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Summary: A unwelcome encounter with Orcs causes Legolas to question his own worth, but one rainy night, Gimli proves the extent of his friendship. Set in the months following the War of the Ring, during the time Legolas and Gimli traveled Middle-earth together.
Author's Note: Written for the Mistletoe in May 2006 fiction exchange. This is my first experience in writing Legolas/Gimli. I hope this story pleases!
* * *
Gimli knew that scream.
He had heard that pure, clear voice raised in a war cry many times during the days of the Fellowship and the War of the Ring, but never in this manner. Shrill and filled with rage, and if Gimli could believe what his ears were telling him, tinged with panic.
An answering shriek – a sound the Dwarf also recognized, and which made his blood run cold – rent the air.
“Orcs!”
Forgotten were the bits of quartz and mica he had been examining; he set off at a dead run toward the direction from which Legolas’ cry had resounded, hefting his trusty battle axe in one hand, pulling a smaller throwing axe from a strap on his thigh as he ran. Through the woods he sprinted, jumping over tree roots, trampling slender saplings, and crashing through the brush until at last he burst into the clearing beside a shallow, rocky pool formed by a waterfall.
It was there that he found Legolas, pale and shaking , and swaying on his feet, the ground around him littered with the dead and dying. Even from a distance, it was apparent that the Elf’s nude body bore a freshet of new, darkening bruises and smears of blood from a myriad of cuts and scrapes.
“Legolas! What happened!?” Gimli rumbled, glancing at the carnage as he rushed to his friend’s side.
“An ambush. Quickly, Gimli, we must leave this place. We are not safe here.” But Legolas made no indication of being capable of moving; Gimli saw that he was in shock.
“Well then, let us get out of here, in case there are more,” Gimli said soothingly, quickly scanning the blood-strewn clearing for the Elf’s clothing and weapons, when he heard a low, gurgling snarl a movement caught the corner of his eye. An Orc was struggling to raise itself to its feet, its face twisted in a mask of hatred. There was a flash of silver and a thud, and a second later, the blade of Gimli’s axe was embedded in the soft loam between the Orc’s shoulders and where its head had previously been attached.
“By Aulë’s hammer, I can’t begrudge ye this one here,” Gimli said, pulling his axe from the ground and eyeing it distastefully, then wiped the black-stained blade on a clean patch of grass. Quickly he counted the bodies, strewn haphazardly from the shallows near the waterfall to where he had found Legolas standing. “Ye got seven, alone and unarmed. Not bad for a point-ear. Now where are your clothes, laddie? We need to leave, before any more come.”
With a shaking hand, Legolas pointed to a bundle nearby. Gimli led him carefully and lowered him down by a tree, quickly returning with the Elf’s clothing and weapons, then helped his friend cover his nakedness.
“Now where’s that great beastie got to? Arod! Where are ye, boy?” Gimli whistled a few times, but heard no answering whinny, no galloping of hooves coming toward them. “Why, that mangy, flea-bitten bitten sack o’ – AROD!”
The horse was nowhere to be found.
“Looks like ye’ll have to walk after all. Here, lean on me if ye need to and we’ll get ye back to camp.”
* * * * *
As quickly as they could, they made their way back to their campsite, a good hour further up the stream. Though Legolas was clearly still shaken by his ordeal, Gimli dared not stop sooner in case there were more of the foul creatures about. King Elessar still had work to do before Middle-earth would wholly be cleansed of the Dark Lord’s evil.
Back at their campsite a blessedly uneventful while later, Legolas was strangely reluctant to bare himself again to Gimli’s eyes and allow the Dwarf to examine his injuries. This was unusual, for in the days of the Fellowship, the Nine Walkers had seen one another in various stages of undress many times – after week upon week of the same company, sharing sleeping and bathing arrangements, modesty soon went by the wayside.
And Legolas was a true child of nature, stripping unapologetically whenever and wherever opportunity presented itself in the form of clean water. Even Aragorn, raised among the Firstborn, had little compunction about nudity, though he did not share the same near obsessive compulsion for personal hygiene that seemed the Elven way.
With relief, Gimli found that most of Legolas’ wounds were superficial, mostly bruises and scrapes, which he gently swabbed clean and patted dry. There was one injury, however, that looked fairly serious: a vicious-looking gouge on the meat of Legolas’ neck, just above the shoulder. He cleaned it well, washing it gently but thoroughly and then, to be safe, poured a generous measure of Dwarven brandy from his silver flask over it. The remainder he passed to Legolas while he bandaged the wound.
“Now are you going to tell me what happened, laddie?” Gimli asked brusquely as he worked.
Legolas was reluctant at first, but there was no Elf ever born who could match a Dwarf for sheer obstinacy, and finally the story came out little by little, in fits and starts.
After they had separated near the cavern Gimli wanted to explore, Legolas had let Arod set their pace, following the shoreline north along the river, riding here and there under the beeches and pines. He found a waterfall; he was hot and the water looked cool, so he let the stallion roam free and stripped off his own clothes, wading out through the shallows to let the water of the falls refresh him.
The music of the water sang to him, calling him to follow her, down the mountains and to the Sea. He was entranced in its song, standing under the spray, and never heard the yrch approach. Arms like iron grabbed him around the waist and arms, strong and thick hands pulled his hair cruelly, forcing his head back and his face up into the water, choking him. He gagged, was pulled, naked and struggling, out of the falls and forcibly turned around. Three yrch stood thigh-deep in the water surrounding him; five more were on the bank. All were haggard, and their clothing was little but tattered rags clinging to their gaunt frames. They looked half-starved and feral.
Legolas did not think, only reacted. His upper body held in place by the grip on his arms, he used this support to his advantage. One leg pistoned straight out and caught one of his abductors on the chin, snapping its neck, and a second later, before the body of the first orch had even fallen lifelessly to the ground, the opposite foot connected with the misshapen nose of another and sent it too sprawling into the water with a great splash.
The third orch grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled hard, knocking Legolas backward and off balance, and before he could regain his feet, he was being dragged through the water toward the horde on the riverbank. They leered and taunted until their captive was hauled from the water and thrown on the bank, choking and gasping for air.
“They held me down and kicked me in the ribs, tried to break my legs,” Legolas said, absently running his hand along the ribs Gimli had carefully bandaged. “So I killed them.”
Gimli was not fooled by the nonchalant reply. He knew Legolas well, and knew there was something the Elf was not telling him. “And that was all?”
“Aye, that was all. Do you have any more of this?” He held up the flask, upside down.
Gimli sighed and rummaged through his pack, withdrawing a second flagon, and with a shake of his head, passed it along to his friend. He knew through experience that Legolas would not say more until he was ready. The Elf was impossible sometimes.
Try as he might, Gimli could not get his friend to say another word about it, so he simply sat with Legolas while the Elf drank himself nearly into a stupor.
Dwarves knew how to wait.
* * *
Gimli woke in the middle of the night, sometime after the moon had passed its highest point. He knew before even opening his eyes that Legolas’ bedroll was empty. Raising himself on one arm, he looked around their camp, fighting rising apprehension, until he finally spotted the Elf sitting on the ground against the trunk of a tree. Legolas was utterly still, his eyes glittering in the wavering flames of the campfire.
“Legolas?” the Dwarf called warily, keeping his voice low. “What is it? Anything the trouble, laddie?”
“’Tis nothing, Gimli. Go back to sleep.”
* * *
On the third night after Legolas’ abduction, it rained.
It was not a light and peaceable rain, which falls gently in a soothing pattering of droplets and nourishes the earth, but a veritable explosion of water from the skies, and the air turned cold.
Weather permitting, the travelers had long taken to simply spreading their bedrolls on the ground around a campfire and talking long into the night, looking up into the black velvet sky, but this night they were forced to take shelter in a simple tent made of oiled cloth that they had brought for just such a purpose. Arod, recently returned from only the Valar knew where, stood forlornly under a thick canopy of branches, water dripping off the end of his long nose.
This timely turn of the weather afforded just the circumstances the crafty Dwarf had been looking for.
“Now, ye stiff-necked Elf, ye have nowhere to go and naught else to do, so will ye tell me now, or will ye force me to beat it out of ye?” he said in a characteristically unsubtle and Gimli-like manner, though his tone was not unkind. “What happened, Legolas?” he added more gently.
Legolas would never know what compelled him to finally speak of it. Perhaps it was the rain, or the comfort that the proximity of his dearest friend brought, or even the certainty that Gimli would not let him rest until he learned the entire story.
He sat awkwardly, cross-legged on his bedroll, turned slightly away so that Gimli could only see him in profile, his features illuminated by a single candle flickering in its glass chimney.
“When they pulled me from the water, I was surprised, but not afraid, really,” he said in a detached - almost frighteningly detached - tone. “It was strange, as though I should be afraid, but it happened so quickly that there was no time for fear. Far worse odds than that I have faced, and lived to tell the tale, with nary a scratch to show for my pains. So I waited, abiding their abuse – ‘tis only flesh, and cuts and bruises heal – and watched for a chance to escape.
“All the while, they were snarling at one another in the Black Speech. I could not understand them, but it was easy enough to tell that they were arguing. I planned to use that to my advantage and cause a distraction. They are foul and evil creatures, but they are also stupid. I cursed and kicked them, hoping they would start fighting among themselves and give me the chance to slip away and escape.
“But they were smarter than I thought, or perhaps desperate for a bit of sport. My legs were knocked out from under me and I landed face down on the grass. Their leader, the largest and foulest of them all, knelt down and hissed something into my face. All that I could make out was ‘bright eyes’. I spat in its face.
“One of the others laughed – I think it was a laugh, anyway, it was a horrible sound, Gimli – and they held me down. When I heard it say ‘stinking whore’… for the first time, I grew truly afraid. I knew what they were going to do.”
Legolas turned his head and finally met Gimli’s eyes. “Do you know what happens to an Elf when he is taken by force?”
Gimli then understood with dawning horror the meaning of the bloody gouge on Legolas’ shoulder. The Dwarf was a soldier, born and bred, but unlearned in lore he was not.
“The Elf will die,” he replied hoarsely.
“They pulled my legs apart, put their filthy hands on me. Its stinking breath was on my neck, hot and fetid, as it clawed at my skin. It bit me, sank its teeth into my shoulder, I could feel my flesh tearing under its fangs, my own blood running across my neck and into my mouth.”
The only sound was the steady dripping of the rain on the shelter overhead while Gimli worked up the courage to ask the question he was afraid to learn the answer to. By the Creator’s smoking tongs, it could not be so... not Legolas, the bravest, most fearless warrior he had ever had the pleasure of fighting beside.
“But they did not – “
Legolas pulled at a thread sprung from the weave of his blanket and cast it away viciously, his voice growing cold.
“Nay, not that. Though by deed or intent, there is little difference. I am tainted, Gimli, and I shall never be clean again.”
Gimli laid a heavy, war-roughened hand on Legolas’ shoulder. “No, laddie, I’ll not let ye think that of yourself. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I should have – “
“ – ye should have nothing, Legolas, you did nothing wrong. Those beasts acted of their own intent against an innocent victim. There is naught ye should be blaming yourself for.”
Legolas rounded on him, his eyes snapping with anger. “Yet touch me they did, and naught can change that. Their faces I see in my mind. I feel its claws piercing my skin, its fi – its fingers – touching me, invading me, haunting my dreams. Who could ever bear to touch one so defiled? Could you bear it, Gimli?”
Gimli said nothing.
“I thought not.” Legolas threw himself down on his bedroll and wrapped his arms around his waist, turned his face away in shame.
For a very long while, Gimli sat staring at the flickering of the candle’s flame, as though the answers to the mysteries of life were contained within its wavering glow.
In truth, he was remembering. Legolas’ vehement declaration had triggered the memory of an event he had not thought about in years.
When he was just a wee one, a woman of his clan had been seized in a feud with a neighboring tribe. Gimli had been too young to understand the weeping and the tearing of beards that occurred upon her recovery, but old enough to remember that not long after, she disappeared. Later, he asked his Da what happened to her and was horrified by Glóin’s answer. The molestation she had endured at the hands of her own kind was bad enough, but he learned that the reason behind her mysterious disappearance was that her own husband had accused her of being ‘dishonored’ and refused to have anything to do with her. Heartsick and distraught, she had left in the middle of the night and was never heard from again.
He could not fathom how her own spouse had cast her out, as though she bore the blame for the cruel and merciless acts of her captors. She, an innocent victim, had become a pariah among her own people, had been shunned by those who should have nurtured her battered body and broken spirit with love and compassion. What agony of self-loathing had this dual blow caused?
Gimli refused to let that same fate befall the Elf.
Legolas flinched when a gnarled hand reached over and just barely brushed the downy skin of his face, a touch surprisingly gentle and at odds with the Dwarf’s usual churlish demeanor, but somehow all the more poignant for its awkward compassion.
Under his hand, Gimli could feel the tremors that wracked his friend’s body from more than the chill of the air.
“I would, Legolas, if you would allow it.”
Uncertainly, Legolas turned so that he might meet the Dwarf’s eyes. In the shadows, Gimli could see the confusion and doubt etched on Elf’s furrowed brow, but could also see the desperation in his face; he wanted to believe what his dearest friend was offering him, but feared that he had misinterpreted Gimli’s meaning.
Gimli dropped his hand from Legolas’ face, tracing the graceful curve of the strong jaw, and rested his hand lightly on the Elf’s shoulder.
“I have known war since Glóin first put an axe in my wee hand, Elf, and have known the solace of a shield brother to ease my grief. Think not that the warrior’s comfort is reserved for Men and Elves alone.”
“Do not do this out of pity, Gimli, I could not bear it.”
“There is no pity, only succor for a friend in need,” the Dwarf replied. “Would ye do the same for me?”
Legolas did not speak, only reached for Gimli’s hand and placed it over his own heart. And Gimli knew the Elf’s answer.
“Ach, you’re freezing, Legolas,” he said, alarm limning his voice as he finally perceived the extent of the Elf’s shivering; he had not noticed the chill of Legolas’ skin under his own palm. “Why did ye not tell me? Here, let’s get ye warmed up, laddie.” Pulling his well-worn old Lórien cloak from his pack, he wrapped it snugly around Legolas, then covered them both with blankets.
They lay together, rolled in warmth and listening to the rain, until Legolas’ shivering subsided.
For a moment, Gimli wondered just where to begin. With a lover of his own sturdy sort, he would have known exactly the sort of touches and caresses that his partner would appreciate, but an Elf was an entirely different matter. Kissing was not a practice that his own people had ever wholly embraced, other than as a brief gesture of greeting or welcome, but a peculiarity that Men and Elves seemed to find particularly enjoyable, as Gimli discovered after unwittingly stumbling upon more than one amorous tryst in Rivendell and the Golden Wood. The Elder Folk were certainly not shy about taking their pleasure whenever, and wherever, the desire struck, as the hapless Dwarf had discovered.
So Gimli did what he thought Legolas would find pleasing. He kissed the Elf.
The first kiss between lovers is always a moment for unsurety, as two discover each other for the first time, learn the caresses that will bring the most pleasure, elicit sighs and whimpers of desire. And it was doubly so at this moment, crossing that line from deepest friendship to intimacy, and knowing that it would irrevocably change their relationship.
Gimli thought at first that he had made an error in judgment when the Elf tensed against him, but soon Legolas sighed against his lips and leaned further into the warmth of his own sturdy body. He was relieved, and let his lover set their pace, allowing Legolas time to grow comfortable with the intimacy before going any further.
“Are ye sure this is what ye want, Legolas? We can stop if ye aren’t ready.”
“I am sure, Gimli… please, help me to forget.”
They remove their own clothing in comfortable silence, long since accustomed each other’s nudity from months of sharing quarters, laying it neatly aside, and crawled back under the blankets.
“Your beard tickles,” Legolas said, drawing away a bit, a hint of the first smile Gimli had seen in days curving the corner of his mouth.
Gimli pulled away, muttering an apology, but Legolas leaned in closer to brush the russet wisps against his cheek. “Nay, not bad – it is soft. It feels good.”
“So ye like that, Elf?”
“Mmm.”
“How about this?”
“Mmmhmm…”
“And… this?”
“Ai! Valar, yes!”
His Elf’s body was a miscellany of silken planes and sharp angles, Gimli marveled, running his broad hands over hard muscle enclosed in the slender body and its wrapping of downy skin. Like the finest of butter-soft suede, stretched over marble. No, he thought, shaking his head, that was not it… so much time among those flighty Elves made him wax all poetic, but Aulë’s anvil, he had never felt anything so smooth.
Not that he would ever admit it to Legolas, of course.
Suddenly Gimli threw back his head and laughed, a roaring, full-out belly laugh that shook the flimsy walls of their shelter.
“Will you share the joke, Master Dwarf?” Legolas asked, smiling back at the sight of his robust Dwarven companion rolling on the bedding, clutching his belly in mirth.
It took a few seconds for Gimli to control his amusement enough to speak. “Us, laddie. The two of us together. Has there ever been an unlikelier pair, friend Elf? What a sight we must be, you and me.”
“That may be so,” Legolas agreed with a smile, “but though I have counted among the most beautiful of ellith and ellyn as lovers, none were more earnest of heart.” And with that, he took Gimli’s bearded face in his hands and kissed him soundly.
Gimli reached down guardedly, smoothing the now-warm flesh of his lover, over the sharp promontory of Legolas’ hipbone, and carefully cupped the flesh between the Elf’s legs, exploring the length and girth that lay heavy in his palm. What rested between his own thighs was not dissimilar – the familiar ridges and the soft pouch below, but the Elf was as velvet-smooth there as the rest of his body. Legolas’ hand was occupied in a similar task, and Gimli wondered amusedly what the Elf thought of his body.
Lying on his back, Gimli watched his Elf lean over to reach for his rucksack and fumble in the outside pocket. When Legolas turned back, in his hand was a small pot. Gimli recognized it, for he carried one similar himself. All soldiers did – a multi purpose salve, thick and gelatinous in the pot, but which liquefied easily, used for whetting blades and soothing cracked and blistered hands, among other things.
Legolas knelt beside him holding the small jar in his hands, rolling it between his palms. Gimli knew exactly what the Elf was debating, because he was having the same dilemma.
In the joining of male and female, roles are preordained by physiology. But between males, there is an innate shift in the balance of power, whether explicit or implied, when it is determined who will dominate and who will submit.
Gimli let out a breath of relief when Legolas knelt above the Dwarf’s middle, straddling his waist, then silently pressed the pot into his hand. He far preferred to be the one doing the taking, but would have borne submission willingly if the Elf wished it so. Still, he could not help but feel a surge of relief that Legolas did not ask it of him.
Dipping his fingers in the thick gel, Legolas emulsified it between his fingers, bracing his upper body with one hand against Gimli’s broad chest as he reached behind himself with the other.
Legolas’ eyes were closed, his head thrown back – Gimli knew exactly what the Elf was doing, and could see that Legolas was enjoying it. A moment later, he felt a slick, callused hand close around his shaft and he groaned.
“Ach, Legolas, that feels good.”
And with little further preparation, Legolas was sinking down on his hips, taking him inside that delicious, tight heat, and moaning. A grimace crossed the Elf’s face and a pained grunt escaped his lips. Gimli knew it hurt; his stature was not the only thing about him that was not long, but powerful and thick.
Legolas rode him hard, like an Elf possessed. And in a sense, he was – overcome by a need to erase the stain on his memory of his misuse at the creatures’ foul hands, and he used the body beneath him as a device to cleanse himself of their tainting.
And Gimli was glad to be used.
His hand closed over Legolas’, stroking the Elf’s long, smooth shaft almost ferociously, matching Legolas’ pace. It did not last long; Legolas shuddered above him and arched his back, crying out while thick droplets of cream decorated Gimli’s abdomen.
The tightening of the Elf’s body coaxed from Gimli one of the most tremendous climaxes he remembered having in a very long time. Giving a hoarse shout, he tumbled over the edge, flooding Legolas’ still twitching passage with spurts of hot semen.
They fell together on the bedroll, breathing hard, until their hearts slowed and the sweat on their flushed bodies began to cool and chill their skin.
“Thank you, Gimli,” Legolas said softly, a few minutes later. “You are a treasured friend, the dearest of all.”
He was not certain, but he thought Gimli blushed. “Well, don’t be telling everyone, or my reputation will be ruined.”
Legolas laughed and pushed himself to his knees. He crawled through the tent flap and stood out in the downpour, extending his hand to the Dwarf. “Join me, Gimli? ‘Tis a beauteous night to bathe in the rain.”
The change in the Elf’s manner was so remarkable from a few hours before that it made Gimli smile in relief. Legolas would bear the mark of the Orc’s teeth for a long while, and the memory of his mistreatment for all his days, but Gimli was certain he would be all right. Even the chill of the air and the fact that it was raining harder than ever could not dim Legolas’ enthusiasm.
“Now that would be behavior unbecoming of a Dwarf.” He winked, his eyes twinkling, but a brief glance at the congealing mess on his body brought a grimace to his face and he reached for Legolas’ hand. “In this case, however, an exception may be made.” Smiling, the Elf pulled him to his feet and led him out into the rain.
Their faithful equine companion watched them curiously from under the eaves of the branches. What Arod thought of his friends’ strange antics, they would never know. He snorted and tossed his head, and returned to munching on the sweet rain-wet grass. Those two-legs had not sense enough to even get out of the rain.
* * *
Back in the tent a while later, damp but invigorated, and dressed in dry clothing, Legolas sat cross-legged on the blanket behind Gimli, working a wide-toothed comb through the Dwarf’s thick, russet locks. He hummed softly to himself while he picked vigilantly but gently at a particularly troublesome snarl.
“Now Elf, ye won’t be telling anyone about this. Not those black-haired twins who are so fond of ye, not the Hobbits, not even Aragorn. Especially not Aragorn,” Gimli grumbled under his breath, quirking his head so that he could peer over his shoulder and glare at the Elf. It would not do for any of his friends to think he had gone sentimental, or they would be expecting him to take up gardening or some other nonsense. It was fine for Master Samwise, but the only dirt Gimli wanted under his fingernails was the kind found deep inside the earth, in a sparkling cave.
“Not a word, my friend, not even to Aragorn,” Legolas replied mildly, resuming his de-tangling.
Gimli could almost hear the smile in the Elf’s voice, and he struggled to still the answering twitching of his own lips.
“And ye won’t be doing anything ridiculous like falling in love with me, will ye? I’m a foul-tempered curmudgeon, and it just wouldn’t be right.”
Legolas finally gave in to the urge to laugh, and leaned forward to pat his friend’s cheek. “‘Twill be a struggle, my friend, but I will do my utmost to restrain my emotions. And what of you, Master Dwarf? Will you swear your heart to a ‘flighty Elf’?”
To which Gimli dutifully replied, “Pah, not on your life, laddie.”
But he had, just a wee bit.
Not that he would ever tell the Elf, of course.
orch/yrch = Sindarinized version of the Westron Orc/Orcs
ellith/ellyn = Elf maids (pl.) / male Elves (pl.)