Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Celebrķan/Elrond/Gil-galad
Summary: In her attempts to comfort her new husband, Celebrķan reaches a deeper understanding of something she may have been better off not knowing.
Notes: Despite the pairing of this story, there is no het, with the exception of one kiss. It takes place in 110, Third Age; Elrond and Celebrķan have been married for about a year.
Beta-read by Maybe, who knows I can never refuse a challenge!
It was dark and Imladris was quiet. The weary slept and the sleepless wandered silently about the grounds - even the lovers kept hushed their sighs and moans and whispered endearments tonight, as though revering its monumental, tacit honour. None dared speak of it this night, and most certainly not in Elrond's presence. Some had been there; all had been affected. The anniversary of the Battle of the Last Alliance was a thing that should have been celebrated, but it was not so much as mentioned in Imladris. Elrond hated it that way.
Celebrían came to him that evening as he stood on the balcony to their chambers, surveying the stars. She stood, hesitant, at the threshold, one unshod toe over the boundary between bedroom and the outdoors. Slowly, Elrond looked over his shoulder, smiled at her, beckoned. Still hesitant, she stepped forwards, relaxing somewhat when he slipped an arm around her slender waist and drew her close. She looked up at him, a gaze of amethyst in the shawl of the night, and he in turn smiled again, before dipping his head and kissing her softly.
The kiss broke, and she raised a hand to his face. "Are you all right, Elrond?" she questioned quietly.
He turned his head and nuzzled into her touch, pressed a gentle kiss to the palm. "I'm all right," he answered, and laid his head on her shoulder. His wife looked down at him fondly, stroking his hair, until at last he continued: "I wish people would remember him. I can't stand the way they dance around the subject."
Celebrían nodded, squarely meeting his luminescent gaze when he lifted his head again to stare at her with stomach-clenching intensity. She imagined it was the same every year: the mention of the Battle and Gil-galad's death were strictly taboo subjects amongst the citizens of Imladris, for all feared dredging up memories in their lord and raising his ire. But Elrond was not like that.
"He deserves to be remembered," she said softly. Elrond nodded and looked away, thoughtful.
They had been married for a year, and the subject had never been really discussed between Elrond and his lady: that he and Gil-galad had been truly, deeply, hopelessly in love, before the half-Elf ever laid eyes upon Celebrían. Celebrían, though, knew; she knew that she only possessed a part of whatever broken remains of a heart her lord could offer her, and she had long ago come to terms with that. She knew that he cared for her, that he loved her as deeply as he dared -for her, that was enough. She felt for him in a similar way, although, by the grace of the Valar, she had never suffered such heartache as he. She knew that he tried as hard as he was able, because he felt that she deserved it. All she wanted to do was to ease his sadness as best she could.
Seeing the brooding expression on Elrond's face, Celebrían reached for his hand and squeezed it.
"Come inside, love," she whispered when he looked up, her eyes filled with promise. Elrond gave a slow half-smile and allowed himself to be led into their chambers.
Celebrían halted him when they reached the bed and turned to face him. With a slow smile of her own, she tilted her face up to brush her lips over his. Elrond sighed against her and closed his eyes as he drank deeply of his lady's kisses; he brought his hands up to the front of her dress with the intention of mirroring her own deft unfastening of robes, only to have them batted away and soft words breathed against his lips: "Let me..."
With his eyes still closed and his hands by his sides, Elrond allowed Celebrían to do as she wished until he stood before her in nothing save his bare skin, with she still fully clothed. Now, he opened his eyes and gazed at her questioningly, the kiss broken shortly before; yet Celebrían merely smiled enigmatically and removed just one item of clothing: her sash.
Still smiling, and now with an added glint in her eye, the silver lady raised the strip of coloured silk and laid it over her husband's eyes, binding it at the back of his head to ensure that he was sightless. He opened his mouth, to question or comment, but she placed a finger across his parted lips to silence him.
"Just feel, meleth," she told him, laying her other hand against the upper flat of his muscled back. "Just remember..."
Elrond trembled; trembled as she guided him steadily back to recline on the bed; trembled, for he realised that she knew, that she was allowing him this. He sighed as lips began to ghost along his neck: lips soft and full and smooth, as he remembered them; lips familiar to their task. Hands were also at work, lower down across his abdomen, stroking; stroking the insides of his thighs as talented lips moved lower. He could suddenly feel the remembrance of battle on those hands, of skill with weapons: here the callus on a forefinger from a bowstring, there a string of them across the palm from the broadsword, from Aeglos. There was a new power in them, too, born of practice with those weapons. It was the power to kill, though the beauty lay in the harnessing of it: to allow this unbelievable tenderness of the touch he now could feel instead.
Lower, now, those lips moved, gracing collarbone and upper pectorals with the kiss of a memory. Breath, hot and moist, tickled his nipple, a prelude to the masterful mouth that then enclosed it and teased. Teeth lightly grazed the pebbled disc, though this time Elrond saw in his mind's eye a set slightly less perfect, less even, less white, knowing from experience that there would be a chip in the upper right canine: the product of a blow to the jaw from a careless young squire in training. He could have sworn that he felt it as that particular tooth brushed the tip of his nipple and made him whimper quietly, although he was undoubtedly distracted by the swish of hair over his heaving chest. This hair, a whispering sensation of silk over his skin, was something he had always savoured; it was long and dark and lustrous, thick and full and straight, and as Elrond raised one hand to tangle his fingers in it, he knew that he would meet not golden curls but straight obsidian tresses.
He had barely had the chance to finger those locks, though, when the dark, noble head was lifted from his chest and a hand was removed from his thigh. The bed shifted under the weight of a tall, muscled warrior's body as his unseen lover took a swipe at the half-Elf's hand and knocked his arm back to the mattress. The other hissed a warning "No..." at him just at the same time as Elrond groaned in protest; he soon forgave, however, for the resulting baritone reached his ears before those lips returned to his chest.
The lips began to move lower again, forsaking his nipple in favour of the flat of Elrond's abdomen. The untouchable raven locks of this hidden lover remained in contact with his skin, sweeping downwards, tickling, teasing. The hands, too, moved to his knees, applying light pressure; Elrond spread them willingly and felt the motion of the bed again as the other changed position, now kneeling in the space created.
Elrond sighed again when he felt fingers curl around his semi-hard member and begin a lazy rhythm, lightly tracing up and down, coaxing him to full hardness. He knew those fingers so well; there was that callus on the index finger, and there - the roughness of the palm that created such wonderful friction against his sensitive flesh. That hand was strong, warm, long-fingered and big-palmed, just as he had always remembered it, and this languorous, loving touch felt blissful after so long.
It did not take long for him to become fully erect under such a wonderful touch: achingly erect, as he had ached for this touch for so many years. And then he arched up with a wordless cry, so completely unexpected was the hot wetness that suddenly engulfed him - had he not been blindfold he might have been able to predict it from the expression on his lover's face... but then had he not been blindfold, he would not have been able to see his lover's face.
Breathing heavily, Elrond lifted his head as if to gaze down his body; and there, even with the blindfold, he knew what he would have seen in that moment. There would be a fall of glossy raven tresses over his thighs and hips, just as he could feel: unbound and uncrowned in this private moment according to the preference of the owner. There would be that delicious, full-lipped mouth, sinfully sucking him to wanton abandonment and the motion of which would emphasise those impossibly high, most definitely masculine cheekbones. And there would be those eyes staring up at him, watching his reaction in glee: eyes of glowing cobalt that glinted wickedly, knowingly, taking immense delight in seeing his herald reduced to a thrumming mass of nerves on the bed.
Elrond allowed his head to fall back to the mattress, hands twisting in the sheets and small moans escaping his lust-thickened throat as he writhed and bucked his hips. His lover's hands were now working in tandem with those lips that so expertly pleasured him, one set of fingers curving up and down the base of his swollen shaft whilst the other gently fondled his testicles. It was a trick that Elrond had always appreciated, so that, when combined with the vibrations that suddenly rippled through his member as his lover started to hum softly, he could hold back no more and arched up off the bed. Elrond saw stars as he came, just like he had seen his own Star of Radiance throughout, and as his body convulsed, he released himself, hot and hard, into the waiting mouth that swallowed his essence so willingly. There was only one word, one cry upon his lips.
"Ereinion!"
Then, sated and mind too befuddled to feel guilty just yet, Elrond sank, shivering, back down onto the mattress. His now flaccid member was released from between beautiful, imaginary lips and soft kisses pressed to his flanks and inside thighs, before he felt the whisper of cloth over his leg as the unseen other shifted position. A weight settled beside him and a hand slipped behind his head, nimble fingers removing the sash that bound his eyes. It was several minutes before Elrond felt brave enough to look at the one by his side.
His sigh almost as heavy as his heart with the onset of guilt, the half-Elf turned his head and let his eyelids flutter gradually open. A slow, sleepy smile crossed his features, then, just before sleep claimed him, for the dark-haired, blue-eyed male Elf reclining next to him smiled back and kissed him softly on his lips.
Celebrían flipped the covers over her husband as he slid into slumber with a contented smile on his face. He looked utterly peaceful and at ease: an expression that, now she had seen, she realised she had never truly witnessed before. That intangible aura of melancholy was gone, if only for a short time; it was what she had wanted after all, but as she caressed his cheek and left the room, she could not help but feel a twinge of something in her stomach.
The End
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