Visitation by Haeron

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Chapter 5

The final chapter is being put up tonight too, so don't forget to check it out!

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The rains had finally come to an end and Erestor had ventured out of his apartment, tracing a slow path to the botanical gardens. A thick, white layer of clouds cast a grey smog of light over the city and mostly thwarted the sun’s attempts at shining through, but even so, there was a dull kind of lucidity to the day which made the puddles silvery; like pools of mercury. When he stepped in them to cross the road to the garden, they marbled and bled their silver and grey.

 

As usual, the gardens were busy and full of folks following the winding paths, walking dogs or jogging or simply, as Erestor was, enjoying a mild Sunday outside. It was a brisk day, not yet spring but then not quite winter, either, some other season stirred the air that pinched playfully at noses and cheeks and Erestor saw the population divided into two halves; those who still wrapped themselves up in scarves and gloves, and those who had braved the breeze without a coat in what could only be described as an optimistic venture. Erestor counted himself amongst the former - he would have to see the sun to believe it.

 

He would have to feel it - perhaps Glorfindel was starting to rub off on him.

 

He walked under bare groves of trees where the raindrops fell from pointed branches, reaching to mingle with one another, reaching to assert themselves in whatever free space they could. He walked by quickly, noting to himself that they’d look much friendlier in the spring, adorned with a canopy of sweet green and yellow leaves. The recent winter had been harsh in her reign, steeling all those who had fallen under her reach.

 

Not unlike a certain geography teacher Erestor had known...

 

Erestor had been idling along the narrow trail and looking sympathetically at the flowerbeds where there were no flowers (not yet) when he was suddenly accosted by a dog.

 

A big dog.

 

The dog bounded up to set his paws on Erestor’s belly. Erestor inwardly screamed, and did not fully appreciate the amicable canine gesture of greeting. He bit his tongue and bit back the swear that he was certain would rouse the angry wrath of a dozen mothers and tried, with more bravery than he was certain it should take, to push the dog off of him, gently, as so not to rouse the angry wrath of one big hound. Passers-by were giving him odd looks.

 

Erestor could have sworn at them, too.

 

And, to his utter dread, the dog did not leave when he had been prised from his body. It sat on the ground, quite merrily wagging its tail and knocking a few leaves about, looking up at Erestor with literal puppy eyes (though the dog itself was fully grown and handsome, a yellow Labrador with a smiling face). Erestor looked at it and then looked away just as quickly, glancing around seeking an owner who might have lost their mongrel. His heart was beating ten to the dozen, he raked back his hair and scanned the thinning crowd.

 

This dog can probably smell Barbara on me, that’s all. Barbara and fear.

 

Then the dog barked.

 

Erestor looked at it, wondering why nobody else in the vicinity was alarmed that he was going to get mauled and eaten by this dog.

 

The dark barked again, and Erestor squinted, looking at the red collar around its neck and divining a name etched onto the little dangling token. Chappy.

 

There was only one man in the city who would name a dog something so brilliantly uninspired, and Erestor momentarily hazed over with a relief so palpable he was afraid he might lose all corporeal bindings and melt into a blissful aether. And then the dog barked and Erestor jumped near half a mile out of his skin. He braced himself with the wind decided to follow the beast who had lolloped to his feet with the clear intention of playing a expansive game of fetch wherein Erestor was the twig.

 

And Erestor did feel a bit twigg-ish. He pulled his coat further around himself and followed the dog, as casually as he might, to a neat picnic area with a flat lawn and a generous dotting of benches that were mostly occupied despite the recent foul weather and the rain that lingered after its fall. It was to one of these that the dog brought him, winding through the crowd with more ease than Erestor could manage. But eventually they found Elrond, sat alone and sat quietly, eating a white bread sandwich and looking out at the vista of branches and shrubs all poised for the outbreak of warmer climes.

 

It was a waiting game, and Elrond too waited for the sun’s return, in a manner of speaking.

 

‘Don’t you have to be an eighty-four year old man to do things like this,’ Erestor said as he approached, making a gesture to the sandwiches. Elrond turned, surprised, he smiled and fed Chappy a little of the sandwich from his hand. The dog was well pleased and the sky was bright and white.

 

‘Erestor,’ laughed Elrond. ‘How nice to see you out and about in daylight! Is your skin burning, by any chance? Are you starting to miss your coffin?’

 

‘A little, it’s true,’

 

They both laughed and it was easy, a simple thing that came unforced and that was what Erestor had always liked about Elrond; his unflappable demeanour, his control. Erestor sat himself down beside Elrond (casting a wary glance at a sated Chappy) and stared out at the same midseason montage that played out before them. They were perched, everyone and everything, on the precipice of transition. Erestor could feel it in the deeper part of himself. He felt a shiver.

 

‘How are you?’ Elrond asked.

 

Erestor weighed up the question.

 

‘Not bad,’ he said with a smile, and it was the truth. It made Elrond smile, and he said no more for a time, and the pair simply sat; friends through thick and thin and thick again.

 

And Chappy wasn’t so bad, either.

 

***

 

They began on a slow walk back to Elrond’s house after a while in the gardens, and Elrond had initially suggested (in a tone altogether far too convincing) that Erestor could walk the other dogs. His laughter at Erestor’s stricken expression had turned the heads of a few commuters as they crossed the road out of the garden, and he replaced the suggestion with the idea of a cup of tea and a nice sit down instead; an idea that was far, far more agreeable to Erestor.

 

‘You’re an old bastard, you know that?’ Erestor said, shaking his head.

 

‘Oh, it’s one of the joys of my life.’ Elrond replied with a chuckle.

 

Chappy wagged his tail.

 

The streets were grey and rain-washed and the texture of the buildings seemed all the rougher for it, as though the buildings were protesting the shower. Concrete and brick did not so much love the deluges as the mud and bushels did, and Erestor felt the keenness of departure as they left the tranquillity of the botanical gardens behind and fell in with the buzz of the city, becoming a part of its endless moving bloodstream. It was just life of a different kind.

 

The city life.

 

And the sky was still white; unreachable, nothing. It made the day feel thin somehow, but then Erestor had never been able to enjoy Sundays when the thought of Monday hung so heavily, like the creaking sign of an old pub, moving stiffly.

 

Elrond made pleasant conversation as they walked, asking of Erestor’s mother (who was quite well, and phoning every Tuesday evening to ask if Erestor had made an honest man of himself yet) and of Erestor’s apartment neighbours who usually had gotten up to something marvellously ridiculous, such as, most recently, accidently dropping fruit out of their window so that Erestor saw it fly by his not a moment later. The stories always tickled Elrond, and he shook his head with gentle laughter. Gentility was the key to their conversational code, and both men could feel the timbre of the morning.

 

It was not one to be weighed down with heavier conversation, and Erestor was glad of the reprieve.

 

Naturally, no sooner had the thought occurred than a car pulled up roughly on the curb beside them, drawing a few shocked utterances from the milling pedestrians nearby. Cars were not supposed to just pull up out of the blue, not at speed. Elrond and Erestor looked, with Elrond murmuring something ominous under his breath.

 

An emerald green Jaguar.

 

A blonde driver, looking stressed beyond his bounds.

 

Glorfindel?

 

‘What is it?’ Elrond asked, making a dash to the car window and suddenly his was the very essence of severity. It was jarring to Erestor, who edged closer though he suspected maybe he should not... but Glorfindel - he looked as taxed as Erestor had ever seen him.

 

He could barely breathe to splutter his sentence.

 

‘They’ve found her,’ he said, dire.

 

‘No,’ Elrond whispered, eyes wide with a ripening dread. Chappy was growing restless and Erestor needed no further clue as to what had happened. Celebrían - the sunshine for which Elrond waited, so patiently. Thugs of Jonas’ character had been to ones who had put her in the hospital in the first place. Memory blended with a fragile present, Erestor remembered the shop, remembered Elrond’s warning that there was more to come, more thugs moving openly against them.

 

And now, they had found Celebrían?

 

Erestor’s spine tingled.

 

This went beyond attempt to demoralise.

 

‘Come with me,’ Glorfindel pressed Elrond. ‘I need directions to her hospital,’

 

The engine turned over and over and Elrond’s brow was furrowed in a mechanical thinking process. Glorfindel waited with stretched patience. Erestor could almost hear the ticking of the clocks in the shop again and felt his face blanche when Elrond turned to him, saying his name. ‘Erestor,’ he said. ‘You go,’

 

‘What?’

 

‘I’m going to the shop. I’m going to ring up a few more friends and then we’re going to follow you.’

 

He turned, he clapped Erestor on the shoulder.

 

‘Are you sure?’ Erestor asked, with incredulity that was the amalgamation of half a dozen other buzzing responses; fear, confusion, shock... They swirled in his upper conscience without sinking in, yet. The buildings were all so tall, the pavement hard under his feet.

 

Was it only 11am?

 

Elrond’s eyes were grey steel, his mouth a thin line. The passers-by became nothing but a moving hoard, a blend of grey and black that served to only fill up the negative space that Erestor saw. He could hear the hum, but did not know how much of it was real and how much imagined; it didn’t matter.

 

Celebrían.

 

‘I’m sure, now go!’

 

-

 

The wind tried to steal the words out of Erestor’s mouth but he stole them back; he could make himself heard when needs must, and he shouted directions as and when he remembered them. The windows of the car were rolled down and the constant stream of brisk air, blowing a small controlled gale, added to the tension of pursuit, like so many hands forcing them back, pushing them back. The city had suddenly become a maze and it seemed they were forever turning this way and that, they were forever chasing a destination just beyond the bend...

 

Time pressed against Erestor’s conscience. The engine was a growl that he felt under his feet. It was twenty minutes past eleven, and the city was slow.

 

Erestor felt small in the passenger seat, barking left! or right! or sometimes take the turning here, it’s quicker! Glorfindel said not a word, an oddity in itself but a tribute to a professionalism that Erestor hadn’t expected, and his face was a hardened mask of some determination that managed to be gritty and utterly passionate at the same time. Sometimes his golden hair would be whipped over his face, just for a moment, and Erestor would feel a particular twinge in the heart of his body.

 

The sun was wresting through the clouds, spouting a gilded light. Glorfindel was gorgeous in his rigorousness, the sun loved his skin... it was sexy.

 

And this is so not the time to be thinking of this, Erestor!

 

Erestor quite agreed with himself and refocused on the road ahead, directing Glorfindel to take a right out of the city proper. The hospital was a private building and lay just outside of the city’s cosmopolitan heart. Erestor had expressed doubt when Elrond had first confided to him his wife’s location, but Elrond had smiled and said they’d never think to look right under their noses! Erestor had forced a smile to soothe his ailing friend, but had, ever since, thought the decision had more to do with proximity than tactical appraisal...

 

But who could blame the man? Erestor had never the heart.

 

With each surge of wind, each sharp turn of a corner - the adrenaline pooled in Erestor’s stomach jolted and spread to each extremity. He shivered a dread like a cold sweat that reached to all corners of his body; a chill. And Glorfindel, for all his attempts at concealment, was just as wound up. There was tension around his eyes and his brow was knitted.

 

He looked older. He looked like a federal agent.

 

Erestor covered Glorfindel’s hand, over the shift stick. Glorfindel looked at him for a moment, and his expression was softer, sympathetic.

 

‘It’ll be okay,’ he said.

 

‘I know.’ said Erestor, a small, uncertain smile turning a corner of his lips.

 

The lie was a lie and brutal in its juxtaposed honesty, but still, somehow, it settled them both. Glorfindel drove them out and through the city, following instruction with nary a word besides the occasional where now. Sometimes Erestor would not remember which turn to take, sometimes the roads would blur in his mind and the fog would not part, the panic would descend - and Glorfindel would call his name and ask again, never with any pressure, never with a threat colouring his words.

 

He would ask, and flex his fingers under Erestor’s hand, he’d turn and meet his eyes, keeping his other hand poised on the wheel, and Erestor would see they were very, very blue. The colour of a powdered sky that was the soul of summer.

 

‘Right,’ Erestor would say, remembering. ‘It’s right.’

 

‘Kitten,’

 

It was all Glorfindel needed to say.

 

***

 

The time was half past eleven when they finally reached the hospital. It was a modern building with white walls and mirrors, hiding in the outskirts of the city besides a few defunct retail parks and a family restaurant. It was far enough away from civilisation that a stretch of green could be seen if one peered out through to the horizon, and yet close enough to still be able to hear the sounds of the modern century; commute and commotion. Glorfindel guided the car around the front of the building, and into the carpark.

 

Eight cars were parked.

 

Six were black rentals.

 

Gravel crunched under the tires as Glorfindel slowed them down and took his time to park neatly - whether a feigned display of nonchalance or a dangerous act of calculated coolness, Erestor dared not guess. Glorfindel had his eyes fixed on a group of men stood in congregation besides a door that was marked staff only. They looked to be inputting a code - or at least trying to.

 

‘They’re having some difficulty,’ Erestor observed.

 

Two of the men had spotted Glorfindel’s car, and stood, perfectly still, watching. They wore dark sunglasses and suits and might well have had the word pawn stamped across their foreheads. Yet even though they lacked a certain tenacity, Erestor had no wish to see them take even a step closer to Celebrían. A fool of a man could still point a gun at an incapacitated target, after all, and a well paid fool would have no qualms about pulling the trigger.

 

Glorfindel pulled down the sun visor. He was wearing a dark shirt, a handsome plum colour. All the buttons were done up.

 

‘Things might just get even more difficult for them.’ Glorfindel said, eyeing up the men a moment longer before turning to Erestor.

 

He took his chin in hand and enforced their eye contact. Erestor had an overwhelming urge to smile; Glorfindel’s hands were warm and rough and their shared adrenaline a blazing thing. But smile Erestor did not, and met Glorfindel’s gaze.

 

The sun cast a glow behind him.

 

‘Stay in the car, baby.’

 

‘Baby?’

 

Glorfindel raised a brow, but did not smile, either. But he did lean forward for a kiss, a small, sweet thing that might well have been for luck or hope or whatever small strength Erestor could bequeath him, and no sooner had Erestor opened his eyes again than Glorfindel was exiting the car. The opening of the door was a sharp sound. The wind was cruel.

 

And then Glorfindel was gone and outside. He smoothed down his shirt and collar and began to walk, slowly, casually, over to the group of men who watched, like a pack of wolves, his approach. The sun was shining behind the building now, casting a long shadow. Glorfindel walked into it and suddenly the car was empty and Erestor felt a strangling dread.

 

He hopped over to the driver’s seat for a better view out of the window. His breathing was loud, filling the emptiness of the car that was not his own, misting the window - the glass a fragile barrier between him and all he held holy, all he held dear. The separation was an ache of trepidation and greater fear and Erestor watched Glorfindel engage in conversation with the would-be criminals, feeling oddly distant from it all.

 

A pane of glass, a car door, a stretch of tarmac - it was all that kept them apart, it was all that lay between them.

 

Their talk went on and on for some time, with Glorfindel talking circles around the men who had formed their own circle around him. He did not seem phased, though in truth Erestor could not see his face nor hear a word. He watched Glorfindel’s hands, he watched the shoulders of the men in suits, he watched their tapping feet and how they would look to one man in particular - the leader, no doubt. Erestor had his fingers wound around the car door’s handle.

 

He felt nothing besides a warning pang in his chest that had numbed the trammelling fear riding the beat of his heart, rising and falling like so many shaky breaths taken to still a jittering hand. It would come later, he knew, but he made Glorfindel his focus, and he remembered Elrond - who would be arriving soon, if the Gods were good. So long as there was a hope to cling to, a plan of some kind...

 

Glorfindel just had to play for time, and he played the game well.

 

Erestor exhaled, slowly, but the rest of him was still and predatory. He watched and waited, he listed and waited.

 

And he did not have to wait long before all hell broke loose.

 

The leader had pulled his gun on Glorfindel with a yelled command, gruff and impatient. Erestor heard the gun go off and gasped aloud, but Glorfindel was moving out of the circle, uninjured, and produced his own gun. Erestor saw the gleam of it and the metal was cruel, the metal that Glorfindel had carried so near his own heart.

 

It was shot after shot then and each made Erestor blink, for such was the noise and force. They bounced off the cars, and an alarm started to scream. Erestor remembered Jonas, the car park, he remembered the whistling of bullets and the sound they made when they collided with a human body. And he thought of Celebrían, he thought of the honey blonde who called him kitten and kissed him often. Erestor tested the door handle but did not fancy diving into the middle of a fire fight, even one as half-hearted as this. Glorfindel had pointed his gun at the foot of the leader who had subsequently fallen down after the bang and the scream.

 

The rest of the group faltered, then. A few were looking at the car with the blaring alarm and the flashing lights, knowing full well, no doubt, that the ruckus would drawn the hospital staff outside to investigate.

 

Glorfindel shot at another who dared an approach. He shot another warning shot after that and called something out to them, something that made them exchange looks. Another dared a lunge and an aim at Glorfindel but ended up a human heap. He screamed a vicious expletive, but Glorfindel paid him no mind. He was knelt beside the leader who had fallen by his car, grasping him by his tie and seemingly having a conversation of sorts. The man was shaking his head, trying to clutch at his leg, swearing, shouting, promising a revenge, screaming at his men to attack-

 

Glorfindel shot a bullet at nothing in particular.

 

Erestor had jumped, but the man stopped his balking only after a swift blow to the jaw with the butt of the pistol. He was talking now and talking frantically. Erestor saw Glorfindel give him a rough shake from time to time, like trying to wrest the stubborn coins from the nooks of the piggybank. It did not seem real to Erestor, watching Glorfindel acting so bleakly in the heat of the action - even now, watching him roughhouse the beaten criminal, the image that Erestor had of Glorfindel did not match the image of the one knelt in the long shadow of the hospital in his shirt and cufflinks.

 

He’s a trained force, Erestor reminded himself, but that’s only one part of who he is.

 

The leader was talking fast and Glorfindel was knelt to hear it, nodding and pushing the felon back if he tried to rise too suddenly. Erestor watched too, praying with each heartbeat that Glorfindel would get the information he needed, that Elrond would arrive, that the doctors and nurses would phone the police - that something happened to end this! The other men, in suits and shades, were retreating to their cars like snakes from a fire. They crept back and withdrew and Erestor heard the leader yell a fresh condemnation.

 

Glorfindel yelled something back and the man whimpered.

 

It was then that Erestor saw him; the opportunist. One of the louts had not slunk back to his rental Mercedes like the others and decided to employ stealth and sneak up on Glorfindel. His back was turned to Erestor but he could see the gun. The man’s fingers were poised and each step of his was a bleak tremor along Erestor’s spine. He couldn’t scream unless he wanted to be trapped in the car with his own despair, but he had no gun, no weapon to avert this with!

 

Unless...

 

Erestor slid out the hair pin that had been keeping the loose curls from his face. He held the metal in his hand, pressed it against his palm, and took a steadying breath. For a moment he caught sight of himself in the rear-view mirror - just his eyes - and Erestor almost didn’t recognise himself. He opened up the car door but the action did not feel his own. The air was stirred, lifting him to his feet.

 

He was small, stood out in the open, but he clung to the hair pin and began to creep up on the creep, unsure exactly what he would do when he caught up. Just fucking stab him in the leg, you useless son of a... Erestor asked himself what would Glorfindel do but then realised that even if he did know the answer to that, he had neither a gun nor a fine set of muscles to carry out the inspiration.

 

The leader was still talking. Erestor crept closer, and heard more. He let the conversation come to him but he did not lose focus; he matched his steps to the fellow sneaking with the gun - and Erestor took two for each one that the man stepped.

 

‘-spread the word, yeah, he did, but he didn’t put us up to this!’ the leader was pleading to a largely unmoved Glorfindel, who pressed for more.

 

Erestor was reducing the distance between himself and the crook. The pin was a thin needle in his hand that would do no good against an incoming bullet, but then if he could just keep quiet long enough to...

 

‘Your little boss man made a lot of enemies over the years and they’ll all waiting lined up, just waiting for him to make a slip. And he made it, didn’t he? So here we are - you gotta believe that it’s as simple as that!’

 

Glorfindel said that crime was never as simple as that.

 

Erestor was a stride away from the man with the gun. All there was was the sound of muffled footsteps, the conversation between agent and thug, a plane somewhere high above; its low droning engine the incongruous tension that drew it all together. And it wasn’t even noon on a Sunday yet.

 

‘Well sometimes it is, blondie, there’ll just be more and more of us and you can shoot them up and question them and they’ll all tell you what I’m telling you- ANDY!’

 

The man named Andy turned around just in time to see Erestor thrust the little pin in the crook of his knee-joint. He went down clumsily, more out of shock than actual pain, but then he screamed (most definitely out of pain this time) as Glorfindel turned to halt him further with a bullet. All was silent then, save for Andy’s groaning, and the pin was still sticking out of his leg.

 

Erestor decided to leave it where it was.

 

***

 

A copse of hospital staff were gathered in the car park corner, huddled together and craning their necks to try and see over the police cars. There was radio chatter and the more earthly buzz of human gossip, human intrigue. Erestor, on some other day, might have wanted to eavesdrop on what the police officer was saying to Elrond (who had arrived with no less than four cop cars), but today - the urge was not there.

 

Adrenaline, when it faded, took all else with it, too.

 

Glorfindel was holding Erestor’s hand, leaning on a police car and undoing the top button of his shirt with his free hand. His breathing was barely laboured and Erestor had expected to see him radiating a certain kind of pride, for having pre-empted a grotesque attempt at demoralisation on such a personal, grizzly level.

 

But Glorfindel, for all his bluster, stood a modest sentinel.

 

‘Do you think we’d be able to go and see her?’ Erestor asked. There were a few trees planted aesthetically on the grass verge around the car park and he watched the little leaves that had braved to bloom in the winter, swaying this way and that. There would be berries scattered all over the tarmac in the spring time, the trees would paint the ground in fey attempt to reclaim it.

 

Glorfindel pondered the question.

 

‘We’d need to come back and talk to the police,’ he said.

 

‘But we could go to her, for ten minutes or so?’

 

‘I don’t see why not,’ Glorfindel said, the word was more yawn than affirmation. He looked around, trying to catch the attention of one of the sergeants. He made a motion towards the hospital with a slight crook of his head and the sergeant nodded.

 

The breeze was sweeter then, in that moment; an afterthought of the violence that had come to pass that was in itself an urged warning. ‘Thank God,’ whispered Erestor, for nobody but himself to hear.

 

‘She’ll want to see her hero, kitten, come on.’

 

Glorfindel’s hair was blown by the wind, over his face - just for an instant. And he was smiling a smiled of a tired man.

 

Erestor nodded, and followed where Glorfindel led.

 

-

 

Celebrían was asleep, as she had been for so long, resting in a bed of white sheets and linen; a heavenly sight of divine fragility that would fool one into thinking she had always been as this - but it wasn’t so. She had been so strong when she had lived, she had been such a spirit. It had been four years since her assault and Erestor, though he visited as often as he could, could never quite get used to seeing her looking so... small.

 

He was sat beside the bed in a small chair, holding her hand with both of his. He felt that she did not wear her wedding rings, and he wondered where they were. Somewhere safe, he told himself, though hope was always weakened when one sat beside a hospital bed, in a clean, sterile, white room. He had gone with Elrond the day he had picked her engagement ring, he had been the best man at their wedding.

 

And he was the godfather of her children, of hers and Elrond’s children.

 

Erestor blinked and time was water slipping from the back of a duck. He bade himself not think of these things but the memories came in flashes and shocks - like a reel of film ticking over in an old projector. Silence. He saw flashes of smiling faces, wedding veils and finger paintings and yet, over them all, he saw Celebrían’s sleeping face.

 

‘Kitten,’ said Glorfindel, softly, and Erestor anchored himself under the warm hand upon his shoulder.

 

There were beeps and bleeps and the sounds of gentle machinery but no human noise save for the breaths that Erestor and Glorfindel muted, as though not wishing to disturb Celebrían from her slumber. If only it were that easy.

 

‘We should bring her some things, for her room. Maybe some pictures of the children.’ Erestor said, masking the aching sorrow in his gut with practicality, as always. Though the room was perfectly cleanly, it was also lonely. Erestor reasoned that he would not wish to wake up in such a place, not without a few home comforts around.

 

Glorfindel was looking round too, nodding.

 

And Erestor knew their ten minutes were up but he could not rise from the chair. To rise would be to leave, to leave her alone in such an empty room. He looked at her and the smoothed wrinkles around her eyes and mouth; laughter lines. He hold told her everything about the men and about Jonas, bidding her not to worry, telling her she had two very brave men looking out for her and then, at Glorfindel’s sweet request, he had amended the number to three.

 

She might have listened, Erestor would never know, but he spoke as though she did and warmed her hands with his. When there had been nothing left to say, they had sat in a contemplative silence weighed down with leaden sadness. Glorfindel stayed close, though Erestor wondered how much he understood. Celebrían had been like a mother to Erestor, and a mother to her three children - all of them strong now, all of them grown and bright blossoms fallen from the same tree.

 

‘We’ll bring her some flowers, too.’ Glorfindel said.

 

‘Yes,’ Erestor agreed, liking the idea. ‘Lilies, maybe.’

 

‘Lilies,’ echoed Glorfindel, softly.

 

The sun didn’t seem to come through the windows into the room, the light was of a different quality - though perhaps it had more to do with the sudden fatigue siphoning away at Erestor’s will. He let go of Celebrían’s hand and stood, slowly.

 

But suddenly something threatened to break inside of him and he covered his mouth, quickly, for fear of an errant sob - but then Glorfindel was there and Glorfindel was holding him, stood behind, and holding them close together. Erestor did not resist; Glorfindel’s strength behind him was a saving grace.

 

Erestor closed his eyes and heard the machines, beeping, bleeping. He saw light behind his eyelids and felt Glorfindel gathering his hair to the side in order to put butterfly kisses on the back of his neck. Each one caused a shiver, each one was warm. Erestor breathed, and could do naught else for a time.

 

Just breathe.

 

It’s been a long day. It’s been a long four years.

 

‘It’ll be a memory some day,’ said Glorfindel, in barely more than a whisper. His voice was touched with grief.

 

Erestor didn’t know whether to believe him.

 

He didn’t know whether he could.

 

But so long as there was hope to cling to, a plan of some kind...

 

‘Glorfindel,’ Erestor whispered, ‘thank you,’

 

-

 

The drive home was better.

 

Glorfindel had let the roof down and they had rode the long way back to the city, through the tunnels where the lights were bright and orange and came like a machinegun burst - one after the other. Glorfindel would laugh, from time to time, seeing Erestor gawping out of the window, but from the little shiver in his glee, he was getting cold. Eventually he put the roof back up (the car was a marvel of automated simplicity) and Erestor was just as glad for the warmth.

 

God bless heated seats.

 

He would look at the road flying under the tires. It was amazing how high-speed travel could subdue all of the anxiety in the back of a conscience; perhaps it was the hope that came with travelling - that you, somehow, would end up in a better place than when you set off. Was it another folly?

 

Erestor rather suspected it was.

 

But he was beginning to suspect that the nature of all hope was that it stemmed from some such folly. After all, that’s what made it hope and not certainty.

 

Glorfindel seemed well recovered, though in truth Erestor could not be certain how much he was containing within himself, unspoken and unseen. He sang, sometimes, to a particular chorus or verse that came on the radio and he had a fair voice. There was a new intimacy there between them; one borne of comfort and akin to something a pair of best friends would share. It made Erestor smile and oft times Glorfindel would reach to stroke his thigh, as though reminding him that he was still there.

 

As if anyone could have forgotten.

 

As they cruised back into the hubbub of the city, the streets were noticeably less congested. Erestor looked to the dashboard monitors and saw that it was quarter past one; when those unfortunate enough to be working on a Sunday had come back from their dinner hours and were settling back into their daily grind. There were other pedestrians about and the emerald Jaguar drew a few looks from the crowds waiting to cross the roads or sitting outside of the Costa bars. They sailed through a quiet city under a blanket sky, under the watch of grey giants with rows of glass eyes.

 

To Erestor it all seemed distant again, after the sterilisation of Celebrían’s room. The quiet was unusual as they turned down another street, and brushed with an aching sorrow of some kind - shared only between the two of them in the world they shared that was the interior of the car. But it was a good ache, in the way that the foreplay was always better than the sex.

 

Erestor blinked.

 

That was a particular metaphor.

 

They were nearly at Erestor’s apartment building and the twang of separation rang out again in the cavity of Erestor’s chest. He looked at Glorfindel, looking out at the road with a perfect calm playing on his face.

 

‘You’re gorgeous,’ Erestor said, pointedly, turning his body to Glorfindel a little. The point felt as though it needed to be made in the wake of all that had happened that day. But Glorfindel merely laughed, gently, keeping his eyes out front. Erestor smiled, a teasing wryness. ‘Do you not believe me?’

 

‘I just try to be a good man.’

 

It was a response that Erestor didn’t quite understand.

 

‘Not all the time, I hope.’

 

Glorfindel flashed him a playful glance and a brilliant smile.

 

‘You’re of a mood, today!’

 

Erestor laughed but it turned to a lingering sigh as they pulled up outside his meagre block of flats, just another grey building stretching into the sky. He could see his flat from the window, and peered up at it to see if he could spot Barbara perhaps perched on a windowsill - but he saw nothing, as it seemed he had forgotten to open his curtains.

 

Again.

 

He didn’t want to leave the car, but Glorfindel had a day’s worth of reports to do and antiques sellers were not highly prized in the federal agency - no matter their potential coffee brewing skill. Erestor looked at Glorfindel, and Glorfindel took his hands.

 

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘If you’re still of a mood later tonight, do you maybe fancy going out for a bit? I can pick you up. There’s a small place uptown where I never get to go as often as I’d like, a smoke and mirrors kind of bar.’

 

He was smiling, and Erestor couldn’t deny the prickle of want that goosed his flesh.

 

‘I’d like that,’ he said, feeling a déjà vu.

 

Glorfindel’s smile turned wicked, and he leaned in for a kiss that was equally so. He cradled Erestor’s face with a hand and kissed him deeply and slow, parting Erestor’s lips easily to push his tongue inside. Erestor moaned; a half breathless thing that made Glorfindel smile. He opened his mouth wider to let Glorfindel in, to let him assert himself and sate a need Erestor had harboured since their interrupted fraternisation in the shop all those days ago.

 

He was pulling gently on Glorfindel’s hair when the kiss was broken.

 

‘You’re so good at that,’ Glorfindel said, opening his eyes. His voice was husky; dirty. Erestor could have clambered onto his lap right then and there and Glorfindel knew it. He smiled again, he brushed his thumb over Erestor’s lip and his eyes flicked up to Erestor’s. They were brilliant.

 

‘I’ll see you at nine, kitten.’

 

-

 

The bar was called Yael’s and it was the kind of place that managed to be big and small at the same time; it was cramped, but with plenty of room to dive out of the dancing to take shelter in a booth or at the bar. A dark lounge kind of music played loudly enough to reassure Erestor he would be hearing it for the next seven months but the care was soon wiped from his concerns. Laser lights split the darkness but all he saw were bodies, dancing around him - the music filled the free spaces and there was Glorfindel; and they danced.

 

Smoke and mirrors.

 

It was not so much a dance that they shared as much as it was the feel of the other’s body, a gentle sway to the low pulse of the song; the rhythm of some dark creature. It was malign and utterly wicked and Glorfindel whispered into Erestor’s ear that he looked beautiful, that he wanted to touch him.

 

Erestor had smiled. He doubted Glorfindel could see enough of him to warrant calling him beautiful, but the night was not for teasing. He’d taken Glorfindel’s hands and set them around his hips, so that Glorfindel could pull their bodies to unison. And so they danced; Erestor reached up to wind an arm around Glorfindel’s neck to taste the breath from his lips, but not to kiss.

 

And so what kind of night is this? Erestor suspected he knew. Glorfindel’s heat merged with his own and he closed his eyes to fall into the music. Was this how Glorfindel liked to cope? Was this his solution to dealing with all that had happened today?

 

To loose himself in intimacy, touch, something erotic and dark...

 

It was like they were making love, they way they moved.

 

And just as Erestor realised it, he saw Glorfindel open his eyes. He kissed him, an innocent peck in an not so innocent place, and suggested they sit down to catch their breaths. ‘We have the whole night together, after all,’ he had half-whispered, half-shouted into Erestor’s ear, and Erestor agreed.

 

The night was turning to a blur and Erestor hadn’t touched a single drop of alcohol, it was simply unnecessary (and Erestor did not cherish the thought of making a fool of himself in front of all these art-house kinds of people, they didn’t seem like the type who would take loudly to a small man clambering onto the table top to sing Erasure). But the place, Yael’s, was in itself intoxicating; black leather and walls and lights that flickered to illuminate the tops of the heads of the swaying crowd on the dance floor. And they were both seeking something, he and Glorfindel, something that alcohol wouldn’t have heightened.

 

They moved to a booth near the bar and Glorfindel sat first, tapping the sear beside him as cue for Erestor to perch himself there.

 

Erestor smiled, raised a brow, and seated himself on Glorfindel’s lap.

 

At long fucking last.

 

Glorfindel smiled and let out a low sigh that Erestor could hear better now they were away from the dance floor. He received Erestor on his lap and held him about the waist before he moved a hand to the front of Erestor’s stomach, encouraging the subtle movements he was making over Glorfindel’s groin.

 

He sat back, aroused.

 

‘Are you, ah, are you in work tomorrow?’ Glorfindel asked, lowly.

 

It was an odd question, or so Erestor thought for a moment before realising that Glorfindel was providing them with opportunity. He doesn’t need conversation to do that, Erestor thought, fondly, but allowed the man his comforts. He was untucking Erestor’s shirt and dipping his fingers into the waistband of his jeans, his eyes half lidded and growing heavy with a hazed lust.

 

And the bar was dark and smoky - casting everything half into a shadowy dream.

 

Erestor made an affirmative noise, and bent to kiss Glorfindel’s neck, finding that his skin was warm and soft and hot under his tongue.

 

‘I’m going to come in tomorrow,’ Glorfindel was saying, distractedly as he ran his hand up the smoothness of Erestor’s stomach, feeling the muscles work under the skin, feeling the movement of him atop him. Erestor smiled into his neck, biting where he would and, to his absolute joy, eliciting small, carnal gasps when he applied his teeth to some hidden sweet spot. ‘and I’m going to find a matching plate if it fucking kills me,’

 

He was laughing as he spoke, but it was lust.

 

Erestor couldn’t believe Glorfindel was talking about that god-awful plate at a place and a time like this, especially considering the erection he could feel pressing up under him. A flash of laser light danced over them and he saw, for just a second or two, Glorfindel’s pleasure awash on his face. Erestor worked against it, rubbed himself against it, and felt Glorfindel stir.

 

‘No, no,’ Erestor whispered. ‘No, you keep telling me about that plate, seeing as you like it so much.’

 

‘You’re a bad person,’

 

‘I am,’ Erestor breathed, biting at Glorfindel’s earlobe, grinding hard against the hardness he could feel under his groin. Glorfindel let out a gasp and Erestor had been poised to kiss the arousal from his lips when Glorfindel bade him, with a gentle push and a whisper of kitten, stand. A moment flickered between them wherein fear pierced Erestor’s gut in place of desire - he barely dared breathe.

 

I’ve done something wrong.

 

He stood, and so did Glorfindel.

 

But we’ve only just managed to sit down...

 

There were shadows on his face and his hair was falling out of the messy bun, and seeing Erestor’s shock splayed on his face - he smiled. ‘Come with me,’ he whispered, coming close enough to pair the words with a kiss behind Erestor’s ear. The music was a drum under his feet. His body was alive with the pulsing of desire and Glorfindel... Glorfindel waited for the nod before taking him by the hand and through the bar, through the dance floor and into the bathroom, where Erestor laughed as he was hastily pushed inside one of the remarkably fancy toilet cubicles.

 

The dim light of the bathroom compared to the lowness of the bar hurt his eyes, he had to squint.

 

It’s all a blur!

 

‘This kind of bar isn’t usually in my range,’ he said, his voice dancing with laughter as Glorfindel turned him to press him hard against the cubicle door.

 

‘You’re the kind of man who isn’t usually in mine,’ Glorfindel replied with an answering smile, before he pinned Erestor to the door with a blazing kiss.

 

Erestor wound his hands into Glorfindel’s hair; the man was half an animal and kissing him with a tenacity he had never known. It was wet, messy and often Erestor moaned into Glorfindel’s hotness, he let him use him as he would, touch him as he would - and whispered more where Glorfindel began to grind his body against his. He pulled his golden hair, dug his nails into the base of his neck and it served to inflame Glorfindel only more and more.

 

He used his teeth.

 

And Erestor liked it.

 

He wondered if Glorfindel had ever come to this club and done this before, but something in his kisses and his hot touch under Erestor’s shirt told him maybe - probably, even, but never like this. Erestor smiled and Glorfindel seemed to like being told he was a good boy, so much so that he sighed, hotly. And his hands moved again.

 

Erestor heard the zip of his pants being undone before he felt it. Glorfindel’s tongue was in his mouth and his hands about his hips - only now one of them was opening up his pants; achingly slowly, and Glorfindel merely bade him be patient when Erestor shaped a guttural moan into a plea for haste.

 

But Glorfindel felt it too, Erestor could sense it.

 

‘Touch me,’ he whispered, into their kiss that had grown distracted in the wake of Glorfindel’s explorations. ‘Touch me, oh God, please,’

 

‘Where, kitten?’ Glorfindel asked, a wicked tease.

 

After a slow kiss, Erestor took Glorfindel’s hand in his own and moved it, pushing it down into his open pants. His fingers brushed his hardened length over his underwear. Erestor whimpered.

 

‘Ah,’ Glorfindel said with a smile to fall cities, immensely proud of himself, and he fell to task.

 

Erestor murmured a string of heavenly praises as Glorfindel’s hands slipped into his underwear, he rested brow to brow with his honey blonde and shared his bated breathe as fingers gently, gently, curled around his erection and began to move, up and down. Glorfindel asked if Erestor liked it. Erestor laughed; lost to passion, and Glorfindel smiled too and picked up the rhythm as Erestor began to push into his hand.

 

There were stars behind his eyes and warmth in his body he could hardly stand.

 

The ache...

 

And yet it seemed as though Glorfindel had only just started when he stopped. Again! Erestor opened his eyes with a plaintive moan. Glorfindel was looking at him.

 

Their eyes met.

 

Erestor blinked, whispered oh God.

 

Glorfindel sank to his knees.

 

Erestor had his eyes closed when Glorfindel took him into his mouth, but he felt the sudden wet warmth and might have let out a shuddering moan to shake the cubicles and their occupants, if there were any. But he didn’t care. Glorfindel’s tongue worked him quick and hard and he sighed his own want around the cock he lavished. Erestor gathered his hair together and stroked his head, pushing him, ever so slightly, to urge him on, to beg for...

 

More.

 

Hotness and slick desire. Erestor was a point of light in a black field and there was a fire inside him that Glorfindel was spreading, and it spread quick. He was good; practised, no doubt, but Erestor could think of nothing beyond the muscle-bound stud currently on his knees. And when he opened his eyes for a moment, he saw Glorfindel looking up to him.

 

With his pretty eyelashes.

 

Glorfindel flicked his tongue over the head of Erestor’s cock and then again, and again. Each was a lap of flame, a wave of crashing lust - and it was almost too much; Erestor knew he wouldn’t last and yet did not want to push Glorfindel beyond his limit. But the man had no qualms, sensing Erestor’s nearness, and so took him deeper and quicker and more vocally, his own low moans turning to something more desperate. Erestor had only to think of the straining erection in Glorfindel’s own pants to feel the first twinge of orgasm - it was near.

 

He forced his eyes shut. He thought of Glorfindel’s tongue, his touch and little mewls of barely suppressed arousal...

 

It was coming.

 

He thought of what else there was, he thought of maybe...

 

‘Glorfindel...’

 

Of making love, of fucking...

 

And with one last moan from Glorfindel, muted around Erestor’s length - Erestor found his orgasm. He saw flashes of images of nothing in particular, save for golden hair and blue eyes and a wet shirt sticking to a rigid body. He could hear his moan but it was faint to his own ears and he was left with a dizzying clarity that always came after, well, he did.

 

Opening his eyes, he saw Glorfindel had swallowed and now knelt, looking up at him with a sweat on his brow and a sated, lazy smile just about turning his lips. He closed his eyes and whispered fuck.

 

Erestor laughed, and rested his head against the cubicle door.