Kenaz Fiction

And just because it's entirely too funny not to share...

2008-06-27T20:38:37Z

I bring you...The Making of Bread, 80's style.

(Warning: includes bare male chests which may or may not be safe for work, and egregious abuse of tank tops, which may or may not be safe for your funnybone.)

Happy birthday!, anorielle!

2008-06-12T16:14:24Z

In honor of your special day, anorielle, feel free to request a birthday drabble in any of the fandoms you know I write. Give me a pairing and/or character[s] and a prompt, and I will do my best to finish it before your next birthday. But as Oshun and Ennorwen can attest, they're not happening very quickly...

(But happy bday, anyway!)

A Week in the Life, Day 5

2008-06-08T04:00:56Z

Only 4 shots today... there was nothing particularly photogenic about me dust-busting the corners of the apartment, napping, or laying sprawled on my bed in an attempt to escape the heat.

9:30am -- French toast and bacon? Why, yes, please!

11am -- Heat wave, you say? Bring it on.

1pm -- Summer in my window.

3pm -- Blixa wistfully pigeon-watches. And yes, that *is* a vintage hair dryer that we made into a reading lamp.

A Week in the Life, Day 4

2008-06-07T03:39:54Z

1:30pm -- This skeevy place behind Port Authority doesn't have best pizza in the city by a long shot, but it's always hot and it's always .99 cents.

1:45pm -- The Mermaid Parade is nigh! Time to buy sequins!

7pm -- 74th Street in Jackson Heights. Saris galore!

7pm -- Outside Patel Bros., the giant Indian supermarket in my neighborhood. Bought a ridiculous amount of garam masala for a pittance.

7pm -- Inside Patel Bros. Anyone need a 40lb bag of rice? I could only fit a 10lb bag in this shot.

7:15pm -- Produce at "Kim's Brother." "Kim" himself is two blocks up. I think the produce starts with Kim and he gives it to his brother 3 days before it goes off. Heh.

A Week in the Life, Day 3

2008-06-06T03:10:32Z

I forgot my camera yesterday... so much for 7 consecutive days. Oops.

6:25am -- Waiting for the 7 train

7:10am -- Rainy trail

8:45am -- Dead end street

9:55am -- ~~Noxious pit of despair~~ Times Square

6:20pm -- Some crazy-ass sonofabitch is climbing the Times building!

6:49pm -- I am not ashamed to admit that I stood there for twenty minutes gaping like a tourist.

6:59pm -- A midget Michael Jackson impersonator, because the evening commute wasn't already surreal enough.

Happy birthday, Rei!

2008-06-02T12:41:45Z

In honor of your special day, etharei, feel free to request a birthday drabble in any of the fandoms you know I write. Give me a pairing and/or character[s] and a prompt, and I will do my best to finish it before your next birthday. But as Oshun and Ennorwen can attest, they're not happening very quickly...

(But happy bday, anyway!)

Happy Birthday, Ennorwen!!

2008-05-04T19:42:33Z

Give me a pairing/some characters and a prompt from any of the fandoms you know I write and I will write you a drabble*

*sometime before the end of calendar year 2008...

Torchwood 100 Drabbles

2008-04-28T14:56:41Z

Title: Who Watches the Watchers
Author: Kenaz
Characters: Ianto-centric
Challenge: reverse fandom sttng
Rating: PG
Notes: Spoilers for Exit Wounds

In the abattoir, he had shouted at Tosh in terrified desperation: "And who protects us?"
Tosh, asleep now beneath them, beatific smile frozen on her sweet face, had not answered him. Not then.

Now Ianto smiles, grim with comprehension, each time Jack's hands close over his to accept an offered mug; he grins wanly when Gwen's shoulders give up some tension under his passing and compassionate squeeze. There is no answer: they do what they can for each other, tacitly understanding that one day it will not be enough.

Torchwood has no savior. But Torchwood takes care of its own.

"Lay on, Macduff, And damned be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'"

2008-04-24T01:48:23Z

Still haven't written up my Papal extravaganza experiences, but I just have to pop in and say that last night, I saw Patrick Stewart in Macbeth, and it was truly one of the most fantastic shows I've seen in ages. Stewart was, as expected, phenomenal, but the entire ensemble was pretty brilliant (particularly Michael Feast as Macduff and Martin Turner as Banquo). I was particularly impressed by the very Eno-esque sound design and digital projection work... I could go on and on about the use of Fascist imagery and the timeliness of using this piece as a means of decrying dictatorship, totalitarianism and political paranoia... but egads, I just can't bring myself to do it. Suffice it to say, it was GORGEOUSLY staged and BRILLIANTLY performed, and if anyone is planning on being in the city in the near future, I whole-heartedly recommend it. It's been a long time since I've seen a straight play and I had forgotten how visceral an experience good live theatre can be.

Ardor in August is here!

2008-04-16T02:28:24Z

Sign-ups have begun... check out the Slashy Santa community for all the juicy details!

Help me, Brit-speakers, you're my only hope!

2008-04-15T16:06:14Z

Ok, UK folks and British English speakers: I've got this horrific Torchwood fic that's taking over my brain, and I need at least two-- preferably three-- contemporary slang words for 'balls.' Yes, as in 'testicles.'

The scene in question is more awkward (and potentially funny) than erotic, so the words don't have to be sexy, per se.

So tell me...how do Welsh lads refer to their bits?

(and also-- in the WAY-T.M.I. category... the average Welsh ~~tea-boy~~ man... cut or uncut?)

Meanwhile, the Fic Exchange Formerly Known As Slashy Santa will open for business this evening... I thought I'd be able to sneak it in at work, but alas, no.

Happy Birthday, Oshun!

2008-04-10T20:17:53Z

Give me a pairing/some characters and a prompt from any of the fandoms you know I write and I will write you a drabble*

*sometime before the end of calendar year 2008

Oh my.

2008-04-09T15:26:26Z

Just signed up for a Jack/Ianto ficswap. Perhaps hopping fandoms will jumpstart my (utterly nonexistent) inspiration and revive my (dead!dead!dead!) muses. Unfortunately, the only ideas I have are for two very AU Jack-centric pieces, which will not do.

Meanwhile, P. is in Montreal tonight, which means I get to have a Doctor Who marathon, eat cereal in bed, and sleep diagonally across the mattress with the cats. It's like I've died and gone to... oh, I guess it's like I died and went to my own bedroom.

Name That Smutfest!

2008-04-09T14:32:04Z

Below are the submissions for our naming contest. Any interested participant can vote for one name for each fest. The winning names (and namers) will be announced NEXT WEEK when sign-up time begins for our August exchange. Entrants, Thank you so much for your wit and creativity!

This poll will close at Midnight on April 14. Please spread the word-- the more input we get, the better!

(Please note that the polls are posted in my personal journal because polling is a paid account feature and the Slashy Santa community does not have a paid account)

View Poll: Name That Smutfest!

Ionnath-Estel (The Sons of Hope) - Chapter 13

2008-03-27T03:29:59Z

Title: Ionnath-Estel (The Sons of Hope) - Chapter 13
Author: kenazfiction
E-mail: kenazfiction@gmail.com
Pairing: Haldir/Elladan and others.
Rating: Adult, finally. :)
Disclaimer: Borrowing the Good Professor's characters for my own amusement.
Feedback: of course!
Beta: Lady E.

Previous chapters:
Prologue * Chapter 1 * Chapter 2 * Chapter 3 * Chapter 4 * Chapter 5 * Chapter 6 * Chapter 7 * Chapter 8 *
Chapter 9 * Chapter 10 * Chapter 11 * Chapter 12 *

Two posts in one day? It's a record! I don't expect anyone still remembers where we left off here, and yet the story continues. Hope this is enough to tide everyone over for a while.

Imladris, 779 TA

Haldir's horse crossed the footbridge with little evidence of fatigue. Surprising, considering how thoroughly he had been pushed these last few days. Not run to the point of exhaustion, of course: Haldir never asked more of his mounts than they could comfortably give. Centuries of travel had turned out a keen and instinctive horseman; he was no longer the nervous novice who was sore down to the last muscle after his first trek to Imladris. All the same, it had been no slow road they had taken, and on that last day Haldir had ridden at a full gallop for the final miles of his journey, flying almost desperately until he reached the point he had long ago discerned for himself marked the threshold of Elven eyesight across the plain. Reaching that hallmark, the horse had been slowed to an easy canter, to a long, loose trot, then to a brisk walk. For countless journeys, this had been Haldir' method, and this horse, like those who had come before him, had learned the routine well: a vigorous sprint for the final stretch, then a careful retreat as they came in sight of the valley's outposts. It would not do, Haldir told himself, to appear as if he carried dire news when he did not, and he had no wish to alarm the guards without cause. A mere ruse, of course, loathe though he was to admit it: he bolted toward the valley because every stride across the steppes brought him closer to Elladan. As a simple matter of pride, he did not want to embarrass himself by appearing overly eager. The horse, knowing his journey at an end, and anticipating a thorough rub-down and a generous portion of cracked corn for his trouble, pricked up his ears at the sight of the gates.

The grandeur of those walls, and the first glimpse of sunlight glancing off the spires of the Last Homely House, had long ago ceased to fill Haldir with a sense of displacement or vulnerability, but rather had become sights welcome in their familiarity, and revered for the promised reunion awaiting him within. The ostlers now took his horse without a second glance, and those he passed in the halls looked at him with only the mild interest they would have given any messenger, not the amused or patronizing appraisals they had given a naive young Wood-Elf on his inaugural arrival.

Just beyond the stables, where the stone pathway branched left toward the Last Homely House and right toward the armory, the trunk of pin-oak stretched over him. When last he had seen Elladan, that tree had been but a withy sapling, newly planted in honor of the twins' 500th begetting day. Now it was a tall and sturdy thing with roots burrowing deep. He lay his hand against the bark and felt the eager thrum of life beneath, a constant whisper in its quest to reach the sun. Twice in the past five years he had come, and through one mishap or another, missed Elladan entirely: the first time, the funeral rites of King Elendur, and the subsequent coronation of Eärendur his son, had taken Elrond and his sons to Arnor. The second had been an unanticipated visit, escorting two ladies whom Celebrían had hired into her household. To Haldir's chagrin, Elladan and his brother had been sent a fortnight earlier as envoys to Gondor for some council or other. After all that time, only to miss each other by mere days! Had either party known of Haldir's incidental errand, they might have endeavored to cross their paths somewhere along the long road from one end of Middle-earth to the other, but no such foreknowledge allowed them to plot a course.

His current trek had found him on an unusual and not entirely pleasant route. He had not gone straight away to Imladris, but had traveled East before North, crossing the Anduin and riding to Eryn Galen with trade agreements for King Thranduil. It was not an undertaking he met with relish, and he thanked his stars Amroth had such little intercourse with the Greenwood that he had not been required to make this trip earlier, or more frequently. It galled him that he should be even one moment delayed from Elladan's company in order to dwell in the realm of his rival for Elladan's heart. And no matter how many years passed, Haldir still felt Legolas keenly as a rival. The chilly greeting proffered by the Greenwood prince only confirmed his intuition, though for all that, he had shown Haldir the courtesy due a messenger of state.

The prince, captaining a band of archers near the dells where the Woodmen built their little houses, had been at the marches to meet him. From the indifferent expressions of his men, it was clear he had never spoken of Haldir to them, or implied their mutual enmity, and for that Haldir was begrudgingly grateful. Bad enough he should linger under Legolas' jaundiced eye, but to face down his men as well? Legolas had treated him officiously, thankfully never asking after Elladan, and each endeavored to stay out of the other's way.

Yet his last day in Eryn Galen had seen hackles finally raised. Legolas requested Haldir's horse be brought from the paddock to the southern path for his departure the following morning; Haldir had been obliged to ask that the horse be brought up to their camp instead, for his errands took him west over the Old Forest Road rather than back to Lothlorien. He had said no more than this, but Legolas' jaw had immediately gone rigid and his eyes turned distant and flinty.

"Well, then. I trust you will deliver my best regards to the House of Elrond."

Haldir had politely inclined his head.

Taking a long, deep breath in through his nose and staring at Haldir all the while, Legolas had added, "And should you remember, you might bid Elladan have patience with me; I have not yet had the time to reply to his latest missive. I prefer to give his messages the thoughtful responses they deserve."

Then it had been Haldir's turn to feel his body stiffen. He would have liked nothing more than to land a blow across that finely sculpted cheek and tell him that was the response he deserved. But in the end, he had merely nodded with the dispassion of diplomacy and replied, "Of course, my lord. I will tell him straight away."

Then, of course, it became clear why Legolas had not inquired after Elladan; he already knew how Elladan fared, and had perhaps more timely news of him than Haldir himself did. It was utterly vexing and utterly beyond his control. He knew he should count himself lucky that Legolas had not made his reply and asked Haldir to carry it for him. Then again, he mused feeling vaguely insulted, Legolas had probably refrained not to spare Haldir discomfort, but because he did not trust Haldir not to read it or conveniently lose it on the way. He took it as a slight to his honor, though better to feel slighted than serve as Legolas' courier.

None of this, of course, prevented him from wondering just what manner of correspondence they maintained.

But now, at last in Imladris, the gnawing tooth of jealous irritation had receded, overridden by his irrepressible eagerness to be once again in Elladan's peerless company, and he was left with no more than the anxious flutter of his stomach: another long wait was over. Each arrival stirred him anew, just as each departure plunged him into the grey malaise of loneliness alleviated only briefly and partially by the occasional letter delivered to Lorien by Elrond's messenger. He committed each one to memory, every phrase, every endearment, and then set them alight and blew the ashes to the wind. Elladan was free with his words, and while Haldir's heart stirred to read them, to see Elladan's love and desire writ plain across the parchment, he dared not keep them lest his father, or anyone else, discover them.

For some time now he had been treading on shaky ground with his father. His determination to delay from marriage until Orophin's troth was plighted had been met with taciturn fury, the sort of smoldering anger, like a banked fire, which burned long and low. Orophin, too, had been less than pleased to be set up as a pawn in what he saw merely as Haldir's unsupportable defiance. And yet, his father had not forced the issue further: Haldir's bolt had found its mark in his father's sense of tradition. Caranlas had ranted that his family was being set up for ridicule, for it was well-known among the Silvans in their enclave that his sister had set her heart on Haldir and that if propriety had been observed they would have been long ago wed, but Mithrellas, for her part, bore it well and patiently, though her disappointment was often nearly palpable. "I find it commendable," she had said, coming unbidden to Haldir's defense, "that he wishes to respect the old ways." A tentative peace was hammered out between their families.

So bound up was he, striding the halls in his tangled thoughts, that he failed to note the shadow stalking him. He startled when a cloaked figure leaped out from an alcove and pressed a blade to his throat. He would already have had his weapon in hand had he been anywhere else beside the well-guarded home of Elrond and his family, or had he thought the blade to be of anything other than well-blunted and highly-polished wood.

"Halt!" his captor commanded. "Not another step, else pay me a forfeit!"

Haldir sighed and framed his features into his most put-upon expression. "You are a menace." The sword pressed marginally harder against his skin. "Whoever saw fit to put a sword in your hands was either a madman or a fool."

An overly gleeful laugh resounded against the low vaults of the ceiling. "Agreed. Depending on the day, I believe him to be either. And sometimes I think he is both at once."

"Arwen!" Elladan's voice boomed like thunder from the far end of the hallway. Haldir's heart raced at the first sound of it, familiar and stirring even at its most commanding.

The slender slip of a maid, all but lost in the voluminous folds of her riding cloak, lowered her weapon. Haldir rubbed his throat.

"Oh, peace, muindor! It was all in jest, and Haldir knew it was only a practice sword. He would have taken off my head if he truly thought himself endangered."

"And the flat of a wooden blade will smart just as sharply on your backside if I ever catch you at such a stunt again."

Arwen's eyes blazed in challenge, but Elladan shook his head. "Act as a child and I will treat you as a child, sister." There was no jest in his tone as he approached, yet Haldir saw that a stern demeanor could not conceal the amused glint in his eye.

"You have no one to blame but yourself," Haldir interjected with equanimity. "You wished her proficient in arms. I would say you have your wish."

Elladan shot him a look, all heat and promise behind the bluster, which said in no uncertain terms, I will deal with you later. Haldir smirked.

"Just what were you about, anyway?" Elladan pressed, attempting most dutifully to appear the stern elder, and clearly making little headway at it.

"I only wanted to know if Haldir was carrying any messages for me," Arwen protested, smiling with barely credible innocence.

Elladan rolled his eyes. "He is acting as King Amroth's messenger of state, not as a courier for gossip and bad poetry between misguided maidens." Yet as he spoke, Haldir was already rummaging through his pack. Arwen clapped her hands together.

"You mean you have carried messages for her before?" he squawked. "Haldir, you indulge her overmuch!"

The retort in Haldir's expression was clear enough: And you do not?

"There is one here from Brethilwen," he told Arwen, "who explicitly directed me to send you her love, and another from Elinor, who has 'great tidings'-- her words-- and demands your attention straight away."

Defeated by the unified front, Elladan threw up his hands. "Fine. I leave it to you to explain to Amroth why there are paeans to--" he snatched one of the letters out of Arwen's hand and scanned it quickly, "--to Brethilwen's latest infatuation with the King's valet mixed in with his trade agreements."

Arwen happily snatched back the letter and stood on the tips of her toes to buss Haldir's cheek. "Thank you, Haldir." She gave the pair a polite curtsy. "I will now bid you farewell, and wish you safe travels on your return."

"Return?" Elladan questioned. "He has only just arrived!"

"Yes, and no sooner has he discharged his duty than you and he will vanish off somewhere together and cloister yourselves away like mooning lovers in your honey-time until it is time for him to leave again."

The ensuing silence was deadly.

"Arwen." Elladan's voice was dangerously sharp and low now, and Haldir could feel the blood draining from his face.

Arwen looked from one to the other with an expression of bewilderment. "I...I meant only to tease," she stuttered, clearly not understanding how she had run afoul. But Haldir saw comprehension descend as she turned to look at him again, and her cheeks flushed red.

"Oh! Haldir, I am sorry... I did not mean to imply..."

"Let it be, sister," Elladan warned.

All the merriment had fled from Arwen's face, and she bowed her head. "I am sorry if I have offended you," she repeated, and then she turned and hustled away down the hall.

Elladan turned quickly to Haldir, who had begun to regain his composure. "She meant nothing by it," he assured.

"No," Haldir agreed, "of course not."

Yet this was indeed the crux of it: each time he came to Imladris and renewed his affair with Elladan, it became less and less plausibly deniable that their friendship was one of mere fraternity. As the years had passed, Haldir had become more, rather than less, concerned about the revelation of his affections, and that concern stretched between them, cold and treacherous as ice. He felt Elladan's eyes on him, the weight of judgment in his gaze. He did not know what to say.

"I have not spoken of our relation to Arwen, though I cannot see how it is any different than Elrohir knowing. My sister adores you, Haldir, and she is no gossip-- not when it comes to important things. But for all that, can you still not believe that no one in Imladris cares what you do or with whom?" His whisper had sharpened nearly to a hiss.

Haldir slowly shook his head. "Would you have me bear home the news of my decadence in my own packs? I am a messenger; I know how word travels. "

"You are also a warrior," Elladan countered grimly, "and you are fearless when facing the enemy. Why, then, are you not fearless when facing me?"

Haldir's jaw clenched. He drew himself up to his full height even as Elladan appeared to prepare an apology, but did not speak it; whatever he read in Haldir's face stopped him cold. Haldir despised the fact that Elladan thought him craven for his vigilance. How little he understood, even after all this time! He had not been in Lothlorien since he was a youth; he had been oblivious to the snickering, the sidelong and suspicious looks, the derogatory muttering of the Silvans. Elladan dwelt in his father's gilded cloister, where lovers of either gender courted openly in front of all and sundry. Easy for Elladan to slight him, to taunt him by questioning his courage when he had nothing whatsoever to lose.

He swallowed hard and tipped up his chin imperiously. His voice was utterly without emotion when he spoke. "Legolas bid me tell you have patience with him; he knows he is late in answering your letter. He wished to delay until he could give your message the ‘thoughtful response’ it deserved."

That caught Elladan up short. His face remained impassive, but Haldir, so intimately acquainted with those fine features and watching him with hawkish intensity, did not fail to notice the minute downward slip of his eyes, nor the slow shift of his weight from his left hip to his right. Aha. Perhaps Legolas was right not to trust him with his letters; if Elladan’s subtle response were any indication, he was likely happier not knowing what was contained within them. Jealousy flared, and with it, a tendril of defeat pushing through the verdant soil of his imagination. With leaden limbs, Haldir turned to go; he still had all his packs in hand and his messages to distribute, even if he had anticipated a far more convivial greeting.

"Haldir."

He stopped and dropped his head. Weariness overwhelmed him. Weeks of sleeping rough or not sleeping at all had drawn the marrow from his bones, made him feel like a brittle husk, yet he had not noticed it until this very second. He had fed himself with expectation, warmed himself with anticipation. Once those fled, he was left with an aching back and the grit of the road between his teeth. Ah, how quickly everything had gone awry! Would that he could reverse the flow of time just a moment or so and begin again!

A hand came to rest on his shoulder. He turned back to Elladan and took in his penitent expression. He sighed, less fraught for even that simple touch. It was nigh well impossible to bear a grudge with those grey eyes upon him, silently beseeching. He had traveled too long a road to throw conciliation aside. He laid his hand over Elladan's, hoping the evening might find their privacy assured; then gentler words might be spoken. For now, he would accept a truce in any form.

"Shall I bring you to my father?" Elladan asked. Oh, that voice could be sweet, even when mouthing the most mundane phrase.

"Nay. Master Erestor will serve. He is waiting for me."

"Then I leave you to it. I will have a bath drawn for you."

Haldir forced a smile. "That is not necessary." It made him uncomfortable to have servants attending to menial tasks for him. "I prefer to see to it myself."

There was a pause before Elladan answered, and Haldir could not discern what emotions lay cloaked in his expression. "As you wish," he said, and Haldir wondered what words he had stifled.

Haldir's rooms, at his insistence, were far from Elladan's own. No amount of cajoling ever succeeded in convincing him to lodge in the family's wing. Elladan's consolation lay in that the guest quarters were part of the network of back passages and discreet doors that allowed the house staff to carry out their chores with greater efficiency and ease. He could slip easily from his own quarters, dash down a few clandestine corridors, and reach the servant's entrance to Haldir's suite in a matter of moments. Elrohir had been the first to discover the passages when they were small, and they had quickly mapped every inch of the Last Homely House. A more enticing playing ground for the mischievous pair could not have been imagined, much to the chagrin of his father's seneschal, who had been startled half to death more times than he probably cared to count by two dark heads barreling out of the kitchens with pilfered sweets and down one passageway or another with startling speed. Even their father’s admonitions had failed to curb their delight in racing through those low-ceilinged tunnels. Centuries had passed since he had last abused them; of late, he used them almost exclusively to pass to and from Haldir's rooms unnoticed. And he no longer ran, though the pilfering of sweets was still a regular transgression.

He prepared the coals in the brazier beneath the basin. No doubt, as much as Haldir protested, a hot bath would be a welcome pleasure. He stalled his hand before striking his flint when he heard the outer door open beyond, then swing shut, followed by the unceremonious thump of Haldir's packs hitting the floor. Far softer, yet still audible to Elladan's ear was the low groan of Haldir stretching his tired limbs. He knew the instant Haldir marked the presence of another within the suite and froze to listen, likely straining to discern if it were Elladan beyond the wall or some servant sent in spite of his objections.

"My thanks," Haldir called out with the careful goodwill of one who means no offense yet wishes to make himself plain, "but I will tend to my rooms myself."

Elladan heard the rattle of coins and stifled a chuckle. Poor Haldir, made so self-conscious by the labor of others on his behalf, that he sought to chase them away with bribes. It was a wonder there were not half a dozen servants crowded in the suite, all vying to be the beneficiary of Haldir's discomfort. Perhaps it was time to make himself known, lest he try his weary companion overmuch.

"Have you enough, do you think, to run me off?" he queried, stepping into in the doorway to the bath.

Haldir rolled his eyes. "Considering how little is in this purse, I hardly imagine so. Yet one might hold out hope, however slim."

Elladan smiled, yet he could not help but remember Haldir's expression changing instantaneously from affection to accusation. Worse yet had been the look of pure hurt which had followed shortly thereafter, and the stony detachment with which he had delivered Legolas' message-- if pride were Haldir's coin, how much had those words cost him to deliver? And for Elladan to all but call him a coward before even greeting him, or inquiring after his wellbeing? Hammer of Aulë, but that had been stunningly ill-done!

Elladan had immediately been awash in contrition, yet he could not now call back words spoken in frustration. Too long it has been, he thought. Time and distance had eroded the ground between them. How best to recover it? The nearness of Haldir's body woke within him the love which had endured years of separation and letters returned with such a subtle turn of phrase that he had sometimes wondered if the passion between them sprang from his heart alone. Yet to behold Haldir now, blue eyes fixed on him intently and unblinking, his entire body wound tight with apprehension, how could Elladan doubt his affection? All the same, to overcome Haldir's reticence-- his seeming ambivalence-- with every meeting was wearisome.

Tonight, however, Elladan was more than ready to span the distance between them, and so he stepped forward and rested his hand against Haldir's cheek, cradling his jaw, not realizing that the smile had fallen from his face.

"I did not mean for our meeting to sour. I have been anticipating your arrival for weeks."

He could feel Haldir swallow. "I have missed you," came his rough whisper.

Elladan relished that terse expression of affection. Haldir rarely spoke of feelings, and when he did, he did so obliquely. Such was the way of the Silvans, a phlegmatic and positively taciturn race of whom none were given to speak three words where one would suffice. In fact, Haldir had yet to speak the words Elladan most deeply wished to hear. He had long since contented himself to receive a deep kiss or a tender stroke in reply when he himself spoke them. And so, he answered Haldir's stark admission in the same way Haldir might have answered him: without words. He pushed back the thick tail of pale hair and pressed his lips to the base of Haldir's throat. He tasted of salt and soil and wild places. Elladan imagined stripping him bare and kissing his way south, learning of his path and his travails from the scent of him, stronger here, barely discernible there, tinged elsewhere by the blood of some unmentioned incident, or by the lingering trace of the greenery on which he had laid himself to rest. Haldir's body would tell him all that his lips withheld.

Haldir groaned and tried lamely to push him away. "Elladan, please...I smell most foully."

Elladan held tight and licked a meandering trail up his neck. "You smell of the road."

This sultry intimation, growled low into Haldir's ear, served, as Elladan knew it would, to dissolve the last of Haldir's reserve, and presently two strong hands were twining their callused fingers in his hair and his mouth was summarily claimed. Easy enough now, he found, to back Haldir up to the bed; he went down without a struggle, save that of uncinching his belt and working the buttons on his jerkin. The linen shirt beneath surrendered easily to Elladan's hasty tugging and slipped to the floor.

Elladan descended slowly over the broad, smooth expanse of Haldir's chest, listening to his heart beating, and to the thrum of his blood rushing through his core. The hale throb of the pulse at his neck and at his wrist, now pressed to Elladan's cheek, was an affirmation, an invitation. Yet Elladan knew where that pulse labored harder still, and he was impatient for it, unlacing Haldir's breeches none too gently to expose him in all his hungry, road-weary glory. There, just beneath the velvet flesh where the tempered plains of his abdomen met the northern climes of his thigh, the vein leading toward his ready shaft surged visibly, calling Elladan to it, and as he bent his head to meet that tender skin, the muscles beneath contracted sharply and forced a low moan from Haldir's mouth.

The wiry thicket from which Haldir's erection sprang was a rich bed of scents: of the suede of his breeches worn to a shine along his thighs and calves, of saddle leather beneath; of long weeks of travel and sweat, and most richly of his own musk, a scent which brought Elladan to full hardness as he breathed it in and released his breath like a breeze over Haldir's bollocks. This wrenched a taut gasp from farther afield and Haldir's shaft twitched against his cheek. He waited no longer to close his fingers around it, stroking it slowly once, twice, thrice, before the head crowned fully. Seeing him slickened, Elladan met Haldir's hunger with an appetite of his own.

Elladan feasted like a man starved, pinioning Haldir’s hips to the bed, working him until his jaw ached and his lips burned. Encouraged by Haldir's vigorous response, he slipped a finger further down and worked it in slow circles, entreating Haldir to allow him entry, but when he tensed, Elladan withdrew; a more auspicious time would present itself to explore still-uncharted terrain. He gentled Haldir's apprehension with a squeeze of his thigh, and buried himself again in the task of sucking his beloved companion into a whirlwind of sensation. When Haldir's body tensed again, it was to herald his spending, his legs going rigid, his toes flexing and curling, his back arching, and then there was a noise like stifled laughter and Haldir was filling his mouth with the hot, bitter tide of his seed, sighing his release.

Elladan gave him no time to rest, retracing his path to the northern peaks of Haldir's recumbent form, kissing him ardently so that Haldir would know his own taste on Elladan's tongue. Already, Haldir was rolling to his side and Elladan slipped behind him, insinuating himself between Haldir's well-muscled thighs. He longed with near-feral desperation for deeper heat and tighter flesh, but this Haldir would not endure. So he satisfied himself as he had so many times before, caught up in the friction of Haldir's straining limbs, his warm flesh close, but never close enough. As the brief oblivion of pleasure rendered him senseless, Elladan would have certainly agreed that there was ample pleasure to be culled from those travel-hardened legs and the sweet heat of Haldir's skin, but he longed to know all of Haldir's body, and to be known in return.

He also acknowledged that now was hardly the moment to resurrect that familiar argument, not when they had gotten off on such poor footing, and not with peace so recently restored. Now was the moment for softer expressions, for drawing out gentle words and confidences, for there was no time Haldir proved more pliant, Elladan had long ago discovered, than in the gloaming between release and reverie.

"It is good to have you back." He braced himself up on one arm. Haldir rolled to his back. His face was flushed and his braid had become a thorough tangle. He looked a delicious mess with his lids already at half-mast and quickly sinking. "Tell me you will stay for a time."

"Mmm," Haldir lazily replied. "I shall. As long as I may." He reached up and idly toyed with the pendant dangling from Elladan's neck. Elladan never removed it, save to string it on fresh leather each time the thong wore thin. Haldir appeared entranced by it, his fingers tracing the outline of the mallorn leaf and the edges of the star. Elladan nearly missed the sound of his whisper when it came, as if the pendant contained magic to be invoked by a touch and an incantation. He spoke in his mother-tongue, a private parley from which Elladan had ever been excluded. He knew the strange chorus by heart, and could mimic the words, but year after year their meaning had remained as elusive as their speaker.

"Silvan speech is not often heard here in the North," he commented, leaning in to brush an errant silvery lock from Haldir's brow. "I hear it only from you, and then only in moments such as these, when you are nearing sleep or spent from your throes."

"Aye?"

If Haldir had heard the question posed in the framework of Elladan's words, he did not acknowledge it. More likely he had discerned it clearly, but was not about to reward Elladan for wheedling. Haldir was never one for allusion or dissembling; he was simply unwilling to speak when he did not see the need. He delivered his rejoinder without even bothering to open his eyes.

"Do I rightly hear? Is there a subject on which the scion of Imladris claims ignorance?" Even disarmed by the advent of dreams, the blade of his wit honed itself against the whetstone of Elladan's pillow talk.

"There is much on which I will claim ignorance," Elladan said, a hint of reproach creeping into his voice, "your heart, for instance."

Haldir appraised him now with lucid eyes. He frowned and reached up to cup Elladan's cheek. "Do my actions not suffice to make my heart clear to you?"

Only when we are locked away alone with no chance of discovery, he thought with some annoyance, but he said nothing. To Haldir's way of thinking, each kiss and caress were an assault on his upbringing, and yet he came again and again to Elladan's bed, glutting him with tender affection, if not with limitless carnality, with cryptic endearments, if not open admission of his love. How could Elladan voice his objections when Haldir's eyes upon him were so thoroughly earnest, so utterly lacking in guile? Indeed, he looked quite concerned. Under the onslaught, Elladan could do nothing but relent. He pressed into Haldir's touch, turning his head to kiss his open palm.

"They do," he replied gently. "Of course they do."

Haldir's smile was slow and sleepy and sweet, as was his sigh when Elladan bent down to kiss his forehead. He said nothing more, and drifted quickly into sleep. Not the twilight idling of Elven reverie, but the deep, heavy slumber of one who, thoroughly exhausted, had found a place of safety and let down his guard completely.

Each day had a particular rhythm, a pattern which did not often deviate from the usual. Elladan’s mornings were hours of serious duty given over to his father or to Glorfindel, and his afternoons were his own. His evenings were reserved for Haldir: they might attend a concert or linger in the Hall of Fire for songs and stories, or revel with Elladan’s friends among the guard. Inevitably, they would depart separately, only to reunite privately in Haldir’s suite.

But then there were the dinners. Each evening, Elladan watched Haldir take a seat with the handful of Gildor's men who had returned from their questing for sundries and to repair their gear. Gildor, of course, sat at the high table at Elrohir's right hand, making Haldir's absence there all the more palpable to Elladan. He watched with something akin to envy as Haldir traded jests with Cúron, easy in his company. Each evening, Elladan asked Haldir to dine with his family, and each evening, he awkwardly declined.

"Since when does a messenger take his meal at the high table? I would look ridiculous." As always, his concern over the appearance of their relation overrode everything, even his interest in lingering at Elladan's side.

"I do not know if it is truly ignorance or merely willful blindness that keeps him oblivious to the fact that all of our friends and family surmised long ago that we are more than merely boon companions," Elladan griped, cutting his meat with needless vigor.

Elrohir shrugged. "You have always known it would be thus; you cannot say you were not given fair warning."

Elladan felt his brow involuntarily furrowing. "I accepted that he would be secretive when we first came together, but centuries have come and gone, and still he is as skittish as ever. One would think that he would grow tired of dissimulation." He restrained his scowl upon hearing his brother's exasperated sigh.

"It would seem that you are at an impasse. You must decide if you will take him as he is, knowing he may never publicly claim you, or break with him."

Having the situation painted in such stark terms was a pitiless slap in the face; Elrohir was a master of brute truths.

"I cannot believe that these are the only options. Silence or naught? And I have not considered breaking with him, nor will I. You know the depths of my feelings for him, Elrohir."

But Elrohir's gaze was keen and shrewd, and passed through him like a blade. "Your correspondence with Legolas rides a fine line between friendship and flirtation. I have said this more than once." Elladan's cheeks blazed crimson. In some moments, his brother's voice took on such a tone and cadence of authority that he wondered, as he had uncounted times in his youth, if it should not have been Elrohir to come first into the world and to wear the mantle of the heir.

"I know you are not so callow as to trade palaver with him only to stoke your pride," Elrohir persisted, "nor do I think you play at clever words for titillation. However, I do imagine you have considered how different things might be for you had you taken Legolas as your companion."

Elladan sighed. There was little point in evading his brother's observation. "I have, yes. It feels egregiously disloyal to say it aloud, and nearly unconscionable to say it with Haldir here in my sight. But if I am to be honest with myself, there it is."

"Do you regret your choice, then?"

Elladan turned to Elrohir in astonishment. "No! Certainly not!" His shoulders sagged. "Yet I regret that he will not be more forthcoming."

He looked back out across the room and found Haldir watching him, a shy smile soft with fondness tipping the corners of his mouth. Once he caught Elladan's eye, the smiled flashed briefly brighter, he inclined his head to acknowledge Elladan's attention, and then he once again turned away. A moment later, he was laughing boisterously at something Cúron had said.

Elrohir's voice was soft in his ear, like a whisper from his conscience. "Will not, brother...or mayhap truly cannot?"

Long summer afternoons offered ample opportunity for diversion. More often than not, they found Haldir and Elladan on the training fields, sparring with the Imladrin guards. Elladan and Elrohir had both proven themselves to be talented swordsmen, with an innate facility for anticipating the actions of their opponents. When they engaged in a bout, neither could ever claim prowess over the other. They were so equally matched, each round could have played out for hours until they simply wore themselves out.

Haldir was not without his own skill. The sword was not his weapon of choice, for in Lorien the bow reigned; but when attention turned from the sparring ring to the archery lists, he inevitably took the upper hand over all contenders. If the sword were an extension of the swordsman's hand, the bow was an extension of the archer's eye, and wherever that eye was focused, a bolt was sure to fall. It gave Elladan great pleasure to observe not only Haldir’s mastery, but his supreme confidence each time he drew back the bowstring.

Amidst the rowdy camaraderie of the soldier's grounds, Haldir clearly felt at ease. There, such was the visceral undercurrent of rough and tumble sensuality that Haldir seemed nearly brazen in his behavior without concern of arousing the curiosity of his companions. A slap to the rear or a tweak of a nipple was, in this arena, an expression of friendly torment, or a teasing call to challenge, not a suggestive overture. Here, if he wanted to throw his arm around Elladan's waist or playfully snatch at his stomach, he could do so with impunity. Thus, Elladan saw to it that they spent as much time in the company of their warrior brethren as responsibility allowed.

This particular afternoon, Elladan found himself feeling fit for mischief, and primed to take on his most daunting adversary, his sole font of consistent defeat: Haldir's ironclad chastity. His determination had been bolstered by Haldir’s appearance the previous evening. He had arrived at the Hall of Fire wearing a new shirt of fine cotton lawn embroidered with linden leaves at the hem. It had been a peace offering from Arwen, the needlework done in her own clever hand. It had been cut in the same style as those she made for her brothers, which was to say it was far shorter than Haldir’s usual fare, and it exposed a fair bit of his pale and delectable throat, not to mention his taut backside.

One of Arwen’s fawning courtiers had recognized the workmanship and given Haldir a pointed snub, telling him he aimed rather high for a messenger if he thought to have Lord Elrond’s daughter. To Elladan’s surprise, Haldir had answered the insult with a snort of laughter, which had left the young gallant adequately confounded. Yet it was still all that Elladan could do not to anchor his arm propretarily around Haldir’s waist and announce that his aim was even higher than the young fool suspected: Haldir did not seek to have Lord Elrond’s daughter, but his first-born son!

He had now, however, satisfactorily avenged himself by thoroughly trouncing the lad in a mock duel, after which he approached Haldir where he sat, comfortably reclining in the pile of discarded vests and tunics which had amassed during the matches and drills. He issued a challenge of swords, but the Galadhel demurred.

"It would hardly be a legitimate competition. I am a bowman afore all else. You will ever have ascendancy over me with a blade."

Elladan leaned in close, his eyes alight with a predatory gleam, his skin still suffused with the healthy glow of rigorous activity. His look lingered, his lips provocatively curling. "Do not underestimate your skill. I have long desired to match swords with you, Haldir of Lorien; I would count it an honor to find myself mastered by your sword."

His suggestion could hardly have been more overt; Haldir looked like a startled deer. The clash of metal behind them as Elrohir and Cúron faced off afforded him a momentary reprieve, and Elladan allowed him the opportunity to look away to hide the flush of blood to his cheeks. When he looked back, he would find that Elladan's gaze had not faltered, but had only grown more ravenous.

Haldir cleared his throat. "Swords... are not my specialty, I fear."

Elladan gave no quarter, pinning him as surely as if he had taken first blood. "Mayhap practice will convince you otherwise."

Haldir said nothing. He did not even blink.

Elladan tossed him a gambeson. "Spar with me, Haldir. Let me know your steel."

It was very nearly a command, but something in that tone-- the urgency far more than the imperative-- proved impossible for Haldir to deny. He slowly stood, unbuckling his swordbelt as he rose and fastening it again once he had pulled on the gambeson. Elladan had not waited for him; he already stood within the circle in a posture of readiness. Haldir joined him in the ring, saluted, and drew up his sword.

Elladan leaped forward, opening with a vigorous thrust which Haldir ably blocked, though it set him off balance. He rallied, looping the point of his sword up and back across his body, then swinging down with an eye to Elladan's knees. Elladan brought his sword down and around to parry and immediately riposte. Haldir was quick with his blade, but Elladan knew he could be quicker, and knew his mannish strength made him a formidable challenger, though Haldir's disadvantage was less one of skill than one of confidence. Sword in hand, his eyes did not hold the same calculating and intrepid gleam they did when sighting down an arrow. If ever he could convince Haldir to linger in Imladris for a season or two, Glorfindel could easily turn out a daunting swordsman; Elladan had known him to work wonders with far lesser candidates. Ah, but there was much that could happen if only Haldir might extend his visit for a while...

...not the least of which was that Haldir could run him through like a pig on a spit! Elladan inwardly cursed that his momentary woolgathering had gotten the better of him. Haldir had taken note of his distraction and lunged from the left. Elladan revised his assessment that the left was Haldir's weaker side as he jumped back and blocked the strike, his knuckles ringing from the impact of Haldir's blade against the quilions of his sword. The shearing song of metal on metal and the whistle of blade cutting the air sent a shiver through his limbs. Around and around they circled, thrust and parry, slice and block, and if Haldir was not imaginative in his attacks, he was for certes strong and agile and persistent.

Out of the corner of his eye, Elladan could see that Elrohir and the others had begun to draw up around them to observe the match. He was amply versed in sparring for an audience; he could only hope the sudden crowd would not distract or unnerve his opponent. Nothing would prove worse for his cause than to have Haldir lose face now. He could feel beads of perspiration tickling his neck. He was no longer breathing easily, not was Haldir, though neither saw fit to withdraw. Following an attack from Elladan, Haldir came at him hard and fast, and Elladan moved carefully backward as he parried, following Haldir's movement and allowing momentum to carry Haldir forward, too close to Elladan's blade for an adequate defense. Just as Elladan dropped his blade to land a blow to Haldir's ribs, Haldir realized his error and made a quick retreat. Elladan growled; Haldir's look of intense concentration lightened for the barest instant. Elladan dove for him, and missed by a fraction of an inch as Haldir twisted sideways and moved again so that their positions were reversed. Elladan could smell his strain, his sweat. He was practically panting; they both were.

"Aya!" Elrohir's shout cut through the fog of their exertions. "Nine bells, lads! Call it a draw and let us eat."

Elladan nearly collapsed in relief. He pulled his stroke and stepped back. Haldir dropped his arms from their defensive position, sheathed his sword, and bent over to catch his breath. "You've a thrust few could hope to parry," he gasped breathlessly, supporting his weight with his hands on his knees, "myself least of all."

Elladan put forth his most disarming smile. "Had we more time, you might yet have pressed your advantage. Or perhaps I would have forfeited."

"Nay," Haldir shook his head and straightened, the levity passing from his visage, "You are successor to Elrond the Wise, descendant of kings. It will never be your place to forfeit."

Elladan clutched his arm. "Yet I would--"

"Enough." Haldir deftly shook free of his grasp and looked about, though the others had all departed for the evening meal, and there was no one left to mark their conversation.

"There is no shame in ceding to an equal, Haldir."

"But I am not your equal," Haldir whispered, and his words rang with the implacable finality of which Elladan had come to despair.

Elladan sighed, and stooped down to pluck his shirt and Haldir's from the ground. "By dint of birth, perhaps not. In all else..." He let his voice trail away. He reached out once more, and let Haldir feel the ephemeral brush of fingertips passing over his palm.

"You are the keeper of my heart, Haldir. Upon whom should I bequeath the whole of my love if not upon my equal?"

Haldir gave him no response, but Elladan knew he had hit his mark when the Galadhel did not even spare a glance around him before offering Elladan his hand. It was such a strong hand: calloused from training, unafraid of hard labor, and it was warm. He wove their fingers together and caressed Haldir's knuckle with his thumb. Our hearts are long entrusted, he thought, one to the other; why does he flail so against the inevitable, against what must surely be the most vivid expression of love?

Quickly, Haldir darted forward and laid a determined kiss on Elladan's lips. Elladan knew his expression must have been one of utter astonishment, for as soon as Haldir withdrew, he looked terribly abashed despite his little grin. Elladan wagered he had surprised himself with that impulsive act as much as he had surprised Elladan.

"Will...will you join me at dinner?" Elladan's voice sounded absurdly young and uncertain to his own ears.

Haldir's gaze dropped to his boots. "No." He raised his head just enough for Elladan to glean the hot flush of his cheeks and the fierce blue of his eyes framed in their fringe of lashes. "But if I may... I... I would come to you tonight."

Elladan clamped down on a sudden urge to crow; their stalemate may have earned him a victory yet! Earned them a victory. How else could he respond but to reiterate his own words?

"Haldir of Lorien, I would count it an honor."

Haldir stood still as a stone, framed by the inconspicuous doorway. He knew well enough the way to Elladan's rooms through the recondite maze of servant's passages, yet still he lingered, caught at the threshold, his shadow arcing across the stone. Already he had returned once to his room to pull on his boots. He had left barefoot, yet despite the knowledge that any clothing he donned now would be expeditiously doffed once he reached his destination, it seemed to him unseemly to be padding around in the dark unshod. Another moment passed and he stepped back, silently closing the door behind him. No. That was not how it would be, skulking in the dark like a thief. If he was truly willing to go through with this, then he must own his actions fully. He closed his fist around the object in his hand. He left his suite by its true door, faced down the broad hallway, and took a step. And then another.

Once again he had cause to appreciate the circumspection of Elrond's household. Those who tended the family's chambers had done so since Elrond's days in Lindon; ancient and established as they were, they had little interest in the comings and goings of the wee hours, and none whatsoever in idle tale-bearing. The serving-woman he passed as he turned down the corridor barely even glanced up as their paths crossed, though it was long past midnight and no one else was afoot.

His breath came hard in his chest as he faced down Elladan's door. Could it be heard, echoing in the empty ingress?

Orophin had told him a story once, about two Silvan wardens-- highly decorated archers-- with whom he had briefly served after his induction. They had been caught in a tryst. The marchwarden had stripped them of their rank, though no warden could be expelled from service entirely save for an act of treason or by the order of the King. They had been made to walk a gauntlet of their erstwhile peers, the martial drums sounding a grim tattoo, and to relinquish their swords before their fellows. The penalty assayed was to part ways and never speak to each other again; one would be sent to the North-marches to tend to the midden trenches, the other for similar duty along the borders in the South. Centuries of loyal service undone by an indiscreet moment, the comfortable brotherhood of the wardens turning to silence or jeers. In the end, they resigned their commissions and quit the Golden Wood altogether, and Orophin could not say where they had gone: in any case, the humiliation had been too much to be borne. He wondered, with each laborious step, if the sound of the shaming drums had been as loud or relentless as the hammering of his heart this night. He was delivering himself to his own fate, and all that was missing now were two ranks of solemn faces, their stares bearing down upon him with the full weight of condemnation. He wondered if his brothers, or his father, would fall in to witness his denunciation, or if they would turn their backs on him.

No. Not tonight; he would not think on that tonight. He would leave off his misgivings until the morrow, and then examine them only once he was safely back in his own quarters, alone.

For all his fear, for all his consternation, he could not turn aside. His heart drove him, even as the hallway loomed ever longer before him. Elladan was pure of heart. How could their love be false, or of lesser value than a man’s love for a woman? Elladan was a fearless warrior, a leader of men. So wherefore the dishonor in yielding his body to such a one as he? He, after all, had offered no less to Haldir, though Haldir's conscience balked intractably at that: a lord's place was not on his knees under an untitled courier.

He worried the inside of his cheek between his teeth. By the stars, he had tried to quell this need, tried to focus his desires on Mithrellas' fair form, all the while learning the ineluctable truth of his spirit: the flame within him burned ever and only for Elladan. If he could not extinguish it, then he must surrender to the conflagration, and hope its scorch reified the purity of his devotion.

And if it consumed him wholly...?

Elladan's door opened without sound. A single candle still burned in the foyer to light his way to the rooms beyond. He hesitated in the low light for a moment, though there was no longer any question of his turning back. He knew Elladan must already have heard him enter. When at last he crossed into Elladan's bed chamber, Elladan was already tossing back the counterpane and swinging his legs to the floor. He wore a long linen nightshirt, a touch of conventional modesty Haldir had not expected. His steps faltered, but only once.

He toed off his boots as Elladan watched, wondering again why he had bothered with them. In the light of the oil lamp on the bedside table, Elladan's face radiated predatory absorption. He refused to let himself be cowed by such tactics; he forced himself to undress slowly-- little choice, really, given that one fist was still clenched around its little burden--and with an air of insouciance he most certainly did not feel. His body had begun to take an anticipatory interest in his activities, though by the time he stripped off his trousers, he had not yet risen with full ardor. Elladan, however, clearly had, and his linens no longer served his modesty to any effect. Nostrils flaring with the effort to regulate his breath, he strode to the bed, grabbed Elladan by the back of the neck, and pulled him into a voracious kiss. His tongue demanded entry into Elladan's mouth and Elladan gave it with a strangled whimper. He was already fumbling with the hem of his nightshirt, pulling it up to bare his eager body. Haldir pressed him to the bed, moving away only long enough for Elladan to rid himself of that meddlesome fabric, and Haldir shuddered at the first touch of skin on skin. When he broke the kiss and drew back, Elladan looked up at him with bewilderment and longing. Feeling his heart flinging itself like a panicked animal against the cage of his ribs, he took up one of Elladan's hands and pressed within it the thing he had been carrying. A small pot of lanolin.

Elladan opened his mouth to speak, but Haldir pressed a finger across his lips.

"Elladan of Imladris," he whispered, "it is my honor."

Elladan smiled, then, and it was a smile of such dazzling joy, such complete... wonder... that Haldir could hardly regret his decision. Grey eyes sparkled like adamant, an unearthly radiance lighting them from within. The first time he had gone to Elladan's bed, he had seen that luminescence and wished that those eyes might one day shine so for him. Now, he saw that they did, that they always had.

And yet he could not bear that gaze one moment longer. It probed him so thoroughly, laid him more bare and made him more vulnerable than any touch possibly could. Any touch save this one, this last and most foreign caress. He drew in a breath, and before courage could flee, climbed over Elladan and braced himself up on his hands and knees. At the last, he leaned forward and dropped his forehead to rest against his clenched fists, afraid that his resolve might fail him at the vital moment. It also kept Elladan from espying the fear and embarrassment in his eyes and calling an end to this venture. The sharp intake of Elladan's breath echoed the swish of the sheets as he reversed himself in the bed, as if the room breathed in apprehension with them.

Elladan was silent now; he knew what was being offered.

Haldir flinched when Elladan touched him. He had to force himself not to retreat from the alien sensation, to roar in umbrage at being made to feel so defenseless and so...so...open. His own arousal had waned, but he no longer considered his own pleasure, only focused on staying the course, on capitulating to this invasion. What little else he might have known of this, he most certainly knew the moment Elladan was no longer touching him with his fingers, but with his...

...Oh, it hurt! Sweet stars, but it burned in a way he had not imagined! He very nearly bucked Elladan off of him, anything to be free of that searing within, but he held firm, sought his breath... Elladan's voice kept him tethered, his fervid whispers and raw praises gentling him until the pain receded into acclimation, and acclimation slowly...slowly... transformed into pleasure. Elladan was inside him, within him, filling him... oh, by sun and moon, splitting him in half! But this fire... oh, this fire warmed him, annealed his very spirit. He was owned, possessed, ridden...he was desired...he was loved.

The clench of Elladan's hands on his hips, the tremor in his limbs, all suggested that Elladan was restraining himself against some preternatural force, some primeval drive. He wrenched so hard against Haldir, all the while making feral sounds of pleasure, that it seemed he could not sink deep enough into Haldir's flesh, that he wanted to be still closer, that he wanted to climb inside him and share the whole space of his body. Haldir had a moment of exultation, fleeting and intangible: it was his body, his, that wrenched desperate noises from Elladan's throat, low sounds of hunger unlike any he had ever heard... it was within his power to grant Elladan this supreme pleasure; he could render Elladan as ravenous as a beast. How could this be wrong? How could this...

...Sweet stars, he was hard again, hard and aching, and no sooner had he thought this than Elladan's hand snaked down his legs, fingers still slick with lanolin, and played over him. Every inch of his body felt afire, tightening with Elladan's touch. Gripped roughly in Elladan's sword-hand, and all he could think of was that he was being stroked from within and without and nothing had ever felt like this...nothing...

...And then there was no more thought, no more flow of words within his mind. There was only the dissolution of sight, the melding of light and shadow, and the need for more, for harder, for deeper. There was Elladan's hand forging iron from the heavy, molten mass between his legs, the hot friction of hard thighs, the rub of a taut belly against his back, and always, always, the relentless pounding that broke him apart and remade him. His body was no longer his own, nor was it Elladan's... Joined, they birthed a new entity moving entirely of its own volition, a sleeping dragon awakened and furiously bent on sating its appetites. He could feel could feel that hot shaft cleaving him, could feel the rush of his own breath over his lips and teeth, but he was somewhere else, somewhere beyond, simultaneously a participant and an observer of his own unraveling. When the tempest of sensation rose to a howl within him, he knew he could not keep silent, that he must cry out, must cry out or fly apart into a thousand shining slivers. His body, far beyond his control now and sensing the imminent crisis, bore down hard, wanting to keep Elladan there inside him... to feel him swell and surge... and when Haldir came, he keened, howling some unfathomable loss even as his body rejoiced. Another voice echoed his, a staccato counterpoint of ecstasy, as Elladan drove one final stroke within him, sank to the root, and filled him with a fresh heat.

After, they glided together on the soft edge of sleep, Elladan’s arm encircling his waist and his forehead resting between his shoulder blades. He knew that Elladan was listening for him to say the words he had not yet dared to translate, but he feared to speak lest he suddenly shatter.

He had crossed the final line; if Elladan was ignorant to the depths of his devotion now, no word in any tongue would make it plain.

Repetition and the passage of time made it no easier to watch Haldir pack his bags. It was never less of a burden to feel Haldir recede from him, though he knew it was only the means by which his Galadhel dealt with their impending separation, steeling himself for the blow that was that final kiss, that last wave, that ultimate view of Imladris vanishing behind the curve of the mountainside.

"I shall try to come to you in spring," Elladan pronounced hopefully. Haldir gave him a grunt and a nod; as often as he had tried to come to Lorien, he had as many times been thwarted: his duties to the vale and to his family did not allow him ample time for sojourns. Besides, when Haldir was not running messages for Amroth he was fulfilling his obligations to the guard, spending months on end on the marches. Haldir knew as well as he did that, lest Amroth have some pressing errand, they were not likely to see each other until the following summer.

Tucking the last of his belongings into his worn leather pack, Haldir sighed and stood, wincing slightly. "I would have our goodbyes here, where I might see to them properly."

Elladan had a waggish urge to ask him if he were truly fit to ride, or if he would stand in his stirrups half the day. His mind returned to the previous evening, to their latest and last coupling, to Haldir's legs cinched around his waist, to his body arching off the bed as he spent over Elladan's fist, with Elladan following shortly after. But he dared not toss out such a flippant jest; he had won Haldir's surrender, yes, but he knew that it came at a cost to Haldir's conscience, and that was not a thing with which to carelessly trifle.

"May Eärendil light your path," he said quietly, feeling of a sudden more forlorn than rakish.

"He always does," Haldir replied, looking at Elladan with imperturbable surety. Then came that inaccessible benediction, those words which strayed just outside the realm of Elladan's understanding, comfortably familiar yet maddeningly indecipherable. Elladan frowned and looked away, but Haldir grasped his chin and turned his face to regard his infuriating Galadhel calm. He drew his thumb over Elladan's lips, as if he might commit their swells and curves to memory with his touch. Elladan nearly melted; rare were such displays of tenderness outside their bed. Haldir leaned in, his breath no more than a transient specter across Elladan's cheek, and into Elladan's ear he whispered, "deep as roots to the heart of the earth, high as branches to the vaults of the sky: so goes my love for you."

And then, brushing a swift kiss across Elladan's lips, he hefted his bags on his shoulders and was gone, leaving Elladan to stare agape at his vanishing shadow, robbed utterly of speech by the most unexpected, the most perfect, declaration he had never expected to receive.

Birthday Drabbles: Lord of the Rings & Swordspoint

2008-03-26T15:09:41Z

Very, very belatedly, here they are. 100 words on the nose. The innuendo bunnies were biting.

(PS: New Ionnath-Estel chapter TONIGHT!!)

For Kei, who wanted Haldir and Glorfindel in a moment of frivolity:

“Oh, I am completely serious.”

Glorfindel ran long, wet fingers around the rim of his glass. It hummed. “I never jest--” He licked lingering tannic drops, watching Haldir’s lips. “-- with such heavy stakes. You are the best, you know.”

Haldir rolled his eyes. “Our wagers have become utterly ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? Imaginative. Declining?”

“Nay.”

“One last thing.” Sauntering to the bookcase, the heat of Haldir’s eyes on his back, he retrieved a sand timer, lasciviously caressing its curves.

(Wide eyes and a bare hint of audible umbrage.)

Glorfindel grinned, sprawled, and turned the timer, anticipating his most delicious defeat.

For Ryo, who wanted Haldir and Elladan happily ever after:

“Fever?” Haldir moaned weakly, moving listlessly beneath the sheet. A groan, then. “You are certain?”

“Yes,” Elladan whispered, marching palliative kisses up his neck in a solemn column. “Very certain. But here--” he moved his hand “—let me make doubly sure.”

Haldir bucked up into the touch with a feral rumble echoing in his chest. “If that is the means by which you gauge my temperature, you will always find me burning.”

Elladan rolled atop him, pinning his hips to the bed with his own, kissing him roughly. “Then I suppose I must confine you to bed indefinitely.”

...And for Elfscribe, who wanted something in the Swordspoint universe. (Warning: Spoilery for Privilege of the Sword):

Thrust-parry-riposte.

Even before his eyes failed, dimmed like guttering candles, shadows had been his constant companions, sparring partners for the sleepless nights; there were simply more of them now, omnipresent and shifting. Besides, what need had he for sight? He knew by the weight of the air that a raven perched at the threshold. Knew by scent the presence betokening gentler sleeplessness. Knew from his quickening that lips had parted to allow a tongue’s caress and the exodus of words that rode eddying currents of breath baited with feigned impatience.

Riposte: “Richard, come to bed.”

Parry: “Soon.”

And soon…

…thrust.

Once again, happy birthdays, ladies!

Happy Birthday, Ryo!!

2008-03-18T16:41:34Z

Give me a prompt, and I will add it to the growing list of birthday drabbles that I am embarrassed to admit I have not written yet!

(I *will* write them. I swear I will. It just might take until your next birthday.)

Happy Birthday, Kei!

2008-02-19T17:28:24Z

Give me a prompt and I'll give you a drabble!

Happy (belated) Birthday, Elfscribe!!

2008-02-18T18:17:19Z

Jumping on Min and Oshun's bandwagon... give me a prompt and I'll give you a drabble!

Thank you!

2008-02-18T18:15:53Z

Many, many thanks for all of your delightful birthday wishes, and special thanks to Annorielle, Larian, Ennorwen, Spacebee, and Sian for the virtual gifts, and to Agie for the new icons-- What fun!!

And again, much love to E, G, and R for your outrageous kindness... I am greatly spoiled!!

Belatedly, thanks to all of you who left such kind words on the Big List 'o' Love... Truly, I am more touched than I can say... I got all teary-eyed reading that. February is traditionally a rough month for me (birthday notwithstanding), so to have such an outpouring of kindness... well, guys, I'm speechless. Big hugs to Ennorwen for organizing such a wonderful tradition.

Big, big hugs to all of you!!
xoxox
K

Tolkien Weekly Drabbles: Rugged

2008-02-06T17:53:58Z

02/04/08: Rugged : Meetings
Title: Meetings
Author: Kenaz ([info]kenazfiction)
Characters: Unnamed, but easily discerned. :)
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Book/Source: LOTR
Challenge: Rugged
Disclaimer: The characters within belong to JRRT and his estate; I borrow them for fun, not profit.

Meetings

Tolkien Weekly Drabbles

2008-01-14T16:24:42Z

In an attempt to keep my creative juices flowing, I've joined tolkien_weekly, a drabble community. I'll be (hopefully) updating this post weekly to include the drabbles I've completed. Content will run the gamut-- all ages, races, ratings, gen, het, slash, etc.

01/14/08: Rocky :
Title: Rubicon
Author: Kenaz (kenazfiction)
Characters: Elrond, Isildur
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Book/Source: Unfinished Tales
Challenge: Rocky
Disclaimer: The characters within belong to JRRT and his estate; I borrow them for fun, not profit.

The mountain bares vicious teeth as they climb, rending the meat of their palms; their blood is consumed by the unnatural hunger of the living rock. Here soil revolts, singing not with Iluvatar’s harmony, but with the dissonance of primordial evil, and stone is transmuted from earth to fire. Elrond demands, then implores, screams of desperation rising over the hiss of steam that shrieks from deep within infernal fissures, but fell light glows now in Isildur’s eyes where the incipient promise of Mortal wisdom once blossomed.

No, the Man says. He closes fingers tight around the ring and turns away.

02/04/08: Rugged :
Title: Meetings
Author: Kenaz (kenazfiction)
Characters: OMC, plus one unnamed but easily discerned. :)
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Book/Source: LOTR
Challenge: Rugged
Disclaimer: The characters within belong to JRRT and his estate; I borrow them for fun, not profit.

Only from behind father’s legs did he dare behold the weathered man before them, eyes barely audacious enough to meet his sword-hilt: grip smoothed shining and imprinted with the memory of its owner’s grasp; metal dulled with hard use. A gnarled hand, dirt darkening the nails, rested easily on the pommel. Yet his sword…a broken blade? Father feared and mistrusted the Rangers, yet silent strength surrounded this man, a glimmer of ancient honor no ragged cloak, no soiled leathers, no useless sword could dim. Were he older, he thought, he would follow this stranger to the ends of the earth.

Fic: Always: Time Will Bring Their Hour

2008-01-04T02:12:31Z

Title: Always: Time Will Bring Their Hour
Fandom: The Charioteer by Mary Renault
Author: kenazfiction (kenazfiction@gmail.com)
Beta: lorie945
Pairing: Alec/Sandy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: These characters are the property of Mary Renault; I'm borrowing them.
Summary: At that moment, there was nothing more important than going home, if only because there was someone to go home to, with all that this entailed.

Author's Notes: Written for athousandwinds in the Yuletide 2007 Challenge. Thanks again to Lorie for the excellent beta!

To the F-list: This isn't my usual fare, but it's a piece of which I'm particularly fond, and I hope on that merit alone you'll give it a once-over. If you have not read The Charioteer yet, I beg you to do so. I guarantee you'll finish it, finish your cathartic weeping and say to yourself "Now, that... *THAT* is how it's done."

O but the unloved have had power,
The weeping and striking,
Always: time will bring their hour;
Their secretive children walk
Through your vigilance of breath
To unpardonable Death,
And my vows break
Before his look.

- W. H. Auden

Alec left Toto's flat directly upon hearing the news and too quickly for good manners, something he knew he would be called to account for at a later date, although he thought Toto's rolling eyes and murmurs of complaint were more an affectation than legitimate disappointment. Pillow talk and lengthy discourse, after all, fell well outside the purview of their meetings. Peter and Theo, as the bearers of bad tidings, seemed to feel it was their lot to stick around and immerse themselves in reminiscences, thus cleanly eliminating any lingering compunction he might have had to prolong his stay. He should be the one to tell Sandy, he explained unnecessarily, but he knew it was more than that. For all that he fought for, and faithlessly pursued, a life of his own, he longed now with vicious clarity for the very existence that had chafed him: at that moment, there was nothing more important than going home, if only because there was someone to go home to, with all that this entailed.

Bim's death was not a surprise. In light of last week's showing, Alec considered grimly, it was a foregone conclusion. One could only take so much before snapping, and the odds had been against him in any case. He could imagine how it had gone: the dark, rippling sheet of the channel passing almost imperceptibly into the jagged silhouette of the French shoreline, the drone of the engine interrupted by staccato gunfire, and the inexorable end. The images played out in an unrelenting stream in his mind, the private newsreel of an extinguished life projected against his closed eyelids. For Bim's sake, he hoped that he had been dead before the plane went down, but he knew better. There must have been a second of shock or of pain, reprieved by the instantaneous coalescing of all consciousness and the taste of ash and iron as his teeth, ground down under amphetamine clenching, finally shattered in his mouth. Perhaps, after months of nerves stretched taut as piano wire, the screaming free-fall and the promise of solid earth rushing up to meet him were a blessed relief: the long day's task is done, and we must sleep.

He found the funereal grandeur of the house oppressive today. The late afternoon light spilled in uneven patches across the terrace, illuminating the overall shabbiness of it, like one of the old soldiers who lined the halls at the hospital with thin, palsied hands edging out of faded service dress. The patterns on the rug in the hall made his eyes swim, and at this hour he hadn't even the angle of the sun to blame. On the bus, he had chewed his thumbnail to the quick as his urgency had transmuted into indignation with a simmering undercurrent of directionless anger seeking a target. He stopped on the half-landing and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, but it did little good, and so he continued upward, shaking off the gravity that tugged at his heels until he reached his door.

The faucet was running in the kitchen, which meant that Sandy was at the dishes. They had been slovenly in the calamitous aftermath of the party, recrimination and remorse leaving no time for the smaller business of life, the unsavory detritus of desperation swilling like sludge in the bottom of the sink. Sandy knew better than to get his sutures wet, but Alec, for whom the picking of battles had become a daily exercise in triage, hoped that perhaps a return to the mundane heralded a restoration of what passed, for them, as domestic bliss. He draped his Burberry over the back of the rocker, his eyes darting about the room, taking inventory as a means of stalling his entrance. Sandy had likely heard him come in even over the running water. He always had an ear cocked for Alec's footsteps.

Sandy was laboring away with a tea towel tucked into his trousers like an apron and shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. The bandage around his wrist was wet at the edges, but though he handled the dishes gingerly to favor it, he seemed to be applying himself to his task with fervor. The clean plates gleamed with cheerful sterility in the drying rack. To Alec, it brought to mind the false hopefulness of the hospital, all good lighting and the bracing scent of carbolic. The bulb overhead called out the gold in Sandy's hair and the ends had begun to curl from the humidity. He looked almost cherubic in that light, and Alec was unprepared for the deep pangs he felt when he looked at him now, the oppositional aches of affection and frustration. In the mean time, Sandy had shut off the spigot and wrung his hands dry in the towel, his smile radiating ignorant devotion like a dog who's so eager to see his master that he forgets he's been hemmed in the kennel all day alone. Above him, like some invisible, chastening hand, Alec felt the atmospheric weight of guilt bearing down, and it seemed that speech was the only prophylaxis against its imminent descent.

"Bim's gone," he announced without preamble.

The smile snuffed out like a candle. Sandy went very still and his eyes turned feverishly bright. Alec watched his face begin to crumple, his chin dimpling, and the familiarity of that expression filled him with vague irritation so that he did not start forward and go to him, but rather lingered in the kitchen doorway, shoring himself up against the jamb and rhythmically kicking at the doorstop. The linoleum had begun to crack and pull away where it met the wooden slat, revealing the rough, unvarnished stock of the sub-floor beneath. By the time he fully registered his own annoyance, Sandy's transitory features had reshaped themselves into a simulacrum of composure.

"How?" he asked simply.

"Over Calais," Alec told him.

"Oh." Sandy bowed his head with long-suffering resignation that made Alec's teeth grind. "It was bound to happen, I suppose, poor sod," he added presently, and right before his eyes Alec could see, as if examining some textbook illustration, the information being taken in, digested and committed to some less immediate place in Sandy's mind, as if it was commonplace and one mustn't dwell on it.

The galling bit of it was that it was commonplace; the only wonder was that it hadn't happened sooner, one way or another. At the moment, however, such solid rationale flew in the face of Alec's grief, disregarded utterly his anger at finding his world shrinking man by man. Bim and Sandy had been thick as thieves once, before Bim started falling apart, before the Benzedrine had made him brittle and before the entirety of his squadron had been blown to bits on one mission after another. It wasn't an association Alec necessarily encouraged, but Bim had made Sandy laugh, naughty schoolboy sniggers, and Alec had decided perhaps it was good for both of them to chum around a bit. Given those circumstances, Sandy's subdued response felt offensively inadequate. Unable to countenance the watery blue of Sandy's blandly uncomprehending gaze, Alec looked down and watched his fine-fingered hands twisting in the tea towel. Staring at the bandage, his own fingers recollected the tension of silk passing between them as he stitched Sandy's wrist right there at the table. He could conjure the pungence of blood, vomit and Dettol as effortlessly as he could recall the whisky, cake, and cologne that had preceded it. In this light, Sandy's facile acceptance of another's self-destruction bordered on the obscene. Yet had he dissolved into hysterics it would hardly have been better. Poor Sandy, awaiting his response dumbly, was caught between the Scylla and Charybdis.

Alec's next words were carried on the rising tide of his frustration. "He didn't bail out." He sounded vicious and accusatory: an alternative had been offered, and Bim had made his choice regardless. Alec aimed his voice like strike to the jaw and waited almost greedily for it to connect, yet almost expected Sandy would be too obtuse to draw the parallel.

The mindless hand-wringing wound down now and Sandy pivoted back toward the sink, bracing with his good hand against the counter. A drip from the faucet battered an irregular cadence against the basin. He took a deep breath and slowly released it; Alec watched the deflation of his back as he exhaled. Sandy nodded, and it seemed not a gesture of resignation, but of determination. Determination, Alec penuriously amended, as Sandy defined it. But then Sandy looked up and met his gaze directly, and utterly without guile said, "Alec...oh, Alec, I am so sorry." The silence that hung between them when Sandy's voice trailed off had all the presence and density of some critical portent. He decided to believe that Sandy wasn't as colossally thick as he appeared, and that the stark subtext of his message had been received and duly noted. Whether it would be remembered in the maelstrom of one of Sandy's turns... well, it didn't much bear thinking about now. Face to face, they looked at each other helplessly, as if the distance between them had suddenly become unbridgeable.

"Settle in," Sandy directed with subdued efficiency after far too long a pause, "I'll put some water on."

"All things considered, I'd prefer whisky."

Sandy did not look up from the sink, and his voice was dampered by the span of the room and the rushing of the water into the pan. "You're on call."

Alec countered, "We haven't got sugar." He was not ready for armistice, or for Sandy's sudden application of reason. His overwhelming feeling of impotence turned his voice waspish and sulkier than he had intended.

Sandy's head tilted to regard him gently and he said, "I've kept back some of mine for you." A quiet pride had crept into his voice.

Alec didn't have the heart to reject him in his moment of trivial heroism. "Well then," he said, the white flag of surrender listlessly rising, "I'll leave you to it." He retreated to the nursery and picked up the reproduction carriage clock on the bookshelf. He hadn't wound it since before his birthday, but it hadn't begun to drop minutes yet. Regardless, he gave the key a twist for good measure. The low metallic clicking was very nearly a comfort in its predictability. Beside the bookshelf, a corner of the blackout had come untacked from the window sash and proclaimed the inevitable encroachment of night. Mundane noises of domestication reached him from the kitchen, and he envisioned Sandy presiding over the tea with high ceremony. It was difficult to remain unhappy with someone so fundamentally defenseless.

"Milk's on the verge of going off," Sandy warned as he came in and set the service down. Alec glanced at the little pitcher. There was hardly anything in it. He picked it up and sniffed it indifferently while Sandy turned the handle of the pot for Alec to pour. He used a heavier hand than he intended with the milk, and when he took his first sip, he noticed that Sandy's cup was barely a shade lighter than it had come out of the pot because he hadn't really left enough to share. All the same, Sandy made show of relishing his cup, as if it was just what he had wanted. Alec felt his brow begin to furrow, a symptom of his unclean conscience. Despite everything, Sandy always looked after his creature comforts. When Sandy had first moved in, he had immediately assumed all the drudge work, and it had seemed to Alec to be a gesture acknowledging their inherent inequality, which made him, egalitarian that he imagined himself to be, distinctly uncomfortable. "We aren't schoolboys, Sandy," he had said, "I don't expect you to fag for me." Sandy's response had been a bewildered smile. "But I like to do things for you," he had said, and as his voice had been eager nearly to the point of pleading, Alec didn't like to have dissuaded him. He always means well, Alec thought. It's just that he's so young.

Without the divertissement of conversation, his mind flashed on an invented image of Bim in his plane at the moment of impact. He had spent enough time in the surgery to have an idea of what the aftermath of that looked like. Shutting his eyes tight, he tried to picture Sandy to put his mind to rights, but the only image forthcoming was that of him naked and shivering on the bathroom floor, bloody water following the grout lines in the tiles. He forced himself to remember Toto's arching back and pale shoulders instead. The vulgarity of this vision heightened his feelings of disloyalty, but it was an improvement over fire and death. The rattle of Sandy's cup in its saucer brought him back to the present; Sandy had just asked him something but he hadn't heard what. Schedule be damned, Alec decided, he needed a drink.

"Alec, what's the matter?" Urgency modulated Sandy's voice. This must have been what he had asked before.

Alec didn't answer, because he didn't rightly know. With the appearance of purpose, he stood and strode into the kitchen. Sandy's concern was unbearable in its earnestness, and it thrust Alec headlong into a vortex of guilt for misdeeds past and those not yet committed; but then, he reasoned, Sandy responded in kind, raising the stakes with each encore, so that about cleared the books, didn't it? He fixed himself a whisky with the barest splash of soda as much out of spite as out of his pressing need to dull the edge of his unhappiness. What the hell am I to do with him? he asked himself, but the question was rhetorical. It wasn't as if there had been a better option. The Sandy he had met in the ward eighteen months ago had been as pink and sweet and witless as a kitten, and likewise lacking in all but the most rudimentary survival instincts. It wouldn't have done to just turn him out, a Christian to the lions, with Bunny and that crowd; they'd have eaten him alive. Sandy hadn't had the first clue of where to go in Bridstow, and was just the sort to look the wrong way at the wrong person. He'd needed--still needed looking after, and no one else was up to it, it was as simple as that.

And yet, it wasn't. He shot back half of his drink and topped it off again.

He brandished his glass when he returned, daring Sandy to tut his disapproval, but Sandy did not rise to his provocation, or did not understand that he had been provoked in the first place, poor dear. Instead, he left his chair and settled himself next to Alec on the divan. He said nothing, but lifted a hand to knead the back of Alec's neck. It surprised him-- always surprised him-- how strong Sandy's hands actually were, and how he knew exactly the right spots. He knew them because he had made it his business to know what Alec liked. Alec gave himself over to self-pity and helplessness, and to the intent caress that moved now and then up through his hair and raked his scalp. He disliked how much it soothed him, but in abandoning his resistance the restiveness he had felt all afternoon gave way to a blank sort of calm.

After a time, renewed by Sandy's attentions, he spoke. "We should go 'round to Ralph's." His voice was low and toneless, but his mind had already turned, as was its habit, from contemplation to action. "He ought to be told."

It was only then that he realized that Sandy was crying, and had been for some time. Not the harsh, gasping sobs of hysteria, but silently, as if sorrow had robbed him utterly of sound. He had only borne up earlier, Alec understood now, because he believed that was what Alec wanted of him. He always tried to please Alec, and it was when he was confronted with irrefutable evidence of failure that he came apart. To Sandy, there was little that tasted more bitterly of failure than infidelity. And yet, Alec grimly acknowledged, he had mapped a path through bars and backrooms and bedrooms right under Sandy's nose with a posture of brazen entitlement that, now, in the warm, welcoming light of their rooms and shorn of all distractions, seemed appallingly cruel. He thought of Toto's dark hair, mussed and falling into unruly curls, and of Toto's expert mouth, which made no demands on him beyond those of immediate gratification. His stomach soured. Christ, Sandy didn't know the half of it.

"Come here," he whispered, guiding Sandy into his lap, as if physical contact might offer an anodyne to his guilt. Sandy's composure failed at the last, and he burrowed his face in Alec's neck and wept. He wept, it seemed, for Bim, and for the others who had gone before, and for all those who would follow before the war's end.

Alec said, "I'm sorry," and let the words stand as a universal apologia, heartfelt and insufficient.

"It's only that we haven't got much time," Sandy rasped.

Alec knew he wasn't referring to his pending shift. He'd have his finals next summer and be done with Bridstow and packed off to God knows where; Sandy wouldn't be coming with him. It wasn't something they had discussed, but rather an inevitability made conspicuous by their dedicated avoidance of it. Days marched on, one after another, and the future would be upon them soon enough, and there was nothing to be done to avoid or forestall it. Sandy would have to make his own way then, a thought which was as necessary as it was implausible. He held Sandy tighter, reflexively pressing a kiss to the crown of his head, and glanced surreptitiously around the room at the toy cupboard and the rocker. He had been filled, earlier, with such a consuming need to come home, to return to Sandy and to all of this, and it was suddenly crushing to confront the knowledge that for him-- and for Sandy, and for all of them-- home was merely a transient dream. It was a profoundly lonely thought.

As if registering Alec's unease, Sandy shifted in his lap. Alec could see the bandage with its damp edges nearly dry now and remembered the wound like a screaming mouth, articulating all the pain and accusation that Sandy did not yet have the words to express. It suddenly seemed clear to him why Sandy thrashed and clawed so desperately at the fabric of their worst hours: when the walls closed in around him and his misery was unbearable, he could hold, if only briefly, those hours in his hands and keep them there together, circling in the present. Sandy's outbursts and violence were punishment for Alec, of course, and were meant to be. But they were also Sandy stalling for time in the only way he knew how. They spoke, those nights, in the language of demands and denials. Sandy's actions, crass and violent as they were, demanded an accounting of Alec's role in their circumstances. Likewise, Alec's culpability, the fundamental dishonesty of his actions, reaped just rewards for what they sowed. Perhaps, Alec considered, the real consequence of action is that it brings us what we believe we deserve, and in so doing, opens for us the impassable chasm between what we want and what we can expect to receive. He recalled a line from Lawrence: "There seemed no straight walking for us leaders in this crooked lane of conduct, ring within ring of unknown, shamefaced motives canceling or double-charging their precedents."

"I imagine sometimes," Sandy said in the measured tone of one cautiously offering up a confidence, "what would happen if the hospital was hit. I've been caught out so many times in a raid, and nearly always it's been all fuss and panic over nothing. Sometimes it doesn't even feel real. But we won't..." he paused and took a breath. "We can't always be so lucky, I know it. And I don't know what I would do."

Alec gently extricated himself and lifted Sandy's chin. His eyes, even red rimmed and glassy with tears, were a beautiful shade of blue. "You would rise to the occasion, my dear."

And despite all, he was certain somehow that Sandy would. Or at least that he could. In the hospital, Alec had watched, when he knew Sandy wasn't looking, the kind and thorough way in which he managed the patients. He applied himself to his medical training with a show of care inversely proportional to the violence he showed himself, and the sensitivity that made him so vulnerable now might with time and patience evolve into the empathic bedside manner of a very good doctor. He was brighter than was assumed, by himself not least of all, and he would do himself credit in the ward one day, or in a field hospital if it came to that: he only needed to believe it, and to live long enough to give himself the chance. And that was one of the reasons Alec stayed, after all. So that Sandy might have a chance. Someone needed to believe in him until he could believe in himself.

"Would I, do you think?" Sandy's face had brightened, his smile poignantly hopeful. His gratefulness for even that small crumb of approval broke Alec's heart a little.

"Yes, you would."

Sandy kissed him, shyly at first, and then with greater conviction. His weight, his taste, his scent... their inherent rightness of Sandy at this moment, the perfection of his familiarity, was humbling, an undeserved laurel to which Alec willingly clutched. He stroked Sandy's cheek and watched a smile blossom.

"I suppose we should go, then," Sandy said, generous, now that his standing had been reasserted. "To Ralph's, I mean. It's best that he should hear it from you."

"No," Alec whispered, pulling Sandy closer. "Let's not go quite yet."

Afterward, they dressed and made ready to go without speaking. The silence was gentled now, no longer fraught with weight or meaning. Sandy walked out ahead, leaving it to Alec to close and lock the door. On the landing, Alec heard the carriage clock mark the hour within, consigning the humanity of the moment to memory, the pale echo of its bright and hollow chime lingering in the close air of the hallway.

***********

Notes: The title comes from the Song III ("June 1935") of W.H. Auden's Twelve Songs. The second stanza of the poem seems particularly appropriate for Sandy. "There seemed no straight walking for us leaders in this crooked lane of conduct, ring within ring of unknown, shamefaced motives cancelling or double-charging their precedents" comes from T.E. Lawrence's The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, another line from which Alec quoted to Laurie in Chapter 6 of the book (the infamous party scene).