My friends call me a loser ‘Cause I’m still hanging around  I’ve heard so many rumours  That I’m just girl that you bang on your couch 

You have no real recollection of when exactly it started to happen, it seemed it just did out of nowhere. One day you were hanging out with Legolas like normal and the next you had his mouth all over your neck and the sense of belonging somewhere. 

You had always been friends, not close like he could be with Tauriel but friends nonetheless. Except he kept on sending you knowing looks, on lingering his fingers in the small of your back when he crossed you, or fixing your stance with deft hands he knew where to place when you trained. Soon enough what was bound to happen happened. 

You still remembered the first time you slept together. Legolas did not have to bat an eye for you to follow him eagerly through the maze of the Halls’ corridors, stealing kisses at each turn just to coax you into his room better. When you finally stood in front of the door with him, cheeks heated, it took a shift in the tension for it to snap and for the world around you to blur in a spinning haze. The walls seemed to move on the satin of the couch he laid you on, the colours to flash with his cold hands groping at your flesh, and the ceiling to fall upon your head when there was no pretending you weren’t rolling your hips to his as he dragged inside your core. 

Maybe you were headless. Maybe you were a fool. But he kept on murmuring praises you could have sworn were made right in heaven, and you let yourself hope for a moment. Hope the prince was still your friend, hope he was not going to leave you here limp like a rag doll; all despite your friends’ warnings or the rumours in the guard that followed you like a second shadow. A heavy shadow, one filled with whispers that only calmed when Legolas entered the room and his stature silenced everything else. 

The rumours became insignificant the moment he hefted you up on the couch and had you burn against him and grip at his shoulders for the tiniest bit of relief. 

I thought you thought of me better  Someone you couldn’t lose  You said, “We’re not together.“ So now when we kiss I have anger issues

Often, rumours had a part of truth about them. 

You understood it when you were lying in the warmth of the aftermath once, half on top of him, and went to chase for his lips lazily. Because his eyes had darkened and turned into a frown as he looked at you; as if he had caught something in your eyes he didn’t want to see here. You stopped halfway to his mouth and wrinkled too, your eyes searching for the cause of his rejection frantically. 

“We’re not together“

That was the cause. He saw the flicker of growing love in your eyes and it panicked him. He thought it was clear from the start: this was nothing serious. This was casual. You weren’t supposed to read into it that much. 

In the middle of the night, with the remnant of the ache he placed upon you between your thighs, still smelling like sweat and him, he had the audacity to tell you you were nothing. And the worst? You took it without a flinch. 

You felt your heart tear in your chest, the blood flow everything inside, yet you showed nothing. 

It was your fault for thinking you were ever enough for him to consider in this kind of light. It was your fault for not seeing that you were the one gripping at his back, murmuring sweet nothings in his neck when he dipped into you, kissing his name into his mouth with a fever when you came; not him. 

You were not irreplaceable, nor the missing piece to his puzzle. 

It didn’t matter, you could do with something casual. You could be casual if he wanted you to, you could be everything he asked and more: the dark side of the sun, the hidden face of the moon, the crack in the atmosphere, or the tamed dove on his shoulder. 

It didn’t matter. Yet you leaned for a kiss after nodding like it was obvious you weren’t together, and you felt your fingers twitch with pent-up anger. 

In your dreams, you bit him in the kiss; tore off his rosey lips and coated them with blood. You scratched at his perfect ivory skin until it turned an angry shade of red, slapped him across the face and tightened your pretty fingers around his pretty, pale throat. 

In reality, you screamed his name with your back arched to the sky. The moans you made should have been proof of how impossible it was for you to keep this casual. 

You said, “Baby, no attachment“ But we’re… Knee deep in the passenger seat and your eating me out  Is it casual now?  Two weeks and your mom invites me to her house in long beach  Is it casual now? 

No attachment is what you kept on repeating to yourself. He had said it that way and he meant it. You could do it if it meant you got to not lose his friendship. Or him. 

Only, it did not feel like no attachment at all when he had you splayed on the royal throne in the throne room when his father was not here. It did not feel like nothing to be sat on a king’s throne, legs parted, with a prince mouthing at your skin between them hungrily. Perhaps the throne bore the marks of your nails digging into the armrests, still. 

Legolas went down so willingly it was almost hard to believe he meant it when he said it was casual. How could someone who didn’t feel anything for you get so visibly happy when you whined under soft ministrations? How could their eyes shine with a barely concealed pride at the bare sight of you already worming on your sit in anticipation. 

Yet he did. He worked the screams away with immortal perfection; earned the content sighs he made when you pulled at the roots of his hair, but stood up as soon as he was done, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Legolas took the time to dress you back up, to fix your wrecked appearance, before leaving you with a peck on your lips in which you could taste yourself: salty like tears.

It was getting harder everyday to brush it off as casual. You couldn’t look at yourself in the mirror without being imposed marks of the prince’s presence along your body. Like you belonged to him, like somehow he had any right on you. He had none, and so did you. But you couldn’t say seeing the other elves look so dejected after they spotted the hickeys in his neck, crawling the tiniest bit just past his collar, didn’t make you happy. 

The worst for your delusion came after. When his father, king Thranduil, invited you to dine with them in the royal Halls. This couldn’t be casual: his father inviting you in their home for dinner. Surely, he was aware of something, and if he was aware maybe Legolas talked to him about it. Or he heard the rumours and wanted to address them himself. 

You never knew; Thranduil never voiced his objective out loud. The dinner went out perfectly, he made no allusion at your relationship with his son and was less aloof than you would have thought him to be. He even asked a lot of questions. Perhaps it was the perfectly laid out plan of a king trying to better read you and your intentions, or perhaps it was genuine curiosity. Though you doubted the king would show anyone real curiosity, he already knew everything he needed to know. 

Meeting parents was definitely not casual. 

I know what you tell your friends  It’s casual, if it’s casual now Then baby get me off again  If it’s casual, it’s casual now

Legolas drowns the thought that this is maybe more than he ever intended it to be every time it comes to him. He casts it away like the plague and justifies himself to the stars who will listen to him. 

Sometimes, his friends listen to him too. Aragorn especially, when the ranger finds the time to travel to Mirkwood. 

Aragorn knows you, he met you once or twice. Furthermore, Aragorn is a very perceptive man, Legolas cannot hide anything from him because they know each other so well. So when you pass them both talking in the corridors and bow in curtesy to the human before sending a warm smile to the elf, of course he notices. Not only does he notice your smile, which is quite evident, but also his friend’s response to it: the slight straightening of his back, the twitch of his jaw, the tension in his shoulder… 

Aragorn sees all and he is quick to tease the prince about it. Who are you and what do you do to him to leave the mighty composed elf-prince so anguished merely by looking at you? What runs through Legolas’s mind? 

The answer is simple: you on your back squirming under him, mouth agape for air and the begs you let out. That’s what he sees. And how you lace back your dress after with sharp focus, or how you smooth back the folds of your skirt to pretend you do not look like a mess right now. 

But when Aragorn asks him, the only answer he can give is: “We are not courting. It’s just casual; I thought humans did this sort of things a lot?“. 

If elves do not usually have that kind of relationships it is because they are more sensitive, closer to their feelings. It seems logical, yet both Legolas and you refuse to acknowledge it. The high is worth the pain, you think. 

Dumb love, I love being stupid  Dream of us in a year  Maybe we’d have an apartment  And you’d show me off to your friends at the pier 

After a little while, thoughts you shouldn’t have begin to impose themselves in your mind. 

You allow yourself to dream of a future with the one man with whom you know nothing can happen. After all, you know nothing about Legolas. You know the way his body feels and the melody of his whines when his world hangs on the seem of your lips, but not his more intimate character. What is his favourite colour? Who is his best friend? Does he like to travel? How often does he think about his mother? 

All those questions are a mystery you never uncover. There is not enough of him as a person that you can place, so all your dreams are inherently silly.

You are aware of it, but your brain refuses to separate it from reality. You think about living with him: sharing a room every night even if it’s only for sleeping, waking up to the smell of breakfast being cooked, and being blessed with the sight of a slightly disheveled prince, back turned to you without his shirt. Deep down, you wish for it with all your heart. Perhaps he could even present you to his friends, and be so clingy that they would joke for you two to get a room. 

The dreams of having him all for yourself do not waver, especially not when he knocks on your door days later, looking on the edge of madness. Legolas’s eyes are glossy on your threshold, his legs buckle until he falls to his knees in front of you and buries his face in your belly, between the sheer folds of your nightgown. 

You don’t know what happened. You never ask, only let him release it by eating you out right on the floor and then have you for as long as he needs it. You don’t pry, don’t ask questions; you comb through his hair when he sobs in your shoulder as he sinks to the hilt, and end up sobbing yourself in small hiccups because the pace he sets never relents. 

In your haze, you hallucinate holy words:

“I love you, I love you, IloveyouIloveyouIIoveyou“ is what he babbles incoherently in the crook of your neck as he finishes and brings you to your own limit. 

But he doesn’t. Legolas has his mouth closed the whole time, and your mind runs too freely for your own good. 

I know “Baby no attachment“ But we’re… Knee deep in the passenger seat and your eating me out  Is it casual now?  Two weeks and your mom invites me to her house in long beach  Is it casual now?  I know what you tell your friends  It’s casual, if it’s casual now Then baby get me off again  If it’s casual

It’s hard being casual When my favourite bra lives in your dresser  And it’s hard being casual  When I’m on the phone talking down your sister 

You lay in the heavy aftermath of it on the floor after having taken it to his own room for a long while. None of you speak, you just let your gaze wander around. 

Your clothes lay discarded on the floor, you do too. But Legolas reaches with a hand for the covers on his bed and he pulls them down to cover you, as if it would change anything. It does. Your heart flutters at the attention and the warmth encompasses you softly as he lays back his head on your chest. His hand rests on your naked stomach, it heaves up and down with the rhythm of your breathing —still a bit ragged, still panting. 

What ruins your night is not the everlasting emptiness of your core when he is not here; it’s the bra you spot slightly hanging from his dresser. 

It’s your favourite, and you know you left it here on purpose. It has not moved, as if it has a place here and he keeps it just in case you stay long enough to need it. A silent testimony of how much unrequited time you spend with a prince who messes with your feelings without ever endangering his. 

There’s a jealousy that blooms in your stomach the day after. It’s green and ugly, you know you shouldn’t feel that way. You have no right. But it cannot be helped when you see him laughing with her from the corner of your eyes. 

It’s not her you should be mad at, it’s him. Tauriel did nothing wrong, but it’s so obvious he is affectionate towards her it hurts. In public, above all things. Why can’t he be affectionate with you? Why do you have to be a secret confined to the four walls of his room, to the dirty moment of an empty throne room? Why can he come crying to you and channel out his rage but you can’t? Why can’t you slap him when he’s beneath you for all that he makes you go through, for all the feelings that bear his name and drown you? 

And I try to be the chill girl that Holds her tongue and gives you space  I try to be the chill girl but  Honestly I’m not

You don’t interfere when he talks to her, or to others. You never come talk to him first, unless it’s necessary. You give him space, keep your emotions bottled up to please him. 

You play casual, unaffected. Or at least you try to. It works until you don’t have the mind to fake it anymore. Your anger spills out in outbursts, you grumble in a corner and avoid him like the plague when he tries to talk to you. There’s something wrong with you, it just shows.

You’re not the easy girl he would probably like you to be, not when he planted the seed of your love himself. You’re angry, you’re sad, you’re jealous and you’re hurt. 

Still, you open the door for him and bruise his opened mouth. 

Knee deep in the passenger seat and your eating me out  Is it casual now?  Two weeks and your mom invites me to her house in long beach  I know what you tell your friends.  Baby, get me off again 

I fucked you in the bathroom when we went to dinner  Your parents at the table, you wonder why I’m bitter  Bragging to your friends, I get off when you hit it  I hate to tell the truth, but I’m sorry, dude, you didn’t 

You shouldn’t have done that. Now you regret every choice you’ve made in the past few months. 

Escaping oh-so not subtly to the bathroom the second time his father invites you to dinner, only for Legolas to join you in minutes later; what were you thinking? You should have said no, should have left the luxurious bathroom of the Halls the moment he entered them. 

You had not. You just melted in his kiss and melted furthermore when they trailed to your neck. Worse when he hefted you up to sit on the edge of the sink, worse when he gathered the fabric of your dress in his fist to better exposed your already trembling legs. 

How could you ever escape him? Legolas was like a trap set to trigger only on you since the very beginning. The sole feeling of his burning skin sufficed to make you lose all sense. He kissed his way into your heart; a prince’s kiss, who is always granted everything he wants. Righteousness be damned, if he wants you he can have you. 

You hide your moans in his arm, try not to mess up his hair when he breaks you in half, do everything in your power to keep him pristine and untouched while he does the opposite. Does Legolas even cares about how other people see you? It seems not when he bites your lips, sucks on the side of your neck and pulls your hair just enough to make them seem wild. He does not care when he ends hot on the inner side of your thigh. He does not see you hold back shameful tears when you clean yourself up. 

But this time you leave first without looking back at him once, and he is still oblivious to your wrath as he braces himself against the sink, catching back his breath with his eyes closed. 

Are you the worse or the best thing that ever happened in his life? 

I hate that I let this drag on so long, now I hate myself  I hate that I let this drag on so long, you can go to hell. 

When Legolas find the courage to knock at your door after days of not seeing you, he feels his heart sinks in his chest, as if prefiguring something he knows in his guts. 

He opens the door, and then he finds your room empty —of you and of any of your furnitures. 

You left without a word. Like a shadow, a mirage in the desert. 

Some time in the night, he slips under the covers and pulls you into his arms.

His hand strokes your head, then cascades down to settle into the small of your back. You find his touch even in the misty haze of sleep's embrace, and you melt into it.

The air tonight was unseasonably warm, and your usual sleepwear grew pesky under the covers. You’d opted for a lightweight and loose fitting frock, which now hiked up to your waist as you wrapped a leg over his.

Your eyelids flutter open. Your parted lips are planted on his neck, hot breath trailing to his ears. A shiver hits his veins, a deep intake of air as you clumsily reach for his clothed chest.

“Hi,” you breathe, sleep in your voice.

“I have not disturbed any pleasant dreams, I hope.” He runs a cool hand over the warmed skin of your thigh, pausing to squeeze lightly before he continues his caress.

You shake your head a soft no. You breathe him in. Pine. Honey. Bloomed lavender. Any recollection of a dream is long scattered to the wind.

You stay like this for a moment, undoing his braids while his hand freely explores the expanse of your body.

And then his touch lingers, lithe fingers inching to toy with the outline of your underwear.

And your breath hitches, your hips grind into him to sooth the ache that flows in rolling waves. Your lips are on his after he’s stripped you bare, clutched fingers leaving imprints on his skin.

You’re kicking away the sheets and gripping his soft tendrils when his kiss trails down to your torso. Sweat on your brow, you moan into your palm when he drags a long, slow lick into your wet heat. Swelling with awe as you throw your head back into the pillow, he enters you with his tongue. Your thighs tighten around him.

“So sweet my star tastes,” he says, pressing hot kisses into quivering thighs. He takes his time with you, intent to control the ebb and flow of each orgasm. Flicks his tongue on your clit until you’re shivering with an upcoming peak, then a slow lap to bring you back down. He releases a hum of satisfaction as he slides another finger in, savouring the sight of your brows cinched together. When he’s made a mess of you he relents the firm palm planted on your torso, allowing you to rock into his mouth without restraint.

You can hardly speak when he finally sinks his cock into you, unable to think of anything else as you clench around his girth. You gasp into his neck, rake your fingers across his back. His thrust is slow, controlled. You arch into the mattress when he sets his full length inside you, heaving breasts brushing against his chest.

A low moan breezes past his lips, “Look into my eyes, melethel.” [‘my beloved’]

Under his consuming gaze, your breathing syncs with his. The air stills. All sounds but your breathing and the slickness of his length inside of you, cease to exist. The tide crashes over, under, and into you. You gasp into him.

“Kiss me,” you plead, a half whisper. He smiles, settles his hand on your jaw and the tip of his tongue traces your bottom lip. Your hands run through his hair, tugging lightly.

His kiss deepens. He’s close, you can feel it. Restraint in his jaw, quiet moans with honeyed strings of Sindarin praises falling from his lips when he breaks for air.

You untangle your hands from his hair, moving down to caress his toned chest. Your tongue runs along his ear.

“Fill me.” You coo.

He shudders, pauses mid thrust to collect himself, an unfurling of composure upon the warm heat of your gentle suckle on his lobe. His cock throbs a plea to bury himself deeper into you. Patience is a virtue he possesses as easily as breathing, yet every fibre of his being begs to comply to your request. And he does—rolls his hips with a regained strength, presses his forehead against yours. The way you feel never ceases to shock him. With a moan he captures your swollen lips in a kiss as he spills into you.

You hum a soft sigh of contentment, hands working to smooth away the tension of his release from his muscles. It is true that elves recover quickly, a fact that heats your cheeks upon remembrance. Yet the prince melts under your touch, settles his weight onto you, and you giggle. You don’t care how sweaty you’ve become, unbothered completely by the early chirps of birdsong that beckon morning’s first light.

A new softness in his eyes when he lifts his head from your neck to gaze into you, “what are you thinking of?”

You drink in the sight of his disheveled hair, golden strands strewn about.

“Wondering if I’m still dreaming,” you smile, biting your lip to subdue the rise of laughter, “though the state of your hair tells me I am not.”

He leans in for a peck on the lips, “I will hold you personally responsible for that.”

You trace a finger along his face, he’s tender to the touch. The taste of a taunt forms on your tongue. “Please do.”