Title: Pu-Erh and Patience
Author: Am-Chau Yarkona
Rating: PG-15 for suggestiveness
Setting: Movie canon TTT (because of Legolas’ smirk); book canon from there on. Elrond having gone over the sea, the elves have left Rivendell. However, Legolas and Gimli have moved in—just the two of them—to keep the place up for a few years. It helps when Strider wants to visit Bree, you know.
Summary: Coffee-drinking, sausage-munching and confusion coupled with elven singing, fruit juice, and beard-pulling. Legolas and Gimli as a romantic pairing, with a slightly silly twist. Okay, I take that back. Very silly.
Warnings: Doble entendre, unbetaed.
Distribution: Take it. Please. Letting me know where it’s gone very much appreciated.
Disclaimer: The characters depicted here are not mine. Tolkien invented them, Peter Jackson gave them personalities closer to these, and Orlando Bloom is entirely responsible for the smirk. I make no profit from this (highly enjoyable) waste of my time.
Feedback: Thirsted for like wet things in a dry place.
Author’s Notes: Won’t you be glad when I stop talking and get on with the story?

Gimli woke to the sun shining on his face. “Elf must have opened the shutters early this morning,” he thought, rolling over and shutting his eyes again. Fairly rapidly, however, he became aware that Legolas hadn’t only opened the shutters. The window was also open, and he could hear a soft elven voice singing in the garden.

Much as Gimli liked Legolas’ voice, he didn’t want it to be keeping him awake. He waited for it to quiet or move away. He waited some more. The voice merely began a new song: an elven love ballard, if he did but know it. He didn’t. In despair, he groaned, a long, deep sound that carried exact nauaces of ‘will that elf never shut up?’ to anyone who cared to listen carefully.

In this case, of course, that audience was the elf in question, who was quite unrepentant. Legolas carried on singing merrily, smirking slightly as he did so. Inside, Gimli sighed and got out of bed. He noticed that he was naked, but decided not to do anything about it, on the grounds that only Legolas was around, and it wasn’t like it was anything *he* hadn’t seen before.

Gimli crossed to the window and looked out. It took him a few moments to see Legolas: the elf was lying directly under the ground floor window, as naked as Gimli. Quite a stunning sight, let me tell you- especially the fact that he was as hard as one of Thorin’s best diamonds. Gimli didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or leap out the window and set to.

From the grass, Legolas looked up at his dwarven friend. He bit back a smile at the confused expression- dwarves and early morning sex weren’t really a good mixture, but confronting them with the prospect was good fun. When he thought Gimli was nearing the ‘I’ll kill that blasted elf’ stage, he sat up, close enough to kiss the dwarf if he so desired.

He managed to restrain, though. “Coffee or me first, this fine morning?” he asked.

"My tea,” the beared vision answered gruffly, and turned away from the window. Legolas noted with amusement that he could hear Gimli muttering “Fine morning indeed. I don’t take kindly to being played games with.” Trying not to giggle, he snuck away to prepare his friend’s cup of Pu-Erh.

  By Elbereth, but dwarf teasing was fun! He could see why his father had so enjoyed pulling Dain’s beard.

  ~~~~~~~~~

  Over breakfast-- to be strictly accurate, over Legolas’ fruit juice and Gimli’s strong tea, bacon, sausages, fried tomatoes and mushrooms—Legolas continued the campaign. Whoever said that ‘the elven sense of humour a little strange’ was probably a dwarf involved in a case like this one.

  “Is the coffee to your satisfaction?” he enquired, even as the third mug was drained. Gimli nodded, his mouth full of a sausage Legolas felt a kind of envy for. A nod was good, though, so Legolas went on. “I hope other matters will be as pleasing.”

  Gimli nearly choked. He could play that game as well, though- oh, two could play indeed. “Legolas, dear friend, you may rest assured that they will.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Shall we see how the garden fares today?”

  “Nay—the bedroom must be tided and my axe needs polishing.” They met each other’s eyes, and shared a quick grin. So much more fun when both were playing: worth waiting for the coffee to work.

  “My long knife, also. Perhaps I may assist you?”

  “If you desire it. We might retire to where the polish will not get in the food?”

  “We will.” Legolas thought that he might have to work on Gimli’s apparent disapproval of doing anything other than eating in the kitchen. Now was not the moment, however. “Should we do the washing up first?”

  “The washing up will wait,” said Gimli firmly. It seemed he was as eager as Legolas.

  “If you say so. Though I do not care to think what my mother would say if she visited.”

  “Your mother is not visiting. And if she did, why, I would cleave her head in two if she disrupted us.”

  “Do not do that. My mother is not an orc.”

  Gimli stood up, but (in the interests of the game) Legolas remained seated. They could go another round of words before they started on the physical.

  “I am sure she is not. However, this kind of talk leaves rust on my axe.”

  “So I see,” Legolas said slowly, drawing his eyes down over Gimli’s body, making the dwarf stiffen a little more.

  “So you do. Now, elf, will you help or not?”

  “If I say no, may I watch you work alone?”

  Gimli looked at him. Elves were strange folk indeed. It only took a moment of looking into those blue eyes for Gimli to decide he’d play the game, even if the rules kept changing. “You may—and I will watch you work.”

  Legolas gave in. He stopped biting his tongue, and laughed out loud. “You are as fair spoken as you are clever, Master Dwarf. Come! Let us find our pleasures while we may.” He stood now also, holding out his hand to his friend. Gimli took it, grinning in mixed triamuph and love.

  As they headed for the soft sheets of their bed, the dwarf couldn’t resist one parting shot. “For that, you are doing the washing up, Master Elf. Songs before coffee indeed!”

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