Fic: Fox in Winter 7/7
Evening found him with his clothes chest open, pondering the contents. Smell and feel. Grooming. This was ground he was familiar with. When he had done what he could he went to look for Elladan.
“What do you think?”
Elladan stood back from his doorway and stared. “Who is this? You look - stunning.”
“Not ridiculous?”
“You look like you’ll get snapped up by the first horny female that sets eyes on you.” Something in Elrohir’s eyes gave him pause and he amended, “Or male? Just who is the lucky man? This I want to watch!”
Elrohir blushed furiously. “You’ll see, I suppose.”
“You’ve been very friendly with Erestor, I know, but he’s really, really not going to do more than give you a good time. You do know that, don’t you?”
“It’s not him. He’s amazing though, Elladan. I don’t think we quite realized just what he is.”
“I’m not sure we could if he’s lived, what, ten times as long as we’ve been alive?”
Elrohir looked dismayed at the ready comparison. “It’s Gildor,” he confessed.
Elladan’s jaw dropped.
“Bugger,” he said, and sat down on his bed, the nearest piece of furniture. “Oh, by the Valar, does he even know?”
Never had Elrohir been more glad he had kept his own counsel so long, And glad too, that he had first talked to calm, practical Erestor, Gildor’s friend, who surely knew more than his brother. Surely?
He smoothed the fabric of his clothes, and for no reason ran his fingers around his hair-line, behind his ears, gathering his already confined hair between his hands as if calming an unruly animal.
“Wish me luck, brother.”
Elladan just nodded, speechless.
However, as Elrohir meandered through the house, he felt a little better, reassured by various looks he garnered. He had never realized the effect clothes could have. Signals, he thought. Erestor was right.
Behaviour.
Hunting. I’m hunting. He searched the house, and found Gildor earthed in Elrond’s study with his father. Two birds with one stone. Right.
“Good day, father. Gildor.”
They looked up a little surprised at his formal tone. “Elrohir,” his father nodded cautiously. Gildor eyed his clothes - suspiciously, thought Elrohir. That need not hurt his plans…
“Am I interrupting?” he asked politely.
“Not really. Is there something I can do for you?” His father was on the alert, but not so much as Gildor who was now inspecting every inch of Elrohir’s person minutely.
“I just wanted to make sure you knew how old I am, father. In the light of a schedule we agreed, if you remember?”
Elrond suddenly looked as intensely interested as Gildor. His eyebrow went right up. “I remember something of the sort, yes.”
Their eyes met and Elrohir read the question in his father’s - and love and hope for his son. Then Elrond glanced at Gildor and added rather more thoughtfully, “You long since passed the measure we agreed, as I recall?” A subtle upturning of his hand indicated he was not going to interfere.
Elrohir smiled gravely, despite his heart jumping in his throat, “Thank you, sir.” He turned to Gildor.
“Lord Gildor, Erestor has made me an offer that I would like your advice on. If now is inconvenient, I can wait,” but not another bloody three hundred and eighty four years.
Hah. That did it, he thought, while maintaining his bland appearance as Gildor shot out of his chair and muttered to Elrond, “I think I should talk to him about this, if you’ll excuse me.”
He strode past Elrohir to the door, darkly inviting him to follow with a look of severe disapproval. As soon as the door was shut, he hissed, “In those clothes? Have you any idea what you look like?”
“Attractive?” said Elrohir, sweetly. “Fuckable?”
Gildor looked at him, looked at his lips, and Elrohir did not think he had ever seen Gildor look stricken before.
“So you are willing to talk to me about Erestor’s offer? I know he told you about it.”
“Have you any idea how old he is?”
“As old as you? Older? Why, don’t elves your age fuck, my lord?”
“Watch your mouth,” said Gildor in sharp rebuke.
Elrohir dropped his eyes long enough to say, “Sorry, Gildor,” and thought, Challenge, tussle. So far so good.
Then he added, “Even so, - you’re old, I’m young, yet we’re both adults.” Looking up again, he met Gildor’s rather grim gaze. “Sometimes I think I will never, ever be a grown man in other people’s eyes. I will never be able to ask if the past is really the past and gone or if all this is just a waiting time. Waiting to be reunited, one way or another.”
His voice drifted off, suddenly quiet. “Gildor, shall I…” and all his bravura deserted him at the enormity of what he was attempting. He flushed.
“I’m sorry. Forget it. I’ll just - ” He turned away, not blindly. Not faltering.
A hand stopped him. “You’re not going to Erestor dressed like that. You’re not going to do anything stupid.”
“What, like getting fucked?” The anger of years of frustration burst out. “Since when is it stupid to love? To want to be loved? To feel it so badly it hurts, and not even to know what it is?” Now he was crying. Hot tears, that to Gildor’s eyes made him look a desperate contrast of allure and passion of quite another kind.
Gildor was appalled at Elrohir’s sudden burst of frustration and what it must betoken.
“You love him? So much? There’s no need to cry.”
But there was. Manifestly there was, with Erestor’s heart given long ago elsewhere. Gildor watched, helplessly. There was no mistaking the gut-deep sincerity of what he saw.
“No,” said Elrohir, suddenly looking up. “You. I love you.”
They stared at each other across a gulf of years and experience that rocked Gildor to the core - five thousand years and two lost lands separated them, as well as countless wars, lives, and yes, loves. But the youth looking at him so fiercely was no child, no matter that he had known him as one. And that look in his eyes…
“How long - ” His voice sounded rusty. “How long have you thought - known - you feel like this?”
Desolate, desperate, half-angry, Elrohir stared at him. “All my life, I think.” He tipped his chin up, defiantly.
Waiting to be rejected. And - those clothes are for me? Gildor tilted his head. He fetched out the tail of his shirt, one of the loose, white, laced-at-the-front affairs he affected, and said, “Come here.”
Elrohir glared at him, but did, and Gildor took his arm, and, with his other hand, tipped his chin toward the light. Gently, he soaked up each damp patch, and let Elrohir go. “Elrohir - ”
He cleared his throat.
“Elrohir, the idea is new to me. Not to you, I know but to me. Erestor tried to tell me. Don’t look at me like that, alright? I’m not going to laugh at you.” He looked around, “Here, come on,” and he dragged Elrohir out by the nearest door which gave onto a side garden of herb beds and from there to the wilds through an opening in the hedge.
Gildor pushed Elrohir down onto a seat cut into a fallen tree beside the path and sat beside him, watching him closely as he spoke.
“Erestor says you’ve never - Elrohir, that’s not because of me, is it?”
Elrohir just looked at him - and then words tumbled out. “Have you ever even done it with a man yourself? Would you even want to? With me?”
Gildor’s mouth quirked. He let himself smile. “I did not know what it was I felt when Erestor said you’d approached him. But I hated the idea of the two of you. He could see - ”
“See what?” Elrohir’s eyes were fixed on his face.
“He could see I was furious, and the way he said it had not happened yet was so - damn reassuring.” Gildor eyed Elrohir. “Those clothes are for me?”
Elrohir nodded, suddenly feeling riveted to his seat, stiff and unsure.
Gildor moved only his arm, touched the thick blue silk, trailed a dreadlock and then flicked it back, “Ridiculous things,” he murmured, but with affection, and then the back of his hand found Elrohir’s thigh and the darker blue it was encased in, rich, dark purple-blue velvet. The colour of the night sky when it lightens toward dawn, thought Gildor, and ran his hand up and down Elrohir’s leg.
“I didn’t understand.” It was a whisper and Gildor had to strain to hear. Louder, “I looked it up. About soul-mates, I could not understand why I always felt this way. Are you - going to look for your wife, when you can?”
Gildor’s hand found Elrohir’s cheek while he thought of all the times he had wondered just that when Elostirion and its palantir called him. Avallónë and those who dwelled in the Lonely Isle had long occupied his thoughts in that tower. He had always assumed Ariennel was his future, in some distant time when the sea called him, too. And he had felt guilty he could not be glad of it. He had feared the call of the West and not known why. He had made sure to visit Elostirion regularly, so he would never forget; to be prepared.
With difficulty, he said, “Ariennel and I were happy together. Our lives were joy.” Elrohir’s eyes spoke volumes but he said nothing to interrupt.
“Our sons were like you, fearless and a touch wild,” Elrohir nearly smiled at that, “and we made a new home in Lindon. Ariennel and I were the best of friends, but we were not so much in love as loving. When she sailed, and I did not, she did not mind. I think - Elrohir, I think I reminded her of our children, and she was glad to part.”
Elrohir was silent, Gildor sat for a while staring at the trees. “When you were born, you brought back the glory of the world for me. My own childhood and its wonders. My sons’ youth and all their happiness. My cousins and I, roaming free with Finarfin and his nephews betimes.”
He brought his gaze back to Elrohir and looked at him. “The answer to your question, is yes. I have done it - fucked - with a man. Erestor tells me you have not?”
Breathlessly, Elrohir stared at him, eyes huge. “Yes. No.” He shook his head, but Gildor was already sliding over the little distance between them.
And then he kissed him, a matter of lips and strange press of mouth to mouth, gently done. Gildor drew back and gave a queer laugh. “Your father is going to kill me. Your father is going to send me up the Cuivienen for this.”
Elrohir reached out his hand and tentatively slid it into a few of Gildor’s curls. He pulled and let them bounce back, once freed. “I’m not so sure about that. We talked…” He took another handful of hair and drew Gildor back to him, as if he handled someone shy, not a man who had seen everything.
“Kiss me? Like Elladan said? Like wine and passion and fingers sliding on skin and - Gildor?” He knew he was begging. He hated it. He could not help it. After all this time, it was actually possible. And if Gildor refused him -
So close it was hard to focus, Gildor’s eyes were on his, and Gildor’s hands closed around his shoulders. It was a hard kiss, harder than he had imagined, and it made him feel it was going to be alright.
Their clothes were awkward between them, with hard buckles and buttons, and Gildor’s mouth did not draw back but pressed against his own and Elrohir clasped him around his body and then his hands were in Gildor’s hair, his eyes closed -
Words fled. Time escaped him. Gildor did not let go. They shifted on the hard wood, bones digging in to each other, and didn’t care. Drinking each other, thought Elrohir. He didn’t say that. Words skittered away, fragmented by the magic Gildor was working just by wanting to hold him. Elrohir inched a little closer and Gildor laughed hoarsely in his ear.
“Sure you don’t want Erestor?”
Elrohir kissed him for answer, punishing the question with soft lips and his tongue’s petition. It was a while before they took breath apart and sat up, slightly dizzy and wholly bemused.
Elrohir reached a hand to Gildor’s face. “So beautiful,” he said, and when he smiled, he looked like he’d been blessed. Gildor drew him in to his side and they sat there, quiet in the night, so still that the fox loping past barely halted in his stride to glance their way, and even Erestor took a few seconds to see them. He went on his way without disturbing them, any more than the stars in their courses.
Elrohir, looking up at the sky, one hand in Gildor’s fingers, asked, “Is fucking as good as kissing?”
Gildor stiffened and snorted and broke out laughing.
The fox fled in alarm but with a heel of bread already firmly in his mouth, while Erestor, up on the hill, cocked his head and smiled. He promised himself to steer well clear of the house until Elrond calmed down.
Palanithil’s colt would make a fine gift for Elrohir, he decided, and then, all well with his world, he dismissed them from his mind in favour of the autumn night awaiting him. Winter’s promise was in the air, and the smells of the wood were calling.
*** The End ***
Names:
Daint Beraidh - Steep Falls
Helegond - Ice Rock
Taen-in-Erais - Deer Heights
Tirn-e-Hir - River’s Guardian
Dolfaun - Cloud Head
Palanithil - Distant Moon