Hey guys! Sorry for the delays...I sort of hit a block with this one...and so I give you this short little chapter to work through the kinks of the block and enable myself to get back to the story itself :) HUZZAH. I love y'all and again, sorry for delays, to all my fans...Elrond/Erestor coming TOMORROW! :D And Haldir/Eomer...hopefully tomorrow too! :D :D((I OWN NOTHING...NOPE. NOTHING. Tolkien does...NOT ME...)) ENJOY
I scrambled out of bed as fast as my underused legs would allow me. I walked on shaky feet to the bedside of the other. I felt like my heart was shuddering to it's finish inside my breast. I reached out with a shaking hand to press two fingers to the soft patch of white and red skin, that lay free of burns on the bed.
His skin was cold-as I knew it ought to be, and I stepped closer. As I moved out of the shadows, I saw that he was not nearly as badly burnt as I had originally thought.
He had light burns over his shoulders and his arm, but the fire had not even eaten away the majority of his silken, dark hair. So rare to find amongst wood elves as these.
The worst of the burns were to his chest and shoulders, up one side of his slender, columned neck but even those-weren't pussed or even badly blistered...just red and very angry looking.
My fingers had trailed over his arm ever so slightly as I contemplated his burns and beauty, and my thoughts broke off as the elf turned his head, murky brown eyes turned to me "Erestor" I murmured, quietly, hardly daring to believe that the figure I had so long coveted in my dreams was actually awake, alive, and read in front of me.
A soft groan broke his lips and his eyes began to focus, I gulped and retracted my hand, wrapping my fingers with all my strength around the bed frame lest my knees give out and I threated my first impression. His eyes cleared completely as he came to full wakefulness, and shock, delight, fear, and confusion mingled in their melted chocolate depths. "Glorfindel" he murmured softly, reaching out weakly with his unburnt hand, one finger trailed over one of my hands and I reached out and with a child-like fear I wrapped one finger around his finger as I spoke.
"Gods Erestor you...you...you're...you...you're..." I babbled...so much for my first impression.
"Alive?" he finished my sentence but I shook my head.
"Real"I whispered softly, in reply.
"So are you" he said quietly, looking at me weakly. He whimpered involuntarily as he shifted positions and felt the sheet graze his right shoulder.
That sound rent my heart, but somewhere in my mind I felt the death screams of the Balrog and I knew without knowing how, that -Erestor- had defeated my beast.
"But how? Why?" I asked in a soft tone, gulping gently.
I almost laughed at the scholarly, serious tone that laced his single word "Magick"
"That's a stupid reason" I said, with a snort of irrepressible laughter.
"Unfortunately there is not..." he broke off to a spasm of coughing, intermingled with whimpers as his coughs shook his body and rasped his flesh against the sheets.
I reached up a little bit and stroked his hair with tender fingers, I didn't have to wonder why he was coughing because I remembered the searing burn of smoke in your chest...the agony of trying to get the sludge out while breathing simultaneously.
After a moment he managed to drag in a full breath and cleared his throat, turning slightly again so he was mostly on his unburnt side. "Elebreth, the pain..." he murmured.
"Is there aught I can do for you?" I asked quietly, stroking my hand over a singed chunk of hair.
"water?" he asked quietly, after a quick search I found some and brought it over to him, holding it to his lips he managed two small sips before he collapsed onto his pillows.
"How long have you been here?" he asked me quietly.
"A while" was my simple answer, a pause, and then I asked. "You?"
"Since this night" he murmured in reply, taking a small breath before racking with coughs again, his whimpers turned to sobs and he tried to still his body and cough at the same time, tearing a piece of over stretched flesh on his shoulder he began to bleed ever so slightly, I wanted our alone time to last but I couldn't bear the agony of his sobs so I turned to call for a healer-only to find one well on her way, a mug in hand, she looked at me sharply.
"You should be in bed Seneschal." She said, in the same sharp, utilitarian tone.
"But I..." she interrupted me
"Bed. I will take care of him. You are not needed." she said and pulled the curtain back around his bed, and ask Erestor looked at me imploringly, with pained brown eyes, I felt a piece of my heart jump as that sight was ripped from me.
I stepped around the curtain and pulled myself to as much of my height as my injuries-though healing well- would allow. "I do not want him to have to be alone" I said, in a tone that begged her to defy me.
She looked at me sternly for about a second, before she demured to my wishes and sighed softly, "fine but you have to sit there" here, she indicated a nearby chair. "And stay out of my way"
I did as instructed, though I moved the chair to the other side of the bed, by the window and reached out to touch Erestor's other hand, though I stopped as I realized that this one was burnt worse then his shoulders and neck combined.
He persevered though, and clenching his teeth in the back reached out to brush one pink, swollen, charcoal stained finger tip against my wrist. "You're so real" he murmured after swallowing several sips of whatever Elrond had made.
"So are you" I said, and then shrugged lamely, realizing that I would never amount to much of an orator-especially not in his amazing eyes.
But it seemed to please him greatly because he managed to force a smile in spite of his wounds. Brushing the same fingertip, along the same path on my wrist-I knew I shouldn't, I knew it was wrong, I knew he and I were both injured, I knew, better then most, that he would be in world clashing agony for several weeks at least. But I couldn't helpshuddering, not shudder, but...I don't know...those heated fingers whispered from my wrist down my spine, it pooled in my belly and fired itself in my groin...I knew what those finger tips could do...and now, they were real, injured, burnt of course...but real. And not just real, but on my flesh. My Actual flesh.
I was brought out of my thoughts as he screamed, he tried so hard to hold it back, I could tell. But it didn't succeed, and it rent from his throat, 3 of them, in a row while his good hand curled around the bed post above him. I closed my eyes and flinched away as it happened but then I reached out and ran fingers through his long silken hair to soothe him. "I know it hurts meleth nin, it helps if you breathe as they pull the bandages from your flesh and breathe in with a long hissing sound when the cool air and balm hits your wounds" I said softly, letting my fingertips rub along his untouched scalp to his temples, where I massaged lightly in any attempt to soothe him that I could come up with.
He turned tear stricken, muddy brown eyes to me, tracks marking their way down his cheeks as he cried involuntarily at the agony striking across his chest and shoulders, as the healer began to rub the balm into his angry flesh. "I never got to tell you about this one time, when I was in this tavern with my men...we got really drunk..." I began, wanting to take his mind off it.
I went on and on, elaborating wildly about the time we had had that night, and it seemed to work for at one point-when the healer was binding the worst of his wounds, that I even managed to wrench a wry chuckle out through the clenched teeth and half-hidden sobs. At last, when the healer had forced the last of Elrond's concoction (which by the way he was drooping, his eyes fluttering and his body relaxing was already starting to work) down his gullet, I finished my story and smiled gently.
"Thank you" he said, tiredly, a soft slur in his voice.
"Anything for you, my precious beauty" I murmured quietly.
I stroked my calloused fingers over his hair and down his face, over his neck as gently as possible, lulling him to sleep with fairy tale my Naneth used to tell me in my youth-it didn't take very long, but even after he had fallen asleep, I continued to sit there and tell the tale, until it was completely done. Feeling extremely ...contented with his presence here, and while I hated to think that he had to suffer like this...I was beyond overjoyed that he was real, and that I wouldn't have to suffer without my delicious Erestor anymore. The Balrog was dead. I had a lover. I had -this- lover. And I knew now, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would spend the rest of my second life, defending, loving, cherishing, and being blessed with this creature...so very beyond a simple elf librarian.