Legolas
I know something is wrong the instant I awaken. The bed is cold beside me.
Elrohir is still in the room. I can hear him. He is as noisy as Gimli sometimes could be as he thuds around in the dark.
"What are you doing?"
"Did I wake you? Sorry," he mutters. "I am trying to find my shirt."
"What for?" I can see his glow now, across the other side of the room as he fumbles with something and then suddenly the lamp flickers into life.
"I have been thinking on it for hours. I behaved terribly earlier. I owe Elladan an apology."
"Not now, Elrohir. It is the middle of the night!"
I am not doing this again. Elladan is likely with my brother, or my brother is with him. Either option is not a good one as far as Elrohir is concerned.
"We did this last night, Elrohir. I do not wish to go running around waking people again. Yes you do owe him an apology but at least give it in the morning."
"I do not need you to accompany me to see my brother," he grumbles as he finally located his shirt. "Stay here. He will not mind if I wake him. It is what we do."
"Then perhaps it should be what you do not do, Elrohir. Let him sleep, be patient and wait." For I have a sneaking suspicion Elladan will mind, very much.
He will not listen . . . Of course. It is all I can do to remember Laerion's admonishment of my sharp words earlier and hold my tongue.
"I need to do this now," He says. "It is eating me up."
"But it is not eating Elladan up as he is likely sleeping. I saw him earlier, Elrohir and spoke to him. He understands. Yes you need to apologise but he is not lying awake worrying you have insulted him, I promise."
I may as well waste my breath and a part of me wonders if I should not just let him go. Let him discover them if he insists on it. But that is not charitable or loving of me. It would go badly for them all.
Still I know Elrohir, and I know nothing will stop him now he has this idea in his head. I know also he is right. The twins are so close they think nothing of waking each other if something is troubling them. As long as I have known them Elrohir has never had to think twice about Elladan's availability. Now he will have to learn to. I know my brother. I know he is not a fickle Silvan as I am. If he has embarked upon this he is serious. It is not just a fleeting thing. Laerion is going nowhere.
The only thing I can do to steer Elrohir away from this focus on Elladan tonight is distraction: distracting him with us.
He is not the only one to have lain in bed thinking. I have been doing it also. My talk with Laerion and Elladan unsettled me. The words I had never dared to dwell on simply arrived in my mouth and now I cannot tear my mind from them. I did not mean to speak them aloud. I certainly never meant to tell them to Elrohir.
But they will stop him charging off to find Elladan. I know they will. Protecting my brother gives me the courage I need to speak my mind.
"Elrohir," He has his back to me, his hand upon the door handle as I start.
"What?"
"Do you like me as I am now? Or would you prefer a Legolas who was less whole?"
"What?"
His hand drops from the doorway and when he turns to face me his face is white, his eyes disbelieving.
"What did you just say?"
Since my accident in Minas Tirith I have had problems with words. I cannot write them and sometimes, when all is tense or I am nervous, I cannot find them to speak either. It is as if they disappear from my brain. The thoughts are there inside my head but the words to tell others have vanished. Looking at Elrohir's horrified face it is like that now.
Finrod has skilfully weaved my fea back together, but this damage to my mind he tells me he can never fix.
"I have been worried, " I say in the end. "you are not happy with me the way I now am."
It is not enough. It does not tell him truth of it. It falls far short.
"How can you say that? How can you think that?" he repeats. "That is not fair, Legolas."
This is why we have not spoken properly about the awkwardness that exists between us, because I cannot do it. So we ignore it and pretend it is not there as Elrohir is want to do with anything challenging and difficult. And when I do not answer because I am struggling to line up words in my head he gets angry. He thinks I am wilfully silent.
"You cannot just sit there and say nothing after a statement as hurtful as that!" He cries. "What have I ever done to make you think that?"
Suffocated me, been unable to let me stand on my own two feet, wrapped up the new, steadier, Legolas in your animosity towards Finrod and refused to embrace and rejoice in him so I feel somehow tainted and disappointing.
None of that I can put into words.
"It was the damaged me you fell in love with. It is not as if we have ever been together while I am healthy and myself. Perhaps that does not work for you? You did not love me before Minas Tirith, Perhaps you will not again after the destruction left over from that has cleared?"
"Have you forgotten the Black Gates?"
Of course I have not. There are moments in my life where my very world has tilted on itself. Elrohir and I at the Black Gates was one of those moments.
"No I have not forgotten that."
"Then to say I have only loved you since your accident is wrong and you know it. I was transfixed by you from the moment I saw you. You know that. I have told you that." He is furious and I cannot get a word in edgewise even if I could think of them. "You have nothing to worry about but perhaps I do? What did you feel before the Black Gates? What did you feel before Minas Tirith?"
"I —"
But I am too slow. He cuts me off.
"Do you think I do not notice I irritate you? You think your sharp tongue does not hurt? Are you sitting here wishing you could go home to Maewen who I know you did love before your accident? Do you have any use for me now?"
I have no hope to answer any of these questions, not eloquently. I would like to try. I know what I would say.
I would tell him the time before we found each other was turbulent, tempestuous and explosive. But also beyond exciting. I got a thrill every time he stepped into the room, even if I knew he would just throw insults at me. I would tell him I could not stop watching him all the way to the Pelennor. I would tell him I do not have a 'use' for him. He is beyond that. He is the light that fires my soul. He is not something I could ever survive without. I can no longer imagine my world without him. It would be filled with darkness and misery without his light.
But I can say none of that.
I can say none of it because all the words in my head will not travel to my tongue and it frustrates me beyond measure. I can say none of it because my damage strangles me into silence. Then when things are lighter between us and we are happy, it would simply be odd to say them.
So it remains unsaid.
And my silence as I try to think of something he will be able to hear just aggravates things.
I should tell him. I should try to explain my inability to chose the right words when I am upset, or tense, or anxious. But I cannot do that in the moment . . . And later when all is good, and I can talk as well as anyone, I do not wish to waste time on it. I would rather it did not exist at all to be honest. Ignoring the problem always seems best then. Because next time . . . Maybe . . . It may not happen.
But it always does.
"Do not go!" I cry as he turns my back on me in anger and throws open the door. "Do not go, Elrohir!"
"Why?" he says, "Are you not sick of me? Give me one reason I should stay when you think so little of me."
"Because I want you to."
He hesitates. He wants to leave because he is angry and hurt and there is nothing that would be more satisfying than the slamming of the door. But he does not leave because I have asked him to stay.
"But why do you want me to, Legolas? I need to know."
If he would just give me the space and the time I could tell him. But he is Elrohir. He is fire and impatience. He is impetuousity and passion and I love him for it. I love him with every fibre of my being. But those things I love mean he is no good at giving considered thoughtful space when we argue.
"Because I love you."
His shoulders drop in disappointment. He wanted more than that.
"That is an easy answer to say," he replies, "when you do not mean it."
Finrod has spent many hours with me reinforcing the cracks in my fea Gimli had previously and painstakingly patched back together. He has strengthened and smoothed them until you can barely see they were ever there, until I almost forget them myself. He has taught me ways to overcome them, to direct my thoughts and regain my control. But still the odd word, coming at me from nowhere, can still get through my defences and undo me.
The thought Elrohir believes I may not love him does just that.
It piles upon my frustration at my lack of communication and splits me apart.
Before I know it there are tears running down my cheeks and all my new strength collapses in a heap. And Elrohir does what Elrohir always does, what he is best at, what he knows. He comes to me. He holds me. He pours his light over me.
"Forgive me," he murmurs in my ear as he holds me. "I know you love me. I should not have said that. Let me fix it."
It is completely dispiriting which adds to my distress and to his determination to protect me. We are stuck.
I do not want to be the one who is always sheltered and coddled yet I have played myself in a corner where he has reason to do that. I want him to tell me to pull myself together. I want him to hold me accountable so moments of weakness and tears do not let me off the hook. I do not want to always be the weak one he steps in protect.
I am weak no longer and I am sick of that.
I enjoy his touch. I love his light.
But I am filled with disillusionment and despair for this is a familiar scene, with familiar roles we have played out so many times beforehand and we are unable to do anything differently.
Laerion is right. Elrohir only knows how to mend me and shield me and I only know how to let him.
How do we change this?
Can we?