Disclaimer: The Lord of the Rings does not belong to me. Bet you didn't know that already.

AN and WARNING: Well, I promised a story from Legolas' point of view -- here it is. It is a sequel of sorts to Divine Intervention, but it is definitely darker. Possibly even disturbing.

Also, this is a lemon -- meaning it contains sex. Hence the rating. If you don't like that kind of thing, don't read it. But if you do read it, feedback is very appreciated.

Thanks to Ella for the beta (and her patience in dealing with my increasingly strange stories). Sorry I forgot to mention it the first time arround. :( I suppose that's what lack of sleep does to a person.

~ Personal Demons ~

- Chapter 1 -

I want to hurt her. Sometimes, very rarely, I get the urge to slap her -- with hand or words, it doesn't matter -- just to see that open, wounded look in her eyes, the silent tears, the trembling mouth.

Because I still get the dreams now and then. She doesn't know, and she doesn't need to. It comes at night, that sick, twisted feeling of helplessness when they've caught up with me, smothering me with their empty words and empty lust that has everything to do with my body and nothing to do with me.

And then I open my eyes to her slumbering face -- she still sleeps from time to time; even after a hundred years she clings to the habit -- and remember what we did just before. How she screamed my name as loudly as the fury and emptiness rage inside me, and how, in the final, perfect moment of release she looked into my eyes. And saw me.

I want to hurt her. I want to lash out and make someone pay, and she's available. Maybe then the world will make sense again. She's so close I could . . . but I never do.

Somehow, I never do.

She has transformed my father, and she's managed to make my mother happy. I might be drowning in rage, but sane thoughts still manage to creep in through the cracks -- like the vivid, intent look on Thranduil's face as my mother goes by and he finally sees her. They are engaged in a subtle dance, much like ours, but my father is very clearly the hunter, and my mother loves him too much not to yield one day, although he is a cold, arrogant bastard.

This begs the question of what I am, exactly. If my thoughts right now define me, I am so much worse than he. I am a survivor, certainly. I am also a killer, because this is the price I paid for survival. I can make threats go away; I can cut them out, if necessary. This threat comes from the inside, though, and if I cut it out I'm not sure what will remain. It might appease my hunger for revenge, but then again, it might not . . .

She murmurs something, and rolls over. I watch her reach out sleepily, and another sort of hunger rears its head and tries to claw its way out. I clamp down on it and remind myself that the need to wound her doesn't arise from something so simple as hate. And it's not even the thought of seeing her in pain that matters, because my other, normal self would give everything to protect her -- after all, I love her.

No. I want to be the one who hurts her, the only one who has the power to turn her into an abject heap of misery with a few carefully chosen words. I am perversely aware of the fact that ripping out her still-beating heart and presenting it to her on a silver platter would be the kind thing to do. Kinder than the words I am about to say when the right moment arrives. I know that the depth of her pain when I say those cutting, heartless things as if they didn't matter one way or the other is the truest way to measure her feelings for me. If it's agony that floods her eyes and tears my heart to shreds I know that she cares. Deeply.

I also know I would kill anyone in cold blood who would dare cause her even a fraction of the suffering I am planning to inflict on her.

But now she opens her eyes, two chocolate mirrors misty with the unguarded emotions in the first moments of awakening, and what I read there tells me the moment has passed.

Or maybe it has never been there in the first place.

As always, I feel cheated of my revenge as I give in and cradle her close, but I'm flooded with a treacherous warmth nevertheless, and it feels as if my demons aren't howling quite so loudly anymore.

I kiss her deeply, angry that I can't keep my lips from roaming and my hands to myself. She sighs into my mouth, and I wait for the memories to flood me, to taint my feelings and her melting response, but it doesn't happen.

With a new sense of urgency I bite her shoulder, touching her in ways that I know will leave her boneless and begging. It's how I want her, now.

Tonight, I need to be in control.

And I am. But even so, the pleasure is so intense it borders on painful. It amazes me how I am still so greedy for her smallest whimper, the tiniest undulating movement of her hips, the way her eyes turn opaque with lust under the cover of her lashes. I give her pleasure, but she gives me something more, and I find that I need it. I need her kisses, her touch, need to make her scream and say my name in that breathy murmur that is her very own.

It means I am not faceless to her, to be used and then discarded when the next pretty face and the next obsession comes along.

"I love you," she sighs, somehow managing to make it sound sweet and honest rather than trite, and then all is quiet, because I do not say it back.

It is very much later, when I lift my head to kiss her forehead that I see the look in her eyes, both the pity and the insecurity. It was her who wished the memories upon me -- she probably thought I had a right to them. I did not refuse them, because it would have been the cowardly thing to do, and I am not a coward. But they have taken their toll, shaping me as thoroughly as my life in Mirkwood did -- the terrible beauty of the dark forest, the fighting and the killing.

The way I speak now is several hundred years ahead of time for an elf, and the way I think is even more so. All because of the time I have been forced to spend in her world, which is why now I'm not at home here anymore, the same way I was not at home there.

She knows. Realizing that, I also realize I can hurt her even without the words. I can smile, and say nothing, and let her think she is not enough to make up for all they did. Or I can say the wrong words -- I can make a lewd joke that under any other circumstances would have her dissolving into uncontrolled giggles, and slap her backside, making her feel cheap and insignificant.

The end result would be the same in any case, but I wouldn't have been actively involved in bringing it about.

Ah, who am I kidding?

She watches me, her eyes wide and vulnerable. Her exposed throat is an offering for the beast to rip into. Elves are close to nature, in every way. It calls to the animal in me.

For a moment everything hovers on the cusp, uncertain ...

It dissolves into a fierce, desperate tangle of limbs, a strangled gasp -- the beast pounces.

It was the right choice. The animal is savage, but he isn't cruel. Only the elf can be cruel, but there is no room for him here. She's seen to that. She is not submissive now either -- she's feral, biting, scratching, tearing at my hair. For a moment I come to my senses, thinking she is afraid, and renew my efforts to subdue her so I can calm her properly.

It is only a matter of seconds until she has to yield to my greater strength. I've pinned her to the bed, and now I am looking down at her ribcage, lifting and falling rapidly with the effort of breathing, her narrowed eyes.

Did I scare her? I'm not sure. There's so much about her I'm not sure of. She doesn't look scared, though, only furious. She's frowning at me, the drowsy look in her large eyes replaced with a sullen, simmering anger.

"Let go," she says tightly.

I don't do it immediately; I guess I am too shocked that she would refuse me. Her eyes narrow still further, and although she says nothing, I take my hands away and sit up.

As soon as she is free, she grabs my head and kisses me. Her mouth is sweet, her kiss agressively hard. I clench my hands into fists, but they still come up to touch her shoulders, caress the silky skin--

She pushes me away.

We're both on our knees, facing each other and breathing hard. She moves first, sitting back, and leaning against the bedrest, arms wrapped protectively around her updrawn knees. "Now, my little control freak," she says levelly, "we're going to do this as equals or not at all." She smiles, a little sadly. "Not that I don't melt into puddles when you pull that macho elf stunt, but this one is for all the wrong reasons."

I say nothing. I can't dispute that. But I can feel the cold seeping in, shuttering whatever emotion I might have shown. I don't need to look to know that my eyes are becoming hard, bleak mirrors.

She gives a little sigh. "Look, I don't mind sleeping with you to help you with the pain, and you're quite obviously in pain. I don't mind surrendering control. I don't mind giving more that I get. But I do mind being used as if I were an object. A brainless puppet."

She tries, quite valiantly, not to cry. "This has been going on for a long time," she whispers. "We can talk. We can do anything you think might help you, but not--"

She bites her lip, too hard. "Not when you're shutting me out like this," she says tonelessly. I've already hurt her. I never knew it would be so easy.

I wait for the ultimatum, for her to say she is going to leave me if I can't open up, spill all my secrets, but she says nothing else. She simply waits, a drop of blood trickling slowly down her chin.

I value control, but I also value flexibility, and this is a situation I am unprepared for. I must adapt. This is as important as any battle ever was. I consider manipulation for a moment, then discard the idea. Not because of some abstract concept of honor, because I am more assassin that knight and I use any means necessary to achieve a goal, but because she would notice. She is extremely sensitive where I'm concerned, and she would come to hate me.

Then I consider facing myself, the possibility that I am irreparably damaged. That I might be unbalanced, that the demons and red-haired wraiths in my dreams are merely symptoms and the true problem lies deeper, festering away at the core of my mind.

But it isn't only the dreams. There are other . . . problems, other obstacles. Other thoughts eating away at me, blood-dark and hot. Is it jealousy? The very idea is frightening.

Strangely enough it was only a minor incident, only a few days ago, that was the actual catalyst to all this . . .

I stroke her hair while trying to make sense of the turmoil I'm feeling. Buying time, too. Despite herself, she leans into my hand. I kiss her forehead and bring her closer, aware that she's too vulnerable to resist me for long. My hand makes its way down the bare skin of her back.

"I love you." I whisper it right into the small pointed shell of her ear, hear her gasp. "I need you. Now. Will you let me?" I kiss her mouth sweetly. "Please." I can tell she's not used to pleading from me, because it utterly shatters her defenses.

I like her neck. I like nibbling on it. Sometimes, I like leaving marks. It's the most primitive, thorough way of claiming posession. Besides, it drives her mad. As does the feeling of me entering her, filling her. And now, with her so overwhelmed, so utterly at my mercy, I remember . . .

She was wandering the wood alone -- at least she thought she was, because I was there too -- her silent, ever-vigilant shadow. I don't really know why I still do this, since the woods are safe enough, but I was there.

I remember the play of sunlight in her hair, the hushed fall of her steps on the carpet of leaves, the sound of her breathing. The startled catch in her breath as Alafiel dropped from a tree just in front of her. He's always been a show-off with the ladies, but this time it angered me.

His greeting angered me too, the casual, glib sound of his words, her relieved laughter. Well, she excused herself quickly enough, and all would have been all right, but then he called his farewell and she turned so that I could see her face . . .

In that first moment of white-hot rage, I almost went for my knives. Because she'd smiled at him. And if I'm not mistaken it was the same blinding, sweetly dimpled smile she's always giving me when she thinks no one is looking.

After the first rush of rage had died down, it felt horrible. It felt like ice and death on the inside. Alafiel is my friend, and she . . . She is simply mine.

My hand clenches into a fist in her hair as I drive harder into her, devouring her throat with my mouth. She sobs, her fingers digging into my back.

Smile for me, mela. Smile for me, my dove.

But she doesn't smile. She can't. She whimpers instead, small melting sounds that almost make me explode. I fill my mouth with one breast and she cries out again.

Come on, honey. Let me touch you. Let me . . .

Let me swallow you whole. Let me fill you. How I love the way she's writhing under me, clutching, trying to get closer -- only there is no closer because I'm already as deep as I can go, impaling her, making her scream.

That's it, angel. Scream. No, don't close your eyes. You can't lie when you keep them open like this. When you're naked and sweaty and wanting like this.

Oh gods, that's it. Kiss me. Make me forget. Make me . . .

Come.

Her eyes are so large, the look so . . . wounded, I think. And although it was so beautiful she's trying to turn away, maybe because her eyes are filling with large, shiny tears.

No, don't withdraw. If I hurt you, I need to see it. I need to hold you, to make it all better. I am perverse like that.

I could kill Alafiel for making her smile, but I am no Othello. I could never be blind enough or misguided enough to kill her.

And as I cradle her close, letting her sob herself to sleep against my chest, I know that nothing has been resolved.