Open Your Eyes

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Obliviousness.  Willfully or not.  Related heavily to "Spirit", "Serenity", "Empty", "Rain" and "Destination" among the rest of the Cheat Arc and all of its branches, especially "Starve".  Basically this is just me writing out ideas that occurred to me during DoS.  And no, there will not be any Tauriel and Kíli stuff, as Tauriel is already paired with someone (and really, she's supposed to fall in love with him, a teenager with sucky flirting skills?), but I can imagine her still feeling guilty and possibly developing some affection for the poor thing.  That's where that went (in my head-canon).  Part one is in Mirkwood and part two is in Lothlórien, and it takes place shortly after The Hobbit.

Disclaimer: I own neither The Hobbit nor The Lord of the Rings, but Val is mine.

Pairings: Valthoron x Tauriel, pre-Haldir x Legolas

Characters: Legolas, Tauriel, Valthoron (mentions Haldir, Thranduil, Kíli, Orophin, Rúmil, Celeborn and Galadriel)

Warning: non-book!canon compliant, slash and het, young love, unrequited love, pity party, jealousy, some politicial stuff in the b/g

Song: Game of Thrones Theme

Words: 2,084

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open (verb): to move (as a door) from a closed position; to disclose or expose to view: reveal

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/open

It was easy to be blind.  And Legolas had been willfully blind for a very long time.

He did not like to admit that he was in the wrong, that he was not able to admit the truth and thus had looked the other way.  Pride was hot in his blood, indignant and fierce.  But even more so than that, the pain that seared with each pang of his heart only became sharper and more potent with the knowledge.  The knowledge that his love was unrequited.

Unrequited.

"You know that I do not love you, at least not in that way, my prince.  Please, make this not more difficult for yourself than it must already be."  Her voice was soft, nearly pleading, and gentle.  But underneath lingered the strain.

Irrationally, his anger ignited.

"Is it my father?  Has he threatened you?"

"If true was my love for someone, no force upon this earth could halt me," she hissed back, he was startled by the catlike glimmer in her eyes. "Not even King Thranduil himself!"

"Then... why?" he asked, frustrated, embarrassed and flustered. "Why?"

Why?

Why indeed.  But he knew why, did he not?

Bitterly, the younger of two brothers stomped his way through the halls, his mood fouler than it had been for at least a few centuries.  Little did he want to think about this truth, did he want to finally string together each dancing design of this mural of his life.

Little did he want to see the end he knew was awaiting.  The end he knew was not that which he desired.

"Is it that dwarf?  That dwarf that died--"

"Bring not Kíli into this fight!" she cried, he patience finally running dry. "Between us there was nothing, nothing but the innocent love of a young man and a woman indulging his foolish wistfulness to soothe the burn of her guilty conscience."

"I am certain your lover would agree." It was low and vindictive.  As soon as he said those words, the prince wished to recall them.

Especially when her eyes flashed in fury and her lips blanched to white.

"My lover knows that I would never betray him in such a way, that I shall always be his and his alone!  If you had any love for him at all, you would respect my choice!"

Why did it have to be so difficult to find that respect?

Why did the woman he loved with all his heart have to be in love with his older brother?

It was not, he knew, Valthoron's fault.  What his brother had done to win the love of their Silvan captain of the guard, Legolas knew not and dared not speculate.  But he knew that they had been lovers in secret for a very long time, and he knew also that he had shoved aside all the signs, all the hints that had been lying out in the open for him to see and piece together.  Every whisper passed between their bowed forms in the shadows, every time he watched them slip away in each other's company for privacy, every time they touched a little too long and a little too tender with the tips of their fingers...

Legolas had not wanted to be jealous of his brother.  He had wanted to believe that what lay between the eldest Prince of Mirkwood and Tauriel of the guard was nothing more than friendship.

But it was not.  And no longer could he turn away.  But neither could he relent.

"You know that I love your brother, so why do you continue this pursuit?"

Because he was a fool.  Because he was in love.

Because he could not stop.

And that, perhaps, was why Legolas ran away.

---

He had been welcomed in the realm of Lothlórien before many years passed, remembered the bliss of its eternal summer and the calming warmth of his enveloping trees and light, and now the folk of those woods did not even ask him why it was that he came.  The marchwarden he recalled from the back of his mind--the one he had once sparred with beneath the summer-dappled golden trees with their dripping honeyed blooms--welcomed him as one did a brother-in-arms, grasping his forearms tightly.

"Welcome, cousin."

The hands were warm, he took pause to notice.  But after that, he turned away.

Little mind did he pay that elf--who had smiled upon him in friendship just a little too broadly and openly--or any other elf he saw.  The Lord and Lady did he greet briefly, and then the prince descended into the depths of the forest to mull over his thoughts in the silence with only the night-sounds and the twitter of birds as his company.

Alone, there, he walked.

And thought about her.  And thought about him.

And thought and thought.  And tried not to become bitter in heart.

That was where his brother found him.

Perhaps it was foolish for him to believe no one would come after him.  Or, perhaps, he had even more foolishly believed that Tauriel might come after him, as she had once gone after that young love-struck dwarf-prince she did not even love in return.  That she might change her mind, forsake her relationship with his older brother and take up with him beneath the splendor of the mallyrn in the dusk.

He should not have dared to even think of wishing such pain upon his brother, but...

"Long enough have you lingered out here, little brother."

Shocked, he turned to face the redhead.  Valthoron was so tall, towering easily over Legolas, and leaned lazily against a tree just a few feet away, blue eyes settled upon the younger.  The younger who had not even heard him move.  Had not even seen the shimmer of setting sun upon vibrant hair, staining it to blood.

"Why are you here?" he asked, upset and frazzled and humiliated by the knowing gleam that overtook turquoise blue.

"I am here because you are my brother," Valthoron said, his voice so low and so soft. "I swore to protect you when I first held you in my arms, and I would see you happy."

If you would see me happy, then give away your love for--

But he could not bear to finish that thought.  What sort of person wished heartbreak upon the other?  What kind of brother would wish this pain--this rending and tearing and aching and burning--upon his closest of kin, his only sibling?  What kind of horrible--?

"Legolas?"

"You know," he murmured. "Are you not angry?"

Brows normally furrowed into an expression of permanent irascibility were, at the moment, softened and finely arched. "I can never stay angry with you," the older said, "but even so, no, I cannot be angry with you for falling in love.  Not when the love between myself and Tauriel was hidden."

"Because of adar..." he accused.

"Because we were not ready," the older prince replied, chastising and sharp before his tone descended again into softness. "But I am not here to speak of myself.  I am here to speak of you."

"Of what is there to speak?" Legolas asked, feeling every bit as harsh and unpleasant as his voice sounded at that moment. "How can I return home spurned?  How can I move on watching her every day with someone else?"

How can I allow myself to see after so much darkness?

At his back, Valthoron sighed. "So blind you are, little one.  So blind and so oblivious to those around you, to those whose favor you carry, whose eyes follow your form.  But it will come in time.  You will open your eyes, and you will see not only the bad, but the good as well."

Good?  What about this fiasco is good?

He wanted to shout that into the face of his brother.  Wanted to scream and rage and throw something if only to quell the shaking rage that trembled in his muscles and bubbled as spilling lava from the depths of his marrow.  But none of those things did the young prince do, for he had learned dignity and compunction as soon as he had learned to speak and walk, and he would not lower himself to barbaric behavior in the face of this personal tragedy.

"I am not oblivious!"

"Oh, are you not?" Arms crossed, and Valthoron sneered in a manner that would have made a lesser man shudder. "Tell me, then, of the marchwarden Haldir."

He thought back to the elf when they had first met, to the arrogant smirks he could recall as a thin haze of cloud upon a dazzling valley and the voice that had spoken shortly to him as though he were a child, layered with grudging civility.  To the annoyance he had once seen in hazel eyes and smelled upon frivolously spouted titles, the looks that had left him all too eager to leave behind his guide and guard.  If anything, he had thought the man disliked him, thought of him as something weak and beneath notice, too young to be of interest, too inexperienced to hold attraction and too childish to be an equal.

But he could recall, too, the recent way in which the warden had brushed his arm lingeringly.  The way in which Haldir had smiled upon the prince and welcomed him readily.

The way in which his hands were warm.

"I do not..."

"Did you know, brother, that he frequently inquires as to your health whenever I send a messenger to Lothlórien?  Did you know that he speaks high praise of your skills in battle to his own kin, though it paints him in shame for losing a spar to one so young and fair?  Did you know that he rarely holds in high esteem anyone other than his brothers, and even more rarely hands out compliments?  Did you know...?"

The list trailed away into quiet.  The voice that followed was but a shadow in the dark as the sun set.

"Did you know that he watches you as though you were forged of starlight?"

A pause.  The young prince held his breath.

"Did you know that he smiles when you are near, and that his eyes fall downcast when you look away?"

And Legolas felt his heart rise into his throat.

"Did you know that, even now, he stands far off and watches you wistfully as once you did my lover?  That, even amongst the safety of his Lady's enchantments, he worries for your safety?  Did you?"

Of course he did not.

He had not ever noticed Haldir more than passingly.  He had not ever thought about the marchwarden in the way one might consider a lover.  He had never noticed how powerful the other elf's muscles were from centuries of hard work and practice with a bow and sword.  He had never taken note of the tresses so faintly lined with gold in the sunlight.  He had never thought of those eyes that had crinkled at the corners when a smile bowed usually solemn lips.

Why had he never recalled clearly that smile?  Why had he never noticed that low, crooning voice?

But he had not.

Blind, his brother said, and blind he had been. "I see," he whispered.  And he said nothing more.

All that glowed now of Valthoron were his eyes flashing in the night.  So painfully knowing.  So easily casting down shame. "Come, little brother, and let us go back to the city.  On the morrow, we can depart for home."

Legolas followed unquestioningly with his head bowed, trailing upon the heels of his unwitting rival, the man who had defeated him utterly in the game of love and war.  But no longer did his mind linger upon Tauriel with her fiery hair and her sweet-as-honey smile or upon Valthoron with his arms wrapped around her waist and his lips pressed to hers.  It ached and strained rather with compassion and with guilt than with the bitterness of lost hope and love.

That someone else could suffer this same agony that had consumed his heart so easily left his throat tight.  And that he, the object of their affections, had not even taken a moment to notice.

It left him blinded by the garish light and the flutter of dark lashes upon his cheeks.