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Aragorn walked at the rear of the Fellowship, just behind Sam and Bill the pony. Gandolf led them, as usual, and Boromir and Gimli came before and behind the hobbits. Legolas ranged up and down their line, fleet and silent on the dry grass that crackled under everyone else’s feet. Aragorn watched and listened with every bit of his Ranger skills. They had been unharassed for nearly three days now as the land began to gently climb, and it was making Aragorn restless. He glanced over his shoulder to confirm what his other senses told him. Indeed, there was no sign of danger. His eyes turned forward again and automatically sought and found Frodo.
Aragorn cursed silently and looked away. It was only safe, he told himself, only natural that his glance should so instinctively know where to find the Ring-bearer. Frodo was under his protection, after all. But then again, he thought, retreading an uneasy circle of thought for the hundredth time in just a few days, perhaps it was not Frodo his eyes knew to find. Perhaps it was what the hobbit carried.
They made camp in a small copse of trees as the sun was setting. They would not be able to do so for much longer, Aragorn knew. The terrain before them was increasingly sparse, bearing only ground-hugging shrubs and thorn bushes, good for neither cover nor sustenance.
Sam cooked a simple but savory stew with the little dried meat they still had, and they all bedded down early. Gimli and Boromir were to watch, and Aragorn spread his and Legolas’ bedroll a ways back from the meager light of the fire.
“You are troubled,” Legolas said as Aragorn gathered him close.
“I am only tired,” Aragorn said.
Legolas lifted his head from Aragorn’s shoulder and considered him. “Hmm,” he said mildly and put his head back down.
Aragorn sighed, though with little rancor. One could not, he had found through much experience, refuse an Elf something for long, particularly when the Elf so carefully did not ask. Or perhaps it was that he could not refuse Legolas anything, whether he asked or not.
“The Ring,” he said finally. “The Ring troubles me.”
Legolas nodded, unsurprised. “I should worry if it did not,” he said.
Aragorn cupped the adored face, tracing Legolas’ cheekbones with his thumbs. Legolas regarded him steadily with a look of patient tenderness Aragorn was quite familiar with. It was, he reflected, sometimes strange between them. Legolas had been worshipped hero first, then older and wiser friend. And now he was the weft and warp of Aragorn’s heart and soul, his eternal, unchanging face the guiding star of Aragorn’s life.
“What could it do?” Aragorn asked. He drew his hands away from Legolas almost immediately. He did not want to be touching that soft skin with these thoughts in his head.
Legolas considered him a moment, head cocked. “Many things,” he said finally. “With it you could remake Middle Earth as you liked. You could call up untold power, conjure creatures never seen before. You could influence the hearts of Men and hobbits and Dwarves and Elves.”
Aragorn nodded, biting his lip. Legolas, with his accustomed accuracy in all things, had answered the real question.
“Of course,” Legolas continued, “it would not be exactly in your image, after all. The Ring is too much a creature of Sauron—he lives inside of it, in a way.”
Aragorn shuddered and reached for his Elf.
“Let him burn with it then,” he whispered fiercely into Legolas’ hair.
They rose early the next day. The sun was not even a smear of light on the horizon, and it was bitterly cold. The hobbits were subdued and tired, and the rest of the Fellowship fared little better.
The day’s march took them past the last straggling groves of trees and into the low scrub. The ground was sloping up ever more with each step, and the mountains loomed closer. Aragorn took his accustomed place at the rear, listening with half an ear to the hobbits chatting in low voices.
“And on Frodo’s forty-second birthday, do you remember?” Pippin was saying. “We got in such trouble,” he added with obvious relish.
Aragorn frowned fiercely into the wind. It was easy to forget that the little people were not, in fact, children. There lives would be much longer than the average man’s. The fact that he was one of the youngest members of the Fellowship rankled deeply, and Aragorn turned his head away, scanning for trouble.
They stopped briefly for lunch, ranging themselves uncomfortably in small patches of shrub flattened by their feet. Aragorn automatically took a post at the highest elevation within view of all of the party. He frowned when Legolas did not join him. The Elf was a small ways down the slope, seated with the hobbits and Gandolf, apparently telling quite an engrossing story. His profile was precise and elegant against the sun, and his hands graceful in their economy as he gestured. He was the most exquisite thing Aragorn had ever laid eyes on—something his six-year-old self had informed the Elf of within a few moments of acquaintance. Aragorn flushed a little, remembering the delighted laugh, the gentle smile and thanks. He had not said it again until his twentieth year, when he held Legolas in his arms for the first time and watched, disbelieving and joyous, the acceptance and warmth in the Elf’s eyes.
“Are you not tempted at all, then?”
Aragorn jumped and scowled at Boromir. The man raised an eyebrow, surprised. Aragorn cast rapidly about them, ensuring that his lapse of concentration had not allowed an enemy close. There was nothing, and he returned his gaze to Boromir, who had approached without alerting him.
“I beg your pardon?” Aragorn said.
“I said, are you not tempted?” Boromir repeated.
Aragorn pursed his lips and looked away. “It is in my blood to be tempted,” he said. His eyes found Legolas again.
Boromir made a small noise and sat beside him, surveying the hobbits, Elf, and Wizard below them. “It could do so much,” he said contemplatively. “I understand that it is of Sauron, but I do not feel that wanting to use it for good can ever be evil.”
Aragorn tore his eyes away from Legolas. “It is selfish to want it,” he said a bit harshly. “That is the nature of it—it is a selfish want. I want it, yes, but I do not want it for the world.” Boromir blinked at him, taken aback. Aragorn realized he had been speaking in a low, intense growl, and he hastily regulated his voice. “I want it for myself,” he finished. It took all of his will not to glance down at Legolas’ shining head.
Boromir nodded, and left him with no further words.
They finished the rest of the day with relative ease. Gandolf halted them slightly before sunset at the unexpected boon of a small hollow in the hillside, carved by the flow of spring rainwater, but now dry and empty. The abundance of dried branches made a quick, hot burning fire, and dinner was a somewhat more cheerful affair than usual. They spent a not unpleasant evening around the fire, tending to their weapons and supplies, talking idly of legends long remembered. Aragorn did not say much. He checked his sword for damage and rearranged his pack to sit more comfortably on his shoulders. Beside him, Legolas checked his arrows and told stories of Mirkwood in years past, when the darkness was not so great.
They bedded down soon after sunset, for the night cooled rapidly and the fire was not sufficient to warm them all. Aragorn found a spot for them at the back of the hollow, cradled in the palm of the hillside. Legolas curled against him, eternally warm. Aragorn stroked his hair and watched the stars.
“You told me false last night,” he said into the silence.
Legolas stiffened slightly and lifted his head. “I do not tell you falsehoods,” he said. “Ever.”
Aragorn winced. “I know,” he said. “That was unworthy of you.”
Legolas nodded, mollified.
“You did omit something, however,” Aragorn said.
Legolas nodded again with no sign of hesitation. “I did,” he said.
Aragorn waited, but there appeared to be nothing else forthcoming.
“Well, would it?” he asked finally.
Legolas smiled his most blandly winning smile. “I’m sorry?” he asked.
Aragorn glared. Legolas was being purposefully difficult, something that, though he did not attempt often, he was remarkably adept at. Aragorn considered not finishing the conversation, simply rolling over and falling asleep and forgetting it. But it was not possible—he might be able to sleep, but he could not forget.
“Could it make me immortal?” he asked.
“No,” Legolas said instantly. “It could not.”
Aragorn let out his breath. Something in his chest and spine unclenched, unraveled, let his shoulders relax for the first time since he had met Frodo Baggins of the Shire.
“It could,” Legolas said, “prolong your life by several orders of magnitude.” His voice was steady, almost detached, but his eyes were kind.
A new tension took Aragorn, and he turned his face from his Elf.
“I do not tell you falsehoods,” Legolas murmured softly. “Not ever.”
“No,” said Aragorn. “I know.”
Aragorn’s sleep was troubled, and he was already awake when Sam came to fetch him for his watch. Legolas was still and silent in his arms, his open eyes unutterably lovely as they gazed upon things Aragorn could not even imagine. It was very difficult to release him and climb out of the bedroll.
He spent the remainder of the night pacing the camp, waiting for dawn and the monotony of travel to clear his mind. The low-grade irritation that had been with him for days now was slowly growing into true anger, and that was not something Aragorn wished to dwell on. Not with Frodo sleeping so peacefully only a few strides away.
He woke them early again, and left it to Gimli to rouse Legolas. He was short-tempered and sharp with the hobbits, and by the time they were on their way the rest of the company, with the exception of Legolas, was avoiding his companionship. Aragorn guarded the rear and tried not to think.
“You are angry with me,” Legolas said that night as the fire died and the chill increased.
“No,” said Aragorn. Then, because he did not tell his Elf falsehoods, either, “Yes, I am.”
“Why is that?” Legolas asked.
“You already know,” Aragorn said. He very much wished Legolas would enlighten him, for he was not entirely sure.
“You are wondering why I do not desire the Ring more,” Legolas said, answering the thought. “You are angry because you feel my desire for the Ring should be equal to my desire for you.”
“I—“ said Aragorn. He felt suddenly very young again, something he despised. The short span of his life seemed but a moment to encompass the enormous changes in his body and mind. He imagined that, to Legolas, it felt like just a blink since the child Aragorn had told him that he was beautiful.
“It does not measure my desire for you,” Legolas said. “For my desire can not be measured.”
“I know,” said Aragorn wretchedly, pressing closer.
Legolas was still in his arms for a moment, and Aragorn thought for a quick, relieved breath that the conversation was over.
“I will not forget you when you are gone,” Legolas said, banishing the relief.
Aragorn stiffened, and his hands clenched on Legolas’ shoulders. “It seems inevitable,” he said, and his voice was harder than was his wont when speaking to Legolas. “If you live long beyond me, it seems that it must happen.”
Legolas smiled a little sadly. “After all, you still do not understand,” he murmured. “You are not this moment’s love to me. You are all of it that there is. You are the roots and the growth and the branches of my soul, and you have been for thousands of years before your birth. You will continue to be when you are gone. I will not forget you. I cannot.”
Aragorn closed his eyes tightly and bent his head. “I am foolish,” he said very humbly. “I do not understand you as I ought.”
“You are human,” Legolas said, with nothing but the greatest tenderness. “And you understand, you simply wish not to think of it.”
Aragorn laughed a little bitterly. “This is truth,” he said. He lifted his head and pressed his forehead to Legolas’. “I am tempted,” he said. “I want nothing more than to prolong what time I will have with you.”
Legolas ghosted a hand over his cheek. “Hush,” the Elf murmured. “You wish to make me happy, and thus you will not succumb. I do not need you here with me to love you.”
“I do,” Aragorn said.
Legolas chuckled, his body shifting warmly under Aragorn’s questing hands. His slim, strong legs twined with Aragorn’s, and his mouth still tasted of the sweetest elvish ambrosia. Aragorn kissed him again and again, his hands insistent at the fastenings of their clothing. Legolas was just as eager beside, then beneath him, his mouth and thighs parting and his arms cradling Aragorn as they rocked together. It was never any less sweet, Aragorn thought, never any less than the first wondrous time.
They held each other afterwards, Legolas’s lean body stretched over his, his fingers trailing idly over Aragorn’s chest.
“Why do you measure happiness by time, not by happiness itself?” he asked.
“Because I know not any other way,” Aragorn said.
“I may go with you,” Legolas said contemplatively. “When you leave. You may take me with you. After having you alive, my heart may not be able to continue in this world without.”
Aragorn’s arms flexed convulsively around him. “Don’t,” he said fiercely. “Do not say such things.”
Legolas considered him, apparently perplexed. “I do not understand you,” he said finally. “You are angry that I shall live beyond you, yet you are angry at the idea that I will not.”
“I don’t understand it either,” Aragorn said, loosening his hold slightly.
Legolas pressed a tender kiss to his collarbone, then his throat, chin, cheek, and mouth. “It is no less of a happiness if it lasts fifty years or five-hundred,” he said, “and no more, either. What it is between us is not a thing governed by time. How do you think I knew you from the moment of my birth?”
“It just feels like so little time,” Aragorn said. “Not enough for all I have to feel.”
“It is enough,” Legolas said. “It is enough, whatever it is.”
“I will try,” Aragorn vowed. “I will try to understand.”
“You do not need to live longer to fill every place inside me with yourself,” Legolas said. “You need simply be.”
Aragorn nodded, pressing the beloved body close, gently touching the strong shoulders, the arch of spine, the long memorized curve of a cheek, a pointed ear. Legolas smiled gently up at him, and it was only the slow unfocusing of his eyes that told Aragorn he was sleeping.
Aragorn lay awake for long moments, though it was not uneasiness this night. Legolas was a warm weight, his hair a welcome tickle at Aragorn’s neck. He breathed in, savoring the scent, then breathed out and watched the closest ear twitch. He was fascinated, he knew, utterly ensorcelled and captivated. The moments slipped by, unnoticed and unfelt.
The Ring did not call to him with quite such siren desperation that night.