. He'd had enough of watching his best friend hurt himself, and he was going to put a stop to it, no matter what it took.
Legolas
Nearly an hour later, Estel returned, looking inordinately pleased with himself. "Gimli, thanks for staying. You can leave now."
"Are you sure, Aragorn? He doesn't look like he can stand to lose any more blood."
"Oh, he won't be doing anything."
Legolas didn't like that confident tone, but it seemed to appease Gimli, who left. To Legolas' utter shock, Aragorn handed him his white blade and rolled up his own sleeves. "Go on."
"You want me to cut myself?"
"Just a light one. You really can't stand to lose much more blood."
Suspicious, but eager to lift some more of the weight on his heart, Legolas did as he was told, sighing in pleasure at the sting of the cut, small as it was. Estel hissed in pain, and at first Legolas thought it was simply the pain of sympathy, but when he looked up, he saw to his horror that the human now had an identical cut on his own arm.
"Estel, what –?
"Hang on, let's get this covered." He spread a poultice over Legolas' cut, stopping the bleeding almost at once, before tending to his own. Legolas saw that his friend had no knife in his hand, yet the cut had definitely not been there before.
"What did you do?" the prince demanded.
"I went to Gandalf and asked him for a spell that would stop you hurting yourself. He said such a spell doesn't exist, so I asked him to do the next best thing: bind us. From now on, whatever wounds you receive, I will receive too, instantly, no matter how far apart we are."
Legolas felt his heart start to race as horror rapidly rose inside him. He knew what Estel was doing, and it would work. He would never do anything to cause harm to his heart's brother. If Estel had a spell that would give him the same wounds as Legolas, then Legolas couldn't wound himself, it was as simple as that.
But what about the weight of the souls, pressing on his heart? All of those who had died because of him? How was he supposed to breathe when he had no way to release them? He might have hoped that Estel was lying, but the cut on his arm was all too clear.
"No. No, Estel, tell Mithrandir to take the spell off!"
"I will not, nor will he even if you demand it. I told you, you're going to have to find another way to deal with this."
"You don't understand –" Horror was quickly turning to panic. "What – what if I'm killed?"
Estel narrowed his eyes. "You wouldn't…" He trailed off, a slight question in his voice. Legolas stared desperately at the human, unable to mask his thoughts, and Estel's face filled with sadness. "I would die with you. Not that the spell changes anything in that regard."
Estel's face was shimmering strangely. Legolas was vaguely aware of the weight on his heart pressing down on his chest, making it impossible to breathe. He frantically tried to pull in a breath, but his body wouldn't cooperate.
Legolas felt himself falling sideways, and Estel's arms were suddenly around him. "Just breathe, gwador," he murmured.
"C-can't," Legolas managed to choke out. His hands scrabbled at his chest, trying to pry away the weight there, but to no avail.
"You can breathe," Estel assured him. "Just try to relax. Let go, mellon nin. All of the pain you're holding inside is choking you. Let it go."
The room was rapidly fading. "How?" Legolas managed to whisper. He'd be willing to try anything at this point, really.
"Cry," Estel said simply.
Cry? He hadn't done that since he'd been an elfling. Legolas wasn't even sure he remembered how.
"It wasn't your fault." Estel pressed a kiss to the side of his head, pulling Legolas against him.
Before he even realized what was happening, Legolas' eyes were filling with tears. He gasped in a breath, only to lose it as a sob was wrenched from him.
"That's right, that's right, let it out."
He didn't want this. It felt wrong and way too open, and Legolas tried to get himself back under control, but his body had other ideas. The weight on his heart was letting him breathe now, but it had converted itself to pain, pain that had him wailing aloud as he wept.
He turned and clung to Estel's shirt, sobbing desperately into his friend's chest. His entire body shook with it, and Estel gently rubbed his back, murmuring soothing things that were lost in the sound of Legolas' outpouring of grief and guilt.
Estel tucked the prince's head onto his shoulder, holding his friend as he cried. "Don't try to stop it," he said softly. "This is how most of us release our grief. It's much healthier than the way you do it."
It was also a lot more painful, but Legolas didn't have the breath to say so. The edges of his vision were no longer graying, but the pain that wracked him wouldn't let up.
"Talk to me," Estel urged.
"If – if I'd j-just k-killed him – none of t-them – would – h-have died," Legolas gasped between sobs.
"If you couldn't kill him, mellon nin, no one could. You did everything you could. The dead are at peace now. It is us who must go on living."
Legolas pressed his head back into Estel's shoulder, and his friend squeezed him tighter, holding him as he wept harshly and brokenly. There was something about the feeling of being held as he cried that tugged at Legolas' heart. In many ways, it felt strange, but in so many others, it felt good. He knew he was safe with Estel; his friend would never hurt him or mock his pain.
For a few minutes, Legolas was too choked with sobs to speak, but when he could, he voiced more of his thoughts to Estel, amazed that it actually seemed to help the pain in his heart.
By the time his body allowed him to stop crying, Legolas' eyes and muscles ached, but to his amazement, the weight on his heart was greatly lightened. Not completely removed, as it would have been with cutting, but it was more than he'd expected.
"It hurts less… but it still hurts."
"It will." Estel kissed his forehead. "It'll hurt less over time, though. You did well, mellon nin."
Legolas snorted a laugh. "I did what even an elfling can do with no difficulty at all, yet you had to get a wizard to cast a spell to get me to do it."
"True, but we all have our own struggles. I do not think any less of you for it. We'll come here again tomorrow to talk, alright? Every day, until the weight on your heart lifts. And when it comes back, we'll just keep doing this."
"Thank you, gwador," Legolas breathed. "I… what if it doesn't work? What if the weight doesn't leave, but grows? It'll crush me."
"It won't. I have you, mellon nin, just like you always have me when I need you. I won't let anything hurt you, even things within your own mind. You believe me, don't you?"
How could he not, when he was lying so peacefully in Estel's arms, his heart lightened and his arms no further marked than they had been earlier?
"I believe you," he whispered.
And he truly did.