Picture, Part 4
Kate opened her eyes to find herself flat on her back and squashed quite uncomfortably between what seemed to be a rock and a hard place. Stars in the black velvet of the night sky peeked through the leaves overhead, and she could smell the smoke of a campfire. Looking to one side, she saw that the rock was Gimli, his chest moving rhythmically with his breath. He even wore his helm to sleep, she noted with a smile.
Her smile swiftly faded, however, when the hard place on her other side turned to face her, and an arm wrapped around her waist before the hand came up to cup her breast. Catching her breath in shock, and looked to see it was Aragorn, and thankfully, he was still fast asleep.
Sitting up hurriedly, she looked around to find Legolas sitting about ten feet away, watching her. Then his gaze dropped lower, and smirk settled on his lips. Kate looked down too, and frowned as she pushed Aragorn's hand from her body. "Lecher," she muttered, and stood up.
"He has been groping me the entire journey as well," Legolas said, and laughed when her eyes widened comically. "No, not really. Gimli would kill him if he tried anything." The elf motioned to a flattish log on the other side of the fire. "Come, join me."
Kate made her way cautiously to the log and sat, her eyes on him the entire time. He held her gaze easily, and she knew that she'd never win a staring game against him. "Why are you being so nice this time?" she asked at last. "You were very grumpy last time, and in Lorien I thought you would kill me."
"So you left like a scared rabbit?" he drawled, and she nodded, unable to actually speak because of the way the firelight flickered across his face. She groped for her sketchbook, needing to record how he looked.
But he snatched it from her—his motion so quick she wasn't sure it had actually happened—and said, "No. No more drawing until you explain what is happening."
Kate sighed. "I wish I knew." He only quirked a brow at her and waited. "I'm an artist. I was hired to paint a series of scenes from a certain book, but I was having a lot of trouble with it. I read the books over and over, but…" she shrugged helplessly. "I just wasn't inspired."
She pulled her knees up and rested her chin on them. "I decided to try to meditate, an author friend of mine told me it helped when she had writer's block. So I laid down on my bed, and closed my eyes, and began to count my breaths, and before I knew it, I was on Caradhras, and then the rest of you showed up."
Legolas reached into the neck of his tunic and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, which he handed to her. Unfolding it, she saw it was the sketch she'd given him that first day on Caradhras… that quick drawing of him looking shocked and angry at the same time. She burst out laughing. "Oh, it's terrible," she explained between giggles. "I can do much better, if you like," she offered. The sketch really was terrible… too careless, and confused from the switch in his expression. Legolas looked more cartoonish than realistic, quite ridiculous.
"That will not be necessary," he told her, and took the sketch back, folding it and carefully replacing it in his tunic. "Please continue."
"Well, so, then," she began awkwardly. "Um, I have a question to ask first." At his nod, she continued. "What happened to Boromir?"
Legolas frowned at her. "You know what happened to him," he told her. "You wept all over him as he died."
Kate sighed in exasperation. "No, I mean… what happened to his body?"
He frowned deeper. "We cleaned him, and placed him in one of the boats, and sent him down the river, hoping one of his kin or countrymen would find him."
Kate blinked. "So, his body definitely was here? You had it with you the whole time?"
His brows snapped together. "What are you saying?"
She sighed. "Look at the last drawing in my pad," she instructed, watching him as he obeyed. When he flipped to the sketch of Boromir sleeping, a fine tremor in his shoulders was her only indication of his surprise.
"What are you saying?" he repeated.
"I'm saying that Boromir is alive, and well, and wearing my Tweety Bird shirt as he sleeps in my bed," Kate told him. He stared blankly at her. "Ok, forget the Tweety Bird part. He's alive, and sleeping in my bed as we speak."
"And are you in the bed as well?" he asked slyly, cutting a glance at her, and she frowned.
"God, are all elves such pervs?" she demanded, looking around for something to throw at him. She located an acorn and launched it his way, where it bounced harmlessly off his belly, which was quivering with laughter. "You're awfully cheerful for someone who's just been told that someone he saw die not long ago is actually not that dead."
"Well, I am glad to know that Boromir isn't really dead," Legolas said calmly. "Although I do not understand it."
"That makes three of us," Kate sighed. "Boromir and I can't figure it out either. We thought maybe you'd know, that's why I came back during a boring moment."
He gazed at her a long moment. "You know what will happen to us, then?"
"Yeah." She picked up a twig at her feet and began to trace patterns into the dirt around the fire. "I know all the dramatic moments of this whole story, that's why I keep showing up at inconvenient times." She looked up to see him eyeing her speculatively. "And before you ask, no, I'm not gonna tell you anything."
He only raised a brow at her in that maddening, condescending way. "Did I ask you to tell me anything, my lady?"
"Well, actually, yeah," Kate replied. "You said you wouldn't give my pad back until I did."
"So I did." And he handed it over. She grabbed it eagerly, and began at once to sketch him. He smirked. "Shall I pose for you?" And he arranged himself in an exaggerated position, standing with one foot up on the rock where he'd just been sitting, fists on his hips, head tilted rakishly as he stared upwards. He looked, somehow, thoroughly gorgeous and ridiculous at the same time, and while it wasn't what Kate had originally had in mind, her hand flew over the paper to record it. Even the way his cloak fluttered in the faint breeze was captured by her pencil, and when she was done, she was giggling uncontrollably.
Legolas declared it a masterpiece, and offered her a bite of lembas. She couldn't pick it up or eat it, however, and he frowned. "How is it that you could touch Boromir when he died? And why was Aragorn able to make merry with you just before?"
"That was hardly what I'd call 'making merry'," Kate retorted sourly. "It was barely frisky, let alone merry. Hell, it wasn't even frolicsome. I wouldn't even call it playful. The man was asleep, didn't know what he was doing. Probably thought I was Arwen. If he thought anything at all besides, 'mmm, warm boob'."
"You sound insulted by his lack of intent, my lady," Legolas teased. "How long has it been since you have made merry?"
"My sex life—" she began, but he interrupted.
"Or lack of same—"
"--Is none of your concern," Kate finished with a sniff, ignoring his laughter.
"That can swiftly be remedied," he informed her.
"What, the fact that it's none of your damned business?"
"No," he purred, and started around the fire to her. "I mean, the lack of it."
"You're not—are you?" she gasped as he took her hand and pulled her to her feet. "You're not making a pass at me, are you?"
Legolas brushed his lips, those succulent pink lips of his, across her palm and the inside of her wrist. "I do not know what a pass is, my lady," he told her gravely, and licked the inside of her elbow.
"Oh, God," Kate gasped, feeling her knees melt away. Luckily, he expected this reaction, and caught her easily in his arms. Striding away from the others, he laid her down on his outspread cloak and began to remove her t-shirt, nibbling at each newly-exposed inch of flesh.
"You really shouldn't be—mmm, oh, God—doing this," she panted, her hands in his hair. She couldn't tell if she was pushing him away or pulling him closer
"Make me stop," he told her, pulling down the waist of her track pants and tracing his tongue around her navel.
"Ok," she agreed. "I'll do that."
His hands pulled her track pants down over her hips to bunch around the top of her thighs, and his fingers lightly stroked her dark curls as he licked a path across the soft part of her belly. "When?"
"Very, very soon," she moaned when his talented hand slipped between her legs, caressing the soft skin there.
"Hm," he replied, rucking her shirt up to reveal her breasts and latching onto a nipple, tugging it with lips and then teeth. "Will you make me stop now?"
"Oh, yesss," Kate moaned, arching up to his hand. "Any moment now…"
And he slid a long finger across her swollen, wet flesh before slipping it inside her. The shock of pleasure was followed immediately by a shock of fury—he'd treated her with outright hostility in all the other times they'd spoken, and suddenly he wanted a booty call? She wrenched herself out of his embrace.
"What the hell are you doing?" she shrieked, forcing herself to remain angry at the image of his lust-clouded blue eyes trained on her, face softened with unfulfilled desire. Her entire body felt like a taught bowstring, and even as she stood glaring at him she felt her thighs squeeze together in frustration.
"I know you want me, my lady," Legolas replied, sounding utterly unconcerned about much of anything at all. He stood with languid grace "I did not think you would mind me taking liberties with you."
"If I thought you actually gave a damn about me past the fact that I'm female, I might not mind," she snapped at him. "I don't appreciate being used."
Legolas shrugged. "What else is coupling, but using each other for pleasure?" He tilted his head to one side, considering her. "But I am sorry for offending you. It was not my intention."
Kate nodded slowly at him, still angry but accepting his apology. "I'm going to go now," she said. "You're not going to tell the others about Boromir, are you?"
He smiled, and she felt her knees weaken again. "I would prefer they not believe me losing my mind."
She nodded again, and felt herself float away from the scene. When she opened her eyes again, she found Boromir sitting cross-legged beside her on the bed, watching her intently.
"What?" she demanded, sitting up and pushing a hank of hair back over her shoulder.
He held up her sketchpad, pointing to the picture of the dramatically posing elf. "I watched as an image took shape before me. Legolas was in a rare good mood, was he not?"
"I'll say," she muttered, glancing down to make sure all her clothes were where they should be.
A faint smile curled the corner of Boromir's lips. "Ah, yes," he commented, and flipped to another page. Holding it out to her, he said, "Was he all you imagined?"
Kate looked down at the drawing; she hadn't done it, but there on the page was an image of Legolas' face, his hair mussed, lips swollen, the unmistakable blaze of desire in his eyes. He looked like a man—elf, rather—in the midst of making love. She swallowed thickly, then raised embarrassed eyes to him. He looked amused, but also… disappointed. Like he expected more from her.
Her temper shattered. It had been a long, weird day, after all. "Listen, Boromir, I don't have to live up to any notions you have of how a woman should be. It's none of your business if I decide to fuck Legolas. I don't owe you any explanations, and it sure as hell isn't any of your business what we got up to while I was there."
The amusement fled from his face, and a veil of ice seemed to drop over his eyes. "Indeed, my lady," he acknowledged. "I forgot myself; please forgive me." He stood stiffly from the bed and made his way to the door.
"Where are you going?" Kate demanded. "It's the middle of the night."
"I will sleep on the divan in the other room," he told her, his voice cold, his words clipped. "I do not wish to trouble you more than I have already."
"Don't be stupid," she snapped. "You're way too tall for the sofa. Sleep in the bed."
"I do not share beds with women who are free with their bodies," he informed her haughtily, and she jolted back as if he'd slapped her.
"You total bastard," she whispered, mortified to feel her eyes tear up. Blinking them away furiously, she stomped to the linen closet and pulled out a pillow and blanket. "I'm sleeping on the sofa. You sleep in the bed, or wherever you want. I don't care." Ignoring him completely, she flopped onto the sofa and yanked the blanket over her head, burying her face in the pillow to muffle the sound of her crying. She knew he stood there a long moment, watching her, but didn't care. Finally, his footsteps went down the hallway to the bedroom and there was silence.
