In the Mirror of your Eyes by chrissystriped

In the Mirror of your Eyes

Read In the Mirror of your Eyes

Lómion let Celebrimbor lead him through the house by his hand. Their fingers played slowly with each other as they walked upstairs and into Celebrimbor’s bedroom. There was a happy fire dancing in his belly. Celebrimbor was dark, where Idril was fair, broad where Idril was lithe and he did not compare them. In fact, he tried very hard not to think of her when he was with him. He was afraid, her disdain for him would come to Celebrimbor’s attention and make him think differently of their relationship.

“You’re thinking too much,” his lover admonished gently and kissed his forehead. “Don’t do that. Let me show you how attractive you are.”

He turned him around towards a veiled shape standing against a wall. Lómion’s breath hitched when Celebrimbor pulled the cloth away and his own eyes — black and slanted (‘like an orc’s’, people whispered behind his back) — stared back at him. Maeglin lowered his head, but Celebrimbor gently stroked his cheek.

“You are beautiful,” he whispered into his ear. “Let me prove to you how beautiful you are to me.” He lifted Lómion’s chin and met his eyes in the mirror. “Alright?”

Lómion nodded, his lips trembling a little. He did not like to look at himself. He did not like for Celebrimbor to look too closely at him — and finally notice how ugly he was.

Celebrimbor kissed his neck. “Remember, I won’t continue against your wish. You can say No anytime. I won’t be angry. I won’t leave you.”

“I know.” Lómion whispered.

He did, Celebrimbor said it to him often, he just couldn’t believe it. No one had ever loved him, except his mother — and she had left him too, through no fault of her own, but still, she was gone. His lover’s nimble fingers started to open the buttons of his shirt, laying open his sickly pale skin that never tanned in the light of the daystar, only burned. Lómion wanted to avert his eyes, but Celebrimbor gripped his chin tenderly and didn’t let him look away.

“Look at you,” he whispered into his ear, his free hand caressing down Lómion’s chest. “Pale as the finest marble.” His lips ghosted over Lómion’s neck. “But not as cold. Warm and soft.” Celebrimbor took his hand from his face and pulled Lómion’s shirt off his shoulders. “You are exquisite, like one of the statures in your uncle’s palace and I still can’t believe that you would let me touch you.”

Lómion leaned against Celebrimbor’s chest and met his eyes in the mirror. “How can I believe you, when I’ve heard people call me ‘half-orc’ behind my back almost since I’ve come here.”

“Because you have a gift of only hearing the bad things in other people’s minds. You have many admirers, they just don’t dare to approach you.”

Celebrimbor’s eyes were so full of heated desire that it drove a shiver down Lómion’s back. He did not know if his words were true, if he wanted it to be true. He’d never longed for a trail of admirers like Glorfindel or Ecthelion had them.

“My beautiful mole.”

Lómion squinted at himself, trying to see what Celebrimbor was claiming to be seeing. His lover’s hands, dark against his skin, stroked his chest, brushing his nipples now and then. Lómion whimpered, pleasure running through his body to cumulate between his legs.

“I want to duel everyone who is the reason for you looking at yourself like that,” Celebrimbor growled. Lómion smiled weakly.

“Don’t, that would get you into trouble.” He turned his head and kissed Celebrimbor’s neck. “Make love to me. Let me feel what I can’t see.”

Celebrimbor caught his lips with his own. “One day, I hope you’ll be able to see yourself the way I do,” he said.

His hand wandered deeper and cupped Lómion’s growing arousal — he arched into the warm touch — before tucking the laces loose and slipping his hand inside his trousers. Lómion moaned when his lover’s skilful fingers closed around his cock. Celebrimbor nibbled at his ear while he stroked him slowly and Lómion blushed when he realised he was still watching him in the mirror.

“Don’t,” he stuttered. “Please. I can’t do it like this.”

Lómion closed his eyes to stop the tears that came at the thought of what would happen now. Surely Celebrimbor would push him away, would tell him to leave. He was broken and useless and no one wanted him.

“Hush.” Celebrimbor hugged him from behind. “It’s alright. If not this time, maybe another.”

He pulled him to the bed and wrapped him in the blanket before embracing him again. Lómion clung to him, crying a little more, with relief this time. Celebrimbor rubbed his neck soothingly.

“I’m sorry," he said. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Lómion shook his head and held tight to him. He had no words to explain how much it meant to him that he was still here with him, even after he’d failed. They’d lain there like that for a while, Lómion’s tears had dried up, when he realised that Celebrimbor was still fully closed — and making no move to change that. He slid his hand under the hem of his shirt.

“Do you want to…”

Celebrimbor smiled at him. “Do you?”

In the past, Lómion would have said ‘yes’, whatever his feelings about it but now, after he’d messed up and Celebrimbor was still here with him, he listened into himself for an honest answer and found, to his surprise, that he did.

“Yes," he said. “Just… no mirrors for now.”

He kissed Celebrimbor and pushed his shirt up further.

“As you wish,” Celebrimbor answered breathlessly and wriggled out of the interfering garment.

Celebrimbor adhered to his people’s view on marriage, but Lómion didn’t complain as they lay together, limbs entwined, breathing in each other with ragged gasps, their hands stroking each other.

Afterwards, when they’d cleaned themselves and snuggled into each other below the soft covers, Lómion gave Celebrimbor a sweet kiss. Whatever this was, it was not what he’d imagined to have with Idril, but he found he didn’t care. Celebrimbor was dear to him and if this was all the affection he would ever get, he thought he could be content.