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Legolas wakes with a start, sitting upright, his hands grappling around behind him for his bow, only to be met with a pillow.
The stark contrast of his hand sinking into soft, cool Gondorian sheets instead of the cold, damp, hard earth he had expected is enough to jolt him out of whatever aspects of his dream had remained. He blinks, looking around the room to reacquaint himself with his surroundings, and finds himself in his bedroom in Minas Tirith, furnished with its own bed and pillows and a blanket, his belongings strewn about on the floor haphazardly, no longer arranged neatly in his pack in case they had need of a quick escape. He has no need for that now, now that they are in Minas Tirith, the danger behind them, the war won.
But his heart continues to race, and he draws his hand up to his chest, feeling its staccato drumming as he tries to regulate his breathing. His other hand searches for purchase on his bedsheets, trying to remind his racing heart that he is safe, he is in Gondor, it is over.
He cannot quite shake the sick feeling inside of him, though, the images left by his dream that he can still see in his mind’s eye. They are at Helm’s Deep again, and Legolas is fighting off so many orcs he can hardly think, cannot check his periphery to see if Gimli is beside him or not, and then when the fighting finally breaks enough for him to be able to check his periphery Gimli is gone, but when he finds Gimli, he is not Gimli, he is already an empty body, his head cleaved entirely in half-
Legolas is hyperventilating again, his breath coming entirely too fast, his breaths heaving and stuttering, and his chest has been seized as though by an invisible enemy and he cannot think of anything but Gimli, Gimli’s corpse in his mind so lifelike he would have thought it real if he had not seen Gimli only hours ago before they each retired to their separate bedrooms, but even now, even still, Legolas cannot shake his own panic that Gimli is not safe, worse, that Gimli is dead.
He tries, in vain, to calm himself down on his own, but the panic does not subside, and he knows he will not truly calm until he sees Gimli, knows Gimli is safe and here and alive.
Gimli’s room is not far from his own, but the journey to his door feels harrowing all the same, with Legolas’s racing heart and unnatural breathing, and the feeling he cannot shake that tells him there is danger. Legolas knocks once, softly, suddenly feeling guilty about waking Gimli in the middle of the night.
For a moment, he hopes the knock is soft enough that Gimli might not have heard it and that he can leave Gimli undisturbed, even if it means he must sit up with his anxieties until daybreak, but then Gimli answers.
“Legolas?” he asks from inside, his voice gruff with sleep.
“How did you know it was me?” Legolas asks, surprising himself with how shaky and delicate his own voice is.
He watches the doorknob turn as the door opens to reveal Gimli, his lip just slightly upturned. “Who else would it be?” Gimli’s voice is soft and kind now, as though Legolas were paying him a friendly visit at midday, not rousing him from sleep with his own crisis.
Gimli looks up at him, lit only by the moonlight filtering in through his windows.
Legolas has been with Gimli through the almost-end of the world, has seen him in the heat of battle, at his most primal, has sat up with him during sleepless nights, has run with him for practically three days straight, knows Gimli in a way that few ever get to know another, and yet he has never seen Gimli like this.
This Gimli is sleep-rumpled and calm, dressed in clean night-clothes instead of clad heavily in armor as he had been for so long. His hair has been washed and is brushed and unbraided, his beard combed and recently oiled, and the only new mark on his face is a red line left by his sheets in his sleep. “Legolas?” He asks upon seeing what must be a look of panic on Legolas’s face, and his worry twists his face into concern, redrawing all the lines that had been momentarily erased by sleep.
“I’m sorry,” Legolas says, more a gasp than anything else. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you-”
“Nonsense,” Gimli responds, shaking his head forcefully, “Don’t - there’s nothing to apologize for, Legolas, come inside,” and he ushers Legolas into his room, not allowing Legolas to protest. He sits on his bed, in the space where he had been lying minutes earlier, and when he beckons for Legolas to sit as well Legolas finds that he cannot do anything but obey.
Gimli’s bed is the exact same as his own, down to the sheets, but there is something different about knowing Gimli sleeps here, that the warmth on the bed is from Gimli’s body, and Legolas feels equally like he wants to drown in this warmth and like he is an intruder here.
“I’m sorry,” Legolas repeats, because he can’t think of anything else to say.
“No, Legolas, it’s alright,” Gimli shushes him gently, lays his hand on Legolas’s arm. His hand is strong and warm, and though it is calloused it is also shockingly soft, from what Legolas can feel of it through the thin layer of his nightshirt. Gimli moves his thumb back and forth where it rests on Legolas’s arm, soothing, gentle, delicate, and Legolas feels like he does not deserve it.
“Is it the sea-longing?” Gimli asks when Legolas has not responded for some minutes, afraid to speak around the lump in his throat, lest he do something stupid like cry.
Legolas shakes his head. “No,” he says, which is about as much a truth as it is a lie. The sea-longing was still there - oh, was it still there; Legolas was beginning to realize that this has become a part of him, now, and any hope of it lessening has been dashed - but it is not that which troubles him tonight.
Gimli nods at him, wordlessly encouraging him to go on. His face is drawn together in concern, but his eyes are still soft, the way they always are when he looks at Legolas, and the memory of his dream, of the feeling of losing Gimli, is enough to choke him.
“I dreamt - I dreamt that we were back at the Hornburg,” Legolas says, his breathing still uneven, “but you were - Gimli, this time you-” his voice cuts off on a sob, and he brings his hand up to cover his mouth.
“I am right here,” Gimli says, “I am right here, Legolas.”
Legolas takes a few deep breaths to compose himself and removes his hand from his mouth so he can continue. Gimli never once looks away from him, keeps his eyes locked on Legolas’s own, and Legolas clings to the movements of Gimli’s thumb on his arm like a tether.
“I should not have let you out of my sight,” Legolas says. “I should not have left you alone for a single moment during any battle.”
Gimli reaches up to cup Legolas’s jaw, stroking his thumb over Legolas’s cheek now. He keeps looking into Legolas’s eyes, waiting until Legolas meets his gaze to speak. “Hey,” he says, softly. “I’m right here. I’m fine.”
Legolas reaches for Gimli’s face as well, traces Gimli’s scar from Helm’s Deep with his finger.
“I was fine,” Gimli repeats. “A battle scar is nothing.”
Legolas nods, swallowing around the lump in his throat, and Gimli’s eyes flick momentarily down with the movement, his gaze resting on Legolas’s neck for just a moment before returning to Legolas’s eyes. Even the slight look sends Legolas’s mind reeling, forces him to imagine what Gimli’s lips would feel like on his neck instead of just his eyes, and Legolas’s face burns at the thought. Belatedly, Gimli removes his hand from Legolas’s face and returns it to his arm, but if Legolas were any bolder he would tell him to leave it there.
“Legolas,” Gimli says. His voice is so quiet against the silence of the night, his hand on Legolas’s arm soft as gossamer. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
He says the words with such gravitas that it seems like he’s talking about more than just Legolas’s nightmare, and Legolas opens his mouth to correct him, to tell him it was just a dream, and that’s when he realizes he isn’t just upset about the dream.
The weight of everything, heavy now that it is recognized, crashes down on him, and he buckles underneath it. The war, and surviving the war when so many did not, and suddenly finding himself having to re-learn how to fall asleep to silence after so many nights of being surrounded by others, and even the sea-longing, though he had tricked himself into believing it wasn’t bothering him tonight. And the suffocation of loving Gimli, of knowing he loves Gimli and knowing Gimli does not feel the same, and now their quest is over and Gimli will go home and Legolas will hardly ever see him, though he will spend the rest of his life loving him. Legolas had not thought himself troubled by anything but the dream.
But Gimli knew.
Legolas crumbles, his hands barely making it up to cover his eyes before the first tears are falling, ripping free of Gimli’s hold in the process. He cries into his hands softly, face burning with how silly he must look in front of Gimli but unable to hold them back any longer. Gimli starts - Legolas does not see it so much as he hears the rustle of the sheets - but after a few moments’ pause, Gimli starts shushing him gently.
“Shh, Legolas, it’s alright,” Gimli is saying, his voice barely more than the rumble of his chest, and it is soothing even now.
Gimli brings his hand up to Legolas’s forearm, right under his wrist, and resumes stroking Legolas’s skin idly with his thumb. Legolas’s hands are covering his face, his forearms parallel to each other, blocking his neck and chest like he’s in need of a shield. Gimli is gentle, his grip strong and comforting, and Legolas is just about to relax into it when Gimli uses it to start slowly pulling his arm down, away from his face. Legolas lets him, revealing half of his face when Gimli draws his arm down. His face is scrunched up, eyes screwed shut even as tears fall from them, and Legolas feels as though he’s never seemed less attractive in his life.
But Gimli seems unphased. He continues shushing Legolas, words a list of calming nothings, and Legolas tries to cling to them as he tries to stop crying, to regulate his breathing. It’s difficult, when his breath keeps getting caught in his chest, and so Gimli starts exaggerating his own breathing, in and out, until Legolas copies it.
Somewhere between Gimli drawing Legolas’s hand away from his face and now, when Legolas lowered his arm into his lap Gimli’s hand went with it, and moved from his forearm to hold his hand, and their fingers intertwined. Legolas did not notice it happening, only that it did, and so he squeezes Gimli’s hand in thanks, and Gimli squeezes his back twice.
Slowly, Legolas comes back to himself. As his chest begins to lighten, and his breathing to regulate, and the feeling of impending danger to dissipate, he starts to burn with shame. He removes the other hand from his face, which is now red from embarrassment, not just the crying, and he finds himself suddenly very interested by the pattern of the sheets, and so he stares at that instead of having to look up at Gimli.
“Sorry,” Legolas says, around a sniffle.
Legolas can see Gimli shake his head in his peripheral vision. “Don’t be.” He reaches up but stops his outstretched hand when it’s inches away from Legolas’s face, waits for Legolas’s nod before he cups Legolas’s face and wipes his tears away with his thumb, and Legolas loves him so deeply it could make him start crying again.
“Thank you, Gimli,” Legolas says, his voice still shaky. “I will - I will let you sleep now. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”
He begins to unfold his legs from the way he’s sat criss-crossed on Gimli’s bed, but Gimli’s hand that is still in his squeezes again. “No,” he says immediately.
Legolas’s surprise is plain on his face, but he stops moving, returns to his original position. He finally looks up at Gimli, waits for him to continue, to say something that makes sense.
“What if you should have another dream and I am not there to console you?” Gimli asks.
Legolas exhales, almost a laugh. “I will be fine, I-” he says, “now I know you’re here.”
But Gimli does not seem to take that as an answer. “In truth,” he says instead, “I’ve been having trouble sleeping as well - it is strange, to fall asleep in a room by myself without someone to keep watch, after so long - I’m still used to being surrounded by others, or at least together with you. Stay. Let us both have peace for the rest of the night.”
Legolas does not have an argument for that.
He nods, smiling softly, and Gimli’s face lights up as he pulls the blanket down on the other side of the bed, moving over to make space for Legolas as if there isn’t already plenty. These beds are like wide open fields after weeks of just their bedrolls. But there is something about it, about Gimli so deliberately making space for Legolas in his room, that spreads a warm feeling through Legolas’s chest and all the way through his limbs. He lets himself savor it as he gets into the bed, and then Gimli pulls the blanket back up over him and lies down on the other side of it, pulling the blanket up over himself as well.
They lay on their sides, facing each other, not touching. The foot or so of space between them feels far more substantial, though, and both of them keep their limbs drawn tightly to their bodies, as though touch is forbidden, but Gimli’s eyes do not leave his. The sliver of moonlight granted to them by the window is more than enough for Legolas to make out Gimli’s form, to see the way his eyes are intent on Legolas’s face, but the look in them is inscrutable.
“Do you think I am not a tough enough soldier?” Gimli asks him, after a while, and Legolas is about to rebuke him with a tirade about how he is one of the best fighters Legolas has had the honor to fight beside throughout this war, but Gimli cuts him off as soon as he opens his mouth.
“You do not dream of Aragorn dying in battle.” Gimli says.
It is not a question, but Legolas still answers. “No.”
The fact that they are not touching feels meaningless when their eyes are locked together like this, Gimli’s gaze piercing him as well as any arrow ever could.
“Why?”
Legolas almost expected Gimli’s tone to be laced with self-deprecation, as though he is trying to get Legolas to admit he believes Gimli is weak, but he finds none of that. Instead, Gimli’s eyes are unreadable, guarded in a way Legolas has never seen, not even before Lórien, when they were not yet friends.
He can hear Gimli’s breath, still deep and even as it was when Legolas’s own had not yet been regulated, when Gimli calmed him down.
Gimli, Legolas knows, deserves an answer. But he does not deserve any answer, does not deserve to be lied to, as easy as the easy way out might be. As much as it might save their friendship.
Legolas knows he owes Gimli the truth. And so he gives it to him.
“I do not need Aragorn,” Legolas says, “the way I need you.”
His breath catches almost involuntarily. It is a pitiful confession, as confessions go, and he knows there is room in it for ambiguity, and he should not be talking about Aragorn in the same sentence he is telling Gimli how he feels about him, but he has never been good at talking about things, so it figures that he would mess this up, too.
“I do - I do need you, Gimli.” he says, in an attempt to amend it, to make more clear what he means.
Legolas used to hope that, if he ever was brave enough to tell Gimli how he feels, he could rely on elven beauty to convince Gimli that maybe he did want Legolas, even if it was just for his looks.
There is no hope for that now. His eyes are red and bloodshot, his eyelashes wet with tears, his face puffy from crying, and even his hair is sleep-mussed and unbraided. He does not know if he has ever felt less put-together in front of another, and he sniffles, afraid to catch Gimli’s eyes.
“Legolas,” Gimli says, his voice soft and unbelieving, and Legolas’s breath catches. “Need?”
Legolas finally looks up at him and into his tender gaze, Gimli’s eyes shining with an earnestness and something else Legolas has never seen before.
“Yes,” Legolas exhales. His heart is hammering again in his chest. “Like the air.”
“Legolas.” Gimli repeats.
“Gimli.” Gimli is just looking at him - at his face, at his lips, in his eyes, and he cannot bear it anymore. “Please.” He does not know for what he asks, but he knows he needs something.
And then Gimli kisses him. He seals the distance between them like it is nothing, his hand reaching up to cup Legolas’s face just like before, but this time his grip is more sure and sturdy, anchoring Legolas, pulling him closer. His lips are soft and warm and his kiss alone is enough to make Legolas’s head spin, so it takes him a moment to register that this is his reality before he kisses back.
Gimli pulls away too soon, and Legolas leans forward on instinct to capture his lips again, only to find Gimli smiling fondly at him.
“I do, too, you know,” Gimli says.
Legolas’s world is still spinning, like it has been slightly off-kilter this whole time and has just been put on its proper axis, so he cannot really be blamed for having forgotten everything that has ever happened before Gimli kissed him.
“What?”
“I love you, too,” Gimli says, plain and simple. “That’s what you meant, isn’t it?”
Gimli knows him.
“Yes,” Legolas says, and kisses him.