Guilt

Title: Guilt
Author: Milady Hawke
E-mail: juliebgood001@hotmail.com
Fic Journal: www.livejournal.com/elfrangerslash
Pairing: Aragorn/Legolas
Rating: soft R
Warnings: Angst, movie-verse (but canon-friendly)
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Archive: VOLA, LoM, Aniron, ALSlash, Melethryn, Mirrormere; others, just ask
Feedback: keeps an author writing. Concrit would be welcomed gladly, especially as this is unbetaed, but by e-mail, please.
Author’s Notes: Written as Jayay’s prize for her winning art submission, “Guilt,” in Y!G Legolas_Aragorn_Slash’s March/April Anniversary Challenge. The story is based upon her manip, which can be seen here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/elfrangerslash/4512.html

Summary: Guilt is as sure a bond as love. Aragorn knows this only too well.


Guilt

It is because of me that he stays.

I tried to dissuade him before the Battle of Helm’s Deep. When the night had already fallen and the thunderous march of the enemy was already an echo of menace in the earth, growing nearer each moment, when already it was almost too late for escape. The rain pelted loud off the rusted armor of men and boys who were arrayed for battle in gear that did not suit them well at all, any of them. They were farmers and children, not warriors made to withstand the onslaught of the horror that approached.

We stood close together on the rampart of the keep and stared into the blackness, watching as it turned its dark gaze back on us, occasionally lit by an errant flare of lightening amid the pouring rain.

I turned to him then and grasped his hand in mine in an intimate gesture of urgency; there was no time for delicacy and more thoughtful attentions. Only the present, uncertain moment, that teetered back and forth upon the edge of a blade. My other hand came up to brush his cheek and smooth away the tendrils of hair that clung wetly to his face, and he did not flinch or turn away. His eyes were wide and questioning, with an innocent trust I did not deserve.

I could almost not bear to look at him and his hope.

“It is not too late,” I said quietly, cupping his cheek, too desperate to be afraid of what I was doing by touching him. “Your people are sailing.”

He shrank back then, slowly and almost imperceptively, gradually drawing away until the fingers that had been resting on his cheek grazed only air.

Cold silence again. His countenance had grown hard, though a faint flicker of doubt still shifted behind his eyes.

“You belong with them,” I said. “You should go now.”

He replied, “You cannot mean that.”

I swear that I meant every word of it.

We were not yet lovers, yet he refused to leave.

::

He stays because of me.

I tried again to dissuade him, as we made our way toward Minas Tirith. Sitting with my back against the Stone of Erech and my legs outstretched on the ground, I grabbed his hands and pulled him down, close to me, intimate, so that he knelt on the dank earth between my spread thighs while the welcome night screened us from all eyes that would pry.

“You know,” I said, as I locked gazes with him in the fading light, “that I cherish you, above all other friends.”

Legolas’s shoulders were warm through his deer-leather tunic, and then his skin seeped warmth as well as my hands glided up the soft column of his neck to twine in his hair. I felt its silkiness thread through my fingers, as soft and fluid as water that rests in the palm of one’s hand as long as it is cupped gingerly.

His head tilted to one side so my palm could cradle it, and after a little while his eyes fluttered shut… long, dark lashes smudging against his cheeks.

I said, “Be with your own people again, mellon-nin,” breaking the spell and letting my hands fall.

“I do not doubt that war marches upon your own land. And take Gimli north with you as well.” Gently, I added, “As much as I have been thankful to have you both with me, I know you are needed elsewhere. I would have you be with your own people again.”

Fleeting shock froze his face for an instant, and then he stood up, pulling away quickly.

“Please,” I said quietly. Perhaps this was the last chance for us both.

He shook my hands off him. “Is that how you would have it?” he finally asked. “You would have me abandon friends and honor?”

He looked down to the ground at our feet, askance at a huddle of Dunedain Rangers, at some indeterminate point in the distance. Then after a while he leveled his gaze at me again, the hurt of betrayal shining brilliantly in his eyes. “Or is it that you would push me away because you will not need - or want - me much longer?

“And why exactly,” he laughed, a low, bitter chuckle, “is my life so precious? It is only one among many, and many have already fallen.” His brow creased as he looked away to the north, to the dark mass of forest crowding in on us all, silhouetted against the last of the evening’s light. “Many more Elves will.”

The air was still and quiet; no early crickets or cicadas hummed steadily to remind us that Spring should soon grace the earth, if ever Spring would come again. Undoubtedly it was the spell of the Dead hanging on us, the dreadful army of the mountains casting its pall over all the living creatures of wherever that fell army rested, trailing despair in its wake and blighting the fields it passed through. The quiet of the forest did not give comfort.

Only one raised among Elves would know the cool mask of dignity on Legolas’s face for what it really was.

He made as if to speak again - and I quickly pulled him down against me.

We were truly damned from that moment onward, as lips gently skimmed across each other at first, too fraught with desperate tenderness to notice when the kiss turned more demanding, when he parted his mouth while my hands slid over the muscles of his back and came up to tangle in his hair.

He was every bit as inflaming as I’d imagined. And faith, no body ever melded so eagerly to mine.

When I sit alone in my study at night and all the courtiers have mercifully long since dispersed, I often wonder if there was not a moment when, if I had changed one thing, I would have changed everything.

When I think of my prince, I cannot imagine how that thought does not haunt him as well.

::

He is not far away now, a mere day’s ride from Gondor, in an exiled home he has made for himself among the forests of Ithilien.

I took him to bed after we had won Minas Tirith, before we rode out on our suicide mission. He drew me into his chamber and gave himself to me, lying back on the bed and pulling me down upon him until I was moving deep inside his body, both of us clinging desperately to each other while the whole mad world threatened to fall down around us.

After, when the war was over, I realized only then that he had always understood where my duties lie, if not my heart. And yet that had never changed anything for him.

He was no less radiant or happy when he approached me in the courtyard of The White Tree, more beautiful in his resplendent robes than any fabled Maia could ever be. He clasped his hand to my shoulder in a brotherly salute, proud to see me fulfill my destiny – if, for a moment, the subtle shifting of his eyes was full of knowledge and a sad regret.

I thought in that moment he would finally sail. But still, he stays because of me.

And I hate myself for wanting him to.