Title & Chapter Number: An Arrangement of Thorns 31/36
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: An abandoned lover's reflections.
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.
They were in Elladan's room again, and he had seen enough to know what that meant. He felt no disgust for them, though he did feel quite a bit for himself. He knew everything he needed to know; it was below him to track their movements and the progress of their relationship. It was unnecessary. It showed insecurity, and a pathetic species of desperation that he did not want to see in himself. The need to know was insupportable, however, and he knew that he would not be able to gather any further information from the twins directly.
He stretched out on the firm mattress, extended his arms. He could just barely brush the bed posts if he stretched, but he could not curl his fingers around them. This was one of the things he loved about Erestor's bed, it's width, the way he could make himself comfortable in it without ever crowding or disturbing his partner. It had been a long time since he'd lain in it, and he'd missed it. Lying in it alone was not the same, but it was better than nothing. He could close his eyes, stretch cat-like on the coverlet, pretend that Erestor was just a little bit late, but that he'd soon be joining him.
A little bit late. That brought a small, bitter smile to his lips. Oh yes, Erestor was indeed late, close to a year late by his reckoning. An entire year, and it had all begun so simply, so innocuously with four words -- Aren't they beautiful, melethron? --And what had he said? --Yes, Erestor, dark like their father and with all their mother's grace and beauty.--
Why had he said that? He cursed himself silently, glared up at the ceiling. Why hadn't he turned cold and shrewish, sharp tongued with jealousy? Why had he continued to treat the matter so off handedly, treated it like nothing more than a small and temporary fascination, no different from Erestor's fascination with art and music? He had always thought himself intelligent, but he hadn't been intelligent enough, had he? Though he imagined he must have seemed very sophisticated, so very enlightened as he'd bantered casually with his lover about how lovely they were, how they would look together, how it might be to have them in bed. He had only been speaking hypothetically, but he had waited too long to make that clear.
Erestor had accused him of this. --If you had argued with me, fought, railed…-- When Erestor had said those words he had gathered his dignity about him, had refused to take any responsibility. --No. Do not try to blame me for the situation you have gotten yourself into.-- He had said, and that had sounded right, it had a ring of truth about it. Erestor had not debated the point with him, probably because Erestor had been sinking in his own quagmire of guilt. But was their fault to be assigned to him, fault for being passive, fault for being decadently sophisticated enough to not raise so much as an eyebrow at his lover's more and more frequent mentions of the delectable twins? Should he have argued, fought, railed?
He hadn't wanted to come off as jealous, nagging, and suspicious. He hadn't wanted to push Erestor away. Perhaps Erestor had interpreted his cool distance as uncaring, had accepted his silence as advance consent. If that was true, then he supposed he did have to shoulder some of the blame, though he would never admit it. To admit to that would be to let Erestor off the hook, it would be to allow him to shrug his shoulders and glibly say, --We both made mistakes.-- That was unconscionable, could not be allowed to happen. He wanted Erestor back, but there had to be an understanding, had to be more than an off hand apology offered at the end.
He was yet a young elf, but he understood justice, understood the necessity of placing blame. It was not something that others spoke of, nor anything that he would be so foolish as to bring up. Others frowned at the idea, liked to think themselves above such things, but no one really was. In civil matters it was necessary to identify and punish criminals. In personal matters it was equally necessary to know who had done what to whom, to identify the faults. To do otherwise was to roll over and take it, to allow oneself to become a door mat. --Oh yes, Erestor, you've hurt me terribly, but now I want only to forget it, pretend it never happened, we'll say we're both equally at fault.-- Easy to say, impossible to practice. He had only to look as far as Lord Elrond's study to the terse missives occasionally sent between Imladris and Mirkwood to know that blame has to be placed, that history never dies, and that though forgiveness might be possible there was no way to forget.
For a very brief time before coming to Imladris he had worked in the palace of Mirkwood. He knew the history though he had never known the king, knew the story that lay behind that cold façade, that unending bitterness. He could sympathize. Insofar as he was concerned, Thranduil's only mistake was in misplacing the blame. What else could he do, though, with Gil-Galad dead, when the errors made lay more heavily on his father's side than on that of the elven king, when he had been there, too, and had watched his father die? Thranduil could not blame himself any more than he could, lying there on Erestor's bed. Blaming Elrond did not stop the acid of hate and loss from eating Thranduil, but it was a slower process than what might result from blaming himself. Thranduil had Elrond, and he… well, he had the twins.
Erestor said he was sorry, said that it was close to ending. Elrohir said the same thing, and the noises he had heard through Elladan's door seemed to support this. That he had sunk to such levels in order to verify his lover's words left him feeling ashamed, obscurely wounded. Setting Elrohir up had not seemed so terrible. All is fair in love and war, after all, and Erestor was his. If the twins spent the next few years trembling in their shoes and wondering what would happen next, that was absolutely fine with him. Let them wonder and worry, let them imagine conspiracies and shake in terrified dread every time they were summoned to their father's study. Perhaps they didn't deserve it - they knew only half of a story they thought they had the whole of - but he could not bring himself to care. It was not a complete misplacement of blame, but it was enough, a bit of added cruelty that did not make him feel better but that allowed him to feel that he'd gotten a little of his own back.
No, it was not that which bothered him, but his behavior since. He knew where they went and when they were together. He was not above finding reasons to pass their doors at night to determine if they spent their evenings alone or together, asleep or at play. It sickened him, and not only because he was behaving like a spy or a voyeur. It sickened him because he had no interest in their doings, had no perverse urge to listen lustfully to their games of passion. He watched and listened because he was in terror that they would have a falling out, that the plan that had been so carefully laid might go awry. If he could have wooed Elladan for Elrohir he would have, and didn't that say something about him? Something about dependence, about self respect laying in careless tatters?
There had been moments of anger, of course, most of them in Erestor's presence. Also, he had taken his own lover, if that was what one could call it. Not a lover, really, but a long time friend who was not averse to occasionally sharing his bed. Erestor knew of this, and had said nothing. He had neither right nor room to say anything, no right to demand abstinence of him while he played with his elflings. In a fit of pique he had almost invited his friend to share Erestor's bed; that had been on the first night after the Imladris delegation had left for `Lorien. In the end he hadn't done it, but the thought had more than crossed his mind. Why not? Elladan and Elrohir had slept in that bed, had slept with Erestor in it.
The idea that love is not always enough was a foreign concept to the elves. Even so, he knew his friend thought he should give up on this, thought that it had gone beyond what could be forgiven and forgotten. In a way it had. He knew he would not be able to trust Erestor in the way he once had, would never again be so willing to hold out his hands for the cuffs, certainly would be unable to return that treatment. Not when his anger lay so close to the surface, not when it had blended into his love to create this miasma of frightened love and desperate fury, not when he smiled in his new, bitter way when he imagined peeling the skin off of Erestor's back with whip or flail. Sometimes he wanted to hide in Erestor's arms until it all went away, and sometimes he wanted to kill him with his bare hands.
He had told Erestor that he was almost out of time, that he needed to make his decision, and soon. Erestor had apparently taken that to heart, and for that he was deeply grateful, grateful because his words had been a lie. He would wait forever for Erestor if necessary, just as he waited in darkened corridors now, waited by doors closed and locked, listened for the moans and cries of ecstasy that meant he had a chance.
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