Claudere

Claudere

Posted: October 27, 2006
Title: Claudere
Author: Orchyd Constyne
Type: FCS
Characters: Erestor/Glorfindel
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I do not own LotR or any characters, lands, or items from the Tolkien world. They belong to their respective copyright holders.
Beta: Half Elf Lost

Summary: Erestor lies awake and ponders the yawning silence before him.

*****

All the windows had been thrown open, begging quietly for a summer breeze to kiss the bodies lying in the bed.

Erestor was tangled in Glorfindel's arms, his lover's breath even and quiet as he slept. Erestor, however, could not sleep. His stormy eyes gazed out into the night beyond the windows, thoughts turning and churning in his mind. Where his body touched Glorfindel's, sweat gathered, dripped, dampened the sheets, and Erestor silently entreated the heavens for even a single breeze to move the curtains. It was too hot to sleep, but he was so very tired... and horribly frightened by what his mind whispered to him in this sweltering midnight.

For centuries he had been beside Glorfindel, been his equal in name, in title, in status and in affection. When had that shifted? When had all he had known and counted on changed into this facade? He wasn't sure, but it had. How long had it been this way while he turned a blind eye to those changes?

Decades... perhaps a century.

Softly, Erestor sighed, turned onto his side, relishing the coolness on his back and buttocks as the warm arm touched damp skin. Once, at the beginning of their relationship, Glorfindel would have changed positions with him, cradling him even in his sleep. No longer was this the case, as Glorfindel turned away, spreading out on the mattress and slipping deeper into his dreams.

There had been a time when Erestor had been certain of all they shared. He had known his place, his love, his desire, and he had been *sure* of what the unit of Glorfindel and Erestor meant. He blinked slowly, frowning as he pondered. Things had changed. They were the same Elves who had walked the halls of Imladris' main house for so many seasons, but everything else had moved along the current of life. It was as if Erestor had bowed his head at the beginning of dinner for a moment and, when he raised it again, everyone was in the middle of dessert and Glorfindel was laughing and joking with someone else.

Someone else.

If Glorfindel were unfaithful, Erestor would know. It was the nature of Elves. This, though, was worse than infidelity. It was the nagging sense of things being *off*. He *knew* something wasn't right with their relationship, that there was something... other... insinuating itself between their carefully knit and proudly kept bond.

Lately, it felt as if there was a third presence in their bed. Words unspoken, gazes never shared, and guilt that was, as yet, undeserved.

Tonight, lovemaking had not been a glorious, beautiful moment in their normally hectic day. It had been awkward and unsatisfying. Talk following an act that usually left him breathless was almost cursory, and Erestor was left knowing -- in that way Elves *know* things -- that this late summer of their lives was drawing to its close. Winter stalked not far from their love, and Erestor was acutely aware of his inadequacy.

He was no longer enough.

Not long ago, his body, his conversation, his intelligence, his wit -- they and more had kept Glorfindel content. In this stifling room, sharing the same bed, they were not *together*. It didn't matter that their ankles were twined; their minds, their spirits, might as well have been leagues from one another.

There was a need that he, too, felt.

Deliverance.

Respite.

Freedom.

Erestor knew he wasn't a wronged lover, and neither was Glorfindel. Erestor knew he wasn't content pretending he was happy, and neither was Glorfindel. They couldn't hide or deny the death of what had been cherished and treasured at one time in their lives.

There was more that he couldn't see. There was more that he *wouldn't* see. The foresight was there regardless of want or need, and Erestor closed his eyes as a breeze wafted in from the pungent rose gardens outside their chambers.

Knowing the chord of their life together was dying, he feared when only silence would be left. That silence was more frightening than facing any of Sauron's armies, because it would swallow them whole. Glorfindel would flee from it towards that third presence Erestor felt even now.

And when that happened, what would be left for him?

*****

THE END

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