here we go again by lonelyvisitor  

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lay all your love on me

while this fic will retain its pg13 rating, if you thought we were getting out of this without some softcore celrond eroticism vis amanda seyfriend and dominic cooper swimwear pas de deux, welcome to the inside of my brain in 2008, and also today.

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As Gil-galad ascended from the waves he was met by his fiancés descending the winding rock staircase to the beach—or rather Celebrían descending on their behalf. Elrond was being carried in his wife’s arms, his pearlescent sparkling toenails dangling safely above the sand.

“Ereinion Gil-galad!” His former herald brimmed with all the bright fury Gil-galad had seen upon the plain of Dagorlad. “Where in marred Arda have you been?”

He had always found it difficult to lie to Elrond. Withhold, certainly. For nigh a thousand years Gil-galad had constrained himself, held off from confessing how he longed to lean across the desk and kiss him all those nights in Lindon when they were late in council. (He’d done the same in the Last Alliance, kept to himself the fiery foresights of coming doom that crowded all his dreams.) Elrond’s beauty was otherwise too bewitching to court with fallacy, for he also saw clearly through that which was feigned.

Gil-galad stumbled forth, dripping, uncertain of how to proceed—when Celebrían grinned. “It’s just as Finduilas said, meleth-nîn. He’s looking for his Ada.”

As much as it was concerning to know his plan had been uncovered, the suggestive languor with which his future spouse spoke made Gil-galad go weak in the knees. He was about to say something about having been a very naughty boy indeed when Elrond insisted upon being set down on the sands.

“I suppose that’s one way to describe going about with strange men on boats, the day of your own wedding.” Ascertaining the set of his pedicure—and smoothing his low-cut singlet so it sat fetchingly about his rear—he stamped forth. “And your sister’s lovely, by the way. Not that it seems you were planning on properly introducing us.”

In stocking-feet Elrond’s height struck both of his partners at about the shoulder. Still it was hard for Gil-galad not to feel as if some vast unknowable presence was looming above him, peering into the very marrow of his desire as Melian the Maia had once transfixed her husband in the glades of Nan Elmoth.

“Elig-nîn, Tyelemírë.” Gil-galad stepped out of the surf, beseeching; how beautiful were his betrothed ones, wearing barely more than smallclothes; the rest of their wedding finery awaited them uphill. “My loves, I do not deserve your sympathies—”

“Oh, there he goes.” Elrond scoffed, patting a sopping braid behind Gil-galad’s ear. “Of course you do. You simply might have told us, so we could aid you in your ruse.”

“We’re quite good at ruses.” Celebrían sidled up behind her husband, idly stroking his shoulder. “Ask Glorf and Erestor, if we hadn’t locked them in the rare book room that night —”

“Ereinion’s scheme is not a romantic one, my lord.” By the Sea Elrond’s eyes turned a depthless grey-green; one imagined the Lord of Waters speaking decrees through his grandfather Tuor. “Though how convenient that his marks happen to be three of the most famously handsome Elves in history.”

Elrond had never been the jealous type, but then Gil-galad had never given him cause. There was none for the High King save his herald—until he’d met the herald’s wife, that was.

How maddening and delicious had been those centuries after Celebrían’s healing, sharing memories of their Peredhel: his wisdom and kindness, the midnight sheen of his hair! If these meetings had been at first sentimental, they soon took a turn for salacious, and it was only for honor of the beloved body that lay absent between them that they’d managed to keep their hands off one another. As soon as Elrond arrived in Aman their fate was sealed, the Statute of Finwë and Míriel be damned—and it had nothing to say about half-Elves, anyway.

“Be most assured,” began Gil-galad, one hand laced to Elrond’s, the other set on Celebrían’s curving hip, “that all my love and ardor I reserve for you.”

“And for her,” amended Elrond.

“But mostly for you,” purred Celebrían half-jesting, with a nip at his ear. Elrond was nestled between them now, just where he liked.

“Prove it, then.”

His voice had turned more breathy than bothered. Yet it still bore a command, and Gil-galad had never hesitated to take his herald’s counsel. He drew Celebrían into a kiss that her husband might observe from his lower vantage.

Her lips were well worth savoring for their own sake. Celebrían was a handsome woman who now wore her tragic scars with a roguish air, and her warrior’s body was as well-suited to the armor of the sparring grounds—where she and Gil-galad had excised their passions, ere their distant star had sailed—as to the scantier dress she now sported. She smelled like the honeysuckle garlanding her silver hair, and she laughed into his mouth, and Gil-galad loved her with an ease and abundance still astounding to him. For the love he had known for one had doubled to embrace another, and the passion with it.

As Gil-galad drew a hand to the low of Celebrían’s back he well-remembered his passions returned—

Yet Elrond sundered them, with a hand splayed to each of his lovers’ collarbones.

“Restrain yourselves,” he scolded, though he looked about to lick his lips. “Remember that we seal our troth this night. I will not have you both spoiled for me ere Tilion takes the skies.”

Gil-galad glanced to Celebrían, who arched a brow, then turned to tip up Elrond’s chin.

“What is it that you wish, beloved?” Gil-galad watched dark lashes demurring as if in fealty; he placed a single kiss upon a mouth already parted in breathless permission. “Our proof, or our restraint?”

“Or to be the one spoiled?” Celebrían drew her husband back against herself, as Elrond sighed, hand lingering down the sculpted plane of Gil-galad’s chest. “There will be time enough for that.”

Then she too drew Elrond into a tender kiss—though he yelped when she smacked his ass. The tumult drove them both into the lapping waves, until they stumbled down together with a splash, rolling and laughing in the tide’s caress. Wet as he was already, Gil-galad joined his bride and groom-to-be on the sands, taking his own time basking between them and receiving with delight their still-restrained passions. There would be time enough for that indeed—as well as for all of them to dry off and clean up.

###

The thing about an Elvish wedding was that it hardly mattered when the persons of honor planned to arrive. The party proper would span at least twelve hours before the aftermath spilled into the coming days, and was as likely to start when someone deemed it dusk as when the betrothed partners were fully prepared for its commencement.

First came cocktails, then song and dancing, followed by a dinner that devolved to dance and song. Next a heady toast to bless the consummation, which subsequently took place under the cover of deepest spangled night as they had done in the dales of Cuiviénen, with traditional guest participation still sometimes observed. Then came coffee and pastries, the gifts of the parents, a few songs more solemn and sacred; and at last at daybreak the exchange of rings, gold swapping in for silver as vows were made to Varda and Manwë, to Eru in grave memory of Her third and thus far longest party, the Theme that warped in loving, marred eternity around Her firstborn Children.

Not so complicated a schedule, thought Orodreth, made peaceably distracted again by tasks: flowers, table-settings, Finduilas’s fortunately reinforced supply of candles. The intervention of his cousin-uncles had somehow managed to calm him from his sulk, though perhaps it was in fact their absence that soothed him. Where had Celegorm and Curufin gotten to now? He supposed there was no getting rid of them at this point, for they were lost to the crowd; guests in various degrees of beach and formal-wear were already milling about the courtyard. While family had been limited, Orodreth had not been able to forestall the bride and grooms from

inviting their friends, which seemed to be the entire populations in exile of Imladris and Mithlond. Bowls of olives and platters of sardines were disappearing as soon as he set them out on the table, not to mention the wine.

Yet the people were enjoying Orodreth’s hospitality, weren’t they? He was showing them a good time. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so disastrous an evening after all—so long as the second wave of wedding-crashers stayed far, far away.

Of course it was just as he engaged this forfending thought that Celebrimbor came up to him, all kindly eyes and Fëanorian cheekbones.

“Resto.”

Orodreth fixed all his attention on gathering up discarded shrimp-shells. “I beg you, do not address me intimately.”

I am not worthy of it, he was thinking of a way to say, one that did not undermine his authority as wedding-host. Before this was possible, however, Celebrimbor had knelt before him, and then he was taking up Orodreth’s seafood-perfumed hand.

“My lord Orodreth.”

On bended knee, Celebrimbor lowered his gaze. Orodreth received the kiss to his fingertips, stunned, and remembered suddenly how Tyelpe had once pledged fealty to him upon the throne, that he had been deemed worthy of the great smith’s service.

Yet what remained of ruined Nargorthrond was now far below the Sea.
“Oh, get up,” hissed Orodreth, embarrassed for a variety of reasons. “I told you to leave.”

He found he was speaking softly, though, as Tyelpe rose, an apologetic grin upon his winsome face.

“I’d hoped—”

Celebrimbor cast his gaze about the room. It couldn’t be he was nervous before him, thought Orodreth—not bold Tyelpe.

“It’s only been good to be here, even for a little while. I have loved your son since he was a child—when he was a boy, I hope you do not mind me saying, indeed I nearly thought of him as my own.”

“Indeed,” was all Orodreth could manage.

He ached to hear this confession, a half-eaten shrimp held awkward to his chest. (At least he had not changed into his formal robes.) He was recalling the hours Tyelpe had spent with him and Gil-galad in the royal apartments, which, absent Finrod’s expansive presence, had so often seemed cold and vacant. Yet when they three had been together, there was warmth.

“I fear I made a fool of myself before him in the end.” Celebrimbor laughed grimly, and Orodreth ached again, remembering the grave account of Sauron’s battle-banner. “Though I aimed to give him succor, too, if only to ward off a doom that was my making. You know I always thought he would be the best of all of us.”

“Oh, it’s not yet time for speeches, Uncle Tyelpe.”

Gil-galad had appeared, still in semi-formal dress, though his hair looked clean and combed out from bathing. He clapped Celebrimbor’s shoulder, and fixed a breezy smile on Orodreth.

“Hello, Ada, I see you’ve found our late arrivals! It’s the strangest thing—this one here, and Prince Fingon and Uncle Finrod, they’ve been doing a survey for a new map of the archipelago, and just happened to land on Ellairë the very day of the wedding—”

“I see,” said Orodreth faintly.

Fingon was indeed discernable in the crowd, laughing charmingly as he did party-tricks with knives. Galadriel had just walked past him, in fact, with a curious look—she was bringing Elwing a drink at the far side of the yard, as Celeborn used his height to help Gwindor hang the final lamps, and Finduilas gossiped with a clutch of guests. Elrond and Celebrían had managed to make a somewhat subdued entrance, in spite of the ransom of jewels adorning their cocktail attire. That was all the family accounted for, save Eärendil who would return at dawn with the silmaril after his nightly journey, and Círdan who in his old age preferred matrimonial ceremony to celebration and would also arrive in the morrow.

And then of course Finrod, who was bearing straight for Orodreth, Celegorm and Curufin in tow.

For some reason they were all wearing ruffles, and their hair was very large.

“Nephew!” Finrod kissed Orodreth thrice Teleri-style, his strange costume jingling with— spangles? Bells? How could it be so noisy, and yet show so very much skin? “I hope you don’t mind I’ve taken the liberty of arranging entertainment. I mean, what were the odds of running into these two?!”

He rolled his brow in happy incredulity. Celebrimbor at Orodreth’s side tightened the grip on his cup. Curufin was staring at his son with eyes lacquered in silver paint—looking perhaps the least smug Orodreth had ever seen him, and at a total loss for words.

Was this the first they’d seen of one another, since...?

Celebrimbor bowed his head, murmuring to Orodreth. “You must excuse me.”

Something was caught on Orodreth’s tongue—Tyelpe, wait!—but Finrod, oblivious or else indifferent to the father-son tensions, waylaid his nephew while Celebrimbor slipped away.

“Just one number, for old time’s sake. After all my dear cousins do owe us both a great many kindnesses, after all those schemes.”

Winking at Orodreth, he turned on a very high heel and cleared a path through the crowd, all eyes turning to him and to his backup singers as they made their way to the stage.

###

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Chapter End Notes

Elig-nîn - my lil' star (this nickname a universal constant for my quantum elronds!!) 
Tyelemírë - silver jewel