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The Teacher	By : pip Category: -Multi-Age > Slash - Male/Male Views: 14764 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own the Lord of the Rings (and associated) book series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 23
- 24
- 25
Chapter Twenty-three
III 2463
Thranduil was much changed. Elrond had been looking forward to his visit in a secret part of himself, after all they hadn't met since the beginning of the third age. Of course there had been occasional letters, but these were mostly bereft of personal news. They had written to each other about the return of the Nazgul, about the encroachment on Mirkwood of the spiders, about many important things. The apparent crumbling of the world of men, even as the elves began to leave Middle Earth. Elrond had of course, shared his joy with Thranduil when Arwen was born.
For the first few centuries, Thranduil's letters had contained some outrageous flirting, but that had long since stopped. Elrond wondered if they still knew each other at all.
The formation of the Council of the Wise had made Thranduil's arrival at Imladris inevitable. And yet, the warmth he initially felt seemed all one-sided. Always arrogant and domineering, Thranduil's charisma had acquired an icy imperious quality that almost hurt. Would have hurt, terribly, if not for his near silence of the last millenia and a half. Elrond found himself mirroring it, so that each time they spoke their words were short, to the point, and completely lacking in shade and depth.
Nimbrethil was not with the party, and Elrond found himself disappointed in this too, wondering how the centuries had been to her. She had been one of the loves of his life, just as Oropher and his descendants had. She had been his first, and had been the spark that ignited his love for Celebrían. He would have liked to have seen her.
Thranduil brought Legolas though, and at least from him Elrond found an answer to his tender memories as Legolas embraced him. But the relationship between father and son was just as strained and cold. Thranduil was an island unto himself, and it bothered Elrond for the longest time.
Still, when they discussed the business of Sauron's return in the south, and the threat of Angmar in the north, his suggestions were sensible, he was animated and persuasive. He was even open to other points of view than his own. Something was all wrong here, and Elrond determined to face Thranduil alone, to find out what had caused the change in him.
Belatedly, he found himself remembering something from long ago – the very last time he had laid eyes on Legolas, in fact – and now he found himself dwelling upon it in private moments. Centuries had passed since he had left Thranduil's kingdom for the final time, but his ire even then had still felt too fresh and raw...
III 1047
It shouldn't be darkening so soon, Elrond thought, his concentration broken for a few moments as rain pelted the glass windows of the library. There were lights inside, and the overall tone of the world outside was a dark blue. Unless, of course, he'd been studying in here for longer than he realised.
Elrond leaned back in his chair and stretched out his arms and legs. He had a variety of the more rare spices in front of him. Most were from the far east. Some were used in certain recipes, especially by the dwarves, whose mineral wealth had meant they traded in very far away places. This one. Elrond picked up a small dish that contained roughly ground peppers. Not like ordinary capsicum, but much more potent. He didn't touch it, only inhaled very slightly. The warmth must have a useful medicinal application. He wondered. He hadn't written anything on the common bell pepper, but others had.
Elrond glanced at the books he had open on the desk, pen in hand to take notes, not finding the one he wanted. Behind him, the door to the library opened, and Elrond smiled without looking around.
“Arwen,” he said warmly. She was often a willing assistant in his research, her own knowledge of the healing arts was increasing all the time. “I have forgotten a book. Could you find me an old one on the capsicum, please? There should be two. Not the small one. The comprehensive...” He stopped speaking as cool hands were placed over his eyes.
“Not Arwen,” said a familiar male voice, “guess,” and Elrond's heart jumped. Not Oropher, obviously. Not Thranduil, not here. But, yes...
“Legolas!” he said, and stood up abruptly from his chair, turning around to behold him. It had been so long! There had been no runner sent ahead to tell of his arrival, and it looked as if he had just this very moment arrived.
“You travelled in this storm?” Elrond asked in amazement, yet he was glad nevertheless. They embraced in greeting, no matter that Legolas was soaked through. The weather had been dreary for a week. Legolas was like the sparkling return of the sun.
“Follow me,” Elrond said, becoming suddenly practical, his studies completely forgotten, pulling on Legolas' hand. It made the archer laugh in delight. “I shall have a hot bath drawn for you, and,” he paused. “Have you eaten?”
“Food? Maybe later,” Legolas said, bringing Elrond's hand up to his lips to kiss it, his blue eyes making promises that made even the Lord of Imladris falter. “I'm hungry.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It hadn't taken very long for his orders to be attended. Celebrían was away with the twins, so he took Legolas to their rooms for now until one of the guest suites was made up. The hot water was provided quickly, and Legolas had insisted on sharing it, so it was Elrond found himself naked in the octagonal bath, Legolas in his arms, leaning back against his chest while Elrond slowly and patiently undid the braids in his hair.
Legolas sighed. “On the road here, I think I may have dreamed of this,” he said, his voice low and musing. The candlelight in the bathroom flickered intimately. Elrond had indeed been studying for longer than he supposed, and the evening had fallen while they kissed and teased and undressed each other.
Finishing with the braids, and merely combing his fingers through Legolas' blond hair for now, Elrond picked up a natural sponge and used it to squeeze the warm water over Legolas' chest, feeling him relax ever further, deeper. The archer made a low sound of pleasure as the water ran in little rivulets over his skin.
Physically, he was exactly the same, but there was something unfamiliar about him. He was older, nonetheless. Much more assured than the Legolas who had spent time here so long ago.
With a sigh, Legolas let his head fall back against Elrond's shoulder, looking up at him, so tempting it was beyond belief. Elrond didn't even try to resist, and dipped his head to kiss the Prince, moving slightly to make the angle better, easier, Legolas' upper body weight resting on his bicep.
It was not as if they had never been apart. That difference was there in Legolas even now. He had experience, and technique that Elrond hadn't taught him. Even in something so simple as a kiss. Legolas pulled away, turning his head, leaving Elrond longing for more.
“Take me to your bed,” he demanded, as he arched his back and moved his lower body against Elrond in clear invitation. His bed. Their bed. Elrond shook his head as if waking from a dream.
“No,” he replied suddenly, scarcely able to believe he was doing it. “We can't. Not there.” Legolas didn't seem to notice the reluctance. And really, why should he? He knew that Elrond wanted him. The proof of it was pressed against him as he moved, slightly, up and down.
“Oh, you are not my teacher now,” Legolas said before Elrond could remonstrate with him, throwing his head back with abandon. “And I want you, anira-nín.” He moaned slightly, his lips parted and his eyes almost closed. “Just as I did the first time.”
Elrond narrowed his eyes in lust, looking away from Legolas to a slightly raised platform behind the bath, where the oils were kept. They wouldn't do for this, they weren't those kind of oils, but since this was a bathroom he shared with Celebrían, there were lotions and things here. One of them might do the job.
Finding a small pot of a plain salve, something he'd made up, Elrond smiled. None of the perfumed oils had been added to it yet. He thumbed the lid off and dipped his finger in. The substance was thick and greasy. It would also resist the hot water.
“Very well,” he said simply, his voice deep with authority, “then we do it here. Now.”
“Yes!” Legolas hissed, something victorious in him as he stretched out his arms to the sides of the bath and lifted his lower body enough for Elrond to get that hand beneath him. He sank down onto the waiting finger, relaxing consciously, his head slightly back, teeth pressing against his lower lip. It was such a stunning display of masculine desire, Elrond was captivated.
Unable to resist, while he prepared Legolas for what was to come, he reached around him with his other hand to touch. His hand squeezed and coaxed, slightly slippery over Legolas' hardness in the softened water. And Legolas moaned and whispered until he was completely undone, spending in Elrond's hand under the water. He could feel the spasms of Legolas' body around his fingers.
Legolas relaxed against him with a “Mmm...” of sheer contentment. Then at last, he said: “Now I am really tired.”
Elrond sighed in defeat and a little frustration, but then Legolas laughed at him. “Do you think I would tease you that way, half-elf?”
With an answering chuckle, Elrond replied. Oropher's grandson. “Oh, yes, I think you would.” Legolas smiled lazily.
“Hmm, maybe I would,” Legolas confessed, amused. “But not today.” He sighed, then moved again, slowly and sinuously. “Take me now, while I am relaxed in your arms. I want to pleasure you too, Elrond.”
He needed no further encouragement, and Legolas obligingly lifted his body, this time only to sink down on Elrond's waiting erection, drawing in a breath of awareness as he took Elrond inside him, inch by inch.
Elrond's hands curled around the archer's ribs as they moved together, the water sloshing around them, making their movements by necessity slow and controlled. He felt wonderful! And Elrond knew Legolas had gained in experience because of the way he moved. Their bodies were moving so perfectly together, it was like they were one.
“Oh, Legolas,” Elrond managed as he felt the velvet heat squeeze him as he drew out slightly. The sensation made him want to drive back in hard, and he did so, Legolas encouraging him in all ways.
“I know,” he said, almost languorous, perfectly confident. “Be with me, be in me, love me.” He must know what his whispered words did, Elrond decided, his mind clouded by want. Everything Legolas did, every move he made, every word he spoke stoked that desire, until he felt something in him uncoil suddenly. He held Legolas down to him, pressing upwards hard as his erection swelled and then jerked inside Legolas four, five times. When there was no more, he wrapped his arms around Legolas' body, resting his head against one strong shoulder, their bodies still joined under the water.
After some moments of quiet, Legolas breathed in deeply. “Now we go to bed,” he said, and at last he sounded satisfied. Elrond raised his head and laughed softly.
“Yes, fair Prince of Eryn Galen,” Elrond conceded with a feeling of deep love, lifting his hand to run his fingers through the loose blond hair. “Now we do.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elrond wasn't sure what he had expected. Maybe for Legolas to spend some time in Imladris, as he had before. But after only a couple of days, Legolas began to prepare to leave.
“I came with a message for you,” he said, and his cool blue eyes assessed Elrond carefully as he spoke. “I cannot delay the answer, much as I would want to.” He gifted Elrond with a smile that was only between them, and Elrond nodded at him to continue.
“My father wishes you to know that he loves and misses you, and wants you to visit him.” It was a request Elrond had heard many times before. So many times that refusal of it had become something of a habit.
“So will you come home with me?” Legolas asked, urging him to do just that, and Elrond was surprised. Did Thranduil send Legolas here merely to tempt him to return to that strange underground palace of theirs? It seemed so. He thought that it was possible Thranduil would never change, and he shook his head, disappointed.
“No. I won't.” Elrond was very tempted. It was a long journey. He and Legolas would camp together. “Tell him I miss him but that I have a life here, and family. Tell him I...” Elrond sighed. “Tell him I could not go back to darker days.”
III 2463
Elrond was out walking, these thoughts weighing heavily on his mind, when he spotted them. The meeting of the Council of the Wise did not begin and end in one session. Weeks had passed before all who should be present had arrived, and days were spent in discussion.
Some distance away down the path that wound through this part of Imladris, Elrond saw Thranduil and Celeborn. They were stood close to each other, talking intimately.
He was too far away to hear what they were saying, and then Thranduil saw him. He whispered something into Celeborn's ear, and then they were both looking at him. Celeborn's mouth formed into a small “o” of concern, and he pulled Thranduil closer. His head rested on Celeborn's shoulder for a moment before they wandered away. Elrond was quite certain he should not follow them, and couldn't do so even if he wanted to. He was completely stunned.
Somehow, Celeborn was seeing the Thranduil he had wanted to see, everything the King was hiding from him. Something ached in his heart that, when in need of counsel, Thranduil was speaking with someone else.
Over the days that followed, Thranduil continued to avoid him, and when they did meet, he was impassive and impersonal. Resolute, Elrond determined to end the stalemate, and he sent a servant to request Thranduil's attendance in his study.
When they were sat at either side of the desk, quite alone, Thranduil stared at him, his face blank, his eyes a cool green. Elrond sat forward a little, leaning his elbows on the desk, clasping his hands together. What to say? He sighed.
“Did I do this?” he asked directly.
“Do?” Thranduil asked in a dreamy far away fashion that was somehow regal too. “Do what?”
Elrond felt the frown on his face. He straightened his lips deliberately. “Forgive me,” he began quietly. “We once knew each other well. I may have described you as many things, but never – ” He stopped speaking, searching for the right word. “Haughty.”
“Haughty?” Thranduil queried, and for an instant there was a familiar quick amusement in the depths of his eyes as he kept the eye contact. Elrond looked down and away.
“Cold, then,” he said, uncomfortable. Then he looked up, wanted to plead for Thranduil to tell him.
“No, Elrond. You did not 'do this',” he quoted with a smile that wasn't real. At last the King looked away and spent several moments examining his perfect fingernails. Elrond was not deterred.
“Then what has happened to you?”
“I lost the game,” he replied quietly, as if it was a confession, some kind of deep melancholy sadness in him that Elrond had never seen before. Not once. Not even when he'd seen his grief for Oropher.
For so long they had been isolated, far away to the east, and he remembered the games of Thranduil and Nimbrethil quite well, even after all of this time. Still dreamed of them once in a while. Had they crossed some line? Gone too far? Elrond hid his shiver.
“Is the Queen at home?” he asked, even though he thought to himself: where else would she be?
“No. She is not. Nimbrethil will never be home again.” There was a catch in his voice that Elrond did not miss. “I am sorry to give this news, especially to you.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, feeling a dread that was coming to him right from the other side of the desk. She is lost. But it was more than that. There was something dark entangled with this. Something, some knowledge that was hidden from him. Thranduil shook his head, as if shaking away an insect.
“What do you want, Lord Elrond?” he asked, looking up again, that same mask in place again. Elrond had seen more than enough of it, even if the alternative was as horrible as his foresight seemed to suggest.
“To help, Oropherion,” he said kindly. That was it, really. He, Elrond, offered aid and refuge to many, had done since Imladris was founded. That he should give such succour to a friend and former lover was a certainty.
“Too late,” Thranduil intoned gravely. Elrond felt his brows draw together as he tried to figure it out, that dread growing larger all the time.
“For you, too?” he asked. Thranduil really did smile at him then, and Elrond felt blessed by it. The forgiveness of it, for surely he had missed more than Thranduil's company. He had missed something that he should have seen, should have sensed, something that had changed Thranduil so deeply they hardly knew each other.
“No, mellon nín,” Thranduil said. “It is not too late for that.”
Without a word, Elrond unclasped his hands and laid his palms over Thranduil's hands where they rested on the desk before him. Thranduil drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“I have told no one,” he blurted suddenly, his voice desolate. Elrond felt his disquiet grow.
“No one? Not Celeborn?” Thranduil shook his head and then actually sniffled. In these moments, Elrond didn't see the aloof stranger who had turned up at his home, nor yet the capable King, or even the Prince. He saw the child he'd once taught. His heart felt like it might burst, and he got up from the desk to walk around it and stand beside Thranduil's chair.
“No one at all,” Thranduil repeated it as if it were a promise between them, as Elrond laid a loving hand on his head, and suddenly he threw his arms around Elrond's waist. “Not him. This thing, Elrondlas...” He paused and looked up, not aware he had used the over-familiarity, tears in his eyes that Elrond felt responsible for. “It's my own. It's mine. Don't make me tell you. Please. Don't make me share it.”
The darkness drew nearer at Thranduil's words, and Elrond hid another shiver. For all that he wished to avoid causing pain, he knew he had to insist. What had Thranduil been living with? And in secret? For how long? He remembered the other secrets Thranduil had kept from him, and knew he couldn't be allowed to get away with keeping this one.
“Thranduil, you must and you will,” he warned, and after all it was easy to slip back into the role of teacher. His voice was deep and stern, as it had been when Thranduil had been too easily distracted from his lessons so long ago. “Tell me now,” he ordered. “All of it.”
Whatever Elrond's half-formed fears for Thranduil were, they were nothing compared to the truth that spilled from him next. Elrond held him as he sat in the chair, and he began to relate a long ago day in the Greenwood.
“Fine! Very well,” he said with a miserable sigh, running a hand through his hair. “It seems an entire age away now, Elrondlas, and yet it is still too close. It was close to the beginning of the second millenium of this age.”
Elrond gasped. So long? Thranduil had been living with this darkness alone for well over a millenia. Perhaps he was the only one whom Elrond could say would survive such a private grief.
“It began as all things did with us. With a game. An embellished version of hide and seek. I gave her some time, then I got ready to go hunting.” Thranduil smiled at the memory.
“It was a beautiful day. Oh, to be walking beneath the trees, cool and green, I imagine it was like Valinor, though I have yet to see that blessed land.” There was a certain kind of longing in his tone that it hurt Elrond to hear. “I searched for a long time, had checked all of her favourite hiding places before I began to run through the wood.”
“I went further south, the mountains behind me, the sun high in the sky. I could see the dim shapes of the hills far away in the distance. It was early afternoon in summer. The light shone through the canopy like gold and silver glitter. It is the last beautiful day I remember.”
“Still she eluded me. I remember laughing. Even then I thought that I had merely missed her somewhere along the way, and that sooner or later she would give herself away.” Thranduil's voice deepened with remembered love. “She never could help it.”
“Then, at long last, I caught sight of a stray bit of her dress between the trees. She had dressed in silver that day. She was facing away from me. It seemed as though she must be trembling. I thought it was her silent laughter, because she must have heard me calling her name.”
“As I approached her she didn't move at all. I reached out to put my hand on her shoulder, and she... She wasn't there. The shape of her shoulder collapsed under the heaviness of my hand. But I tell you she was there! I was looking at her hair, the same colour as her dress in the dappled sunlight, when her head fell back towards me.” A chill began to creep over Elrond as Thranduil spoke now, and he knew he would soon hear the worst of it. The thing Thranduil had not told anyone.
“I didn't notice the vacancy in her eyes until I remembered later. I was just so pleased to have found her, and I couldn't bring myself to believe anything was amiss, even though as I tell it, it's quite obvious.”
“As I watched she opened her mouth, and from her sweet lips there came a kind of frothy white foam. I still couldn't let her go and I pulled her around to face me, but she had no weight.”
“The bubbles that poured from her mouth began to burst, and the spiders ran in all directions. So many! I couldn't have stopped them, Elrond, not even if I'd had the presence of mind to try. I...” His voice trailed off, and he looked up helplessly, a terror in him that Elrond could do nothing to take away. “Their eyes,” he whispered. “They had the eyes of insects. These were no ordinary spiders.”
“Ungoliant's children, or grandchildren,” he whispered, and Thranduil nodded, his mouth turned down in sorrow.
“Some of them were as big as my hand.” Thranduil stared at his palms as if in accusation. “These crawled out of her and skittered away into the undergrowth. But they grew in the months and years to come.” He closed his hands into fists. “In size and in number.”
“What I found in the wood that day was naught but a shell. She'd been eaten from the inside out.” Thranduil swallowed audibly, and his hands curled around Elrond's ribs again to pull him closer. “My poor beloved Nim,” he managed, his voice broken now. “Who is to say how long she lived that horror?”
He went quiet, but he had not finished. Elrond remained in his place, quiet and patient, waiting for Thranduil to continue. For he must. The confidence must not end here.
“What I found that day, I buried in the forest in a place it will never be disturbed.”
“I have not and will never tell Legolas. You must promise me, Elrond, not to tell him. He fights those creatures every day, keeps the southernmost fringes clear of the spiders, lest we be overrun and forced out. He must never know how and when they came to be.”
“What have you told him?” Elrond asked, his mouth dry. He had noted the coldness between father and son.
“Nothing. Save that she is lost.” Clearly, Legolas knew there was a lie, but Thranduil was right – it was better this way. He held Thranduil close to him.
“Not lost,” he said in reassurance, because it was true. They would be reunited. “Not forever.”
Thranduil leaned back and shook his head. He gave Elrond a saddened and weary look. The longing in him. It made Elrond think of the sea. “If I were to sail now, do you think she would be there waiting for me? Truly?”
“I...” He knew exactly what Thranduil meant, and wanted to deny it, but he couldn't.
“No.” Thranduil gave him a wan smile. “She is with Mandos, I know. I must endure, Elrond, perhaps for an age.” He lifted his head, and there was something noble about it to Elrond's eyes. “Then, at long last, we may meet again on the shore.”
It was a long, lonely time to wait. “I am so sorry,” Elrond said, his voice thick with emotion.
“Why didn't you send for me?” he queried, feeling useless. “I would have come to you.”
Thranduil shrugged gracefully. “I sent Legolas in the hope you would return with him, but he didn't know what to say to make you agree. So he repeated everything you heard from me before. I don't blame you. Do not take this grief upon yourself, meleth nín, I could not bear that as well.”
Closing his eyes briefly, Elrond cursed his blindness in this. But was it that? Or was it that he had been so preoccupied all this time with a game? A game that, so it would seem, Thranduil hadn't even been playing.
“I wrote to you,” he murmured, but it wasn't an accusation, it was an apology. An admittance of how remiss he had been. The King shook his head sadly.
“How could I?” he asked earnestly. “How could I send a runner with this news, when I knew that you would grieve her too? I'm sorry.”
“You didn't come here yourself,” Elrond said then, and knew he was trying to find a way to assuage the heavy guilt around him.
“Elrondlas.” He smiled then. “I have never been here before. In your home.” He looked around him with a certain amount of wonder and curiosity. “Where you live,” he mused, as if grateful to be seeing it now. Elrond followed Thranduil's gaze, and saw all the personal touches that marked this out as his study – his place – and he felt utterly broken by it. “I didn't know if I would be welcome here. We argued, did we not?”
“I was stubborn, and stupid, and blind,” Elrond said, thinking of that argument now, thinking of how little it mattered in the context of all this. Thinking of how long Thranduil had spent alone with everything, not even his son at ease with him. “Forgive me,” he said.
As he looked into Thranduil's eyes, the King smiled. He tilted his head slightly. “You were stubborn,” he stated. Elrond nodded. “And... stupid.” Elrond gave Thranduil a mistrustful look, but he had meant what he said.
“Yes, I was.” At long last, Thranduil rose to his feet. They stood before each other.
“Blind,” Thranduil noted, and if there had been the slightest hint of victory in it, Elrond might still have refused him.
“I was.”
“I'm still waiting. Elrond.”
He reached out and held Thranduil's face in his hands. Elrond didn't want to let him go, and the urge surprised him in its intensity. Slowly, giving Thranduil a chance to move away, he moved closer, his eyes closing as his lips tasted something he had missed for so long.
At first it was a chaste kiss, just a touch of lips, a tender brushing together. But then Elrond wanted so much more, and partway through getting exactly that, he felt Thranduil's hands rise between their bodies to push him away.
Without thinking about it, Elrond grasped Thranduil's wrists and forced his arms back down by his sides. He opened his eyes and moved back, alarmed at his actions, but Thranduil did not move. He stayed still, staring into Elrond's eyes.
Entranced, Elrond curled the fingers of one hand around the back of Thranduil's neck, his thumb brushing over his cheek. That caress altered the lines of his face, made the corner of his mouth tighten in such a way that Elrond felt a rush of desire and lust.
Thranduil would never say please, he thought. It just wasn't in his nature... But then, Elrond remembered. No. He was wrong. Thranduil would plead. Had done. And he, Elrond, had ignored him.
“Ask me now,” Elrond said softly, wondering if it was still there, what had been between them so long ago, wondering if Thranduil even remembered what had been refused him then.
“Elrond,” Thranduil said instantly, and the facade of his gaze cracked just a little. Just enough so that Elrond could see the loneliness in him. “Please...”
Author's Note: Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.
Poor Nimbrethil. But the addition of an OFC never did sit right with me. She was assured a nasty fate. If Tolkien had only mentioned one hint of a name, something, anything in the canon I probably would have been able to save her.
I have to say, the revelation of Nimbrethil's fate and the conversation afterwards made me cry when I was writing it. Made me cry on every read through before posting. Loss is a terrible thing. I sincerely hope none of you, my readers, ever know it.
But, aside from that. At last! I reckon they're going to go at it like rabbits. What do you think?
Comments much loved and treasured.
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The Teacher