"These modern AU fics" where Legolas's elfish sleeping habit is translated by some deep-rooted insomnia and he's so obsessed with the stars and constellations and beautiful blankets that night puts over his head, he can't sleep he can't ever miss any dark-ink sky every purple waves as the sun goes to sleep and every peach dunes as the moon gives her farewells, disappearing for a nap with a last caress to her diligent guardian's cheek. Legolas will fight leagues of exhaustion, enamoured with his eery moon and beautiful sketches etched in bright and as they say about the night sky in True Detective "once there was only dark, if you ask me the light is winning." and the light will always win as long as Legolas is around to keep watch and it's truly terrible because somehow Legolas feels like if he sleeps stars will die alone and the single thought of it makes his heart burn oh! they have to be grieved! he wears the stars on his shoulders they are as light as his love for Gimli but as heavy as his eyelids when it gets too much, weighting tons of eons of empty graves his little stars have all died. And indeed finally, at one point, it's all too much for the Moon's lonely warrior, the shield has cracked, coffee can drip again and again it's not enough now, he has to sleep, because the moon and stars and Legolas have all encountered their deadliest and greatest ennemy.

One night, instead of hearing cicadas, dancing leaves, warm breezes, Legolas hears the sea. The One Sea. A sea that calls in his bones, waves that rattle in his chest, blood drenched in salt and instead of keeping watch, Legolas falls asleep. It is much worse than a siren song, not quite a lullaby, deadlier than a war horn, it holds him sharp in a warm embrace. Legolas falls asleep on his garden chair, drowned by a yawn, longing for a sea only the dead can see.

In the morning, Gimli finds him there, stumbles at the sight, his chest clenched by dread. His Legolas is asleep. It's the first time in the two decades they have known each other that Gimli falls witness to such palor on his partner's face, golden eyelashes casting unheard shadows. His Legolas's long thin stretched limbs who sleeps more and more unbeknownst to his worried moon and stars.

When he wakes, shaken by murmured sweet-nothings, it feels like he's in a glass cage, the dry sand and the seagulls and the taste of ozone is a quiet echo from his dreams but, worse than being prisoner, Legolas realizes, there's an opaque roof over his head blinding him from the milky way and planets and comets. From now on, he's stranded, will only witness moons and stars behind closed eyes!!!!!! BECAUSE HE'S GOT SEA-LONGING MOTHERFU-

Stopping right here caus-

Stopping here caus it hurts

"Gimli was still deep in slumber, but Legolas was standing, gazing northwards into the darkness, thoughtful and silent as a young tree in a windless night." (p.554)