Fingertips

Mellow Soulmate AU.  The first meeting of brothers.  This is, in a weird sort of way, the partner-work to both "Delivery"--from way back when in like April or something--and the reflection (with Delivery) of "Shadows" and the updated version of "Smile".  On the blog "Smile" is very different from the version published on AO3.  Changed completely.  Maybe I'll repost, but I might not bother.  We'll see, I guess.  Takes place in Mirkwood near the beginning of the Third Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion or The Lord of the Rings

Pairings: b/g

Characters: Valthoron, Legolas, Thranduil (mentions other random elves)

Warning: non-canon compliant, OC-centric, blatant m!preg, thus b/g slash, mostly sappy shit though, even with Val's problems sort of hanging out in the b/g

Song: Pieces

Words: 962
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fingertip (noun): the tip of a finger; a protective covering for the end of a finger
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fingertip

Sixteen hours of labor, and all there was to show for it was a bundle slightly smaller than a loaf of bread.

Honestly, Valthoron was a bit leery of touching the squirming infant, let alone holding it.  He had never even been near a child before, and from a distance they seemed so frightfully fragile, so easily harmed.  The prince was a warrior, a creature that wielded a blade in the dance of death without hesitation, that could strangle the life out of an orc with the strength only of his hands.

And those same hands were meant to hold something with the consistency of thin glass?

Yet, when Thranduil looked up at him, bundle in arms, his father smiled widely and beckoned him forward with the inclination of his noble head.  Not a second thought about trusting his oldest son with the life and safety of the youngest.

"Adar," he murmured, shuffling nervously to the edge of the bed, standing stiffly.

The older elf still somehow managed to look like a king even bundled up under a mountain of blankets and curled up at the center of a dozen feather-down cushions.  The blond hair was still sweaty from exertion, sticking slightly to damp skin and reddened cheeks.  And yet Thranduil seemed more alive--warmer, more full of heat and breath--than he ever had in the prince's memory.

"Come greet your baby brother, Valthoron."

His baby brother.  The child was less than the length of his forearm with a slightly wrinkled red face and milky green eyes that blinked without focus up in his direction.  Truly, it looked a little more like a strange form of abstract art than it looked like an elf, but Valthoron had never seen a newborn up close before.  Downy hair decorated the top of its head, pale as Thranduil's, and yet the incredibly tiny eyelashes that ringed those eyes were dark.

He would have been perfectly content merely looking with a polite mile plastered upon his face.  And then Thranduil held out the child.

"Adar, I..."

"Come now, he is but a babe.  It won't do you any harm."

It is not me I worry for.

But before he could protest again, the bundle was shoved into his hands.  Awkwardly he held the child, one broad palm spread beneath the baby's head and another supporting the rest of the body, keeping the cooing, squealing creature almost an arm's length away. "Adar, truly, I oughtn't hold--"

"Like this, silly boy..." Deft hands directed him until he had the babe cradled against his chest in the crook of one elbow.

Like this, the baby was tickled by the red tangles of his curled hair.  Hands so small reached upwards toward the strange sensation, and Valthoron could not help but notice that each one was perfectly formed, each finger perhaps the length of the last joint of each of his own.  Each tipped in a miniscule nail, rounded upon the end with a pale crescent.

The fingers wriggled, little arms reaching upwards jerkily as the child cooed and chirped for attention.  And, for reasons he couldn't comprehend, Valthoron was entranced with the uncoordinated movement.

"I have named him Legolas." Thranduil smiled at him, looking both tired and overjoyed and proud all mixed together into some form of contentedness. "Is he not beautiful, Valthoron?"

"Legolas..." Tentatively, Valthoron reached with his elegant yet callused fingers toward the child.  Brushing his fingertips like the airy kisses of a moth's wing across skin so soft he could hardly bear to part from its sensation.  First over the rosy cheeks, tracing downward and then back up to follow the lines where dark brows had already begun to grow.

This was his little brother.

And the tiny fingers grasped at his own, tiny palms wrapping about the slender length and tugging with surprising strength.  The prince--the warrior--found he did not even mind when that digit somehow found its way into a toothless mouth, coming away dripping with saliva and smelling questionable.

He let the child direct his hand every which way, felt the tiny fingertips exploring over the rough skin of sword-graced palms and knuckles skinned so often they had grown flesh like leather.

"He is perfect."

He is my brother.  And I would lay down my life for him.  Legolas.

It was hard to release the child back into his father's keeping.  With overstated care, he passed the bundle back, watched Thranduil coo and sigh over the baby for a few minutes more, only half-hearing his father's words as he stared into that small face with the spring eyes.

It was a moment suspended, as though time had ceased to flow for those few precious seconds.  Burned into the back of his mind, so peaceful and still sat the air in the room, the stripes of sunlight fading across the floor from the open window.  The prince hardly dared breathe for fear he might shatter the moment, the strange feeling that settled as a balm over his soul.

The tingle where those tiny hands had touched his skin.

With a whispered word, he departed the room.  Felt strangely the rough stone of the doorway as his palm slid across it in his leaving.  Noticed barely the guards staring wide-eyed from across the hall as he swept past them at a brisk walk, heading back toward the outside.  Toward spider-slaying and orc-hunting.  Toward princely duties and the expected dark stares.

But somehow feeling lighter despite.  And if, for the rest of the night, a tender smile curled his normally pursed lips and softened the harsh edges of his scowling face...

No one said a thing.