Fic: Under My Hand, NC-17, A/L
Oldfic yay! Err, maybe not yay. But I had the loveliest fb ever from one 'Barbara' the other day though, the kind that actually makes the author tear up, and that reminded me that I never posted this fic here. So Barbara, if you see this, thanks again, and enjoy if you haven't seen this one! *g*
Under My Hand
Pairing: This is me we're talking about.
Rating: gratuitous NC-17
Betas: sundew and namarie120
Warnings: AU, PWP-ish (Tolkien forgive me) Let's pretend Aragorn chose Legolas at that pivotal coronation scene in the RotK movie, which is pretty much wildly out of charcter, given Undomiel's sacrifice. But hopefully the rest of the fic won't seem so OOC. Mpreg mention (oh god my eyes), but it's just a mention - this isn't a squick fic.
Summary: Legolas’ POV, in which Aragorn applies an age-old remedy to soothe his melancholy elf. A bit of nostalgia on Legolas and Aragorn’s 50th anniversary. Who knew reminiscing could be so - um, aaahh - inspiring?
Author’s Note: For Melissa Tiniowien's birthday, deriving from a plotbunny from the Aniron archive's Sept '04 anniversary fic challenge, with beta help from our friend, Sundew *g*
Under My Hand
Time flows swift and inevitable for an elf, like the great river Anduin running unchecked in its course, carving its path into all who it touches. Its currents are too forceful to be held back by a dam, or else to be harnessed with any earthly power. Even by a man so strong as you, my love, one who also wears a crown.
I have known elves in whose sails the wind was steady, and for whom the journey forward through time was as a deck swaying gently under their feet, peaceful as a white swan gliding over the water. The stars changed, and the land changed, after they left loved ones waving on the shore, though they themselves had not changed. And this was as it should be. For though sad, they knew a reunion one day awaited them on a far away shore, where the things that mattered would still be the same.
But for those of us who have felt time the most, the river is wide, and rough, and does not forgive - for we three who dared give our love to a mortal. And the river is never long enough, though you and I have seen together the passing of a generation of men, and our own son has almost come into his prime, nearly fifty years gone from my belly now. Well I remember Gandalf when I think of Eldarion, for our child was the last miracle the kindly old wizard helped make in this world before he set sail and left these shores.
***
I feel calloused fingers drag over the skin of my neck, sensitively awakening myself to your touch. They gather my hair back in your fist and lay it so that it spills over the front of my shoulder, while the warmth of your lips glides over my exposed flesh, contrasting with the sharpness of the cool night air. You are standing behind me, kissing the back of my neck, a sensual greeting I never tire of.
“And what deep thoughts trouble my prince’s brow?” you ask, your arms coming around to encircle me.
It would seem I have drifted off upon the balcony seat, and it seems I have also missed the sun’s passing, sunken low now over the westerly hills without even giving a last, desperate warning. But I am glad at least to now be aware of the motley pink hues of the darkening sky, trailing its golden tendrils.
I have shaken these thoughts out of my head before realizing it, for you were never so good at stealing up on me in the days of your youth, when you were still gangly and awkward, tripping over your feet and words when I visited your father’s court and you tried to talk to me; it is almost unnerving that you can slip up on me now. Either you and I are losing the distinctions between us, or I am becoming Mannish with my distractions.
I say, “It is only that I was thinking of Eldarion, husband.” I turn my head to the side and snake an arm up and around your neck, pulling you down to meet my mouth for a lingering kiss, long, very long. There can never be enough of you.
Breaking apart, though reluctantly, I look you in the eyes and offer, “He is maturing so quickly. By human standards it is long since he crossed the threshold of manhood, and by Elvish standards he will have reached his majority soon, come next Spring.”
You surprise me with a sudden gentleness that few know or imagine you capable of; you have mellowed into it over the years with me.
“My sweet mate,” you say, and there is a warm indulgence in your eyes that tells me I have endeared myself to you, though I do not exactly know why.
Gripping me under my arms, you pull me up to my feet and walk me around the bench, through the balcony arch, to our chambers, straight to our bedroom. You turn me around to face you then and wrap your arms more tightly around my frame, suddenly pulling my chest flush against yours, so that our faces are mere inches from each other. I feel your eyes burning as though they would consume my body, your hands moving possessively over the muscles of my back …
Now you walk me backward, and I feel the crook of my knees knocking into the bed, and I know a fraction of a second before your weight falls upon me that it will.
You lie atop me, hot and immediate over my clothes, your body seeming to cover every inch of mine, and it is easy to forget what I was thinking of. You shift yourself until you lie between my thighs and prop yourself over me upon your elbows. Now I know I have completely lost my train of thought.
“Such anxiousness,” you observe, “behind your mask of serenity.”
Your brow is furrowed, your voice low. That is a look I know well.
“And this on the anniversary of our binding. There’s more going on between your pointy ears than mere upset with our little leaf growing up.”
But now there is a playful smile creasing the corners of your eyes, though it does not extend to your mouth, and I can tell you are turning over something that does not bode well for me. I could almost predict that you will ask me if I am thinking of leaving you for the handsome young captain of the Tower Guard in your employ.
I cannot help smiling a little bit, but I know you will not stop quietly staring at me until I give you a more forthcoming answer to the real question.
“Stubborn man,” I reply. “Have it your own way then,” and the words come out as more of a sigh than a retort. “It is only that today reminds me how I have one less year with you, much like our birthdays. And is not today one of those milestones so far as human reckoning goes?”
“Mmph,” you say, resting your forehead against mine. “So I supposed was your thought. You are often living in other times than the present.”
“Such is the nature of elves, a'maelamin. What else is there to live in but the past?”
“I can only do what a man may to keep you happy in the time we are given, melethnin. If I am failing to make the present count for you, I am sorry. I have tried.”
You roll off of me to face the wall, jolting the mattress as you throw your weight around while attempting to make yourself comfortable.
“Mark you, while you are busy wasting time pining for the past,” you say, beginning a discourse with the wall, “you could be adding to your store of memories for the future. As I see it, short though our time may seem to you, we could keep spending ourselves so brightly together that we left a trailing glow of afterimages that would never fade from your mind. But if you’re intent on brooding tonight, then I’m going to sleep.”
“Still clothed?” I ask.
I reach my fingers out tentatively to touch your shoulder, and you grunt in reply. Gently, I roll you back towards me again and kiss your mouth quickly before you can protest. You are already looking guilty, I see.
“Well,” you say, softening, “if that is how it must be tonight… I suppose making our son was a sweet memory.” There is a glint of mischief in your eye. “We could remember that now.”
You say that last part with your face buried in my neck, the warm moisture of your breath enflaming my skin and sending sparks of arousal straight down my spine to the burgeoning need between my legs.
“We could,” I reply, and I am beginning to remember his making already, though this present encounter seems to have its own potential for memory.
Your hand firmly smoothes the hair away from my temples. It tilts my head back so that my neck arches up to your lips, so that my body sways with you as your hardness slides between us and grinds against mine. Oh, it is easy to remember what really matters and what will last forever for me, while you are sucking on the tip of my ear, then nipping gently with your teeth, and we are rocking our coupled hips together.
And when we have drunk deeply of each other and have at last come up to draw air into our lungs, it seems you are still in a mood to talk, but there are better things I can be doing with my mouth as a dark brown nipple is peering out from your tunic, begging to be latched on to.
“I remember,” you say, “how on the quest you were reluctant to betray your feelings for me.”
With this you grind yourself into my loins. For lost time, I suppose.
“I remember how later you once told me that young Merry Brandybuck caught you watching me bathe in one of the temperate streams of Lothlorien, warm currents licking around my biceps you said, and rivulets flowing swiftly over my chest. How the little imp asked you if you were in love, not realizing how close to the mark he might hit.”
Here your hand has ridden up the length of my bent thigh, running back and forth along it in a firmly possessive grip, and there has never been a lesson taught so sweetly. I can feel your thumb digging in as it presses along the fleshy inside of my leg, touching so near to where I desire your hands and mouth.
“And then there was another time in Lorien, when I came upon you lying in a dusky clearing among a thicket of wild roses, completely naked. You had been stroking yourself. I have always thought you allowed me to find you.”
Your voice has taken on a feral tone, shivering through me. But the pained little gasps of need filling my ears must surely be coming from me, for you are still talking. It is a wonder how you can do so while moving lasciviously upon me and worshipping my flesh with your mouth. There is much to be said for the endurance of the Dunedain.
“Your pale hair was fanned out around you on the grass like a halo around the moon, and you almost seemed to offer yourself to me as you looked up through your long lashes with a small but less than innocent smile. The look in your eyes could have taught the stars to burn, melethron.”
The sounds of my breathing are small and pathetic as I struggle for air. “You flatter me,” I manage.
“I know what catches your fancy. But it’s true.”
Our upper bodies have long since been unclothed by the mad rush of our hands working furiously between us, and after freeing your own confined arousal you now pull my leggings down. When you wrap your large palm around both our erections, I fear for a second that I will never breath again. Your desire is both hard and soft against mine, contrasting in an exquisite way with the rough texture of your hand conforming to our girth. With the first stroke, all my senses swim deliriously.
“But the first time I took you was not until after the Battle of Helm’s Deep. When again we found ourselves staying in Rohan.”
I want to command you to stop talking, to find your mouth and cover it with mine.
“And I found you waiting in my room.”
Our mouths clash and you taste of wine as I suck upon your lips in a frantic rhythm like the unmerciful working of your hand.
“Lying in my bed. Daring me to ride you.”
“Aragorn,” I think I moan.
“Like some proud, untamed steed of the Mearas.”
The darkness of your eyes shows me you are beyond recall, and I cannot help but soon follow while you fist the two of us like this.
“It was far beyond the imagination of my lonely nights on the quest… lying upon you for the first time and feeling your heart beating wildly against my chest. You are an elf,” you say, “yet you were wanton, desperate for me. You pulled your knees up so I could more easily slide into you…” - I know not how I will bear your grip tightening on our shafts - “…feel the moist heat of your body opening to me.”
You grunt, low and gutturally, as you attempt to hang on to a few shreds of sanity before we reach our climax, but I wish not to spill myself in your hand, for I would feel your hardness spearing me. With an aching relief, I pull out of your grasp and bend back my knees, placing my ankles over your shoulders so we can face each other while you merge our bodies together, making me entirely yours as you have done so many times beyond count.
But you will have none of lovemaking tonight - you flip me over on my stomach roughly and pull my mid section up so that I am poised on my hands and knees, waiting. The blunt head of your desire pushes insistently against my opening, slowly, slowly breaching me… and I feel the muscles of my entry relaxing to welcome you as you mount my body, hungry for you to fill my channel. It is many years since we have needed preparation; you slide into me as easily as if I were a sheath custom-made to fit your manhood. Rocking back and forth again without pause, I move with you readily, both of us far too lost to do aught but race headlong, frantically towards a devastating conclusion.
“How your tightness overwhelmed me, strangling my moans into throaty sounds that betrayed the enormity of what I felt as I took you.”
Heat washes through me and you tremble against my back, muscles shaking with your release as you attempt to say my name. And now I am falling after you, bucking and coming in spurts over the sheets as I ride the waves of my clenching muscles to my own ecstasy.
***
Overwhelmed, my heart still leaps in my chest and my lungs labor.
Collapsed upon my back, crushing me to the bed, it is comforting to feel you still inside me, above me as well, warm and engulfing me. Though I slept forever after this, I think my dreams would fix peacefully upon this moment as I drifted through all the ages of the world.
But time will not stop for me when you have passed, nor even when our own children have gone. Yet still, this moment is something that will sail with me, being held close.
After a time, you withdraw from my body, leaving an empty, bereft feeling, but that is assuaged when you turn me on my side to face you, drawing me close with your arms around me.
“And then,” you say, slowly, quietly, “on the eve of Midsummer that year, after you stood with me in the courtyard of our city before our assembled people and pledged your body and soul to me, there was a strange feeling in the ether. Some unseen spark ran excitement through my veins. It was like a crackling in the air before a storm as I laid you down and loved you for the first time as my bonded mate.”
“And that was how Eldarion was made,” I say.
I know I am grinning foolishly in a way almost human, but I could not care less. I turn to face you, my arm draped over my side with my hand resting lightly on my belly.
Perhaps Gandalf had less to do than we imagined, for I feel that same spark again under my hand.
***
Under My Hand
Pairing: This is me we're talking about.
Rating: gratuitous NC-17
Betas: sundew and namarie120
Warnings: AU, PWP-ish (Tolkien forgive me) Let's pretend Aragorn chose Legolas at that pivotal coronation scene in the RotK movie, which is pretty much wildly out of charcter, given Undomiel's sacrifice. But hopefully the rest of the fic won't seem so OOC. Mpreg mention (oh god my eyes), but it's just a mention - this isn't a squick fic.
Summary: Legolas’ POV, in which Aragorn applies an age-old remedy to soothe his melancholy elf. A bit of nostalgia on Legolas and Aragorn’s 50th anniversary. Who knew reminiscing could be so - um, aaahh - inspiring?
Author’s Note: For Melissa Tiniowien's birthday, deriving from a plotbunny from the Aniron archive's Sept '04 anniversary fic challenge, with beta help from our friend, Sundew *g*
Under My Hand
Time flows swift and inevitable for an elf, like the great river Anduin running unchecked in its course, carving its path into all who it touches. Its currents are too forceful to be held back by a dam, or else to be harnessed with any earthly power. Even by a man so strong as you, my love, one who also wears a crown.
I have known elves in whose sails the wind was steady, and for whom the journey forward through time was as a deck swaying gently under their feet, peaceful as a white swan gliding over the water. The stars changed, and the land changed, after they left loved ones waving on the shore, though they themselves had not changed. And this was as it should be. For though sad, they knew a reunion one day awaited them on a far away shore, where the things that mattered would still be the same.
But for those of us who have felt time the most, the river is wide, and rough, and does not forgive - for we three who dared give our love to a mortal. And the river is never long enough, though you and I have seen together the passing of a generation of men, and our own son has almost come into his prime, nearly fifty years gone from my belly now. Well I remember Gandalf when I think of Eldarion, for our child was the last miracle the kindly old wizard helped make in this world before he set sail and left these shores.
***
I feel calloused fingers drag over the skin of my neck, sensitively awakening myself to your touch. They gather my hair back in your fist and lay it so that it spills over the front of my shoulder, while the warmth of your lips glides over my exposed flesh, contrasting with the sharpness of the cool night air. You are standing behind me, kissing the back of my neck, a sensual greeting I never tire of.
“And what deep thoughts trouble my prince’s brow?” you ask, your arms coming around to encircle me.
It would seem I have drifted off upon the balcony seat, and it seems I have also missed the sun’s passing, sunken low now over the westerly hills without even giving a last, desperate warning. But I am glad at least to now be aware of the motley pink hues of the darkening sky, trailing its golden tendrils.
I have shaken these thoughts out of my head before realizing it, for you were never so good at stealing up on me in the days of your youth, when you were still gangly and awkward, tripping over your feet and words when I visited your father’s court and you tried to talk to me; it is almost unnerving that you can slip up on me now. Either you and I are losing the distinctions between us, or I am becoming Mannish with my distractions.
I say, “It is only that I was thinking of Eldarion, husband.” I turn my head to the side and snake an arm up and around your neck, pulling you down to meet my mouth for a lingering kiss, long, very long. There can never be enough of you.
Breaking apart, though reluctantly, I look you in the eyes and offer, “He is maturing so quickly. By human standards it is long since he crossed the threshold of manhood, and by Elvish standards he will have reached his majority soon, come next Spring.”
You surprise me with a sudden gentleness that few know or imagine you capable of; you have mellowed into it over the years with me.
“My sweet mate,” you say, and there is a warm indulgence in your eyes that tells me I have endeared myself to you, though I do not exactly know why.
Gripping me under my arms, you pull me up to my feet and walk me around the bench, through the balcony arch, to our chambers, straight to our bedroom. You turn me around to face you then and wrap your arms more tightly around my frame, suddenly pulling my chest flush against yours, so that our faces are mere inches from each other. I feel your eyes burning as though they would consume my body, your hands moving possessively over the muscles of my back …
Now you walk me backward, and I feel the crook of my knees knocking into the bed, and I know a fraction of a second before your weight falls upon me that it will.
You lie atop me, hot and immediate over my clothes, your body seeming to cover every inch of mine, and it is easy to forget what I was thinking of. You shift yourself until you lie between my thighs and prop yourself over me upon your elbows. Now I know I have completely lost my train of thought.
“Such anxiousness,” you observe, “behind your mask of serenity.”
Your brow is furrowed, your voice low. That is a look I know well.
“And this on the anniversary of our binding. There’s more going on between your pointy ears than mere upset with our little leaf growing up.”
But now there is a playful smile creasing the corners of your eyes, though it does not extend to your mouth, and I can tell you are turning over something that does not bode well for me. I could almost predict that you will ask me if I am thinking of leaving you for the handsome young captain of the Tower Guard in your employ.
I cannot help smiling a little bit, but I know you will not stop quietly staring at me until I give you a more forthcoming answer to the real question.
“Stubborn man,” I reply. “Have it your own way then,” and the words come out as more of a sigh than a retort. “It is only that today reminds me how I have one less year with you, much like our birthdays. And is not today one of those milestones so far as human reckoning goes?”
“Mmph,” you say, resting your forehead against mine. “So I supposed was your thought. You are often living in other times than the present.”
“Such is the nature of elves, a'maelamin. What else is there to live in but the past?”
“I can only do what a man may to keep you happy in the time we are given, melethnin. If I am failing to make the present count for you, I am sorry. I have tried.”
You roll off of me to face the wall, jolting the mattress as you throw your weight around while attempting to make yourself comfortable.
“Mark you, while you are busy wasting time pining for the past,” you say, beginning a discourse with the wall, “you could be adding to your store of memories for the future. As I see it, short though our time may seem to you, we could keep spending ourselves so brightly together that we left a trailing glow of afterimages that would never fade from your mind. But if you’re intent on brooding tonight, then I’m going to sleep.”
“Still clothed?” I ask.
I reach my fingers out tentatively to touch your shoulder, and you grunt in reply. Gently, I roll you back towards me again and kiss your mouth quickly before you can protest. You are already looking guilty, I see.
“Well,” you say, softening, “if that is how it must be tonight… I suppose making our son was a sweet memory.” There is a glint of mischief in your eye. “We could remember that now.”
You say that last part with your face buried in my neck, the warm moisture of your breath enflaming my skin and sending sparks of arousal straight down my spine to the burgeoning need between my legs.
“We could,” I reply, and I am beginning to remember his making already, though this present encounter seems to have its own potential for memory.
Your hand firmly smoothes the hair away from my temples. It tilts my head back so that my neck arches up to your lips, so that my body sways with you as your hardness slides between us and grinds against mine. Oh, it is easy to remember what really matters and what will last forever for me, while you are sucking on the tip of my ear, then nipping gently with your teeth, and we are rocking our coupled hips together.
And when we have drunk deeply of each other and have at last come up to draw air into our lungs, it seems you are still in a mood to talk, but there are better things I can be doing with my mouth as a dark brown nipple is peering out from your tunic, begging to be latched on to.
“I remember,” you say, “how on the quest you were reluctant to betray your feelings for me.”
With this you grind yourself into my loins. For lost time, I suppose.
“I remember how later you once told me that young Merry Brandybuck caught you watching me bathe in one of the temperate streams of Lothlorien, warm currents licking around my biceps you said, and rivulets flowing swiftly over my chest. How the little imp asked you if you were in love, not realizing how close to the mark he might hit.”
Here your hand has ridden up the length of my bent thigh, running back and forth along it in a firmly possessive grip, and there has never been a lesson taught so sweetly. I can feel your thumb digging in as it presses along the fleshy inside of my leg, touching so near to where I desire your hands and mouth.
“And then there was another time in Lorien, when I came upon you lying in a dusky clearing among a thicket of wild roses, completely naked. You had been stroking yourself. I have always thought you allowed me to find you.”
Your voice has taken on a feral tone, shivering through me. But the pained little gasps of need filling my ears must surely be coming from me, for you are still talking. It is a wonder how you can do so while moving lasciviously upon me and worshipping my flesh with your mouth. There is much to be said for the endurance of the Dunedain.
“Your pale hair was fanned out around you on the grass like a halo around the moon, and you almost seemed to offer yourself to me as you looked up through your long lashes with a small but less than innocent smile. The look in your eyes could have taught the stars to burn, melethron.”
The sounds of my breathing are small and pathetic as I struggle for air. “You flatter me,” I manage.
“I know what catches your fancy. But it’s true.”
Our upper bodies have long since been unclothed by the mad rush of our hands working furiously between us, and after freeing your own confined arousal you now pull my leggings down. When you wrap your large palm around both our erections, I fear for a second that I will never breath again. Your desire is both hard and soft against mine, contrasting in an exquisite way with the rough texture of your hand conforming to our girth. With the first stroke, all my senses swim deliriously.
“But the first time I took you was not until after the Battle of Helm’s Deep. When again we found ourselves staying in Rohan.”
I want to command you to stop talking, to find your mouth and cover it with mine.
“And I found you waiting in my room.”
Our mouths clash and you taste of wine as I suck upon your lips in a frantic rhythm like the unmerciful working of your hand.
“Lying in my bed. Daring me to ride you.”
“Aragorn,” I think I moan.
“Like some proud, untamed steed of the Mearas.”
The darkness of your eyes shows me you are beyond recall, and I cannot help but soon follow while you fist the two of us like this.
“It was far beyond the imagination of my lonely nights on the quest… lying upon you for the first time and feeling your heart beating wildly against my chest. You are an elf,” you say, “yet you were wanton, desperate for me. You pulled your knees up so I could more easily slide into you…” - I know not how I will bear your grip tightening on our shafts - “…feel the moist heat of your body opening to me.”
You grunt, low and gutturally, as you attempt to hang on to a few shreds of sanity before we reach our climax, but I wish not to spill myself in your hand, for I would feel your hardness spearing me. With an aching relief, I pull out of your grasp and bend back my knees, placing my ankles over your shoulders so we can face each other while you merge our bodies together, making me entirely yours as you have done so many times beyond count.
But you will have none of lovemaking tonight - you flip me over on my stomach roughly and pull my mid section up so that I am poised on my hands and knees, waiting. The blunt head of your desire pushes insistently against my opening, slowly, slowly breaching me… and I feel the muscles of my entry relaxing to welcome you as you mount my body, hungry for you to fill my channel. It is many years since we have needed preparation; you slide into me as easily as if I were a sheath custom-made to fit your manhood. Rocking back and forth again without pause, I move with you readily, both of us far too lost to do aught but race headlong, frantically towards a devastating conclusion.
“How your tightness overwhelmed me, strangling my moans into throaty sounds that betrayed the enormity of what I felt as I took you.”
Heat washes through me and you tremble against my back, muscles shaking with your release as you attempt to say my name. And now I am falling after you, bucking and coming in spurts over the sheets as I ride the waves of my clenching muscles to my own ecstasy.
***
Overwhelmed, my heart still leaps in my chest and my lungs labor.
Collapsed upon my back, crushing me to the bed, it is comforting to feel you still inside me, above me as well, warm and engulfing me. Though I slept forever after this, I think my dreams would fix peacefully upon this moment as I drifted through all the ages of the world.
But time will not stop for me when you have passed, nor even when our own children have gone. Yet still, this moment is something that will sail with me, being held close.
After a time, you withdraw from my body, leaving an empty, bereft feeling, but that is assuaged when you turn me on my side to face you, drawing me close with your arms around me.
“And then,” you say, slowly, quietly, “on the eve of Midsummer that year, after you stood with me in the courtyard of our city before our assembled people and pledged your body and soul to me, there was a strange feeling in the ether. Some unseen spark ran excitement through my veins. It was like a crackling in the air before a storm as I laid you down and loved you for the first time as my bonded mate.”
“And that was how Eldarion was made,” I say.
I know I am grinning foolishly in a way almost human, but I could not care less. I turn to face you, my arm draped over my side with my hand resting lightly on my belly.
Perhaps Gandalf had less to do than we imagined, for I feel that same spark again under my hand.
***