Secrets and Pleasure

Author: Frogg

E-mail: hrshellkw@aol.com

Rated: PG

Disclaimer: Not mine. Will return in a much better mood when done.

Summary: A coming of age. Some illusions are broken.

Author's Note: Set before Moria.

{ Chapter 2 }

Aragorn followed Legolas down the hill numbly. He'd watched as the Elf ran to the clump of trees with their packs, disappearing into the foliage only to return emptyhanded save a refilled waterskin. The raging thirst that had struck him two days before had been somewhat lessened, but still had him in its thrall.

Elven curses spilled from his lips at his own inability to identify his illness.

"Aragorn?" Legolas stopped, turned, gazed up at him in concern.

Aragorn shook his head slightly. "I'm all right."

Legolas nodded and turned to continue his descent. "Is the water helping?" At Aragorn's noise of confusion, he went on. "Do you feel any better?"

Nodding, Aragorn had to wonder at his friend's tone; it sounded like the Elf had personal experience with just how much of a difference water made to this malady.

He blinked. Blinked again, coming to a sudden stop in the tall grass, unaware that Legolas had heard and stopped with him, turning to watch the flickers of understanding cross his face. If Legolas knew personally, then this was no illness.

Thirst, restlessness, dislike of food... all the symptoms he'd suffered the last two days whirled around in his mind and fitted themselves into place. He *was* part Elf, after all, but so little?

"Were you ever going to tell me? Or were you just planning on waiting until I could no longer control myself?" Aragorn found the words tumbling out, devoid of surprise or accusation.

Legolas was silent for once, that odd joy in his eyes dimming, dulling.

Aragorn found himself wanting to take the words back, wanting to bring the brilliant light back to his friend's gaze, and could not. Not without... He swallowed hard, licking his lips, wondering how he was going to get through this.

Finding his tongue, Legolas kept his voice gentle. "I set up camp over there," he said, gesturing to the clump of trees. "The lack of water bought you some time; I was hoping to get there before explaining." Gandalf had found his acceptance of the situation suspicious; Legolas found Aragorn's disturbing at best and quite possibly terrifying. "If it is any comfort, I wish we were back in Rivendell, that you could spend this time with your lady Arwen. She will not hold it against you, I know. It is not our way-"

"Spare me, Legolas, being in Rivendell now - having to be with Arwen - would quite possibly destroy us both," Aragorn whispered. His eyes were filled with horror, his skin having taken on a greenish hue before he turned away, shivering.

"I...I do not understand," Legolas managed after several long minutes of silence. "Arwen is your fiance - I had thought you would be..." He shook his head, unable to finish the thought.

"Did she talk to you at all before we left?"

"Why...? Yes, she did, but I did not understand the half of what she told me," Legolas admitted, awash in confusion. "Other than that she could not say all of it, but that she would be most displeased if you did not at some point on this quest..."

Aragorn nodded, looking up at him again. "I love Arwen dearly - as a sister. Nothing more, nothing less."

Legolas' eyes widened. "But she's your-"

Bitter laughter stopped him. "Arwen was never my fiance. That was an assumption made based on Elven custom, a young man's forgetfulness and a sister's indulgence of childhood habits." Aragorn shrugged. "Once we realized what we were being congratulated for, it became... convenient. A protective shield against the attentions of others that neither of us wanted."

"And Elrond allowed this?" Legolas asked incredulously.

"Elrond was the one to make us understand what we'd done!"

Legolas had never in his near three thousand years been shocked senseless. Until now. "Explain," he finally managed to choke out.

Aragorn sighed and shook his head, a small smile of fond rememberance on his lips. "Come on, I'll explain on the way," he said, motioning for Legolas to lead the way.

The Elf took a hesitant step back, then nodded and turned, keeping his head tilted as if to hear better as he walked.

Silence reigned for a few dozen strides as Aragorn gathered his thoughts.

"Well?" Legolas prompted.

"Yes, I know," Aragorn answered, laughing a bit. "I was just trying to figure out how to explain without embarrassing myself."

"I have a feeling that managing that would be a miracle."

"In other words, get on with the story."

"I would not have put it that way, but now that you mention it... yes."

"Well, I guess the sooner I start, the sooner you'll stop laughing at me."

"That bad, is it?"

"Possibly. Depends on how amusing you find it."

"Well, I can't tell you that until you tell me the story, so stop stalling and tell me already."

Aragorn chuckled. "Can't say I didn't try."

Legolas made a noncomittal grunt and nodded.

"All right," Aragorn sighed. "Here goes. When I was a boy in the House of Elrond, there was a time when I was fascinated with the differences between myself and the Elves there. Arwen, bless her, always took me seriously, always talked to me like an adult, and I adored her for it. I could always talk to her about anything, and it was her I went to with my questions. And it was her that I asked about - well... I'd seen some of Elrond's household..." Aragorn broke off with a frustrated growl.

"What? It is not so surprising that you would be curious as a child..."

"Perhaps not, but the focus of my fascination was not-" He broke off again, stopping to stare off into the distance. He struggled to find words, then, unable to find them, burst out, "Damn those Elven ears!"

Legolas blinked at him in shock. "You were fascinated by her ears?" Aragorn nodded, lips thinned in misery. "You do realize that-"

"I know how sensitive your ears are, thank you," Aragorn interrupted stiffly. "And that physical contact with them is reserved for long-time lovers and mates."

The Elf nodded.

"As I said... Arwen indulged me, let me satisfy my curiosity. After all, what harm would it cause? I was but a child." And he laughed self-deprecatingly. "Once I understood what gestures concerning an Elf's ears... erm..." Aragorn shrugged, uncomfortable with the subject, then went on without addressing it. "I started wishing her good morning with a kiss for her, and one for each of her ears."

"And she let you do this?" Legolas could only laugh incredulously, shaking his head at the very notion.

"I was only five or six at the time. It was not as if I was courting her. And everyone else knew how much she doted on me." Aragorn shifted uncomfortably.

Legolas nodded, letting his amusement fade as he took in how much it discomfited Aragorn. He wanted the rest of the story. "Go on."

"Arwen left for Lothlorien when I was about eight. I was devastated - she was my confidante, and there wasn't anyone else I felt that, well, comfortable with, I guess. So I grew up without her wisdom and understanding, left to train as a Ranger. Returned to Rivendell when I heard she was coming home, and made arrangements with the Dunedain to spend the summer, and possibly the rest of the year there. I made it back several weeks before she did."

There was silence then, and Legolas chanced a glance at his friend. From the tension in his face, his uneven motions, whatever came next was deeply personal, and he didn't want to make a comment to discourage him.

Still, Aragorn said nothing more.

"I'm listening."

Another moment passed, and then the Man continued in a soft voice. "The rest is..." He swallowed hard, shaking his head. "Arwen and Elrond are the only others who know," he whispered, unsure. "There was a visitor to Rivendell before Arwen arrived. A messenger, really, they were only there for a few days before leaving again. And I, still feeling impossibly young and somehow out of place there, fell in love with the most beautiful creature in Middle Earth." There was a note of pained reverence in his tone, as if the very mention of such feelings broke his heart, even as he cherished them.

Legolas stiffened then, his own heart breaking. Hearing that Arwen had never had a hold on his beloved had given rise to hope, but it seemed he was doomed to always be too late. Taking in a ragged breath, he managed to keep the words even. "And do you still-?"

"More with every passing day." There was no hesitance whatsoever, no doubt, no room for argument.

It killed something inside Legolas.

"It was all I could do to keep myself together until Arwen came home, and only the hope that our relationship would be the same, that I could talk to her as I had as a child, kept me sane. Upon her arrival, I was relieved to find that she was still my confidante, that she would offer me the kind of open ear," and he blushed at the sound of his own voice forming that treacherous word, "and advice that she'd given me as a child."

"From a more mature standing point, I expect."

Aragorn gave a bark of laughter at that. "Yes. I spent a great deal of time with her, in her rooms or mine, talking of my love, learning of hers. It took some time before I was able to deal with such heady emotions, and without her I would have been lost. I did not see the Elves in Rivendell in a different light as an adult than I had as a child, never fallen like that..." He closed his eyes, wrapping his arms around himself despite the lingering discomfort. "I would have asked Elrond his permission to court, but I needed Arwen's advice and support. And the morning I finally was able to put all of my feelings in their proper order, I came to breakfast, swept Arwen off her feet in a hug and kissed her good morning." He said nothing more, though something was quite obviously left missing.

"And her ears." Legolas realized how it must have looked to the citizens of Rivendell: Aragorn, rushing in to the main hall in a wild joy, whirling Arwen around in a swirl of gowns and laughter - and then bestowing the one caress that would have cemented a relationship with no doubt whatsoever, were it between two who had not been in the same habit from childhood.

"Yes. Neither of us had any notion of why everyone was congratulating us during the day. Not until Elrond pulled us both into his study and asked us when the wedding was supposed to be."

"That must have been a shock," the Elf managed through his laughter.

Aragorn had to join in, though his laughter was more rueful than amused. "Arwen looked about ready to faint. I know I was wishing the orcs to attack or something, anything that would get us out of the situation."

"And Elrond?"

"Demanded an explanation, and got one. He'd long known that Arwen's beloved was in Valinor already, and suspected I'd fallen in love, but didn't know with who. We sat there for several hours, stumbling over each other's explanations, interrupting each other at every opportunity, until Elrond managed to put the pieces together."

The trees loomed larger now, still a ways off, but it spoke well of a water source and rest. And that he would soon be forced to deal with - Aragorn shook his head. 'I am not going there, not yet.'

"From what I've seen of the two of you, I cannot imagine you and Arwen so - so-"

"Oh, we were doing it on purpose. Neither of us could stand to actually say anything outright, and we were experts by then at picking up when the other needed a timely rescue."

"I can imagine how amused Elrond must have been at that," Legolas said sarcastically.

"Oh, he was torn between rage and hysterical laughter. I'm still not quite sure which." Aragorn took another drink from his waterskin, yet another reminder of why he was talking about this. "In any case, the damage was done. The entire population of Rivendell, save myself, Arwen, and Elrond, who had managed to figure out the truth between the two of us, and maybe - maybe - my brothers, knew Arwen and I were engaged to be married. And several of them took it upon themselves to announce it to the other Elven realms, and left us with either a very... embarrassing explanation of the truth, or playing the parts everyone had already assumed us to have."

"And the Evenstar?"

"Everything in public was just that - for the public eye. A good deal of the time we spent behind closed doors was in scripting and rehearsing those 'private' scenes others would stumble on. Like her offering me her immortality. Elrond helped us with those, believe it or not. He felt it a small price to pay to have Arwen free to leave with him when they depart these shores."

"So he got Arwen, she got to join her beloved. And your messenger friend?"

"Above my station."

Legolas could only gape at him in shock. "Above your station? You're heir to the throne of Gondor! How can you even think such a-"

"Stop it, Legolas," Aragorn cut him off angrily. "I had little enough to offer. I hadn't even reached the end of my training as a Ranger at the time. I wanted to court, yes, but I didn't intend to immediately. I thought I had time. I wanted - I wanted to be more than some green, inexperienced young man who couldn't figure out what he wanted," he admitted harshly. "I learned to live with it."

"It sounds lonely." Legolas sighed when Aragorn didn't answer. "Did... did you ever think that maybe all they wanted was you?"

"They broke a promise to me." Legolas could hear the anguish, the buried feelings of betrayal. "One I believed in very strongly, because I had nothing else to hold onto. I had no other choice but to live with it."

Legolas ached for him; as much as he was eaten by jealousy, by loss, he wanted Aragorn's happiness before his own. "Might I ask-"

"I don't want to talk about this any more," Aragorn said blandly, his voice devoid of emotion rather than angry.

Legolas nodded, wishing that the Man had been angered. What he'd already heard had been personal enough. Pushing him was not an option, not if he wanted to keep the Man's friendship after... A sharp gasp escaped him; in the shocking truths laid bare, he'd all but forgotten.

And Aragorn had yet to really react to it.

As much as he dreaded it, Legolas swallowed hard, shoved down the pain of the truths he'd just learned and locked it away. "Aragorn, I-" He held up a hand as the Man began to protest. "I do not intend to trespass. But I have to ask - are you all right with this? With what will happen? I cannot stop it, nor can I leave you to suffer alone. The former is impossible, the latter would kill me." He met Aragorn's steely gaze only through sheer willpower.

"I will not have you forced," Aragorn ground out, eyes flashing with anger, before he turned away, taking another swallow from his waterskin.

Legolas blinked. Where had that come from? "I would not insult you thusly, you know this," he hissed in sudden irritation. "I know not what to say to convince you, but I did not choose this out of duty!"

"And I would not have you submitting to me in the name of Elven custom and honor, either."

There was such sadness and pain in his voice that Legolas' frustration vanished, melting away and gentling his voice. "What of the promise you made me? To see you through this? You obviously hold one's word in high esteem, or else you would be with your messenger and not, in the eyes of the Elven realms, engaged to Arwen." When Aragorn hesitated to answer, he went on. "And what of our friendship? I would have hoped, were we in Rivendell and I knowing of the truth, you knew you would be welcomed." He would have said more, but such an admission was not his right to give.

"What of our friendship?" Aragorn repeated slowly, raising his eyes to the wide blue expanse overhead. Then he shook his head, met Legolas' gaze once more.

There was such an expression of sorrow and longing lurking there that Legolas' breath caught in his throat. Then it was gone, and he could only wait to hear whatever was left to be said.

"I do not wish to-" Aragorn broke off, swallowing hard. "I know not how to say anything that would not be misunderstood, and yet I find I must." His expression was guarded, wary, buried in masks of resigned acceptance and dread.

"Aragorn?"

He inhaled deeply, letting the words out before he lost what little courage he could muster. "Your friendship pains me more than you could begin to comprehend. And to lose even that much would destroy me." Unable to bear witness to the Elf's reaction to such a confession, Aragorn turned and began walking towards the trees once more, heart heavy and aching.

Part 3