Catatonic

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Oropher cares for Thranduil after the Second Kinslaying.  Things are not going well.  This is a companion piece to the entire series connected with "Cheat" and with "Divided", but is not chronologically connected obviously.  What can I say, I just fell in love with this pairing and plot and it just won't leave me alone.  I swear it isn't my fault.  Oh, and I should say this right here, this has blatant mention of rape and male pregnancy in it.  Takes place three months after the Second Kinslaying probably somewhere in Ossiriand or on the other side of the Ered Luin.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Amrod x Thranduil

Characters: Oropher, Thranduil (Amrod and the Valar mentioned)

Warning: extremely AU, past non-con (mildly explicit description of the aftermath), male pregnancy (blatant and undeniable), catatonia, trauma, murder, death, violence

Song: Shi-ki

Words: 1,107
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catatonic (adjective): characterized by a marked lack of movement, activity, or expression
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/catatonic?show=0&t=1369271125

It had been three months since the end of their world.

Three very long months for the survivors of the second sacking of Doriath.

And for one Oropher of Doriath, these last three months had dragged on for an eternity, never-ending torment whipping across his already-shattered psyche.  Each moment seemed to stretch and stretch into the distance, never changing, never offering catharsis.  Never yielding results.  It was maddening, the helplessness, the waiting, the watching for some sign that everything would be okay when he knew that it never could be again.  Not now.  Not anymore.

He would sit at the bedside of his only child and stroke pale hair, combing out knots that worked themselves somehow into the soft locks.  He would stroke dark brows and smooth tension from the crease between.  He would hold cold, lifeless hands in his own broad, callused palms and plead with the Valar, bargaining anything and everything he had if they would just give back his child.

Of course, there was never any answer.

And when the reality became too much to bear, he would speak and pretend that the spirit housed in the body before him could hear, would tell the young elf about their new home far from the lingering shadows of the caves of Doriath, about the fresh, clean air and the talkative trees and the broad open sky overhead, about how beautiful and warm Anor's rays were as they shone down upon bare skin and the soft coolness of Ithil lighting their way through their darkest hours.

Thranduil never responded.

He breathed, but never spoke.  He blinked, but never saw.

And Oropher did not know what else to do.  His frustration and despair and hopeless mounted day-by-day until it consumed any happiness their escape and survival could possibly have provided.  Because there was nothing he could do.  Because no one could change the past.

He could not take away the memories.  He could not take away the screams echoing through their sacred, beloved halls.  He could not take away the sight of blood splattered over rich carving and bodies leaking crimson into the creases of marble floors.  He could not take away the pure cruelty inflicted upon his people by the heartless sons of fire and death.

He could not take away the memory of finding Thranduil staring vacantly into the distance.  The young elf was tied down to a bed frame, shaking all over and bleeding from lacerations and completely naked, and part of him was screaming and clawing and sobbing in horror at the knowledge of what he would see if he dared blink his eyes but dearly wished to deny, warring with the pure instinct urging his body to flee as far and fast as his feet could carry him.

Dead.  His son was ravaged and dead.

Except the child was still breathing.  The shallow rise and fall of bruised ribs was telling, but why was there no struggle, why he was not rising, fighting or fleeing...?

And he knew... knew with terrible certainty that made him dizzy and sick to the core.

Getting closer only made him wish that all of this was a nightmare, that any moment he would awake to dark, silent night to weep hysterically into his pillow.  But when he reached out and touched the nauseating vision, it did not disappear.  Neither did it stir.

"Thranduil!" He slit open the ropes, removed bruised and bloody wrists from captivity. "Thranduil, ion-nín!"

Nothing.  Not a twitch.  Not a blink.  Not a sound.

And he was crying and the world was blurry and if they didn't move now they were both going to join their slaughtered kin in the mass grave of their home.  But no amount of shouting or shaking would rouse the empty shell before him, devoid of spirit and light, limp and trembling.  And where he found the strength to carry the other's broken form upon trembling arms, Oropher could not say, but somehow his arms found their way beneath wrenched shoulders and bruised thighs and ignored the slickness and blood against his bare fingers.

That he managed to carry the catatonic body from the wreckage of their once great, revered kingdom without being captured and murdered was a miracle.

But Thranduil never woke.

And Oropher knew... knew it was those Golodhrim Kinslayers that had done this, that they raped and pillaged and murdered without thought, that they must have enjoyed destroying all the lives cast aside and sundered from bodies left to rot in what had once been their beloved sanctuary, must have enjoyed unraveling innocence and staining it with filth and sin as their helpless prey thrashed and begged and screamed.  It made him shake and tremble with rage, made him want to find whoever had dared lay hand on his son and torture them until they begged on the ground like a dog for mercy.  And he would die himself before allowing them the precious gift of death's loving embrace.

And he would enjoy it.  He would enjoy making that golodh scum scream and writhe like his child must have beneath the bloodthirsty, vicious warrior's superior strength.  He would enjoy making the wicked rapist suffer a fate ten times worse than that which he doled out so carelessly.

But no amount of anger or vengeful thought would make Thranduil speak or drink or eat.  No amount of fantasies of making the Kinslayers pay for the harm they had done, the souls they had ravaged or the families they had destroyed would be enough to bring back the sweet-hearted, bright-eyed youth lost beneath a torrential downpour of marred darkness.  No amount of wishful thinking could make the father deny the fact that ribs and hips were sticking out from malnourishment, but that the slender middle was swelling with something else entirely.

Inevitably, every rage ended in sobs and tears and sleepless nights at the bedside of an elf who would probably never wake from his stupor again.

Because Thranduil was fading away from the horror of memories that could not be erased, and there was absolutely nothing Oropher could do to make it stop, to make it better, to help or save or soothe away the invisible wounds.

Just sit and wait and pray.

Until the day those eyes opened and saw.  Until the day slender, cold hands twitched and reached out for touch, for reassurance.  Until the day he heard a beloved voice whisper "Ada" and bring light back to his world.

Just sit and wait and pray.  And try to have hope.
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I've begun to post edited versions of these stories elsewhere and people for some reason like this pairing and like Thranduil when he's not written as a partying, drunken dickwad all the time (because only crack writers actually write such characters without further depth).  Thus, I have been put in the mood to write more of it because it keeps coming up and I love Thranduil so much.  Thus, this.

I tried not to get too explicit, though I could have been much more so, and may edit it to include more when it's not posted on a blog website that perhaps frowns a bit on such content.  However, if this blog gets deleted at least I have back-ups of everything.  I think I would die otherwise, if you get what I mean.

Written to Shi-ki by Yasuharu Takanashi, the guy who does all the Naruto OSTs.  This isn't from Naruto, but God is it beautiful!  I don't know the context of the song, just that it's got that bittersweet tang that I just adore, but it also has something vaguely resembling wistfulness and hope as well.  It may not fit the prompt or the story perfectly, but I'm using it as today's song anyway because I love it enough to keep coming back to it over and over.

One last note that I hope you will appreciate: Today is day 100 of my prompts and thus my first prompt table is finished.  Tomorrow I will be starting a new one.