Bound, and waiting. by Haeron

Part One

Imladris, Third Age, Dawn

Glorfindel had risen with the dawn, as was his wont; he slept through the dark but woke with the light. The mornings gave him no trouble, and today he had come early to the training yard and taken up the spear. A handful of yawning, young soldiers loitered under the awning, peering at their seneschal against a low sun with a peaking curiosity. The hour was yet early, and the morning perfect for spending abed in the lull of sleep or under the spell of a lover, and yet even if the soldiers felt such siren calls, they did not succumb. They watched the sparring, wondering amongst themselves who should be the next to engage Glorfindel, seeing the bright mood he was in, the quickness of his body, the strength of it. Glorfindel favoured the sword, true enough, but wielded a spear as well as any Galadhrim; better, in fact, though he would be the last to gloat.

Erestor smiled privately as he watched from a distance; for if Glorfindel was modest of tongue, his body knew not the same humility. From his shady spot beneath a wooden canopy woven with ivy and white flowers, Erestor shielded his eyes from the sun to watch Glorfindel pull his already damp cloth shirt over his head in that way men do, hem first, from the bottom. He pulled it up to reveal a solid stomach of carven muscle. The sun caught on his bronze skin and loved him with all her Light, as though they were flesh and blood, borne of the same blazing stuff. Glorfindel pulled the shirt over his head and tossed it aside with a smile, smiling something wicked at his opponent, twirling the spear in his hands.

He was a sun-god in his own right; dark of skin, fair of hair, and utterly awake this morning.

Anor and Ithil, Erestor thought absently to himself. Anor and Ithil.

They were the words graven on the inside of their wedding bands.

The soldier and Glorfindel clashed a few times then, blade to blade, pole to pole, and Glorfindel gave the ellon half a generous handful of chances to press advantage before taking his legs out from under him or, with a series of quick steps, dancing around him to press him to his knees, the butt of the spear propped against his neck. But he smiled always when delivering his blows, and ever had a hand ready to help the ellon to his feet; a hand that was clasped readily: one did not turn down an opportunity to spar with the Lord Glorfindel.

It was a lesson Erestor lived by, too, even if their “sparring” was somewhat different. The thought came to him with a flushed smile and a tickle of a shiver that might have also had something to do with the sweat upon Glorfindel’s brow, the gleam off the muscles of his arms, the wayward golden strands pressed to his forehead...

And always the golden collar around Glorfindel’s neck. Thick, tight, and ever present since even their days in Gondolin. He never took it off.

But there was much Glorfindel never took off, even if the garment was not so apparent as a shining golden collar. Gleaming and gorgeous he was fighting beneath the dawning sun, and Erestor knew it was all too easy to spy him thus and know him only as the Balrog-slayer. It was a single facet of his full self, but to the Elves of Imladris who loved more than ought else the heroes of old and figures of great legend (and moreso the greater their sorrow), it became to them who he was in his entirety. His prowess was evident, after all, and Glorfindel himself maintained the facade, but there was a joy in his face that was all too his, that belonged utterly to Glorfindel.

Erestor watched him in an idle bliss, leaning on a canopy pole. The sun was flushing the sky pale; orange melting to yellow, it could have been dawn or dusk. The trees bent but a little in a breeze that came only when it would, to ripple against Erestor’s robes of light purple or put a dance in the flags atop the poles. And Erestor watched it all as one might admire a painting; he watched him, Glorfindel, his lover of two Ages.

And many more, if the Valar are good.

A lazy smile came to him, Glorfindel was laughing, saying something jovial as he blocked an incoming jab, but there was never anything boastful in his mirth, nay, it always and ever came from the goodness of his heart. Glorfindel simply had a mouth that was quick to smile, eyes quick to glimmer. He struck swift his reply; a thrust to the shoulder that would leave a heady bruise, no doubt. The ellon was smiling too, allbeit a little sheepishly. There were simply some days when Glorfindel had a wish to show-off.

And strangely enough, those days always seemed to coincide with the days that Erestor came to watch.

He moved like molten gold imbued with the sun, assured of his steps, and used the spear as a simple extension of his existing limbs. There was a bridled fury in his sparring, a fire he had always had. Glorfindel was an anachronism, truly. It was evident in the way he stepped, the way he held the spear; and even off the sparring ground his difference was astonishing, but as equally endearing. He kissed the hands of the elleths who approached him, his dress was foreign, and his voice dusted with a dialect long lost, forgotten in all but him. He was a creature of the First Age, and forged by that Age’s woe. Aren’t we both? The pair of us?

There was a strange, sad intimacy in the thought.

With a dull thud Glorfindel knocked the young ellon to his back for a final time; he yielded. Glorfindel, his chest heaving, accepted with a beam and extended a hand. As he pulled the ellon to his feet (and dusted off his shoulders, a paternal consolation of sorts) Erestor began his approach. He stepped out from under the awning and awarded the pair of them a quaint round of applause, and both Elves turned to see him come.

Erestor’s robes rippled around his legs as he crossed the flat plateau. He felt the wind in his hair and its kiss against his cheek. It was a pleasant breeze, and Glorfindel was elated to see him. He took his hand when they drew near, and pressed to his knuckles a fierce kiss. The ellon bowed, and a handful of the other lingering Elves followed suit. Erestor inclined his head to them (it all felt entirely too regal for such a small hour, but propriety had to be maintained).

‘Were you not supposed to be at Council a half hour ago, love?’ Glorfindel asked, merrily. There was a fine sheen upon his shoulders and neck, his collar shone like the sun, and it was all Erestor could do to maintain eye contact when faced with such a picture.

And the way his chest rises...

‘Aye, but I told you I’d wait.’

Glorfindel smiled at that, at their old words.

But Erestor couldn’t placate the curiosity in his mind. He placed the flat of his palms on Glorfindel’s stomach and pushed them, slowly, upwards over his marble body, dappled with sweat. He sighed his appreciation, covering Erestor’s hands with his own, pushing them down a little harder, Erestor closed his eyes in a moment of shuddering bliss as his hands brushed soft, muscled pectorals. Glorfindel held his hands there a while until Erestor moved them up again, but let go when they reached his neck. Spurred by an urge and the buzz of something warm in his naval that bade him continue his exploration, Erestor pressed his fingertips to the metal of Glorfindel’s collar.

It was hot under his touch, just as his body had been.

‘You still have this,’ he said, quietly. It was neither question nor statement, but something in-between. Glorfindel understood, and bowed to press a kiss to Erestor’s raven crown.

‘It is all that was left to me, and ofme.’ he said, his voice a rumble, somewhat breathy in evidence of his sparring.

A bird trilled somewhere and the soldiers had returned to shade under the canopy, discussing animatedly something that might well have been Glorfindel’s exceedingly exuberant display. And for all that Erestor did not understand his words, he accepted the invitation of a kiss; Glorfindel’s hand cradling his face, tilting it up, just a little...

Erestor sighed happily feeling Glorfindel’s brushing kiss, and melted into it completely. It was neither shallow nor deep, but struck a fine balance. Glorfindel’s lips were soft and wanting, and Erestor took a certain pleasure in tempting him to greater lust, but he resisted with a playful growl; they had not the privacy. The kiss lingered for a few intimate moments where the both of them lost themselves in themselves, but parting heavily and with a weighted breath Glorfindel whispered against Erestor’s lips that he would explain everything, but in time, love. Erestor smiled and reached up to brush their noses together, an affectionate gesture all their own that said aye and thank you, but inside the confine of his gut he felt a pang of something uncertain. Time ran strangely for Elves upon Endor, and he had come to distrust its flow and all promises that drifted thereon.

Time... Hadn’t we been planning a secret dinner on the night Gondolin fell? Hadn’t we planned to sneak away from the feast and festival, as we had done before so many times before... Hadn’t we been so certain?

Glorfindel had had his collar then, Erestor recalled, and found it strange that such a familiar thing had suddenly become so unfamiliar. He touched it again, and found its solidity strange. How must it feel to be wrapped around one’s neck, always?

‘What are you thinking of?’ Glorfindel whispered, with a touch of playful interest in his voice, low and lovely.

Erestor laughed, returned the peck of a kiss; a promise, and smoothed his hands down Glorfindel’s bare chest. With a lascivious look, he caught Glorfindel’s gaze.

‘What else could I be thinking of?’ he replied.

Glorfindel smiled again, his wicked smile.

Part Two

Gondolin, First Age, Atop Cirith Thoronath

‘You wait here,’ Glorfindel said fondly, it was an order under a veil of affection. His face was strained with grief and fatigue, his hair was being whipped across his face by a wind that seemed like to blow them straight off of the lofty pass through the mountain, and yet he smiled despite it all. Flakes of snow caught in his golden tresses, now tangled, and oft a flake would land upon his lashes. He looked beautiful still, even against a backdrop of everything else that had become most terrible.

And how strange it was to see snow after the fires of Gondolin!

The fires that had swallowed houses whole, belched by drakes and cruel machines of Melkor’s making. The fire had choked the breath in one’s lungs and turned the skies red, and yet now they had moved from one extreme to the next, from fire to ice. Erestor liked it not at all, for it seemed an ill omen...

Suddenly, he gave a dry laugh that had risen up like so much bile.

What more can ill omens do? What worse could happen? We have lost our home.

Glorfindel had been waiting on an answer and a promise, but seeing Erestor’s bark of laughter that might so easily have turned to a sob, he softened, and held him around the waist. It hurt Erestor to look up at him, his young brazen thing, his flower with whom he had danced with not a day past, with flowers in his hair and his collar shinning. He hadn’t worn it today, his golden collar, no, now he sported a bloody lip and a weeping wound upon his cheek, but it was his eyes that had suffered the greatest wound. Some of their shine had been lost, forever, perhaps. It had turned to fear now. Devastation. Guilt.

Erestor felt frozen. His legs were leaden, his muscles ached. A procession of Elves was behind them, each one worn and weathered, each one weeping for a hope they ought not to have clung to.

Cirith Thoronath, the Eagle’s Cleft, obscured the sky ahead. There was only smoke behind from the ruin of the city that none dared glance back at, and all the stars in front and above must have been hidden by the pass. Erestor met Glorfindel’s eyes, and saw his silent beseeching. There were no stars there, either, no pinpricks of light.

‘I’ll wait,’ Erestor said, and Glorfindel’s relief was palpable in its desperation.

Yet, when Glorfindel turned to assume his position again at the head of the procession and scout out the entrance to the pass interior, past a deep, dark chasm that none had been apt to approach without its prior inspection, Erestor remembered himself, and his fear came forth in a flood like meltwater. His heart skipped a beat, he darted forward to clutch at Glorfindel’s arm; his armour was smeared with blood and soot but Erestor clung to it.

‘No,’ he said, half a whisper, half a distraught sob. Glorfindel turned to him with a forlorn expression, bittersweet sorrow, but he said nothing. Only the wind spoke, whistling in their ears an icy tune. And his collar seemed pale, reflecting the snow. ‘No, Glorfindel, I have... I have an ill feeling,’

Glorfindel took Erestor’s hands in his, but Erestor felt only the touch of metal. Gauntlets were not as sweet to hold as warm hands.

‘So do we all, my raven, my small raven, but we must pass through it. We cannot linger here on this cliff’s pass. We must away, we must go.’ Glorfindel stressed, as though there stood a single chance of it being so simple. It bit at Erestor, a twinge of something cruel, that even after all that had happened Glorfindel yet retained some iota of the ideality that had been Gondolin’s folly, but he held his tongue.

They could not, after all, linger there on the cliff’s pass. Glorfindel was right about that much, and perhaps that was all he needed; a goal, something right to aim for.

It just seemed so empty to Erestor.

‘Hope, hope for me love, and wait here, just a moment.’ Glorfindel came close to whisper, hot into Erestor’s ear. ‘Hope for me,’

He kissed the tip of Erestor’s ear and his kiss was sweet and sad, Erestor had a wish to pull him close, to feel a heartbeat against his own and know some shadow of the hope Glorfindel needed of him, but before he could think to cast his arms about Glorfindel’s shoulders, he had already turned away. A darkness called, and he was bound to illuminate it; such was his curse, such was his duty.

Towards the gaping maw of the pass interior he strode, a figure in the snow, and all that happened then happened in a flash; just as the lightning devastates the ground in the space of a blink. Something stirred from within and the cave entrance turned from black to orange to red; fire! The shadow on the mountain had found them, a Balrog, and it came now from the darkness. The Elves beside Erestor stirred, some shrieked, some cursed, others prayed loud and frantic to a set of Valar that had long abandoned them. The Balrog came forth, slow, and it was made of void and rock and flame; towering, burning, striding out of the dark onto the snow that steamed under its footsteps.

It saw Glorfindel, armed and armoured, and bellowed.

The sounds was like nothing Erestor had ever heard before in his life, he could barely look at ought else, so dreadfully did he gape at the Balrog, but he heard the sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath, slowly, and knew well that metallic chime. Not ten thousand Balrogs could have chilled him more.

He was going to challenge it, by Eru he was going to challenge it!

‘No,’ Erestor whispered in terror, his eyes wide and darting from Flower to Balrog. ‘NO!’ Erestor screamed it, he screamed it so it wrenched his throat and Glorfindel heard. With a heaviness he turned around, and in that moment their eyes met Erestor knew a ghost of premonition. He knew for the first time in his life an apex terror.

Glorfindel smiled. He already looked beaten; bloody and tired and lost to a grief beyond the ken of anyone else. The resignation upon his face dawned on Erestor, his heart beat a thousand times off the pace, his bones shook and there was a doom that filled the cavern of his chest, pressing on his lungs until all his breaths came shallow and shaken if they even came at all. Glorfindel winked, and mouthed the word wait.

‘NO!’ Erestor screamed but his throat could not project the word, he gasped it, croaked it and as he made attempt to get to Glorfindel, to reach him somehow, he felt himself restrained. Without a care for who was holding him back, Erestor broke free roughly of the arms that held him - but then...

He found he could not run.

The battle began; Glorfindel’s shield only barely deflected the blow from the Balrog’s sword and he buckled under its blow. Erestor stood frozen. He felt a touch on the small of his back, but did not turn round. He did not care; a thousand arms might restrain him, a thousand more voices might counsel him to look away - he would ignore them all. There was but one set of arms he longed for, one voice he prayed to hear again.

And Erestor watched the battle that would become legend, sung in tones of gold and yellow and green; a merry tune, if melancholy, a tale of strength, a tale of bravery. Those songs would ever ring hollow in Erestor’s ears. The battle on the mountain was not gold or yellow or green, it was grey and white... and red.

Glorfindel pressed an attack, aiming low for the Balrog’s legs in attempt to topple and overcome it, but it was too large, too oppressive, and brought down its sword as he darted near. Erestor heard a yelp of pain, Glorfindel cast aside his shield with a frantic flick and for a time held his arm awkwardly. He’s broken it, Erestor knew, already he’s broken! Time and time again Glorfindel rushed the creature when opportunity presented itself after a long dance of ducking and dodging and dancing around the beast on the mountain, and time and time again the Balrog cast him down, time and time again its blade connected with Glorfindel’s body. He fell to the ground times beyond counting, sometimes with a cry, sometimes with silence.

But each time he would rise from the snow, blooded, with gritted teeth and a desperate ferocity only the valiant dead know.

Erestor watched in tears that burned beyond grief. He was held in a knowing suspense, unable to watch Glorfindel being crushed over and over but unable to look away from his heart.

They had planned to marry, once.

In summer, under the June trees.

Erestor exhaled a shuddering breath.

Glorfindel was upon his knees in the drift, his sword wrenched away from him by the whip the Balrog wielded in its left hand. A sudden finality had come over the battle, the Balrog took a step closer. Glorfindel reached for his knife-belt, he grasped a blade and lifted an arm to throw it swift and true...

But the whip caught his wrist, and the blade fell from his hand heavily. With a cry of pain Glorfindel clutched at his wrist after the Balrog withdrew his whip and Erestor saw he could not apply full pressure to the joint. It was his right hand: his sword hand. Erestor whispered something that was lost on the wind. He heard gasps in the crowd, he heard moans of sorrow. But Glorfindel was not cowed. With a growl of exertion, he resolved himself.

He was trying to stagger to his feet when the whip caught him about the neck. It cut off his scream, turned it to a grotesque choke, and forced him to his knees again. Erestor gave a start and would have tried to rush away again had not he been restrained once more. But he saw the blood seeping from beneath the whip, he saw it run down the golden plate of Glorfindel’s armour, gilded with flowers and sunbursts, watered now with blood.

His own blood. It fell on the snow; blood on the pale, and Erestor knew only his own heartbeat in that moment as time slowed to something awful to stretch the moment thin. He heard his breath loud in his ear, shaking with every inhalation. He saw Glorfindel’s fingers trying desperately to prise the whip from his neck; but it was no good. Spurred by panic Glorfindel dropped his hands to grasp about in the snow for the knife he had dropped, and by the grace of all the Gods, with turned backs or no, he found it. With a shaking hand, he cut the whip.

The balrog made a sound.

It was laughing.

Glorfindel pushed himself to his feet wearily and every fibre of Erestor’s body bade him call out for the madness to stop, for the bloodshed to end! But there was no force, not even love, that might have swayed Glorfindel from his task - and Erestor knew it all too well. Glorfindel would die for his duty.

He’d die for them.

A dry, rattling shudder seized Erestor then as he saw Glorfindel prepare for another charge; his heart wept. The Balrog waited with whip and blade, waiting for Glorfindel to steady himself and make attempt. And when he did, the Balrog barely deflected his strikes, forcing him to attack again and again and again - and each swing of the blade cost Glorfindel dear, that much was apparent. He held his blade with two hands now whereas before he had needed only one, he grunted with the exertion of its each swing. The Balrog was toying with him as a cat might goad a mouse; it was a play. Erestor felt the blow of it, blunt to his gut.

Nobody before had ever dared to toy with the Lord of the House of the Golden Flower, none before would dare dream of goading him.

In that moment Erestor knew it.

It was over.

And he cursed himself a thousand times for the thought, his faithlessness almost made him retch.

Glorfindel’s neck was dripping with blood as though it had been cut from length to length, and he held his blade awkwardly in his right hand, switching it often to his left despite its comparative weakness. He was preparing for another charge, the Balrog let him, and as he ran he gave a bestial cry, striking at the beast with the full edge of his long blade. The Balrog teetered upon the edge of the cliff.

A collective gasp rose up from the Elves who watched, and when the best began to fall backwards a murmur of voices came; hope dared to open one eye.

But, as the creature fell - it reached out, and grasped Glorfindel’s golden mane.

It was going to pull him with him.

Just before Glorfindel fell, he met Erestor’s eyes, and there was a true and terrible terror on his golden face. He called out, he yelled in horror, and then - he simply was not there anymore, though his cry lingered on the air.

Still air. The snow fell silent.

Erestor’s scream wrent it anew. He screamed the name, Glorfindel’s name, and his world shattered in one heartbeat, his legs buckled from beneath him and he saw white, only white, everywhere... He heard his own voice loud and strange in his ears, ridden with tears and fear and horror; there were other screams now, other voices risen up, and together it all collated into a storm that hazed before Erestor’s eyes. Everything blurred, he couldn’t breathe - he couldn’t breathe! His heart felt absent his chest.

Someone was saying his name, over and over again and so foreign it was from the way that Glorfindel had once called him that Erestor flew into a fresh panic, his vision did not clear though he felt the snow melting into his ruined garments. Someone was calling him, someone gave him a shake by the shoulders and called him name again! But it was only when there came the distant sound of a body breaking upon the rocks below that Erestor’s haze passed.

He might have been sick.

He saw a kindly face of an old elleth, stained with tears and delicately lined. He pressed his hands to his mouth, clutching at his face. Everything was so cold... He heard it over and over somehow; Glorfindel’s body, the dullness of the sound. The Balrog’s came even worse; a smoting of rock upon rock. Birds took wing, black specks against the white of the mountain. Erestor clawed with shaking fingers at his eyes, choking for breath.

He’s dead, he’s dead... He’s dead!

Erestor’s scream rattled through Cirith Thoronath, it called the birds from their nests.

Part Three

Imladris, Third Age, Dusk

Upon their bed, upon Glorfindel’s lap sat Erestor that night, pushing his hands into the softness of Glorfindel’s fragranced hair, bending to bite his lower lip; a show of an urge, of a want. Glorfindel was smiling lazily, his own hands splayed and holding Erestor about the waist. He opened his mouth a little more for Erestor’s access, but his invitation went unanswered. With an achingly (and barely) chaste kiss to the fullness of Glorfindel’s lips, Erestor pulled away.

The room was dim with candlelight, but such as it always was though the sun had not yet dipped to her slumber. Glorfindel could not abide the dark since his stay in Mandos, and the nights still as yet held much terror for him. But the candlelight loved him; stars to his sun. The flames danced on their wicks and cast their little shadows on the walls, everything moved with a mellow energy, the room seemed full with it. Glorfindel’s lashes cast butterfly shadows on his cheeks as he bowed his head, letting Erestor press small kisses the his hairline, to his brow, to the skin under his eye.

Erestor was garbed in the silken night garments Glorfindel favoured so much, of deepest blue and red to set against his dark hair and eyes, and their feel upon his skin was second only to Glorfindel’s own touch. It was a sensory bliss, one that could only come on quiet nights like this, when all of Imladris was abed and safe, hidden in a valley.

How familiar that seems...

Glorfindel whispered his name, and Erestor smiled, pulling away once again lest he lose himself and his original curiosity go unsated another minute longer.

He touched Glorfindel’s collar. It was still warm.

And he had never taken it off since his arrival in Imladris, not to Erestor’s knowledge, and they had been bound for many a century... But when he dipped, albeit shallowly so as not to stir the pain, into memories of Gondolin, he could remember seeing Glorfindel’s bare neck. He remembered touching it.

He remembered Glorfindel had not worn it when he died.

Erestor wondered in his head, and perhaps too loudly for Glorfindel gave a merry laugh, one of his own and one meant entirely privately for the both of them; it was not a laugh to bring others to laughter, as so often was heard in the Hall of Fire. Erestor touched the dimple in Glorfindel’s left cheek and bowed to kiss it.

He’s himself with me. He’s Glorfindel.

Though sometimes the Balrog-slayer came to his bed...

Erestor shivered with delight.

‘And you will wonder until the end of all days if I do not tell you, won’t you?’ Glorfindel said and returned Erestor to himself. When Erestor nodded, Glorfindel grew somewhat sombre and took a breath that might have been to fortify himself. A tingle of dread crept up Erestor’s spine, he had never since liked spying such looks of fright in Glorfindel’s eyes, no matter how swift their appearance. He took Erestor’s hands and Erestor held them fast, dark as his were pale; the colour of russet. Erestor brushed his thumbs over the roughness of Glorfindel’s skin, and when Glorfindel met his eyes they were like liquid gold, warm, and asking something of him he had already long given.

Erestor smiled. He inclined his head a little.

Something went unspoken between them, and Glorfindel relaxed somewhat. He watched the candles on the shelves for a time, he watched them on the desk and the nightside table. Erestor saw their reflection in his eyes. He could have looked for a thousand years.

He could have waited for a thousand more.

Wait for me.

Glorfindel’s voice broke his half-reverie. It was like honey, and just as sweet as it was deep.

‘This collar was forged for me in Gondolin, long before we met. I was little more than a child barely past majority when I received it. It is...’ Glorfindel pondered a moment, chasing a word that evaded his tongue. ‘It is a reminder of my duty. Protection, service. That’s why it’s a collar, not a necklace or some such, and that is why it’s mine.’

Erestor was reeling in the gentle shock when Glorfindel took his hands to place upon his neck again. Has he carried this burden for so long? Erestor wondered to himself, feeling the line of the metal, soft against his fingers for all its metallic hardness. Has he been driven so since he was a child? Erestor could say nothing, Glorfindel smiled sadly.

‘It was not such a bad life, I was born of Princes,’

‘You were still a child,’

‘We needed to grow quickly in Gondolin, you know that, love,’

Erestor nodded, aye, he did.

The birds were carolling outside, the strange songs that came in the unlight of dusk and neither before nor after. The light turned amber; the sun was setting on the valley.

‘When I was reborn, I had it again. But by then I already had a new collar.’ Glorfindel said, with no trace of mirth or lightness. There was a steel in his voice, and Erestor perchance thought he heard a lilt of something that might have been guilt.

He didn’t understand the words, and Glorfindel saw it plain on his face. He smiled and Erestor smiled back, a little churlishly, knowing full well Glorfindel would be celebrating an inward victory for having confounded the mighty counsellor at last. ‘You have two?’ Erestor asked, deeming honest unknowingness to be the better course of action, even if it was a tactic he employed only ever rarely. Usually, his mandate was to confuse if confused, fire with fire, and all that.

Glorfindel nodded his solemn answer, and reached up. He was undoing it, the collar, and Erestor felt as though his heart had leapt suddenly to his mouth. Glorfindel’s face was a picture of resignation and his hands worked behind his head, occasionally Erestor would hear a delicate metallic sound - the sound of a latch unfastening, and as sweet as the clicks and ticks were to his ear, he knew not whether he should be about to witness what he was about to witness! It seemed so holy a thing, so private a thing... Erestor could not be sure that he should not look away. Perhaps Glorfindel heard his thoughts again then, for their eyes met and fiercely. Neither said a word.

And Erestor reminded himself, with a wave of love, that they were one soul, that they had been for such a long time. Had the grief of two Ages spent sundered not been enough to prove that?

Wait for me.

Erestor watched as Glorfindel took the collar off, it was beautiful in his hands, a masterwork of clean gold and shaped to perfection.

But what had lain under it was decidedly harder to look at.

By the light of a dozen dozen candles Erestor saw it, Glorfindel’s collar under his collar just as he had said; a scarred collar from the Balrog’s whip, where it had choked him atop Cirith Thoronath. There was a thin red line around Glorfindel’s neck that looked as raw as if it were fresh. Erestor gasped, in mingled awe and fear and had, by the whim of some unknowable and sudden instinct, almost reached out to touch it when he caught himself short.

Glorfindel shook his head.

He took Erestor’s small hands again.

And put them on his neck.

He traced the line of the scar with a gentle fingertip, he brushed the jagged edges of it with his thumbs; Erestor touched and felt the unsmoothness of the skin beneath his fingers. He sighed, hotly, and saw Glorfindel had closed his eyes in something akin to pleasure. Erestor continued his delicate manual exploration, turning Glorfindel’s head slightly to better see more, and there it was - a complete red ring of scarring, messy and unseemly, and almost aflame it looked. Erestor could not take his eyes from it.

It was beautiful, in its own way.

‘I’ll never forget,’ Glorfindel said in a low rumble. He could have been speaking of a thousand things, all as valid as the next, but Erestor understood something in his voice, and understood that somehow Glorfindel had meant all and none of them. Such was the burden, such was its completeness, its absoluteness.

Protection, service.

Wait for me.

Erestor wished it had been simple happiness instead. A child’s wish and just as light with a hope that would never soar, he wished it, as he had wished it a thousand times before and would wish it a thousand times again. Their eyes met then; brown and gold, and some sorrow, a sadness, passed between them as it always did when sharing memories of Gondolin or the Fall...

But there was a swell of pride, too, and Erestor beamed before be bowed to kiss Glorfindel full on the lips.

My unbent flower, my warrior Prince.

Glorfindel took the kiss and magnified it tenfold, suddenly and quickly with a deftness that made Erestor laugh with a rising anticipation, he pushed his raven lover down onto the bed on the flat of his back. The collar went unheeded; Glorfindel came to him bare.

Though not quite.

Erestor’s hands went straight for the laces of Glorfindel’s shirt about the neck, he pulled at them indiscriminately until something shifted - his arousal was growing and providing too heady a distraction as Glorfindel positioned himself atop him with a dominance that always and ever made Erestor quake with want. A want to dominated, by him, a want to be his and utterly... And when the shirt came undone, it was discarded as quickly as it had been that morning upon the training field. They both recalled the memory, and a smile passed between them before they came together in a new kiss.

Glorfindel’s scar caught the candlelight.

He pushed Erestor’s legs apart to settle himself between them and Erestor pushed up; another instinct he could not withhold. Glorfindel whispered something low into his ear, breaking the kiss, and pushed down on Erestor’s groin, pushing his hips flat to the bed. Erestor moaned, wanted more, but Glorfindel removed his hand. ‘Wait,’ Glorfindel whispered, and smiled into their fresh kiss. Erestor did as he was bid, pushing again his hands into Glorfindel’s hair and delighting in its softness between his fingers. He gave Glorfindel the kiss he had denied him previous, and with a moan of satisfaction Glorfindel paused in his efforts to disrobe Erestor as he pushed his tongue into a willing mouth.

The urge to push up with his hips again was almost unbearable for Erestor, now with Glorfindel delving deep in his mouth. Long, lazy kisses they shared; each one more tempting than the last, and Erestor whimpered as he writhed somewhat unsated on the bed. The want of friction was growing insatiable. Glorfindel understood, driven by a similar and sudden lust, and returned to his previous efforts. With a tug and a gentle request for Erestor to lift his hips, Glorfindel pulled down the silken nightpants Erestor had donned for his pleasure; aesthetic and otherwise. Erestor felt a flush of chill on the bareness of his legs, but only for a moment before Glorfindel had covered him with himself again.

And Glorfindel’s hand, for all too brief a moment, ghosted over Erestor’s waiting cock before coming to rest on his hip.

Erestor let out a disappointed moan which Glorfindel kissed and turned to playful frustration. Settled atop and beneath one another, they fell into an easy rhythm that, despite its long familiarity, sparked always new delights in the deep places of Erestor’s stomach, where lust leapt and made the blood drunk. Smiles turned to expressions of concentrated passion, Erestor lay in his silken robe, undone and splayed around him; a swathe of royal purple beneath his body. Glorfindel lowered himself, kissing the delicate collarbones, the lines of a throat. He bit at Erestor’s shoulder, and Erestor held Glorfindel’s golden head to him.

Wait for me, he almost whispered it.

But then he felt it, a tap of something on his lips. Erestor opened his eyes and saw Glorfindel looking up to him, half dizzy with passion it seemed, and his two forefingers he held just above Erestor’s lips. Understanding, Erestor took the offered hand and prised a third finger to join the two offered to him. He saw another wicked smile turn Glorfindel’s lips before he closed his eyes and took Glorfindel’s fingers into his mouth.

They tasted of salt and skin and of the nothing and everything therein contained, but Erestor delighted not so much in their taste but rather what his actions with them did to the golden sun-god resting his head upon his chest and with a lazy spare hand teasing Erestor’s nipple to hardness. Erestor heard a moan as he pushed his tongue up the length of Glorfindel’s fingers, sucking on them, wetting them as best his could; Glorfindel’s lascivious exploration of his chest was making him antsy again for more kisses, more friction, for the fingers he lavished to push inside of him. It was a thought to stir the blood, and Glorfindel mayhap heard the quiver in Erestor’s exhalation, for he withdrew his fingers.

And sat up. With his other hand he spread Erestor’s legs again and with his other he sought Erestor’s groin. Glorfindel did not smile; his face was hazed with something else, his lips parted, his eyes heavy, and always now Erestor’s eyes darted to the ring around his neck. He descended on Erestor for more kisses as his wet fingers teased his opening, circling the rim, pushing only a little, and the kisses were sweet, flitting and chaste things. The nudging pleasure was teasingly delicious, but Erestor had a greater want of more. It only took one fevered please from him to inspire Glorfindel.

With his free hand he cradled Erestor’s face, he pushed his fingers inside of Erestor just as he pushed his tongue inside his mouth.

Erestor gave a muffled moan, and surrendered himself utterly.

He clutched at the pillow beneath his head as Glorfindel worked him slow with his fingers, pulling out and pushing in, slow at first but growing fast, growing frantic to match their hearts. And as Glorfindel grew more intent in his task, their kisses fell to distraction until they were but simply exchanging breath, hot and fast and sweet, exchanging air, breathing in the breaths of the other. Erestor whispered deeper and Glorfindel smiled. And acquiesced.

The pace slowed then as Glorfindel reached, with every push, for the spot that would drive Erestor to near madness. Glorfindel’s fingers were rough and coarsely textured as all were that had held swords for as long as he, but never did Glorfindel fall to brutality in his movements. He was always kind, always full of passion, never violence. Erestor’s moans began to come louder, his plies for more wavered more and turned to moans themselves. A drape of Glorfindel’s hair that was not bound up fell beside his face, Erestor tangled his fingers up into it, and pulled him down so that they rested brow to brow.

Glorfindel was biting his lip when Erestor felt a twinge of early orgasm.

He gave a carnal shiver and whispered his nearness. Glorfindel stopped his ministrations, gradually; it would not do to finish things so soon, the both of them knew. When Glorfindel pulled his fingers from Erestor, they both sighed, and smiled, breathing as though sorely tired after an afternoon’s run (not that Erestor would know that fatigue, having shirked his exercise for long years now). Erestor felt the achingly good tenderness that comes after such, and his hands began to travel down the smoothness of his own body, to sate that wet desire anew.

But Glorfindel caught them before they had even dipped below his naval.

Erestor opened the eyes, whimpered a little.

Glorfindel kissed him.

‘Oil,’ he whispered, and feeling Erestor’s wanting mouth under his brushed his tongue against Erestor’s. Erestor would have pulled him down into the kiss and knew Glorfindel had half a mind to give in, but he had a stronger urge, evidently. ‘Erestor,’ he said again and his voice was a low rasp. ‘Erestor, the oil, let me have you, I need to... I...’

They kissed again. For a moment something other than lust came over them, a residue of the sadness that had just been, a blaze of something in the heart that bound them together. It flared like the sun and forged them closer; soul to soul, heart and heart. And when they parted, Glorfindel brushed their noses together. Erestor smiled, watching him sit up, and sat up himself with some effort.

As he leant over to rummage in the draw of the nightstand, he gave Glorfindel a glance, and saw it met.

‘Take your hair down,’ he said.

Glorfindel did. He reached up to take the pins from his hair, and a cascade of golden splendour came down around his shoulders, lightly curling and as thick as any hair Erestor had ever seen before, and radiant against the bronze of his skin. Producing the small vial, Erestor tossed it to Glorfindel who caught it deftly, and smiled his thanks.

Erestor lay back upon his back, nested in silks and cotton and all the lavishness of their marital bed. He watched, feeling his hummingbird heart but a centimetre beneath his skin, Glorfindel unbuttoning his trousers, unbuckling the belt and casting it aside to land with a thud alongside his shirt; somewhere, anywhere. Pulling his trousers open a little more, Glorfindel freed his own erection from its confines. Erestor felt an gutting ache to see it; his grandeur. Their eyes met for the briefest moment when he let out something of a guttural half-groan that was all his bubbling anticipation. Erestor watched Glorfindel unstopper the vial, and pour an amount of the oil onto the palm of his hand. It dripped onto the duvet, but Erestor hadn’t a care. There, by the light of the candles and his own glow, Glorfindel looked as a figure from a cathedral centrepiece; heavenly and entirely good.

Hopefully not entirely, Erestor thought to himself, watching Glorfindel take himself in hand.

Erestor propped up a leg, watching his heart and soul taking his own pleasure, coating himself liberally; oil fell in drops, from his cock, his hand, and Erestor constrained a great desire to grasp Glorfindel by the gold of his hair and pull him to him, inside of him. But a greater part of him counselled for patience, and Erestor heeded it.

There wasn’t, after all, reason enough to interrupt Glorfindel’s pleasure.

His face was a picture of blossoming ecstasy.

When Erestor called his name like the chiming of a bell he came to himself with something of a sheepish smile. It only endeared him all the more to his raven lover. Erestor beckoned with a hand, and Glorfindel wiped his on the bedsheets before assuming his prior position above Erestor. Their erections came together then before Glorfindel positioned himself, and a jolt of fresh anticipation mixed with that ever-present anxiety shot up Erestor’s spine. And as Glorfindel came to kiss him, he felt a nudge.

Holding Glorfindel’s face to his, Erestor pushed. Glorfindel slid into him, with a low, blissful moan that made Erestor smile; but only the ceiling saw. Glorfindel buried his face the in crook of Erestor’s neck as he began his movement, quickly, to lessen Erestor’s initial pain. And as hurried and lustful and red-hot as their foreplay had been, their lovemaking slowed to a delicious dance.

Erestor always liked it slow.

He always liked it deep.

Glorfindel’s size was considerable, but the discomfort passed as quickly as it ever did; they knew one another’s bodies well, and Erestor trusted himself completely to Glorfindel. Their bodies had long since become companions, and became as one in the night by the light of the candles, moving as one, breathing as one. Only Erestor’s grasping hands; one in Glorfindel’s hair, the other clutching at his back, gave indication of their being separate entities. Everything was warm, Erestor felt full. He ached, but with a wispy voice bade Glorfindel take him deeper.

‘Love,’ Glorfindel whispered into his neck, and Erestor felt his hands about his waist tighten.

He felt Glorfindel’s cock push into him, deeper, deeper with every slow thrust that came like a crashing of a foamy wave upon a virgin shore. He filled him up, filled his tightness and Erestor worked him the best he could, pushing his lithe body up to meet Glorfindel’s. Their skin was hot when it touched, and Glorfindel craved for it again. ‘Pull yourself around me,’ he breathed, and Erestor understood. He wrapped his legs tight around Glorfindel’s body, and pulled them closer.

They were as one, and Erestor’s moans with every buck of Glorfindel’s hips came with a smile of ecstasy.

Wait for me, wait for me, the words spun in Erestor’s head.

Two Ages of Arda...

Deliriously slow and dizzy was their pace, but as their arousals grew, so too came with it speed. Erestor felt the shift in tempo and dug his nails into Glorfindel’s shoulders. Here it was when he lay indeed with the Balrog-slayer, the warrior of legend, here, when he fucked like a God in Valinor...

Glorfindel exertions of pleasure grew louder, too, though never near enough to rival Erestor’s; his moans of pleasure were of the breath and all its air, ragged, sweating, shaking. But now, with an end in sight, Glorfindel pushed himself harder and harder and harder into Erestor. And Erestor took him as deeply as he might, spreading his legs further, and as he did so Glorfindel lifted himself a little, rising from Erestor’s neck to help spread his legs with the flat of his hands. Erestor threw back his head onto the pillow; the feeling of Glorfindel stretching him...

He wasn’t going to last.

Their lovemaking continued in such a fashion, but for how long Erestor could never say; it seemed to last the full width of the night and yet take up only the briefest heartbeat. Time flows strangely for Elves. Glorfindel gave a shaking groan. Erestor opened his eyes.

Glorfindel had his head tilted, sat up, his hands pushing apart Erestor’s legs as his body thrust between them. A sweat dappled his brow making him seem a thing of wax, and his eyes were closed with the exertion. His back would be sweating too, Erestor knew, glistening, shining, because of their lovemaking...

Erestor felt another shudder.

It was ending.

He clutched at the covers under his hand and called Glorfindel’s name in a whimper, he called it again, bade him not stop, bade him fuck me harder, fuck me... but even as Erestor was saying it Glorfindel pulled his cock from him in one long, slow movement that made him shiver as much as it confused him. Blinded by a haze of lust awash now with confusion, Erestor blinked up at Glorfindel.

And though Glorfindel had to most wicked expression on his face; there was no smile to match.

‘You wish to finish,’ he said, it wasn’t a question.

Erestor nodded, trying to push his hips back onto the hardness of Glorfindel’s length, but he held it again in his own hand, stroking idly his impressive member. The scar around his neck drew Erestor’s eye; he looked from his face, to neck, to torso, to cock. Glorfindel stroked himself, brushing a thumb over the tip and sighing at his own touch.

It made Erestor want to weep.

It made him want to help.

It made him want to come.

‘Beg, beg for me,’ Glorfindel whispered.

Erestor’s eyes went wide, he saw the devious smirk just turning the corner’s of Glorfindel’s mouth, and smiled himself though it was far more helpless. ‘Please,’ he whispered - knowing it would do no good. Glorfindel would tell him what he wanted.

Erestor felt a sudden desire to do ought he asked, to do anything...

‘More, beg me,’

Glorfindel pressed the tip of his cock to Erestor’s opening, and elicited a whimper.

‘Please, Glorfindel, I need... I need you to...’

‘Yes,’

The words wouldn’t come, Erestor had no head for words at such a time. His body was rife with a low throb of incompletion when it yet hung in the balance, his own stiff member ached awfully for release but he knew his hands would be taken from him were he to reach out and satisfy himself. The thought gave him a trill of excitement.

But that’s not what either of us want.

Erestor knew what he wanted.

He only had to hope it pleased Glorfindel, too.

He smiled as he looked into golden eyes, to the face masked with pleasure, the lips held just barely apart, wanting for a kiss...

‘Glorfindel, Glorfindel I need... I need you to be in me, I need to finish with you in me, I need you, all of you, I...’

Glorfindel’s cock breeched him, just a little, before it pulled out again. Erestor moaned helplessly, his hands rested on his body, useless, his fingers sought his nipples; but there was only one satisfaction he wanted. He forced himself to open his eyes and keep them open, he pushed up his hips, he held Glorfindel’s gaze, he looked half-lidded up to him, and sighed.

‘I need to feel you come inside me, I..., I need to feel you finish deep in me, I need to feel your seed running down my thigh, Glorfindel, fuck me, please... please- ah!’

Glorfindel murmured something too quick for Erestor’s ears to catch, he pushed himself hot and hard into Erestor again, a long, deep thrust that made the both of them moan.

With a blazing smile Erestor felt his orgasm envelop him like so much icy water, he felt himself topple over the precipice of true, complete ecstasy and Glorfindel came toppling too. He clutched at Glorfindel’s shoulders, digging his nails deep as he felt his sun-god spend himself, and gasped his own completion.

***

Glorfindel lay on the bed, filled with lazy contentedness. His sleep had come on quickly after their finishing and cleaning up, and to bed they fell again with tangled limbs, smiles and kisses of a sweet sort. And they had been halfway through a whispered conversation when slumber took him for its own. Erestor smiled, a little taken aback.

‘Glorfindel?’ he whispered.

The candles had almost burned low, but the hours had grown so late that they were early again. There was already a fuzzy light behind the curtains; not quite daylight nor even dawn, but the dark of the night was truly passed.

‘Love?’ Glorfindel answered, but didn’t open his eyes.

Erestor laughed and bent to kiss his golden brow. Glorfindel smiled, reaching with a hand to stroke the dark of Erestor’s hair, unknowing how he was being watched as attentively as he might have been in the Halls of Healing. Erestor hadn’t the tug of sleep within his own breast yet, and might have whiled away an entire lifetime watching Glorfindel snooze.

He had fallen asleep after their first night together too, in Gondolin it had been in the rose garden that belonged to Glorfindel’s family. Yellow roses; the scent of perfume, wet soil and something good and wholesome in the air. They had made love for the first time that night, and Erestor remembered Glorfindel falling asleep too, in the middle of his grandmother’s rose garden. It had confounded him then, too, but the memory tickled him fondly. Of course, they had both been so much younger. Glorfindel’s face hadn’t the lines it had now, hadn’t the hardness around the eyes.

He hadn’t the scar.

Absently, Erestor reached out to stroke Glorfindel’s neck, but Glorfindel opened an eye and took Erestor’s hands on his own. At first, Erestor had thought it Glorfindel’s kind way of saying nay, do not touch, but then Glorfindel brought Erestor’s small hands to his mouth, and pressed kisses to the knuckles.

It was a thank you, but one wholly unnecessary.

‘You need not thank me for merely not finding your neck repulsive, Glorfindel, on the contrary I-’

But Glorfindel was shaking his head, or as much as one can shake their head when laying upon a pillow. His hair splayed over the pillow; Erestor was forever pulling long, golden strands from the bedcovers. ‘It is a thank you for understanding what my life is. A warrior’s life, whether I wish it so or not. You have suffered most from it, have you not?’

Erestor smiled.

‘It is you, a part of you, and I love you.’ he said, softly, truthfully. ‘And I love all parts of you,’ he added, a little more wryly.

Glorfindel raised a brow, quirked a smile.

‘All parts?’

‘Some parts especially,’

Glorfindel laughed then, his private laugh again; it was bright still but tinged with want of sleep. He could not keep his eyes open, the Golden Lord, and exhaled heavily as he closed them again.

‘You waited,’ was all he said.

‘We both did,’ Erestor whispered, ‘We both did,’.

And when it seemed Glorfindel might open his eyes again he stroked back the golden hair from the golden brow.

‘Sleep, flower.’

Glorfindel smiled, small and true.

Erestor reached to stroke Glorfindel’s cheek with the back of his hand, a hand that Glorfindel momentarily touched with his own. A response without word, a nod to his abundant tactility. And then Erestor lay himself down beside him in the cotton of their bed. He watched Glorfindel’s face as he fell to sleep; and there was peace there. The candles were pooling in wax, the air had grown chilled. Morning would arrive soon enough, but perhaps they would shun to greet it.

It made Erestor smile to think of, watching Glorfindel breathe in and out, in and out; such a simple motion but one of such copious comfort. He was alive. He was here, and Erestor was not about to say that the trials of Gondolin, the Fall, the two long Ages of separation were worth it, but...

Just then, Glorfindel pulled Erestor close, hooking an arm about his waist and pulling him near until his chin rested just atop Erestor’s head. He felt a butterfly kiss upon his temple.

Erestor smiled into the warmth of Glorfindel’s chest, inhaling all that he was.

Hell.

Maybe it was worth it.