"Bleed him"

The true meaning of care

Guess the amount of times caRed is used
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~previously~

"And how dare you underestimate mine!" Mattsuke chocked out. Time seemed to slow down as Legolas watched his best friends eyes turned empty, crimson blood pooling out of his mouth and chest and landing to the floor peacefully as if it were morning rain. But yet, Fabian continued to stand there as a knife hung out his chest, clutching onto Mattsuke's throat.

"G-Go...Leaf" Fabian chocked out. Legolas's eyes were wide open in horror, nothing had prepared him for this. No amount of torture by these men compared to the amount of pain he felt in this moment as he saw Fabians eyes turn to look at him: Cold, empty.

Tears fell from Legolas's eyes and mixed in with Fabians blood on the ground. He stumbled forwards "No! I will not leave you!"

"L-Legolas please...I do not have m-much strength left. Please this is my last wish" Fabian coughed "He...re" Legolas felt something being placed in his hand "Now go" He cried shoving Legolas as hard as he could.

Legolas looked into his eyes one last time and watched as Fabian smiled despite the situation.

Then he ran and ran without looking back and the last thing he heard was...

"Bleed him"

~

3rd person PoV:

"Bleed him" Those simple two words that created a sense of everlasting fear on his fail form for torturous years to come. They loomed over him like trees in a dense forest...always watching, always taunting him at his paranoia. Wherever he was, these words followed like a magnet attached to his soul. Orcs, Uruk's, humans and even elves alike wanted him to be bled, weather physically like the humans or the orcs and Uruks or mentally like the elves that he was supposed to call family...it was all the same, they all tortured him in the same agonising way...it made him want to just give up on everything, just crawl into a ball and never see anyone's smirking face ever again.

But...

Would he miss this...this bond that he had with Aragorn? Would he regret throwing aside the man that he cared for...who cared for him? Though, was it really care or was it just curiosity? He did not know...the realisation that he could have just said all of those things to a total stranger, who could not care less if he cut himself off of the world, made him go pale. What has he done? Why...what made him spill all of his past just so that he could be washed with pity and sympathy?

Yet he could not manage to pull himself away from Aragorn and in a way...he never wanted to. He cared for Aragorn and even if Aragorn did not care the same as he did, he did not want this bond to differ and weather the bond was real or fake, it brought comfort to him. Through all the years that he has lived without that sense of comfort, all the years that he has been lied upon, beaten, tortured, raped, starved and driven to become mentally unstable...that comfort was something. His light at the end of the tunnel.

"Aragorn..." Legolas murmured, Aragorn turning to look at him with concern written on his face  "Do you care?" Where the three simple words that came out of his mouth. He almost laughed as he subconsciously said that question with no worry in his mind. Aragorn to care?

What? What has care ever done for him? Legolas thought. His father 'cared' before he sold him off to those people. His father played him when he told him he cared. His father pretended he cared to bring down Legolas's  walls and gain his trust. His father used the word 'cared' for his own personal gain. His father carved 'cared' onto his fists before he beat Legolas's mentality, sanity, strength, trust, love and emotions out of him with bloodied knuckles containing reminants of the word 'cared' as drops and drops of that 'care' fell onto the floor, eyes 'caring' as he watched his son crying and humiliated.

What has care ever done for him?

Does anyone who say they care smirk as they watch him suffer like his father did?

"Aragorn" Legolas muttered after realising that the man had not answered. The elf turned to look at him, moon reflecting on his kingly face. Aragorn kept his mouth firm shut "...Estel"

"You asked me if I cared..." Aragorn exclaimed, his words deepening with pain. Suddenly his wrist was grabbed ahold of she was pushed down to the ground. He stared up at the human above him and slightly gasped. Estel was crying, his face contorted in mental agony "...Do I really not show it?!" He half-yelled, Aragorn's tears falling onto his own cheeks.

Legolas instantly regretted those words that he had spoken. He regretted every word that he had ever said to Aragorn that made him feel his own pain. But perhaps that was a good thing, perhaps they could share the pain and perhaps Aragorn was slowly teaching him the true meaning of the word 'care'.

"I-I'm sorry" Legolas mumbled, tears building up in his eyes "Ever since then, I have f-found it harder and h-harder to understand positive e-emotions. You must u-understand, in that place, a-all I could feel was pain but...but your making me feel again" Legolas confessed as tears freely leaked from his eyes and onto the grass below, his lips quivering from the strength of holding back his sobs.

Aragorn looked down at him, his eyes filled with emotion as he studied Legolas's face "Legolas, you may have gone through years of torture and pain but that will never stop me from caring about you...no, it will never stop me from loving you..."

Sorry for the short chapter I'm tired goodnight :)