The Story: is a sequel to Author's Notes.

Warnings: The story is a sequel to Author's Notes.

Disclaimer: So not ours. We have nothing to do with this. We found it in a dusty corner that should have passed into eternity forever ignored.

Note from the publisher: Read at your own risk. Imladris Library accepts no complaints, indeed, will not even acknowledge them. Please visit your local healer if you experience any unpleasant side effects while reading. This is a sequel to Author's Notes!

Author's Notes: Open Up!

There were too many damned keys in the world.

Seriously.

Somebody should write a poem about that!

But, as he was not writing poetry in this very moment (though a poetic soul never really abandoned his true calling in life) he only grumbled, "Open up!".

Lately he had had many opportunities to perfect this particular combination of words.

It was great fun.

Not.

Haha.

See? Not funny.

Anyway, it was late too, which really did not help at all. Aragorn sifted through the bunch of keys, his frustration mounting while the small metal objects cheerily chattered in their leather pouch. The five he had already tried had, one by one, been dropped into his pocket. By himself, of course. It would have been really weird if someone else had done it. Since he was alone.

Which also was bad.

Apparently Legolas liked to take late evening walks. Who would have guessed? It was not for nothing Aragorn had made sure he became King of a City (yes, yes, and Gondor and Arnor) made of stone. The simple plan had always been: seduce Elf, become King of Minas Tirith, make sure Elf was so unused to living outside a forest that Elf never left King's side.

Then there had been that Ring business but that had been cleared up rather nicely, if he was any judge.

Anyway, Legolas had developed quite a love for the City and that was most unfortunate. Right now, for example, it would have been nice to have an additional pocket to dump useless keys into. Certainly Legolas had a pocket somewhere? In his clothes. Because he did usually appear dressed before the court. (Members of court never set foot in the royal couple's bedchamber. That, on the other hand, was a good thing.)

Now, if he could only enter said bedchamber...

(Not that Legolas was likely to be in it.)

He tried a sixth key in the lock, picking it at random and rather expecting it not to be the right one. He was right – which was almost funny, in a non-funny way.

On the eighth attempt he managed to finally conquer the stupid door. Not with key number six, of course, since that one had not worked the first time and it would have been entirely useless trying it in the lock another additional seven times, but with key number eight. He refrained from petting the key (number eight) affectionately. King does not pet key, King pets Elf.

The bedchamber lay drowned in a sea of compact darkness. Midwinter was not too far off and a fire would have been nice! But, oh no, who cared about the wellbeing of the King! He trudged over to the fireplace and set to work and soon enough he had a crackling fire going.

Ranger skills: intact.

Excellent.

He dumped the pouch of keys on the table by the window and lit a few candles. It was late, but not horribly so, and he guessed that Legolas was allowed some time on his own. After all, they did spend very much time together... They were very close. Aragorn especially liked the way they were close when they were – together.

They had not been that close since morning.

It had never been confirmed, but Aragorn guessed that the nobles of Minas Tirith would not approve if he dragged Legolas onto the big table in the Council Hall and... was close to him... during one of those dreadfully boring meetings. Then again, who knew? Maybe it could be fun? He still suspected, some six months after his and Legolas' wedding, that there were those at court who still did not truly believe that they were a couple. Sometimes he caught some ancient fogey frowning at them both. Mostly at Aragorn himself, to tell the truth. Maybe they wondered what he did with Legolas? Well, they had never shared a bed with his Elf.

And if they ever did, they would not live to tell the tale. The pack of Dead Individuals might be... dispersed (to say the least), but it was highly unlikely that Bilbo had found the last set of Trolls in Middle-earth all those years ago, and Death By Troll Jumping On You might still be a punishment for the future.

Or one could marry such a traitor off to an Ent.

Hah!

That might be funny. If one were not forced to watch the consummation of the marriage. And if the grave crime committed by the groom (the non-Ent, that was) had not been to sleep with Legolas.

But then the whole marriage thing would be quite unnecessary, he reckoned.

Then again, if Legolas had the sense to stay always in their bedchamber or tied to his arm (Aragorn's), none of this would ever have to be considered. Thranduil had been on to something when he built his caves. Perhaps Aragorn should have married him instead.

Here his train of thought was interrupted for the door clicked and Legolas himself appeared in the doorway. He looked windblown, but attractively so – as if additional air only brought some more colour to his cheeks and made his eyes glisten with even more light. Aragorn glared at him.

It was so unfair.

However, Legolas took little notice. He only leaned against the door frame and looked elegant.

When Aragorn leaned against a door frame he looked like he was about to tumble over.

"Elessar..." Somewhere in that smooth voice lay a promise. Aragorn's mood improved slightly.

"Yeah?" he grunted. And then, because he could not stop himself (and because he has apparently learnt absolutely nothing since the events during the time of the Fellowship), he muttered, "I should have married your father."

This shut Legolas up. Or would have, if he had been speaking. Therefore, it was a shame of some sorts that Aragorn had wasted such words on him now that he was silent. The next time, the same announcement would hardly cause the same stir.

Not that Legolas was stirring. Nothing about him stirred. Not even certain body parts which Aragorn liked to have stirring around him.

(Oh, the glory of the stirring!

Like the dancing of a... herring...

To you I come,

oh, in the night,

but with the fire light...ed

so you I will not fright...

when I... come...

He had been working on this poem for a while now but in between all the nobles – not like that! - had found little time to finish it.)

"My father?" Legolas echoed him incredulously, which really was a victory in a way. He closed the door slowly behind him. "Why, in the name of Eru, would you want to marry my father?"

"I do not want to marry your father!" protested Aragorn. He had met Thranduil only a handful of times and he was very... imposing. He and Legolas had a lot in common.

"Only a moment ago it sounded to me as if you would have preferred that..."

"I did not say I wanted to marry him!" Aragorn raked a hand through his hair. The keys in his pocket clattered gaily among themselves. Well nobody listened to them. "I said that I should have married him."

"Mhm." There was something twitching in the corner of Legolas' mouth. "So... you met him long before you met me. Why did you not marry him years back?"

If that was a smile, Aragorn would seriously consider hunting for Trolls on the morrow.

In any case, this conversation was headed nowhere nice and sweet. Besides, it would have been impossible for him to marry Thranduil 'years back'. "I was courting Arwen," he said triumphantly.

"Ah!" Legolas sauntered into the room, making for the bed and somehow slipping out of his tunic as he moved, without Aragorn really understanding how it happened. That was always unsettling.

"In other words..." the Elf slid into a position on the bed, leaning back and supporting himself on his elbows, and with his long legs stretched out before him. His boots had vanished too. "If you had not been courting Arwen, you would have married my father. Not because you wanted to, but because you should have?"

"No!" Aragorn flung his arms out in a big explanatory circle. Legolas did not look particularly enlightened. "Why would I have married your father?"

Gods, Thranduil was old.

Like really, really old. Even for Elves.

That, too, was unsettling. Especially when you came to think about what he would have had time to experiment with in bed. (He must have had... So. Many. Lovers.) Aragorn shivered.

Not out of pleasure.

Not that he considered Thranduil to be ugly or anything. He was rather handsome, in a he-is-your-husband's-father sort of way.

Legolas was saying something but this new image of Thranduil with all his lovers around was hard to get rid of. Lost in thought, Aragorn nodded to himself. "You are not unlike your father..."

"Aragorn!"

He looked up to see an expression of revulsion pass over Legolas' face and that magically threw him back into the moment. "No, I did not mean that!"

His Elf snorted. "Are you happy, then, that you married me when you missed the opportunity to court my father? If we are so much alike it cannot make a great difference to you..." His eyes acquired a steely glint.

"No!" (The word of the day.) "I never wanted your father! I wanted you!"

"And now you want me no longer?" At least the beginnings of a smile were swept away. Sadly they were replaced by contempt. Never a nice development.

"Of course I want you!" cried Aragorn. "Even after I had met you! And I had met your father... earlier..." he faltered slightly, "you know... afterwards."

His words were greeted with silence. Legolas lay staring up at him unblinking. Aragorn grimaced awkwardly and tried a shrug. He was pretty sure it did not turn out very well.

"You know..." he muttered.

Suddenly there was a glimmer of concern in Legolas' lovely blue eyes. "Elessar–"

"I love you!"

Legolas closed his mouth. Then he opened it again. If he had been more fishlike, he would have looked like a fish. Now he mostly looked like a gorgeous Elf who opened and then closed his mouth.

Aragorn grabbed the opportunity at once. Act on instinct!, that had been a vital part of his Ranger training. Combined with some stuff about knowing your enemy and analysing any traces and markings and whatever else provided, but he liked that bit about immediate action.

Really, say that you were... close... with your Elf – then you would not want to waste time thinking and analysing, and analysing and thinking. No. Elves liked action. That was why Aragorn now grabbed. At the opportunity. If Legolas had been undressed, maybe he would have grabbed something else.

And there might have been some stirring.

Hopefully.

Action and stirring usually went nicely together.

In any case, he grabbed. "I just think your father has some good ideas on building."

Legolas raised an eyebrow.

"Well..." said Aragorn.

Legolas raised both his eyebrows. (After he had lowered the first one... first.)

Trying another shrug but not doing much better, Aragorn shuffled his feet for a bit. "Okay, I am lonely when you are out on your own."

So he was needy.

Legolas lifted his chin.

Aragorn's shoulders sank almost through the floor. Distantly he thought that he himself would have been greatly surprised had a couple of shoulders broke through his ceiling, but that was not his main concern now.

"You go out into the City at night," he mumbled, inevitably feeling some heat rising in his cheeks. "And I am left alone with all those stupid keys," he added with a nod at the table by the window, if only to make sure Legolas understood the serious nature of the matter. "So I thought that if I had caves – like Thranduil – I could easier have kept you indoors. With me."

"You would keep me locked up?" Now that Legolas finally spoke, it was hard to interpret his tone of voice.

"Not locked up... precisely..."

"Precisely?" The Elf scooted back a bit, moving up the bed, towards the pillows. His bare chest was very bare.

"Yeah, precisely..." Aragorn frowned. This was getting tricky. "Or, no, not yes, but... I would not keep you locked up against your will."

"You think I might like to be locked up?" Legolas sounded a tad surprised. Some of his golden hair had escaped his braids and were in dire need of lazy fingertips... brushing them aside... ghosting over smooth skin...

Aragorn shook himself and tore his eyes away. Temptation had nothing on him! "No," he said (again), "I would never lock you up!"

Legolas' soft lips curved into a perfect smirk and his next words slid down Aragorn's spine like a warm tongue. "Not even if I begged you..?"

Aragorn stared. The floor swayed under his feet and his throat went very dry. "Wha..?"

"You forget, Elessar Telcontar," Legolas began, one of his hands drifting towards the lacings that did a tremendously good job at keeping his leggings together, "that my father's caves were in a wood, and that if I desired a change I had only to step over the threshold." He slid a finger under the knot. "Mere walls cannot hinder me from greeting the Sun or the Moon..."

Aragorn had some trouble dividing his attention between what Legolas said and what he did. He had seen lacings and knots before and they were never very enticing on their own, but accompanied by long, deft fingers, they usually managed to gain his interest.

As long as Legolas was involved somehow.

And no one else was.

Legolas, complete with lacings and knots and Gimli, for example, was not a desirable arrangement.

Perhaps...

Dwarf: go away!

Dwarf: never stay!

Dwarf, I pray,

keep your hands on you golden pot,

and bother not with Legolas' knot -

or you shall meet

a King not sweet,

but angered and cruel:

you will be the fuel

of the Midwinter fire –

such is King Elessar's ire!

Dwarf: go away!

Dwarf: never stay!

Never stay.

…

Perfect.

He would have to find a quill and some parchment and write this down. Preferably sooner than later – it never hurt to be prepared for the worst.

Though, of course, one could debate if Dwarves were worse than Ents or other Men... or Hobbits.

…

We will not go there.

After that thought it did not take much to return to the present. After all, it was not like he had travelled a long way and was now making ready to journey back to some place he had previously left. He was, quite imperturbable, remaining where he stood (bedchamber, White Tower, Minas Tirith, Middle-earth).

He had everything under control.

"So," he said.

Legolas might have sighed. Or he took a very deep breath and let it out extremely slowly. He liked air, had he not aptly demonstrated that when he disappeared every night for his bloody evening walks?

"I should lock you up!" growled Aragorn, the words escaping him before he had decided on them.

"Yes, about that," said Legolas slowly, not at all acknowledging Aragorn's outburst. Then his fingers were moving again, only just brushing over his groin. "I find... I quite like that idea."

Damned treacherous eyes! Aragorn found he could not look away as his husband fingered his leggings... found an amazing way to cup the growing bulge in them... He felt a wave of heat pass through him, and then another one. Except this one made the heat collect around his spine and slither downwards. He swallowed.

"Tell me, lover..." Legolas smiled a dangerous smile. (Aragorn swallowed again.) "Would you do it?"

"I..." His feet had no integrity. They brought him closer and closer to the bed until his knees bumped against it. "Maybe?"

"Oh, I am disappointed, Elessar..." Legolas dropped down onto the minor mound of pillows and shook his fair head against them. "As King, should you not exert some power over your most loyal subjects?"

"But..?"

Legolas caught his gaze and held it. "Should. You. Not?"

He nodded, momentarily rendered mute.

"Then show me how to use those keys, lover."

He had never before locked a door with such fervour. Unceremoniously he shoved key number eight into the leather pouch on the table. When he turned back to the bed, Legolas lay extraordinarily undressed on it.

Aragorn was not one to complain.

Especially not when his Elf ran a finger along his rapidly hardening length and hissed at the touch. "Only one lock?"

"Yeah..." Aragorn kicked off his boots and unfastened his belt. "I can get more. Tomorrow."

Legolas wrapped his fingers along his arousal and tried a first stroke. "You do that."

Feeling some more of that heat rushing through him, Aragorn quite quickly grew uncomfortable in his leggings. He knelt on the bed, keeping his gaze trained on Legolas' length and the long, slow strokes. It became heavier to breathe as he imagined filling Legolas, pounding into him, losing himself in him. Despite the grim winter night, the air around him was growing warmer. Maybe he lent body heat to the air?

Was that even possible?

That would have been a nice trick on the Quest. They would have conquered Caradhras in a heartbeat! He could even have shown off a little. Shown the Second Elf how things were done.

Oh well, water under the bridge and all that.

Legolas was his.

And Legolas was very naked and very hard.

And there was no bridge in sight.

Excellent.

So, there was not much to do but to tear off shirt and leggings and lie down beside him. Ah, the sacrifices of a King!

...which was not a bad title for a poem: The Sacrifice of a King.

Worth remembering.

When Legolas kissed him, he almost forgot it. (The title, not the kiss – that would have been rude, if not strange.) Luckily he was a skilled poet and as such he never forgot a clever title.

His Elf's tongue slid against his own, coaxing him to touch and explore. Legolas was warm too (nice) and he offered a soft moan as Aragorn took over the stroking business and pressed against his lover (also nice). Aragorn increased the pace slightly and felt an answering shudder in the slender form moulding against him. He spread the first wetness that formed at the tip of Legolas' arousal over the satiny skin and felt his own length twitch in response, just as Legolas let out a longer moan.

"Aragorn..." his lover's lips brushed against his, "you had me this morning..."

That was true. There really was no reason for Legolas to lie about such a thing. Aragorn had been there as well (or he could not have taken Legolas), and so he knew that was the truth.

"Mmm..." he agreed. He ran a fingertip over the slit at the tip and teased it a little, making his husband writhe deliciously beside him.

Then he must have missed what happened for suddenly he lay on his belly with his hard length pressed into the covers and his head turned to the side. Legolas crouched beside him, reaching for the jar on the bedside table. The Elf turned a smirk on him. "So it is my turn."

There was nothing in Aragorn that protested. Even if he had wanted to, he would not have walked out of the room (if that made any sense). Besides, the door was locked and key number eight was now hopelessly lost among all the other keys in that stupid pouch. With a little bit of luck, they would never find it again and it would take everyone a couple of days before they realised their King and his Consort were missing. Lovemaking would drown out the need for food, he reasoned, if they engaged in it wholeheartedly – and one look at Legolas' bright eyes and... the rest of him... told him that would be no problem.

A slick finger delving between his buttocks made him groan.

"On your hands and knees, lover."

Who was he to object?

The first finger slid inside with ease. The second met with some resistance and the third with even more. Aragorn swayed forward a little as Legolas almost draped himself over him and pressed kisses into his skin. Deep, heavy breaths wafted over his neck and shoulder and Aragorn did not care that he cried out when Legolas finally found his arousal and fisted him firmly.

"There..." Legolas' raspy whisper sent shivers across his skin. "Open up for me, love... Open up!"

He did. His Elf slid inside, sheathed himself completely in Aragorn's body. Legolas' long groan matched his own perfectly (they had practised quite a lot, after all) though maybe it was slightly more melodious. Aragorn did not care. He pushed back when Legolas thrust forward; the hand stroking his length not losing its rhythm even though they were clearly headed towards the edge.

A jolly nice path to take once in a while. Or twice a day or so. Or more often than that.

As a matter of fact, Aragorn would very much like to erect (hehe) a tent near that edge. A good view is everything.

Or close to everything. It was hard (ah, the humour!) to decide when you were – close.

Which he was.

Which Legolas soon found out.

There was sweat-slicked skin, and stroking and thrusting and the Gods know what. (Aragorn hoped they were not always looking... He was not sure what he was supposed to think of Gods who were so interested in his bedchamber activities.) Then he cried out and came, and Legolas did very much the same.

Which rhymes, in case you did not notice.

They ended up in a bit of a mess on the bed, legs and arms entwined, and with Legolas' fair hair creatively covering up Aragorn's face. For a first, swirling, glorious, moment, he did not care, but then he must breathe and he had no wish to swallow his lover's hair, pretty though it was.

He would have tried to brush it aside had his hands not been caught in the general tangle of limbs and so he spluttered and coughed instead.

"Lover?" Legolas lifted his head which was a welcome reaction. "Ah."

Somehow the hair disappeared and Aragorn nurtured a flash of mourning when he thought Legolas would roll off him. Hence the joy when the Elf stayed put.

"I love this..." Legolas gave a gentle roll of his hips and since he was still buried inside Aragorn, the latter experienced this first-hand. "And I love you. I am very glad I beat my father to the goal."

Aragorn was fairly sure there was a smile on his husband's face though he could not see it. At least he hoped so.

"I never wanted your father," he muttered. "I will keep you locked in this room and when you crave some fresh air or sunlight or moonlight or starlight or whatever, you can open the window."

Legolas chuckled. Then he decorated Aragorn's shoulder with a series of kisses. "We shall have to investigate the advantages of such an arrangement," he said. "But I think, Elessar, that you will have to step up your game..."

"Why is that?" Aragorn would have twisted to face him but he was too comfortable where he lay.

"Because," Legolas rolled his hips a second time and now Aragorn felt the stirrings of desire reawakened, "now I believe I have you trapped." His voice gained a dangerous edge. "And I intend to abuse my position shamelessly.

Well, what was he to do?

The sacrifices of a King.

The End