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Chapter Text

Dear Legolas,

Forgive me for the delay in my response.  I have been busy of late; we are meant to renew and update our tax agreements with Rohan, and Fundvari has been ill and unable to assist.  It is quite inconsiderate on his part, for now I find myself buried in tax policy statements I hardly understand, with no one to helpfully explain to me all the relevant details.

But I jest, of course.  His health is far more important than my convenience, and I will happily shoulder his share of the work until he is hale once more...

...and you had best tell Eleniel that our knife fighters are waiting on her to prove that claim herself!  Unfortunately, we have had to stall the expansion of the sparring courts, as several of the consultants have become ill...

...I confess, I am becoming somewhat concerned.  Illness seems to be striking harder than usual this season, and I may have to postpone my planned visit to Ithilien.  It is not uncommon for this time of year, but many of the afflicted are still laid up weeks later and more are falling ill faster than they recover.  Some of the healers have now begun to show signs of illness, which is a concern in itself...

...I do appreciate your worry, but there is no need for you to rush to my side! I remain well, so far, if exhausted from all the extra work that has fallen onto my shoulders with so many of my advisors and assistants laid up.  Indeed, much of our construction and even our markets have been put on hold over the last few weeks, with so many people ill and others working harder than ever to compensate for their absence.

It puts me in wistful memory of your bedside manner, truth be told – for I cannot think of a time when I was laid up and you did not make me feel that everything was perfectly in hand.  Éomer expresses his regret that he cannot send aid, but neither of us knows whether this malady will infect men as well as dwarves – and they are not as hardy as we; while it is debilitating but not fatal to us, who knows what effect it might have on them?

It almost makes me wish we had a dozen tireless elves here, immune to our illnesses and able to help us where we falter...

Dear Gimli,

What if you did?

Chapter Text

The halls of Aglarond were silent indeed.

Usually Legolas could hear the bustle from within even as they approached the gates: for all that the dwarves had accomplished a formidable amount in their first several years, there were still and always construction projects, debates, feasts as the dwarves shaped their realm closer and closer to their perfect vision.  Now, as they dismounted and led their horses on foot to the gates, the sound from within was quiet enough to reach his ears only as a murmur.

At the gates, there was only one guard instead of the usual three.  He startled at first, at the sight of a party of ten approaching elves, but settled when Legolas waved.  “Dwalur,” Legolas hailed him as they drew near enough for him to hear them.  “Well met!”

“Well enough, I suppose.”  The dwarf looked weary; small wonder, if things were as dire as Gimli’s letters had indicated.  “What is your purpose here?”

“Did your lord not warn you of our coming?” Legolas said.

Dwalur rubbed at his eyes.  “Now you mention it, I suppose he did say something – that you would come to visit, perhaps with a few companions.  I did not expect so many, so soon.”

“None too soon, it seems, if your defenses are so dwindled,” said Lachor from behind Legolas.  One of their warrior-medics, he had always gotten along considerably well with Aglarond’s guards and defenders – but Legolas had brought him along for a different purpose.  “Only one guard?”

“Hush and enter,” said Dwalur.  “I hardly fancy trying to take you all on alone, anyway.”

Legolas left his companions at the stables, promising to return to them once he had received some direction, and dashed off in search of his husband.

He ran light-footed through the halls, marveling again at how empty they all seemed.  His footsteps echoed, a sound usually masked by the rumble of conversation and stone-work and even song, once they had grown comfortable enough to let him hear such things.  He had not heard Aglarond so quiet since the early days, before he had earned the trust of its people – and it was nearly eerie now.

But it was not perfectly silent.  As he passed various doors he could hear, muffled through the heavy stone doors, mumbling and the occasional groan.  Whatever this illness was, it seemed severe indeed; the tone of Gimli’s letters had not been overly anxious, but the misery was palpable now.

His first guess was correct; Gimli was in his study, barely visible behind a mountain of papers and scrolls.  Legolas winced at the sight; Gimli loathed paperwork – but the dwarf did not even look up when Legolas opened the door.

“If you have come with tales of more disaster, I cannot help you,” Gimli said. “My hours for hearing ill news have already passed for the day.”

“And if we have come to mitigate it?”

Gimli’s head snapped up.  He looked even more exhausted than Dwalur had; Legolas noted the hollows under his eyes with concern, but his eyes widened when they met Legolas’s own and he sprang up from his seat.  “Legolas?” he breathed.  “I had no notion – I only just received your letter; I had not thought you would set out so quickly” –

“As quickly as we could.”  Legolas caught Gimli up as he made his way around the heaping desk, holding Gimli tightly and paying careful, critical attention to the strength of the dwarf’s grip in return.  Was his exhaustion merely from overwork, or something more serious?  “And now we are at your disposal, to be sent wherever you can best use us.”

“We?” Gimli pulled back and held Legolas’s shoulders.  “How many did you bring?”

“Ten, including myself.”  It had been all he could find who were both willing to depart for such a cause and at such short notice – and as few as he thought he could reasonably depart with on such an unplanned errand.  He had made little effort to seek permission from Aragorn or Faramir – but the diplomatic consequences he could straighten out later.  This was more important.  “But we are fresh and need little sleep, and willing to do whatever is needed.”

Gimli inhaled sharply as if to say something – and then he merely shook his head and pulled Legolas down to kiss him fiercely.  “A gem,” he whispered against Legolas’s mouth when they pulled apart.  “You are a gem, and the generosity of your folk shames all those who hold to their claims of elven stinginess.”

Legolas smiled, but traced his fingers gently around Gimli’s eyes.  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I?  Well enough, if liable to fall asleep amidst mountains of tax documents.”  Gimli glared at the desk.  “There is a reason I have advisors for this task; Fundvari may think it the height of amusement to chisel away at these, but I had much rather an actual chisel in my hand.”

“You are not resting enough, then.”  Legolas narrowed his eyes.  “And are you eating?  Taking care of yourself?”  For all that Gimli was generally healthy, Legolas had nursed him through enough illnesses to know that he usually succumbed when he was overworked or had stopped looking after his own well-being.

“Not as well as usual,” Gimli confessed.  “Henni and Ragnur, both the heads of the kitchens, have fallen ill as well, and we have all become nervous about being served food by someone else who might be unwell but not know it yet.  And most of the markets have shut down, so we are all left with what food we already have.”

“Well, we can begin there.”  Legolas slipped his arm around Gimli’s shoulders and guided him towards the door.  “Come with me, husband.  If there were ever a reason to abandon paperwork, it is this: I have nine elves assembled in the entry hall waiting to be put to work.”

Chapter Text

Gimli did not make any assignments himself.  Instead, he led them all to Naina.

"She can decide who will best serve the needs of the healers," he explained, ushering them all along the corridor towards the infirmary.  "The rest of you, I will assign where aid is most needed."

He led them all to a waiting area.  Naina was seeing to patients at the moment, it seemed, along with the few healers who had not yet been stricken, but she would be assured to return here when she finished.

Legolas tried not to twist his fingers as he waited.  It was less hushed here than outside; behind the doors he could more clearly hear the murmurs between patients and healers, the groans, the requests, the orders - but those sounds only added to the sense of dread, unspoken apprehension, engendered by the still, stale air; the smell of sweat and herbs and sickness.  The urge was live within him to move, to aid, to do something - but he could only wait.

Naina emerged from one of the rooms within moments, and even she did not look as crisply put-together as Legolas remembered.  Her hair and beard were braided back tightly, but wisps were beginning to escape; the kerchief she had tied over her mouth and nose did not muffle the sound of her heavy breathing; and she wiped her forehead and braced herself against the wall for a moment before she saw them.

She swayed and blinked.  "My lord?" she said.  "What is this?"

Gimli smiled broadly.  "The first good news we have had in some time," he said.  "Help."

Naina squinted at them - but it was not a look Legolas recognized, not her usual assessing stare.  "Help," she said slowly.  "Do my eyes deceive me?"

"They do not," offered Legolas.  "We place ourselves at your service."

"Ah," Naina said.  She reached to the side, fingers groping until they found the wall again - and even as they watched, she listed slowly to the side and began to slide to the floor.

Gimli made a sound of alarm and leaped forward to catch her, but Faimes reached her first.  "No, no," she said, catching Naina beneath the arms and heaving her up.  "Not yet, you don't.  Lachor, get a chair."

Lachor jumped to comply, and Legolas seized Gimli's shoulder as he would have drawn nearer.  "You stay back," he ordered.  "Why put yourself at greater risk?  In fact, go back to your study.  We will get our orders here and I will speak with you later."

“I can” – Gimli hovered.

Legolas glared at him.  “Go.”

Gimli sighed.  “Fine.  Come see me later, then, once you know how many of you the healers can spare.”

Chapter Text

It was as they hovered over Naina, sweating and half-senseless in the chair they had propped her in, that Legolas wondered if this had been a misguided notion.

“She has a fever,” Estinnu said, her hand fluttering over Naina’s face.  She had undone the makeshift mask over Naina’s nose and mouth, but now seemed shy to touch further.  She looked up at the others as if for reassurance.

“Certainly a fever,” said Lachor, nodding rapidly as though that would lend more authority to his words.  “Yes.”

These were what passed for elven healers?  Perhaps it was just as well Legolas had never studied the craft, if this was all the use his people were.  He had known they were untrained in mortal illnesses – the closest they had ever come were the wounds inflicted by spiders or the poison on orc-blades – but he could identify a fever as well as they could, even if he had not their training.

“In mortals, a fever is the body’s way of fighting something that afflicts it from within,” he said, “rather than from without, as is all we know.  Unless the healers know of a cure for the cause – which Gimli has led me to believe they do not – we can only treat the symptoms.”  He brushed past Faimes and Celair to a corner of the room where he had seen a pile of linen strips.  “We ought to soak some of these in cool water to bathe her face.”

The others scurried out of his way as he inspected the corners of the room.  Legolas had not often had cause to be in the infirmaries of Aglarond, but he knew that the dwarves had cleverly routed underground streams to flow through key rooms and chambers, and surely there would be a pump in the infirmary.  He smiled to himself as he found the telltale metal handle, soaked the cloth in his hand, and wrung it out over the drain in the floor before returning to the others and laying the cloth over Naina’s forehead.

She blinked at the touch of the cool cloth, her eyes hazy – but her forehead wrinkled in a frown.  “Elves?” she said, her voice bleary but disbelieving – as though she had already forgotten the interchange of earlier, or was still struggling to understand it.  Legolas could only imagine she thought them a strange fever dream.

“Come to your aid,” said Celair, “and just in time, it seems.  But I fear we will need your direction, as” – ze cast a teasing look at Legolas – “we have yet to learn the depth of our ineptitude.”

Legolas laughed a bit despite himself, and then regretted it when Naina frowned at him.  “Cover your face,” she said, her voice taking on a bit of its old sharpness.  “You think to aid the healers thus? You put yourself and others at risk.”

Legolas hesitated.  Surely it was unnecessary for them to do so, as they were not vulnerable to this mortal illness.  He opened his mouth to say as much, but she shot him a glare ferocious even from where she lay sweat-soaked and weak and he subsided.

Lachor dared more.  “This illness poses no risk to us,” he said, “and we no risk to others.  Surely it is not needed” –

“Cover,” she said, and glowered so fiercely that Lachor dared no more.  He shut his mouth and backed away, making way for Legolas too pass him and retrieve a pile of the linen strips from the corner.  They would do.  They were here to help, after all – and ignoring the words of Aglarond’s finest healer was no way to start, especially when she clearly knew much more than they did.

Immediately the cloth began to itch, growing humid from Legolas’s breath, but with an effort he controlled his fingers and refrained from tugging it down and away.  “Very well,” he said, looking down at Naina and trying to accustom himself to the new muffling of his voice.  “If we are garbed to your satisfaction, please.”  He gestured to himself and the rest of his companions.  “Put us to work.”

Chapter Text

"Dinner is served!"

"Not hungry," Lis groaned, and regretted it.  The effort of speaking alone was enough to make her head whirl, and she squeezed her eyes tighter shut against the ensuing wave of nausea.

"Hmph."  Was it merely the fog over Lis's thoughts that made the voice sound higher and lighter than it should?  And yet that mock-disdainful sound, the undertone of laughter – it was somehow familiar in a different way.  "Such finicky creatures, you dwarves, refusing food offered to you without even looking."

"Hmm."  Lis burrowed deeper into her pillows.  Sleep was its own misery of late, with the vivid fever dreams and the tendency to wake up soaked in sweat, but it was far preferable to being awake . . . even if she did have the vague sense that she ought to open her eyes.

A laugh.  "Has the sense of my words bypassed you entirely, friend?  Long have I traveled to come to your side, and you will not even look up at me."

Lis frowned, her eyes still closed.  For all the slowness of her thoughts, perhaps it was at least worth opening her eyes.  Moaning again, she forced herself to turn over, though the ache in her body protested the motion, cracked her eyes open, and winced as the room came into blurry focus.

The figure standing over her was too tall, and at first Lis wondered if she were so delirious that she could not make out shapes properly – but no, she was also beardless, and Lis's mind would not have done that.  Her visitor, holding a tray of food, her black hair bundled up behind her head in a way Lis had never seen it, was an elf.

"Duvaineth?" she croaked, and grimaced.

Her friend smiled down at her.  "At your service."

Lis could not say if she were at last beginning to emerge from the depths of illness, or if it was the novelty of Duvaineth's visit, but at her friend's urging she allowed herself to be propped up on pillows and the tray balanced across her lap.  Her hand shook so badly the spoon nearly fell from her fingers, but she waved Duvaineth back when her friend would have helped her with it.  "I will manage," she rasped.

"Perhaps."  Duvaineth subsided, but raised an eyebrow at her.  "I have seen you looking better."

"I imagine I have rarely looked worse."  The broth tasted mild enough not to upset her delicate stomach, but she sipped carefully and set the spoon down after only one spoonful.  "What brought you here?"

"Legolas, of course – who else?"  Duvaineth settled back into the chair beside Lis's bed.  "He received word that your lord was trapped in thickets of too much work for one alone, and so he asked us who all was willing to come aid him."

"And you volunteered?" It had been years since Lis had felt so ill or so repulsive, with her swimming head and uneasy stomach, her hair matted with sweat and grime – but something inside her glowed warm with something other than fever.

Duvaineth smiled down at her, fondness and humor mingling in her expression.  "Of course," she said.  "When do I pass up a chance for a visit?"

Lis managed a tiny laugh, and then regretted it as the inhale snagged at the back of her throat and sent her into a coughing fit.  Duvaineth leaped up from her chair to catch the tray before Lis could slop the broth all over herself.  "I fear," Lis grated, struggling to catch her breath, newly woozy from the motion, "I am not fit company."

"It is no matter."  Duvaineth set the tray down on a table across the room.  "I have a suspicion I will be kept too busy for true company anyway, once your healers and leaders have determined where we may best be put to work.  Now."  She crossed the room to the window.  "I am no healer, but I think I may say with certainty that we ought to have some air in here."

“An elvish solution if I have ever heard one,” Lis grumbled, closing her eyes and sinking back into her pillows.

“Perhaps so,” said Duvaineth.  “But you are at the mercy of my methods now.”  Lis heard the sound of the curtains being drawn, and then the window thrown open.

“You will be the death of me,” she muttered.

Already she was drifting off, but she heard the smile in Duvaineth’s response. “Not if I can help it.”

Chapter Text

Day faded into night, the light through the windows and skylights of Aglarond dimmed and disappeared, and still the elves and dwarves worked on.

Legolas had been in these halls at night before, of course, but never had it felt quite this eerie – there were so few dwarves about that most of the torches remained unlit and only the crystal lanterns gave light, casting a soft greenish glow that reflected strangely off the jeweled walls and cast dappled light across the floors like water.

Or so Legolas saw it when he was out in the halls running errands; mostly he was kept busy in the infirmary.  The few hale dwarvish healers had seized upon him as the only elf with any knowledge of mortal illness, and his experience served to guide those of his folk more practiced in the healing arts but lacking in this particular skill.  He was kept busy checking temperatures, bathing faces, massaging limbs gone numb from disuse, administering teas that others had brewed – and refraining as best he could from fidgeting with the makeshift mask tied over his face.

And of course he could not leave, not when there was work yet to be done and he had the energy to do it, but he felt the itch stirring within him after it had been dark for at least an hour, the restless urge to be elsewhere.  He had had no chance to see Gimli since his arrival; no chance to inform him of where they had all been assigned or assure himself of his husband’s health – and he had never spent a night in Aglarond outside of his own bed.  His toes twitched compulsively within the boots he had yet to shed; the swamp of his own breath filled the space between the cloth and his mouth until his fingers itched to rip it away.

It was the feeling of frenetic restlessness that so often made him want to flee whatever situation he was in – but of course now there were more important things than his desperate desire to run.  And so he continued his rounds through rows of groaning patients, offered to check on those who were still in their homes, as the darkness faded into pre-dawn grey – until one of the dwarven healers turned and frowned at him as if only now seeing him for the first time.

“Lord Legolas?” they said.

Legolas blinked; though it had only been hours, it was strange to hear his title – to hear himself addressed as anything other than an aid.  “That is I.”

“Have you been here all night?”

Legolas turned to look up, and only now did he notice – despite yearning all night to be somewhere else – that time had passed without his attention, that the weak light of dawn had begun to filter into the infirmary.  “Yes,” he said.  “But – have you not?”

“All night, yes,” said the healer.  “Not during the day before.  Even we, even in times of emergency, must rest sometimes.”

Their look was pointed, but somehow that permission only made Legolas feel more guilty about how long he had desired to be elsewhere.  “Not we, not truly,” he said.  “We rest when we have the freedom to do so, but the loss of a night of sleep will do us no harm.”

“Be that as it may,” the dwarf said, “you deserve a brief respite.  I am sure the other healers would not begrudge you a few hours of rest, if you go.”

“I” – Knowing how much effort they had all put in, the long hours before his arrival, Legolas could not in good conscience agree.  But at the same time – “I do wish to see how my husband fares.  If you would inform the other healers I will return shortly?”

“They will be grateful for it, I am sure,” said the dwarf.  “But I mean it.  Go.”

The permission did not feel like the absolution he had craved – but he could not deny the temptation any longer.  He murmured another muffled thanks through his mask; his fingers were already fumbling at the knot even as he turned away – and as he swung open the door to the infirmary, he let it fall at last and drew in his first breath of free air in hours.

Again Legolas marveled at the eerie emptiness of the halls, too quiet without the usual sounds of dwarves stirring and preparing for the day – the first trickles of dwarves leaving their homes for the smithies or the mines or the practice courts; the sound of clanging pots in the kitchens and the retrieval of waste to be disposed of.  The light was still dim, but the dawn peeking in was just bright enough to outshine the glowing crystals.  And anyway, light or dark, Legolas knew the way to his own chambers as well here as he did in Ithilien.

He had not even brought his bags here, he realized – the elves had all left their things outside the infirmary, and he would have to go retrieve them – but he rarely packed much on visits to Aglarond.  His and Gimli’s wardrobe held clothing for him for any season he might come to visit, and their rooms had all he might need.

For all the familiarity, though, he frowned when he opened the door to their chambers.  The air felt strangely cool and stale, lacking the warm worn-in feel it took on after a night of sleep.  The scent of Gimli’s soap and the smoke-and-metal smell of his discarded clothing lingered, but not freshly.  In their bedroom, the bed was unmade but cold, not freshly vacated – and Gimli was not there.

Legolas supposed it should not have surprised him.

The journey to Gimli’s study was shorter than the way from the infirmary, and it was not long before Legolas was standing in front of the partly-ajar door.  Gimli would never have left it thus, and Legolas knew what he would find before he even pushed the door open.

Gimli was sitting at his desk chair, surrounded by a pile of papers higher than his own head – or at least, higher than where his head rested.  For perhaps sitting was not quite the right word – he was leaning forward, tipping precariously almost out of his chair, his forehead resting on the front edge of his desk, hair spilling over scattered documents.  He shifted slightly even as Legolas watched and let out a loud rasping snore.

A smile tugged at the corners of Legolas’s mouth despite himself.  He tiptoed forward – it would not do to disturb Gimli now and send him toppling out of his chair – placed one hand on Gimli’s shoulder and the other against the back of his neck, and whispered, “Beloved.”

Gimli gave another sound – a half-snore and a gasp at the same time – and started awake.  “Hmmh?”  He lifted his head, his face crumpling around half-open eyes.  “Legolas?”

“Good morning,” said Legolas.  He slid the hand on Gimli’s neck around his shoulders and used the other to brush a stray auburn curl back from Gimli’s temple.  “Or perhaps I ought better to say good night.  I think it is bedtime for you, my love.”

“Bedtime?” Gimli echoed.  “But – morning.”

“Morning indeed, but you have not seen your bed all night, have you?”  Legolas did not wait for Gimli’s response; he could only do such things when Gimli was tired enough to be pliable, but he half-lifted him out of his chair and pulled him against his side.  Perhaps if he could guide Gimli to bed before he woke fully, he might spare himself the argument.  “So you must make up for it now.”

Gimli moved with him as he walked, but it would be only a matter of moments before he began to resist.  “But . . . the papers.”

“Can you finish them now, when you are so tired?”  Legolas eased Gimli’s study door closed behind them and fished in Gimli’s pocket for the key to lock it.  “If your dwarves may tell me to go to bed, then I may tell you.”

“You are here to help,” Gimli mumbled.  “Not your responsibility.”

“And it is your responsibility to stay up all night?”  Legolas clucked his tongue softly.  “I seem to recall you being most prudent many years ago when we had to decide between sleeping and running.  What has become of that dwarf now?”

Gimli scoffed, some clarity returning to his voice.  “And I seem to recall an elf who insisted that running all night was the better solution.”

“We all must bow to wisdom sometimes,” Legolas said.  “That time, it was yours.  Anyway, I rested very recently and yet have the energy to assist.  You – how long has it been since you slept in a bed?”

“It is my colony,” said Gimli instead of answering directly, “and these are my people.  I can do no less than my best for them.”  He twisted to glare up at Legolas even as they rounded the last corner towards their chambers.  “I know you would do the same for Ithilien – I suspect you will do the same for Aglarond.”

“Hmm.”  Legolas led him into their rooms.  How was it that they felt so much more hospitable now that he entered with Gimli beside him?  “That is why I said we all must bow to wisdom.  I do not claim to dispense it regularly, but today . . .” He rummaged in their closet for Gimli’s favorite sleep shirt; Gimli merely stood in the middle of the room, his unfocused gaze directed somewhere off into the corner.  “Today you clearly need it.”

Even had he not already known he was right, Gimli’s reaction would have revealed it now; instead of fighting, he merely stood passively and allowed Legolas to disrobe him, his motions sluggish with sleep.  “You are right that wisdom of this sort is not your usual purview,” he said, and then yawned.  “I feel that our roles here are too often reversed.”

Legolas smiled.  “Well, perhaps I have learned something from you after all,” he said.  “Or perhaps it is simply my turn.”  He tossed Gimli’s clothing aside – he would clean it up later – and pressed his husband into bed.  “Now,” he said.  “Sleep.”

Chapter Text

The second evening after the elves’ arrival, Gimli was startled from a stupor before his paperwork by a knock on his study door.

“Come in,” he called, rubbing his eyes as they strained to focus on a sight larger and more distant than the cramped script on the documents from Rohan and Erebor.  He fancied he could still see the faint afterimages of the Common and the Cirth script that he had been comparing – and he wondered if his vision had been so confounded as to blur the truth of what he saw before him – for never had an elf not Legolas come to visit him in his study before.

“Lord Gimli,” said the elf, putting to rest any of Gimli’s doubts.  The voice was too light to be anything but an elf, and Legolas would of course never address him by his title.  She hefted a tray.  “I was sent to bring this to you.”

“Sent?”  Gimli scrubbed at his eyes again, buying himself time with idle questions as he struggled to remember his visitor’s name.  He had met her before, he knew – he recognized the single thick braid – but his thoughts moved too slowly tonight.  Perhaps she had interrupted at just the right time to keep him from making an error on some irreplaceable record.  “By whom?”

“By Legolas, of course.”  She made her way across the room on quick, light feet, nimbly avoiding the piles of clutter that Gimli had allowed to stack up in the last few weeks.  He could not even muster up embarrassment over the state of his space.  “He is needed by the healers and unable to depart, but he bade me bring you food and remind you that you ought to be seeking your bed within the hour.”

“Hmph.” Gimli glared down at the tray, even as his growling stomach reminded him that he had not eaten all day.  “He ought to heed his own advice.”

She gave a tiny half-laugh – just the slightest huff through the nose – and a tilt of the head that suggested that while decorum prevented her from chiming in, she shared his thoughts.  “I only deliver the message, Lord Gimli,” she said.  “But he bade me tell you that it would be a kindness to him if you would heed it.  And, ah” – a quirk of the lips – “to be most stern with you if you refused.”

Gimli looked down at the tray.  The food was simple – the bread and dried fruit he had been eating for some time – but there was also a piece of meat – venison, if he was not mistaken – that looked newly-prepared and smelled delicious, if different from what the cooks at Aglarond would make.  “Are your people also helping in the kitchens?” he said.

“We are helping everywhere we are needed.”

“I see.”  He inhaled appreciatively.  It did smell very good, and he was very hungry, after all.  “Well, thank you very much – Faimes.”  That was her name; he remembered it even as it left his lips, and when she did not react with puzzlement, he let out a breath of relief.  “And you may tell Legolas I will heed his advice – and that I wish he would, as well.  I wish you all would.”  Carefully, laboriously, he began to shift the papers to clear a space to eat.  “I have not even thought about how I will thank you all for what you do here, but know that Aglarond will be grateful to you for years to come.”

She smiled at him and inclined her head.  “That is heartening to hear,” she said.  “I will certainly pass on your words to the rest of my companions.  For now” – she nodded at the tray.  “Eat while it is warm, Lord Gimli.”

Chapter Text

The elves took their rest in shifts.

It had been – two days, now? – with only the occasional hour-long pause for a meal, and now Faimes shed her makeshift mask and the apron she had been wearing into a crumpled pile with the rest of the abandoned fabric in the laundry room of the infirmary and let out a sigh of relief as the door closed behind her.

The elves had all been offered their own guest chambers, but they had all – with the exception of Legolas, of course – volunteered to share the same large airy room in the east hall of the caverns, with the large doors that opened up to a balcony large enough to fit several people.  She ran there now, marveling at how familiar the halls of Aglarond were already becoming to her, and inhaled deeply as she opened the door.

The air in the room was crisp and light, without the heavy stink of unwashed bodies and illness and stale air that filled the infirmary or the faint aroma of meat gone rancid that lingered in the halls despite the work of the dwarven cooks, Duvaineth, and Gordhrain in carting out all that had spoiled in the kitchens.  The balcony doors were open, letting the cool wintery air rush into the room, and Faimes stepped out onto the balcony.

Rarely did more than three elves occupy the space – and indeed, only Estinnu and Iallath stood on the balcony, faces turned into the wind.  They both turned to face her when she joined them and Iallath smiled in greeting and opened hir arms.

Faimes slipped easily into hir embrace, letting herself relax at last.  The air was fresher out here, free of the heaviness within the caverns, and she felt it working on her body and spirit alike, could feel her mood lightening. “How long have you been here?”

Iallath shrugged and yawned, toying absently with the end of her braid.  “Perhaps an hour?  Not more than that.”

The feeling of hir fingers in her hair sent a melting feeling from Faimes’s scalp all the way down into her stomach; she repressed a yawn of her own and pushed sternness into her voice.  “You ought to be sleeping,” she admonished.

“Soon enough, soon enough,” ze said.  “I was waiting for you.”

“And you, Estinnu?”

Estinnu smiled wryly.  “It is nearly time to return.  I am merely” – she leaned against the balcony railing and took a deep breath – “fortifying myself.”

Faimes let out a huff of laughter.  “Legolas had best count himself fortunate that we care for him as much as we do.”

Estinnu laughed with her, then sobered and shrugged.  “It is not all bad,” she said fairly.  “I had never realized how little I knew about the healing arts, despite all my training – how much there still was to learn.  And I have never received such extensive training before.”

“You might call it that,” said Iallath wryly.  Ze had no healing training, not even as a warrior-medic, and so had been assigned with a few other elves to run errands and assist with urgent tasks in the running of Aglarond as needed – and as trusted.  Normally she was glad of her own training, though it had only ever been used on battlefields before, but at the end of days’ worth of work, Faimes could almost envy hir lack of knowledge.  “Still, though,” ze continued reflectively, “I have never seen such gratitude or fondness on the face of a dwarf.”

“Yes, they have been kind.”  Faimes had not been as close to the dwarves of Aglarond as others among her people, notably Legolas, Duvaineth, and Eleniel, but she too was finding that the shared camaraderie on the faces of the dwarven healers kept her afloat when it felt she would drown in the heaviness of the air, the newness and urgency of the situation.

“They have.”  Estinnu took one last deep breath, then straightened up and set her shoulders.  “I had best return now.  Think of me while you rest.”

“I plan to be occupied with much more pleasant dreams,” Iallath shot back, and Estinnu laughed and darted away.

Faimes turned in hir arms and raised her eyebrows.  “More pleasant dreams?”

Ze smiled and pressed hir forehead against hers.  “I said that only to banish her,” ze said.  “I am far too tired for anything more than sleep.”

Faimes sighed and leaned her weight against Iallath – and then found she hardly wanted to straighten up again.  “You speak for me,” she murmured.  “Well.  Let us make the most of our brief time for rest, then.”

Chapter Text

Éomer’s eyebrows drew together into a heavy line.  “These do not add up.”

“No?” Gimli shuffled through the papers he held, trying not to allow his panic to show on his face.  For all the aid Rohan had given them, he could not afford to have made an error in the accounts.

“The sum we loaned you is not fully accounted for here.”  Éomer’s lips pursed.  “I want to trust you, Gimli, but I too am accountable to a kingdom.”

“No, I assure you, it was all used on goods and supplies.”  Gimli shuffled through the papers again, more frantically this time.  He had never had a head for such things!  “Do you have the records of all the food?”

“So it seems.”  Éomer passed them over to him.  “You may see for yourself, if you like.”

Gimli flipped through Éomer’s papers, trying not to tear any of them in his urgency.  It must – there must – a date range was missing.

“I know what the problem is!” he said.  “I know – I have the papers somewhere” – Had he finished them?  Or were they still on his desk?  “Give me one moment – I will be back right away” –

He made to shove the papers back into Éomer’s hands, to stand up and rush to his study, but his feet had turned to lead and he could not move.  He strained and he could not get up; Éomer’s glare was growing more and more impatient, and the limits of friendship would not be stretched any further.  “I am trying!” he tried to say, but his words would only come out in a peep –

And he gasped awake, his eyes flying open to the darkness of his bedroom.  His hand came up to rest against his chest, over his pounding heart; as his breathing slowed, he became aware that he was soaked in cold sweat.

He had never had dreams like this – so vivid and yet so mundane – his nightmares of the past had always focused on the true horrors of battle or of the Paths of the Dead.  But then, he had never spent so many hours hunched over accounts and loans and debts that his kingdom would eventually have to repay, to Rohan and Erebor both.  He had never been responsible for such a delicate situation before, and he had never had so little aid.

What if he had missed a date range? The thought made his heart double-thump, cold and hollow.

He would have to check.  Right now, he would have to check.  There was nothing for it – the paperwork was yet in his study; he could go through it again.  He would not be calm until he had, anyway.  Gimli nodded decisively to himself and moved to sit up.

And stopped.

There was a weight over his chest, one he had not noticed until this moment.  An arm, slender in comparison to his own but surprisingly heavy when limp with sleep.  Gimli looked down.

It occurred so rarely that Gimli stirred in his sleep and Legolas was not immediately up beside him, rising from the pillow almost in the same motion, as awake as if he had never been asleep.  Not so now.  Legolas’s head rolled with the motion of Gimli’s body, still nestled against his shoulder, his dark hair a tousled pile against the pillow and his mouth slightly open.  He snuffled softly but did not stir.

It was so endearing a sight that it almost distracted Gimli from his panic.  He smiled fondly down at his husband – the soundness of whose sleep gave proof to the stress of these days.  It must have been three days at least since Legolas had last taken any rest, despite his insistence that Gimli sleep at least a few hours each night, and Gimli could only imagine the other elves fared similarly.

The elves . . . Gimli and Legolas had not even spoken of accounting yet, but surely there would be debts to square there as well, with Faramir at least, for their time and service.  Another surge of anxiety spiked in his chest and he gently moved Legolas’s head aside so he could extract himself from bed.

Only when Gimli had shifted his weight entirely to the edge of the bed, easing himself out from under his husband’s body, did Legolas stir.  “Mmm . . . Gml?” he mumbled.

“Hush,” Gimli whispered.  “Go back to sleep – I did not mean to rouse you.”

“Why yrmmph midnt,” Legolas grumbled.  His eyes cracked open, a tiny sleepy frown creasing his face.  “Come back t’bed.”

“I just need to check on my accounts,” Gimli whispered.  “I will be back in no time.”

“No . . . no.”  Legolas’s arm fumbled out from beneath the covers and swept in a clumsy arc over the sheets until his hand found Gimli’s arm.  “Not time yet.”

It was a powerful incentive to stay, and Gimli hesitated on the edge of the bed.  “I just need to look at something,” he insisted.  “It will take moments.”

“Then you can do it in the morning.”  Some of the sleep had cleared out of Legolas’s voice, but he did not open his eyes any more than slits.  “Now is for sleep.”

“But . . . the accounts . . .”

“No.”  Legolas’s hand closed around Gimli’s bicep, long, strong fingers digging into muscle and skin.  “I order you to come back to bed.”

Gimli could not help but smile a little.  “By whose authority?”

“Mine,” Legolas mumbled, his mouth turning down into a sleepy pout.  “The consort of Aglarond.”

That was enough to make Gimli laugh – quietly and reluctantly, but some of the tension eased out of his chest as he did so.  “Do you become petulant when you are tired, then?”

“Yes.”  Legolas tugged.  “Come back.  The accounts will wait until the morning.  Now, you are mine.”

“A compelling order.”  Perhaps he was right.  Gimli did not move with him, but neither did he resist.  They had found so little time for one another in the daylight hours; even if he was far and away too tired for anything more than this, he might at least have the comfort of shared sleep.  And it was true – he was very tired.  He yawned.

“Yes,” said Legolas again, and this time Gimli allowed himself to be tugged back into bed, easing himself back into his still-warm imprint in the mattress.  Legolas hummed with contentment and pulled the blankets back over him.

“You win,” Gimli murmured.  “It can wait until the morning.”

“Hmm.”  Legolas let his head roll back into the space between Gimli’s neck and shoulder, draping his arm even more securely over Gimli’s torso.

“If I find an error in my account book in the morning,” Gimli warned, “I am blaming you.”

Legolas made no response, and when Gimli looked down, he saw that the elf had already fallen back asleep.

Well, as it seemed he was to be trapped here for the rest of the night, he supposed he might as well do the same.

Chapter Text

The occasion was rare, these days, that Gimli returned home to find Legolas there before him – if he came home to sleep at all. But on this night, stumbling in late as always from another evening of wrestling with what must be every piece of crucial paperwork in his colony, he found the door unlatched and the lantern in the front room already lit.

“Legolas?” he called, moving in deeper, but a muffled sound from the bedroom was his only response.

Curious – enough even to rouse him from his exhausted stupor – Gimli kicked off his boots and moved through the entry chambers to investigate.  When he pushed open the door to their bedroom, he found the bed turned back, a single lantern lit, and his husband kneeling beside their bed, his face pressed into Gimli’s sleep shirt.

Gimli cleared his throat from the doorway and Legolas looked up with an abrupt twitch of the head that would not have looked out of place on a cat – and then, in one motion, he dropped the shirt onto the bed and streaked across the room to affix himself to Gimli’s neck.

Gimli blinked, bemused – Legolas had dropped to his knees once more to embrace him, which he did not ordinarily do.  His head did not reach level with Gimli’s; rather, his face was pressed into Gimli’s neck.  His hair was wet as though newly come from a bath, dripping into Gimli’s beard; he smelled of soap, but not his preferred variety; and as Gimli searched for his bearings with a mind dazed from exhaustion, he inhaled deeply and then let out the breath in a long, relieved sigh.

Gimli let his own arms come to settle around Legolas’s shoulders, still bewildered.  Was this unusual, or was he simply too tired to understand? “Legolas?” he ventured.

“Mmm?”

“Are you – all right?”

Legolas hummed again.  “You smell nice.”

“Ah . . .”  Gimli could not remember the last time he had bathed beyond merely sponging himself off as best he could.  “I do?”

Legolas took another long breath.  “Wonderful.  Fire and metal and pipeweed smoke and” –

“You loathe the smell of pipeweed,” Gimli pointed out.

“Hmm, do I?”  Another deep inhale.  “No, it is marvelous.”

He was too tired to puzzle this out.  Gimli dropped his arms.  “If you insist, I certainly will not contradict you.”  He made to step forward and Legolas only shifted with him, still not letting him go.  “Legolas.  I need to change into my sleep shirt.”

“Yes, yes,” Legolas murmured, “only” – He took one more long breath and then peeled himself away with some reluctance.

He said nothing as Gimli changed, and when Gimli looked back he realized that Legolas was kneeling exactly where he had left him, his face flushed and his eyes slightly glassy.

“Legolas,” Gimli said, and Legolas’s face snapped around to look at him.  He still said nothing.  “Are you holding your breath?”

Legolas jerked one shoulder, then the next.  His chest jumped, just a twitch.

“Legolas!”  Gimli crossed the room to where he stood.  “What ails you tonight?”

Legolas let out a long, explosive breath and then immediately buried his face back into Gimli’s beard for a few gasping inhales.  “Nothing, any longer,” he said when he had caught his breath.  “Are you ready for bed?”

Frowning still, Gimli allowed himself to be guided into bed – allowed Legolas to tuck himself back into Gimli’s neck.  It was different from their usual sleeping arrangement, but not unpleasant, and Gimli let one hand come to settle against Legolas’s back, feeling the faintest pulse of his heartbeat beneath his shoulder blades.  “Does something – is there a scent that offends you here?”  Truthfully, he had not left the caverns in so long that he would not be so surprised if his own nose had become entirely desensitized to it all.  “I know that the waste disposal crews are yet working” –

Legolas shook his head against Gimli’s neck.  “It is not that – I think I have merely become too sensitive to it since beginning my work; I can pick it out from floors away.  You can do nothing for this.”

“Your work,” Gimli said slowly.  “With the healers?  Is that – ah.”  He remembered the few times he had managed to visit the infirmaries as they grew crammed and crowded with groaning dwarves.  “I think I understand.  I am sorry.”

“You need not apologize,” said Legolas.  “All I ask is that you grant me a peaceful rest for the few hours I may be away from it.”   He laughed, a little wryly.  “Let us merely say that there is a reason I never wished to become a healer.”

Gimli winced.  “I am sorry that you were drawn into this,” was all he could say.  “You know you owe me nothing” –

“You are worth any sacrifice,” Legolas interrupted.  “And I know you would do the same for me.  I have endured much worse than this, husband.”  He burrowed his face deeper into Gimli’s neck.  “All I ask is that you let me have this.”

Gimli let his hand glide in a slow circle over Legolas’s upper back, smiling as he felt the elf go loose and relaxed against him.  “I would give you the world itself, if I could,” he murmured, “in thanks for this and all else that you have already given me.  But since this is all you ask, I will grant it gladly.”  He adjusted his hold to pull Legolas more securely against him, resting one hand at the back of Legolas’s neck.

Legolas chuckled, low and sleepy, and his breath whispered through Gimli’s beard when he spoke.  “Thank you.”

“No,” Gimli said, closing his eyes and letting his own breathing deepen and slow.  “Thank you.”