Work Text:
He tells Elrond in the end.
He tells him because they’re at peace and he can afford to, because it’s The Right Thing to Do.
Doing The Right Thing against the interest of his own self preservation is not how he was raised. He would say that it’s his own better Elvish nature showing through, but by now he’s known too many elves.
So maybe it’s not so much because it’s right, because he’s brave or good or anything, but because he’ just so tired, tired of a lie that’s too big, tired of a kingship that he doesn’t deserve. That’s been true all along, though and he’s never had the courage to confess before. No, what it comes down to is Elrond. Elrond who is wise and not the tiniest bit naive and is almost certainly going to find out the truth for himself sometime or other, and he is absolutely terrified of that happening.
He can’t face the idea of Elrond finding out, so he tells him himself to get it over with.
He tells everything with no excuses and no attempts to spin things in his own favor, and at the end of it he says, tired and bracing for the inevitable rejection, “So I might not be related to anyone at all.”
Elrond looks at him in that way of his, which isn’t at all like being looked through, but rather like being looked into.
“According to legend,” he says slowly, “All Men are descended from one man and one woman, meaning we’re all related to each other somehow or other.” He smiles.
“Didn’t I tell you we were family? Cousins by adoption still counts.”
P.S.
“Don’t even think you can use this to foist the kingship off on me,” Elrond says, “You brought this on yourself and you’re stuck with it.”