Work Text:
Thranduil has lost count of how many times he has informed the bowman that the coronation is unavoidable.
“Yes,” he says, for hopefully that last time, “it would be over quickly if only you would cease belabouring the point, Master Bowman. The ceremony shall take place in the most rebuilt or at least the most structurally sound hall of Dale and I as closest monarch shall bear witness. It needn't take more than an hour when the day comes. Though a celebration will be expected. Emissaries from neighbouring realms will wish to wait on you, and you shall let them.”
Reluctantly Bard bows his head. “Fine,” he says, eyeing Thranduil in a manner that would almost be cause for alarm were he not fully confident in Bard’s friendship. “I’d argue further but I can see you’ve made up your mind and there’s no moving you. How long will I have to put up with a crown on my head?”
Thranduil exhales slowly, brings a hand to his temples to rub the persistent headache away. “You will be a king, Bowman, the crown shall remain on your head until you are alone. To divest yourself of it before this would be a show of weakness or displeasure. You do not want to appear less than a king.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Bard mutters, “I’d much rather return to my children and have done with this. I’m not a ruler, my lord Thranduil. I’m not like you.”
Thranduil places a hand on Bard’s shoulder, a finger brushing the warm skin above his collar.
“And that, my lord Bowman, is where you are incorrect. None other could have led the men and women of Dale in the battle as you did. None other commands their respect, has earnt their trust as you have. Being born with royal blood is one thing, command is entirely another. You know this to be true, why do you fight it?”
Bard covers Thranduil’s hand with one of his own, the rough pad of his thumb tracing semi-circles onto the flesh above his own dark sleeve. “I did not ask for this life, and I do not feel prepared for it.”
“Only the usurper asks for the throne,” Thranduil replies. “The wizard would tell you that your lack of thirst for the power is precisely the reason it flows to you.”
Bard laughs. “You would not agree?”
“I hold little with the false wisdoms of old men. I believe in what you have shown, leadership on and off the battlefield, a desire to spare your people war. Wise for a leader of men.” Thranduil moves to stand in front of him. “Be well, Bard.”
“I am well,” Bard tells him, and then he smiles. “My children are pleased with this.”
Thranduil tries not to think of Legolas, he does not wish to trouble Bard with his own pain. It has been three years, Legolas is alive and well just far away. He brushes the thought from his mind. “And how are they?”
“Ever growing taller,” Bard says, smiling. “Bain will soon surpass me as an archer. Sigrid and Tilda have begun to gossip amongst themselves about boys. They grow up fast and yet all I want is to shield them from everything.”
“That need never fades.” Thranduil reaches out and lightly traces a fingertip from the corner of Bard’s eye to his mouth. Bard doesn’t break eye contact, even as he parts his lips slightly and Thranduil gasps, snatching his hand away. “I should leave you, your tailor will be here presently and I have business to attend to in the forest.”
Bard rushes to his feet and places himself between Thranduil and the door. “My lord Thranduil, will I see you again this day?”
Thranduil shakes his head. “I will be at your coronation, Master Bowman,” he says, moving quickly to take his leave before Bard manages to stop him again. “Boe annin gwad.”
His horse is a beautiful creature, strong and fair. Easier to ride between the kingdoms than an elk. He hears the footfalls before they reach him and turn to find a child looking up at him with a somewhat curious expression.
“I’m Tilda,” the child says, sticking out a hand for Thranduil to shake. “My da’s getting a crown tomorrow. Are you the king of the elves?”
Thranduil watches as the child takes in his attire, her eyes catch on the barely there jewels that line his coat.
“Some of the elves,” he replies. “I am king of the forest, formerly the Greenwood.”
“Why’d they change the name?”
He does not imagine that the Evil that creeps over his borders would be appropriate to name before a child, particularly Bard’s daughter. “The forest grew darker,” Thranduil says.
Tilda furrows her brow. “Why did that happen?” she asks and Thranduil wants nothing more in that moment than to see her smile, to take away the care she has of his darkened realm.
“It is the nature of wild things to return to chaos just as it is the nature of light things to stamp out the darkness. My realm will heal, little one, as your father rebuilt Dale.”
“Da says I’m to tell you not to go tonight,” Tilda tells him. “He says there are rooms fit for a king made up. I think that he shouldn’t stop you from going home, though. Is your home lovely, even though it’s dark?”
“It is lovely, perhaps one day you will see it.” Thranduil gathers the reins of his horse. “Tell your father that I thank him for his kind offer and that I am truly sorry to have to decline.”
Tilda smiles. “I’ll tell him. Will you be back tomorrow?”
“I would not miss such a day, child. Now tell your father that I’m gone. He will be anxious should you not return quickly.”
The girl nods and rushes away, calling behind her as she runs: “goodnight, elf king!”
Thranduil mounts his horse, and bids the stars look fondly on the soon princess of Dale as he rides for home.
*
Bard sees that his children are sleeping before he goes. The guards at the wall halt him, try to reason with him. He tells them that the ride will clear his head so that he make sleep better to awake as a king. Eventually he talks his way onto a horse and rides as fast as he can to the river.
He’s not overly sure how he knows that Thranduil will still be there, perhaps it’s just hope and not knowledge. But the moonlight shines on the water of the river Running and upon the tall silent being of the Elvenking.
“I thought you’d gone,” Bard accuses and Thranduil’s grey horse spooks. “You told my child that you’d gone.”
Thranduil doesn’t turn, he whispers in some dialect of elvish Bard can barely understand and the horse calms down. He turns to Bard but keeps his eyes to the ground.
“I meant to be gone,” he says. “Why would you have had me stay?”
“I - I,” Bard tries. “I just-”
“You just wanted. Do you even know what you desired.” It is not a question, Thranduil’s lyrical voice is flat and suddenly the moonlight seems to be overbright, exposing fissures and fault lines and Thranduil won’t look at him.
Bard supposes he doesn’t know what he wanted nor even why he followed here. Surely he should be within the walls of his kingdom with his people waiting for the dawning of his coronation day. He is uncertain, though, and he has never been one to sleep on an uncertainty.
“I did not want to be alone,” he says, finally, and now it is he who is unable to meet Thranduil’s gaze.
“In a walled city full of his own kind, the king of Dale is alone?”
Bard looks up sharply. “That’s hardly fair.”
Thranduil takes a step forward, slowly but not hesitantly. “A king,” he murmurs, “is never alone.”
“Then I’d best use what’s left of my time,” Bard says and kisses him.
If he were not half-blind with want and fear and longing he’d have stopped himself - Thranduil is a king, the likes of which no coronation can bring Bard to equal and not only that but he’s everything Bard is not: he’s bright and glittering and sharp lines where Bard is coarse rough edges and darkness. And Bard is mortal, a man, what can he ever hope to give this creature, this achingly old being Bard can barely comprehend at the best of times. But if he does this, he feels less of a coward, and it’s probably the last chance he’ll get before the heavy crown is atop his head and driving every thought of anything else from his head.
So he kisses him, leaning up and close-lipped until Thranduil makes a vicious sound and kisses back, driving their mouths together in a clash of teeth, blunt mortal against sharp and wicked elf and Bard thinks his lip might be bleeding but he can’t bring himself to care because Thranduil is kissing him back and doesn’t show signs of stopping.
Thranduil’s hands find his shoulders and push him back a little, breaking them apart but holding him still. It takes Bard a moment to refocus and when he does he sees Thranduil’s eyes, normally the colour of a cold winter’s morning, now a deep grey darkened into something that sends a jolt roiling through him. The Elvenking’s pure white hands grip him almost painfully tight as they both struggle to pace their heavy breathing.
“If I were to ride to my kingdom now,” Thranduil muses, so quietly that even from an arms length away Bard has to listen carefully to catch, “I’d barely have arrived before I must ride here again.” He relaxes his hold on Bard’s shoulders, and the tension in his arms that holds Bard at bay eases allowing Bard to move closer again.
Slowly, Bard places a hand on Thranduil’s chest, just above where his heart is. “What will you do, then?”
“I’ll ride back to Dale with you.”
Bard flinches at the mention of Dale, the looming responsibility he’ll take gladly in the morning is terrifying now and he instantly feels guilty for the thought. The last thing he wants is for this to be merely a means of avoidance, of silencing the voices in his mind that tell him he is not worthy of the crown, that he will lead Dale back into ruin.
“Of course,” Bard says, reaching up onto his toes to kiss Thranduil again and this time he responds instantly, winding an arm around Bard’s waist and crushing him closer. The second kiss is less violent than the first but Bard is still all but knocked back by its intensity, the fire he’s never really felt before. No one has ever kissed Bard like this, his dear beloved wife was soft and supple beneath him and he’d loved her so much but this, this is an altogether different thing. Bard does not think it love, it’s more like need, a want and a necessity and Thranduil is so much all at once.
He reaches up to draw his hands through Thranduil’s hair, almost afraid that his rough hands might tarnish it but much like the rest of Thranduil the fragility is a lie - Bard winds some around his fist and tugs and Thranduil gasps, loud and sharp in the silent night air and all Bard wants is to make him do it again. He drags his fingers further down Thranduil’s long, long hair and pulls again and the moan Thranduil gives sends a spark straight to Bard’s groin.
By the looks of it, the colour blooming high upon the Elvenking’s cheek, Thranduil is not unmoved by this. The hand that isn’t clutching Bard to him has roamed to unclasp Bard’s coat and Bard can feel the coolness of the night through his thin shirt. Thranduil’s hair falls in front of the his eyes and he growls, swiping strands behind his right ear.
“You favour your right side, yet keep me on your left,” Bard notes and Thranduil tenses, the arm around Bard loosens and Bard feels more vulnerable than he had before, he recognises now how easily Thranduil could snap his neck and leave him here. Bard brings his hands back to his sides, just in case.
“Yes,” says Thranduil warily, “what of it?”
Bard tries to be as still as possible, like he’s dealing with a wounded animal and not a pristine king. “I did not mean to cause offence, I - It just, I suppose I just want to know why.”
“Must there be a reason?” Thranduil moves back, mounts his horse, and says: “Know that you are trusted, my lord Bard. That ought be enough for you. Will you ride back with me?”
His horse is drinking at the river, he whistles and it comes to him. “Yes,” he says, and murmurs to his horse to move.
+
The ceremony is quiet, the people of Dale adore Bard, it is shown clearly in every falling flower thrown, every smile cast, but the ceremony is quiet, as if the people dare not break the spell. Thranduil will always have the loyalty of his people, the divine right of his father coursing through the blood in his veins but he wonders, watching Bard walk to the altar of his city’s grand hall, what it might be like to be a chosen king.
Bard’s children, save for the boy, stand with the elven host of Mirkwood, as for the elves of Rivendell and Lórien their emissaries are gracious and bring tiding from their lands of great joy at a crowned king of Dale. “A fortress once strong will be strong again,” Elrond’s emissary had said before the ceremony commenced, “and together with the mountain and the forest shall hold between the darkness and the North.”
Thranduil had eyed the elf. “A message directly from your lord?”
“Yes, my lord Thranduil,” the elf had continued, and Thranduil thinks he’d seen a flicker of fear in the poor boy’s eyes. The emissary from Lórien had agreed with that from Rivendell. “We too have heard of a growing darkness, my lord Thranduil, the lady Galadriel herself foresees another great battle with-”
Thranduil had interrupted then, cautious of the child clinging to his hand so as not to get lost in the milling crowd. “Let us hope that such a war, with such a creature, does not occur for long years,” he had said, with a tone of finality that had had the emissaries graciously taking their leave of him.
Nevertheless, the ceremony takes place on a golden winter morning, the procession moves into the grandest hall and Bain, just before the modest wooden throne, holds the crown. Even Thranduil, who had offered up his craftsmen for the task, must admit that the love the people of Dale bear their king is evident in the crown they have worked and moulded from that of the city guards of old.
Bard, dressed in uncommonly light colours, a finely tailored set of greys and blues, smiles at the people gathered to him. He catches Thranduil’s eye and they exchange a look that could mean all manner of things to anyone else, Bard looks at him in mock pain and Thranduil smiles, Tilda waves and the elder daughter Sigrid stands with Tauriel and they both smile widely at the almost-king.
When Bard reaches his son any murmur that was present ceases, and a hush of respect falls over the congregation. Bain says, in the voices of his father, his forefathers, the voices of the kings of Dale from ages before, the words: “Hereby are you crowned a King of Dale, and so shall your sons be and their sons, in a line of direct succession from you. Arise king Bard of Dale, first of his name.”
Thranduil sees the boy mouth ‘Da’ and Bard smile before turning around. The crowd erupts in shouts and cheers, the gladness of the people of Dale made knowable through their song, and Bard begins to walk among them.
As Bard reaches the centre of the hall he stops. “This crown,” he says, “is an honour as much as I hold it a blessing, and I shall strive until the day I die to be worthy of the trust and faith you have put in me to be your king.”
And so, Thranduil thinks, it comes to pass that a king of men shall sit in the Rhovanion, on the Celduin, between kingdoms of Elves and Dwarves.
+
As the light began to die Bard had been ushered to a seat overlooking the high courtyard upon which his people are throwing a festival. Thranduil had brought Sigrid and Tilda to him after the ceremony but now has secluded himself in a corner of the balcony with Tauriel and two other elves Bard assumes are emissaries, their clothing is subtly different and as is their beauty. One wears dark purple trimmed with gold and has dark hair, Bard has heard of the realm of Elrond, in Rivendell, and would place this elf as his. The other is light, of a similar kind to Thranduil but his hair is more yellow than the Elvenking’s pure silk white, and Bard thinks of the tales he heard as a boy of the elves of Lórien and the beauty of the Lady Galadriel.
Sigrid grins at him, “The Elvenking did excuse himself, Da, he said that the other elves had news from their lords. You look like he’s taken half your heart with him over there.”
He knows Sigrid is just joking, though she is her mother’s daughter, intuitive and strong of mind and heart, she probably knows more of him than he does. He laughs, “Perhaps I need to know their news as well.”
“I’m sure he’ll share it with you if you need it,” says Sigrid knowingly, “but they’re elves, Da.”
“That’s very true, love.” Bard smiles at her, and then looks down onto the festival. “Go find your sister, have fun, you don’t need to sit up here with me.”
“Someone has to keep you out of trouble,” she says, but then she laughs and wanders off and Bard is, for the first time today, alone. Of course there are people all around him but the day is dying and many have left or gone to the festival.
Bard feels overwhelmed by all of this, just as he’d known he would, he doesn’t like all the ceremony and circumstance and part of him wishes that none of this had happened, that the dwarves had never woken the dragon and that he was still a smuggler barely surviving in Laketown. But then he sees the smiles on the people’s faces, free of the cares that burdened them under the Master’s capricious and self-serving rule.
“The crown suits you well, my lord Bard,” comes a voice and then Thranduil stands at his side. “The light clothing however is a strange difference.”
Bard smiles. “I told the tailors that dark had always suited me better but they said that a king should be light, it shows honesty and truth,” he looks at Thranduil’s light greys and silvers, and the crown of dark green leaves, and adds bravely “though not always.”
The Elvenking laughs, a true laugh that brings a smile to Bard’s lips just from the joy of it.
“Are you calling me a liar?” he asks.
“No,” says Bard, “but you have a strict economy with your words.” He sobers himself up, “are you going to tell me what news your brethren carried?”
Thranduil remains smiling, “It seems,” he tells him, “that Mithrandir continues to talk of the shadow of Mordor rising, and that the lords of Rivendell and Lórien feel there is truth in it.”
“A war with Mordor,” Bard says, and he can’t tell why Thranduil is still smiling, though the lives of men barely remember the wars before.
“Long years until this comes to pass, my lord, I would not have you fear distant shadows of old things. In time shadows always come forth, such is the nature of the world.” Thranduil takes one of Bard’s hands. “Come,” he says, “enjoy the festivities they throw for you. To be a king is to be lonely, I suggest you take all the joy you can from this.”
The festival carries on into the small hours until finally the dwarves have enough and without their steady revelry the people begin to come down from the clouds.
King Dáin and his host find Bard and thank him for the wine, and wish him a long and healthy rule before leaving for their mountain. Next come the emissaries of Elrond and Celeborn, wishing him much the same but in loftier terms and talk of Light of the old ones, they refuse rooms in the castle, citing the urgency with which they must ride for home. Finally all that remain are his people and he bids them go to their homes and sleep.
Tauriel is holding a sleeping Tilda and Bain and Sigrid look about to drop as they walk to the castle with two guards at their heels and Thranduil, silent, at Bard’s side.
Bard tells Tauriel that a room has been prepared for her next to his children’s quarters. “Thank you,” he says to her, quiet as not to wake Tilda, “for what you have done this day and for what you did before the dragon woke.”
She glances at Thranduil briefly. “I am glad that I stayed with them, your children helped me much that day.” She looks at Tilda with wonder in her soft eyes and whispers: “they are lovely.”
Bard laughs. “Not always,” he assures her quietly. “But they have certainly grown attached to you.”
Tauriel nods and turns to Sigrid, telling her to lead on to their rooms. She looks back at Thranduil, who nods, and she turns back to Sigrid and Bain with a smile.
Thranduil stands next to him, quiet and still, and Bard thinks of last night, by the river. He thinks of this kiss and his cheeks start to burn and he’s been managing to keep the memory at bay but the dam has broken and he just wants it all again. And Thranduil is just there, he’s been quiet for hours now and Bard doesn’t know whether to hope or whether it’s hopeless but he asks anyway: “Drink with me?”
There’s a pause, then “All right.”
Bard leads Thranduil to his quarters, he told the masons that the castle should be small but efficient and not extravagant, the message clearly was for the most part ignored and his rooms are the evidence. He has three large rooms, a bedchamber, a study of sorts and a small library he’s yet to fill. He leads Thranduil to his bedchamber with large windows overlooking the lake on one side and smaller windows to the mountain on the other.
He pours a glass of wine and offers it to Thranduil who takes it.
The silence is getting oppressive now and the candles that the maids must have lit sometime in the afternoon are burning low.
“So,” says Thranduil.
“So,” says Bard.
Bard cannot think of anything to say that could possibly break this silence without surrendering something of his dignity. He’s had dreams of how this might go, focusing on one point of the Elvenking each night, from his long white hands to his shoulders (the shiver of knowing that Thranduil is just tall enough, just strong enough, to be a physical threat without trying, the thought of what that could mean in other areas) to his cold eyes and silken hair.
He’s thought of, imagined, everything in the sharpest detail he could conjure and the night at the river had magnified it all. He know how soft Thranduil’s hair is to the touch, he knows how those hands feel on his skin, he knows now how much he wants it.
“You’ve been quiet, my lord Thranduil,” Bard says finally, giving up on the silence and the thoughts he can’t stamp down.
Thranduil leans against the wall. “It occurs to me that there is nothing to say.” He takes a breath and meets Bard’s eyes. “You are a king now, my equal.”
“I don’t feel it,” Bard tells him.
“Why?”
Bard shrugs, moves to stand in front of Thranduil, as close as he dare. “That I do not know.”
Thranduil puts down his glass, eyes bright and challenging. “What do you know, then?”
“That I want to follow through with what happened at the river,” he says and watches as Thranduil’s pupils dilate, making his light eyes an almost steel grey. “I know that I want you.”
“And how do you desire me?” Thranduil places his hands on Bard’s chest, not pushing, not even keeping him at a distance just touching. The contact is warm and the words are all Bard needs to move.
He kisses Thranduil, one hand cupping the Elvenking’s jaw and the other worming between their chests to take one of Thranduil’s. He brings both their hands to his side and presses closer, crowding Thranduil against the wall, breathing harshly between desperate kisses.
“I,” he breathes and Thranduil looks at him, eyes flickering to and from his lips, and he’s been semi-hard since Thranduil mentioned desire but now. “I want you in any way you’ll have me.”
With that Thranduil surges forward and all control Bard had over their kisses is lost, just like at the river. Thranduil kisses him like he needs him, hungry and snarling and violent and he’s walking Bard back until the backs of Bard’s legs hit the side of his bed.
“I would have you beneath me, king of Dale,” Thranduil whispers between unbelievable kisses, and his hands are pushing the coat off Bard’s shoulders.
Bard gets the message, and as his hands find the first clasp of Thranduil’s robe high on his neck it strikes him that he has no idea what might other clothing might rest under this outer finery. All his life he has lived in shirts, trousers, a coat if it is cold, and blanket if colder still. The curiosity only serves to spur him faster and Thranduil seems to agree, opening the buttons of Bard’s new fine shirt with a feverish speed.
It turns out that Thranduil wears no shirt underneath his robe, and Bard hears him hiss slightly at the cold and Bard pushes it from his shoulders, causing him to move his hands from Bard’s shirtfront for a moment before the robe drops heavily to the floor and those clever hands are on him again.
Bard takes the chance to trail his fingers across the smooth, pale plains of Thranduil’s chest, feels muscles tense under his touch and when he reaches a pale pink nipple he twists lightly, knowing that his calloused hands must be some sensation to the Elvenking when Thranduil gasps, loud and his hands abandon their task at Bard’s shirt and move up to his neck as Thranduil kisses him again, fierce and wanting.
Bolstered by some herebefore unknown courage Bard twists again and is rewarded with Thranduil gasping against his mouth. Thranduil pulls back, mischief in his eyes and all but tears the shirt from Bard’s shoulders before placing a hand at the back of Bard’s neck and tugging his head back to kiss him again.
Whilst glad for the opportunity Bard feels that the two of them are still not naked enough and when he tells Thranduil this it earns his a laugh and a shove as Thranduil pushes him onto his back on the bed, making good on his promise.
Thranduil stays by the side of the bed and unlaces his boots and Bard does the same before moving to drag Thranduil closer to him.
Finally, Bard thinks, Thranduil kneels above him, breaking from untying his breeches in order to bend and kiss him. He’s thought of this many ways, but the real thing, the heady jolt of need and want and heat at the fact that Thranduil wants this, wants him. The knowledge that the king of Mirkwood is in his bedchamber, on his bed. Well, that’s more than he’d ever imagined it to be and he can’t stop himself from pushing himself up to kiss Thranduil again, and again and he’s panting and Thranduil’s laughing but he wouldn’t have it any other way.
And then Thranduil works a hand around his cock and he swears he stops breathing and for a second all he can do is arch up into the touch and Thranduil is just looking at him with those dark eyes and Bard almost loses it there but he doesn’t, he is going to make this last.
Thranduil starts to move his hand and Bard snaps back into reality with a groan, reaching almost blindly for Thranduil’s arms, shoulders, neck, hair anything for purchase, to hold. And then Thranduil removes his hand and starts untying the lace of his own breeches and Bard sits up, tugging off his trousers and then just watching as Thranduil joins him in nakedness.
“You’re beautiful,” Bard says, so quietly he thinks he might just have thought it until Thranduil looks at him. Thranduil darts out a pink tongue and wets his lips, and then he’s moving to reach for Bard, “as are you,” he says, and Bard can see his eyes alight on the scars that the fire gave him, and the scars of the blades and arrows in the battle. Thranduil has scars too, thin ones down his left side, almost like the scars a man who had been struck by lightning had. “I didn’t think elves had scars,” he says.
Thranduil makes an impatient noise, “usually we do not,” he says quickly and then he has Bard by the jaw again and he’s kissing him, pressed up close, both of them kneeling on the bed now, and he moves his hand down to grasp at both of them, bringing their cocks together and the friction is so so so close to enough and then Thranduil starts moving his hand again, around them both and Bard clings to him. He tries to kiss him but misses and gets the soft skin of Thranduil’s throat, he bites down not hard enough to break even mortal skin but Thranduil still keens, both of them electrified and sparking at every touch.
“Have you done this before?” Thranduil manages to ask and Bard knows he isn’t talking of what they are doing now, he nods, says “once, but I confess that I have recently touched myself and thought of you.”
The rhythm Thranduil has built up stutters and he grabs Bard’s jaw, forcing their eyes to meet. “Tell me what you do,” he commands, voice half-wrecked and Bard marvels at the effect they have on each other here “tell me.”
“I stroke myself,” Bard says, and he hasn’t even the care to be embarrassed with himself for this honesty, this weakness. “Some nights I pour oil upon my fingers and-”
Thranduil smothers his second admission with a kiss that reaches new heights of desperation and heat and Bard grasps at his sides, then his hair, tugging and making Thranduil gasp again and again until Thranduil moves his hand away from their cocks and begs, like a half-drowned man, “tell me you have oil now,” and when Bard gestures to the small cabinet aside his bed Thranduil wastes no time in grabbing for the bottle Bard keeps there.
Bard lets himself be pushed onto his back and watches as Thranduil coats his fingers and presses one into him. The feeling is like nothing he’d ever be able to explain and he pushes his hips downward wantonly, groaning as Thranduil breaches him further, and then there’s another finger joining the first and the stretch and burn quickly subsides into a piercing pleasure when Thranduil finds that spot with one long finger and Bard sees sparks,
All of his nerves are on fire and he writhes underneath Thranduil until he begs, begs for Thranduil to just “Fuck me, please.”
Thranduil crawls up to kiss him, to get a pillow and Bard lifts up his hips, he knows how this works. Then Thranduil is back to where he was and Bard hears him gasp as he pours oil onto himself. He reaches down and grabs for Thranduil’s cock, guiding him home and then Thranduil is pushing forward, large and slick and new, and Bard has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from groaning so loud he wakes the entire castle because this, this is everything and then he’s begging for Thranduil to move and he barely recognises his own voice.
“Please, please,” Bard reaches out to hold onto Thranduil, “by the sea and stars please, “Move.”
Thranduil laughs and does as he’s told, hands either side of Bard’s shoulders and Bard doesn’t think that he’s ever seen anything more strange, more hauntingly beautiful than the concentration and wonder on Thranduil’s face as he starts to move his hips in small circles, opening Bard up slowly. He hooks a leg around him, pulling Thranduil the last inches until they’re flush together and Bard has to focus on remembering how to breathe.
When Thranduil starts moving again the silence on his part is broken, he starts speaking saying things Bard barely catches, about kings and want and need and years and Bard has never felt more in agreement and he tells Thranduil so.
“Wanted you since I first saw you,” he gasps, as Thranduil thrusts into him again, “wanted you last night.”
Thranduil moans, “You,” he breaks off, muttering in Elvish, “you’re dangerous to me, this,” he leans down to kiss Bard, “this is dangerous to me.”
“I will never hurt you,” Bard says against his mouth, hands roaming across Thranduil’s slick skin, the flat planes and deadly lines of him. Thranduil is beautiful, he is an elf this is a given, a universal constant known the world over: Elves are beautiful. But Thranduil is an altogether different matter, Bard thrills for him not just physically but mentally.
Bard had wanted this from the moment he’d noticed that Thranduil keeps him on his weaker side, from the second Thranduil took the time to explain what he knew of wizards. When Thranduil gave him the chance to treat before signing their peoples away to war. When Bard had glimpsed the soul behind the crown, behind the beauty.
His hands are fisted in the sheets and Thranduil rolls his hips, fucking into him, then leaning forward and coiling a hand around Bard’s leaking cock and he moans, biting Thranduil’s lip and the bastard just laughs. And Bard thinks in this moment, that all he’d thought last night was wrong. This is love, not the same love he had felt for his wife, no, but still love and still pure and still ferocious in its intensity and Bard is struck by the feeling beyond the want and the need.
This isn’t just fucking, Thranduil is not just a distraction, he can offer something to the Elvenking. It’s more than just a surrender, it’s being welcome, he’s welcome under Thranduil, he’s wanted. Thranduil wants him just as much as he does.
As if in agreement Thranduil moans, “Bard,” and shifts, leans back, changes the angle and thrusts back in, fast and deep and hitting that spot again and it’s perfect and it’s overwhelming and Bard tries and fails to stop the stream of curses he bites out at the sensation, being filled.
The muscles of the arm Thranduil is using to keep himself up are tensing but he keeps his rhythm on Bard’s cock in time with his thrusts, leaning down sometimes to claim Bard’s lips in kisses that move from being controlled and deep to shallow, biting, gasping things with teeth clashing. Often they miss altogether and Thranduil finds Bard’s throat, sucking and biting and teasing.
Bard’s begging has morphed into pleading for more, and Thranduil is not much better, muttering in broken sentences half Elvish and half in the common tongue. Bard can make out the urgency in the words, words like ‘tight’ and ‘hot’ and ‘good’ and Bard agrees, making noises he barely believes he can make. Hissing as Thranduil’s hand moves on his over-sensitive skin, tight and good around his cock in a way that’s too much and just not enough.
And then Thranduil hits that spot again and Bard cries out as he comes, like never before, spilling endlessly and grabbing for Thranduil’s hand beside him.
He tenses around Thranduil and then Thranduil gasps his name, like a prayer and a curse and locks them together, coming as he finishes the word.
Thranduil’s collapse is controlled, he drops his head to Bard’s shoulder, breathing heavily, half-sighing as he pulls himself free of Bard and rolls onto his back beside him, throwing an arm over his eyes.
Bard smiles, and then starts laughing and he can’t really stop until Thranduil turns to him, eyes questioning.
“Do you understand my desire now?” he asks and Thranduil smiles, leaning forward and kissing his forehead.
“I think I do, king of Dale,” he murmurs, eyelids fluttering closed as Bard cleans himself up and grabs a blanket from a nearby chair, throwing it over them both.
“I think I do.”
+
In the morning Thranduil rises early and Bard blinks at him as he finds his clothes. He must make some small noise as Thranduil walks back to the bed, kissing him close-mouthed before murmuring that he has to go, truly this time, but that he is sure they will see each other again very soon.
“We’d better,” Bard tells him.
When Bard next opens his eyes, he is alone.