Down Through the Ages by StarSpray

Collaboration

Prompt for this chapter: Coffee Shop

Maglor was, Daeron discovered, not very hard to track down once one knew what to look for. Especially when he was teaching music composition at a small, expensive school in the French Riviera. Daeron found him in person at a quaint little cafe, engrossed in a notebook and, of all things, wearing a pair of glasses—the sort that took up more of the face than strictly necessary with bright-colored rims, in Maglor's case a vivid green. Daeron purchased a coffee and sat down across from Maglor, snatching the glasses off his face as he did so.

"You cannot actually need these," he said, turning them over in his fingers.

"I like them!" Maglor protested, reaching out to snatch them back. Daeron leaned back and put them on. The lenses were, of course, mere glass. "They make me look studious. You, on the other hand, look ridiculous."

"It is impossible for you to look studious," Daeron laughed. "Not with that hair."

"Are you here for any reason besides stealing my things?" Maglor asked, attempting to look put-upon as he closed his notebook.

"Yes," said Daeron. "Do you realize we've never…collaborated? On anything?"

Maglor immediately forgot his pretend annoyance. "Did you track me down just because you want to write a song together?"

"Not just one song," Daeron said. "That would be ridiculous."

"What else did you have in mind?" Maglor asked, leaning in.

Daeron also leaned in, and ceased speaking French in favor of ancient Quenya. "I have many ideas," he said, and watched Maglor's eyes go dark in a way that made him feel warm all over.

"Then what are we waiting for?" he said in the same language, grabbing his notebook and Daeron's hand to drag him from the cafe and down the street.

In Maglor's apartment Daeron glimpsed scattered books and papers and a piano with a cat napping on it near a window before Maglor had him pressed against the wall, showing off how skilled he was with his tongue, rather than his hands. When they finally broke away and Daeron could catch his breath, he said, "I really did also want to write music—"

"Now?"

"Obviously not—"

"Good. I've waited too long for you take my hints, and I intend to make a very different sort of music this afternoon." Maglor kissed him again, firmly, as he pulled him toward the bedroom.