For Convenience's Sake, Surely - peasantswhy - The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth (2025)

The whole idea was preposterous. Preposterous.

“I think it’s a marvelous proposal,” said Elrond, setting a teacup before Erestor and sitting himself down opposite. “It’s taking exactly the sort of level-headed approach that I would like to see, too.”

They sat together in Elrond’s sunny private parlor, enjoying the crisp late autumn breeze as it tiptoed in through the open window. Outside Erestor could hear the low, scraping fwish of the threshers in the fields and smell the thick, whole scent of cut wheat drying in the sun. It was the scent of knowing that he had done well and that they would be well prepared for winter, here in their new little settlement at the base of the mountains. He hadn’t taken as easily to administrative work as he had, in the past, taken to lore-keeping and battle strategy, but nonetheless Elrond and the king had trusted him and he had succeeded. There could be no greater pleasure than that.

Now he and Elrond had a little time to themselves to drink tea, chat, and luxuriate in a job well done. Or, that was what Erestor had planned, before this silly little idea caught Elrond’s fancy.

Erestor held his hot teacup delicately between the tips of his fingers and frowned at Elrond. “Enlighten me, my Lord, as to why an arranged marriage service is anything approaching sane, much less level-headed.”

The curséd parcel had come with the morning messenger from Mithlond, containing a request for permission to offer the “Agency’s” services along with an unusually jaunty note from the king asking Elrond’s opinion on the matter. Erestor would have thrown the whole stack out save that note (and, more importantly, the tone of the note— Gil-galad, or Ereinion to his close confidants, was not one for leaving proof of his wry sense of humor lying around) meant that the king thought it deserving of Elrond’s attention. Erestor (usually) wasn’t about to tell the king he was a fool.

Elrond held up the lurid, red-inked booklet and shook it at Erestor. “Listen, Erestor, I realize it’s been a few years—”

“—three centuries—” Erestor rolled his eyes, intuiting where Elrond was headed. Elrond always had one eye on the world and the other on the way the world could be—which mostly meant that if he began a sentence with Listen, Erestor, then Erestor was in for a lesson about history he had already lived.

“—sure, since the end of the first age, but we are still grieving. More than that, we are still figuring out what it means to live here and not in Aman.” Elrond said, spreading his hands and nearly spilling his tea.

“What do you mean, live here? You and I were born here!” Erestor protested.

Elrond pointed a finger at him, once more nearly losing hold of his tea. “Yes, but our culture wasn’t. You elves move terribly slowly with these things, goodness—my brother built an entire civilization from the ground up in fifty years and here we are, still moaning and groaning about Valinor this and Tirion that—never mind that most of us were born here, and rather recently too.”

Erestor narrowed his eyes over the rim of his teacup. “We are not that bad. Besides, we have many cultures here in Middle Earth, Noldor and Sindar and Teleri alike.”

Elrond’s mouth twitched ruefully. “True, but you must admit that we have not really progressed in creating a new identity for ourselves beyond our past identities.”

“And an arranged marriage agency is going to thrust us into the future?” Erestor inquired archly.

Elrond gave him a flat, yet calculating, look. “Yes.”

Erestor sighed and set his teacup down with a clink. “I can tell you’re determined to be difficult about this—”

—Ha! Elrond laughed and Erestor ignored him—

“—So why don’t you explain why you intend to advise the king that an arranged marriage service is going to be good for the culture of our people. And you are not allowed to say that it’s because you want to see our chronically single monarch wed by summer’s end.” Erestor sat back, crossing his arms.

Elrond chuckled, winding a lock of his long sable hair around one finger. “Quite frankly, I am entirely too jealous of the king’s limited time to wish him a spouse, but I digress.” He settled back in his chair with a little mink’s smile playing about his lips, teacup balanced for the moment on his knee. “Part of our problem—and this has always been our problem—is that we are haunted by the idea of love. The gods, even, bestirred themselves to meddle in our affairs over it. There is an idea that out there, in the distance, exists one perfect mate who was made to complete us. We’re in a complete tizzy over it, but here’s the thing—perhaps in Aman folk could afford to dawdle and dream and ignore the fact that divorce is frighteningly common but here, in Middle Earth, people die, or are separated by chance, or simply change and choose to part. They spend so much of their time agonizing over things that are tragic, but ultimately completely normal.”

“It’s not normal for us to die, Elrond Peredhel,” Erestor interjected.

“Sure, but you seemed determined to make it normal anyway,” Elrond continued unabated. “At any rate, people are wanting to move on, to get married and to have children, but even if they’re in a place where that’s feasible—which, for many, is still not possible on purely an economic level— they’re in knots about needing to make the one perfect choice in a world where the one perfect choice doesn’t really exist. Now, you take this little enterprising agency—”

“—More like a grift,” Erestor grumbled and Elrond ignored him—

“—Which purports to be able take a lot of that anxiety away. Look,” he opened the booklet and pointed at the first page. “They’re not claiming to be able to find your soul-mate. They propose a new idea of marriage that isn’t about existential fulfillment but simple, honest companionship. Do you want children but don’t want a soul mate? They’ll find someone with desires and philosophies close to your own so that the two of you might become co-parents. Do you want friendship and understanding—and perhaps something more— with someone who has experienced similar joys and tragedies? They’ll find someone with a similar background to your own who is experiencing the same longings. Do you want to share a house and resources with someone so that the two of you might have more opportunities together than you would apart? They’ll find someone whose resources fill what you lack. I’ll admit their pitch on the tax benefits of marriage is rather blatant, but Ereinion doesn’t seem to mind.”

Erestor shook his head. “Preposterous. Nothing is that simple, much less the heart and what it desires.”

Elrond put the booklet down on the tea table between them with a thwap! “That’s the point, they’re not claiming to fulfill the heart’s innermost desires but to open up new, practical avenues for the heart to get what it wants on its own terms.”

“Well, if you’re so intent on it, I suppose I’ll send out a reply to the king and to the agency? What shall I say you want, a co-parenting relationship or merely a resource-sharing one?” Erestor replied, airily waving his hand towards his pen and ink.

Elrond snorted. “Don’t get fresh with me,” he said, knowing it to be a useless command. “Send the note to the king telling him that I think it’s a good idea and that he should grant them the permit, but only on a six-month provisional basis with oversight. The idea, I think, is sound, but we don’t want this to become, as you say, a grift.”

“That satisfies me well enough,” Erestor replied, taking up his teacup and sipping smugly. “I’ll see you in six months then, and when you ask me to write the new regulations banning this nonsense you had better give me a present to butter me up properly.”

Elrond merely returned his words with a sly smile. “We’ll see.”

~*~

The night autumn breeze cut chill through Glorfindel’s thin tunic as he mounted the steps to the boarding house. He was still hot from his day’s work down at the docks, but he’d need a coat soon.

He couldn’t afford a coat. He could barely afford the boarding house. It was clean and well maintained, but he didn’t trust the landlords. They lived elsewhere, up in one of the richer districts, and were sure to wear jewels when they occasionally deigned to inspect their property.

Perhaps he should go to the king. He’d been a lord, once, and he was apparently favored of the gods—surely that warranted a fine winter coat. Or something.

He ducked inside the bright doorway and, pausing only to take a mug of soup and half a loaf of bread from the kitchens, slipped up to his rooms. He closed the door with a soft clk! and lit a single candle. His room was small, shoved up in the uppermost eaves of the house with only enough room for a bed, nightstand, and a window. If he had any spare clothes then they would have to be tucked under the bed, so maybe it was good he had just the one set. At least the pointed gable of the ceiling was tall enough to accommodate his height, and the window opened towards the sea. When the weather was warm enough the ocean breeze would breathe through the open casement and fill his restless dreams with kelp and fish and luminescent pearls. Those were good nights, but it was too cold now to open the window and the air in his room was close and stuffy.

His food cooled as he washed himself with the stale water still standing in the small basin and pitcher. Downstairs he could hear the muffled chatter and raucous laughter of his fellow workers, but he had no heart to join them. Everything was still so… new. Or rather, he was still so old. All his manners were old, his accent was old, even his jokes were old. These young people living in a young age were not for him, an old lord from a forgotten time. Not even a lord, really. None of his folk lived in this land, if they lived at all.

He’d looked, of course. The gods had set him out in a little dingy from Aman with nary but the simple clothes on his back—no mission, no mantra, nothing save a whisper from someone who might’ve been Lord Námo saying something that might’ve been I’m sorry. He floated well enough along until he reached a strange green shore. There had been no one living where he’d landed, but he managed to find a stray fisherman and eagerly—stupidly— asked her where he might find anyone from Gondolin. If any of his friends and folk were here—and they must be, surely he hadn’t lost all— then they would be known to others. No one could forget Gondolin, the fabled city.

The fisherman looked at him like he was a sun-addled lamb before rather bluntly saying that she’d never heard of the place, but maybe he’d have some luck in Mithlond, the city of the king. She took the dinghy off his hands for what he hoped was a fair price and then pointed him down the coast. He left, heart in his throat.

Mithlond was small but stunningly beautiful, and completely alien to him. Where were the misting fountains, the spiraling white towers? Everything here was made from warm, pink sandstone or sturdy dark wood, and everything was built to be unusually and seemingly intentionally flat—which must be a great act of hubris, building flat things along the cliffs of a fjord. At least he thought so, until he saw the many folk still bearing the wounds of war, and for whom the lack of stairs was not an interesting design feature but a necessity. The king’s palace, when he found it, was all one story and— in a far cry from Gondolin’s onion layers— lay completely open, with colonnades and gardens instead of walls. That didn’t make sense for any of the royal family he knew until he saw the king’s banner, which also didn’t belong to anyone he knew. Asking didn’t illuminate anything further—To whom does the starry banner belong? Oh, that banner belongs to King Starlight. Gil-galad, who was that.

He made it halfway up this Gil-galad’s front avenue before he turned right back around, unable to take another step forward, unable to let himself be known.

The money from the dinghy was enough to secure him the room at the boarding house for a month, so he let himself out to the dockworkers for most of the week and on his days off he dragged himself to the city library to learn all the things he’d missed while he’d been… dead.

It was good, in the end, that he worked at the docks and not somewhere else—somewhere, say, where folk might ask questions about why he kept rubbing his eyes. Saltwater was everywhere at the docks, no one could tell just by looking at a drop whether it came from the sea or somewhere else.

—And so fell the House of the Fountain and so fell the House of the Heavenly Arch and so fell the House of the King—

Anyway it turned out that no one but the dustiest scholars knew much of Gondolin anymore. There weren’t even any lists of the dead, just general and so fell this, and so fell that. So much had been lost in The Fall—The Fall, they called it, as if anyone could name such a thing, but then again they were always naming things in ridiculous ways, like, “The Battle of Unnumbered Tears,” so perhaps all scholars were fools— and whatever had been salvaged had been subsequently lost in the Third Kinslaying, which, how.

So maybe the king wouldn’t have even known who he was, had he introduced himself. And it wasn’t like the gods had actually told him to do anything, so…

So he could just… stay here in the boarding house. Work at the docks. Not talk much. Forget that everyone he had ever loved was dead, even though—

The grief came to him, of course, on its own terms.

He forced himself to eat the soup and bread because he knew if he didn’t then he’d faint tomorrow. Then he stripped, gave his clothes a cursory wash in the leftover water, hung them to dry, and lay down. The moon was as full and yellow as a marigold and it shone in a wide path through his window, over his belly, and onto the floor.

Tonight’s visitor was one of the lesser griefs—that was, the matter of his body, and not something sharper like the matter of, well, everything else— but it bridled him with a cruel bit and drove him ragged anyway. He laid a hand across his breast, felt the soreness there, kneaded absently.

Muscle lay on him different now than it had before. Working at the docks remolded his trunk and limbs for strength and endurance, not the quickness and agility of a warrior. He was thicker now—his chest strained against his shirt and his thighs rubbed together in places they never had before. Though, how meat accumulated itself on his bones with his meager diet he didn’t know. Maybe it was the result of having been reborn—

— and that was really the problem, wasn’t it? He’d… died. He didn’t know how to hold a body anymore. He had a sense that he’d crossed some great distance but not that time had passed while he was doing it. Sensations came to him with shattering clarity, as if he’d experienced them only a few minutes ago— Ecthelion cupping his cheek, his leather gauntlet warm from the friction of his sword, or Egalmoth touching his forehead briefly to Glorfindel’s own, his breath steaming and hot on Glorfindel’s face as he gasped, You take the front, I have the rear—

But Ecthelion’s bones now lay with Gothmog’s in the ruins of Turgon’s fountain, and Egalmoth’s most likely with the rest of their folk in the sands at the Havens of Sirion— neither of which he could reach, lost as they were under the sea.

Glorfindel sighed and rolled away from the moonlight. He ran his hands over his shoulders, clutched himself close, and felt—fear, burning hot on his scalp.

What had happened to him? What had he become? Was he still a person who could touch, could be touched in return—or would he only ever be able to feel the bittersweet sensations of his past self, unable to embody this seemingly familiar form the gods had given him? He was a suspicious stranger in his own body, how could he invite another person into this broken landscape?

Maybe he didn’t need anyone to touch him. It would be enough to simply see a friend, or even a friendly face—someone who knew who he was and who was happy to see him, even if only casually. Someone who could stand in the doorway of a warm, welcoming place and wave to him with a smile. The others here were mostly polite and nodded to him as they passed in the doorway, but none of them knew his name and somehow he couldn’t bring himself to tell them.

And gods he was going to have a hard winter of it anyway, with work drying up as the ice set in. It wouldn’t be until next year, if he was lucky, that he’d be able to afford that coat—maybe he could find a hidden spot on the coast, sleep there in the summer, and save a little more—

But winter was going to be hard. And he was so terribly lonely.

At least he still had all his old scars and, if he felt around the back of his neck right where it met his skull, a few new ones too. That felt right, even if nothing else did.

He woke to the scrape of a slip of paper being shoved under his door. He blinked—it was still dark, and the rouser for the dockworkers hadn’t yet arrived to fetch him.

His bed was close enough to the door so he reached out and fumbled around until he found the paper. Then he lit his candle, curious.

It was some kind of advertisement—odd, considering no one here at the boarding house had any sort of extra cash lying around. It was printed on old recycled paper—he could faintly read the scraped-away remnants of a sales receipt— and detailed a… match-making agency.

Are you lonely? Down on your luck? Wish you had someone to share your dreams and desires? Let us help!

Huh.

He skimmed the notice once, then twice, taking in the details of the matter with bleary, strained eyes. Then, before he could wake up enough to think about how this was not a good idea, he scrambled around for the tiny nib of a pen he kept losing and his pot of ink.

The notice had a place at the bottom that read, Tell us about yourself! Along with a few specifics like, Do you want children? Do you want to pursue a romantic and/or sexual relationship, and if so what are your sexual/romantic preferences? What is your financial situation? What skills do you possess? These answers will help us connect you with the best possible match!

My name is Glorfindel, he scribbled. I don’t want children. I—

He hesitated. He reread, Do you want to pursue a romantic and/or sexual relationship, and if so, what are your sexual/romantic preferences? He—

Gondolin had been shut up in more ways than one—and Valinor even more so than that— and, well. He hadn’t, really, ever. With anyone. He—he’d known what he’d liked, or at least what kind of people he liked, but— well, Mithlond wasn’t Gondolin, now, was it? He’d seen men with other men here, holding hands, kissing—for goodness’ sake his neighbors were two doughty fellows with marriage bands on their fingers and he could hear them through the walls most nights, though Eru only knew how they had the energy after a day at the docks.

I am open to pursuing a romantic and sexual relationship, but it isn’t necessary. I am only interested in men. I—

His pen shook.

I am very poor.

He paused again to look at the paper. What skills do you possess? He’d killed a balrog, once. Ha.

He wrote, I am very good at gardening.

~*~

Spring in the mountains was, perhaps, the only thing in the world that had the power to convince Erestor that Eru Illuvatar existed and that He desired good things. Gods, it felt good to rise in the morning, go to Elrond, and get work done alongside a world that seemed to want to do exactly the same thing.

It was evening and the last of the snow had finally melted away, leaving whole swathes of blushing purple crocuses spangling over the soft ground like stars. He walked along the upper banks of the Bruinen, listening to the spring peepers and insects drone on beneath the bark of an occasional night-heron, breathing deep the sharp, metallic tang of snowmelt. Blueberries would be in season soon, if he was lucky the bushes along the path to his cottage would bear fruit this year.

He ran his hand along the rushes, musing.

It had been about a month ago that Elrond had come to him, again, about what he was coming to think of only as That Nonsense.

“So Erestor,” Elrond had said, sitting down on the edge of Erestor’s desk and smiling at him in a not-at-all reassuring way. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the roaring success of the little matchmaking venture?”

Erestor, lamentably, had. He was not the sort of person who had friends outside Elrond—and Ereinion, though it was sad, sometimes, being friends with a king— but he did have underlings, who, as a breed, were prone to gossip. All they wanted to talk about was the mysterious and exciting matchmaking agency, which itself had added whole forests of fuel to the fire by printing monthly cozy testimonials of Yuletide romances kindled by their efforts.

“If you buy into their advertising then you are not the wise person I think you are,” Erestor sneered at Elrond over the edge of his paperwork.

“Come now,” he chuckled. “You haven’t thought about it?”

Erestor, lamentably, had.

“No, of course not,” he sniffed.

“Well, that’s unfortunate, because I wanted to talk to you about it.” Elrond replied, a sliver of seriousness edging into his tone.

Erestor pursed his lips and glanced at him. Elrond was the sort of person who was able to hold seriousness and playfulness cupped in one palm. No doubt he had some sly quip hidden behind his inquiry.

“All right,” Erestor said slowly, narrowing his eyes. “What do you want to talk about?”

Elrond laughed, holding up his hands. “Only this, that no less than a dozen of these matched couples have come to me for help delivering their first child when the time comes.”

Erestor’s brows rose. “And these future children are already in the making?”

Elrond nodded, beaming with joy. “Yes! Most of them are due in the late fall. And here! In our little settlement! Mithlond will, no doubt, see many more.”

Erestor narrowed his eyes. “Elrond.”

Elrond raised his eyebrows at him. “Erestor.”

He gave it a last shot. “Do you actually know anyone personally, not just medical patients, who are happy with this arrangement?”

Elrond smirked, damn him. “Yes, in fact. Egalmoth wrote me.”

Erestor slumped over, cradling his head in his hands. “Not Egalmoth.”

“Why not Egalmoth!” Elrond protested. “The poor man has been inconsolable since all his folk—including his wife!—died. He can count the amount of people he knew in Gondolin left on these shores on two hands and one foot. He deserves some happiness.”

“Well of course he deserves some happiness,” Erestor groused. “He could’ve done it without proving me wrong. Who’s he with, then?”

“A young man, surprisingly, I wouldn’t have thought it of him,” Elrond smiled with genuine sweetness. “He’s a smith, go figure. I don’t know if they’ll wed, but they’re very much in love.”

Erestor leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, unable to keep himself from feeling the tiniest sliver of happiness. “So do you want me to capitulate and tell you that I think this was a good idea after all?”

Elrond poorly suppressed his smug smile. “What was it you said, oh, I’ll want a present to butter me up when you ask me to write the regulations banning this nonsense?” He slipped a small box out of his sleeve and handed it to Erestor. “Well, I want you to do an audit of the whole endeavor and then write a proposal for the regulations establishing it.”

Erestor took the box with a frown and opened it.

“Oh,” he sighed. Inside was a pair of delicate opal earrings, dangling like teardrops set in gold. “You are entirely too generous and also entirely too aware of my tastes for my own good.”

“I mostly wanted an excuse to give you a present,” Elrond said. “But I also trust you—and your skepticism— to make something reasonable out of this. They have a divine knack for pairing people, but when things inevitably go wrong I want people to be protected. You, of course, wrote the provisional regulations, but now there are children involved and I think we need to prioritize that moving forward.”

“A gift and express permission to be pedantic?” Erestor purred, finally warming. “You spoil me.”

“That was my intent,” Elrond said brightly. “Don’t be too quick to forgive me, though—I need that audit in a month.”

Despite the tight deadline, the new spring’s arrival lightened his load and made the time pass happily—well, happily for him, but perhaps not his harried underlings. He’d turned in the final paperwork to Elrond not five minutes prior and as he walked alone down the river he could feel his tightly-wound self unspool like gossamer spider threads over the reeds and lapping water.

His findings had… not been what he’d expected. Firstly, the agency itself was run by two ancient ladies who, from their look and attitude, might’ve been living in their little house on the beach since Cuiviénen and who wanted nothing more than to treat everyone in Lindon like their grandchildren. The advertising was done by their actual grandchildren, a pair of twins who were entirely too clever for their own good but who seemed to be admirably corralled by their grandmothers. The agency had, technically, been classified as a charity but Erestor hadn’t actually believed it until the two ladies sat him down in their tiny sitting room and showed him the paperwork. They didn’t charge any fees whatsoever for the matchmaking (“It would be immoral—” “—also, you know, liability law is far too complicated these days.”) but what they did get in gifts from grateful matches went to advertising, a rainy-day legal fund (for when things did, inevitably, go bad—these ladies were nosy but they weren’t fools), and a monthly jar of candy for the twins.

They had been remarkably forthcoming (or perhaps smug) about how the endeavor was run. The ladies kept a registry of names they received in a series of tiny and intricately organized cabinets. Erestor almost forgot he was supposed to audit them, he was so impressed. All the cards were color-coded and cross-catalogued based on the “Essential Questions.”

“We always double-check everything,” one said, running her finger down the cards with a buzz. “But the color-coding helps the twins keep up.”

For simplicity’s sake, when they thought they had a match they sent out a notice to one of the individuals and left it up to that person to make the connection.

“It’s better this way, for it to be personal,” The other said, patting his knee.

“How do you deal with privacy concerns?” He asked, unconvinced.

“Oh it’s all there,” she replied, sipping her tea and pointing at the flyer. “In the fine print.”

He skimmed, his brows rising until they had traversed nearly the length of his skull. Goodness, these ladies were viciously thorough. He decided he liked them immensely.

All in all, an auspicious start— and while there were undoubtedly many other unscrupulous individuals circling to capitalize on the craze, he felt confident that his proposed legislation was severe enough to deter most and scourge the rest. He left their house with a promise to send over a few legal volumes and a flyer stuffed in his pocket when he wasn’t looking.

He still had the flyer in his pocket. It shuffled and crinkled when he moved.

Perhaps he would’ve tossed the silly thing sooner save that he’d also gone to visit many of the couples who had been matched, along with a few people who had been matched and had decided it wasn’t for them. Certainly the twins had been lurid in their testimonials, but for the most part everyone seemed pretty… well, satisfied, at least with the process if not with the results.

And, without much conscious thought, his feelings on the matter had gone from “Such frippery should be buried in a peat bog and forgotten,” to “I don’t think it’s for me, but it’s good that so many are so happy with their arrangements.”

But he still had the flyer in his pocket.

He reached the end of the river path and made his way up the winding slope to his cottage. Here the grasses grew long and sweet, and the new spring crickets snapped away as his robes swept over their hiding places. He shielded his eyes with his hand as he gazed up to where his home, perched atop a knoll, waited for him.

His cottage sat nestled a little away from Imladris proper, closer to the calmer stretches of river and the towering eaves of the mountains. The valley, filled with frothing green and misting opalescent rainbows, delighted him— but he missed the close comfort of the caves where he was born. And, while Elrond wouldn’t outright let him live in a cave, he did let him build his quaint stone cottage closer to the cliffs—so long as Erestor, in return, let Elrond build him a spare set of rooms in the main House on the off chance they were snowed in. This suited Erestor fine—he got his hideaway sanctuary and a place to nap at work.

He opened the wooden gate and stepped inside, frowning slightly at the sorry creak in the hinges. He’d have to find some time to fix that. The darkened windows of his house seemed to give him a look, chastising.

The door had a creak too, opening accusingly to the empty echo inside. When he rounded the corner to his kitchen and saw the stack of dirty dishes next to the larger stack of unsorted books he was forced to concede that perhaps he’d been a little too busy. His home was beautiful—Elrond did love to spoil him—but it was… dirty. Good gods, had he not noticed how much dust had accumulated over, well, everything?

There went his nice relaxing evening luxuriating in the pleasure of a completed project. He stripped out of his heavy work robes, poured himself a glass of wine, and got to work.

By the time he was satisfied he was exhausted, drunk, and the morning sun was creeping up again over the mountains’ edge. He slumped down in an armchair he’d shoved up next to the fireplace and watched the light rise from outside the window.

All that would’ve been much easier if he had someone else living with him. That was surely why he was thinking about the flyer in his pocket, and not because returning to a darkened doorway from Elrond’s bright, busy House made him feel a prickle of melancholy under his breastbone.

But was he not by nature a lonesome creature? Surely it was better to have a dirty house and be peacefully alone than have a clean house and inescapable company.

The flyer was in his hand, though he couldn’t have told anyone how it got there.

My name is Erestor, he wrote. The wine glass at his elbow was half empty, but last time he checked it had been completely empty, which posed a mystery he clearly wasn’t capable of solving at the moment.

I do not want children. I am… he tapped the feathered end of his quill against his mouth. I am well-off (financially) but I am very busy and I am mostly looking for someone to live with me to help with the house and such. I am also not much of a gregarious person and so I would prefer to live with someone who is quiet or who is content to find the bulk of their conversation with others.

He was rambling a bit, but that was fine, this wouldn’t work out anyway.

I live in Imladris, which I realize is a bit out of the way, but if there’s someone willing to move all the way out here for me they won’t have to worry about finding work since there is much good work to be had here—or, if they so desire, I am quite capable of supporting two people.

He skimmed back over the questions in case he’d missed something. Oh yes, that question. Why not. I am open to pursuing a romantic and/or sexual relationship, but it is not necessary. I don’t have any particular preferences in terms of people, but I prefer to only have one partner at a time.

He’d tried multiple partners before—everyone had been a bit wild after the end of the First Age and there’d been a stretch of time where he’d woken every morning with no less than three kinds of sticky on him— but it wasn’t for him. He did occasionally still indulge in… group activities, particularly when he visited Mithlond on official business and had time to catch up with old flames, but it had been quite some time—goodness, perhaps more than a few decades now that he thought of it— since he’d done anything like that.

Maybe this little venture would turn out—what a thrilling thought. Domestic bliss, how novel.

He folded up the flyer into a letter, addressed it, sealed it, set it aside with the rest of his outgoing mail, and promptly forgot about it.

Elrond, unfortunately, intercepted the reply.

He sat at his usual perch on the edge of Erestor’s desk, quietly thumbing through the incoming mail. Erestor had a monstrous headache after an hours-long search for yet another mislaid receipt, and now sat with his forehead pressed down on the flat of his desk, cushioned by a sachet of lavender and mint. Elsewhere the warming kettle began to mumble.

“Elrond,” he groaned. “Do cease that accursed shuffling.”

Elrond snorted. “I am being very—oh. Oh.”

Erestor lifted his eyes warily. “What.”

Elrond bit his lip and waved the damnéd letter. “Oh ho ho, Erestor, you wrote them?”

“Wrote who?” Erestor groused, rubbing his temples.

“The matchmakers,” Elrond said gleefully. “What did you say? Can I open it?”

The who? The—oh. Erestor snatched the letter away. “No you may not, and I was…” he struggled to remember. “Very drunk.”

“Why were you drunk?” Elrond asked, straining to get a better glimpse.

Erestor fiddled with the edges of the paper. “I cleaned my whole house and thought I’d drink while doing it. The cleaning took longer than expected and so the drinking… followed. I must’ve written in because I wanted a housekeeper.” And not a… companion.

It was no good lying to Elrond, who didn’t push him but who was clearly letting him get away with it. “Well, are you going to reply?”

Erestor chewed the inside of his cheek and did not look at Elrond. “I suppose I’ll have to see what they say, first,” he said and then he opened the letter before he overthought things.

Dear Erestor, (of course we remember you!) thank you very much for the legal books. They have been very helpful, and we’re very glad to be able to help you in return!

Eru Above, they remembered him. The thought brought a little smile to his face, which he failed to squelch before Elrond could see.

Here is the application we received, copied word-for-word.

Erestor read, his pulse strangely thick in his throat. Must have been the headache.

My name is Glorfindel, the letter began.

What a sweet name. Rather old-fashioned, but whether it was the whole situation or just the name itself, Erestor found himself inexplicably charmed.

I don’t want children.

Good, neither did he.

I am open to pursuing a romantic and sexual relationship, but it isn’t necessary.

How odd, he had said very nearly the same thing.

I am only interested in men.

He snorted. That was certainly in his favor.

I am very poor.

That was no matter, he was very rich.

I am very good at gardening.

Gardening, how sentimental.

Below the ladies had written a mailing address in Mithlond, along with a final, We wish you luck! Please do keep us updated.

Gardening. And how would it be, to come home to a warmly-lit door surrounded with flowers?

Elrond peered over his hands. “Glorfindel. He’s a rather curt fellow, isn’t he?”

“I think she’s a she, actually,” Erestor mused, running over the letter once more. “Glorfindel has become a woman’s name in more recent times.”

“Well, the only Glorfindel I’ve ever known was the Lord Glorfindel of Gondolin and he was a man,” Elrond wondered, lips pursed.

“Yes, but he’s dead. There was a whole spate of Glorfindel ladies born just before the turning of the age, though as a name it’s certainly gone out of fashion.” Erestor said with finality, tucking the letter away.

“At any rate, are you going to write back?” Elrond asked slyly, standing to go fetch the kettle for more tea.

“Absolutely not,” Erestor replied.

When Erestor sat down to pen his reply he found that he needed at least a glass and a half of wine to even begin thinking of the right words. After unnumbered false-starts and a whole mountain of wasted paper it wasn’t until, again, that the dawn light began to creep inside his window that he was satisfied with what he wrote.

He put it in his outgoing mail, but this time he couldn’t forget about it even if he tried.

~*~

Glorfindel lay on his bed and closed his eyes.

His fingers throbbed. He had to keep them very still or the salt-burned skin would crack again, and he didn’t have any new strips to bind them. Something about it made him sick to his stomach to watch new scars slowly make their way up his fingers and knuckles.

One of his neighbors had taken pity on him and had given him some salve, which helped, and, in an unexpected blessing, the salve smelled sharply of green growing things. He laid his hands under his chin and breathed.

At least the boarding house was warm. His mind wandered as the rest of his skin, all at once chill with the early-spring wind and feverish with work, equalized itself.

He hadn’t heard anything from that mysterious matchmaking agency. He’d… hoped, desperately even, for a reply—if only because mid-winter found him jobless and penniless and three days out from the end of his lease.

The king was known for being a serious fellow, but everyone agreed that he was generous and compassionate. Even if Glorfindel didn’t go to him directly there were many ways he could access the king’s coffers for his needs.

But that would mean telling someone his name— his true name, and not just a silly false name he could give to uncaring landlords—and he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He’d only been able to say his name to that little scrap of paper, and then they’d never replied.

The landlords let him stay on loan—delighted, no doubt, to actually have someone clutched in their debt in a land where the king was known for erasing debts, oh, they must have felt very clever— and Glorfindel was only too happy, come spring, to have an excuse to work himself so hard he couldn’t think.

The winter had been… not good, for thinking.

He turned his face to the window, eyes still closed. The red brightness of the setting sun through his eyelids filled his mind. Sighing, he let himself sink down into the one pool of quietude he’d been able to find.

He couldn’t quite tell, living this close to the coast, what the exact season was. Would blueberries be thickening in the slopes of the mountains? Did blueberries even grow here? He ran slowly over in his mind the things he would plant, given a greenhouse and a little bit of land. With the chill he’d undoubtedly need to start the usual vegetables inside— peas, onions, beets, carrots, the like—though it was probably too early for corn and beans. He always began this little daydream by thinking of the vegetables—the taut firmness of a pepper, the glossy slide of a handful of peas. Then he laid out the herbs—thyme, rosemary, sage, fennel, dill, lemon balm, peppermint, so many possibilities and he wanted them all. He could smell them, if he concentrated—the sharp, earthy tang springing forth as he rubbed their leaves between his fingers.

He saved the sweetest thought for last—the flowers. He started small, thinking of the best companions for the vegetables and herbs—calendula to bring in the bees, marigold to protect the roots, nasturtium to lure away cabbage moths and aphids. Then onwards to zinnias, sunflowers, lavender, yarrow, foxgloves, honeysuckle hanging from the eaves, roses climbing the trellis, periwinkles sprinkling along in the shade of a willow…

The triumphant goblets of tulips had just finished blooming on the greenhouse windowsill when he heard the shuffle and crunch of paper under the door. He blinked awake, groped around on the floor, and came away with not another advertisement, but an envelope addressed to… to him, to Glorfindel.

He held it for a moment cupped in both hands. The paper sat heavy in his palms, thick and rich with a creamy hue. An unfamiliar seal, stamped in black wax, closed the folds. He hesitantly thumbed around the edges of the seal, then with a jerk he ripped it open.

A few gold—gold!— coins fell on his chest with audible thumps. Who would send him gold? Who—

He rushed through the letter.

Glorfindel, it began.

His heart drummed against the walls of his ribs.

I hope this letter finds you well. My name is Erestor.

Erestor. It meant Lord of Solitude, if his translation was correct.

I received your name and information from the matchmakers, who seem to think that we would be a good match.

Glorfindel snorted out a laugh despite himself—how strange and marvelous, to receive an offer like this from the “Lord of Solitude.”

I would very much like to meet you, and to discover what we might become together.

He had to put the letter down at that, overcome with trembling.

I live in Imladris, where I serve in Lord Elrond’s Household.

Lord Elrond… The king’s herald, if Glorfindel remembered correctly. A somewhat mysterious figure—the history books gushed about his deeds and kindness, but never spoke of his family or heritage. It had been a slim, dusty volume lost behind a stack of encyclopedias that had revealed the bittersweet truth about him—and his Fëanorion family. The gentle, sad account initially disturbed Glorfindel—how could anyone write a fiction like this, at the expense of someone else— but then he saw that it had been written by Elrond’s own hand, and, like a burst cattail, his heart softened.

I’ll admit, I originally wrote to the agency because I am a very busy man and I would like someone to live with so that I won’t have to clean my whole house myself.

Glorfindel laughed at that, giddy—he liked this Erestor. His straightforwardness reminded him of Ecthelion’s brusque nature.

Here is what I propose: please come and live with me here in Imladris, and we shall see if things go well. I have plenty of space for gardening, if that tempts you, and you can grow whatever you like.

Oh—a garden! Glorfindel bit his lip, the landscape of his mind suddenly overflowing with his dreams, now, maybe—?

If we are ill suited for each other, then there is much opportunity to be found here in Imladris, especially for gardeners. My Lord loves flowers with all his heart, as do I. I am sure you could make your way here, though if you desire to return to Mithlond, then I will arrange your way.

He could go. He… he could—

In your description you said that you are very poor. I realize that makes things a little awkward between us, as I am wealthy.

Less awkward than things might’ve been, seeing as Glorfindel was, well, who he was—but Erestor didn’t know that. Didn’t need to know that.

I have sent along some money in case you desire to join me and can’t make the journey financially, but if you decide to demure my proposal then keep the money, with my goodwill.

Glorfindel stared at the coins in his lap. Eru Above, with that kind of money he could afford to stay at the boarding house for a year and still have enough left over for a fine winter coat. Forget Imladris, he could travel the whole world.

Regardless of what you decide, please write me and tell me what you intend to do. I look forward to your reply. Yours, Erestor.

Glorfindel leapt up and scrambled for his pen nib, nearly upending his bedside table. He found an old, mostly-blank sheet of paper (the back page of his lease, he belatedly realized) and tore it in half.

Dear Erestor, he scribbled, blushing—maybe dear was a bit strong, but no matter— I would love to meet you and to stay with you, if you’ll have me. I have a few affairs to wrap up, but by the time you get this letter I should be on my way. You may expect me before the last frost. Yours, Glorfindel.

He sealed it with a bit of dirty wax from his nub of a candle, and, lacking a stamp, pressed it down with his thumb.

~*~

Erestor held Glorfindel’s letter in his lap and his chin in his palm, looking out the window towards the deepening twilight. A twist of what might’ve been embarrassment and what might’ve been anticipation curled in his gut.

He’d been more— to use a term he’d never before used to describe himself— gregarious than he was used to being, but one had to be genteel with a lady. Besides, it would not do to be taciturn to someone he hoped to welcome into his home.

Glorfindel. What would she be like? Blonde, certainly. He had an image of a small, broad-shouldered woman with a fountain of golden hair and brown eyes, like the earth. Her hands would be calloused and rough, but gentle—and Elrond would no doubt chastise him for having such unfounded romantic ideas about gardeners.

But times like now, when the light drifted purple through his window and the mist lay low over the Bruinen, he pictured her sitting across from him in another armchair by the fire, the two of them quietly reading or chatting softly with each other. He didn’t dare let himself think of anything beyond that—even if it was a possibility. Undoubtedly he would be proven a fool once she actually arrived, but— even so—

The spring air curled in his hair. The clear breeze, laced with the scent of ferns and river reeds, filled his mouth. Fool that he was, he coveted that glimpse of domestic peace, blinking and disappearing like fireflies in his mind’s eye.

She’d arrive soon. The king’s couriers were swift, but if she followed just behind like she said she would, she could easily arrive a month from now. A month. There was much to prepare, not the least of which would be a new bed. He’d have to clear out his study for her, perhaps move his desk into the sitting room.

He glanced at his elbow to where no less than three empty teacups sat on the cluttered tea table. Damn it, he’d have to clean again.

~*~

Glorfindel shielded his eyes with his hand against the low evening sun and gazed up into Imladris.

Imladris. His new home— maybe, hopefully.

The mountains rose on either side of the little valley, which meandered up in a gentle slope around the banks of the river. Bridges threaded through it like stitches on a hem, hanging with tinkling bells and pendants. In a far cry from Mithlond’s warm sandstone or Gondolin’s white stone, everything here was built from a rich, honey-colored wood, carved all over with birds and stars and sheaves of wheat. Flowers tumbled over most everything they could manage to get their roots into and the grumbling song of water blanketed the valley like a cat’s purr.

He made his slow way up into the little establishment, a prickle rising on the back of his neck as if he were being watched. Though—oh. He’d felt this way before. Gondolin had felt like this, a little, a warm heart shielded from wheeling eyes above by the sleeping backs of mountains. Funny, how a kind of paranoia could feel comforting.

He walked among the houses and various people cautiously, too-aware of his footfalls like some skittish kitten lured in with the promise of cream. Despite his new clothes, he must surely look as though he’d spent the last two weeks in the wilderness—which, he had. He’d heard that the journey usually took a month or more by foot, but he’d been… overeager. His hair must be a sight from all the trotting and sleeping amongst the brambles. At least he had his new clothes, which were so beautiful and soft that he almost hated to wear them, lest he stain them by accident. He’d taken one of Erestor’s gold coins and bought himself a new tunic, leggings, and boots, all in blue-grey tones and stitched with clover, and then realized only after he’d given the coin away that he couldn’t bear to be parted with one more. Such a precious gift, he hated to spend it. So he packed his nice clothes away in his satchel for when he arrived and set off on foot, leaving his room at the boarding house in the care of his kind neighbors. He’d paid off his debt and, before he’d gotten the letter, the rest of the month; his neighbors would find someone else who could use the space before the landlords wised up to Glorfindel’s absence.

The two weeks in the wilderness had been deeply healing. He woke that first morning in a meadow soaked in dew and spider webs and nearly wept for joy. His body melted into the landscape, familiarizing itself with all the grasses and trees and gods, the way the earth felt when he dug his fingers all the way in, up to the first knuckle. If the urgency of his journey hadn’t been nipping at his heels then he would’ve lingered, but the season stretched on and he would be late to plant seedlings if he stayed.

And, well. He didn’t want to keep Erestor waiting.

But even as the countryside rejuvenated him, it also drained him. Or, rather, it took him up in its arms and unwound the makeshift bandages and pulled the packed gauze he’d used to stopper up his heart. Where he could not quite weep for joy, he could certainly weep for whatever starving, unnamable families of sorrow still lived in his chest. There must be whole puddles of himself all over the wilderness.

The thought of the garden—and Erestor— kept him afloat, but gods he was tired. Weary to his bones.

He must put on a brave face. It would not do to meet Erestor as a broken mess, though he didn’t know—didn’t want to know— if he was anything but a broken mess, maybe. It was a little sorry, wasn’t it; Erestor seemed so kind and open in his letter, and Glorfindel had so little to give in return. The gold coins, resting against his breast where he’d sewn them into the lining, warmed against his skin.

He made for what looked to be the oldest house, since all the houses here were very grand and one couldn’t be said to be richer than another. Anticipation and trepidation coiled around his throat, twin snakes.

When he arrived he discovered that the oldest house was less a “house” than a series of open gardens, colonnaded halls, and private apartments. The house swirled in like a seashell, inviting and enticing further in. Things were less busy this time of day—though he still got a few bright looks from folks excited to see a stranger— or perhaps the household was merely busy elsewhere. He smelled fresh bread and roasting vegetables from some unseen kitchen, but his stomach clenched so tight he couldn’t imagine eating anything.

He came upon a man standing idly in a corner, reading through a few papers and chewing absently at his thumb. He was slight, with thickly lashed amber eyes and sable hair that fell almost to his waist, and he stood on one foot with the other heel propped up against his ankle. It was the sort of idiosyncratic stance that said he didn’t need to look busy for the sake of watching supervisors and therefore, he must be important.

“Excuse me,” Glorfindel inquired, hesitantly stepping up to him. “I’m looking for Lord Erestor. Can you direct me to where I might find him?”

The man blinked up at him twice, once for confusion and again for recognition. “My goodness,” he said. “You’re very early. Did you fly here?”

“Uh?” Glorfindel said, his insides squirming a little at the way the man looked at him—like he knew everything about Glorfindel, all the way down to the way the sky had shone when he was born.

“Pardon me,” the man grinned. “My name is Elrond, and you must be Glorfindel, yes?”

“Yes,” Glorfindel replied, startling into a bow. Elrond didn’t look like Tuor, or Idril, or even little Eärendil, and Glorfindel didn’t know whether to be thankful for that or not. “Forgive me my lord, I didn’t know—”

Elrond waved him away. “Never mind all that, we’re much more casual here than Gil-galad is in Mithlond. Come! I shall take you to Erestor.” He put his hand gently on Glorfindel’s elbow and, tucking his papers inside the folds of his robe, led him out of the house and further into the cleft of the mountains.

“You really are rather early, we weren’t expecting you for another two weeks or so,” Elrond chatted amiably as they walked along the pathway up the river.

Glorfindel almost didn’t hear him, his weariness catching up with him. What little energy he had left was completely consumed by the soil, the sun, the undergrowth, his mind automatically examining and categorizing and planning.

… There was a part of him, too, like a splinter of glass, that could hardly bear to be in Elrond’s company. Sometimes his past life seemed like a dream, something he had never truly held and therefore couldn’t truly mourn. But Elrond— Elrond was formed, in part, by Eärendil, by Tuor, by Idril, by Turgon—Elrond was his past made flesh—

Glorfindel stared fixedly at the river, afraid that if he let himself look at Elrond even a second too long then he’d break into weeping.

“I’m sorry if I’m an inconvenience,” Glorfindel replied, trying to match Elrond’s cheery tone.

“Not at all!” Elrond laughed. “They say joy is increased by anticipation, but I think a surprise does just as well. Here,” he pointed up the river to where Glorfindel could see a quaint stone cottage just around the next bend, a curl of blue smoke rising cheerily from the chimney. “That is where Erestor lives. He should be home, judging by the smoke.”

“Thank you,” Glorfindel replied, throat thick.

Elrond squeezed his shoulder, his amber eyes honey-warm. “I wish you both all the luck in world. And please, Glorfindel, if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.” With a final pat, Elrond turned and made his way back to Imladris, leaving Glorfindel standing alone. Glorfindel watched him go, clenching his jaw and blushing furiously—it broke his heart to have someone talk to him like that, with warm gentleness and sincerity.

He gazed up the slope, to the cabin, and when he unconsciously pressed his hand against his heart he felt the gold coins there, warm like coals.

~*~

When Erestor heard the knock on the door he frowned. Elrond didn’t knock, or rather, he did, but then usually swept in right after without waiting for much of a reply. An underling then, come to disrupt his rest. He scowled and, rising from his desk, went to the door.

“Yes, what—”

A very tall, very blonde man stood in the doorway. Erestor’s gaze traveled up from his breast—which was, Eru Above, at eye-level—past the fountain of curling blonde hair to his face, which looked down at him with tired, uncertain, and incredibly blue eyes.

“Hello? My name is Glorfindel, and I think you are Lord Erestor?” He said, his voice low and soft as a lamb’s ear.

Erestor blinked. “You are frighteningly early,” he said, wincing a bit at his own rudeness and oh gods, he never got the extra bed.

Glorfindel ducked his head. “That’s what Lord Elrond said too. I, uh,” he gestured at himself. “Have long legs, I suppose.”

He certainly did.

“Forgive me,” Erestor replied, composing himself. “Come in, you must be very tired, even with those long legs.” Goodness, he’d walked the whole way, in that time? A swift horse could hardly be expected to perform better.

He sighed, smiling ruefully. “I am rather tired,” he admitted, and followed Erestor inside.

Erestor, for lack of anything else to do, puttered. “Here’s the sitting room, there’s the kitchen and the door down to the cellar,” he said, waving his hands. “Here, why don’t you, take a bath, maybe, if you like? You must be sore—” Eru Above, he was in a state— “And I’ll prepare us something to eat?”

Glorfindel smiled hesitantly. “That would be nice, thank you.”

Erestor fairly shoved him into the bathroom—all a-flutter, as Elrond would say—then, with Glorfindel safely ensconced behind a closed door, he went straight to the sitting room and screamed into a pillow.

Good gods—not only was Glorfindel most certainly not a woman, but he was the most gorgeous creature Erestor had ever seen. Hadn’t Erestor so laughably assured himself that yes, he’d feel a little foolish about his fanciful daydreams once he met the lady but damn he’d been arrogant. “A little foolish” indeed, he was a fool among fools—Eru Above, what was he going to do—

Glorfindel had stood tall in the doorway, haloed in the late sunlight like a bonfire of glittering gold, all that hair tumbling wildly over those broad shoulders and plush chest—Erestor was not focusing on his chest, he was not— and gods those eyes, blue as Manwë’s train and so achingly vulnerable, shy and sad and still so very hopeful—

And he’d looked at Erestor—him!— as the object of his hope and Erestor was doomed.

~*~

Glorfindel sank into the blisteringly hot water with a groan that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul. A bath. A real bath. He hadn’t had one of these in, well, centuries. Somehow he hadn’t thought that Erestor, despite having described himself as “wealthy,” would have a tub, much less a deep copper tub that not only had hot running water but could fit the whole of his bulk inside with room for more. He wiggled down until his nose just about touched the suds—suds!— and closed his eyes in bliss.

Just as soon as he had, Erestor appeared in his mind’s eye and even with the near-boiling water he felt himself flush.

He hadn’t known, really what sort of man he had been expecting but gods not someone like him.

Erestor was a vision of loveliness. Saying it to himself that way—old-fashioned, perhaps a bit hazy with melancholy— made Glorfindel long for the poetry of Valinor. If he had time to search the glittering libraries of Tirion again then maybe he’d find a poem that could echo a little of what he’d felt seeing Erestor for the first time.

Erestor had stood in the doorway with his jaw halfway to the stoop but even so Glorfindel had to suppress a gasp. He had known many beautiful people—most of whom had put a great deal of effort into making sure everyone knew just how beautiful they were— but never before had anyone pinned Glorfindel to where he stood just by looking at him. The tips of his fingers still tingled from the sheer lightning-strike shock of it.

Glorfindel could tell Erestor was slim, petite even, with a graceful lilt to his hips and shoulders under his layers of richly brocaded robes. Glossy raven-dark hair fell in undulating waves around his elegant face and neck and he wore more jewels than Egalmoth on a feast day—a rainbow of sapphires, emeralds, alexandrites and pink diamonds at his fingers and throat and opals in his ears. But it had been Erestor’s smoky green eyes, framed by lashes the same shadow of his hair, that had pierced Glorfindel through sure as a javelin and Eru it had been all he could do to stumble out an introduction, still hoping desperately that Erestor hadn’t somehow changed his mind—

And he hadn’t changed his mind. Quite the opposite, he’d invited him in— in to his home, his sanctuary. Colored glass paned the windows and as Glorfindel stepped inside he found himself unexpectedly kaleidoscoped in rainbows. Woven quilts lay tossed over velveteen armchairs and the scent of new-grown grass drifted through windows opened towards the river. Warm wooden walls paneled the whole cottage, hung with tapestries and bundles of dried herbs. High ceilings rose above his head like an open breath. Books and empty teacups lay scattered everywhere in a completely charming display of comfortable clutter, and as Glorfindel stepped further inside he felt the give of thick rugs under his feet and smelled the warm, sun-soaked smell of a well-loved home.

This is where he would live, for a little while—in this beautiful house, with this generous man. This was a blessing too big to hold.

He snorted awake, water halfway up his nose. Erestor might be a miracle, but not even miracles could keep hold his weariness at bay. What a shame. Had Glorfindel not been a Great Lord of Old, once? A few weeks exploring the wilderness would have been nothing for him in Valinor, and when he lived in Gondolin he’d performed feats twice that without even needing a nap afterwards. It’s not as if he hadn’t slept—deeply and well, even—on the journey here.

But his limbs and eyes hung heavy like lead, and if he didn’t drag himself out of this tub soon he’d certainly drown.

As he was finishing washing his hair a knock came at the door.

“Glorfindel?” Erestor asked, muffled. “I don’t know if you brought a spare set of clothes with you—your pack looked rather light— but I asked Elrond for some spare tunics and sleep-shirts and such and he gave me some of Gil-galad’s old things. They might be a bit short on you, but I think they should fit in the shoulders. I guess I’ll leave them here, outside the door, and I’ll go finish things up in the kitchen.”

His footsteps sounded away before Glorfindel could reply, so he hauled himself out of the tub and, toweling himself off, when to go see what Erestor had brought him.

Gil-galad’s old things. He couldn’t mean the king, could he? Glorfindel wrapped a towel around his waist and opened the door to where a stack of folded clothes waited patiently for him by the wall. Good gods he did mean the king—Glorfindel picked up the clothes and thumbed through the layers of rich, midnight-dark velvet and whisper-soft wool, all stitched through with stars and, strangely, wingless dragons.

“How do you know the king?” Glorfindel called, his curiosity getting the better of his timidity.

“We grew up together,” Erestor replied from the direction of the kitchen. “Are you dress—OH you are not, I’m so sorry—”

Glorfindel startled back into the doorway. “You’re fine,” he called, blushing hot. “The fault is mine— I—”

“No problem, no problem at all!” Erestor’s hand flapped at him from around the corner. “Come out when you’re ready, I have food for us.”

Glorfindel ducked back into the bathroom and dressed, hoping desperately that his face would cool. The tunics, while well-fitting in the shoulders, were… rather short. The longest one managed to fall past his waist, but it had two slits up the hems that rose nearly to his ribs. Either this Gil-galad was an exceptionally short fellow, or he had a bit of an… immodest side. The leggings were a lost cause. He couldn’t even tell Gil-galad’s height from them, since they didn’t make it even halfway up his thighs and there was no way to tell whether they were supposed to sit long or short on a body.

For a moment he stood, naked, and stared at the array of clothes before him. The clothes, the house, the wilderness, the river, the man—he pressed his hands fiercely to his mouth. It was too much— even if this was only some glittering dream, he didn’t think he had the strength to hold it.

With some effort he splashed his face with cold water, caught his breath, put on the slitted tunic—better this than to show a whole two-inch wide strip of his midriff— and his own leggings, and, twisting his wet hair up off his neck, he went to join Erestor.

~*~

Erestor heard the sound of the water running in the tub and didn’t think about Glorfindel stripping and oh gods, Glorfindel probably didn’t have any change of clothes after running around in the wilderness for two weeks, so he snatched the kettle off the fire where he had set it to boil and slammed out of the house, sprinting up to Elrond’s rooms.

Elrond, damn him, was waiting for him.

“Hello Erestor,” Elrond smiled prettily up at him. Next to him on the couch sat a covered basket and a bundle of clothes tied with a ribbon. “How is the “lady” Glorfindel?”

“Don’t you dare give me that,” Erestor groaned, rubbing his temples. “Is basket and such for me?”

“My my, he’s a handsome fellow, isn’t he?” He continued unabated, holding his teacup beatifically in both hands.

Erestor scowled and jerked the basket and bundle away. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Elrond smiled in the worst way, smug and sly. “I thought you two could use a few things. The clothes are some of Ereinion’s—I didn’t think I could find anything else that could fit those shoulders.”

Erestor tsked. “He won’t miss them.” Ereinion was generous, yes, but not so generous as to not love an excuse to make Erestor buy presents for him. To “pay him back,” of course. The two of them loved buying presents just as much as they loved receiving them, so nowadays they had to come up with excuses so they wouldn’t seem too maudlin.

“I should head back—” Erestor continued, hefting the basket handle over his shoulder and the clothes under the crook of his arm. “He’s in the tub and if he comes out to find me gone he’ll think I’ve fled.”

“Before you go,” Elrond rose and placed a hand on his arm.

“Yes?” Erestor paused. Elrond’s cheery face had clouded somewhat.

“I’m glad he has you,” Elrond said, his brow furrowing earnestly. “There is something happening inside him, a very great grief perhaps, and I know you will be gentle with him.”

Erestor snorted. “You do not keep me around because I am gentle, Elrond. I am—what was it you said?—irascible.” But he turned away from the door to Elrond—Elrond had a sight for these sorts of things and Erestor had long ago learned to pay heed.

“You can be gentle when you put your mind to it, otherwise you never would’ve invited him into your house,” Elrond pinched his arm fondly.

“I have no talent for it,” Erestor protested, but it was half-hearted. He was damnably weak for compliments.

Elrond squeezed his shoulder. “I think you do. But listen, I think—” but his voice trailed off, and a shadow passed over his face.

“Elrond?” Erestor asked, turning towards him.

Elrond held so much joy and hope in his slight body that sometimes Erestor forgot that he held just as much sorrow, too. He remembered now, with the lines around Elrond’s eyes deepening, a sigh released slowly through his nose.

“I think he is very sad. I remember when I was very sad, and I needed you to fight all my battles for me,” he chuckled a little, rubbing Erestor’s sleeve between his fingers. “Maybe that’s what I mean.”

Erestor didn’t know what he meant until Glorfindel came out of the bath looking like sunlight incarnate with that brilliant blue too-tight tunic hugging every delicious curve, the sides slipping to reveal little slivers of creamy skin spangled with freckles— yes. He would have to fight some battles. He would have to fight whole wars to keep the thousands of inevitable grabby hands off Glorfindel’s scrumptious body.

That was probably not what Elrond meant at all, and at any rate a good chunk of those battles would have to be with his own gods-bedamned self, so Erestor had much to occupy himself until he could discern what Elrond truly meant.

“Come sit down,” Erestor said, waving Glorfindel over to where he sat. His kitchen had a bay window with a seat running in the crook, a table tucked neatly beside. Elrond’s basket, filled with fruit and fresh cheese along with a few small, savory pies, sat on the table next to a bottle of last autumn’s wine.

Glorfindel approached hesitantly, like a doe caught in an unknown glade. “Thank you,” he said, sitting with his hands threaded before him.

Erestor shoved a pie at him. “Please make me feel like a good host and eat. I won’t be able to live with myself if you prefer scavenging in the woods to my food.”

Glorfindel gave him a grin at that and relaxed. “Scavenging in the wilderness is preferable to most tables,” he said, but began wolfing down the pie.

“I hope to strip you of that opinion soon enough,” Erestor sniffed, tucking in to a cup full of early blueberries. “Though, I do see that I was wrong about the tunics, I’ll have to see if I can find something else for you—no, no,” he said, seeing the way Glorfindel’s eyes widened, protesting through a mouthful of food. “You’ll find that we’re rather excessive gift-givers here, and that the only way to get revenge for the awful discomfort of it is to continue the cycle. If you feel that badly about me getting you a few tunics, then you can bring me the first bouquet of your garden—I do hope you’ll garden, but, of course, if you’d rather not—”

He was blathering on like a fool, of course. “I’m sorry,” he said wryly. “I am putting rather a lot on you, I think. Please forgive me.”

Glorfindel, still a bit wide-eyed, ducked his head. “I’d like to garden, if that’s all right.”

“Oh gods, yes, garden wherever you like,” Erestor replied, relieved. “I’ll arrange for whatever you require— though you’ll need to give me a list, I have no idea what goes into gardening.”

Glorfindel stared hungrily outside the window at the sunlit stretch of ground leading to the river. “I hope I can grow something as nice as these things you’ve given me,” he said. “I’m unfamiliar with this climate, I’m afraid I’ll make a few mistakes.”

Erestor chuckled. “If you mean the tunic, it’s no bother. Gil-galad is a good king—if ever such a thing can truly exist—but he is excessively vain. Not to insult you or the clothing, but he wouldn’t be caught dead in that old-fashioned thing you’re wearing.”

“You speak of him like he’s your friend,” Glorfindel said, sounding a little over-awed.

Erestor shrugged and attempted a smile. “We are. Friends, that is.”

“But…?” Glorfindel pushed. Oh, so there was a bit of steel under all that shyness.

Erestor sighed and leaned back against the cushioned seat. Outside, a flicker of robins swept across the grass. “This is remarkably soon to be telling you such things, but I suppose this is a strange arrangement. Gil-galad—or Ereinion, as I know him— and I are very good friends, have been since childhood—or, rather, I was his sister’s friend, and he brought me into his confidence after her death. I love him dearly, but, as I said, he is a good king. As soon as he puts that crown on his brow he is King Gil-galad, and my friend Ereinion is shrouded away. He didn’t choose that double-life, but it was given to him anyway.”

Glorfindel mirrored his sadness, his face falling. “I think I understand you.”

Erestor sipped at his sweet wine. “I think you’ll find it easier to believe, now, to know that I am a staunch anti-monarchist.”

Glorfindel snorted, then laughed aloud—and it was such a beautiful sound it could’ve broken Erestor’s heart. “I never thought to hear one of the Noldor say such a thing!”

“I am such out of selfishness, so in that sense it’s completely Noldorin of me,” Erestor chuckled, leaning his chin on his hand. “I am greedy and want my friend all to myself.”

Glorfindel nodded with a rueful sort of fondness. “I suppose that is the way of things with our folk.”

For a moment they stared at each other, grinning, and it seemed like they couldn’t have had a better introduction.

“So Glorfindel, tell me about yourself,” Erestor said, taking a mouthful of sharp yellow cheese.

Glorfindel’s face snapped closed. “I… have been working at the docks, recently.”

It was only through long practice as a politician that Erestor didn’t let his frown show. What could cause such secrecy—no, such fear?

Hmm. Well, Erestor knew how to coax as well as command. Between the two of them Glorfindel might be the better gardener, but Erestor knew better than any how to lay the ground for a recalcitrant answer.

He looked pointedly at Glorfindel’s hands, which—ah, he’d guessed correctly—were still showing signs of hard, salt-scoured use.

“That must have been hard on your hands,” he tsked. “Come, are you done eating? I have something that might soothe them.”

He rose smoothly from the table and beckoned Glorfindel to follow him. Glorfindel obeyed, but that hare’s timidity was back in his gait so Erestor kept up an amiable chatter.

“Of course Elrond is the king’s herald and neither he nor Gil-galad would have it any other way—but between you and me I think he’d rather be a healer, tucked away from elven court, closer to his kin and other mortals who could use his talents.” He went to a cabinet next to here he kept his linens and pulled out a small jar filled with a milky green ointment. “Sometimes I think he wishes I was mortal, just so he could cluck over me and test all his remedies.”

It was easy to give Glorfindel these little intimacies. After all, he knew no better way to soften a heart than through giving gifts. A few inconsequential truths were nothing in exchange for what he might gain in return.

He didn’t know, exactly, what that might be, but gods he wanted it.

“He seems like a gentle fellow,” Glorfindel replied, something pensive in his mouth. “What’s that?”

“It’s for burns,” Erestor uncapped the jar and scooped out a handful. “I often join the threshers in the field in the autumn, but my summers accounting always soften my hands. Here,” he set the jar down and held out his hand, full of the sweet-smelling salve. “Let me.”

Glorfindel held out his hands and really, Erestor could’ve let him do this on his own— but he seemed so austere, and what if he did not apply enough? That was surely why Erestor took both Glorfindel’s hands and rubbed the salve along the worn ridges and creases himself.

Glorfindel’s hands rested in his, large and strong-boned, cracked and red with salt work. Erestor pursed his lips and massaged the salve into Glorfindel’s palms, and did not did not think about what that warm weight was doing to his guts. His politician’s mind had been serving him well thus far, yes, better to let it steer him for now—and if he was much better at reading little things like the path of a hand’s calluses than he let on then, well, Glorfindel didn’t need to know that just yet.

Glorfindel was left-handed, hmm, uncommon but not unusual, Erestor was as well—but his hands were certainly not those of a dockworker. Calluses rose in odd ridges over his skin, concentrating thickly on the ends of his forefinger and thumb rather than the meat of his palm. His palms, which would’ve borne the brunt of the rough scrape of hauling rope and cargo and should have been tough as leather, were soft and raw.

Erestor certainly could have read more there but then Glorfindel breathed out a soft sigh of relief over Erestor’s bent head and oh— they were so close and he hadn’t even noticed. Erestor’s slippers touched the very tips of Glorfindel’s bare toes. Strands of his hair drifted and caught against the velvet over Glorfindel’s breast. Goodness.

“Is that better?” Erestor asked, pulling back before his balance—and whatever fates had seen fit to bring him this absurd creature instead of the perfectly sensible lady of his dreams—betrayed him and he fell into Glorfindel’s arms.

“Much,” Glorfindel replied, the shadows smoothing on his face. “How is that made? It’s quite remarkable.”

“I’m not quite sure,” Erestor wondered. “I’ll ask Elrond when next I see him. In the meantime,” he glanced out the windows. Outside the sunlight had finally given way to the purpling dusk, and a misty chill began to rise from the river. “You must be exhausted.”

Glorfindel’s shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes in relief, or maybe defeat. “I am very tired, yes.”

They were still holding hands. Again Erestor’s politician’s mind saved him, and instead of dropping them like hot coals he squeezed them, reassuring, and led Glorfindel to his room.

“I’m terribly sorry, I meant to have a bed made for you before you arrived. You can have mine in the meantime, I— no, no, I insist,” and it was good, then, that he already had Glorfindel’s hand in his, there would be no escape for this shy faun. “And besides, I’ve already changed the sheets.”

Glorfindel stared at the bed. “I wouldn’t want to be a burden,” he said, quiet with longing.

“You are no such thing,” Erestor released his hands and nudged him towards it. “Sleep now, we can work out everything else later.”

Erestor turned to the windows, closed them, drew the curtains, and when he turned back Glorfindel lay half-slumped under the quilts, already asleep.

Erestor allowed himself to fold the rest of the quilts around him, lingering.

Even in sleep Glorfindel’s beauty held such power over him. That soft pink mouth, parted slightly, the vulnerable curve of his neck, tipped down over his curled hands, all that hair, spread like a corona over the pillows—

— and the sadness, there under his eyes and in the corners of his mouth, unveiled now that he wasn’t awake to hide it. Something horrible, something like tenderness, itched in the tips of Erestor’s fingers.

He rose quickly—when had he sat on the bedside, tucked next to Glorfindel’s side?— and left, closing the door before his thoughts could wander anywhere more dangerous than they’d already been.

During those few steps from his room to the sitting room it was easy to tell himself that the only reason his heart beat so thickly in his throat was because he was simply a little flustered, and who wouldn’t want to know a little more about a mysterious guest? But then he laid down on the couch and gods he was a fool.

He stared up at the ceiling. Politician’s mind, hah! What a fancy way to say that he was such a greedy little thing, cajoling Glorfindel with sweet words and tempting little secrets while he poured over the lightest callus, searching for clues to whatever it was Glorfindel would not—or could not—tell him. What a covetous creature he had become, and only in the space of a few hours. Perhaps Glaurung had never gotten out of his bones, not truly—but he was full grown, dammit, and he could keep his sticky fingers to himself.

Sleep came slowly and fitfully, and it was not until he could hear the mourning doves waking and crying in the early morning grey that he slipped down into something approaching true slumber.

Of course, when he dreamed, he dreamed of Glorfindel.

~*~

The sun had only just managed to slice through the closed curtains when Glorfindel woke.

“Good morning,” Erestor said, his hand on his shoulder. “I hate to wake you, but I’m off to report to Elrond. I’ll send an underling to you, say, in a few hours? Give them a list of what you want for the garden and they’ll have it for you as quick as they can.”

Glorfindel might’ve mumbled out an affirmation but fell asleep again before Erestor had even left the room.

He woke for a second time to a loud knocking on what was probably— definitely, he discovered as he stumbled out into the sitting room—the front door.

He creaked open the door and said, “Hello?” blinking groggily down at the neat young lady tapping impatiently at her pad of paper.

“Lord Erestor sent me,” she said primly. “He requests that you give me a list of the supplies you’ll need.” And she passed him the pad and a pencil.

“Oh, er, yes, one moment,” he stuttered, fumbling with the pad and pencil.

Once he got his fingers to work it was easy as breathing to write out the whole list, seeds and trowels and gloves and wood and wire, all of it already written down in his mind months ago in case something like this—his wildest dream, impossible, unobtainable—came to pass. He had the whole list, five pages’ worth, ready for her in moments.

This seemed to please the young lady, who seemed like an efficient sort. “This’ll take some time, but I can get the preliminaries to you in a few hours.” And, with a smart nod, she left.

Glorfindel didn’t make it to the bed before he collapsed in sleep again, this time on the couch.

It seemed as though he had just closed his eyes when another knock came at the door. He blinked, lost for a moment in the low, warm scent of whatever—whoever?— it was on his pillow, and then the knock came again and he lurched up to answer it.

The young lady had returned, and with her a veritable small army of porters hauling neat bundles of what—yes yes yes—was his garden, or what would be his garden once he got his hands on it.

After that he was very awake, and all was bliss.

Sometime between clearing out the brambles under the windows and staking out the herb beds, he thought of Erestor. Or, rather, he’d been thinking of Erestor the whole time— would Erestor like hydrangeas or lilacs under his window, better to plant mint so Erestor can have it in his tea, Erestor seems like a foxglove sort of person— but it wasn’t until he’d worked up a proper sweat and was completely smudged in dirt that he really thought of Erestor.

Erestor. Glorfindel shouldered up a crate of clay pots and felt the sharpness of the thought like the sharpness of the crate digging into his neck. Erestor.

It was something of a strange delight, to enter so intimately into this person’s life all at once and watch what he did with the intrusion. Erestor was such a personality, all at once haughty and generous and sharp and affectionate, often all in the same breath. Glorfindel held a deep fondness for that self-assured, almost entitled elegance; it made him homesick for the white spires of Tirion. But, unlike all those ensconced nobles, Erestor was so damnably charming about it. He had this way of sitting, with his elbows on the table and his chin tilted against the backs of his threaded hands, that seemed to say that they should have known each other all their lives and wasn’t it grand that they had the time to catch up now? Everything since arriving in Imladris seemed like such a dream but gods if Erestor’s openness and goodwill towards him turned out to actually be a dream his heart might plummet all the way down into the waters under the earth and drown.

Oh, and… also he was gorgeous. This fact seemed determined to reassert itself in Glorfindel’s mind, always at the most inconvenient times. He made Glorfindel’s breath hitch every time he flicked those green eyes up at him. And Eru Above, he’d made Glorfindel sleep in his bed—! Erestor had slept on the other side of the house but still Glorfindel had felt like he’d entered into some illicit liaison, just by laying his head down on Erestor’s pillows.

Glorfindel could still feel Erestor’s hands on his, gentle, firm, leaving in their wake a glimmering relief that was not only from the salve—

He wanted to feel that again, and—and more than that, save he didn’t know what more could mean. There was still something in him that shuddered and quaked, couldn’t bear to think of what more between two men—

He had a horribly delicious thought that Erestor probably knew that more could mean, and that, maybe, he might—

He didn’t dare think beyond that.

Grunting, he lifted his wheelbarrow and hauled a load of edging stones to the back of the cottage. Then he began to set them out along the path he’d marked, kneeling down in the soft, moist soil. The worms should be quickening by now, he would have to see if he could catch some to work the compost.

He stood up for a moment, stretched his arms above his head, surveyed. Wind rippled through the new grass, nodding along the purple and yellow-headed crocuses, wisping at the ends of his loose hair. He took as much air into his lungs as he could stand and let it out in one huge sigh, the scent of the earth heavy and clear inside him.

The land in the front of the cottage sloped down towards the river—though he had plans for a retaining wall and some hanging juniper— while the land out back stretched out in a flat meadow for quite a ways before rising sharply into the wooded rise at the base of the mountains. When he scooped the soil up in his hands it felt velvety and full, saturated with the richness of the mountain trickling down to gather and settle into deep, inky luxury. There were a few rolling mounds here and there, nice enough that he could work with the varieties in water drainage, but nothing overly substantial.

It was true that to the north of the cottage the mountains loomed higher and sharper than they did closer to Imladris proper, and further upriver the Bruinen’s banks began to rise in steep ravines—but here, swaths of lupine were already beginning to sprout up in ecstatic green spears, glutted on the springtime, so he knew that the mountains and ravines would not impede the necessary sunlight.

All around lay the gently awakening beauty of spring, beckoning him to come and join hands with the land and work. Everything seemed happy to grow here, with the leaves and flowers emerging bright and young and tender, like children. There was still so much of him that felt unimaginably weary, but land whispered to him through the sunlight and unfurling leaves, promising to carry him through.

There, standing in the drooping afternoon sun, he felt… good. Good to be alive again. He’d… missed things, while he was dead. He couldn’t hold onto the memory of what it had been like to be dead for very long without it squirming away, but he remembered that. The missing.

Erestor’s eyes, glazed with that same missing, rose in his mind’s eye. What a shock that had been, the unexpected roughness in Erestor’s voice as he spoke of his friend, the king. Glorfindel had thought Erestor beautiful and courteous before, but it had been the way he talked about Gil-galad that made Glorfindel think him trustworthy. Perhaps Erestor hadn’t meant to talk so openly, or perhaps he had, or perhaps he’d meant to do so glibly and failed, or any number of things— but for whatever reason, he’d given Glorfindel a true glimpse of his heart.

Who was this Ereinion or King Gil-galad? Did he know that Erestor loved him?

Glorfindel’s gut twisted. He didn’t know the answer to the question of Ereinion, but—

Wasn’t Glorfindel also two people held in one? He was Lord of the House of the Golden Flower and also… this strange reborn creature, disjointed and mute with grief, curling out into an unknown shape like a wet mayfly nymph.

He threaded his hands behind his head and stared out over the meadow. He didn’t want to be Lord of the House of the Golden Flower. It was a charred, hollow title, anyway. He… he wanted to be Glorfindel the Gardener. Glorfindel Erestor’s Gardener.

He didn’t want Erestor to struggle, strung like a speared fish between the two Glorfindels, Glorfindel the Lord and Glorfindel who wanted desperately to be a part of his life. It would shatter him to hear Erestor speak of him like he spoke of Gil-galad, with equal parts longing and resignation.

But everything and everyone he had ever known was gone, now. Even the people he missed the most, Ecthelion and Egalmoth, his best friends—they were not here to share in his joy, but neither were they here to call him Lord Glorfindel, to pull him back into being that person.

He could just be Erestor’s Gardener. No one knew that he was Glorfindel the Lord, no one needed to know. He could be one whole and simple thing: Erestor’s Gardener, or Erestor’s—

A laugh burst from his throat like a sunflower. He’d come here because of a matchmaking service, what did that make him, Erestor’s… wife?

And what would it be like to be Erestor’s pretty little wife, oh gods—

“Well you certainly didn’t waste any time,” a silken voice said from somewhere over his shoulder.

Glorfindel whirled, startled, to find Erestor standing with his arms crossed, surveying the meadow with an appreciative smile on his lips.

“There wasn’t anything else to do,” he replied lamely.

Erestor chuckled. “I suppose not! Come, let’s go inside and clean up, I’ve brought supper for us and I think Elrond slipped me an extra blueberry turnover.”

Glorfindel followed. It was becoming increasingly clear that the only thing to do about most things was go where Erestor led him. The thought gave him a towering emotion that might’ve been peace, but also might’ve been… devotion, or yearning, maybe.

And, if he was the one following Erestor, this meant that Erestor’s back was turned to him and that he couldn’t see the furious blush that must certainly be staining Glorfindel’s cheeks and ears.

~*~

Erestor returned home to find the yard torn to shreds and Glorfindel looking deliciously filthy, standing there in the sunlight all golden and sweat-slicked and really, all of Erestor’s poor pillows deserved a break from all the screaming.

So it came as a great surprise to him when he found himself halfway through dinner, talking with Glorfindel as easily as he might with Elrond.

“Gods, Fingolfin was such a mess of a king, I don’t know how he ever lasted as long as he did,” Erestor chuckled over the lip of his wineglass.

Glorfindel snorted around a mouthful of hot tea. “Goodness, you don’t mince words. Have a little heart for him, he might’ve been the best of his age.”

They’d gotten on the subject of politics—which, while Glorfindel didn’t seem to know much of current events, he did know a great deal of earlier history. Ostensibly because he’d spent a lot of time in the library at Mithlond, but Erestor had built that library himself and Glorfindel knew more than what any book could tell him.

The obvious answer was that Glorfindel was old enough to have lived through at least the latter half of the first age—surely he could not have come over from Valinor, since he was clearly Noldorin and it tended to be known when one was a kinslayer—which would explain both the knowledge and the reluctance to talk about his past. Living through those later years had been a horror for everyone, and while Erestor had survived and healed with the help of his friends, he knew he had been lucky.

Glorfindel, clearly, had not been lucky.

While the exact character of his unluckiness remained to be seen, Erestor had half an idea that he might’ve been a thrall near the end. When Erestor thought about that he grew wretchedly itchy to reach out and do something terribly foolish, like run his fingers gently through that golden hair.

Really, he was going to have to find himself a gag, or a blindfold, or a long ribbon to bind up his fingers. Probably all three. He couldn’t stop being such a dragon about Glorfindel, pouring over all the little proffered details like coins—but then he found himself falling into such an easy cadence with him, and he began to feel less like a dragon and more like an overlarge cat that had found a nice lap to sit and purr upon.

“I swear I’m not being biased when I say that Gil-galad was the best of the first age,” Erestor countered. “I can prove it too—he kept Eärendil, Elwing, and the Fëanoryn from killing each other over Elrond and Elros, a feat none other could’ve even hoped to accomplish. Fingolfin might’ve sliced Morgoth’s heel, but that was nothing in comparison to mediating that family.”

“I didn’t see anything of Gil-galad,” Glorfindel said a little wistfully, again edging around that which he would not say. “Though I did like Fingolfin while he lived, if only because he was so noble-hearted.” Ah, so he had been alive then.

“I think you’ll like Gil-galad,” Erestor said with surprising conviction, as if he really did know the sort of person Glorfindel would like.

“If he is your friend, I’m sure I will,” Glorfindel gave him a bashful smile that speared right through him.

Erestor glanced outside to keep himself from staring at Glorfindel’s sweet face and, going by the stars, midnight had long since passed. Goodness, when had that happened?

“It’s getting late, or early, rather,” he said reluctantly. “We should sleep.”

Damn he’d forgotten about the bed. Not that it would have mattered, necessarily, the thing would take a few days to get made anyway, but he wasn’t looking forward to sleeping on the couch again.

“I’ll sleep in the sitting room,” Glorfindel offered, rising to take their dirty dishes to the sink.

Erestor sniffed. “You’ll do no such thing.”

“I can’t keep you out of your own bed,” He said. “It’s entirely unfair of me.”

Perhaps it was the wine speaking, but Erestor replied, “You’ll sleep in that bed if I have to bind you to it,” which his mind knew was the wrong thing to say but his cock certainly didn’t have any complaints. Thank Eru the air was still chill and he still wore all these warm, obscuring layers of robes.

“Well…” Glorfindel set the dishes down with a clnk, his back to Erestor. “The bed is rather large, surely there’s enough room that we could share?”

Erestor’s whole body froze solid and then blazed with heat. “If you’d be comfortable with that, I wouldn’t mind,” he said steadily, and deliberately released his clenched hand from around his wineglass before it shattered.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Glorfindel said, still turned away. “Half of your bed is still bigger than the bed I used to have.”

“Well then I wouldn’t mind, though you will tell me if you’d prefer to sleep alone should you find you don’t prefer this arrangement.” And then Erestor threw back the rest of his wine in one gulp.

~*~

They lay in the dark. Glorfindel dared not open his eyes. A soft, dusty smell from the down pillows rose up around them. Erestor’s breathing, low and even, filled his ears. If he shifted, he could feel the way the quilts pulled at Erestor’s body even though they weren’t touching. Outside, the first of the spring peepers crooned from the river.

When he had been a youth in Valinor, there had been a beautiful Vanya man who had crept beneath his window and sang love songs to him. They had disappeared into the mingling together, and when Glorfindel returned his father, livid with fear, had told him the truth of things and why Glorfindel must never repeat or reveal his tryst with the man. There were things that were… not for men to do.

As the days stretched on his mouth and neck had forgotten the bright, raw feeling of being kissed, but his heart never forgot the weight of his father’s desperate, sheltering despair.

But then again, his father had let him garden, even though such things were not for men. Perhaps he’d meant it as a kind of apology. It had not mattered much, in the end.

In the end, he—

Well, he’d shown up here. In bed with a man. In bed with a man, and no one waiting at the door to shake him by the collar and hiss, What in Eru’s name do you think you’re doing?!

Who had made such a world possible? Maybe this Gil-galad fellow had struck a deal with tardy Finarfin—What weregild do you claim for lost Beleriand? I would like to kiss a man and more, if you please, and in full view of heaven too. What a ridiculous, happy thought—and yet, still somehow unthinkable.

Erestor snuffled in his sleep, curling away from the sliver of moonlight striking over their bodies. Glorfindel’s new, unknown, incongruous body thickened with that old, familiar longing.

The Thought from earlier resurfaced like some dark sea creature breaching the still pool of his mind, blinking at him with sly yellow eyes.

Glorfindel, the Lord of the House of the Golden Flower, could never hope to kiss a man and get away with it. His neighbors back at the boarding house were the sort to get away with it—not that there was anything to get away with, not in this new world where apparently anyone could kiss anyone else. But Glorfindel was old, and sad, and not really a part of any world anymore, much less this one. How audacious he’d been, glibly writing, I am only interested in men—almost like he’d been in a dream where he was capable of anything, and not awake, where he was capable of so little.

But— but no one would care if some inconsequential blonde stayed in a little cottage far away from everyone else and became the little wife of a sweet man. And a husband should kiss his wife, yes? And it wouldn’t ever occur, really, for anyone to inquire if that wife was a man. So maybe Glorfindel could get away with that.

In Gondolin, Egalmoth’s wife had taken to wearing a thin, silky black ribbon around her neck. Egalmoth had loved it so, and would hook it under his finger and draw her, giggling coquettishly, in for a kiss.

Glorfindel, in secret, had found a ribbon for his own—wider than hers, made from velveteen instead of silk, and colored a rich, dusky pink. He’d only worn it a handful of times, only in the deep dark of moonless nights. The first time he’d stared hatefully at himself in the mirror, feeling utterly sick with foolishness— what stupidity, seeing this scarred warrior with an asinine pink bow around his neck—but then his night shift had slipped coyly down over one shoulder, exposing the vulnerable wing of one collarbone, and the image clicked into place and he felt exactly as he wanted to feel.

All he’d lacked, in that moment, was a man to hook his finger under the ribbon and draw him down into a kiss.

Maybe he could find a ribbon. Maybe Erestor might—if Glorfindel could find some scrap of courage left inside himself to ask— maybe—

Maybe.

~*~

Erestor woke to the great weight of a body splayed out over his chest and he’d known, he’d just known this was going to happen, and he was such a fool.

Ugh.

He smacked his lips as quietly as he could, trying to tongue out all the blonde hair that had migrated there in the night. Then he gently disentangled himself from Glorfindel’s agonizingly delectable hold and went to Elrond before the heat in his face set the rest of his body on fire.

Elrond’s beady little mink’s eyes pinned him as soon as he walked in the door.

“Good morning!” He said, grinning with all his teeth. “How goes the cohabitation?”

Erestor, seething, sat down at his desk. Elrond, without being told, set a cup of tea down in front of him.

Erestor picked the teacup up between the tips of his fingers, sipped it. It was, naturally, his favorite blend, and blisteringly hot.

There was no escape.

“As you know, since he arrived so early, I have not had time to have a second bed made,” he muttered, staring pointedly at the tea’s wisping steam.

Elrond reached out and plucked a long, wavy blonde hair from where it had hid, snug behind Erestor’s ear.

“I am so happy for you,” he grinned before Erestor could swat him away. “Tell me, what do you think of him now that you’ve gotten to know him a little better?”

“You want me to tell you how handsome I think him and I won’t do it,” Erestor crossed his arms and pouted, even though that only ever worked to rile Elrond further.

“I promise I am sincere!” Elrond protested insincerely.

Erestor huffed—but the tea was very good, and he never could refuse Elrond anything anyway. “He’s a cagy fellow, but very sweet. Timid, but I can’t imagine he’s timid all the way through. He has a spine in him, of that I’m sure. There’s something subduing, or maybe veiling him—some sorrow or grief. I think you were right, that he carries something dreadful—he’s never said anything outright but I’m certain he lived through at least the last half of the first age, though that’s where things get cloudy. He speaks readily of Fingolfin, but knows next to nothing of Ereinion.”

Elrond thumbed at his chin, his face grown serious. “Poor fellow, he seems very lonely.”

“I think you’re right,” Erestor sighed. “I’d love for you to come be his friend too, but honestly, there’s too much in your name that might bring up terrible memories for someone who might just want to garden and forget.”

Elrond grimaced. “I’d thought as much, escorting him to your house.”

Erestor patted his knee. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Elrond waved him off. “If we suit each other as friends, then we have time to find out later. For now, I think, he will have plenty to occupy his attention, especially if you keep spoiling him.”

Erestor groaned and leaned back in his chair. “… I do love spoiling him. I wasn’t being facetious when I said he’s sweet, he is very sweet.”

“Sweet enough to eat?” Elrond inquired, tongue between his teeth.

After that little quip Erestor refused to say more—he did have some standards.

Not that those standards mattered when he returned home to the sight of Glorfindel, whiling away the hours in his burgeoning garden. Standards meant nothing when Glorfindel lifted his head from his work and grinned to see Erestor approaching him, waving welcome with one dirt-stained hand.

Without much further ado they settled into something together.

Erestor left in the misty mornings for Elrond’s House, and in the hazy evenings he returned home to see what new chaos Glorfindel had made of his lawn.

It was pure destruction for the first few weeks, but then all at once everything took and by Eru, there was a garden. Well, garden was a very utilitarian word for it—ostensibly it was a garden, but to say that it was just a garden would be disingenuous. It was a… profusion. Erestor had never met Yavanna, but surely the goddess herself couldn’t have done better in such a short amount of time. Flowers and saplings and vines and carnelian and fuchsia and gold and sapphire and violet and green and green and green! A rainbow of living, whispering growth, perfuming the air with the scent of its own delight. Erestor hardly knew how to describe it, save that when he rounded the bend along the river and saw it atop the knoll, he felt the same desperate, shimmering feeling he’d felt upon seeing the simarils for the first time—here was the work of a mind far beyond his own, the peak of a craft he could never hope to master. Erestor was a lore-master first and foremost; his talent laid not so much in excelling at his own craft as it did in recognizing the excellence of others. Glorfindel, more than any other person Erestor had met, was a gardener.

So it was that each day that when he rounded that bend and reached sight of that garden his heart crowed with—triumph? Awe? Possessiveness? Longing? Smugness? Something he dared not name.

He never had long to dwell on the feeling, for when he returned Glorfindel too would leave off his work, and they’d spend the rest of the evening together. Sometimes Erestor would bring a basket from Elrond’s kitchens, full of hearty yellow cheese, cold cuts of seasoned meat, sticky spiced cakes, and mellow wine; other times they’d scrounge through his pantry for a simpler meal of sweet jams spread on yesterday’s bread, or if the weather was fair they’d simply wander out into the woods for mushrooms and berries, drinking from the chill, clear springs. They’d chat about this and that, comfortable and easy. Erestor didn’t push Glorfindel to tell anything more than he offered, and he could tell Glorfindel was grateful. Erestor, in his own estimation, didn’t do such a thing out of generosity but out of selfishness—a content and peaceful Glorfindel was much better than a suspicious one, and Erestor had a great capacity for patience. He would wait for Glorfindel to come to him on his own.

In the meantime, they tended to end their evenings by reading together in the sitting room. Glorfindel, he discovered, had a great love of poetry, especially the old romantics. Erestor could understand Quenya but couldn’t speak much of it anymore, but Glorfindel knew Quenya and even Vanyarin fluently and would sometimes read to him, translating as he went.

It was too soon to start thinking of things like love. But then Glorfindel would stretch out in the armchair next to him, the orange evening light splashing out over the valley of his body, and recite an old love poem in that low, aching voice. When that happened Erestor would have to cover his eyes with his hand lest Glorfindel see too much.

When Erestor wasn’t thinking of things like love— which, he wasn’t— he thought about how remarkably similar this whole situation had ended up being to his fanciful daydreams. He had, against all odds, gotten exactly what he’d wanted and more—only, the “and more” bit was proving tricky.

Erestor never ordered that new bed, and Glorfindel never said anything about it. The first couple times Erestor woke with Glorfindel tangled around him it was easy enough to slip away and pretend that Glorfindel must not have noticed what he was doing in his sleep. But then there came a day, after Elrond had worked Erestor to within an inch of his sanity with errands and receipts running over every last droplet and crumb of the valley, that he, ordered on pain of death to take a day off, had slept in.

He woke with the high sun spearing through his curtains right to the center of his eyes and he groaned, shifting. Glorfindel, as usual, lay out over his chest, snoring softly—but then, as Erestor moved, he snuffled and woke.

His whole body stiffened in one terrible shudder—but Erestor was too sleepy, or perhaps too used to this ridiculous arrangement, and so without thinking he kissed the crown of Glorfindel’s head and murmured, “Go back to sleep.”

It took a whole half hour for Glorfindel to relax, inch by inch, but when he did he let out a great sigh and together they dozed for most of the rest of the day.

“Elrond, you have made a dragon out of me,” Erestor groaned, threading his hands over his eyes and slumping in his chair. It was high summer now, the solstice passed and the wheat already waist-high in the fields.

“How do you figure that?” Elrond snorted. He sat once more on his perch at the edge of Erestor’s desk, idly stirring his tea.

Erestor glared at him through his fingers. “You gave me my little almost-a-cave house—”

“— which you asked for—”

“—and now I have this golden treasure that I am hoarding inside—”

“—once more, which you asked for—”

“—and now I have become Glaurung, and Ereinion is going to have to slay me.” Erestor massaged the heels of his hands against his eyes, deep in despair.

“I’ll inform him to bring Aeglos when next he visits, I suppose,” Elrond mused. “In the meantime, if you don’t actually kiss him within a fortnight, I am going to go mad.”

“You’re not the only one,” Erestor growled, which would’ve felt appropriately dragon-like were he not growling at himself.

He thought about this as he walked home that evening. He did want to kiss Glorfindel. He wanted to do a great deal more than that. It was a problem.

The sun hung low in the stretched dusk of summer, dappling through the trees and warming the grass and water-reeds with a rich, spicy scent. Crickets and grasshoppers droned on underfoot, cracking away when he drew close to let his hand brush along the tops of the rushes. It was a hot and heavy evening for hot and heavy thoughts.

He rounded the bend and looked up to see his—their?—cottage, nearly hidden by the greenery in which it lay nested. No gold was to be seen save for the gold of flowers, so Glorfindel must be in the rear of the garden. Erestor stepped along the edge of the cottage, past the neat rows of hyacinths and the not so neat tumbles of foxgloves hanging from the eaves, around the greenhouse and to the back, near the meadow.

And then he stopped up short, and all frivolous and lascivious thoughts fled.

Glorfindel lay out on his stomach in the middle of a grassy clearing, his hair bound up atop his head and his shirt tossed carelessly aside. Clearly the day had grown too hot and he’d stripped down to cool off, drawing his thick hair off his neck as he did so.

Thick, silvery-purple scars traced their lines all over his back, puncturing divots in his pale, freckled skin. Erestor might not know the names of all the flowers or how to speak Quenya, but he knew how to read the path of a blade. These were battle-marks, many of them— the thin slices of swords, the pinpricks of arrows and punched-out holes of javelins, the crunchy splash of a mace, and there, at the base of his neck going up into his hair, the odd, slick stretch of a burn. The calluses on his hand suddenly made sense—Glorfindel had gotten them from wielding a sword.

Glorfindel startled suddenly, aware of him, and whirled over. His chest bore many of the same kinds of marks, or maybe even the same marks just continued through his body, like—like Glorfindel were some kind of—of—pincushion? And when? And who? Of—

“You were a soldier,” Erestor said before he could help himself. So much for waiting for Glorfindel to come to him.

Glorfindel stared at him with huge, terrified eyes, frozen on his back as if Erestor held a blade at his throat. He nodded.

“You— you must have been a good one,” Erestor said lamely, flopping his hand at Glorfindel’s scars, really he should just stop—“You know, to have… survived, all that.”

Glorfindel’s face crumpled. “Is… is there such a thing, as a good soldier?”

“I don’t know,” Erestor answered as honestly as he could. “I don’t know. At—at any rate, even if you weren’t a good soldier, you’re a very good gardener. The best I’ve seen.”

Glorfindel slumped, and the tension snapped. “Do you think so?” he asked meekly.

Erestor went and sat next to him. “Yes, and I’ll have you know I saw Doriath in its prime.”

Glorfindel ducked his head. “I have had a little trouble, with—” he gestured around at the perfect garden. “The soil’s so different here, and I’m unused to the seasons.”

“You could’ve fooled me,” Erestor said. Then, after a moment, he— opened his mouth, maybe to say, I’m sorry I brought it up, but then he closed it and fell silent once more.

Glorfindel fidgeted, then lay back down on the heather and drew and arm over his eyes.

That night, as they lay in bed together, Glorfindel didn’t even wait until they had fallen asleep before he laid his head on Erestor’s shoulder and pressed his face into the crook of his neck. Erestor wrapped his arms around him and let him cry, there, in the dark, and didn’t say anything.

~*~

There was about a week where Glorfindel lived in dread, waiting for Erestor to say something. The whole time his body condensed down to his traitorous scars, stiff, unyielding, each memory filled with pain and bite and blood and fire—

He hadn’t been able to help himself, that first night. The memory of each scar’s author weighed like a stone in his breast but the fear—that he would be found out—drove its heel into his neck and gods he’d just wanted Erestor to hold him and never let go—

And Erestor didn’t let go. He held him through the night, and the next, silently carding his fingers through his hair until they fell asleep. And, furthermore, he made it known—through the carefully prepared tea, the calm attention he paid Glorfindel’s flowers, the measured routine of their days—that he had no intention of pressing further. And Glorfindel’s body eased, a little. Not all the way, never all the way, but a little. Enough.

And then he found the book and his body caught itself up in a whole new kind of tension.

He’d gone into Erestor’s study to look for a pen, probably to scribble some note to himself or to make a few new labels for the seedlings, and a shock of red caught his eye as he sifted through Erestor’s desk.

It was small, tucked high up in Erestor’s wall-to-wall shelves, pressed haphazardly between a series of volumes on the history and heraldry of Nargothrond. Obviously misplaced, so he reached up to take it down so that Erestor might re-shelve it later.

On its cover, embossed in gold, was a picture of a man with another man’s cock in his mouth.

He nearly dropped the book like a live coal but then—

Then he blazed through it, cover to cover.

It was, somewhat strangely, a how-to manual. Or something like that. There was a small, untouched section in the beginning about “the basics”—that is, what went where and how to get it there— but then everything else had a great deal about ropes and whips and leashes and—and other things, and that section was relatively well worn, with pages creased by use and a few bookmarks tucked in for good measure.

There were illustrations. Many of them. Extremely detailed. Full color, some of them.

He didn’t notice how hard he was until he’d finished the book and, as he furtively shoved it back from whence it came, his dick bumped up against the bookshelf.

Oh gods.

The day lengthened, and Erestor would be home soon, so Glorfindel did the only wise thing and went to “wash up.”

He sat in the tub with his knees drawn up, his hand circled cautiously around his rigid cock. How old was he, exactly? Perhaps a thousand years, maybe more? And here he was, blushing like a youth having just glimpsed a stallion mounting a mare for the first time.

In hindsight it all seemed rather simple. He’d just lacked the imagination—or the courage—to think beyond what he’d been given. Before, the idea of—of being with a man seemed to stretch out beyond him, an empty, barren plain—and he alone in his desperation to lose himself in it. He’d been alone in so many things—as he necessarily must be, having acted the way he did at Alqualondë— and this didn’t seem worth pursuing.

But that, as they said, was then, and this was now.

That little book was startlingly convenient. Perhaps ordained. Maybe—and this was something Ecthelion would’ve said—the gods wanted him to get laid.

His cock bobbed hopefully in the water. He took himself in hand, stroked it. Thumbed at the veil of skin over the crown, pulled it back. Closed his eyes.

That golden man on the cover, limned in the dawn, held out his cock and Glorfindel took it in his mouth, lapped once, sucked tentatively, tested the thick weight of it on his tongue.

Oh, darling, how sweet you are for me, the man said in Erestor’s caramel-low voice. He tucked a stray lock of hair behind Glorfindel’s ear, then dug his hand back into it, gripping tight. Such a beautiful mouth. Open for me.

A command, not a request, and he obeyed—

—and did he hear the muffled creak of the front door opening, was Erestor— what if Erestor— if he walked in on—

Glorfindel spilled over his hand and bit down on his lip to muffle himself as he gasped aloud, oh Eru—

“Glorfindel?” he heard Erestor call.

He slumped back against the lip of the tub, trembling. “Just—washing up,” he managed.

“You’d better join me soon,” Erestor replied merrily. “I have a cantaloupe and if you don’t hurry I’ll eat it all myself.”

There were at least three cantaloupes ripening in his garden, but Glorfindel wasn’t about to tell Erestor that.

“One moment,” he replied, and, rinsing away the evidence, he made to join Erestor.

They ate in the garden that evening, splayed out atop one of the quilts Erestor had forgotten to put away when the weather grew hot. The sun dipped behind the mountains and the air cooled and deepened in shadow, drawing the fireflies out to dance amongst the heather. All around them the songs of small breathing creatures rose in a soft drone.

Glorfindel asked the question before he thought about it much. He knew if he thought about it he wouldn’t be able to ask it, and even then he didn’t so much ask a question as state the obvious. “Folk used to be so… angry, about the idea of two… well, two men together. I don’t know what changed.”

Erestor finished off his half-moon of cantaloupe and tossed the rind away into the underbrush for the ants. “I suppose they haven’t gotten around to writing that history yet,” he chuckled. “Can’t say I blame them.”

“Why?” Glorfindel leaned back on his palms, watching the way Erestor’s hair floated in the wind. “Is it still taboo, and folk are only pretending to approve?”

“No, nothing like that,” Erestor had a devilish smirk playing about his face. “Only, if you’re going to tell that story, then you need to tell a very embarrassing story about the king and I’ll bet that no one’s had the guts to tell it yet.” He rubbed his chin. “I suppose I’ll have to do it then, it’ll get a laugh out of him.”

The king? “What happened?”

Erestor lay back on the grass and folded his arms behind his head. “When Ereinion was merely an inconsequential princeling and not the king, he was something of a… well, a tart.”

Glorfindel couldn’t help the laugh that burst out of him. “A tart?”

Erestor grinned. “Yes, indeed. Spoiled rotten. It was an open secret how willing he was to fall in bed with pretty much anyone, but no one dared breathe a word of it to his father.”

Glorfindel’s heart clenched.

Erestor didn’t seem to notice. “It wasn’t so much that he was a merry fellow—I think when you meet him you’ll see that he isn’t—but that he’s a generous man, and when he didn’t have kingly responsibilities cloistering him away that generosity extended to those around him in a more… pleasurable manner. At any rate he got away with it because he was a prince, and because everyone loved him. They don’t love him as much now, I think, but then again everyone loves an amorous sweetheart and few love a fastidious policy-maker.”

Glorfindel drew his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them. “So he changed things when he became king?”

“No, not quite. Things had been changing—at least in Nargothrond—for a while. Ereinion wouldn’t have been known as such a slattern if there weren’t many people to choose from.” Erestor held out his hand, as if holding a palmful of suitors. “The turning point came when Ereinion chose the wrong paramour. Well, perhaps not the wrong one, I remember him as an amiable fellow, but, you see, there was a rivalry.”

Glorfindel watched Erestor spin the story out, intent. “Oh?”

Erestor leaned up on his elbow, turning to him. “The fellow was rather old, you see— I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d come to Nargothrond straight from Cuiviénen—and he lived with an orphaned nephew, whom he loved dearly. No one else much liked the nephew—you’ll see why in a moment. When Ereinion began to woo this fellow the nephew assumed that Ereinion’s visits and attentions were for him, and not his uncle.”

“Oh no,” Glorfindel groaned, seeing where this was going.

“Oh yes,” Erestor nodded. “The nephew caught them in bed together and in his impotent rage went straight to Orodreth to denounce him. Caught the poor fellow in the middle of holding court too, horrible commotion. Gives me great joy to remember it. A few minutes later Ereinion showed up—by himself, of course, though he’d secretly taken the uncle to his own rooms beforehand, I know this from Finduilas— and proceeded to stand there, half-naked and silent, until the fellow finished his rant.”

“Why didn’t he say anything?” Glorfindel asked.

“To say anything would embroil the uncle,” Erestor rubbed a blade of grass between his fingers, some of his merriment fading. “And while no one cared what anyone did in the shadows, no one was sure if anyone could get away with the same things in the daylight.”

Glorfindel’s heart beat sluggishly, each pulse resounding in his chest. “What happened then?”

Erestor grew fond. “Well, Orodreth hadn’t noticed that his son had arrived, but the nephew had. He finished his screed with a rather dramatic point in Ereinion’s direction, no doubt intending to bring this arrogant princeling’s head low. Orodreth, when he saw his son standing there, rushed to him and caught him up in his arms, and those who were close enough say he spoke to his son gently and lovingly, asking if Ereinion was all right and what had happened. I’ll admit Ereinion was a bit smug about it all, and I made sure to tell him how unbecoming I thought such an attitude on a prince, but the end result of it all was that if the prince could bed whomever he liked with his father’s approval, then anyone else could do the same, gods be damned. There’s more to it than that, of course, but much came from that one incident.”

Glorfindel fell silent, a strange tightness in his limbs. In his mind Gil-galad had blonde hair, and so did Orodreth, and when Orodreth held Gil-galad in his arms their hair mingled into one color. How different would things have been, if Glorfindel’s father—?

“I’m glad things have changed,” Glorfindel said, because that was all he could say.

Erestor’s hand twitched, then—he laid it, briefly, on Glorfindel’s shoulder. “Me too.”

Glorfindel lay in bed during the early hours of the morning, staring at the softly rustling curtains. Erestor still slept curled up next to him, his head on his chest and his hair spilling everywhere like ink. The robins and doves twittered and crooned through their open window, the sky turning over from purple to grey.

Once, long ago, Glorfindel the Lord had been renowned for his courage.

He reached under his pillow and fingered the velveteen ribbon hidden there. He’d spent one of his precious gold coins to get it. It was nearly the same color as the one he’d had in Gondolin too, a dark, muted rose.

He wasn’t that man anymore, but perhaps there was still a little of that courage left in him.

~*~

One day, just as the summer haze turned over into the pure blue of autumn, Erestor came home to find Glorfindel standing in the kitchen pitting a bowl of late peaches with a thick pink ribbon tied in a bow around his neck.

“Hello,” Glorfindel said amiably, paring the peach in his hand neatly in half. “How was your day today?”

There was half a second where Erestor’s brain didn’t exist, but then he wrenched ahold of himself and said, “Tedious,” because everything was tedious compared to the sight of Glorfindel looking like that.

And that was an incredibly dangerous thought.

“I think I’ll wash up before dinner,” Erestor said, making his way to the washroom. “Elrond had me working outside most of today, I’m a little overheated.” That was a lie—well, at least the first part was.

“All right,” Glorfindel smiled at him. “I need some time to grill the peaches anyway.”

“It suits you, by the way,” Erestor said, because his politician’s mind—really, the only thing keeping him alive this long—rightfully told him that to not say anything about it would be much, much worse. “The ribbon, that is.”

Glorfindel blushed all the way to the tips of his ears—and oh, wasn’t that interesting—and stammered, “Thank you.”

There were no pillows to scream into in the washroom, only towels, but they would do.

He got into the tub a second after he started it running, water ripping hot. His cock spilled in his fist before the water had time to rise above his ankles—Eru Above, he would give anything on this earth if only Glorfindel would get on his knees and let him ruin that ribbon with his come. The vision of it—Glorfindel, with those lips parted in innocent surprise, chin tipped just so, and those eyes, gods, those perfect blue eyes, heavy with thirst—and that ribbon, imagine, come escaping his lips and dribbling down his throat and breast, staining that soft velveteen— Eru—

Erestor gently held his softening cock, panting hard. His mind crackled at the edges, still not quite recovered.

A thought came to him.

Was Glorfindel trying to seduce him? That ribbon was certainly coquettish enough for that to be the case. Or—or did they just casually wear ribbons like that in his hometown? It was Erestor’s business to know about the peoples and customs of the world, it seemed unlikely that he wouldn’t know of such a custom. Then again, he was not omniscient; there were yet many things under heaven and earth that he did not know.

And then again, Glorfindel was clearly Noldorin—both in countenance and culture. His dress was Noldorin, his history was Noldorin, his speech—

His speech was Noldorin, but he did have an accent that Erestor hadn’t heard in some time. It was an old-fashioned accent, softer and more refined than common speech nowadays. Erestor had heard it before, but he couldn’t place it now.

At any rate, it wasn’t as if Glorfindel was from some distant Avari line, with some long-lost ribbon custom that Erestor had never heard about.

The point being that Glorfindel might very well be trying to seduce him.

There was only one way to find out.

In the back of his closet there hung a tunic. Perhaps it was not very grand, or overly form-flattering— but it was sheer, and meant to be worn with some rather tight leggings. It was a… plausible deniability tunic. If Glorfindel wasn’t seducing him, then, well, who wouldn’t want to wear something breezy and loose in this hot weather? And if he was, well, Erestor knew how to work up a lather in a man with or without a bit of sheer cloth.

He rose and dried himself off, then slipped to his room to change.

The tunic proved more delicious than he remembered it, colored a deep maroon that brought out the rich sienna tones in his skin. His slim silhouette could plainly be seen through the cloth, but it took a little bit of attention to make out his dark nipples. The leggings beneath clung tight as paint to his frame, loosening only a little for modesty’s sake around his groin. Tiny golden flowers looped around the collar’s clasps, rising like ladder rungs up under his chin.

He admired himself in his mirror, turning this way and that—ah, but he was a vain creature, and Elrond gave him so little leeway to indulge himself. Now, if all went well, he very much intended to indulge himself.

The rich scent of grilled peaches and thyme drifted in to the room. He took one last look at himself in the mirror, shook his hair out, and went to find Glorfindel.

~*~

Glorfindel lay back against the pillows of their bed. The ribbon lay heavy and unbearably soft on his throat. His fingers plucked at Gil-galad’s tight blue tunic, restless. The hem of it fell to the middle of his thighs, but he’d forgotten how high the slits ran up his flanks. He crossed his legs and the fabric bunched between them. He wasn’t wearing anything else.

He hadn’t ever seduced anyone before but this time seemed—based on Erestor’s obscene lack of decent clothing— to be going well. If he wasn’t careful he might actually feel smug about how easy it was to make Erestor’s eyes flare with heat.

Ah, the heat. That was Erestor’s excuse for the sheer netting he’d seen fit to pass of as clothing. If it was so hot, then why did his nipples perk up under the fabric? Why did the hairs on his arm rise when Glorfindel brushed too close?

Lord Glorfindel might not exist anymore but Glorfindel had borrowed some of that man’s warrior’s instinct. If he opened his mouth, he could almost breathe certainty like he could breathe the tang coming off the river. What a strange thing, to remember the language of his old body—his ears knew the hiss of an arrow before it flew, his mouth the taste of mud before his face met the ground, his hands the heft of a body before it fell in them— his bones knew Erestor wanted him, even if his heart and his mind didn’t.

And he— he wanted Erestor. Maybe more than anything. He trembled to think of it. The wanting—and what he might gain—was worth withstanding the gaping maw of fear in his chest. His heart sat as if on a demon’s hot, wet tongue, waiting breathlessly to be swallowed or spared. Maybe both.

And what he might lose— no, he couldn’t think it. He would die all over again if he thought it.

Sounds of cutlery clinking came from the kitchen as Erestor finished the dishes. Soon he would be finished, soon he would come to bed.

The moon shone full and silver through the shifting curtains, mingling with the glow of the single oil lamp sitting shaded on the bedside table. Outside, the deep purples and oranges of sunset still hung heavy in the air and the whole room flickered blue and gold. The day had dawned stormy, but the rain had broken a mere hour ago. The air tasted open and clean, full of the rich, fresh scent of the hydrangeas nodding heavily outside.

Glorfindel shifted slightly, his ass tender and twitching. He’d… prepared himself, just in case. Perhaps rather too vigorously. He smiled ruefully at himself—he had been a Great Lord of Old, once? And here he was, fidgeting around with a sore ass, waiting to see if a man might like to come and fuck him.

It was more than the fucking, of course, but he didn’t think that. He couldn’t.

Instead, think—wasn’t he a ridiculous creature? He felt very old and very young at once, filled with the weight of years but never the weight of a cock.

He idly pressed the back of his hand against his mouth, watching the doorway with lowered eyes. His heart hammered against his ribs.

The kitchen fell silent.

A beat passed, two—the corners of his vision pulsed, his heart so—

And then, just like that, Erestor appeared, scrubbing at his hands with a spare rag.

“I despise the feeling of peach juice, don’t—” he stopped up short.

They stared at each other. The rag fell from Erestor’s limp hands.

Glorfindel wrenched the last of his courage up by the throat and—

Slowly, hesitantly, let his legs fall open.

For a moment Erestor leaned against the doorframe, arms lightly crossed, examining him. Then he let the beginnings of what might be a fond smirk play about his lips, and he reached up and began unbuttoning the collar of his tunic.

All Glorfindel’s breath left him in one great sigh, relieved. He’d been right, his old body had not failed him, and Erestor—

“You are a maddening creature, do you know that?” Erestor came to him and sat at his side.

“I do now, since you have told me,” Glorfindel replied, hardly daring believe— gods their bodies were mere inches away, now—

Erestor looked slyly up at him through the dark spray of his lashes. “A tease and a comedian. Come now, darling,” he murmured, and ran a proprietary hand up Glorfindel’s thigh, oh— “What shall I do with you?”

“Anything you want—” Glorfindel choked against the back of his hand. His courage had taken him this far and it could hold him no longer, he lay in Erestor’s palm now, floating—

Erestor kneaded the inside of his thigh. “Anything?” he mused. His hand slid up over his trembling belly to press above his heart. The tunic rucked up in his wake, nearly— “That’s a long list. Don’t you have any preferences?”

“I—” Erestor’s thumb brushed his nipple and he nearly fainted— “I’ve never—”

Erestor chuckled kindly. “With a man?”

“With anyone—” it all came out in a rush.

Erestor’s eyes flew open. “With anyone? Never?”

“Never,” Glorfindel replied, the word thick in his mouth.

Erestor’s eyes had been hungry before but now he looked positively ravenous, the smoky green of his eyes igniting in a wildfire of greed. His hand lifted to cup Glorfindel’s cheek and Glorfindel shuddered, unable to move an inch, pinned like a hare before a weasel’s dance.

“Oh, darling,” Erestor purred, low and wicked. “Oh, what a lovely thing you are, oh, I am going to take such good care of you.”

It was exactly what he wanted—needed—to hear and he closed his eyes and groaned, unable to face that intent illuminating Erestor’s gaze.

“Glorfindel, look at me,” Erestor commanded, and Glorfindel couldn’t help but obey—

Erestor smiled at him, bright as a sunset, said, “You’re going to ruin me, aren’t you,” and kissed him on the mouth.

~*~

Glorfindel’s mouth opened hot and wet and eager under his, gods, yes. Erestor buried his hands in all that hair, gripping tight with vicious delight as Glorfindel gasped and moaned into their kiss. The poor thing didn’t seem to know what to do with himself, his hands fluttering shyly at Erestor’s shoulders.

Erestor knew what to do with him. Erestor knew a great many things to do with him.

He broke the kiss. Glorfindel whined, disappointed, but Erestor hushed him with a nip under his ear.

“Hush now,” he murmured. “Let me see you.” And he slipped his hand through the slit in Glorfindel’s tunic and palmed his side.

Glorfindel, timid and clumsy, dragged the tunic over his head and hair. Then, tossing it aside, he lay naked but for that exquisite ribbon, looking like a living sunbeam swelling the goldenrod fields. Gods, wasn’t he exhaustive in his beauty? Erestor took an indulgent moment to simply stare, passing his hand over Glorfindel’s taut, trembling belly. He was so open like this, graceless and virginal—virginal! What a crime— his breath faltering and his blush spreading mottled out over his face and chest. Had Erestor ever been given a greater gift, to see this man not just through the dreamy mist of his imagination but tangible— wasn’t it a revelation, to pet gently over the rise of his breast, to watch his full, pink nipples tighten in the wake of his touch, to spur the quickening of his cock as it curved up against the valley of his hip? Erestor’s mouth actually filled with saliva— gods, all this, just for him?

“Be gentle with me?” Glorfindel asked, a quirk in his mouth.

Erestor laughed, trailing his fingers down Glorfindel’s belly just to see him jump. “I’ll do no such thing! When did you get such a mouth on you, hm? I didn’t peg you as a tease.”

“Not a tease— ah—” Erestor’s hand gripped suddenly up under the tender hollow of Glorfindel’s knee— “Just very hopeful.”

“You shall have all you hope for and more,” Erestor promised. “Now, where should I start, you delicious creature?”

Glorfindel squirmed under Erestor’s gaze, seemingly unable to do much more than slump, boneless with desire. Gods, this unimaginable creature, painted in cream and gold and indigo, swathed in freckles like stars.

“Here, I think,” Erestor decided, and leaned down to lap at his nipple.

Glorfindel keened with pleasure, arching up, his hands flying to Erestor’s hair to clutch desperately at him, gushing, “Eres— oh, yes, like that—!”

It was all over then, Erestor unable to help himself from lunging up Glorfindel’s body to set his hips firmly down between his legs, nipping and sucking at his chest and neck, savoring the tang of his skin, insatiable—Glorfindel bucked up against him, spreading his legs wider in wordless supplication—

“Erestor, you—oh—” he gasped as Erestor dug his fingers into the meat of his side, wrenching him down. Gods he was strong, it was only his clear indecision between throwing Erestor off and clutching him close that gave Erestor even a crumb of control over where his body went—ah, but Erestor had more ways to bit and bridle a man than brute strength, and he intended to ride hard tonight.

Glorfindel’s cock rose rigid against Erestor’s belly, already smearing wet through his sheer tunic. Erestor rolled his hips down against him, grinning viciously at the way Glorfindel’s head lolled back, his eyelids fluttering closed.

“Do you like that, hm?” He murmured, licking his teeth. “Shall I give you more?”

“Gods,” Glorfindel groaned. “A tease and a hypocrite—”

Oh, so Glorfindel did have a mouth on him, hidden like his iron spine under all that downy-soft timidity. Erestor tsked. “Such nasty names,” he scolded and, grasping Glorfindel’s jaw firmly in one hand, leaned down to suck on his tongue.

He tasted sharp and hot, the barest hint of peach and thyme hidden deep inside. Erestor couldn’t help himself, he moaned, gods, he wanted to devour this man—

He left off Glorfindel’s plush mouth for a more forbidden taste, slipping down the golden length of his chest to settle himself over his cock.

Glorfindel leaned unsteadily up on his elbows, looking properly debauched with his mouth bitten red and glistening, his hair a tousled corona of gold falling over his dazed blue eyes. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Erestor chuckled and licked and broad stripe up the entire length of Glorfindel’s cock, root to crown.

It had been quite some time since Erestor had last done this, but he hadn’t forgotten the bliss of the heavy, unyielding intrusion of a cock in his mouth, the way it filled him utterly with pressure and heat. Glorfindel’s cock drooled pre-come on his tongue, heady and bitter. He sucked and lapped at it, flattening his tongue against the twitch and pulse of it up against the roof of his mouth. Eru Above, he could lose himself forever in this, the feeling of Glorfindel’s cock in his mouth, his hips quaking under his hands. Glorfindel thrust helplessly into him, hands stuttering over his shoulders and hair—Erestor please, hah—so Erestor reached up with one hand to play with his nipple while the other slammed Glorfindel’s hips down and then—

“Erestor— I’m— oh gods, I’m—” Glorfindel gulped out and Erestor had half a second to take him all the way back in his throat before he came, spurting thickly—Erestor coughed once but recovered, tears pricking at his eyes as he swallowed.

Glorfindel fell back, chest heaving, and threw an arm over his eyes. “Erestor,” he groaned. “Eru Above, Erestor.”

Erestor licked his lips. “Glorfindel, look at me.”

“I can’t look at you, I’ll come all over again,” he panted. Ah, listening to that sibilant accent slur with pleasure, what a treat.

“It is my intention to make you come at least thrice more tonight, so look at me, Glorfindel,” Erestor ordered.

Glorfindel tossed his other arm over his eyes as well. “Take your clothes off first,” he smirked.

“You will regret testing me,” Erestor groused, but complied. Besides, those leggings had become much too tight, and he had plans for his own cock as well as Glorfindel’s. Namely…

He pinched Glorfindel’s ass and he yelped, jumping back up against the headboard.

“Satisfied?” Erestor purred, slinking up after him.

Glorfindel’s eyes widened at the sight of him and he swallowed. “Yes,” he said, his gaze raking down his body.

“Good, because I’m not,” Erestor growled, thumbing at the tender crease where his thigh met his hips.

Glorfindel laughed breathlessly. “I’m doomed, aren’t I?”

“Absolutely,” Erestor smiled and gave him a quick peck on the lips. “Now, what shall I do next? Shall I use your mouth the way you’ve used mine—” Glorfindel’s lips parted unconsciously with desire— “or shall I take you?” and Erestor let his thumbs slip lower to find—

Glorfindel’s entrance already slick and ready, oh—

“I—” Glorfindel blushed winecup-red. “Before, I—”

“You prepared yourself for me?” Erestor whispered, staring awestruck at the soft pink rim.

Glorfindel bit his lip. “I—” Erestor pet it with his thumb and Glorfindel choked— “I—I did, I— I hoped—”

“And then you have the gall to tell me you’re not a tease?” Erestor laughed, dark and low. “How dare you.”

He knelt with his knees under Glorfindel’s thighs and up along either side of his hips, settling his ass against his lap. Glorfindel watched him with lidded anticipation and went easy where Erestor bade. All the frivolous banter drained out of him, his whole frame limp but for the rapid beat of his pulse in his throat.

When Erestor pressed the crown of his cock up against him Glorfindel took a huge, shuddering breath, gripped back against the headboard, and yielded. Erestor slid all the way inside in one tight, hot glide, hissing sharply at the feel of it, of being fully seated inside Glorfindel—

“Kiss me, Erestor, please,” Glorfindel panted, his face flushed and open and wrecked. Erestor took his mouth fiercely, biting and licking at Glorfindel’s whimpers and faltering gasps, then, slowly, he rocked up into him.

And Glorfindel took it beautifully, arching up with his eyes flaring a deep, dark blue through his golden lashes, illuminated with pleasure as Erestor filled him to the brim over and over again—

“Oh yes, Eres—ah—!” Glorfindel clutched at him, hips jerking up, his mouth slack— “Harder—!”

Erestor thrust up, fast and brutal, unable to help himself—gods, the feeling of Glorfindel bearing down hard around him, their mouths sharp as iron against each other— he pressed Glorfindel’s thighs back up against his belly, curling Glorfindel’s body back in search of that perfect angle and—

Glorfindel mewled, yes, there—

Something hot splashed up against Erestor’s belly and oh Eru, he was coming again just from Erestor’s cock driving inside him and—

Erestor moaned, undone, mouth smearing up against Glorfindel’s collarbones, and with one final thrust he came inside him.

They collapsed against each other. Erestor’s cock twitched, still buried deep in Glorfindel’s body.

“Oh, Erestor,” Glorfindel murmured. He took Erestor’s face in both his hands and kissed him, long and deep. Erestor could taste the smile on his face, the replete satisfaction glowing inside him.

“I am not nearly finished with you,” Erestor chuckled, brushing Glorfindel’s nose with his own.

“Mercy, I beg you,” Glorfindel sighed happily, clearly not meaning a word of it.

“Hm, I’ll consider if you ask me nicely,” Erestor replied, also not meaning a word of it.

Glorfindel tucked a lock of Erestor’s hair back behind his ear and kissed him again, refusing to dignify that with a reply.

Many hours and many protestations and pleas later, Erestor finally relented and had mercy on him.

He padded to the washroom, wet a cloth with warm water, and returned to see what the fruit of his labor had wrought. Glorfindel, he was satisfied to see, lay splayed out on the quilts, completely supine with exhaustion. Erestor sat next to him and toweled him down, smiling as Glorfindel’s head lolled towards him with a sleepy-sweet smile on his lips.

He leaned over and kissed him gently. “Hello, darling,” he said, curling that tousled blonde hair back over his ear.

“Hello,” Glorfindel mumbled back. He reached up to cup Erestor’s face and brushed a thumb up against the tender skin under his eye.

Erestor’s heart rose in his throat. Given a few months, he was going to fall in love with this man. Maybe even a few weeks.

Maybe even a few minutes.

He tossed the rag aside, not caring where it landed, and climbed in bed.

They gathered each other in their arms. Erestor drifted off to the sound of the nightingale in the far glade and Glorfindel’s heart beating out in slow, steady time.

~*~

Glorfindel woke feeling more sore than he’d ever felt in his life. His neck and chest tingled with new bruises and his nipples, when they brushed up against the quilts, burned tender and raw. Light scratches prickled all up his back and the inside of his thighs, and his ass was so twitchy he couldn’t bear thinking about it.

He felt incredible. He wanted to do it all again, now.

He groaned, rolling over, searching for a familiar body to blame for his ill use.

Erestor was already sitting up on the edge of the bed. “I have to go to Elrond,” he said grouchily, halfway dressed.

Glorfindel pouted. That was fun, he’d never had much occasion to pout before. What else would he discover, post-deflowering?

“At least let me suck your cock before you go,” he said, which perked Erestor right up.

Erestor insisted on herding Glorfindel up out of bed and on setting him up against a wall for the occasion.

“What’s this for?” Glorfindel asked, kneeling with his back to the wall. Erestor couldn’t seem to get out of his space, crowding him up and back. His robes were loose and parted to reveal his cock, flushed and curved and just as long in the daylight as it had felt last night. It rose exactly at mouth-height this way, which, now that Glorfindel thought about it—

“You’ll see,” Erestor growled, and he took ahold of Glorfindel’s hair, pinned him back against the wall, and thrust into his mouth.

Glorfindel’s eyes flew open and then immediately fluttered closed, oh, this— They’d gotten rough with each other last night— as evidenced by the rainbow of bruises across his hide— and it was just as sweet and sharp now as it was then, only, this time Glorfindel had Erestor’s cock in his mouth, not the other way around and—ah—Erestor pumped into him and Eru Above it was all he could do to let his mouth fall slack and take it—

He gripped tight at Erestor’s thighs, steadying himself. The overwhelming feeling of a cock, Erestor’s cock, on his tongue— velvety and firm, tangy with pre-come, warm with scent of Erestor’s skin thick in the air— filled his mind with a low, needy whine. Oh, no, wait—that was him, whining desperately for Erestor to please, don’t stop, please, opening his mouth wider, his throat deeper. He sucked clumsily at the slick length, saliva dribbling over his chin as he struggled to keep up through the haze of pleasure that threatened to veil his thoughts from all else but this.

Gods, what was this, this revelation, why did he need this—Erestor looming over him, nearly fully dressed, pinning him naked and kneeling and completely exposed back against an immoveable wall and fucking his mouth, inescapable and—

He grasped at his own excruciatingly hard cock and pulled at it frantically before Erestor wrenched his head back. “None of that, now,” he said. Then his eyes narrowed slightly and he said, “Clasp your hands behind your back and open your mouth.”

Glorfindel obeyed, expecting Erestor to fuck his mouth again. For a moment it seemed like he might, as he took his cock in his hand and smeared the crown against Glorfindel’s lips and tongue. But then he hooked his finger in the pink ribbon—Glorfindel had forgotten he was wearing it— and, his breath gone ragged and his eyes shattered with desire, Erestor set the crown of his cock on Glorfindel’s tongue and pumped it until he spilled with a strangled gasp. Salty, bitter come dribbled over Glorfindel’s lips and chin, running down his throat to the ribbon, and—oh, his ribbon, stained with Erestor’s come— what must he look like, wanton and used and— and owned, somehow, claimed, or seen and pinned down, speared through— Erestor—

Erestor, he—he must have seen in Glorfindel that which Glorfindel had seen in his mirror in Gondolin, all those years ago, and he’d— Glorfindel gasped—

And then Erestor was kissing him heedless of his own come in Glorfindel’s mouth and it was a blessing that their eyes were closed, Glorfindel didn’t know what he’d do if Erestor saw him cry.

How was it that having a man spill in his mouth could ruin him so?

After that Erestor gave up completely on arriving at Elrond’s office on time and drew them a bath. Then he proceeded to bend Glorfindel over the lip of the tub and fuck him senseless, again. Glorfindel came almost as soon as Erestor put his cock in him, since Erestor hadn’t let him so much as touch himself in the intervening time and when he stepped in the tub he was practically mindless with need. Erestor showered him with praise for that, gods Glorfindel, you’re so good, so sweet for me, and, setting his teeth in the back of Glorfindel’s neck, proceeded to thrust into him so hard that half the water ended up all over the floor. Glorfindel threw his head back and sank into it, overjoyed.

Erestor did, eventually, have to leave so Glorfindel kissed him goodbye, still dripping from the tub.

“I’ll be back tonight,” Erestor whispered against his mouth, promising, and Glorfindel shivered all over. Then the door closed with a soft clk! and Glorfindel was alone.

He padded to their room, toweling off. The sun was well on its way towards its zenith and even the birds had quieted down in the growing heat of the day. He let his hair loose to dry and dressed, slow and creaky, in his old gardening clothes.

He wasn’t entirely sorry to see Erestor go. His spirit felt wrung-out. Not in a bad way, necessarily. Just… overturned, like compost. As if all the shutters enclosing his hidden spaces had been thrown open, whether he willed or nay. In an hour or so he’d miss Erestor, long for him, but right now he needed to catch his breath and gather himself like a basket of scattered laundry.

He tenderly hung the washed ribbon up to dry and headed out into the bright morning to weed.

It was good to get on his knees in the cool earth, to feel the waxy give of leaves between his fingers. He dug down deep in the earth and tugged up the roots of errant vines and sprouts, pruning idly along the way. His wet hair seeped through his shirt but he didn’t mind, it soothed his shoulders where Erestor’s mouth had left its mark.

His neck felt… naked, without the ribbon. What a strange thing to feel. He’d had a sigil, once, gold and green, and it had been as much a part of him as his blue eyes or curling hair. Glorfindel, Lord of the House of the Golden Flower. Was that what the pink ribbon was, now? A part of him? Glorfindel, Erestor’s pretty little wife. He swallowed.

The cabbageworms had gotten into the radishes again. He knelt along the rows, dutifully turning over every leaf to find and squish the worms. His fingers grew green and sticky with the remains.

“Hello, you must be Glorfindel,” a voice said from somewhere above him.

Glorfindel jumped and looked right up into the face of an unknown elf, leaning on his elbows over the fence. He was tall and blonde, with tired grey eyes and a crown.

“And you must be the king,” Glorfindel said, blinking. “That is, uh—” he scrambled to his feet— “Your, um, Highness.”

Gil-galad held up a hand, smiling. “No need, I’ll get an earful from Erestor if he catches you bowing to me.”

Glorfindel still stood, his fingers tangling awkwardly with themselves. He’d seen so few people besides Erestor since coming here, but it wasn’t as if he’d been actively avoiding people in the way he’d been… well, actively avoiding the king.

“Can… I help you?” He asked. “Erestor has gone to see Elrond. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.”

Gil-galad met his eyes and for a moment they looked at each other. He had a strange look about him, this Gil-galad, not like any look Glorfindel had ever seen before in the line of Finwë. A beat passed and then Gil-galad’s eyes narrowed the slightest bit, as if making a decision.

The hairs on the back of Glorfindel’s neck stood straight up, his old body’s instincts seeing something he couldn’t—

“I think you can help me, actually,” Gil-galad said, something in his voice a little sad. “Tell me, how did you come to leave your cairn on the mountainside?”

Glorfindel froze. “How—” he whispered. “How did you know?” Oh Eru, he’d been found out—

“Your accent,” Gil-galad said simply. “I know it well. All your people became mine, after you fell. Elrond had half an idea, too, but his prescience isn’t always certain.”

“I—” Glorfindel’s teeth chattered. What had happened, how did he come from Erestor’s warm bed to this, to this catastrophy—“I’m not that person anymore. Don’t— please don’t— don’t ask me to be that person, again—” his hands had risen at some point to circle his chest, clutching at his arms, gods, was he crying—?

Gil-galad’s eyelashes fluttered, but he did not waver. “I’m very sorry to ask you this, but I must. How did you come to be here? I know you died, Egalmoth himself brought me news of it after he buried you.”

Egalmoth had buried him? What an unbearable thought, his best friend carrying him, no, not him, his dead body— and here, Gil-galad, with his unyielding words, dragging him back into the person he had been when he’d died—

Glorfindel trembled violently. “I’m not him.”

Gil-galad ducked his head, looked away towards Imladris. His jaw twitched for a moment as he worked it. “I see this is an ill thing, for me to ask this of you. I should treat you kindly, not only for the sake of my dear friend but also your own. I can see how much this pains you, but again, I must ask you. How did you come to be here? Please, I—” He met Glorfindel’s eyes, his face fallen with old sadness. “Please tell me. Erestor trusts you, so I will trust you too. I think you know what it means to be beholden to something from which you’d rather be free. I am a king, Glorfindel, and I need to know who or what you are, how you came to be and why, so that I might protect my people. If I were your friend, I—”

He paused at that, then fell away completely into silence.

Glorfindel stared at him, mute and shaking.

Gil-galad’s blonde hair was not as blonde as he had thought—grey streaked though the young king’s hair, and deep lines ran around his eyes and mouth. He looked so tired and old for an elf—and Elrond and Erestor both so flush and youthful, plump with health. And had not Fingolfin and Fingon and Turgon all carried their fair faces beyond wear and line? The only king who had looked a little like Gil-galad looked now had been Maedhros, his youth ruined on Thangorodrim. What did Gil-galad carry that had aged him so unnaturally, what had he taken from Elrond and Erestor and so many others so that they might not have to bear it?

All at once Glorfindel understood why Erestor loved this man, and too why he grieved. It was a bleeding kind of loss, having a friend like this who must carry a crown that demanded such payment. Was it not enough that the crown must take and take and take, but that it should also demand that Gil-galad sometimes neglect those he loved?

All at once Glorfindel’s old body remembered what it was like to lay himself down in service to his people—and too he remembered sending out his trusted scouts into the starving wilderness, or gathering his troops for battle, or any number of times he had asked wretched things of the loyal people he had loved. He remembered, and—

And that remembrance drew a line between himself and Gil-galad, vibrating like a harp string. He remembered who he had been—who he might… might still be— and he understood.

Glorfindel swallowed and said, “Lord Námo Doomsayer raised me from the dead in a new body, or a… refurbished body, as the case may be. Then he and King Manwë and Queen Varda and Lady Nienna and all the rest put me in a boat and Lord Ulmo took me to your shores. I don’t know why.”

And… after this, after Glorfindel gave him the answer he needed, Glorfindel would become one of Gil-galad’s people. One for whom Gil-galad shouldered his crown. Gil-galad would take care of him, too, as best as he was able—even if his best was not enough, sometimes. That was humbling.

Gil-galad chewed at his lip. “How ominous,” he mused quietly. “I’m sorry I was not there to for you, I should have welcomed you into my House.”

“I kept a low profile. I didn’t even tell anyone my true name, save Erestor and, in consequence, Elrond,” Glorfindel shrugged. “I’m… I was grieving. Am. Grieving.” How strange, to just say it like that, without it choking him out.

Gil-galad’s shoulders slumped. “I am very sorry, Glorfindel. I hope you can forgive me for asking such a thing of you, and for drawing up more painful memories besides.”

Glorfindel would. Maybe already had. Or, rather, he suspected his old self had already forgiven him, and his new self would follow along behind.

Then Gil-galad blinked, cocked his head, and, “Do you mean to tell me you didn’t see anyone after you came here?”

Glorfindel shook his head. “No one. No one who knew me before knows I’m here, but then again I don’t think there’s anyone left—”

Gil-galad leapt over the fence and clasped him by the shoulders, his face broken open in joy, “But, why, Glorfindel, did you not know, Egalmoth is alive! He lives a day’s ride from here!”

Egalmoth what— “What do you mean?” Oh gods, Gil-galad had his boot in the radishes now, but—

“Egalmoth is alive!” Gil-galad laughed, shaking him. “Your friend, Egalmoth! Come, if we leave now, we’ll make it to his door by suppertime! That is—” he softened, gentled. “If you’re ready to see him. He has missed you very much.”

Glorfindel gaped down at him—oh, so Gil-galad was shorter but not that much shorter, that tunic would’ve been revealing on his body too, hah, so Gil-galad was a tart after all— and then his scattered mind snapped right back into place like a beam of light and something inside him broke— a lock, maybe, or a dam— and a waterfall of something— his old self? A new self?— thundered down to fill him like a flood of sunlight and oh—oh—

Egalmoth was alive.

Glorfindel surged up and sprinted towards Imladris, completely heedless of the turnips, hopefully he got at least a few cabbageworms in the stampede—

Gil-galad ran up next to him, panting something that might’ve been, damn these Valinorian elves, and, when they came in sight of Elrond’s House, he pointed up to where he could see Elrond and Erestor, chatting next to a far open window.

Glorfindel crashed into Elrond’s office with a sharp crk! that might’ve been the door hinge breaking and Erestor and Elrond, faces open with shock, startled up from where they sat.

“Glorfindel!” Is something—” Erestor rushed towards him.

“I’m from Gondolin and I need a horse!” He said frantically, almost shouting.

Gil-galad appeared behind him, panting against the doorframe. “You were right, Elrond,” he managed. “He didn’t know about Egalmoth, though.”

“What are you doing here?” Elrond gawked at Gil-galad. “I thought you were down the coast!”

Gil-galad waved him off, but Glorfindel didn’t hear whatever he said next because Erestor had finally made his way around his frankly mountainous desk and clasped Glorfindel’s face in his hands.

“Glorfindel,” he said. “Lord—?”

“Yes, me, that’s me,” Glorfindel nodded, nearly hysterical. “Erestor, I need a horse. I need to see him, Egalmoth, I need—”

Erestor silenced him with a quick kiss. “Let’s go get a horse. I’ll take you.”

They found a horse—Gil-galad’s horse, actually, which was clearly the swiftest— and rode out without even bothering to saddle the beast, Erestor clutching tight to Glorfindel’s back.

Wind lashed through Glorfindel’s hair and hoof beats reverberated up through his body and the world passed beneath them all at once and not quickly enough—

When they were out of sight from Imladris, Erestor slipped both his hands under Glorfindel’s tunic and. He held him, skin to skin, silent. Glorfindel leaned back into him, rocking with the undulation of their bodies as the horse cantered over the fields, and began to cry.

Darling, darling, Erestor murmured into his shoulder. Fumbling under his tunic, Glorfindel took Erestor’s right hand and pressed it over his heart, holding it there.

They rode like that the rest of the day, giving the horse his head to set his own swift pace over the land. As the sun swung over to the west and began to slump down towards the horizon, they crested a final ridge. Below, spread out like a pile of diamonds over a green velvet quilt, laid a tiny glittering hamlet.

Glorfindel choked. Oh— oh—

The horse trotted down under Erestor’s direction, making his way into the village. All the houses, encrusted in jeweled mobiles and colored glass, cast slivers of light all over them—but no house was as grand or as bejeweled as the one in the center. Its stone walls shone pale pink, like a sea shell, and the clanging sound of a forge at work clunked through the tinkling music of at least a thousand mobiles and windchimes. The horse walked calmly into the yard and, halting, nibbled at his flank, as if admiring the way the light glinted off his dappled hide.

Glorfindel sat, stock still, and stared at the house.

A man sat on the front porch in a plush wheeled chair, comfortably set up with cushions under his head and a crystalline glass half-full with some honey-colored liquid at his elbow. His eyes were closed and he snored softly.

Glorfindel slipped from the horse’s back, then, not believing anything, not anything at all, he stumbled up to the porch.

Egalmoth had grown his hair out. He’d kept it shorter than all their fellows in Gondolin, right at shoulder-length. Now it spilled over his breast in a long, thick braid, still the same nut-brown Glorfindel remembered. He had more than a few new scars too, but more than that he had new earrings and rings, his whole body more bespangled than ever with jewels. Even the quilt wrapped around his neck was threaded in gold, and—

And he was real, wasn’t he? All these things, his hair, his scars, his jewels—they were proof that Egalmoth lived?

Glorfindel knelt before him and, almost despite himself, placed his hands on Egalmoth’s knees. “Egalmoth?” he called softly. “Egalmoth, wake up, it’s me, it’s Glorfindel.”

~*~

Erestor stood by the horse and watched, heart in his throat, as Egalmoth snuffled awake, blinked owlishly down at the kneeling Glorfindel, and then—

And then they had each other up in their arms, sobbing and rocking each other back and forth. Their faces disappeared in the crooks of each other’s necks as they lost themselves, reunited at last.

In hindsight it all made sense. Glorfindel, Lord of the House of the Golden Flower. The accent, the sorrow, the strange gaps in his history. Ereinion was going to give him grief for not figuring it out sooner.

But Erestor understood, now, what Elrond had meant when he’d said that Erestor might need to fight all Glorfindel’s battles for him.

When Elrond had been young and had first arrived in Gil-galad’s camp at the dawn of the war, he had been sad. In truth, there had not been a time when Elrond had not been sad. In many ways he still was. He’d had people he loved, of course, but his grief had been—and continued to be—as deep as a fjord with nothing to fill it. Sometimes the only thing Erestor had been able to do for him was to wait outside his tent and pick fights with anyone—including all four of his frightening parents—who tried to enter. To many people, Elrond wasn’t just a person, he was an idea. He was something that people needed. And the one thing Elrond needed was the one thing they refused to give him—to see him just as Elrond, just as himself.

And Glorfindel was that too. Perhaps even more so, if Erestor was reading the signs right and he’d actually been raised from the dead.

A couple more horses trotted up into the courtyard and Ereinion and Elrond dismounted.

“It’s good to see you,” Erestor said and turned to Ereinion, smiling sadly.

Ereinion drew close to his side and pressed his forehead against Erestor’s shoulder. The silver of his crown dug into his tunic. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to visit recently,” he said, soft.

Recently. It had been a few years. Erestor leaned his head against Ereinion’s hair, the tines of the crown pricking into his cheek. “I forgive you,” he said again. He meant it every time. Erestor had eventually won against those who had needed Elrond, would eventually win against those who needed Glorfindel— but he’d never win against those who needed Ereinion.

“I missed you,” Erestor said again. He meant that every time too.

“I missed you too,” Ereinion said, and finally they turned and embraced each other.

Erestor pressed his face against Ereinion’s chest and breathed deep of that dry stone and feather-dust smell that Ereinion always carried with him. He had missed him. Missed the sweetness of hearing his friend’s voice rumble up through his chest, feeling his friend’s comforting touch circling his body. Ereinion’s hands were the hands he had known longest, and feeling them press possessively against his back was a feeling like no other. Their lives stretched endlessly over the days, but how many of those days were spent in loneliness and longing, and how few were spent like this, reuniting?

“How long are you planning to stay?” Erestor asked, pulling away just enough to speak. His heart already sank, disappointed.

“At least a decade,” Ereinion clasped him tighter and smiled, the joy of it illuminating his eyes. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

A decade? Erestor felt his mouth split in a wild grin. “Are you serious?”

“Don’t get too happy,” Elrond said, coming up next to them. “He’s bringing the court with him.”

“Yes, but Erestor likes getting into fights,” Ereinion snorted, releasing Erestor to face Elrond.

“Yes, but I don’t have time to get into fights now,” Erestor huffed. “I—”

Elrond was on him like a hawk. “You finally kissed him, didn’t you?”

And then suddenly there were two sets of dangerous glimmering eyes on him, gleefully intent—Elrond’s with his outright, mischievous smile, Ereinion’s with his fixed, hair-raising stare.

There was no escape.

“Elrond, we kissed right there, in your office, and it’s not my fault you didn’t see. Besides, there’s no need to be such children about it,” Erestor crossed his arms and did not pout.

“Ah, I hope he forgives me then,” Ereinion tsked. “I was rather harsh with him earlier.”

“You were harsh with Glorfindel?” Erestor frowned.

Ereinion shrugged, melancholy. “I did not know how he… came to be,” he said. “I needed to know.”

Ah, the wretched crown and its needs. “I can’t say either way whether or not you’ll have a tough time of it,” Erestor said. “He’s a generous-hearted person so maybe he’ll forgive you quickly, but if not, I’ve given him every gift he might care to have so you’ll have no hope of winning his goodwill that way.”

“You underestimate me. But come,” Ereinion laughed, nodding over to where Glorfindel and Egalmoth could be seen waving them over. “It seems we are being summoned.”

He did not say, I shall expect a full recounting later, but Erestor heard him anyway. It was better that he didn’t say such things, it made things easier when Erestor ignored him.

The three of them walked together to Glorfindel and Egalmoth, Erestor and Elrond flanking Ereinion’s sides. Their elbows bumped together and, secretly, Erestor treasured the feeling in his heart.

~*~

Glorfindel sat on the rug next to Egalmoth’s chair and leaned his head against Egalmoth’s knee. Egalmoth placed a hand on his hair and scratched lightly at his scalp.

All six of them—Glorfindel, Egalmoth, Erestor, Elrond, Ereinion, and a young fellow Egalmoth had lovingly introduced as Amlaith—sat cozily around the huge pink stone hearth, nibbling at the last of their supper and sipping tiny cups of floral tea. Glorfindel and Egalmoth sat closest to the fire, but the four others had subtly pulled their armchairs and couches together, clustering away. It was kind of them; Glorfindel and Egalmoth couldn’t have been good conversation if they’d tried.

Glorfindel silently nuzzled at Egalmoth’s knee. His hand curled around his ankle, his thumb brushing up along the tender, vulnerable curve of his tendon. Egalmoth threaded his fingers through Glorfindel’s hair, tracing along the tip of his ear with his pinkie. They had been sitting like this for some time now, quietly absorbing each other’s presence. There were no words for what they were feeling— though Egalmoth might’ve called it joy, and Glorfindel, grief.

The apple wood fire crackled and groaned, scenting the air with faint tendrils of sweet, musky smoke. The oceanic blue of the moonless night sky glowed through the high open windows with multitudes of stars.

Glorfindel stared at the flames, slumping with a lead-heavy exhaustion. Had it really only been a few hours since he’d woken, naked in Erestor’s bed? The lovebites were certainly still fresh and raw, an ever-present hum beneath his skin.

He glanced over to Erestor and, as if he had known, Erestor looked back. Their eyes held, the light from the fire flickering between them.

For a moment a thrill of fear struck through Glorfindel—would things change between them? He didn’t have the strength to even think beyond that one thought, save that he knew a great darkness lay beyond it.

But Erestor’s eyes were warm and soft, and he gave Glorfindel a secret, knowing smile over the rim of his teacup. Softly, Amlaith and Elrond began to sing. Glorfindel closed his eyes.

Glorfindel, Erestor, Ereinion, and Elrond left early the next day to return to Imladris, but Egalmoth and Amlaith promised to follow in a few days’ time, once they had settled things at their house and could afford to be away for a few months.

It rained most of the way back, a light spitting drizzle that caught in tiny crystalline droplets in everyone’s hair. The world unfurled in swathes of deep, dark green and silver mist, the sky and earth melding thickly together with the spicy scent of moist soil and mulch. It could have been a miserable ride, cold and damp, but Erestor pressed tight to Glorfindel’s back and warmed him all the way through.

The four of them took their time, enjoying the countryside and each other’s company. At first Glorfindel said little, shy, but it was hard to stay quiet around three lovely people who were all delighted to hear what he had to say.

He was a little sorry now that he’d never sought Elrond out—he was gentle and soft-spoken, with a sparrow-like sense of humor to match Erestor’s cat-like sensibility. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he had absolutely nothing of Idril or Tuor or even what Glorfindel remembered of Eärendil in him. Instead, he most strongly reminded Glorfindel of Nerdanel, with her deep heart and discerning gaze. This drew up a whole spring of long-buried memories, bittersweet and metallic on the back of his tongue. Elrond seemed to feel the same way looking at him, a sense of recognition passing between them at seeing some lost part of their past walking about in the world with new life.

Gil-galad was an entirely different creature. It was hard to believe that he was at all related to any of the Finwëons, with all their eccentricities and passions. They had been bright as falling comets, radiant and singular in their incontrovertible glory. Gil-galad, in contrast, seemed to be much like his name—a banner of stars that faded in the face of other, greater flames, but remained fixed in the sky as a light when all other lights went out. He was, as Erestor had said, a rather pensive fellow with a wistful streak a league wide, but Glorfindel could see edges of his younger, more wanton self. His mouth had a kind of curling smile and his eyes a wry slide that only an incorrigible— albeit mellowed— tart could manage.

Glorfindel would grow to love them in time, he knew. But right now he loved them for how they illuminated Erestor— there was a new timbre to his laugh at Elrond’s tease, a heft to his sigh at Gil-galad’s melancholy. Glorfindel knew these and a thousand other small, essential things now, thanks to Elrond and Gil-galad.

They continued on this contemplative, tender way as if through a dream. The low grey sky showed no sign of receding, and so there was no way to tell if it was mid-morning or mid-afternoon. Every now and again they’d pass some towering pine or gurgling ravine and either Elrond or Erestor would remark on how many hours they had left, but these measures felt meaningless. An hour could be as long as it took his horse to cross a ridge or his breath to enter and leave his lungs, he didn’t know in this weather.

Somewhere, however— Glorfindel lifted his face to the sky, blinked away the rain.

Somewhere under his stomach there lived a fear. It sloshed about his body as the horse’s gait rocked him.

He was Lord Glorfindel, now, or the man who had been and might yet be Lord Glorfindel, and there was nowhere else to hide.

There had been a moment when, as they made their way through a blueberry thicket, Gil-galad had called his name. Glorfindel. Their eyes had met and, in an unexpected moment of total clarity, Glorfindel realized just how badly Gil-galad wanted to free him. The desire glinted off his whole body like light from the beaten silver of his crown.

But how could the king say, I will release you to name yourself as you wilt, and never remember you as anyone other than who you say you are, without lying? Surely the gods had sent him—Lord Glorfindel— to Middle Earth with a purpose, and no doubt Gil-galad would be the one to set that purpose in motion.

So there would be no escape. Perhaps Egalmoth had been something of a consolation gift—reveal yourself and, in exchange, receive one you had thought forever lost— and, if given the choice between secrecy and Egalmoth, he would choose his friend a thousand times over.

But what would be demanded of him in return? What would he lose—had, perhaps, already lost?

His heart seized, ice cracked his bones—the little stone cottage on the knoll, his garden just now come into its true fullness, the bed he shared with—

Erestor’s hands flexed on his hips. Then, slowly, they circled his waist and Erestor’s whole body sagged against his back, his cheek pressed between his shoulder blades. Glorfindel dipped his head back and felt Erestor’s answering grumble vibrate all the way through his chest. He breathed.

The fear, drop by drop, began to leave him. His old body—with its strangely-made instincts and foresight— knew the fear would leave him completely, given time. Soon enough his new body would know this too, hobbling after like a new faun on unsteady legs.

The rain pulled away just as they crossed the bridge into Imladris, revealing a hollyhock-pink sunset staining the shredded edges of the clouds. Elrond and Ereinion peeled away and bade them goodnight, not even bothering to pretend to invite them to a dinner they would all be too exhausted to enjoy.

This didn’t stop Erestor. “Will you leave us to starve, then, oh my Lord?” he called as Elrond shuffled away to his house.

“Scrounge like a hare in your garden, I care not,” Elrond waved him off, not even bothering to look over his shoulder. “I’m for a bath and then to bed.”

“And you, Ereinion?” Erestor needled unabated. “Do you care so little for me?”

Gil-galad, that slight smile in his mouth, gave him a fond nod that spoke more than anything he might say and followed Elrond.

Erestor watched them go, chuckling. “Ai, I suppose we must scrounge then.”

“I have at least one honeydew melon left, I think,” Glorfindel replied as Elrond and Ereinion disappeared.

“That’ll more than do,” Erestor said, and looped Glorfindel’s hand over his elbow. “Come darling, let’s go home.”

Glorfindel couldn’t help it. He took Erestor’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted his face for a kiss, in full view of the sky and all its hosts— and when Erestor sighed happily into his mouth all his bones clicked in place, home at last.

~*~

Erestor led Glorfindel back along the rain-swelled riverbank to their house. The breeze meandered and rippled along the reeds and water as they made their way up the knoll, cool and wet. It was clear Glorfindel was exhausted, eyes half-lidded and steps small and tentative as they brushed through the sopping grass. Really, Erestor should also be too tired for his politician’s mind—dragon’s mind— to make an appearance, and yet, here it was.

The door opened with a familiar creak and Erestor closed it behind them. Then he leaned back against it, tapping thoughtfully against the wood with his fingernails, tk tk tk. He watched as Glorfindel slouched over the sitting room and flung himself down on the couch like it was his own, which, it probably was, now.

“Were you planning on telling me?” He asked, and as he did he realized that he didn’t need the answer, not really.

“Hm,” Glorfindel hummed, considering.

Erestor went to him and, spreading his thighs, sat down squarely on Glorfindel’s lap. He was sore beyond belief from their journey but pressing up against Glorfindel had never felt anything other than heavenly, so he ground his ass down a little, just to keep things interesting.

Glorfindel lifted his hands and thumbed along the waist of his leggings, his mouth tilting in a little appreciative smile. He didn’t seem perturbed by Erestor’s question, nor in any hurry to answer it. It was simply a question, like, what shall we have for dinner? or, will you pick up your laundry from the washroom? Nothing frightening about it, not anymore.

“I wasn’t planning on it, no,” he said finally, and slid his hands up to unthread the ties on Erestor’s shirt.

“Why not?” Erestor asked, watching with amusement. How novel, to have a Great Lord of Old, Raised from the Dead and Marked with the Gods’ Favor, struggle with his laces. Erestor wasn’t complaining—nor was his cock, perking under his leggings.

“I didn’t want to be him, anymore.” Glorfindel pulled a tie loose and started to work on the next. “And I…”

“You?” Erestor smiled and tucked a length of that glorious curling hair over his ear. You, yes, you. Glorfindel. Glorfindel.

Glorfindel hesitated at the last tie. His lashes lowered, shadowing his eyes. “I heard how you spoke about Gil-galad, how you feel that he is so often the king first, and your friend second. I couldn’t bear it if you felt I was Lord Glorfindel first, and your—”

Erestor ran a thumb along Glorfindel’s lip and his tongue darted out to lick it. “My what,” he purred low and wicked, smearing Glorfindel’s saliva over that plush softness.

The tips of Glorfindel’s ears blushed pink and he wordlessly ducked his head, bashful.

Erestor’s dragon mind opened its mouth, scenting the air. “Hmm, my what, I wonder?” he mused, and dug both hands back in the mass of Glorfindel’s hair. Glorfindel groaned and leaned into it, his hands falling limp from Erestor’s laces to clutch helplessly at his waist.

“Shall I fetch that lovely ribbon and tie it around your neck, hm? Would that help you speak?” Erestor gripped hard at Glorfindel’s hair, and—yes, there it was, that cascade of overwhelming need glazing Glorfindel’s eyes, slackening his mouth, and—and yes, quickening his cock where it pressed up against Erestor’s thigh.

“My what, Glorfindel?” Erestor cajoled. “My sweetheart? My lover?” He rolled his body up against Glorfindel and let his tunic slip down around his shoulders, exposing his nipples to the chill air.

Glorfindel groaned and, unable to help himself, seized Erestor close and opened his mouth over his chest, nipping and suckling incoherently at him.

Erestor gasped, breath short in his throat, gods, that felt good—but he dragged Glorfindel back. “My what, Glorfindel,” he commanded.

“Your wife,” Glorfindel whined— but then with a jolt he realized what he had said and his face burst into crimson as he stared, eyes as round as coins, up at Erestor.

Erestor gaped at him, ears ringing. Oh. Oh yes—

Glorfindel shifted uncomfortably, and—

Erestor wrenched him up by the hair—“Glorfindel,” he hissed, “If you move a single inch you’re going to make me come, oh gods, my wife—!” and he dove down and captured Glorfindel’s mouth, drinking deep, oh Eru Above, his wife—

Glorfindel caught him up and threw him back down against the couch, indiscriminately stripping their clothing away until they were both naked, writhing together. Erestor had spilled sometime in the intervening seconds, he didn’t know when—all he could feel was Glorfindel thrusting along the vee of his hip, slicking his way with the come still spattered against his skin—gods yes, Glorfindel, like that, come for me, you perfect beautiful thing, you— his mouth at Erestor’s neck, panting harshly, and then, with one final shudder, he came on Erestor’s belly. He gaped at Erestor, almost bewildered, and then his arms gave out and he collapsed against his chest, spent.

“Glorfindel,” Erestor rasped, catching his breath. Gods. Gods.

“Hm?” Glorfindel’s great weight pressed against him, unmoving.

“This is what I want you to do.” Erestor brushed his nose along the tip of Glorfindel’s ear, felt an answering tremor. “I want you to go find that ribbon and bring it to me.” Glorfindel sucked in a breath. “Then, when you’ve cleaned up the mess you’ve made on yourself, I want you to come to our bed. Then,” Erestor’s voice dipped to a whisper as he ran the tips of his fingers up over Glorfindel’s trembling back. “I am going to tie that ribbon around your neck and fuck you, my pretty little wife, until you can’t remember any name, much less your own, oh, Glorfindel, oh darling—”

Glorfindel shivered and spilled again, weakly, against Erestor’s thighs.

Erestor slapped his ass. “Now.”

Glorfindel obeyed, bless him, and Erestor, feeling richer than a whole flock of dragons, went to prepare to take his wife to bed.

~*~

Glorfindel wavered in the doorway, the ribbon bundled up in his hands. The velveteen crinkled against his skin, demanding. Whatever happened to the peaceful weariness of a few minutes ago? Immaterial. What was the terror of his past compared to this, whatever this was? Insignificant. Leave it to him to think his soul finally neatly ordered, only for some unforeseen cataclysm to come in and scatter him. He’d blurted out one word—which even now he could not even think lest he dissolve— and he’d never before felt so—so naked, so unveiled. His body rippled with goosebumps, stirring everything up.

Erestor lay back against the pillows and watched him, pointer finger held idly between his teeth. Absurd man, he couldn’t even be bothered to hide the rapacious tilt in his smile as he leisurely stroked his full, flushed cock, already slicked and glistening in preparation.

Glorfindel squirmed under his gaze, so uncertain— yes, better to say uncertain and not virginal. He hovered somewhere between clutching the ribbon to his chest and modestly covering himself, hands held awkwardly against his belly, every brush of the fabric inscribing the calamitous truth on his skin.

Erestor was going to have him, all of him, wrapped up like a Yuletide present in a neat pink bow. He was going to wreck him, raze him to the ground, consume him entirely.

In the meantime he seemed content to wait for his prey to step closer. In fact, he looked to be enjoying Glorfindel’s hesitance, taking his time as he perused his body, those smoky green eyes journeying indolently over his thighs and hips, tracing up his belly and along his collarbones, lingering on his cock and breast. Glorfindel stood, pinned, unable to do anything but pant shallowly and clutch the ribbon— and then Erestor licked his lips, and oh, this man was going to devour him whole.

Erestor crooked his finger at him. “Come here.”

That voice. Surrendering, Glorfindel stumbled to the bed and crawled up over the quilts—only for his limbs to falter at the last moment. Could he bear what would come next? He’d been so confident last time, brazen in his display with the ribbon and the clinging tunic— but then he’d given Erestor the word, and now he couldn’t even hold his body together. Stalled a few inches from Erestor’s side he drooped down, boneless over the quilt. He curled the ribbon to his breastbone, protective—as if the ribbon were a treasure greater than even his name.

Erestor tsked. “Come now,” he murmured and rolled to face him, propping himself on his elbow. “Why all this timidity?” He ran a light finger over Glorfindel’s throat, following the leaping pulse.

Glorfindel closed his eyes, overcome— and then he took a deep breath, held it, dipped down in the last trickles of his courage and—

He leaned down and sucked Erestor’s fingers into his mouth.

“Oh, very good,” Erestor growled, petting at his tongue before thrusting further inside. Glorfindel groaned around them, at how they filled him—

But Erestor refused to have mercy on him. “Come here,” he chuckled darkly, pulling his fingers away. “On my lap.”

Glorfindel struggled up, buoyed by Erestor’s command— but again, only halfway. He straddled Erestor but held himself a little above his thighs, his ass almost but not quite touching down. His legs shook with the effort but, if he relented, relaxed down onto Erestor’s body—what would happen to him? His vision sparked, dizzy with transformation— lord to gardener to both and now, to— to what? He’d said that word, and now Erestor held that word in his mouth, and—he hunched over himself, the precipice, ribbon still threaded tight between his fingers.

Erestor stroked his shaking thighs, ran his thumbs up the vulnerable skin to the join in his hips.

Oh, when had Glorfindel become this hard, flushed purple and dripping? Erestor brushed up under the crown of his cock and caught a drop against his knuckles, then brought it to his lips and lapped it up, grinning.

“Will you give that to me?” he asked, looking intently at the ribbon.

Glorfindel wanted to—wanted—more than anything else—

“Darling,” Erestor murmured. He flattened his hand against Glorfindel’s belly, smoothed away the tremors. Gods, this man.

And, finally, Glorfindel uncurled his hands and gave the ribbon away. Erestor took it, pulled it through with a faint shhhhh. Glorfindel’s thighs relaxed and, with a long sigh, he settled his weight down fully.

“There we go,” Erestor hummed. Then, before Glorfindel had too much time to think about things, Erestor looped the ribbon up, under his hair, around his neck, and, with a quick twist, fastened it in a neat bow.

Glorfindel felt his breath abandon him and his vision hazed at the edges, the ribbon pressing with that soft, unbearable, heaviness against his throat, oh gods, oh— oh—

Some alchemy concluded itself inside him and everything slid downward, his whole self down a funnel to this one singular— singular here, whatever here was, with his hair spilling around his face and his body held in thrall to a velveteen bow and Erestor, Erestor solid beneath him like the earth itself—

“I need you,” he slurred. “Erestor I—”

“I have you,” Erestor groaned, already reaching between them to press the crown of his cock up against Glorfindel’s entrance. It was nothing to rise that short way and then sink back down again, filling himself utterly with Erestor’s cock—

Glorfindel rocked once, testing the stretch and heft of the weight inside him. Then he planted his hands over Erestor’s ribcage, lifted his hips and began to ride, quick and hard, a cry bubbling up in his throat as he plunged Erestor’s cock inside himself over and over and over, Erestor— Erestor inside him, every empty space filled with— with him—

Erestor hissed between his teeth, planted his heels in the bed, and snapped his hips up, racing to keep in time with Glorfindel’s wild roll. “Eru Above, Glorfindel—” he grit out, Glorfindel working himself into a lather over him—

And then he reached up and hooked his fingers in the ribbon and—

Glorfindel spilled with a strangled cry over Erestor’s chest, splattering up his breast and neck with the force of it, vision going dark—

Erestor slowed, paused. Glorfindel gulped at the air, heart pounding and body clenching around Erestor’s cock as he struggled to keep himself upright. He couldn’t think—couldn’t think anything at all with Erestor holding the ribbon around his neck like— like that—

Erestor still hadn’t let go. Glorfindel lolled his head against his knuckles, a vain attempt to nuzzle, to plead, don’t let go—

For a moment Erestor rubbed the ribbon between his fingers, testing. Then his eyes narrowed with dark intent and, with surprising strength for his slight frame, he lifted Glorfindel up and spread him back down against the bed. Glorfindel whimpered as Erestor’s cock left him, wordless, grasping, but Erestor wasn’t gone for long.

“Here, like this,” he murmured as he slipped one of Glorfindel’s legs over his shoulder. His fingers released the ribbon to better position him and no— Glorfindel sobbed, floating—

Erestor splayed one hand out over Glorfindel’s chest and pinned him down. With the other he positioned his cock right at Glorfindel’s entrance, brushing but not quite—

“What a sight you are,” he mused, his even tone belied by the sheen of sweat beading on his brow. “Spread out for me, like this.”

Glorfindel couldn’t reply, not with Erestor staring at him like that. He squeezed his eyes shut and canted his hips, asking, begging—

“Look at me, darling—” Erestor’s hand slid up, around Glorfindel’s neck and Glorfindel’s eyes flew to his, met that inexorable green blaze— “My darling, my wife, let me see you come apart.”

And he slid forward and buried his cock deep inside and—yes yes yes— Glorfindel arched his back and—your wife yes gods please yes— the ribbon strained against his neck and—oh, oh— he keened, oh gods, oh Erestor—

And the last drops of himself finally spiraled down into the here and everything in him shrank and condensed into a point of pure white light, a star, falling—and caught, held in Erestor’s cupped hands.

Glorfindel lay limp afterwards, breaths evening out, bruised and overjoyed and gods, he really shouldn’t have done that after two days of riding and an evening of having been ridden.

Erestor—sweaty and slumped over Glorfindel’s chest, cock still twitching in his ass—nibbled up at his neck. “So now, dear wife,” he chuckled, propping his chin up on his hands. “It seems to me that we’ve done this backwards. When are we going to wed?”

Glorfindel rested his head back on his threaded hands and, feeling smug, grinned at him. “I was thinking that we might wed after Gil-galad has reintroduced me back to society. You know, with the lord title and the house name.”

Erestor raised a brow. “Why then?”

Glorfindel shrugged nonchalantly. “I thought it would appeal to your vanity, to marry a High Lord of Old.”

Erestor pinched him, but didn’t deny it. “Come, you old fool,” he said, rolling away with a squelch and a grimace. “We have to change the quilts.”

Glorfindel watched him go to the linen closet, unmoving. He’d have to move eventually, of course—he was hot and sticky and if he shifted, he knew he’d feel Erestor’s come dribbling out of him. But for the moment it was better to lean back, relax, and watch Erestor’s ass sway as he fetched the quilts.

What a perfect thing, to lie spent and well-used on a bed and watch his lover fiddle around with the linens. He sighed, replete.

Erestor came back to him and, taking a long, fond look at him, set the quilts aside and sat down. The mattress dipped with his weight and Glorfindel slid into the hollow his body made, curving around him. Together they stared out the window, Erestor kneading absently at Glorfindel’s thigh.

A chill night wind billowed through the curtains and ran over their skin, ruffled through their hair. The scent of his rain-swelled garden followed, smelling like wet flowers and thick vegetables and rich earth and home.

Erestor turned to him, brushed Glorfindel’s hair away, cupped his cheek, thumbed his mouth. “And how is my dear wife,” he murmured, almost a whisper.

Glorfindel kissed his palm, throat tightening. “Better than you can know,” he said, the words coming up through him thick and raw.

“Good,” Erestor said. Then he leaned down, his hair falling in a curtain around them, and kissed him.