Hey everyone, I'm...sort of back. I got a couple of messages/reviews recently about this guy right here and with a little bit of luck, a great deal of hope, and some tolerance from you folks I'm going to give it a try. I got hit with some writer's block and then just...stopped writing for a very long time altogether. So this chapter might not swing with the others as well (also thanks so much for no one reaming me about all those spelling errors!) but once I get a few chapters out the plot might take me over again and write itself like it used to. Thanks a billion, lots of love-keep yourselves safe and remember , Tolkien owns it...not me. Enjoy.
The door swung open and Erestor looked up at the tall blonde staring down at him, bleary eyed and confused. "...Erestor?" he spoke the word slowly, and brokenly, as if he couldn't get his mind around the sight that confronted him at this hour of the night.
"Help...me" the darkling croaked, tears welling in his eyes anew as he suddenly contemplated the horror of the sight he must have appeared to be.
"what happened?" Glorfindel asked, widening his eyes to try and wake himself up, convinced his reeling mind was inventing this bizarre event as some sort of twisted nightmare he would eventually wake from.
"Please...I..let...please" he finished. For the brunette his world was both far away and in sharper focus. Everything seemed hot, and visceral and real. He could make out every individual feature on Glorfindel's sleepy face, the way his hair was touseled from where he had slept on it. His strong, large hands calloused and worn with his chosen career seemed extra tanned, his hair extra gold. But there was a feeling of being separate from the world. Erestor was seeing it, but not in it.
"of course, yes please-come in, come in" Glorfindel said waving him in, stepping aside. The way that Erestor scuttled into his rooms made him draw his brows in concern. Fully awake now he couldn't help but feel that Erestor was mimicking some kind of creature. Hidden in the burrows of his cloak and carefully keeping his face and naked limbs out of view. The dark haired elf was bent over at the waist and visibly shaking from hair to toe.
"Erestor what on..." Glorfindel began but broke off with a horrified gasp as Erestor dropped the cloak and suddenly stood to his full height-naked and...destroyed.
The blonde couldn't tell what was wound and what was smeared blood-he hadn't seen such gore in a very long time. Anger burned immediately in his mind and he reared his chin and pulled his hair quickly into a tail at the sight. "Who has done this thing to you?"
Erestor's mouth twisted with grief and agony and he opened his mouth to scream, then threw himself to his knees, grabbing his hair with both hands he tugged and ripped his mouth open in the silent screams. He took gasping breaths and just siezed wildly on the floor for several seconds.
Glorfindel fell to his knees and grabbed at his wrists, prying him apart he pulled the other elf and turned him around, holding him fast with his arms around his chest he used brute strength to keep the wild creature still. "Who did this?" he asked.
Erestor drew in a long breath finally and went limp, after a very long moment he finally managed to speak in a voice twisted with blackness and ire "Me"
The seneschal was quiet for a few moments. "You did this...to yourself?" he asked, holding him even tighter as Erestor tried to pull away.
"Yes" came the exhausted reply.
"Why?" returned the obvious question.
"I...I failed him. I'm failing him." Erestor began and his voice broke and he began to sob and wail freely.
"Ok, ok" Glorfindel let him slump forward into a heap, curling into a ball like a slain elf he watched his long-time friend release what seemed to be years of violent emotions.
He rubbed his back and stroked his blood soaked hair, just letting him release the emotions.
After what seemed like forever Erestor's sobs petered out to dry sniffles and he removed his hands from his face, laying his overheated flesh against the bare stone of Glorfindel's inner threshold. "I want to die" he whispered.
Glorfindel licked his lips and gulped quietly. He opened his mouth to reply but could only manage to lick his lips again. "I wish you wouldn't" he managed plainly.
Erestor couldn't even summon the strength to be derisive. "He's going to leave me" he whispered quietly.
"Your lover?" Glorfindel prompted.
This time the darkling managed a snort. "Would be...if only I could gather the strength to be one" he managed, clawing his fingers against the floor.
Glorfindel moved to push his hair out of his face and stopped seeing the smeared blood on his palms. "How about I draw a bath and you can tell me all about it while you wash and cleanse yourself?" he said.
Erestor snorted again but forced himself numbly to a sitting position. "I suppose that would be alright" he whispered, suddenly devoid of strength and emotion.
Glorfindel stood and offered him a hand, but Erestor just looked at it blankly. "Come on" the taller elf insisted pulling him to his feet, he caught the naked elf as he stumbled and picked him up, sitting him in a chair and wrapping his cloak around him. He then called for hot water and demanded with all his sharp authority that it be kept as quickly and as discreetly as possible. Though the entire time it was being done Erestor was so stone silent and dark in the corner no one even would have thought to notice him.
And so it was that Glorfindel got Erestor into the cleansing absolution and stood by the side as Erestor carefully began to clean himself. Taking a quiet sort of delight-as he always did- in the fact that the water quickly turned a rusty brown.
The warrior's trained eyes caught every vicious wound slashed across his friend's body, reading the words he's slashed there, taking into account the hundreds of scars, the bare batch on his shoulder and his thin stature. "Do you ever eat?" he asked off-hand.
Erestor didn't look up and continued to clean the blood, his face and his hair now completely clean, his arms having stopped bleeding were only stained from the red-brown water. "Yes. You've seen me eat" he pointed out dryly.
"Not nearly enough apparently" Glorfindel said as Erestor gracefully lifted his legs and began to wash the dried blood and the wounds from there.
"It works when I cannot cut" the darkling replied in the same off-hand tone as the questions.
"OK. Let's start there" Glorfindel said, pulling out an indulgent towel and laying it across the countertop.
"where?" Erestor asked, repeating the process with the other leg and standing up to let the water rinse off him. Glorfindel was very much struck that if Erestor were to put on one of his overly large robes no one would be able to even begin to see the damage. He was flawless in appearance and broken in reality. The blonde pursed his lips.
"You call it 'cutting' but what demon are -you- trying to slay in the process? We attack with knives to defend ourselves against a violent and overwhelming foe. What are you trying to kill?" he asked insightfully as Erestor wrapped the towel around his slender body.
Erestor looked at him and narrowed his eyes "why put it that way?" he asked, genuine curiosity on his face.
"Because if I am angry at someone or something, I do not lash with a weapon. I lash with my fists. As you pulled at your hair when you arrived-that's anger. This is...homicide of ones own self. So I ask again. What are you trying to exact from your flesh?" Glorfindel asked as he moved to his sitting room and then into an adjoining room.
Erestor followed him into his sitting room and bit down on his bottom lip "that is only for him to know" he replied, tiredly. Wiping his eyes he looked up and couldn't help but smile in appreciation as Glorfindel offered one of his own rarely used stately robes. The smaller elf wrapped it tightly around his frame and tied the sash.
"Thank-you" he whispered.
"Who's him?" Glorfindel asked as he sat on his couch opposite his friend.
Erestor bit down on his bottom lip and gulped. "I can't tell"
"You come to my room in the middle of the night cut to ribbons and covered in blood because you are being a teasisng whore to a man whom you cannot name?" he said, lifting both golden brows, unable to achieve the one brow query both dark haired elves seemed to manage so easily.
Erestor licked his lips and nodded his head yes. "That is indeed correct" he said matter of factly, mirroring his expression by lifting only his right brow.
"Then I have no choice" Glorfindel said and rose before Erestor could stop him he swept from the room.
"Glorfin..." he broke off and his brows knit together. He wrapped his arms tightly around his body, his eyes darting this way and that as he began to be afraid. Furious with himself for allowing this situation to unfold he gulped thickly and forced himself to a standing position staring out of Glorfindel's window which overlooked the battlefield he took a deep breath and forced it out through his nostrils as he tried to gain control over his wildly out of control mind and try to understand why he had done this, what Glorfindel was doing and what it would mean to him now that he had a grown elf knowing and nnot just a little boy.
Erestor had cause to turn from his musings as he heard Glorfindel's voice in the hallway, talking to someone and horror thrummed in the pit of the darkling's stomach as he discerned the words. "...cut to pieces and bleeding...barely fed...something is wrong and I couldn't help him. He won't tell me-I think numbers is the best way to tackle this problem"
Erestor's heart dropped and his worst, most embarassing fears were confirmed, as a tousled and sleep deprived Elrond turned the corner appearing in the doorway.