Title & Chapter Number: An Arrangement of Thorns 23/36
Author(s): - Author's Index
Fandom: Middle Earth
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I do not own these settings or characters, and am making no profit from the writing and sharing of this story.
Warnings: BDSM, twincest, angst.
Betas: None
Cast: Erestor/Elladan/Elrohir
Timeline: TA AU
Spoilers: None
Summary: Elrohir and Elladan talk.
Notes: This was an idea that struck me a while back when I was tossing around ideas on what to do when I'd finished with Glorfie and Erestor. Seems I haven't quite gotten Erestor out of my system. This is NOT the same Erestor as the one I wrote in my previous series.
No one had said "Thorn," but the games that had previously been played in Erestor's chambers had ceased. The three of them had stumbled along, meeting in Erestor's wide bed, tangling limbs and joining bodies out of familiarity and in unnamed desperation. There was confusion in Elladan's eyes, unspoken and largely ignored. Elrohir's held a mix of tightly reined anger and a certain, peculiar tenderness, while Erestor had grown distant, eyes shuttered, cold as they had been when Elrohir had first seen him as someone other than his tutor and his father's friend.
There were no lack of tender words or affectionate endearments, no withholding of physical intimacy when Erestor was with them. Elrohir even managed to stifle his own outrage and fury when the chief advisor touched him, kissed him, pushed him back into the softness of linen sheets and the strength of his brother's arms to take him. He had agreed to let it lie, so he closed his eyes and let his imaginings drift when passion overtook him at Erestor's hands, murmured back gentle lies when called upon to do so.
What had changed was that Erestor was not always present, that more and more often he made his excuses and left them alone with each other. It was a gentle pushing away, a pushing together, but it was a push nevertheless. He said nothing about their continued use of his room even when he was not in it. They came to it out of habit while Erestor was elsewhere, and Erestor did not ask them to leave when he returned. Elrohir reflected that over the course of the week he had made love with Elladan nightly, several times nightly on some occasions, yet they had only been graced with Erestor's company three times.
Now Elrohir lay with Elladan curled up at his side, lay under linen sheets that held Erestor's scent like a ghost meshed in the threads. A pair of candles burned on the nightstand, their flames dancing in the gentle breeze, casting Elladan's face in shifting shades of pagan oranges and reds. The confusion was still there in those dark eyes that were nearly black as Erestor's in the dim lighting, but it was softened, whether by their lovemaking or by tricks of the candle light Elrohir could not tell.
"I love having you here - anywhere - like this." Elrohir whispered into his hair. It was an admission that did not come easily, had been harder to make than the murmured endearments and avowals of love. Those were familiar words echoing in a new chamber, but this was more than that; it was both consent and condoning of what they were doing, what they had become. It also was the truth. No lies through teeth gritted in either anger or passion here, and Elrohir felt strangely comfortable in that.
"Me, too." Elladan said back. He stared lazily into the candle flame, turned to rest his cheek on his brother's shoulder. "I miss him." He tried for a nonchalant tone, didn't quite achieve it. "I miss the things we used to do together."
Elrohir nodded, tightened his hold. Of course there were no more nights spent on their knees, no more games of dominance and submission. That demanded a level of trust and commitment that Erestor was no longer willing, or perhaps able, to give. Elrohir considered, chose his words carefully.
"What do you miss most, sweet one?" He intentionally used Erestor's expression. "Do you miss Erestor, here with us, now that he is busy planning his trip? Or the things he did with you, to you?" He kept his tone light and inoffensive, gently kissed Elladan's hair.
"I don't know. It is just that he is so much older than we, wiser. He made me feel safe, Elrohir."
-Wiser.- Elrohir restrained a smirk.
"Do I make you feel safe?"
"Yes." Spoken softly, shadowed words slipping into shadows. They lay still and silent for several long moments, taking comfort in each other's embrace.
"He will be gone for a long time, lirimaer. Will I be enough for you?"
"Oh, Elrohir." Elladan pushed himself up on his elbow, stared down at Elrohir. His hair fell in straight, silken sheaves at either side of Elrohir's face, but Elladan needed no light to see this face that was as familiar to him as his own. "It has never been a question of not enough. Just… do not try to be him for me. I love you, and" his eyes briefly darkened, "if you will love me you can always have me. All of me."
Elrohir reached up to pull him close, buried his face in Elladan's neck. It amazed him that Elladan could do this, could make such a free offer in light of this slow, unexplained separation. He would have expected shyness, a withdrawal of emotion, not this readiness to once again throw himself into the gap. Granted, Erestor had spoken no words of parting beyond references to his physical leaving on the morrow, but Elladan was not one to deny what he saw.
"Why, Elrohir?" His breath was hot against Elrohir's ear, his voice strained, plaintive. "Do you know? I have never wanted to know what is between you and Erestor, but now…"
"I don't know, Elladan. I think maybe he is frightened." He did think that, could think of no other reason for the change, for Erestor's tears on the night after Elladan had made love to him. "I don't know why, though."
"Frightened?" Elladan rolled over onto his side, bit back bitter laughter. Elrohir winced. It was not a sound he wanted to hear, not something he wished to see in his innocent, sunshine and stars brother. "As if I have not been, and did not go on anyway, in trust?"
"You truly are fearless, brother." Elrohir said, pressed a finger to Elladan's lips in response to his out rush of frustrated breath. "You would go on and on, and never mind the fall, never mind the rushing waters and sharp rocks at the bottom. As you say, he is older, and maybe in part he is wiser."
"How so, in this?"
"He gave you what you wanted, and he knew that your heart would change."
"I have not changed!" He said fiercely, pulling away, but Elrohir followed him.
"Haven't you? You cannot even say what exactly it is that you miss." He stared into his brother's face, abruptly grateful for the cloaking shadows. "What is different is me, that we are closer to each other than any other could be, and he knew that. I cannot comprehend why he would have wanted to bring us together this way, but now that the deed is done - tell me, Elladan, if you can, is there so much room for anyone else?"
"I won't answer that. I won't… I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because I won't break his heart!" Elladan hissed, twisted away from Elrohir, turned his back to him. Gentle fingers traced the hard curves of muscles, lightly touched, danced over his skin. There was no eroticism in it but only comfort, and against his will Elladan relaxed into the touch.
"It is not unexpected, melethron. I know that."
"We will always have each other. There is no one for him."
"So you will sacrifice your life to that? To his happiness? What about your own, Elladan? And does it seem to you that he is happy, now? That any of us are?"
"No." The word came out harshly. "So, it is up to me."
"You could simply let matters run their course. It will be slower, but I think the results will be the same." He sighed, touched Elladan's hair. "And we have at least a month."
"Yes. Tomorrow he's leaving. You don't know him like I do, Elrohir." He said, again moving back to his brother's side. "He's hurting."
-He deserves to.- Elrohir thought fiercely, but then found himself assailed by doubts. He didn't know Erestor's motives, and the older elf had never given him any, never volunteered anything, never responded to questioning, heated or otherwise. The pain he had seen was real enough; could pain like that result from nothing more than tricks and manipulation? Were bad choices made with good intentions - or at least without malicious intent - the same as willfully choosing harm? Did it matter if the end was the same? It seemed to Elrohir that maybe Elladan was right in his insistence on the irrelevancy of motive, though not in the way that he had explained it to him. Motivation did not matter if one had to pay the price for actions rather than thoughts, had to pay it whether one had wanted to hurt or not.
"He said he would always love me. I believe him."
"I do, too. But there are many different kinds of love."
"You really believe it?" Elrohir could sense the quizzical expression on Elladan's face. "I never thought you did."
"It took me a while, I'll grant you." He sighed. "What was I supposed to think, Elladan? What it looked like to me was that he was taking advantage of you, using you for his own perverse pleasure and that for some strange reason you were feeding into it. Now I believe it. I don't think he always loved you, but I think he does now, enough to want what's best for you."
"I love the way you people think around me." His voice carried a tinge of sarcasm. "Poor Elladan can't take care of himself; everyone around him must determine what's for his own good."
"That's not what I meant, Elladan. Only that he loves you enough to let you go if that's what you need."
"Maybe I don't want to let go."
Elrohir could sense the truth in that; it was not so different from his own reflections of the previous weekend. Elrohir had bewailed his coming of age, the realization that in some situations there was no one whom he could turn to. Elladan had simply slid from childhood into the arms of a lover who would allow him to continue to be an elfling, one with whom he could remain an adolescent straining at invisible boundaries, one who would be his safety net. It couldn't last.
"Well, wait and see."
"There isn't much else to do, is there?"
Elrohir bit back a sharp, frustrated response. Apparently Elladan meant to ride out these waves, follow the stream's course to the inevitable falls. He had complained that matters were being left to him, but that was not really the case. No, it was Elrohir and Erestor who had been left in charge of steering his course, and as much as Elrohir found this aggravating he knew he would not leave his brother to sink or swim alone.
"I suppose not, lirimaer."
~ Next Chapter ~
~ Previous Chapter ~
~ Library Main ~
~ Author Index ~ Character Index ~ Title Index ~
~ Hall Of Fire ~ Gallery ~
~ Links ~ Shops ~ Map ~ News ~ Rules ~ Lists ~ ~
This page is in no way affiliated with New Line Cinema or Tolkien Enterprises, and no profit is being made.
The information contained herein is NOT to be used to spam or in any other way harrass its members. Be advised that abuse of this site will not be tolerated, and the appropriate legal action will be taken.
Hall-Of-Fire.Com v.4.0, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 by Cristine Cook-Fireheart. All rights reserved. This web site may not be reproduced in any form, except as occurs in normal browser caching, without express written permission from the author.
Website by Infinite Connections Design.
