Notes:

This is a translation of part #5 of one of my longest finished German fanfiction series. I am not a native and apologize for any mistakes. The "Tales Untold"-series focuses much on Aragorn, Legolas and their respective relationships, but there's lots of other important plot lines coming into play, one of the biggest revolving around Glorfindel and Erestor.

The series combines the book verse with some circumstances from the movieverse, it ignores all of three of the Hobbit movies though (I wrote most of this series before those movies even were a thing). It's slightly non-compliant in places but I'm always trying to keep close to canon.

"Heavy on my heart" is set right after the War of the Ring.

Comments are more than welcome. I'm thirsting for them like so many others.

WHAT HAPPENED SO FAR:
Legolas has been in love with a young healer elf from Lórien named Tarisilya for a thousand years, but due to King Thranduil's aversion against Lórien, the relationship was a secret until after the War of the Ring. Being parted from her family in the war, who now lives in Valinor, broke Tarisilya's heart and almost had her fade. At Cair Andros, Aragorn healed both her and Arwen, who got injured at the Battle of the Black Gate. Arwen's wound very likely has left her infertile, so Aragorn and her traveled to Imladris where Arwen's family tried to further heal her. Legolas and Tarisilya came along as protection and support. With Thranduil and Lady Galadriel being present in Imladris as well, to officially seal the reconciliation of their realms, Legolas and Tarisilya took the chance and got married there before the group left to ride back to Gondor.

Erestor and Glorfindel meanwhile, start to realize more and more that there's far more than physical attraction between them, but don't want to address that for a number of reasons. Erestor has repeatedly asked Glorfindel to join the army for the last necessary border security after the war, so he can feel like he's being more useful than in the library, and a few days before this chapter is happening, Glorfindel has reluctantly, finally agreed.

If there was one sound, Glorfindel usually didn't expect to hear from Erestor's chambers, it was music.

It happened rarely enough that he met his old friend in those private chambers in Lord Elrond's palace of his at all, the plain furnishing of which had always spoken of Erestor preferring to spend his days in the library. As an adolescent in Gondolin, Elrond's chief advisor had often enough found himself being trapped in his room by family pressure and his own insecurities. Unless the two of them happened to get together over too much wine, a too long game of chess or – as in the last few years, they had been doing again with unexpected regularity – one of their casual games in the bedroom, there usually wasn't much life taking place in here.

It was, accordingly, easy to forget that as a young adult, Erestor had not only devoted himself to the art of the written word; especially since the rulers he had served so far had, understandably, mainly taken advantage of his keen mind.

This evening, as well, Glorfindel had actually thought to find his friend with his nose stuck in a dozen parchments and books simultaneously. So he paused at the door for an astonished moment, with his hand raised to knock already, when the bright whistle of a flute, made of pure silver, reached his ear. It stopped the moment his knuckles hit the massive, bare wood surface, and a hint of regret sneaked into Glorfindel's heart. On another day,, he would gladly have seized the chance to finally see into Erestor's complicated soul again after all this time. But given what he'd just learned from an unexpected message from Gondor, time was actually far too short for muse.

"Shouldn't you be in the stable?" The confusion still remained when the door was answered. Frowning, he eyed Erestor's unusual topless state and the instrument in his right hand that in spite of, impressively, enduring several Ages, didn't show any traces of usage at all.

At least no new bruises on Erestor's skin, as pale as it was once more. So contrary to Glorfindel's concerns, he had not used the past few days that he'd spent secluded in the mountains, to not have to witness the wedding of his former crush from up close, to once more numb his mental pain with physical one. That was progress. By now, the distance to this whole thing was big enough.

"We're not leaving until tomorrow," Erestor explained to his surprise. "We wouldn't be able to catch up with Estel and the others anyway. And they will take a few days of rest in Rohan. Time we rather use to get to the bottom of the situation in Gondor." Since Glorfindel's brow was still furrowed in disapproval, Erestor nodded him inside with a good-natured roll of his eyes and vaguely pointed to his fireplace, where like always, a bowl of that objectively pretty disgusting tasting brew was boiling that they both were so partial to when their souls needed soothing.

"The Lord wants to look up a few things before we take care of this tiresome matter. He's been causing utter chaos in the library for hours. I'm in no mood to witness that. When it comes to concerns of Men, he's a bigger expert than I anyway."

"And you leave out the one this concerns most?"

Not an entirely absurd decision. Glorfindel could understand that Elrond didn't want to burden his foster son and especially his daughter right now. Not so shortly after the really charming festivities in celebration of the wedding of the Prince of Eryn Lasgalen and his century-long secret love from Lórien. An event that hopefully had provided all of these persons, so important to the upcoming Age, with the necessary serenity to face their upcoming challenging duties. The next bad news were apparently not supposed to reach them on a return journey that would be dangerous enough, all without any additional distraction and unnecessary haste, because Glorfindel had not been able to dispatch an escort. Not as long as the valley's borders were endangered both by last orc groups, scattered after the war, and, as of late, by some Dunlendings gone feral.

Especially because of the latter, however, a ride in a bigger group in which the better part of the members would at least be able to hold a sword right, would have been a safer alternative.

"Estel needs to know. You should join them while you can."

"Good luck with finding out which route the Chieftain of the Dúnedain takes when he wants to take his people home inconspicuously." Erestor rolled his eyes again, with the weak grin he so often regarded Glorfindel with when he was long finished analyzing a situation and, mostly, had reached an admittedly more useful conclusion than him. "If we happen to meet them on the way, even better. But actually, I first want to know what's going on there. If we discourage the future King of Gondor and Arnor before he even wears the crown, possibly needlessly, we can forget about a few last peaceful years in these realms."

Instead of joining him at the fire, Erestor came to stand at the window and raised the flute to his lips again, these full, pretty lips that in the last few years had twisted into an expression of worry and fear far too often. Glorfindel had hoped, that would change now that there would only be occasional serious trouble on Middle-earth. That now instead, Erestor would face the biggest in the most important realm of Men of all places and not help Glorfindel out with fighting some enemy lowlife as planned, which Glorfindel had only reluctantly agreed to anyway … It was really hardly surprising that the usually so composed Noldo seemed so agitated tonight.

"I haven't heard you play in decades." Glorfindel was busier turning his almost full cup from one side to the other with restless fingertips, than with drinking from it. With his eyes half closed, for a few moments, he fully indulged in the slightly hectic hymn of their former mutual home. On a day like this though, that didn't help soothe his own tension any more than a little bit of nerve poison could. Probably that was the real reason for coming here.

Erestor shrugged tiredly and put the instrument aside as the missing practice started to show; during the repeat of the chorus, he'd missed the highest notes not one but two times. After these trying last few days, there wasn't much left of his usual discipline. "Just a weak attempt of leading my thoughts back into a coherent tide. Don't you know, there's never anything useful coming from it when I wander beyond my expertise?"

That massive wall of cynicism had Glorfindel shudder. Not for the first time, he wondered if Erestor ever let the Lord hear it when Elrond just went over his head, making decisions like today's. Or if Erestor had long unlearned how to use his usually so energetic voice for his own interests for a change.

Or if Elrond had only forgotten how to listen in the last few centuries of constant loss, because the last of his strength to keep everything in this realm together, came partly from both their support.

"You won't be gone for long. You've been solving this valley's problems for two Ages. Men's can hardly be worse."

"I won't know that until we arrive. And you know exactly, the Lord won't rest until the situation is fully defused." Erestor left the living room without even looking back over his shoulder. A clear hint that he wanted Glorfindel to leave, actually – if he hadn't left his bedroom door wide open and wouldn't already be busy shedding the rest of his clothes as well.

It was, once again, not the right evening for in-depth conversations about matters of their hearts. And Glorfindel started to doubt that they would actually be able to bring themselves to seriously have one before they would leave these realms behind.

For the moment, he could only provide Erestor with the necessary support of exactly that nearness that on such days of continuing frustration, allowed them both to escape into oblivion.

And with the assurance that unlike Elrond, Glorfindel had not forgotten Erestor's wishes and ambitions. "I'll keep your position here open for you." Just for a moment he kept Erestor at distance, with both hands wrapped around his forearms, after kneeling down on the bed next to him. His tunic, weapon's belt and boots long lay in a forgotten heap of routine in some corner.

"How? It isn't even open yet." His partner just smiled, joylessly, leniently.

Though he hadn't even been in the valley when the majority of these ugly new disputes had unfolded, he knew, of course, how vehemently Thondrar had insisted on taking Aragorn's group to Gondor. Especially since he would soon serve as surrogate leader of what would surely be the last elf dwelling in Middle-earth anyway.

A good-bye that would be unpleasant enough without having to deal with issues regarding the management of Glorfindel's troops, no matter how much affection he felt for Elrond's foster son and Arwen, or for the unusual couple by their side. On such a comparatively harmless trip, two Companions of the Ring-bearer, hopefully, provided enough combat strength to fend off possible trouble.

A few months from now would still be early enough to face his very own personal failure of this last Age. "It will be. Thondrar leaves us as soon as he has trained a successor."

"Which you could do just as well. Do you think, putting this off will make it easier, Fin?" Very gently but firmly, Erestor freed himself from his grasp and curled one of Glorfindel's hip-length strands of hair around two fingertips. It seemed more thoughtful than anything, not like a gesture of tenderness that they both mostly kept their distance to. Otherwise, they would have treaded too dangerously close to a permanent relationship that neither of them had ever had been interested in, and that in every of these nights of unbridled passion, they could only avoid so arduously by the conscious decision against it anyway.

"Some trouble we will not be able to solve in these realms anymore. Too much has happened for that. A few decades, give or take, won't make a difference now." Again, there was this endless resignation in his voice. No, Erestor was not only talking about the elf, Glorfindel had tried, in vain, to build a normal relationship with all these centuries. They both had had to bury quite a few dreams in this Age, and Erestor was right about one thing … They were running out of time.

Having to admit something like that to yourself hurt; and that kind of pain, right from the start, they simply had best been able to vent on each other.

So this time, Glorfindel didn't stop Erestor when he pushed him back on the mattress and opened the laces of his breeches impatiently. At that, he noticed for the first time a mishmash of tools definitely not meant for work on Erestor's nightstand that drew a surprised – and not exactly reluctant – gasp from him. His pulse was racing already before Erestor's hand even pushed inside his breeches, the usual damn clever movements turning Glorfindel's budding interest into arousal in a matter of seconds. It seemed, his lover had let himself be inspired by various toys, Glorfindel had confronted him with a few days ago … Sometimes he still had to remind himself that Erestor had been managing to constantly surprise him for three Ages.

"Where is all this coming from?"

Erestor feigned a bored one-sided shrug. "Didn't have much to do in the past few days, except for carving." That was as all he had to say about this rash trip to the surroundings of the valley. Anything else wouldn't have been very unconducive for the mood anyway.

He rather busied himself in completely undressing Glorfindel and bending over his lap.

Glorfindel hardly got a chance to gasp for air or even begin attending to any touch on his part before Erestor's enthusiastically sucking mouth started spoiling him already, the playful pressure of his lover's tongue and the roof of his mouth driving him crazy within seconds. With one hand on the bed frame, seeking purchase, the other buried in Erestor's thick jet black hair, Glorfindel tried in vain to get his breath back under control, at least enough to communicate to his lover that going half as fast would have easily sufficed.

But Erestor didn't give him much of a chance to choose. After Glorfindel had recently introduced him to the art of suppressing a certain reflex in one's throat completely, it was no problem for him anymore, taking the entire length of Glorfindel's cock, and he made good use of that fact. A challenging glint lurked in his dark eyes when they found Glorfindel's. With his hands on Glorfindel's behind, in firmly massaging movements, he swallowed around the highly sensitive head of Glorfindel's cock a few times until it was throbbing harder and harder, and only retreated when Glorfindel's hips shot up, Erestor's name coming from his too-dry lips in a warning moan.

"Not so fast. We should make the best of this night while we still can." That dangerous, mischievous shine still in his eyes, Erestor let a piece of yarn slide over Glorfindel's chest, teasing one of his pebbled nipples with it while gently biting down on the other, the tip of his tongue thoroughly toying with it, until Glorfindel pressed longingly into that touch as well.

Only a distraction, of course, but since Glorfindel didn't raise any kind of protest, it only took a few seconds before the swift movements of always slightly cool hands had tied off the base of his cock and his balls that had already pulled suspiciously close to his body. Anything else would indeed have been a waste since it was impossible to tell when they would meet again.

Actually, submitting so willingly wasn't in his nature, but after the last few emotional days, Glorfindel felt too exhausted to start one of their usual struggles for dominance. Instead he let himself fall, in a way that – his late wife aside – only this elf had ever really been able to get him to, in all these millennia. All doubts and remorse about their difficult relationship were banned into the rearmost part of his soul for the moment.

He only too gladly allowed himself an excited shiver spreading from his neck downwards, prickling deep in his groin, when Erestor reached for that toy on his nightstand, he had been working on. It resembled exactly the shape of Erestor's cock that too was prominently protruding from between his legs already. Indeed, someone obviously wanted to return the favor of their last, quite demanding game.

"Feeling narcissistic tonight?" Glorfindel would maybe have been a little ashamed on the breathless desire in his voice if it hadn't been for the at least as aroused way, Erestor pressed his loins into his tensed thigh, leaving a lustful whitish trace there, a sight that had Glorfindel instinctively lick his lips once more.

"I hear no objections," Erestor remarked dryly, after a provocative, much too soft licking along Glorfindel's twitching cock that drew another loud moan from him. "Good for you; I would have to take that personally. After all, this is for you …" He had oil on him already, but then he paused and turned around on the bed in a flash – of course he hadn't missed Glorfindel staring. He brought his lower body so temptingly close to Glorfindel's face that all Glorfindel had to do was pull him close with an impatient grasp around his firm behind, to get his own lips on Erestor's steely erection now. Working it with his tongue and only a pointed hint of teeth, the way his partner liked it, he surrendered completely to the careful exploration that Erestor started between Glorfindel's trustfully opened legs.

Soon enough, Glorfindel pressed his hips down against the intrusion, something he hadn't experienced like that in a long time, moaning out his lust around Erestor's cock again and again, enjoying the tremble that went through his lover at that. Whereas except for the occasional almost absent-seeming kiss, Erestor completely ignored how Glorfindel's erection strained against its bonds which didn't exactly make concentrating on his own efforts easy.

His mind increasingly clouded, Glorfindel also needed a moment to understand when Erestor pushed the oil vial towards him with a pleading look back over his shoulder. Given the thorough use of that phallus, actually, he had been sure that this game was going a whole different direction.

"Don't you want me?"

"Maybe later." Erestor's cheeks turned an even deeper shade of red than the one of arousal. "I need you inside of me, Fin. Tonight, I need to feel you. And I thought …" Again, his fingertips slowly circled the end of the toy deeply buried inside Glorfindel, pressed it down until the nudge to Glorfindel's already oversensitive prostate drew a hoarse groan from him. "Maybe you want to feel me too when I ride you …" Slightly embarrassed, he raised his brows at Glorfindel, his chin.

The shiver that spread all over Glorfindel's body now, and the way he wordlessly reached for the vial to prepare his lover, seemed to say enough. Well, it wasn't Glorfindel who would spend the next week on horseback nonstop.

That Erestor was indeed yearning for challenge himself, Glorfindel only realized when the scent of the oil filled his nose. This was different from what his partner was using there. It smelled almost exactly like the stinging nettle mixture that Glorfindel had tortured Erestor with last time. "What …?"

Erestor's deprecating headshake cut him off. No, this was no mistake. His partner obviously intended to think back on this night over the next few days … And for Glorfindel, he wanted to leave a not too pleasant token as well. Just in the unlikely case that he would miss this insolent eccentric down there in his library 24 hours in already. "Please …"

Actually, Glorfindel disapproved of Erestor distracting himself from his problems with too much strain, especially in their bed. And something in this word, too quietly spoken, that someone like Erestor could only so rarely get out anyway, broke something open in Glorfindel that would haunt him for months after that night. That in this moment, completely caught up in their game, Glorfindel hadn't fully noticed something important, maybe for the first time since they knew each other, should soon cause him more than one sleepless night.

No matter how often he claimed the opposite … Erestor still had no idea where his limits were.

But Erestor still regarded him with this heated glance, full of desperate thirst for distance to everything that had been torturing him for so many centuries; so he gave in and started to stretch his partner's so eagerly presented opening. Quickly as well as soberly, and just enough to make sure that Erestor wouldn't completely overdo it.

When Erestor then pushed himself onto him, torturously slow, Glorfindel's moan was swallowed by a deep kiss, by Erestor's arms wrapping around him firmly, while his lover rolled his hips against Glorfindel, making him feel every inch of that damn toy inside him. Until finally, the annoying sting and itching from the oil inside Erestor's slick channel had faded almost completely to the background.

Now the damn restraints around his arousal made themselves felt extremely strongly instead. It took only a few minutes until Glorfindel started to writhe against Erestor, in, of course, exactly the way, his lover had planned, with one or two rude curses on his lips, aroused beyond his limit and still not tempted for even a single moment to put an end to the whole thing. The warrior's pride in him alone would never have allowed him to do so, though maybe that night, it would have been better.

Only in the early morning hours, they finally put an end to it, because the departure for Gondor was quickly approaching. During the short healing herbal bath that they both allowed themselves then, to at least not limp to their respective duties too conspicuously, in spite of a few gentle touches under the calm surface, the mood didn't really want to strike again.

At some point, Glorfindel left Erestor alone to start helping him get packed, seeing as he was the one who had kept him from it earlier.

Erestor joined him when he stowed away the last, very personal piece of luggage in the bag between the others, nicely tied-up and protected by a dark cloth, and raised a brow at him, slightly skeptically. "I go to Gondor to work."

"As an advisor at a court of Men, you need all the coherency you can get." Ignoring him, Glorfindel secured the flute with another piece of rope and stepped back, an unhappy sigh on his lips.

It was ridiculous; the two of them had parted for much longer spans of time, and to go on far more dangerous quests … Nevertheless, not for the first time, Glorfindel felt there was something about this whole thing, he didn't like at all. That in his ongoing grief, and due to that distance to his surroundings he'd created after Arwen's decision, Elrond might, for once, indeed have made the wrong decision. But these were just matters he never got involved in, ever.

"Take care of this, Erestor. For Estel and Arwen. I'll be here when you get back."

"Maybe you shouldn't be, though." Erestor was suddenly unable to look at Glorfindel ... And Glorfindel himself couldn't bear the look in these broken eyes, so haggard, so detached again already, any longer either. "A new life has been waiting for you in the west for a while now. You have no reason left to linger here."

"Yes. I do." With that, Glorfindel left the chambers, maybe a little faster than necessary. Well, as fast as that twinge in his lower body after a little too enthusiastic fun in the last few hours let him. There was much more, he could have said, maybe should have … But not on a day when Erestor had enough other stuff to deal with.

Once both of them would have finished their last duties in these realms and retreated to a place much more peaceful than this world would ever be … Then they would have enough time to finally really sort out whatever it was that was going on between them. Hopefully then, the one person in this constellation considerably concerned by a possibly additional deeper relationship in Glorfindel's life, would be able to be present, too. It could still wait until then.

It would be the last time, Glorfindel could successfully tell himself that lie.