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#really ought to draw my take on him and legolas together sometime
roselightfairy · 3 years
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So generally my definition of the kind of snippetfic I’d post on tumblr is something based on a particular mental image that I whipped out in one go rather than editing and tweaking to a particular narrative arc...but those keep getting longer and longer until they’re really too long for tumblr, but I don’t want to post them with their own titles and summaries and everything because they’re not really individual stories, so I’ll just archive them in Ripples, but I don’t want to archive them in Ripples without posting them somewhere...which is a long way of saying here’s a fic that is probably too long for tumblr but is going up here anyway, and you can just click below the cut if you want to read more!
It was a dark and stormy night in Ithilien...
...
The rain started in the early evening, after they had retired for the day.
Gimli looked up when the first few drops pattered onto their roof, tapping like fingernails against the hollow reeds that formed the thatching.  The work had held during every rainstorm he had experienced here, but still he could never quite hold back that uncertainty – from one bred to live under solid stone ceilings, the material always seemed far too flimsy to hold back the wet.
“It will hold,” Legolas promised him, catching his motion.  “It always does.”
“I am sure you are right,” said Gimli. The rain intensified even as they listened, the smattering of taps escalating into a steady drumming.  “Still, I can practically feel the wet even from here.  You are sure you would not rather be safe within stone?”
“I spent too much of my early life safe within stone,” said Legolas, his voice distant.  “Hearing the rain outside rather than feeling it against my own home.” Gimli held his peace – only rarely did Legolas speak of his youth in shaded Mirkwood, despite the mannerisms he still carried with him from those days: the wary posture, the wide-eyed wonder. He could detect a trace of that wonder even now as Legolas followed his gaze up to the roof, shadows of water visible as it sluiced down the sides and dripped to the ground. “There is a pleasure in this.” He turned to Gimli once more and gave him the sliver of a smile.  “It will hold,” he repeated.  “And I will keep you warm.”
“I never questioned that,” said Gimli, but he let Legolas wrap him in his arms anyway.
...
As the hours wore on, the rain fell faster still, no longer a beating of individual drops but a constant roar elevated by the rushing of the wind.  Gimli could hear the faint moaning of it rushing through the trees outside, and their light door rattled with the sound of it.  Legolas rose from their huddle in the cushions to check the latch.
He nodded his satisfaction, but his face still held the hint of a frown when he returned to Gimli.  “What is it?” Gimli asked. “Is there something amiss with the hinges?”
“No,” said Legolas slowly, “no, the house will hold, it is only . . .” His brows drew together.  “I do not think I was so careful with the craftsmanship in the support poles for the new saplings.  We did not anticipate such a storm so soon; I hope they will hold as well as our own house.”
“Surely they will,” Gimli assured him.  He could not imagine the elves being any less than perfectly careful with their young trees; he had seen how lovingly Legolas tended them.  “Anyway, do not young trees experience such storms, even when not tended by wood-elves?”
“Yes,” Legolas said slowly, “yes, you are right, of course.”
He did not look wholly convinced.
...
The first rumble of thunder came just as Gimli was sinking below the surface of sleep, startling him back into consciousness again.  “Legolas?” he said.
“Just thunder,” Legolas assured him.
“But thunder brings lightning.”  Gimli had weathered storms in Ithilien before, but never one with lightning; it misgave him to be surrounded by trees at such a time. “What if our house is struck?”
“It ought not to be,” said Legolas.  “That I cannot promise for certain, but there are taller, older trees that will likely draw lightning if it strikes. And it is yet far away from here.”
“You do not comfort me,” Gimli muttered, a little petulant, and Legolas laughed and pulled him close.
“I will give you warning if it strikes too near,” he said.  “You may rest, if that gives you peace; I do not think I will sleep this night.”
His face was still tight, pinched.  “Your trees?” Gimli said.  “But if our own home is not tall enough to attract a strike, surely the saplings will be safe.”
“From the lightning, yes,” murmured Legolas. “But that wind . . .” He trailed off, then shook his head.  “Never mind,” he said, though the smile in his voice sounded forced. He nuzzled a little closer to Gimli.  “Go back to sleep, love. It will pass in time.”
It was not so easy as all that, but the rolls of thunder did indeed grow fainter after a moment or two, and finally Gimli felt himself sinking back down again, the rushing of the rain creating an almost lulling rhythm around him.
Still the roof held.
...
The next time he woke, he did not know what had roused him until he reached to the side and found Legolas no longer lying beside him.
“Legolas?” he whispered, sitting up.
“Hush,” Legolas whispered back.  The elf was perched on the edge of the bed, fully dressed and pulling on his heavy leather boots, the ones he wore only in the worst of storms.  “I did not mean to wake you.”
“Where are you going?”
“The saplings,” said Legolas.  “The rain is worse – can you hear?” Gimli could not note a difference between the sound of the rain now and earlier, but elf-ears were better attuned to such things than he was. “They will be washed away and all our work undone.  We are going to fetch them.”  He leaned back over the bed and dropped a light peck of a kiss onto Gimli’s lips.
Gimli frowned sleepily as he drew away.  “Do you need help?” he asked, though nothing sounded less appealing than trudging out into that downpour.
“You are kind.” Legolas smiled as if hearing what Gimli did not say, but leaned back down for one more kiss.  “But no; we will be as swift as we can.  I had hoped to return before you even missed me.  But this is better, perhaps – now you can latch the door behind me.”
“You ought to have woken me for that anyway,” grumbled Gimli, but he pushed himself out of bed, shivering as the blankets fell away.  “You will be careful?”
“There is no danger,” Legolas assured him.  “The lightning has passed; it is only wind and water.”  He kissed Gimli one last time.  “Sleep if you can,” he said.  “I will be back before dawn.”
The wind whistled into their small house as soon as Legolas opened the door, bringing a blast of freezing rain into the room – but Gimli caught it and pushed it shut against the wind as Legolas vanished out into the dark.
...
He did return to bed, but he did not so much sleep as drift.  He knew he would be no use to the elves in their rain-pounded mission, but it still felt wrong to sleep, cozy in blankets, while his husband darted about in the cold, wet night.  He did not dare risk a fire; wind and rain still pounded their small house enough to make it tremble, but after some time he did bring the blankets from the bed to his pile of cushions and settled there to wait, watching the shadows of wind-twisted trees on the inside of the walls and listening to the rain on the still-intact roof.
Legolas returned perhaps an hour or two later, though the roar of the storm masked the sound of his approach. Gimli did not know he had arrived until he heard Legolas’s voice outside the door, calling his name.
He rose, casting the blankets to the ground, and hurried to unlatch the door – and when he opened it, the reason Legolas had not done it himself became clear: his arms were full, wrapped around tiny trees whose roots dripped clumps of mud and soil.  And – unsurprisingly – he was drenched: soaked to the skin, his hair plastered to his skull and dripping down his back.  His boots squelched as he entered the house and stood dripping in the doorway.
“Gimli,” he said breathlessly.  “Ah, I am glad you are awake.  I brought” – He nodded to the small saplings in his arms. “They needed shelter.”
Gimli looked at him and had to laugh.  “Of course,” was all he could say.
It must be exactly for such purposes that they had beds prepared along all the windows of the house. Sometimes Legolas grew herbs in them in the winter, but they stood empty now, and Legolas busied himself settling each sapling carefully into the beds, covering their roots and crooning to them in elvish.
While Legolas cared for the trees, Gimli busied himself fetching towels and blankets. Now more than ever he would have liked a fire, but even as he considered it a particularly strong gust of wind rattled the shutters and the latch of the door, and he sighed and discarded the idea. He gathered all their towels, instead, and a dry nightshirt and dressing gown for Legolas.
By the time he had gathered what he needed, Legolas had finished with the trees and was just rising from the raised beds. He looked even more a sight without the trees in his arms, mud-streaked and rain-soaked, and he laughed at the sight of Gimli approaching with an armful of towels.
“You are a treasure,” he murmured, opening his arms so Gimli could relieve him of his tunic.
“And you are a drowned squirrel,” Gimli said, wincing as he peeled the sodden fabric away from Legolas’s wet arms and chest. “Here” – he extracted a towel from the pile and passed it to Legolas, taking a second for himself – “dry your hair before we put on your fresh clothes.”
Within only a few moments, they had dried Legolas to Gimli’s satisfaction and dressed him in his nightshirt and the dressing gown. Gimli knew that the cold did not bother elves, but still it made him cold to look at Legolas’s still-wet hair, so he wrapped the elf in a blanket as well, and felt vindicated when Legolas pulled it tightly around himself for comfort.
The wet clothes they left in a pile – those could be dealt with in the morning. For now, Gimli pulled Legolas down into the cushions where he had been sitting and selected another blanket to wrap around them both.
“I have the most generous husband any elf ever knew,” said Legolas, his cheek pressed against Gimli’s, his chill skin already warming.  “I hope you fared well enough in my absence.”
“I would have preferred you by my side,” Gimli said, “but I am glad you saved your saplings. Do you feel calmer now that they are safely protected?”
Legolas laughed and nestled in closer.  “I do,” he said, pressing his lips to Gimli’s temple. “Now we can enjoy the storm in peace.”
“I would not say ‘enjoy,’” Gimli grumbled, but he leaned his head into Legolas’s neck despite the slight dampness of his hair. And they sat there together as night lightened into a heavily-clouded dawn, listening to the sound of the rain.
Not one drop of water leaked through their roof.
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