A/N: This is my first ever fanfic... Don't kill me for my poor grammar skills, please? Anyways, I hope you like it despite the whole AU thing... Please review!
Disclaimer: J.R.R. Tolkien owns LOTR, not I.
Chapter 1:
"Legolas."
Groan.
"Lego man."
Silence.
"Legmister."
Nothing.
"L-"
"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?" This was a half-naked, bedraggled Legolas yelling at his wide awake, bright eyed flat mate. Said flat mate was currently sporting a cheeky grin.
"Good morning!"
Gimli got the finger for that. Legolas determinedly shut his eyes once more and shoved his head under the pillows. God, didn't that thing know anything about beauty sleep? Fucking redheads. It was right about then when ice cold water suddenly decided to give him a bath.
"I. Will. Fucking. Kill. You." He gave the short man a glare that translated nothing, but 'I'm going to kill you'. Grumbling the whole time, the drenched blonde crawled out of his soaking bed then looked at the clock and groaned, it was seven in the morning.
"Hey, arse hole over there, what day is it?" That was obviously Legolas speaking to Gimli.
"Saturday!" Came the bright reply. Legolas scowled.
"You woke me up... At seven... On a Saturday.." It wasn't a question.
"Yep."
"I am going to fucking kill you."
"No you're not."
"Yes. I. Am."
"Nope!"
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"N- " Gimli then had to break off due to a soggy pillow hitting him right in the face. Legolas smirked as his friend spluttered out random words.
"Gah... Pillow... Wet... Crime..."
"A fucking wet pillow for the little fucker," Legolas sing-songed. With that he gracefully rolled out of bed. His plaid pajama pants were sagging a bit when he stood up. His long, pale torso was lean and his light blonde hair fell, completely straight, past his shoulders despite having just woken up. Gimli called him pretty boy for it. The little man couldn't exactly be talking considering he was half his hight, had scraggly auburnish red hair, and the beginnings of a beard. Legolas, or so he liked to think, was much more appealing to the ladies.
When he rummaged through his doors for a clean shirt he could hear Gimli muttering and grumbling in the kitchen. Gimli hated water, served him right. Legolas thought that he could deal with it. He knew the little man could.
He finally managed to pull out a faded gray plaid shirt and a slightly ripped pair of jeans. He smiled at himself in the reflection of his mirror.
"Hey there, sexy, what's your name? Oh, Legolas, you say? That's a sexy name for a sexy person." He then proceeded to do what he believed was called the 'duck face' then broke out laughing at the results. Ah, women and their idiocy. He wondered why they did that, it wasn't appealing, much less attractive.
He strode out of his relatively clean room and down the hall of his, er, their flat. He found Gimli bending over a plate of omelets, bacon, hash brown, pancakes, fruit, and even, oh God, pizza. How he stayed his normal, muscle added weight, the world may never know.
"Do you ever eat enough?" He asked in disgust as he looked at the food.
"Nof," Gimli replied with a full mouth. Crumbs sprayed all over the table.
"Sorry, I couldn't hear you through all that food," he responded while trying not to gag. His short friend chewed some more before swallowing and repeating his answer.
"No."
"Damn, Gims, one day I will be able to officially call you overweight."
"Nope, never!"
"Whatever, Future Fatty," yes, that was perfectly nice and acceptable. Well, between flat mates, that is. He rolled his blue eyes at Gimli and headed towards the cabinets. He searched through the cereal boxes until he found the brand he was looking for and pulled it out.
"Gah, you and your healthy shite," Gimli mumbled around a full mouth of food. He shot a sharp glare to the Special K Legolas had taken.
"If you ate healthier you would be... Smarter!" Yeah, he didn't really have anything to say that sounded cool. Gimli rose a brow at the words. Legolas chose to ignore him, his ego bruised...by himself. God, that was embarrassing. He walked over to the fridge and jerked open the door, grabbed the carton of milk, then slammed the door shut again.
"Could you have shut that door any louder?" Gimli asked sarcastically.
"Yep." Legolas's smirk was back and his ego restored a bit. It still was wounded, mind you, but it was a scratch, nothing like stepping on a Lego or anything. Legolas smiled at the thought of Legos, he quite liked them. As a child (and possibly teenager and adult) he had alway loved playing with them.
"I'm heading out today, coming with me?" Gimli asked. The food was low, in his standards. They needed more, he was surprised they even had the money for food, much less a nice flat like this. Then again, Legolas did earn a surprising amount by teaching people how to use the Internet. Rich dudes from small, foreign countries always needed to know something and payed well for it. He felt almost ashamed at his part time job at the Super Market.
"Nope," that was the expected answer, of course. Legolas would probably be sleeping when he came back again, anyways. Gimli rolled his eyes at Legolas when he placed his now empty plate in the sink. They had a rule, Legolas did the dishes every other day and he every other day in between. It was the Beauty Queen's turn today. Good.
Legolas placed his bowl on top of Gimli's dish and left them there. He preferred to do all the dishes at the end of the day. It was a good plan, really, except on the days they had company, there were just too many dishes then. The door shut quietly as Gimli existed the flat. Well, there was an hour or two of alone time to spare.
Legolas grabbed an apple from the table bowl and headed into the living room. He turned the news on without really even listening. In fact, it was just a hubbub of background noise as he munched on his apple. His light gray eyes spotted his Mac on the coffee table after looking around a bit.
Their flat was actually pretty clean, there wasn't rubbish all over the floor, or clothes, just well, your average items that ended up on the floor. You couldn't exactly call them neat freaks, but they were still far from slobs. Legolas was probably the only reason the flat was clean, however. Gimli's room... It wasn't dirty, per se, just unorganized, very unorganized. He had clothes lying everywhere as long as blankets, shoes, movies, and...beanie babies.
Legolas shuddered at the thought of the stuffed devils, it was a weird liking his friend had. Honestly, what 22 year old man keeps beanie babies? At least there were some pretty cool action figures there. Gimli's green walls were plastered with posters of actors, singers, movies, TV series, etc. it was kind of cool, yet creepy. Like previously said, sort of.
Legolas mentally compared his own room to Gimli's. It was neat and organized, not a thing that wasn't supposed to touched the floors. His walls were a nice grayish blue like his eyes and had a few posters of his favorite people. Honestly, that wasn't much. He had a certain disregard for the modern celebrities, he preferred the works of the old, except in music.
The blonde shook is head in wonder in how they were friends as he grabbed and logged into his Mac. He paused, his fingers hovering over the touchpad. He had no idea what he wanted to do. He pondered the situation for a moment before settling on YouTube. YouTube was good. Now, what to watch? Again, his mind drew a blank at this seemingly impossible task.
"Well, fuck," he muttered under his breath. He took a bite out of his apple as if that would help him think. There was this American channel he liked, Kingsley, but he had already watched his newest video. That gave him an idea nonetheless.
Legolas opened up the video on his laptop. He could make his own channel! Well, this was bette- oh, hell no. He was never going to do this. Legolas exited out of the video app in frustration. He would just settle for paint then.
It was like that how Gimli walked in and found him two hours later. He deposited his load on the counter and walked into the living room and found Legolas sitting down with his laptop and eyes glued to the screen. The redhead walked up behind him to see what he was doing.
"Have you no decency?" Gimli chuckled. Blondie was currently drawing some rather...passionate stick figures of the opposite gender engaging in, yeah, you get it. In case you don't, they were in the middle of a hot and steamy shag.
"Yes, I could have posted the others online, but I didn't." Legolas smirked and deleted the canvas. He turned around to face Gimli. "So.. Buy anything good?"
"If you mean your healthy shite, then yes." Gimli gestured with a hand towards the kitchen where the bags were. Legolas shut the computer then ran off with surprising agility to the kitchen. He ruffled through the bags, looking for veggies and such. He was surprised when he pulled out a chicken.
"Tonight... We shall feast!" Legolas proclaimed. Gimli cheered, the blonde was a good cook. His mouth was watering at the thought. "How does Greek chicken sound?" Legolas asked him.
"Delicious," came the hasty reply.
"Good, I'll make a spinach salad to go with, then." The salad consisted of fresh spinach, kalamata olives, feta cheese, grape tomatoes, and pepperchinies. At least his did. Gimli's stomach growled in response.
Of course it was only nine in the morning, so that was a ways away. Gimli seemed to realize this to for his excited face fell a bit. Oh, well. Legolas then noticed a bulge in his friend's coat pocket.
"What's that?" He asked, gesturing to Gimli's coat. Gimli felt the bulge with his hand then reached inside and pulled out an old, battered book.
"This? I found it outside the lobby door on my way in. I almost didn't see it, here," with the last word Gimli handed it over to Legolas to study. It was old, the cover was faded and the spine torn. He could make out the faint letters of the title.
"The Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring," he read aloud. He looked on the back, but couldn't make anything out. The hard cover was too stained and ripped to make anything out. The book itself was short and thick. It was an odd book. Legolas, for once, was intrigued.
He brought it over to his Mac and set it down on the counter. He logged on once more and opened Chrome. In the search engine he typed in 'The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the ring'. The first page was full of sites for rings and jewelry clubs, as was the second, and third, fourth, then on the fifth he finally found something. 'Lord of the Rings trilogy'. Legolas looked at Gimli who had followed him. He nodded eagerly, urging him on to click it. So he did.
"The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien is a very rare and unusual series. Not many have heard of it and even fewer have read it. It is a tale about the Ring of Power and it's bearer Frodo Baggins. In the first book he has to start his journey to destroy the ring with his eight companions. He is joined by the three hobbits he started with, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin 'Pippin' Took and Meriadoc 'Merry' Brandybuck. The other five companions are Gandalf the Gray, Aragorn and Boromir, the humans, Legolas... the elf, and Gimli... the dwarf."
Legolas stopped reading and turned to look at Gimli. The same wonder was reflected in both of their eyes. How were their names...? That book...whatever it was just got a lot more interesting.
"Coincidence, right?" Gimli gave a shaky laugh. It was truthfully kind of creepy. Legolas seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
"You're right, it must be," it made sense... They had old, unusual names, this was an old and unusual book. He gave a short laugh himself and continued reading. It explained the books some more before it got to the end.
"The most unusual thing about this book is how life like it seems. It's as if you're actually living it. It's different than other books, even more alive. Readers swear that they feel like they are actually living it, the few who did read it, anyways. I, myself, have never read the books. They were not meant for me, all this information was gathered from readers, I just recorded it. Those meant to read the book are those who found it. Good luck."
They both looked at the book as if it would suddenly start talking to them. So this boon was rare and old. The person who wrote that blog unnerved him. He had made it seem the book was alive, that whoever found it was meant to read it. They looked at each other once again, an unspoken decision went between them, they had to read this book.