A/N: Please take a moment to re-read Chapter 6; it has been added to and completed.

Lord Celeborn awoke to the soft murmur of the wind tousling his mussed hair against his perspiring brow. It cooled the still burning remains of his compromised resolve.

It carried the scent of their imminent arrival.

They indeed would provide the succor he could not, or perhaps, she would not allow herself to realize he would more than willingly bestow upon the now ailing Marchwarden. She only failed to…ask. Such a hitch in the Lady's plan had decadent potential for quite a farce.

Celeborn smiled ruefully. It would be difficult to harness the bestial part of his soul that now inspired him to act. Slipping into the early morning twilight fashioning only a robe, he crossed the dewy gardens like the fleeting spirit of those damned until he reached the foot of the Marchwarden's bed. Unlike when he previously visited, Haldir remained undisturbed by his presence even has he sat down beside his now still figure. The scent of his sex tickled his nose and he smiled at the scarlet strand of his visitor's hair beside him on the pillow.

Filling the tub quietly in the next room, Celeborn submersed himself quietly until the fragrant bubbles touched his chin and watched the candlelight play on the prominent features of Haldir's sated face. Blessed with a beautiful wife and a beautiful Guardian in the same lifetime was more than be believed himself to deserve, and yet the hunger to have them both in the same manner became more prominent with each passing day. What compromised his constitution so? Was it she? And if so, was her time so empty? Or was it organic, another godsend for which he must learn to give thanks for as well and question no longer?

Anchoring himself above the bubbly surface with two strong arms along the porcelain rim of the tub, Celeborn leant his head back and expelled the tension through a long and deliberate sigh before he finally drifted. He drifted into a dreamless, soundless sleep, endowed with silverblond hair and an arctic stare that moved him nowhere near the same manner as the shock of icy water suddenly filling his lungs and flooding him with fear and confusion.

Panic forced him to react, his curses and shouts muted by the density of water, the struggle, the blood pounding in his quickly darkening head.

"Cel-!" Haldir bellowed, porcelain clamoring to the tile as he sent the tub toppling on its side. Celeborn's limp body slumped lifelessly to the wet below, and Haldir quickly gathered him up and in his arms wiped the hair from his face. "Celeborn," Haldir said again, gritting through the sunken sensation of death lingering nearby.

The Lord's normally pink, plump lips fell slack and Haldir found a morbid attraction to them even as they began to grey with the increasing absence of oxygen…

Even death failed to intimidate the unexplained that bonded them together.

Setting him gingerly down to the floor, Haldir took a deep breath and sealed his lips over his master's open ones and exhaled deeply. Celeborn's chest expanded beneath the palm of his hand gently resting against his quieting heart, and after three attempts at this to no avail, Haldir felt unfathomably distraught. "Dammit...!" In a rush of short tempered frustration, The Guardian slammed his fist down on Celeborn's chest and stumbled back as Celeborn's body suddenly surged to the side. Haldir watched him purge water until his face was violently flushed red with life, until air filled his lungs and he turned to regard him with a tiredly stare.

"H-Haldir…"

"Idiot!" Haldir slid forward and wrapped his arms tightly around him. Resting his chin against his matted hair and closing his eyes, he scoffed in relief. "How could you be so careless?"

A lethargic smile flowered across Celeborn's lips, "…cold, Marchwarden."

Mindful with his step, Haldir carried his naked body safely to bed and concealed him warmly with the blankets. "Perhaps some tea would-."

"No." Celeborn stopped him with a firm hand to the forearm. The scent on the pillow beneath his cheek was distinctly unique from that of Haldir, distinctly…masculine. "With whom?"

"What do you mean?"

Celeborn quirked a brow and his smile fully bloomed, "The redhead." Touching a hand to his forehead, Haldir found no escape in a probable fever. Celeborn pulled away from his reach to make room for him and gently instructed him to, "Climb in." Haldir obeyed, curling his arms warmly around him in the same manner his Lord's legs wrapped around his own.

"No one." Haldir stroked his hair absently in the comforting silence that followed until he dismissed it with an interesting question of his own. "What were you doing in my bathtub?"

Celeborn felt the truth bubbling just behind his lips, and yet he proved to be just as intimidated by it as Haldir. "Nothing…" he said, "nothing at all."