SA 1856 (ii): Something Like Being a Consort by Ilye

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Something Like Being a Consort

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He wasn’t sure what made them sprint, but it got the blood fired up and wasn't that the object of the exercise? This was their cove, the one that demanded a skittering entrance down rough shale and nearly deposited them in the wash when the tide was high. Tonight the tide was heading out, revealing greyish sand that was smooth and even, untouched by anyone else.

In moonlight Glorfindel was a quicksilver creature, all glowing hair and bright eyes. He looked around them, laughing to himself as he turned to face Gil-galad with his arms wide open.

“Well?” His grin was quick and scapegrace and did strange things to Gil-galad, given that it was just a smile. Gil-galad let him wait for a moment, grinned back, then charged.

It was a perfectly executed tackle. His shoulder caught Glorfindel just below the waist and laid them both sprawling on the sand. Glorfindel groaned, but Gil-galad was on top of him laughing, which proved catching.

Neither had caught their breath when Gil-galad leaned down to kiss Glorfindel, making his world fold into nothing but the hot body hard underneath him and the ocean’s pounding. He felt Glorfindel surge up underneath him – and then everything wheeled around as he was flipped onto his back with that quicksilver smirk glinting over him.

“I told you that the only way we were having sex on the beach was if you played the mare.” Glorfindel’s voice was rough and scruffed the consonants through breathlessness and laughter. Gil-galad cocked an eyebrow, and was on top again.

“Oh, really?”

Glorfindel smirked, his body strained, and somehow he rolled Gil-galad’s heavier frame back underneath him. “Would I lie to you?”

It turned into an out-and-out competition that neither was particularly set on winning so much as enjoying the press and power of each other’s body. Down they rolled, each on top for barely more than a heartbeat. Suddenly Glorfindel stopped – the bottom half – and looked entreatingly up at Gil-galad with a sigh. Gil-galad licked his lips, feeling the twin flares of victory and desire light in his belly. He leaned in to resume their kiss.

Without warning, Glorfindel’s body twisted beneath him again and then cold wetness enveloped him as he was thrown sprawling into the sea. Salt water stung his eyes and nose, whilst Glorfindel’s pealing laughter combined with the shushing of the waves and filled his ears. He levered himself up on one elbow, scowling, and gestured to his nether regions.

“Looks like nothing at all is happening on the beach any more. Damn, this water is cold!”

His glare caused Glorfindel to bite back on his laughter, though he failed to quench the amusement lighting his eyes.

“You are not in the least bit sorry, are you?”

Glorfindel pressed his knuckles to his lips and shook his head. “Afraid not,” he replied with an audible smile. He dropped his hand again and tilted his head thoughtfully. In his expression was an element of something nameless that hastened Gil-galad’s pulse, despite the water’s coolness.

“I must say, though you look most unkingly, you are possibly the most tempting thing I’ve seen in this life so far.”

The wash divided around Glorfindel’s bare feet and streamed up the beach in strings of foam. Gil-galad gazed up at him as he paddled close, captivated, ignoring the swell that caught him across his shoulders in favour of the way it sprayed up Glorfindel’s thighs. There was a soft splash as Glorfindel knelt in front of him and surprisingly warm fingers sifted through his sodden hair.

Gil-galad let his eyelids sink to half-mast. “I think my crown has not so much slipped as been washed away,” he purred, leaning his head back to allow better access. The laugh he received in answer was low and soaked with promise.

“Hang it; you’ve been king enough for one day.”

“Now there I quite agree with you.” Gil-galad reached out with his free hand to slide it along a muscled shoulder and cup the base of Glorfindel’s neck. “And the mare’s role can go hang with the king’s, just so you know – though perhaps I could be tempted to play the consort.”

Glorfindel’s lips twitched as he leaned in close. “Oh, is there a difference, then? What makes you think you would enjoy the one and not the other?”

Gil-galad licked his lips; tasted salt. He considered the question in terms of his lover: his grounding, golden companion. Twice-born in Valinor, the things and people Glorfindel had seen and known had helped Gil-galad to piece together the fragments of his family history that never made the annals and which everybody else thought he was better off not knowing. When he craved honesty, it was there; likewise context or perspective. There was quite simply nobody else to whom he could talk, by whom he could be understood, with such easy, eloquent clarity.

Moonlight-bleached hair tangled around Gil-galad’s fingers as he clenched his fist, almost without realising. “Realms of difference – surely a consort is a higher honour than a king for being chosen, not made? If I could put down my damned crown and spend my life at the centre of someone’s desire and allegiance and trust, then I would do it in a heartbeat.” He paused and looked into the intent blue eyes studying his face. “And I think you know that too, you wicked creature.”

There was that laugh again; the one that proved his point. “Perhaps, yes. Desire and allegiance and trust, you say? That does sound something like being a consort.”

“Does it fit with your experience?” Glorfindel’s face registered mild surprise and Gil-galad tugged gently on his handful of golden mane. “Come now, surely you know you are consort to me in all but name?”

Though he had been waiting for it, Glorfindel’s kiss still caught him unawares with the intensity behind it. He sank backwards onto his supporting elbow, taking Glorfindel's weight against his chest and lowering them both closer to the water.

Deeply and thoroughly, Glorfindel pressed into him, against him, around him, until the shallows foamed around their bodies. Gil-galad could no longer distinguish the tide’s ebb and flow from their motion, or the rush of the wash from his own pulse.  His body appeared to have forgotten the ocean's chill. Through his lightweight clothing the sand pressed in, subtly moulding a niche for him in its bed. He felt surrounded, owned, wanted. He felt like Glorfindel's.

The kiss reached its natural conclusion with their hot bodies pressed so closely that not an ounce of seawater could sneak between them. Glorfindel watched him for a moment with those eyes that could see through centuries.

Gil-galad tilted his head. "So serious," he said, his attempt to keep his voice light mostly successful. Yet the unsullied smile offered by Glorfindel rinsed his emotions back to a deeper, rawer state. He forced a replica of his usual charming grin and tried again.

"I'm not sure that rutting in the sea quite counts as sex on the beach, you know. I think you still owe me."

A pleasant weight shifted and settled him further into the sand. "I’ll remember the oil next time and we can do things properly."

Gil-galad gave a lazy chuckle. The weight of Glorfindel's firm warrior's body cloaked him against the coolness of the water and was strangely soporific. "I'll admit that should probably be the consort's job," he mused aloud.

Glorfindel’s hum coincided with the waves and vibrated through Gil-galad’s belly. The tide went out imperceptibly. To the edge of the bay the boulders seemed to grow up; a guard against the outside world. Utmost contentment seeped into his bones. It would not take any effort at all for him to lie here in the ocean with Glorfindel forever, lulled by his steady breath and distracted by the way their hair floated in the tide like gossamer gold and its shadow.

"Desired and allied and trusted..." said Glorfindel after a time. "Is that how you feel?”

Gil-galad twisted to look into the honest blue eyes looking up at him. His answer was instinctive: “With you? Absolutely.”

Crinkles formed around Glorfindel's eyes as he smiled, then laid his head back onto Gil-galad's chest.

“That is how you make me feel. Always.” He paused as the next wave swooshed in. “Sounds a bit like love, really, don't you think?”