Bound, and waiting. by Haeron

---

Chapter 1

---

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.