Visitation by Haeron

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Chapter 4

Thank you for reading, there's more to come...

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Glorfindel was behind the door, pleading in his soft liquor voice to be let in. Erestor stood on the other side just a few steps away with his eyes closed, trying not to listen but listening all the same. He tried to focus on the song on the radio but it was too quiet; just a voice and piano and its sweetness only made him think of Glorfindel, pleading on the other side of the door where the rain was coming down in a brisk shower. Erestor’s heart lurched in his chest and he might have fallen to the floor.

 

It’d be easier to be a heap than a man.

 

The floor of the shop needed sweeping and it was at the wooden boards that Erestor stared, paralysed by indecision, fingering the tantalising possibility of crumpling. Indecision, it seemed like the wrong word for the tumult swirling in Erestor’s head, it lacked the gravitas to describe it, and it had been swirling for a day and a half. He brushed a foot over the boards, taking anchorage in the gritty sound under his heel. His life had capsized again.

 

‘Erestor?’ Glorfindel said from outside. His voice was muffled through the door, plaintive and sad.

 

Erestor said a prayer. He’d been thinking yesterday and through all of this morning, too. Elrond had told him to take the week off after his incident but the thought of being at home with nobody else but himself (and Barbara) and a mind full of leaden thoughts was more a punishment than a reprieve. So he’d come to work, and found that all his troubles had traced his steps to find him anew amongst the relics.

 

And they just would not be assuaged, these frets that picked at him constantly like so many carrion birds. The root of it was always the same even if the superficial worry varied hour by hour, minute by minute, heartbeat by heartbeat - what was Glorfindel’s intent? Who is he? Erestor plucked at the collar of his jumper, his fingers were restless and his resolve wavering with each gentle call of his name, each promise of honesty.

 

But if Glorfindel was an agent, what did that make Erestor?

 

Bait?

 

It was an worry that Erestor had thought to be shelved ever since that night that they had kissed under the streetlamp, but the trepidation was resilient and ugly and Erestor could not guess where Glorfindel’s duties started and finished. He would have to obey his orders, wouldn’t he? Even if the order was to get close to a small, unassuming antiques shop worker in order to neutralise a crime ring.

 

And that was the thought that had hounded Erestor like a beast, gnawing at the heel of all his other thoughts. It was there no matter what. I’m being used.

 

‘Erestor, please let me in! Please, please just tell me what’s wrong and we can talk about it, we can... we can talk about whatever you like, just let me in, let me see you.’

 

‘Would they be your own words, if we talked?’ Erestor asked, feeling a bit silly talking to a closed door.

 

‘They’re all my own words, Erestor, all of them - they always have been. I’m not paid to talk. You have to believe that.’

 

Was it that simple? Erestor doubted it, but then why not? If life could turn from blessedly uneventful to organised chaos in the space of a few days - then why could it not reverse itself in an equally rapid fashion? It was a pretty hope, and even though it soothed Erestor’s suspicion enough to give him cause to approach the door, he knew it was a folly - it was easier to rip a sheet of paper than to fix it back up again, easier to shoot a man in the chest than to retrieve the bullet and close the wound.

 

Erestor put his hand on the wood of the door. He could almost feel Glorfindel’s blazing desperation through it. He could hear the rain.

 

‘Why would Elrond pay me to do the things I did? He tells me not to intervene, he tells me to tidy up discreetly, he’s never told me to pretend to get close to you! That was... that was all my own doing, Erestor, and it hasn’t been an act! Elrond paid me to look after you and this shop ever since they got to Celebrían - doesn’t that make sense?’

 

Erestor could have smiled; Glorfindel was learning to know him well, playing to Erestor’s sense of the sensible. And his words did have a truth to them, indeed. Erestor could not find his voice. He splayed his fingers out over the door and nodded, watching the dust swirl in the dulcet light pouring from the windows, but it was not for Glorfindel to see.

 

‘I care for you, Erestor, and money can’t buy that. You can’t be ordered to want to be with someone.’

 

He argued his case well and fell silent though Erestor could still feel him there, waiting. He replayed Glorfindel’s words over again and swallowed them like a bitter pill. He’d spoken the plain truth, and now all that stood between them was a thin strip of reinforced wood with a hand-painted sign that Celebrían had designed, so long ago.

 

Open! said the sign, on Glorfindel’s side.

 

Perhaps it was time. Erestor felt a trickle of anticipation which lent strength to his decision. Perhaps I believed him all along, perhaps I just wanted to put the screws in to make him blaze for me. Erestor quashed the thought. Or, perhaps I was, am, just fucking confused, seeing as I polish old coins for a living and leave the house twice a week of my own volition to buy milk and cigarettes.

 

‘I’m going to open the door.’ said Erestor, and his voice sounded loud and stark in the empty shop. There was half an hour to go before they officially opened for business and Glorfindel had liked to visit before the morning customers, to bring coffee and food and sparkling conversation. He’d been greeted this morning with a locked door and a whimpering waif behind it, however - and it hadn’t been fair. Erestor produced the key from his pocket, it had a small yellow smiley-face key ring to mark it as Elrond’s master-key.

 

The clocks were out of time again and each tick Erestor felt in the marrow of his bones. He slid the small silver key into the lock and was poised to turn it. Let the light in, something seemed to say to him, and they key turned easily at his whim. He heard Glorfindel say something in relief, something that Erestor didn’t catch - he was sure Glorfindel spoke some other mother tongue where the words were far more poignant and apt for descriptions.

 

He pulled open the door a fraction. The rain smelt heady and dewy, it was the lifeblood of the spring. Glorfindel was there and seemed to be taking as much shelter as the small ledge over the shop’s door could afford; which was to say, not much at all. He was soaked through, despite the heavy black coat. ‘Erestor,’ he said, his smile was a flash of tenuous hope that wrenched Erestor’s heart anew.

 

And when he said Erestor’s name again, it was a low sigh.

 

He could kill a man like that, with that voice.

 

Glorfindel pushed an arm through the gap in the door to stroke Erestor’s cheek with the back of his damp hand. Erestor placed his own over Glorfindel’s, stroking a thumb across its wetness, and Glorfindel bowed his head and laughed - once - a despairing sound of fragility that seemed to shake the plates in the shop.

 

The rain was not letting up. Erestor felt a dozen errant drops as he came closer. He felt a dozen more when he reached up to ghost his breath across Glorfindel’s lips. The door was between them but each reached for the other in some small way.

 

‘I don’t know the first thing about you,’ Erestor whispered. It was a truth as much as it was an untruth, and it made Glorfindel smile. A bead of water dripped from his nose.

 

‘You could get to know me,’ he said sadly, in reply.

 

Erestor smiled. If he’d laughed, he would have cried with his next breath. Glorfindel guided them together and their kiss was tender and touched with a light, affectionate apprehension - a cautious pre-empting.

 

‘Just kiss me,’ Erestor whispered, eyes closed and listening half to the outdoors, the rain and the street beat and half to the creaking of the shop, the must of time immemorial. Two worlds in collision, joined by a coming together of lips and hands and fingers...

 

‘Then open the door, kitten,’

 

Erestor did.

 

It was quiet in the shop when Glorfindel entered, pushing the door closed behind him as an afterthought. He never looked away from Erestor, didn’t smile, didn’t make light. Behind his eyes was a starfield and each was a fire of its own. Erestor pulled him close by the lapels of his sodden coat, they were the only two things moving in the shop, the only two things that disturbed the dancing dust columns, shimmering at the window. Their dance was the only one that mattered, and everything else stayed and stopped to watch.

 

Glorfindel kissed the delicate skin under Erestor’s eyes - one kiss under each closed lid.

 

When he was finished they rested brow to brow and drew from the mingled breath between them. Erestor pushed off Glorfindel’s wet coat and it fell to the floor heavily. The shirt he wore underneath (a delicate powdered blue) had a few sodden patches where the rain had trickled through. Erestor touched them, and Glorfindel stirred.

 

Kiss me,

 

Their eyes met, but only for a second.

 

Trust me.

 

Erestor closed them again when Glorfindel kissed him, when he held him by the waist and started to move him backwards, gently, a step at a time. Towards the counter? Erestor smiled, and Glorfindel kissed that too.

 

The light song on the radio was a lilting ambience somewhere far away. Glorfindel was heavy with want and Erestor could taste it on his lips, in the shallow kisses they shared and broke and shared again. Erestor made a soft noise of surprise when he felt his back bump against the counter, and then another to feel Glorfindel’s body pressed to his; tight.

 

And Glorfindel was kissing him differently now. Deep, slow kisses where he could sigh his contentment and share a greater part of himself. His pornstar kisses. When Erestor pressed him for more, he gave it, and Erestor moaned to feel a tongue slide against his. Opening an eye for a fraction of a second - Erestor saw that Glorfindel had his closed and he was beautiful in his unspoiled affection. His golden lashes painted a pretty fan shadow under his eyes.

 

‘Kitten,’ Glorfindel smiled when Erestor told him how pretty he was, how pretty his eyelashes and their shadows were. His voice had been breathy, his words cut off by magnetic kisses, but now Glorfindel was looking at him with some intent, and he took Erestor’s hands. ‘There’s something,’ he began again, suddenly sultry. ‘There’s something I want you to feel.’

 

An electric charge of excitement traced the current of Erestor’s spine as Glorfindel guided his hands. He pushed them under his shirt and the skin of his stomach was taut and rippled, carven out of living marble. Fuck. Erestor could feel his heartbeat in his ears again, and was glad that it hadn’t taken a fire-fight showdown this time.

 

No, all it had taken was Glorfindel’s washboard abs.

 

He was life, and light.

 

And he was pushing Erestor’s hands up his shirt. He paused Erestor’s progress with a gentle hint and Erestor roused himself from the languid delight he had fallen into, being so directed by one so assured. His hands were resting on Glorfindel’s chest.

 

Is this where he wants me to touch him?

 

Erestor, judging from the way Glorfindel was kissing him with a sparkling anticipation, assumed so. He gave a cursory brush of his thumbs over the hardening nipples just within reach; and suddenly he understood. Piercings. Glorfindel gave a delighted sigh. They had to be some breach of health and safety sanctions, Erestor thought to himself as he worked the metal and skin lightly with the balls of his thumbs, but then how many missions would require Glorfindel to be topless?

 

Not enough.

 

Glorfindel was getting vocal. He whispered his pleasure hummed deeply into the kisses that had turned to something wildly erotic as Glorfindel cradled Erestor’s neck with one hand and the other he let wander - stroking a line down from collarbone to navel, hooking his fingers into the waistline of his pants when Erestor’s manual ministrations particularly pleased him. He swore when Erestor withdrew his fingers and leant down instead to ply his tongue to the piercings through the fabric of his shirt.

 

He could feel the metal bar against his tongue. He could feel Glorfindel gathering his dark hair in his hands so as to keep it from tangling. He could feel his own arousal being stirred by Glorfindel’s. Erestor pressed the fullness of his tongue over the mound of Glorfindel’s nipple, creating a generous wet patch; a love bite for clothes. Glorfindel was saying something, but Erestor was more focused on flicking his tongue over and under and across the piercings as best as the fabric barrier would allow.

 

Until Glorfindel drew him up with a thirst for more kisses.

 

Erestor met the summons and pushed his fingers into golden hair. Glorfindel was biting his lip, kissing him as though he would be deprived of life’s essence were he not to drink it from Erestor’s mouth. They had become all that existed in the world again, a primordial union of heat and lust’s touch. It was tactile; tangible, and Erestor was a panting wreck when Glorfindel’s palm brushed the hardness of his erection over his pants.

 

Fuck!

 

They saw one another, met gazes.

 

Glorfindel applied his palm again with a heavier touch, and was about to lean in for another wicked kiss when the door chime tinkled merrily.

 

Shit.

 

Glorfindel suddenly turned around.

 

Shit!

 

It was Elrond.

 

... shit!!

 

He was standing by the door with two very full, very heavy looking shopping bags in his hands. His hood was still up but his pale, rain daubed face was pointedly and bemusedly looking at them both. Erestor barely dared to peep over Glorfindel’s shoulder at him, standing a few meters or so away with the musky halo of yellowing light the shop windows afforded him, but when he did - he saw a wry smirk curling at the corner of Elrond’s mouth.

 

‘Boys,’ he said, in way of greeting, the vocal equivalent of a quirked brow.

 

Glorfindel disentangled himself from Erestor though they remained joined by their little fingers, siding side by side like little miscreants on the school yard.

 

‘Elrond!’ Glorfindel said, after clearing his throat. ‘We weren’t expecting you.’

 

‘You weren’t expecting me to come to work in my own shop? The one with my name above the door?’ Elrond replied, and it was a jest rather than a reprimand. He pushed back his hood and let the bursting bags drop by his legs on the floor.

 

Erestor was barely daring to breathe, but appreciated the reassuring kiss Glorfindel pressed to his brow.

 

‘We’ve got a stock-take to do, gentlemen. And Glorfindel, whilst you’re here, you may as well give us a hand.’ Elrond chimed, taking great joy in the command, it seemed. Erestor had to laugh at the dumbstruck surprise that had turned Glorfindel’s smile stale.

 

And he laughed even more when Glorfindel mouthed stock-take?

 

-

 

Glorfindel, it turned out, was a quick study and had soon gotten the hang of the art of stocktaking. It had never been something Erestor had enjoyed, pawing through the relics each week and counting the same god-awful statuettes that clearly nobody wanted to buy - but today was different, today there was a levity in the air that lightened the weight of Erestor’s body and he smiled often, not catching himself until Elrond or Glorfindel did.

 

And Elrond clearly enjoyed the extra company and subsequent extra chitchat. He was sat in the wicker window-seat (that, criminally, was nowhere near the window) and ticking off something on a stack of papers in his lap. His thinning hair was still ruffled by the wind and the rain but he was smiling, too, and watched just as Erestor watched whenever Glorfindel became distracted by some unearthed treasure or a painting wherein he fancied the look of the little watercolour figure dabbed in greens and golds. These distractions happened often, but neither Erestor nor Elrond could bring themselves to reprimand him.

 

It would have been like disciplining a puppy.

 

So Elrond and Erestor exchanged smiles, instead, and the occasional fond rolling of the eyes.

 

Sometimes a customer or two would enter the shop and call out merrily to the “boys” working so hard on a Tuesday, and Erestor would man the till for a time and nod agreeably as he was regaled with the shocking story of how Estella, the wildcard of the local nursing home, had in fact stolen old Josie’s slippers and worn them outside, outside! Erestor said that he could surely not believe such a scandal, and Wrinkled Ron said that no, he couldn’t either! Wrinkled Ron bought a book of old war coins and his wife one of the little watercolours, and when he left - Erestor heaved a sigh before the door chime had even finished tinkling its farewell.

 

‘When I get old and decrepit,’ he began, sliding out from behind the counter to rejoin the stocktake, ‘please, for the love of all that’s holy, do not put me in a fucking retirement village.’

 

‘There’s more courtly intrigue in the Holly House than the entire Tudor court,’ Elrond agreed.

 

Glorfindel laughed. He took Erestor’s small hands in his and put a honey kiss on the corner of Erestor’s lips. ‘Kitten,’ he said and it was all he said. Sometimes it was all Erestor needed. Sometimes it was enough.

 

Elrond watched, discreetly. Erestor was aware of it but then he could understand; for Elrond it must be a strange thing to see two of his friends from two very different worlds together, holding hands, stealing touches in-between affixing little price labels to the new cutlery. And if there was even the barest hint of speculation in Elrond’s grey eyes, well, Erestor could understand that too. He could understand it, strangely enough, because he himself didn’t understand the nature of his and Glorfindel’s relationship.

 

It’s not something to dwell on now, Erestor told himself, knowing full well that a time would come (and come soon) where that would change. But for now Elrond was singling along idly to the old ballad on the radio and Glorfindel had triumphantly assigned himself in charge of the bubblewrap. For now there was naught that needed to be pried into, unwound or unthreaded. For now there was a domestic bliss, a calm, and none of the three of them were like to disturb it.

 

Erestor held a saucer in his hand. It was a fragile thing, but quite beautiful. The brush strokes were fine and thin, leaving silvery trails.

 

He handed it to Glorfindel, to be wrapped up, and Glorfindel’s fingers brushed against Erestor’s as he passed him the little plate - and the tactility was quite deliberate. Touch, that was one thing Erestor knew about Glorfindel if he knew not a lot else; touch, it’s how he communicates. Touch was real to him; to touch was to feel, to ascertain the tangible and imbue it with the intangible. For Glorfindel, to touch was to speak.

 

And Erestor had always been certain that Glorfindel spoke more than just English.

 

They were staring at one another when Elrond broke the silence.

 

‘Tell me about Jonas,’ he said and it seemed from his voice that the suggestion had weighed on him for a considerable time. His tone was conversational and more than a little sympathetic. He was counting out autograph cards and muttering the numbers under his breath. But he still listened, even to the silence that answered his question.

 

Erestor’s stomach gave a lurch. He could hear the clocks again, and not for the first time in his life, he was grateful for Elrond’s boundless patience.

 

Glorfindel raised a brow. Erestor nodded, and so it was Glorfindel who retold the story of the car park and the sour deal and the six boxed in Bentleys with more than twice as many suited thugs with pistols. His retelling was modest, truthful - meant to pacify rather than inflame. He wrapped up the saucer with a careful deliberation, giving it more padding than it required, in truth. ‘It was bad, but in the end I got Erestor to the hospital and he flirted with the nurse and was discharged, in that order.’

 

‘Erestor did always have a thing for uniforms,’ Elrond winked.

 

Erestor’s smile was venomous and it just made Elrond laugh, and Elrond’s laughter was quiet.

 

‘But I asked because I think you should know, the both of you, that now he’s making trouble for more than just us. He’s been outed and thrown caution to the wind, a stupid thing to do - but then so was deciding to attack my dear old friend.’

 

‘If I’m old, Elrond, what in God’s name does that make you?’

 

‘About as old as half the things in this shop and certainly as old as these scraps of card, or older.’ he said, smiling and waving a yellowed and bent autograph card at them. ‘But the cat’s out of the bag now, in more respects than one. Just you both be careful out there.’

 

Glorfindel nodded. Erestor stood, his legs iron weights unresponsive to the command of movement, and stared unseeing at the vague space behind Elrond’s chair. There was a keen and broiling foreboding in the dark of Erestor’s gut and suddenly the quiet of the shop was oppressive, suddenly the shadows were dark and the sounds all too sharp. He could still remember the sounds of bullets and the writhing of the bodies.

 

Could it all happen again?

 

Erestor picked up a teacup.

 

Will he come for me?

 

He inhaled.

 

Will he come for Glorfindel?

 

‘Erestor?’ Glorfindel whispered in a voice meant for no one else.

 

He looked up and stemmed the shaking breath before it had chance to manifest and betray the prickles of fear goosing his back. Erestor smiled, and if Glorfindel found it unconvincing - he did not say so, and instead he wound a hand into Erestor’s hair and bent to kiss his raven crown. Erestor put his hands on Glorfindel’s chest.

 

His heartbeats were slower than the tickings of the clock.

 

‘Is this a new thing?’ Elrond asked. ‘You and Erestor?’

 

Erestor didn’t open his eyes but he smiled again and heard Glorfindel’s gentle laughter through his chest, he felt the beat of it within his body. He was alive. They both were alive.

 

Breathing came easier again.

 

‘New enough, yes,’ Glorfindel said.

 

There was pride in his voice.

 

‘I’m glad,’ said Elrond and beamed at them both as they parted. He was wiping the lenses of his glasses and using his shirt as a cloth. ‘You’re not either of you getting any younger, after all.’

 

Glorfindel laughed. For a time it was the only sound in the shop and it lingered after it died. The shop was a graveyard of history, a sacred place made so sacred by the memories that clung to everything like a fine dust, and it loved the sound of light and delight - both things Glorfindel aurated with abundance. Erestor had wondered on more than one occasion whether the pieces and pots and plates and prints in this shop ever mourned for their owner, for their own age or country. He’d asked Elrond once, and Elrond had taken away his obituaries for a week.

 

‘Keep an eye out for another plate to match the one I bought that other time,’ said Glorfindel, quite seriously.

 

Elrond paused his cleaning of his glasses to gape.

 

‘Tell me it wasn’t you who bought that plate,’

 

‘It was him, Elrond, it was him.’

 

Elrond laughed and shook his head, tutting. There were shadows on his shoulders and body, draped like a cloak of dark cut from a warm place of summer’s dark. ‘I dread to think of the wedding china he might pick out for you, Erestor.’

 

Glorfindel laughed, and there might have been a blush rouging his cheeks. It was hard to tell and Erestor knew better than to tease and ask. ‘Just keep an eye out,’

 

A tranquilly resumed, then, blanketing the three of them with amicable silence wherein they fell back to task, working each at their own pace and each in with conjunction with the others. A graveyard of history, Erestor thought, watching Glorfindel wrap up more little silver spoons, a sacred place of sacred things.

 

Elrond caught his eye.

 

Elrond smiled an all-knowing smile and Erestor could not have stopped the impulsive, coy little smile he replied with, even had he wanted to. It seemed real to him now, all that had happened; the date, the disaster, the hospital, the kisses and the... piercings. Elrond knew, Elrond had seen them and had somehow validated something with his passive observation. Erestor looked at Glorfindel again.

 

And he knew, in that moment, that he could make him his own.

 

The was a warning twinge in the back of Erestor’s mind, a warning of trust, for hadn’t he only this morning wavered, hadn’t he spent the past day and a night unsleeping, unthinking save for to ponder and fret about the strength of their bond? Erestor swallowed. He polished a little picture frame with a yellow cloth, if only to keep his hands busy and his internal struggle disguised.

 

It came down to one question: is there trust between us, or is there not?

 

Erestor furrowed his brow. He did not think for an answer, he did not search his head for a yes or a no or any other string of words to apply logic to the conundrum, but rather he let himself think in abstraction. He searched for the truth and he searched for feeling, he thought with his heart’s blood and heart’s heart, and knew that it was there - trust - they did have it.

 

They had to have it. Trust was a construction, just as any relationship was. Erestor wished that he’d listened to his mother now, during those conversations where she’d brush his hair and talk to him of love and how to treat a lady, how to know oneself. He remembered the snow in the grooves of the window and her jasmine scent. He remembered her impossibly long hair, but only a few of her actual words.

 

He caught sight of himself in the reflection of the spoon, warped and shrunk and gleaming metallic.

 

And Glorfindel was stood beside him.

 

-

 

Make yourself at home.

 

Erestor was looking at the picture frames on the fire mantelpiece. Some of the photos had been bleached by the sun and their colour lost, turned to a pale ghost of the vividness that surely must have been, but there was no mistaking the golden blonde hair of the young boy and the woman beaming out of the frame. Erestor picked it up.

 

Glorfindel had driven them both out of the city and through the surrounding green band to his house for what he called a “sleepover”. Erestor had initially quirked a brow but Glorfindel had stated his intentions were pure, that he wished simply to spend some time together away from the shop and the city. It was a blunt and honest attempt at forging a deeper trust, but Erestor could not deny his own curiosity (nor his want) and had agreed with a mock-defeated smile. Glorfindel had been overjoyed.

 

And now he was getting changed, upstairs, and had left Erestor to his own machinations in the living room. ‘Make yourself at home,’ he had declared merrily and paired the words with a kiss. Erestor, just like the other dozen times he had been invited into a new house and told to do so, had initially just sat himself on the edge of the sofa (brown leather, covered with soft, chocolate throws) and contented himself with waiting.

 

It was a pleasant room, large and airy with dark beams in the vaulted ceiling. There was an abundance of clutter which marked it clearly as Glorfindel’s domicile, and Erestor had cast a politely curious eye around at the side tables and the lamps, the coffee table and the books and papers and empty cups (with just a little cold coffee still left inside), at the large TV where Erestor adjusted his hair in the smoky reflection. He could hear Glorfindel’s footsteps above...

 

The curtains were not fully open despite it only being early-evening. And they were red, giving the little light that filtered through them a dark, hazy tint that was the very air of heavy relaxation, pleasant lethargy. It was quiet, and calm.

 

And eventually the urge to gently pry and poke about had been too strong, Erestor had risen to investigate. So he stood with the picture frame in hand, turning it over as though expecting to find some clue as to the identity of the little faces, but, as he turned it again, he reckoned that he could probably guess. He smiled. Wasn’t it something of an old courtship tradition to look through embarrassing childhood pictures?

 

Isn’t it a gesture of trust? To let someone into that part of your life, to let someone into your childhood?

 

As Erestor moved along the mantelpiece, he found more pictures and more beaming blondes - a whole clan of them, two rows of men and women and small children in-between, standing out in a garden with the sun in their eyes, causing them to squint at the camera. But their smiles were not dampened, not in the slightest.

 

A dozen new questions prickled at Erestor.

 

Who is he? He wondered, looking at the face of a decidedly teenage looking Glorfindel, already a head taller than most of the women in frame, already taking the shape of a burly rugby sort. He seemed to be sporting some kind of facial hair - more a fuzz than anything else. Erestor had to laugh, quietly. Who was he?

 

Erestor heard Glorfindel’s step on the stairs and a nervous twitch bade him dart back over to the sofa and assume innocence and play the coy, polite visitor who had been able to wait with patience and still fingers, but a larger part of Erestor wished to continue his investigation - after all, Glorfindel wouldn’t have invited him into his home if he hadn’t meant for him to see these things, surely?

 

And Erestor wished to look at the picture of a woman he had spied. He stepped into a thin beam of sunlight, pushing through the curtains and falling onto the floor and up the wall and leaving a warm trail up Erestor’s neck; the sun’s dying light had ever been its warmest and brightest. Erestor picked up the frame. A woman of about forty was smiling demurely. She had grey in her yellow hair and gentle lines around her eyes and mouth, but she shone, quite brilliantly.

 

Yet, there was something about her portrait that sobered Erestor immediately, something about the melancholy in her smile.

 

She had sad eyes.

 

‘Erestor?’

 

He kept his eyes on hers for a moment, before turning with the picture in hand. Glorfindel was standing in the doorway, dressed in his “house” clothes - namely an old t-shirt and yoga pants - and was clutching a blanket that he had evidently tried his best to fold into a neat square. He was smiling.

 

And then he saw the picture in Erestor’s hands.

 

Words failed Erestor and became as distant to him as the pinprick stars. He clutched and grasped for some explanation to give, something to smooth the incredulity from Glorfindel’s face before it turned to disappointment or, even worse, anger, but reason slipped through his fingers. Something nervous flitted in Erestor’s stomach, and he could only gape as a fish out of water, cursing himself for jeopardising the trust they were supposed to be building!

 

‘Glorfindel,’ he said, lowly, apologetically.

 

But Glorfindel’s face had cleared, he was smiling a small smile.

 

‘My mother,’ he said.

 

But that was all.

 

Erestor returned the smile, gently. Glorfindel was holding out a hand to him in silent invitation, and Erestor set the picture back on the mantle with one final look at the woman who was Glorfindel’s mother. Was? Erestor rebuked himself for use of the word. She had a light about her that she had clearly passed to her son, but the weight on her brow was more profound and the quirk of her lips grander for it. Erestor sat the picture back in its proper place and crossed the dim lit room, stepping over the bars of light that fell molten upon the carpet. He took Glorfindel’s hand, warm and large and holding his own as though it were a massively delicate thing.

 

He was led up a steep flight of stairs and across a narrow landing, into a room that could only have been Glorfindel’s bedroom. It was a sanctuary, and it was his. Erestor paused at the doorway and Glorfindel turned.

 

‘Is everything okay?’ he asked, blinking slowly.

 

Erestor looked into the room, the haven that Glorfindel had moulded to himself over the years. There was a scent in the air, some amalgamation of vanilla and white musk and flowers, and the walls were a mint; spring green. There were a lot of candles, too, Erestor noted, and some of them were aflame and danced on their wicks to greet them.

 

He nodded his answer and Glorfindel smiled. He brought them to the bed, a large, ornate thing where the covers were white and the wood dark, and bade Erestor to lay beside him - it was an easy request to fulfil. They lay atop the duvet and sheets but Glorfindel put the blanket over them, he smiled when Erestor came close to lie his head upon his chest, and stroked the dark raven tangles of his hair.

 

And Erestor watched the shadows of the branches of the trees outside sway across the ceiling, gently, gently...

 

There was naught but a silence between them, something fragile and held between the both of their hands; it was, in itself, a gesture of trust - that they would not break it, that they could deign to dwell in peace without the urge to fill it with noise. Glorfindel’s fingers were warm, and he brushed them over the shell of Erestor’s ear. Erestor kept a hand of his own upon Glorfindel’s chest and he felt its every rise and fall, the motion of his life so close to his own, the beating of his heart so loud in his conscience.

 

It would have been so easy to fall asleep, there was just... something that prevented greater rest. And Erestor agonized silently.

 

But it did not escape notice, his sudden tensing.

 

‘What’s bothering you, kitten?’

 

Erestor didn’t know, truly, and said so.

 

‘Can I answer any more questions for you?’ asked Glorfindel, his voice was low and Erestor heard it through his chest.

 

He smiled, ‘No, no. This is all just very new to me,’ he said.

 

‘And to me,’

 

‘Really?’ Erestor asked, his doubt a playful note that made Glorfindel laugh.

 

‘The relationship part of things, yes!’

 

Relationship.

 

Erestor had not thought about defining what they shared in those terms yet, but the word did not daunt him. Glorfindel twined their fingers together, a gesture so achingly intimate and slow that Erestor drew a sigh. It was all a bit quick - he was in Glorfindel’s bed, already! But not for sex; not yet, though he could not deny the physical attraction... not after what had occurred in the shop that morning.

 

Glorfindel was good, strong, undoubtedly gorgeous - and seemingly smitten.

 

I could have him.

 

‘There is something bothering you, isn’t there?’ Glorfindel insisted, pressing their hands further together. ‘Is this the part where you spill your tragic back-story to me?’

 

Erestor laughed, a little dryly.

 

‘No, nothing like that.’ he said, though he sensed that for all Glorfindel’s jesting and joking, he might have one. And if the pictures on the mantelpiece were anything to go by... It was surging again, the urge to pry, the urge that had been satisfied for god-knows-how-many years of reading obituaries. Erestor took a shallow breath. ‘What happened to your mother, Glorfindel?’

 

Silence.

 

Please say “nothing”, please say that she’s alive and well and living out her retirement years in a villa by the Mediterranean.

 

‘She died, kitten, there was a fire in my old town. A lot of my family died, a lot of other families died.’

 

Erestor’s heart broke in his chest. Glorfindel was staring absently at the ceiling when Erestor sat up a little to meet his eyes. He resisted, at first, but then he looked and Erestor had to kiss him, sweetly, before the look in his eyes shattered his heart anew. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered, kissing him again.

 

‘You’re very kind,’ Glorfindel said quietly, stroking Erestor’s cheek. ‘But it happened a long time ago, now.’

 

Somehow, Erestor did not think that mattered. Would a space of a hundred years ease the pain of a lost family? Of a lost mother, a lost life? It was a testament to his strength, Erestor supposed, laying himself back down to rest and seeking Glorfindel’s hand to join with his own, again. And he felt the puzzle starting to make sense; the pieces were gravitating together.

 

Glorfindel; a wanderer, a lonely star.

 

Their hands fit so well together, their fingers fit so well.

 

Glorfindel was breathing deeply, in and out and in and out, saying nothing but the tension on his brow hinted at the heaviness abounding him. They were not thoughts Erestor was keen to disturb, but he watched the fading light play shadows on his face and watched the fluttering of his eyelashes; each blink a renewal of the light that Erestor had known, the light Erestor had taken for a spry mischievousness on that first day they had met.

 

And yet now...

 

He ached for him.

 

Erestor sighed.

 

Was love itself not an ache, an ache of the soul?

 

Everything had changed; again.

 

‘I love it when you start thinking all deep like that,’ Glorfindel said, his voice a gentle rousing stir that brought Erestor out of his internal slog. He smiled, Glorfindel smiled, but then it flickered and was snuffed.

 

‘What is it?’ Glorfindel whispered.

 

Birds were cooing outside. The wind was in the leaves and there were even a few voices, the sounds of the neighbours. And it was nothing new to Glorfindel, evidently, his gaze was resolute now and fixed on Erestor. He stroked his thumb over Erestor’s hands, and repeated his question.

 

‘Is this real?’ Erestor asked.

 

Glorfindel lowered his eyes for a moment, to laugh a breathy laugh.

 

‘As real as you want to make it.’