*** Second Age After the Fall of Eregion ***
The sun rises,
The sun sets
And the earth turns
While love is found
And lost
And found again.
But you I will love eternally.
***
Chapter Seven
Never had he been so careful of another. Never so attentive. When he slid a hand under Erestor’s tunic and heard Erestor draw in his breath, he made sure to go no further than the warm, flat stomach with its sharp boundary of hip bones and arc of ribs above. He found the flat expanse enormously erotic, and swept his thumb in a wide arc, intent on Erestor’s reaction. The dark head dipped a little, hands stole at last to Lindir’s sleeves, brushed up to his shoulders.
Almost without breath stirring his lips, Erestor said one word, “Lindir.”
Lindir knew then he had won, and could have sung his triumph to the sky. Certainly, the music in his head rolled in rising major crescendos while he stayed stock-still until he found the words he wanted. “I will never hurt you again as I have.”
“Do not promise what you cannot deliver. You are egocentric, obsessed and arrogant. Will you make yourself a liar as well? This attention you pay me now is because you thought you had lost me and found you wanted me still. Do you deny it?”
For a long moment Lindir, who was learning to know himself better, did not have a word to say to that, minstrel though he was. He knew himself to be a pleasing lover, but in other matters was more than capable of being obtuse and buried in his calling. “I could try very hard, for you,” he said, as honestly as he was able, thinking it very lame and deserving of scorn.
Instead he earned a soundless laugh – expression of Erestor’s reservations, perhaps – together with an answer he did not deserve. “I might like to see that.”
Erestor had no heart to refuse what he most earnestly desired himself. Calling himself all manner of a fool, he gave free rein to the action he had been wanting to indulge, knowing it would open the floodgates for both of them.
If Lindir heard Erestor’s low answer with surprise, he was astonished by the kiss that followed. Lips on his own, hands holding his arms, Erestor not seeking entry but issuing invitation, moving into the embrace and hovering at the gateway of passion, willing to be escorted through the doors at the Harper’s behest. Lips on Lindir’s own that parted at the least touch of his tongue, and that met pressure for pressure while allowing all that Lindir took. And take he did, with one hand at the back of Erestor’s head to hold him firmly, another tilting his jaw to the angle that suited him. Erestor made no demur and Lindir had to catch his breath and pause.
“Do you know how much I want you?”
“As much as I want you?”
Did Erestor sound ashamed? Lindir leaned close to see his expression in what dim light the evening afforded. Erestor did not quite meet his eyes. Determinedly hiding all his disappointment, Lindir drew him into a warm hug. “You are not easy about this. We should go in.”
Another laugh, this time a bitter one. “Easy? Hardly. But still I did not expect to be rejected.” Erestor drew away, suddenly proud and deeply angry.
Lindir would not allow it, not if that was how he felt. “No, you don’t. What have I said now? Of course I do not reject you. But if you will not look at me…”
The dark head hung once more in front of Lindir, and then lifted as if defiantly. Almost coldly, Erestor said, “Very well. Look your fill.”
Lindir ran his thumb under Erestor’s lower eyelashes. “You want me, then.”
“Have you any idea how angry I am with you?” He shivered, filled with mixed emotions. He had known where this walk would lead, in more ways than one.
“Penance, amends, reparation – name what you will and I will do it. But now it is time for other things I think…” He moved close, not quite touching, waiting for some sign of assent. Erestor moved too and it was all the signal Lindir needed.
The hill where they stood afforded shelter enough for the impatience that both elves harboured. Lindir gave up his careful hesitations and followed his instincts and his body’s wants as he heeded Erestor’s cues. Something to lie on, something comfortable for Erestor – he doffed his tunic and spread it flat, and then folded leggings and shirt together once and then twice as a sort of cushion. He laid them down and turned to Erestor, not wanting to give him too much time to think. Clothes first, he decided, not repeating the pattern of last time, and his musician’s fingers efficiently stripped Erestor of his tunic shirt and breeches, only pausing a moment to find the different fastenings of this stouter farming attire. He knelt to draw them down, while Erestor looked down on him, bent head matching the dusky shadows settling beneath the trees. Lindir found the fabric caught at Erestor’s left knee, and while Erestor tensed, Lindir worked the cloth free of the casing round the joint. He smoothed his hands down thigh and calf, before taking off Erestor’s boots, with Erestor’s hand rested on his shoulder for balance.
Before he stood, he pressed a kiss into Erestor’s groin, nose and mouth finding the soft place at the top of his hip while his left hand firmly planted just below his backside enjoyed the feel of a handful of warm, muscled thigh. Lindir’s cheek was stroked by other parts and he held that errant evidence of Erestor’s interest between his palm and lips for a second, brief kiss. Then he stood.
“Will you sit with me?”
Erestor came where he was led, and sat where Lindir settled him between his legs, leaning against Lindir’s warm chest. Lindir’s hands grasped him unhesitantly about his inner thighs and pulled him closer, hard into his body.
Erestor exhaled sharply, and then murmured, “You realize this does not change how I feel…”
“Yes, hush, I know. I don’t expect you to forgive me easily…” He kissed Erestor’s throat, and let his right hand settle around Erestor’s prick, palm folding around, fingers closing firmly, thumb moving, while he wrapped his left arm closely about Erestor’s belly holding him in to his body. Erestor was moving against him and Lindir forgot all else save his hand and the feel of Erestor, the movements of the elf between his legs and chest, their bodies encased one about the other. “I promise,” he said quietly in Erestor’s ear, “I will heed whatever you tell me. At any time.”
“So you say,” came the unconvinced answer even while Erestor’s hips lifted against the pressure of the hand on his belly.
“As if you were the leader of the music, I will listen, watch and follow,” repeated Lindir. “You can play me as you will, Erestor.” He felt Erestor harder in his hand, damp to the touch, and heard Erestor breathy under the hair that spread annoyingly between them. He nosed it away, awkward gestures that did little good, but he would not let go with either hand to achieve better.
“It is you who have played me, Minstrel Lord,” said Erestor. “Oh, Valar…” He came as silently as an owl on the wing, with a rush of intense feeling that lifted him in Lindir’s hands and reduced him to a limp armful of satisfied elf.
They rested for a while until, conversationally, Erestor said the two things most on his mind these last weeks. “Did I tell you I hate you? And anyway, how long will you bother with a half-healed elf?” He made to turn round, the better to play his own part to Lindir’s need, not quite sure how they would accomplish that, but dutifully willing having been given his own pleasure with such mind-stealing deftness.
Lindir however forestalled him. “Not here. This is no good for you here.” He hesitated over saying anything about the injury, deeming it best to take thought over his words on the matter. Erestor had said so little about it yet. And he could, in time, show his beautiful, doubtful ellon just how interested he was in him. He fetched Erestor’s clothes to him, shaken out, held to put on, and pulled neatly about him. Then he did the same for himself. “We should find somewhere comfortable. Your rooms…”
“We will make an unseemly display,” said Erestor.
“The whole of Imladris knows I come here, the settlement sees me hanging at your tails – what on earth do you think they expect? Chastity?” Surprise had him verging on laughter.
Erestor flushed. “The children…”
“Erestor! They *know* where those piglets came from. They are farm children – and the city ones are just as knowing, in my opinion.”
Erestor mumbled something indistinct.
“What? No, say it again, Erestor, so I can hear you.”
“Shirreal is female…” Erestor felt himself to be bright red.
Lindir took pause at that. Of all things Erestor might say, he did not expect this. “Well, we should go back to the house anyway, surely? Whatever we intend.” He pondered for a few strides. “Are you *ashamed*, that one of us is not a woman?”
“Not exactly – but if the children have not seen such love before…”
“…it is high time they did,” finished Lindir for him, firmly. “Well, not see it, you know what I mean. And do not worry so, if the elders did not approve, you would have known it – or more likely, I would have – long since. Your room or mine?”
Erestor laughed at the brazen expectation that flying their flag high would meet with acceptance and put it down to nobility growing up naturally confident and arrogant. “Mine. More comfortable.”
“Very well.” They went the rest of the way in silence, Erestor anxious, mostly about how to go about the business with his knee restricting their choices, Lindir with only one thing on his mind for the most part, discomfort familiar ally with anticipation on account of what waited for surcease in his leggings. Erestor need not have worried. Lindir, obsessed as he had been with the thought of Erestor, had not and was not likely ever to forget the moment of disaster that had happened in their last throes of attempted intimacy and had plenty of ideas that he thought might work. If Erestor only let him try them out. All of them, he thought firmly, in good time. The door shut behind them, he kissed Erestor once, briefly, and looked at him in the light. “Alright?”
Erestor nodded. Lindir smiled and Erestor knew he was lost; if Lindir proved true, or kind, he would count himself lucky, but meanwhile he wanted this terribly. One hand moved of its own volition to Lindir’s clothes, the other followed, and he concentrated on undoing laces, laying aside garments. He made to free Lindir’s boots.
“No. Leave those.” Lindir decisively stopped Erestor’s awkward reach downwards with a fast hand on his arm. He sat down to take off his boots and his leggings and then watched Erestor undress. Abruptly he said, “I have not stopped wanting you from the moment I first saw you naked.”
Erestor stopped to look at him, and then sat beside him on the edge of the bed to draw off his own boots and trousers – clumsy farming stuff but sturdy for their purpose, Lindir owned – and they sat a moment.
“Part naked,” corrected Erestor. He had rather enjoyed that beclothed campaign. Then he turned to face him, “Lindir…”
Lindir put a hand up to his mouth, spread his fingers over lips he wanted for other things, “It will be alright. You’ll see.”
Erestor fell quiet, dark eyes large, seeing where Lindir looked – his mouth – feeling where those long fingers still rested and subtly pressed with luxurious awareness. Setting a hand on Lindir’s arm he tugged him up and off the bed. The silence was filled with heavy tension between them.
Lindir never took his eyes off him. He stood up, made his way to stand between Erestor’s knees obedient to the fingers clasped on his forearm. When Erestor drew him that last step forward, it was Lindir’s turn to bend his head to look down, fine hair now securely braided back in a tail, green eyes more than satisfied, watching as Erestor ran his hands up Lindir’s thighs.
Valar, how he wanted him – Erestor felt his whole body respond to the thought of Lindir taking hold of him as he had before (his mind jumped at the thought of last time’s error and skipped over that sketchily, even while he let one hand drop to his own knee and pat the wrapping snugly fastened there), remembered him pressing him down… A bit shakily he enjoyed every moment as he touched his lips to Lindir’s flesh, ran his hands over thighs and hips and around behind, where he laid hold of muscle and some of the larger bulk of Lindir compared with himself. He liked the size of him. Tall, large… he sighed a small exhalation that ran a chill over the erection he was about to grow thoroughly acquainted with. He glanced up, and found Lindir watching him with a curiously intense expression.
“You don’t have to. If you don’t want to,” he said, quietly. “Nothing you don’t want.”
Erestor laughed a little and turned back to the feel of solid legs between his; used one hand to take hold of Lindir’s stiff, wavering penis only to laugh again when it jerked at his touch. He cupped Lindir’s balls and opened his mouth to go to work in earnest. He smiled around warm skin hearing Lindir’s breathing deepen. Tongue, lips, hands – all knew their business. Another smile of satisfaction when fingers wound tightly in his hair, and he heard Lindir murmur, “Erestor, Valar, you are so good…”
Good? Perhaps. He had never had any complaints, he knew that much. His own desire was stoked high by Lindir’s pleasure.
Once Lindir was fully occupying his mouth, Erestor let one hand migrate back to Lindir’s arse to enjoy the hard flex of muscles as Lindir swayed his gently moving hips to the rhythm Erestor chose, holding back from what he surely desired to do. Erestor grinned again. He knew perfectly well what Lindir wanted right now… Those hands were the giveaway. While Lindir was decorously doing little more than follow the indications of Erestor’s enveloping mouth, throat and tongue, careful not to press any deeper than Erestor drew him in, his hands were tense and rigidly hanging onto captive hanks of hair and braid.
He drew back, duly released as he tugged against the handholds, touching his wrist to his mouth, cursorily removing some of the wetness spread there from Lindir and his own saliva.
He set his hand on Lindir’s arm in quiet question.
“On the bed, Erestor. Lie on the bed.”
And Erestor obeyed, laying himself a little down the covers, and as he thought, Lindir settled over him once Erestor’s hands pressed a thigh, pulled his other leg up and over – Lindir found his mouth again, first with a kiss and then at Erestor’s nod and tug, with the head of his erection. He used one hand to draw the blunt thickness over Erestor’s lips, teasing a little as Erestor opened his mouth expecting something more summary. Lindir enjoyed looking down his own body, playing Erestor’s mouth, seeing Erestor play along, tongue caressing what it could as Lindir moved lazily back and forth, rubbing those seeking lips, letting him suck a little, withdrawing. Erestor was as aroused as he was, those eyes drowning with languid intent and desire. Erestor’s hand found Lindir’s balls and Lindir reached behind him and found Erestor’s body with his hand.
“Do you want this, Erestor?” he asked, just to hear the answer, to hear Erestor say it.
Erestor opened his eyes fully and frowned darkly at him. “This offer expires in the time it will take me to take two more breaths. And just so you know, I still hate you.”
Ah, the elf was not for that particular game then. At least, not tonight. Lindir smiled at him and closed his knees a bit, enough for Erestor to feel himself tightly held. He watched Erestor’s eyes subside once more into drowned desire, lips open and questing… Lindir’s stomach lost its grounding as desire took him as fully as he intended to take Erestor. He took the opening offered, felt the soft mouth close about him, felt the slick throat close against him and then open as Erestor swallowed. Lindir put a hand to the bedstead to balance himself and withdrew, stretching forwards for support and backwards at the same time to keep hold of Erestor. Now it was he who set the rhythm, pausing to check Erestor was willing – the mouth around him sucked on him hard, the hands at his hips closed hard and pulled – Lindir pressed home.
In time, he cried out softly and collapsed to the mattress, leaving Erestor free to catch his breath gradually.
“Pits of Demons,” breathed Lindir, somewhat coarsely.
They both turned to look at each other. Lindir pulled Erestor nearer, and took hold of the nearest bit of cloth he could find, the edge of a pillow squashed between them. He stretched it up and wiped Erestor’s mouth a little, and then stroked his hair, looking into his eyes. His other hand found Erestor’s unrequited erection. “Will you take me?” he said. His voice sounded hoarse, though they had made little noise all told.
Erestor’s eyes shadowed in surprise. He blinked, and raised himself on one elbow to study the other’s face.
Lindir did not have the energy to get up off the mattress. He fingered Erestor’s ready prick, stroking upward, tracing the folds and lines, looking at its beauty. He dredged up the will to move enough to lean forward and nuzzle Erestor’s chest. He suckled there drowsily, lazily pulling his hand up and down over Erestor’s crown. He loved hearing the heavy breathing going on just above his ear. Loved the feel of Erestor under his tongue as he moved the tip of his tongue back and forth, back and forth over the pleasing hardness of nipple in his mouth, and then sucked again. He pulled Erestor down so he was easier to reach. Erestor made no objection whatever.
He was not surprised when hands pushed him off. Too tired to move he lay face half-buried in pillow. And tried to hide his smile. He could smell chamomile. Could Erestor have acquired some of the oil he favoured on his account?
Feet stood beside the bed at Lindir’s side. “If I see one gloating smile on your face, you will be sorry, I assure you.”
A performer’s skills enabled Lindir to compose his features before he turned his head. “Of course, Erestor. I would never gloat.”
A sudden change in mood, then. “I – did not expect to be using this on you.” Erestor’s voice was suddenly quiet, different. Humble.
Lindir sat up, all attention, a different set of instincts kicking in, that of the harper keenly attuned to nuance. “My dear, why ever not? For all my faults, did you think only to be used?”
Erestor flushed slightly. “Sorry, no, not that exactly. Just – it doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, no. Come here and tell me.” Lindir pulled him, only gently, toward the bed. Erestor sat and then let himself be drawn into Lindir’s arms, hand once more settled most comfortably about Erestor’s waiting penis. He rubbed his thumb experimentally. Ah, so he liked that? How about this… Yes, that as well. Suddenly he was sorry it was Erestor’s turn as he felt Erestor’s buttocks move against his lap. “Answer me, Erestor. You can’t leave it like that.”
“Your birth… mine.” Erestor fell silent but it was enough.
Lindir, amazed, rolled onto his back and pulled Erestor into his side under the enfolding wing of his arm. He said nothing for a long time, and then answered the only way he knew how. He would not argue with these thoughts, time enough another day to fathom what had led to such ideas. “I am going to lie on my side, and you are going to get comfortable behind me, use that oil and then we shall both have an exceedingly good time. Alright?”
Erestor took a moment to answer. When he did it was wordlessly. He pushed at Lindir to make him roll over, and, as good as his word, Erestor’s Harper Lord spread himself open, splaying his upper leg forwards, resting with one arm outwards, the other crooked above his head. Lindir smelled the heady scent of the chamomile and felt hands smoothing oil over him.
Apparently Erestor was not going to take much time with preliminaries. Lindir did not mind. He increased the angle of his leg slightly and breathed out when Erestor pressed himself inside, not far, and not fast. A long pause. Out again, and more oil. Back in, and Lindir made sure not to hold his breath. He breathed out. Erestor worked himself slowly in and out. Lindir admired his control, for he had been hard since Lindir took his pleasure of him. He revelled in imagining what Erestor’s face looked like right now. Intent, probably. Concentrating. Possibly grimacing with the effort of such careful patience. He *ouffed* out another breath as Erestor thrust harder and then there was no more leisure to think.
Lindir gripped first the sheets and then, reaching for a firmer hold, grabbed the bedstead with both hands. Erestor was apparently satisfied that Lindir had relaxed enough: he was freely and thoroughly enjoying what Lindir had offered. Lindir kept his groans low, wary of Erestor’s concerns about this activity with the neighbours so close about them. Lying there, luxurating in every unrestrained demand Erestor was making on him, his musical composition entitled simply ‘Erestor’ wrote itself to completion in his mind without the least conscious effort on his part.
It did not have the crashing ending he had expected, with triumphant, belling major chords. Instead, a sweetly welling tune arose out of the earlier emphatic gathering of harmonies and resolved itself into a simple run of clear notes that carried on while the rest faded to nothing. Erestor came in him on a sigh, while Lindir let that last note fade too into silence, before turning in the tangle of sheets to gather his dark, quicksilver, unsure lover into his arms.
Erestor shall have his pigs, and I my music, he thought, sliding into reverie. And I will keep my promises.
Parmasambe
Library of Imladris
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