Disclaimer: Tolkien's, never mine.
A/N: I apologize for the long delay!
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When Glorfindel woke up one day, he found Elrond in his bedroom.
Well, it looked like Elrond. It was Elrond's height and Elrond's width, Elrond's girth and Elrond's aura. It seemed to be Elrond. The character had Elrond-like hair and Elrond-like clothes, but he also had on very Un-Elrond-like contraptions.
'Elrond,' the blond warrior asked, 'what on Arda are those things?'
Elrond, with punctuated and extremely painful articulation, replied, saying, 'These, Glor-find-el, are sunglasses.'
'Sunglasses?' Glorfindel said incredulously. 'Did Gil-Galad give them to you? They look like something Ereinion would have worn for a laugh. They also look like something Allesa wou-'
'Shh,' Elrond hissed, looking left and right in his Sunglasses. 'Do not speak, they might hear you.'
'Elrond, there is no one else in this room?'
Elrond glared at him through tinted lenses.
'You live two lives, Glorfindel.'
Glorfindel frowned. 'I lived two lives, Elrond. I am currently living one life. This one.'
'You live two lives,' Elrond repeated, with cunning deliberate tones. 'In one of these lives, you are a proud warrior, formerly of Gondolin, currently the Seneschal of Imladris.'
Glorfindel decided that, with the state that Elrond was in, he had best keep quiet, and thus tried to arrange the sheets around him in a more delicate manner. Elrond went on.
'But in your other life, Glorfindel, you are nothing but a scared elf who is afraid of the slightest thing to do with the female species.'
'I beg to differ-' Glorfindel tried to say, but Elrond leaned menacingly over him and bared his teeth, going:
'Like, duh.'
Against his will, Glorfindel skirted backwards into the sheets and pulled the blanket over his head. Elrond leered evilly at him in smug satisfaction.
'One of these lives,' the Lord of Imladris said, 'has a future.' He tugged the blanket down, and Glorfindel stared blankly up at the ceiling. His view was deprived by Elrond bending over him and the sight of his friend's face put very prominently in his own. 'The other,' Pause, pause. 'Does not.'
Elrond removed himself, and Glorfindel sat up warily. Something was not quite what it seemed.
'The world as you know it is going to change, Glorfindel. This,' Wide, gesticulating hand gestures succeeded that declaration, 'is nothing but an illusion, a deception made by Authors to hide the truth from your eyes.'
Elrond paused and pushed the Sunglasses down his nose.
'And the truth is, Glorfindel,' More oddly dramatic gazes, 'That the Authors are taking all means to turn us from this,' Elrond gestured at his currently respectable robed attire, 'Into this.' With a snap of his long fingers, Elrond somehow transformed his wardrobe, and stood there in black leather.
Glorfindel felt very faintly ill, and Elrond quickly changed back.
'You now have a choice, Glorfindel,' Elrond declared, pulling over a small table and chair. He placed himself in the chair and tried as much as he could to look regal, looking pointedly down his nose at his friend. 'You could take the red pill,' he said, slamming down what looked like a rounded seed with the letter "M" emblazoned on it, 'And fight. You will be withdrawn from this fake Endore, and drawn back into the real world, Arda. Everything you know will change. The touch of your bed sheets, the taste of wine, the feel of lobbing an orc's head off. They will never be the same. All this,' More ridiculous gestures, 'Will be a lie. You will stand up for yourself,' Elrond went on suggestively, and the "like, duh" echoed in Glorfindel's head, 'And fight. You will bring justice to Mary-Sues,' Elrond and Glorfindel both took the opportunity to turn their heads to the side and spit, 'and evil Authors everywhere.'
The Master of Imladris let a few moments pass to let it sink in.
'Or,' he declared, 'You could take the blue pull.' He slammed down a similar looking thing, just that this time it was blue in colour. 'You will wake up, and none of this will have ever happened. You will continue living your life, nothing will change, but,' Elrond leaned across the small space that separated them. 'All you will ever think about saving your innocent soul is,' Deep breath, 'Like whatever, man.'
Elrond sat back and made one last expansive motion at the two pills.
'I can only show you the door, you must walk through it. What do you want to do?'
Glorfindel clutched at the red pill in terror and swallowed it dry. Elrond smiled in satisfaction, and tossed the blue pill out of a convenient window. 'Very good. Now, go to sleep, and when you wake up, everything will become clear to you.'
When Glorfindel woke up next, Merry and Pippin were at the foot of his bed, eating something.
''S M & Ms, Lord Glorfindel!' the younger one intoned, thrusting the packet over at him with just a tad too much force. Red and blue "pills" scattered themselves everywhere.
'Erk,' Glorfindel said.
'Like, you are so dumb!' Merry snapped, snatching for the M & Ms. Pippin glowered, and his cousin shot him a triumphant look.
'Come on, everyone knows that brunettes have more fun!'
Glorfindel closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and screamed.
-
'Glorfindel!'
Someone was calling his name.
'Glorfindel, wake up. Valar, what is wrong with you?'
Sounded like Elrond.
A icy stab of terror shot through him.
Then someone poked him in the eye.
'Ouch,' the elf lord said succinctly, waking up. Elrond, sans Sunglasses or leather, was at the foot of his bed.
'Glorfindel,' the healer said in relief. 'You were in a daze, some sort of dream. Allesa tried to make you listen to some of her "music" yester eve, do you remember?'
Scouring his memory, the golden haired elf winced. 'Yes. Something from some "Ma-trix" or another.'
'You retired early after dinner, and Erestor was concerned. When he came in to check on you, you were writhing on your bed yelling "give me the blue pill". We could not wake you, and you have been here for three days since that dinner.'
'Bad dreams, Elrond.' Glorfindel looked up, as if to assure himself that Elrond was there. 'I think Allesa put something in my drink again.'
Elrond cringed. 'She did more than that, really. She put what seemed suspiciously like nightshade in your tea, then caused a minor incident almost akin to a Kinslaying when she stole Arwen's dresses and stashed them in her room. She came out the next day demanding to see you, saying something about how "he has to see me when he wakes, no one else!" and as usual, we refused her. It is a pity that two of our staff fainted from her rather unique choice of,' Elrond stumbled across the word, 'Kos-met-icks. Then, seeing no alternative, she practically set up camp outside your door.'
Glorfindel listened, and could hear the vague strains of Britney Spears coming from outside his door. He looked at his friend in horror.
'Fear not,' Elrond comforted him. 'I employed Elladan and Elrohir to build and maintain a rope ladder system outside of your window. And I planted rose bushes under your balcony.'
Glorfindel sighed in relief, then looked up sharply.
'Elrond,' he inquired severely, 'Did Ereinion ever give you strange dark-looking devices that you could put in front of your eyes?'
'No,' Elrond replied truthfully, eyes shining with confusion.
'Or any blue or red looking foodstuffs?'
'No.'
'Are you positively sure?'
'Yes.'
'Good.'
Then Glorfindel stood, made sure he was wearing something that did not come from dead cows, went to change, and dashed desperately for the rope ladder.
'Glorfindel!' Elrond tried to call out. 'There's a false rung on the third -'
Crash.
'Ouch,' Elrond said sympathetically for his friend.