Legolas woke to the sound of singing.
"Shh," came a warm voice when he tried to speak. "Save your strength."
The Elf cracked an eye open and then opened both eyes joyfully, for it was a damp Aragorn that hovered temptingly near over him. He moved to brush a dripping strand of hair from Aragorn's face and gasped with the pain.
"Save your strength, I said, you're hurting yourself!" The pain in Aragorn's voice belied his content countenance. "I'm sorry. I just…you were…"
Legolas smiled.
"I thought I'd lost you," Aragorn finished in a hoarse whisper, and bent down to kiss the elf. His lips lingered there.
A muffled roll of thunder reached their ears. "What—" Legolas began, but Aragorn enforced a kiss to keep him quiet.
"You were shot," he said at last. "When you were hunting the eel, you remember? In the little stream."
"It was a fine eel, too," Legolas croaked, and was rewarded with a teary smile and a kiss from Aragorn.
"So you do remember. But after that there were…elves…clad in gray and black. One in particular fought very well. The others had bows but he said…are you feeling better? Do you need me to change the poultice?" He gestured to a clump of green plants at his side. "I've got plenty of athelas now. Had to drive Shadowfax nearly into the ground to get here—yes, Shadowfax is back. He's outside." Another roll of thunder stuffily as if capped by cotton. "We're in a cave a ways south of where we were—almost back to the Grey Havens, I think."
"What did the elves—" Legolas began in a voice he tried to make tender. But it was too weak for anything but croaking.
"We're out of food, too—I, er, left it behind—but I can solve that quickly enough. What matters now is you." At Aragorn's body-length glance Legolas jumped at the realization that he was completely naked. Aragorn saw his face and defended himself. "You were wet! Soaked through to the bone. You'd have caught a chill if you sat around in those clothes. So I just…ah…removed them…they're drying by the fire." He nodded toward a crackling fire tucked into a niche in the limestone. "They'll be ready…sometime…" He trailed off as he cast another long look at Legolas. "You're very beautiful, you know," he said in a very different voice. Then, even softer, "Aniron."
"Likewise," Legolas replied. As if he needed to.
Aragorn shook himself and brought his gaze back firmly to Legolas' eyes alone. "But you're very ill and need to rest. As soon as your clothes dry I'll cover you up, use them as blankets—"
"I bet yours would dry faster." Legolas laughed at the look on Aragorn's face, then grimaced as the action sent pain lancing through his chest.
"What have I been telling you? Hush!" But Aragorn unbuckled his cloak and spread it out by the fire. "I'm only doing this to keep you warm," he mock-grumbled, and shed the rest of his clothes. When he had the desire was plain on both their faces and other places.
"If you could just—ah!" Legolas yelped as he tried to shift his position and sweat broke out on his forehead with the agony.
Aragorn dabbed it away with a gentle hand. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—" He raised a finger to Legolas' lips as the elf tried to protest. "No, I am blaming myself. Because it was my fault. You are one thing, but to be snuck up on unawares by the likes of him…" His teeth shown in a snarl. "That elf looked familiar the moment I saw him. Now I remember." The snarl left his face as he ran his fingers lightly down Legolas' smooth chest, being careful to stay well away from the poulticed wound. "When Undomiel came to Minas Tirith, her father brought a sizable company of elves with him. Bodyguards, I suppose you'd call them. Then we he and Galadriel went away to the west, they were supposed to go to. He scowled. "But not all of them went."
Legolas laid a weak hand on Aragorn's knee, as much as he could reach. "What—"
"Shh." Aragorn caressed the long, delicate fingers. "That's another thing—your hands, do you know how they change when you're hunting? You wouldn't think that these—" and he lifted the hand to his lips, inhaling rapturously, "would be able to touch anything but goodness and light itself."
"Guess that bodes well for you," Legolas managed, his voice barely a whisper now. He eased his hand from Aragorn's hold and let it fall, down to where he clutched the Man. Aragorn made a startled sound.
"The…ah…athelas…" he panted between the work of the long fingers.
"Is working just fine." The firelight caught Legolas' hair and turned it to flame, and that was the last thing Aragorn rightly perceived as skillful elven hands sent pleasure washing over everything.
* * * *
"You never told me who that elf was," Legolas murmured sleepily from where his head lay in Aragorn's lap. Sunlight caught the golden mane as Aragorn braided it with tender fingers. "The one who stayed after Elrond left?"
"Not just one," Aragorn spat. "A whole company. They thought of themselves as Arwen's personal bodyguards. They were with her…constantly…" The shining braid slipped from his hands as he stared out the cave entrance and beyond. "They claimed to be strengthening the bonds between Elves and Men."
Legolas was silent.
"His name is Glorfindel. I don't know if Elrond actually instructed him to hover around Minas Tirith, but I doubt it. We never got along. He was a prince in the house of Elrond and I think…" He picked up the braid again, frowning at it. "For all that rain your hair needs washing, mereth."
"Kept me too dry for my own good, hmm?" smiled Legolas. He prodded the subject of Glorfindel no further, instead reaching up a pale hand to Aragorn's cheek. "You should get some more rest yourself. You don't always have to be hunting all about, you know."
"I don't just hunt." Aragorn looked out of the cave again, this time wearily. Suddenly he clutched Legolas' hand to his chest, crying, "They'll be back! I know they'll be back and what if I miss them again? They'll hurt you Legolas, my dear Legolas, and all for what? My 'abandonment' of Arwen Evenstar? As if she—"
Legolas sat up and placed an arm around Aragorn. "You oughn't to—"
"Where will we go?" Aragorn barreled on. "Is this how we will manage, beating around the bush, trying to avoid supposed 'avengers' from one day to the next? That's not what I wanted for you, mereth! Not ever!" The Man's gray eyes gleamed. "I had such hopes, I—I waited so long. And now…"
"Your hopes are far from crushed." Legolas voice was gentle, his hand soothing as it rubbed Aragorn's back in little circles. "What is it you're worried about? Us being alone out here? Why not go back to civilization, then?" With his head bowed Aragorn did not see the strain in Legolas' eyes as he said this. "Well?"
"They would spurn and hunt us, same as Glorfindel."
"Then let us return to our friends." Legolas rose without grimacing. "Come on, the Shire can't be that far off, can it? Two, three days perhaps, if we don't push poor Shadowfax."
"The hobbits?"
"Why not?"
Aragorn smiled faintly as he remembered Boromir trying to teach the hobbits to fight. That had been before he became king, before Moria, before…everything. "I suppose they wouldn't mind seeing us."
"Of course not. They'd be delighted."
Aragorn peered curiously at his lover, shuffling among their few belongings now with elven grace. "You're not worried about Pippin and his oath, then? To Gondor?"
"Aragorn," Legolas began, ceasing preparations to face him. "Do you remember that night in Rohan?" He grinned at the Man's expression. "So you do. Do you remember what you told me, then? 'There are some things that could be done, and some that must.' You are worried about us staying out here in the wilderness—no, let me finish. You are. You're a wreck. We could continue gallivanting around these fair blue mountains while you lose your mind to panic, but I won't have it. We will go east," he said, turning abruptly away to tend to the clasp on a waterskin, "and take the chance with Pippin."
In a moment Aragorn's arms were around Legolas, his beard tickling the back of the elf's neck. "So decisive, my beautiful Green Elf." Even as the teasing mew escaped his throat at Aragorn's doings behind him, Legolas thanked Elbereth he wasn't facing west. West toward the endless sky, the sun's bed and the sea.
* * * *
At midday Aragorn called a halt at the feet of Ered Luin. "I'm not looking forward to skirting the Grey Havens," he sighed as he gazed south toward the Gulf. "But these mountains are impassable."
"They ought to be," said Legolas as he swung the day's catch off his shoulder, "they kept a great many elves in the dark about the eastern lands, back ages ago."
"I know." Aragorn surveyed the stretch of unforested slope they rested on with sharp eyes. Summer flowers and thigh-high grass thick as Legolas' mane clothed the mountain between rock and trees, north and south. "The sooner we get to the Shire, the better."
"Mmm." Legolas held the distant blue waters in his eyes for as long as he could bear, then plucked a yellow flower from its stem and twirled it idly between thumb and forefinger. "The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying…"
"What?" Aragorn turned to face the elf by the skewered meat.
"Nothing," Legolas flashed a smile and hastily piled more pine needles onto the infant flame. "Just humming is all."
"Tell me, Legolas." Aragorn knelt in front of him, placing a hand on either of Legolas' shoulders. "I know your people and the sea that beckons them. Are you—do you feel it?"
Legolas avoided the Man's eyes. "I was just humming a tune, I didn't mean anything by it—"
"Legolas." Aragorn cupped the elf's chin in his hand and turned the pale, sun-blazed face up to his own. The elf's eyes were pleading. "Have I—"
"Oh don't, Aragorn, please don't!" With a cry Legolas whirled away, grabbing Aragorn at the last moment and drawing him down into the long grass with him. "You've done nothing," he whispered, hoarse and raw, and yanked viciously at the Man's belt buckle.
"What—but I—" Legolas fixed Aragorn with a look that stopped him cold, then hot. He lay still as deft fingers robbed him of his clothing, raising a hand only when the last gauntlet was flung aside. "What about you," he said softly, and with slightly clumsier yet no less needful hands offered the green garb of the elf up to the mountain winds.
"You've done nothing," Legolas hissed again, punctuating his words with glittering tears and then a kiss that ricocheted down to Aragorn's toes. As the elf moved down Aragorn grasped his milky forearm.
"Wait." They kissed, then Aragorn continued, "You're always giving—and I'm always taking. Sit back."
Legolas' eyes gaped wide and blue, but he did not protest as Aragorn traced his collarbone with his tongue. Instead he giggled.
"What?" Aragorn murmured into flesh.
"Your beard. It tickles."
"Shall I shave it?"
"Oh no, I like it. I've always liked it. It's—ahh!" Aragorn allowed himself a small smile of triumph as the slim body of Legolas surged up against his. Above them the tops of the summer grasses danced, throwing prancing shadows down onto lip and leg and nipple. "My king, my king, you're—" Legolas lost his words in a gasp; Aragorn was licking figure eights around his navel.
"Hmm? Lower you say?" Aragorn slid panther-like down the length of the elf's body, reveling in every goosebump, every golden hair. "I thought elves were impervious to cold," he purred as he reached his destination. Legolas flung his legs around the man's neck, buried his long fingers in Aragorn's hair. "Although really I don't see the necessity of clothing if it doesn't bother—"
"Shut up," Legolas moaned. A shudder rippled through him as Aragorn did just that.
* * * *
"It was worth it," Aragorn thought from the warm, glowing place in which he floated—probably, some part of him recognized, somewhere within the golden regions of Legolas. "The war, the pomp, the duty…it was worth it, for this." He hummed deep in his throat and nuzzled forward, more complete than he had even been in his life. "He's a beautiful creature, a thing of…godliness." He opened his eyes to tell Legolas so, if he were awake, letting his eyelids flutter before opening for a moment in anticipation of the shining form of his lover.
But what he saw upon opening his eyes was not Legolas. Instead he was looking down the cold stone point and long shaft of an arrow.