Chapter Text
It had been a long day. As the CEO of Mirkwood Enterprises, Thranduil Greenleaf was never in want of something to do. Between making business deals, meetings and trying to come up with a good name for the wine from a recently bought vineyard, Thranduil’s days were always packed. With his son Legolas off to college, he didn’t have much of a reason at all to be home for things like dinner; if he ate at the office, he could finish the presentation he would be giving in two days about the annual budget estimate. As such, it was already late when he came home to his empty house. He opened a window to let in the cool night air, not even bothering to put on any lights, and clambered up the stairs to his bedroom and undressed. Brushing his hair and forgoing pyjamas, as he preferred to sleep naked anyway, he laid in bed.
Sleep never came very easily to Thranduil, and since his wife died he had been a bit of an insomniac. Not for lack of trying, though. But Thranduil didn’t mind it all that much. He liked to listen to the sounds his house made. The creaking of wood, the ticking of the clock in the hallway and the occasional rushing of water through the pipes. These sounds were comfortable and familiar. Since Legolas had moved to campus, however, the soft sound of breathing across the landing just audible if they both left their doors open, was missing. But as Legolas had wanted the “full college experience” and Thranduil couldn’t really deny him anything, he now lived alone.
Thranduil listened to the sounds of his home for nearly an hour, quietly dozing, on the border of a light sleep and wakefulness. The many thoughts in his head gradually slowed down, and Thranduil’s mind finally seemed to have caught on to the fact it needed sleep. Listening to Legolas’s soft footsteps on the stairs, the third step creaking as it always did as his son had decided to go to bed as well, Thranduil drifted off.
WAIT.
Footsteps?
In a moment, Thranduil was wide awake again. Legolas wasn’t home. And if it wasn’t Legolas…
Then who was it?
Getting out of bed, completely disregarding the fact that he was naked, Thranduil grabbed the nearest thing that could function as some kind of weapon. Never mind the fact that the item in question was a shoehorn, and a plastic one at that that would sooner bend or even break than do any harm. After all, Thranduil had never met a burglar before, and thus didn’t know that hitting one with a shoehorn would not bring about the desired effect.
Stealthily (or so he thought) creeping out of his bedroom, the fearless warrior (as he saw himself) saw a soft light coming from under the door to his study, together with a scuffling sound. Then it was quiet.
Thranduil opened the door. The small desk light was on, but otherwise nothing seemed amiss. He flicked on the switch to the main lights of the room: three wall lamps softly illuminating his closed-backed desk and the soft green rug it stood on, and two lamps hanging from the ceiling shining on the four tall bookcases.
The room was empty.
Entering with his shoehorn held aloft, Thranduil checked behind the door, remembering Legolas having hidden there once and giving him quite the fright when shouting “Boo!”
Nothing.
Snorting at his own paranoia and lowering his weapon, the blond figured he had been dreaming. He had been very close to sleep, after all, and it wouldn’t be the first time that in that half-sleep-half-waking moment he would imagine many ridiculous things. That it was Legolas he had dreamed about only proved this point, as he missed his son and wanted him to be with him.
Walking around his desk to switch off the light he must have forgotten to extinguish sometime the previous night, still holding the shoehorn, he looked into two shocked and alarmed hazel eyes. Those eyes were attached to what Thranduil registered as a handsome face with a scruffy beard and moustache. A face attached to a head with shoulder length hair pulled back in a ponytail. A head attached to a body. A very sexy body, Thranduil’s mind provided, but he chose to ignore that fact for the moment.
Thranduil blinked.
“Who are you, and what the hell are you doing under my desk?”