This marks the 3rd story written for The Insanity Collection. It was begun after MC Insanity Meets Middle-Earth, during Middle-Earth Meets America. Its time-frame is that of post-MEMA, for all it was begun during the writing of. We plan to post TIC in the order we want them read, not their chronological order. We look forward to discussing any part of this story with you, so please review. Thanks for reading!

-The Epic Elven Twins

Conversations

Chapter 1 - Raina

"Hey, sorry again about your arm." Elladan slid into the chair beside me as I swivelled my own to face him.

I smiled at him in greeting and acknowledgement of his apology. We'd already hashed this out yesterday. Although at first I had been a little put out that he hadn't seemed to show much concern when I had mentioned it to him in a note I had sent him via Tira, especially since I suspected the injury was his fault (tussling with elves, black belt or no, doesn't always turn out so good for you, by the by), I had already forgiven him for that. Besides, more than anything, I had been cracking a joke about being upset about it.

No, we were cool. But his concern was touching, and rather cute.

"How is it today?" he asked, reaching out to lightly touch my left bicep, fingers barely brushing against my skin.

Incongruously, I wondered if his fingers tingled at the contact the way my arm did, the way his touch, even as slight as this one, made me tingly and warm.

I shrugged, answering his question. "Much better." The swelling had, after all, begun to recede, though it remained tender to the touch and I was thankful for the careful way he'd brushed his fingers over it. I felt a cooling sensation fizzle through the internal bruising, and I was startled as I realised he was doing that elven thing, which I'd felt a long time ago, but it caught me off guard to feel it again.

He grinned, and I knew he caught my startle, but he didn't comment on it. Instead, he leaned in closer and my breath hitched slightly, as it had always done with his proximity, with the knowing of what was coming. His lips brushed my cheek and I closed my eyes, enjoying the frisson that went all over me.

"I'm glad to hear it," he whispered, then pulled back. I opened my eyes to see his smile, see satisfaction or contentment, couldn't tell which, on his face, and I abstractedly wondered, again, if I made him feel the way he made me feel, like I had touched a plasma ball at the museum and my skin was humming with a soft buzz.

But I had other things I had been wondering, and figured that was more important than hearing about how I made him feel. In some ways, I suppose my question did still pertain to how I make him feel, though, so I guess it's a moot point.

"Elladan," I began, slowly. I was unsure of myself, and I didn't want to tread into unwelcome territory, but I had to know. "When you were helping Tira write Until I Fall Away, um…" He was watching me, unreadable, and I tried to stamp out that hesitation which seemed as much a part of me as the freckles on my face and arms and my lack of height. "Why is it…things went…the way they did?" I had to just force myself to get it out.

Confusion marked his brow, and I felt frustrated. The want-to-scream kind of frustration that you never really indulge, because it's kind of not relevant. What was relevant, though, is that I wasn't making sense, apparently, which tended to happen. I've never been overly good at easily explaining what I mean when talking. Usually, writing it down is best, mostly when it's about others. I don't ever express myself very well at all, do I? I really must work on that one…

"I mean," I scrambled for a better way of phrasing it. "Did you…well, do you…" Apparently that one wasn't working out so well either. And I didn't want to say the wrong thing. "Did things go the way they did because…I dunno…because of feelings? You know…with…well…" What was I even asking? I wasn't asking if he was in love with a fictional character Tira had made up. I was…

Huh. Was I enough for him? Perhaps that's what I was really asking.

Understanding dawned across his face. "Do you mean, did the marriage in the story," he emphasized, and I wondered if he had read me far more easily than I could him, "happen because of any…personal feelings on my part?"

"Well…I…" I looked down, trying to figure out how to voice what I meant. "I'm not asking if you're in love with a fictional character. Not that, you know, I'd think you were crazy for something like that," I shot him a grin, "but we definitely know that girl's not real, because she came from Tira's mind."

Because, after all, at one point I thought he too was fictional, springing forth into life between the pages of a wonderful fantasy series from the mind of a literary genius, the late J.R.R. Tolkien. But Antiel, Tira's main heroine in her story, was definitely made up.

"Are you asking if I am…discontent?" He pressed, and I wondered if I was just imagining the silently tacked on with you after that last word. "You think I am…unhappy?"

I shifted, looking down again. Well, that was what I was asking, wasn't it? I didn't think myself the overly jealous type, but I suppose I may hold some desires to jealously have and keep all of Elladan's feelings. Was this insecurity, some kind of wanting to know that he didn't find me a dull pursuit?

Truly, I wanted to know how Elladan felt and where I stood. "I don't think you are, I want to know if you are."

Rather than answering right away, he leaned back in, and this time his lips brushed mine. His fingers stroked my right cheek, leaving a pleasant warmth in me, and as always, I wanted to melt at that touch. He pulled back enough to look at me, his fingers stroking a loose lock of hair, and I loved the feeling of someone playing with my hair. I couldn't find myself minding any of it, despite the context of our conversation.

"No." He finally said, eyes glittering as he looked at me. "I am happy, here, with you." He closed his eyes and leaned his head against mine, and for a few moments I let him.

I was heartened at his answer, but I still had questions. So I finally pulled back and asked, "Then where…where do these ideas come from?" And I was suddenly thinking of more than just a marriage in Until I Fall Away, or even just that story.

He tilted his head and watched me for a moment. Then he sat back, still watching me. Finally he said, "I believe you and your friends call them plot-bunnies."

I smiled briefly, but turned serious. Glancing away, I slowly replied, "Yes, but…storylines, the ideas, the…the plot-bunnies, as you put it, usually have their basis in some level of thoughts and feelings. Works like that are generally an expression of a deeper mental and emotional state."

He leaned forward and looked at me very seriously, almost imploring. "You do know you are the only one I care for in such a way, right?"

I let my gaze meet his, seeing the sincerity in his eyes, a look I had never had anyone else give me, never had anyone else be so honest and desperate for me to know it was genuine. I smiled, partially sad at the thought as it occurred to me. "Yes," I answered. "Yes, I know. I just… I don't know." I shrugged helplessly. "Why not someone else though? I mean, after all, it could've been Elrohir, right? If we're talking falling in love," which I had more I wanted to talk about than that reference to the stories he's been helping write, "why not Elrohir?"

He quirked a brow. "Maybe because of all the things that happen in A Test of Faith? After all, how often do you girls endear yourselves to us as writers of stories containing our fictional characters? There's no telling what dastardly deeds you'll think up for those characters."

I sat back, thinking. A Test of Faith was a rather dark fanfiction story I was slowly chipping away at. I had told no one all of that which is going to happen in that story, but I had told most to the twins—Legolas and Aragorn were in the dark, even Trelan was too, and Tira only has the beginning and I'm not going to tell her everything that's coming, either.

Well, I guess Elladan has an excellent point there, judging by the plans I had for that story. I'm not surprised they don't really trust their fictional selves to us. We've been known to write some rather sinister things. What, does Elrohir think Tira would write some nefarious thing happening to that reflection of him if he were the one in love in those stories?

Okay, so she probably would…but that's beside the point. We were angst, torture fic writers. But that's not the point.

"You know, Elrohir still isn't happy with you about that. He doesn't want you to go through with writing all…that you plan on writing."

I glanced over at him. "I know he is." I sighed. "But I've been working on that story much longer than the time you've all been back," I pointed out, "and it is a nice tale in the end, I swear it. Maybe somewhat bittersweet, but still."

"Ah. So you don't enjoy writing the tale?" He asked softly.

"I don't care for dark aspects in it, but it's…it's the story." I tried to explain, but felt I was butchering things again. "It just…you have to go through all that dark to get to the light. That's the point. It's…A Test of Faith."

"It's the way the story goes?" he asked casually, and I wondered what he was getting at.

"Yes."

"Ah." He nodded, looking self-satisfied. "So you admit it yourself."

"I what?" I frowned at him, nonplussed.

Elladan grinned. "Despite whatever aspects you personally disagree with, you still have to write those parts, because in the end, the tale as a whole should be told. And those parts are integral."

Well, those weren't my words…for one thing, they certainly summed up my fumbling explanation a lot better than I ever could.

And I understood what else he was getting at behind it, still trying to reassure me concerning the question I had posed earlier.

"Lucky for you then," I began facetiously, leaning into him, "I am so understanding." I placed a quick peck to his lips, intending to pull right back, but I found his hand slipping around the back of my neck, keeping me close.

"Yes, I do realise how lucky I am," he whispered cryptically as he pulled me back closer to him to place several heartfelt kisses to my lips.

Again, I wanted to melt into his embrace, to focus on only that. The way my heart raced at how it felt, him kissing me, the way his lips felt and mine felt, the warm fuzzlies that fizzed in my belly.

I wanted to just relax and forget about everything, curl up in his arms and cuddle. Like I had last night. We'd spent the better part of the evening on the living room couch, doing nothing else but holding each other and sharing the occasional chaste kiss and, at least on my part, listening to him breathe and feeling his heart beat beneath my fingers as I rested my hand on his chest. And it'd been wonderful, let me say.

But I had several things left I wanted to discuss with him, and I wasn't sure how long I'd have with him before he went off to help one of the other Silithluin Gwathil with something. Despite how much I wanted to put it off, because I was unsure how he would react when I finally do pose the question, it was a particularly urgent matter, and I had put it off for days already. It was a matter of his behaviour in the writing he's been helping Tira with, because he seems hell-bent on imposing as much suffering on his fictional self as he possibly can.

It just…Tira was getting worried. Said something didn't feel quite right. I was getting concerned, too.

"Dan, don't," I told him, turning my face away and pulling back, away from his touch.

As I did, he groaned, "You're not still mad, are you?"

I thought I'd told him I wasn't mad… "No, I'm not, but…we need to talk."

With a sigh, he sat back in his chair and lightly folded his arms, scrutinizing me. "About what?"

I hesitated, watching him and chewing my bottom lip. I considered how to bring this up, how to get to my point. I didn't know what I was dealing with, and I wondered what I was about to get myself into. "About…As Long As It Matters." That would be the most recent story in Tira's Lost Horizons series that they were working on.

"What about it?" he asked indifferently.

I sighed, wondering if he was purposefully acting unaware. He wasn't making this easy for me. It hurt just to think about it, whatever it might be that was driving him to these outlets. I could only hope that somehow I'd be able to get him to tell me why. "Well, Elladan, Tira tells me about what you write," I began.

Elladan's gaze darkened, probably postulating where I was going with this, knowing me well enough to make an educated guess, I assume.

"Where do…these ideas, these concepts, come from? What has…birthed such things…that you write about?" There. That seemed a good way of addressing it.

"Nothing." But he wouldn't meet my gaze, and I felt uneasy about that. I'd been afraid this would be something rather…grave. His avoidance, his refusal to speak of it, only served to prove it.

"Why? Why do you do this?"

"Do what?" His gaze snapped to mine, piercing me as sharp as shards of glass, his tone flinty.

Now he was being purposefully cutting, I know it. He knew what I was asking. And it hurt, the timbre of his voice, as he had never spoken to me like that before, and I tried to assimilate the change.

Tira and I had discussed this a lot, what he was doing. We'd made some guesses, and now I chose to take the likeliest one and run with it. It was the only thing that made sense.

"I know you use these stories as a way to mete out self-punishment," I began, trying to keep my voice level and diplomatic, but I felt rather nasty after hearing that tone he'd used. It was like he wanted to keep me away, was warning me to back off, and I didn't much like the impression of a threat I was getting. "But why? It's like…it's like you want those things to happen to yourself, but why do you do it? Why would you want that?"

I could see, from the way the muscles in his jaw shifted, that he gritted his teeth, and he wasn't looking at me again. "Why don't you ask Elrohir why he does those things to himself in A Test of Faith?" he demanded.

I frowned, clenching my jaw. "You know perfectly well that none of that was in any way his idea. I'd been working on it far longer than you've been back," I answered firmly. "You know that. He didn't give me any ideas at all. In fact, you know he stole my keyboard!" My voice was just a little bit harder than my spirit would have liked, but in my past, a soft voice rarely ever was allowed to get the point across.

The idea had been all my own, after I saw the movie The Prestige, and Elrohir had been horrified when he'd rather inadvertently found out about that story. It looked pretty bad, but it was still in the beginning chapters, and I'd tried to explain that to him. The next morning the keyboard for my desktop computer had been missing, and he'd remained distinctly tight-lipped about it.

So until he returned mine, I borrowed an extra keyboard my dad had. That one disappeared. I've only been able to use my laptop ever since, as I know buying a new keyboard myself will prove futile, as he'll just make that one disappear too. Not that I couldn't just work on A Test of Faith on my laptop, but it was saved on the desktop computer and I quickly discovered my long unused flash-drive was gone and then the power cord for the desktop disappeared.

Really, I wasn't sure if he was just overreacting, was truly trying to prevent me from writing, or just retaliating for the sake of the game itself.

I didn't have time to ponder it, though, as I had more pressing matters to contend with right now than whether the missing devices was because I was dealing with a sulking Elrohir or a prankster.

Elladan abruptly stood up then, walking away, and he might have started pacing or even left, but I didn't give him that much time. I was on my feet and at his side, grabbing his arm and trying to turn him towards me. He stiffly complied, and I was a little surprised to see that his eyes had lost some of their previous steel.

To tell the truth, the hard way he'd looked at me earlier had cut me deep, especially since it came from him. But now that his eyes had lost their edge, I was quickly losing mine.

"Self-impalement? Walking voluntarily from cliffs?" I questioned, naming off the kinds of things he'd postulated about the merits of in the story. "Torture? The emotional pain of a loved one leaving you?" I frowned at the rather depressing list of sentiments written into that story he was helping so much with. "What is it you've never been unable to forgive yourself for that you'd now use fanfiction as a means of meting out self-punishment?" I couldn't help repeating my earlier question, because I felt that was the crux of the matter. Tira and I both felt the same way about it, and JLyH, in a Silver-Blue post, had made a few comments of an agreeing nature when some details were mentioned on there.

His reaction to my probing of the issue only served to plant it even more firmly in my mind that there was something -something totally unforgivable in his book- that he'd done, something he still blamed himself for. I only knew what history The Mellon Chronicles had touched upon, and I didn't need any more details than that to know that his past had, at times, been anything but pretty. And that was putting it lightly.

So what could it be? At this juncture, anything.

"Please tell me." I requested softly, letting my hand stroke his arm, and I swore I saw him shiver. "Tell me what it is, let me help you…" because I knew he probably carried around a lot of baggage from his past, and I'd always wanted to help him heal from all of it. Whatever all of it was.

He shook his head. "I can't, Raina. Please do not ask me to explain it." The distress in his voice was obvious, and I was caught off guard. I knew Elladan to be one who'd more readily hide his emotions than let others have some reason to think him weak, though none of us considered it weakness. Still, his eyes glinted suspiciously, but I couldn't tell if there were unshed tears therein, because he blinked and it was gone. He still wouldn't make eye contact, his gaze studying the floor restlessly.

I let my hand wrap around his arm again. "Elladan—" I started, but I didn't even get part of the question out of my mouth before he cut me off.

"No, Raina. Please just don't. I can't talk about it right now." He answered firmly, but I could hear a pleading note beneath. It obviously upset him a lot to consider speaking, either period or to me, about whatever it was.

He shook me off and turned away from me then, a hand pressing against his head for a moment as an arm snaked around his abdomen, then the movement was gone. His hands dropped back to his sides, and I was left to wonder what distressed him so as he faced the window across the room.

I stared at his back, feeling compassion burbling up in my heart. I didn't like seeing him hurting, but I just wanted to help him. So I stepped closer and placed my hands on his biceps, leaning my head against his back. Due to our differences in height, I only came up to about his shoulder blades.

He seemed rigid as I hesitantly let my arms wrap around him. Sometimes, I wasn't quite sure where I stood with people, and usually it was Elladan who initiated any embraces we had shared since we'd confessed our feelings to one another, but I figured I had the right, the place, to do so. If he loved me, and I loved him…there wasn't anything wrong with that then, was there?

"Elladan, I'm here for you," I began slowly, swallowing. I suddenly felt an immense hurt in my chest, my heart aching. "If you need to talk, you should know that you…don't have to hesitate or feel ashamed." I scrambled to find the way to word this, so he knew, whatever his misgivings were, they didn't apply.

"You are who you are, and I love you." I did, and I hoped that counted for something. "The past…it only serves to shape us, helping us become who we are. If I love who you are, then you should know I accept your past, with all of the…issues. The same as I accept you."

He didn't answer, so all I could do was take a deep breath and pull back. His hair stuck to my cheek, then settled back. I stepped away and eyed him, trying to read anything in his posture, but nothing in the tense set of his unresponsive back clued me in as to whether or not he'd actually felt my attempts to reach him. I knew he'd heard me, but was he listening?

"Dan, self-destructive behaviour is not a good coping mechanism," I finished, quoting JLyH's statement about all of this.

Since he seemed to not be acknowledging me, I sank back into my seat, exhaling. I glanced at him one last time, but he hadn't moved, and I knew the ball was in his court right now.

Sitting back and turning around, I glanced back at the computer, figuring it wouldn't help things if I sat there staring at him, waiting for him to get around to reacting, speaking, doing anything.

I minimized my Works document where I'd been editing my novel and instead went to browse Silver-Blue, to catch up on whatever new posts had been made since last I was there. There were a few, but the normal enjoyment I garnered from the insane ramblings of my friends was lost to me now. I headed over to my Facebook, but I wasn't surprised to find nothing there, either.

I could still feel Elladan's presence behind me, but he still hadn't said anything. I glanced back to see he hadn't even moved.

As I footled, a chat message popped up, Tira requesting Elladan's help with the writing. I sighed, sitting back. I could ask her to wait, but what would be the point? It's not like we were talking, and I knew the decision to go or stay was up to Elladan. So I turned to look at him.

"Tira's asking for you." I said.

Elladan immediately stirred, turning around. I glanced down as he did, not certain about seeing his face just then, but I shook that off and peeked up at him. His expression revealed nothing.

"Let her know I'll be right there." He crossed the room without bothering to look at me, and I gave him a nod, turning back to the computer. He was nearly out the door when he paused to say, "I'll…be back when I can."

I glanced over as the door shut, wondering. Was it selfish or ridiculous of me to feel hurt that he chose helping Tira write over talking to me? Then I just had to sigh, shooting a message to Tira to let her know he was on his way. Her thanks, hon reply earned a nod, but I didn't have anything to say.

I'd always found it a little strange that they, as in the Meians (that is, those from Middle-earth), could travel across the country and back in but handfuls of minutes, if even that. I know it has something to do with how they are here in the first place, but trying to understand it can be a little bit of a stretch to get your mind around.

I rather wished I could do as they did, get around so quickly and easily. I'd either be in New Hampshire or Idaho right now, if that were the case. Actually, I'd probably have offered to go with Elladan, if he even wanted me around…

Hmph. So, that hadn't gone so well. But really, what had I expected? I'd found a rather sad trend of trying to help people and being rebuffed in my past, but was it too much to hope that things could or would be different with Elladan?

My friends say I am wise, but sometimes it does not feel that way. It feels a bit more like scraping by on whatever sense I can wrangle out of my brain.

And now I was second-guessing myself, wondering if maybe I should just have enjoyed our time together and not have said anything. Yet, his behaviour concerns me, and I want honesty between us. I'd seen various forms of self-destructive behaviours in people, and once it had led to suicide and another time, this one an older sister of mine, it almost led to suicide before we could find a way to help her, before she got better.

I don't think he'd really do that. I think if he was going to take his own life, he would have done so a long time ago. It was just the possibility that he might be destroying himself in other ways with all the things he's so obviously torn up about and re-dealing with all over again now. And I didn't want to see him get into more dangerous habits if he feels this current way of self-punishment is not adequate.

With a sad sigh, I leaned my head against the desk, mulling over all these depressing thoughts. I'm not one for crying much, mostly because I can't ever figure out how to get myself to cry, but I rather wished I could then. A good cry felt like it be really relieving, considering the tight, hot knot of pain my chest.