"I'm not going."
Glorfindel looked up and gave Erestor his best kicked-puppy look. "Please?"
"No. I don't dance." Glorfindel smiled at him. "You told me once you didn't swim."
"That's different. I couldn't swim. I don't dance. That doesn't mean I can't." "Wonderful! You can dance with me."
"Glorfindel. I'm not going."
"Erestor," he complained.
"No!"
"I'll be nice to you tomorrow if you dance with me." Eestor lifted an eyebrow calculatingly. "Not good enough."
"I'll be nice to you for all next week and I'll help you catalogue the new shipment of books Elrond had sent from Lothlorien."
"Promise I don't have to dance with anyone else and we have a bargain."
"All right." Glorfindel sealed the deal with a kiss. "Now let's get you dressed."
Erestor looked down at his robe-Glorfindel had never talked him into a color other than black, but his clothing did fit better since that blond had insisted on helping him buy it. "I think I'll take care of it myself."
"Erestor! No shapeless black robes, understand?"
"I'm going to think you're ashamed to be seen with me if you don't stop complaining about my clothing."
"You're the one who refuses to tell anyone that we're lovers," Glorfindel pointed out.
Erestor gave him a long-suffering look. "I will not wear a shapeless black robe. Are you happy now?"
"Would you at least let me do something with your hair? It would look so beautiful in braids."
"Is my appearance dissatisfactory?" demanded Erestor angrily. "I will dress as I choose, Glorfindel; if you cannot accept that then find another lover!"
"I didn't mean-"
"Don't bother," he bit off, and stormed out of the room.
Erestor stomped down the hall, fuming. How dare he? How dare he suggest that I am not good enough as I am? I am who I am and I will not change that to suit him!
"Erestor?"
He whirled, and out of a deep and abiding affection refrained from shouting at Arwen as though she were an erring elfling. "Yes, Arwen?"
"Is something wrong?"
"Glorfindel," he snarled.
"Has he been teasing you again? I could get Ada to speak with him for you, if you like." "He won't leave me alone!" he burst out. "Wear different robes, braid your hair, get out in the sun so you won't have blue skin, smile more... am I ugly? What is his problem?"
"Ah," Arwen said tactfully. "I... don't know."
"I don't complain about his appearance," Erestor ranted. "Why does he care? I've always dressed like this and he knows it!"
Arwen stared. "Maybe he wants you to look nicer?"
"Why? I wouldn't care if he looked like his horse! I can't believe he would be so shallow!"
She gulped, and ventured, "But you do look nice already. You don't go out of your way to show it, but you have pretty eyes and your hair is gorgeous. And anyway, all elves like beautiful things. It's just the way Ilśvatar made us."
He deflated suddenly. "I think I've just been monstrously unfair."
She smiled at him as a metaphorical candle flickered to life above her head. "I think I know how you can make it up to him."
Glorfindel stared, slightly shell-shocked, at the door via which Erestor had just exited. He had certainly not meant to upset Erestor, and even less to hurt him-he rarely acted like it, but he was terribly touchy about his looks. Idiot! the blond reprimanded himself. You know he's sensitive. Why didn't you just take a sledgehammer and knock him over the head with it; I'm sure it would have been less painful!
He sighed. He simply didn't understand his lover sometimes. He could be so much prettier if he would just do something with himself...
But that very statement had been what set Erestor off. Why? He knows I love him as he i- He buried his face in his hands. Idiot, he reiterated. What kind of moron doesn't tell his lover that he loves him?
He sat bolt upright in his chair, eyes glinting, as an idea struck him. Then I'll just have to make it up to him.
Erestor looked at Arwen dubiously. "I really don't think that color would suit me," he told her, frowning. "And if I wear something that tight, I won't be able to move, lt alone dance."
"Dance?" she repeated in surprise. "I didn't know you danced."
"I don't." He wrinkled his nose, then amended, "Normally, anyway."
"Then why the concern?"
"I promised him I'd dance with him. So I will."
"All right, not that outfit. What's wrong with the color? Blue would bring out some color in your eyes. You would look charming."
He shook his head. "I've worn blue before; I looked like either a wax doll or a corpse, depending on the tact of the person addressing me. No yellow," he added, as Arwen lifted a tunic out of her brothers' communal closet. "Or orange, or leaf green, or purple."
"Well, you've just accounted for most of the color spectrum," she said, exasperated. "What color do you want? And no black! It makes you look like a Nazgžl or a necromancer."
He smiled. "I wasn't thinking black. I though maybe..." He reached behind her into the closet and pulled out an outfit reminiscent, at least to Arwen's mind, of a gypsy dancer's costume. "...red."
Glorfindel looked around Erestor's room with satisfaction. If his doesn't scream 'I love you,' I don't know what does, other than a teenaged, suddenly former virgin. He grinned, picking up a spare rose, and began plucking its petals, dropping them on Erestor's pillow as he did so. "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me." He chuckled, amused by his own silliness, and left the room. After all, he still needed to get ready for the ball.
Glorfindel entered the Fire Hall cautiously, looking about himself for Erestor first. Seeing the dark-haired scholar was absent, he drifted through the brightly-colored throng towards Elrond. "Good evening, my lord."
"Good evening, Glorfindel," the elf-lord greeted him. "I see you've misplaced your shadow. Is he hiding in his room or is he lurking in a corner somewhere?"
Glorfindel coughed lightly. "To tell the truth, Elrond, I don't know. We had a disagreement earlier, and I've not seen him since."
"Lovers' spat?" Elrond inquired quietly, nodding knowledgeably. "Don't worry. Erestor tends to blow up over tiny things, but he calms down eventually."
"It was my fault, anyway," Glorfindel replied, also under his breath. "Don't feel the need to mention it to him that I told you we quarreled. He'd castrate me in my sleep."
Elrond laughed and shook his head. "Your secrets are safe with me. And I'm sure that if Erestor were to... ahem... rid you of your masculinity, he would regret it come morning, and apologize very prettily."
"Regret it or not, I would still be without a rather important organ, so I would prefer to apologize before I go to bed."
"As you wish. But as Erestor isn't here yet-perhaps you would go entertain Lord Celeborn? His wife has abandoned him for the dance floor again."
"Of course-but where is Arwen? She usually stays with her grandfather on such occasions, does she not?"
Elrond shrugged. "My daughter has apparently decided to arrive fashionably late, and I do not wish for my father-in-law to sit alone until she appears."
"Certainly." Glorfindel bowed slightly and maneuvered his way to Celeborn's side. "A lovely party, is it not, Lord Celeborn?"
Celeborn wrinkled his nose in a manner most undignified for a lord of his station. "I am more of Erestor's mind, I'm afraid. Has he melted into the woodwork already, or did he decline to come at all?" Glorfindel shook his head. "I'm sorry, my lord, but I don't know. I have not seen him, but he may appear later."
"Really." Celeborn lifted an eyebrow, but did not pursue the topic further. "Well, he was never too fond of formal dances at any rate. Too many females." He grinned at some private joke, while Glorfindel blinked in bewilderment.
"Ah... of course, my lord."
Celeborn's grin widened at Glorfindel's expression. "When you see him, ask him about his first dance in Lothlorien."
"Yes, my lord."
"Grandfather?" Celeborn turned and enveloped Arwen in an enormous bear hug.
"Hello, my dear. I thought you might have abandoned me for some handsome elf lad."
Arwen smiled teasingly and tugged a lock of his long silver hair. "Why would I do that, when the most handsome elf here is you?"
He laughed, and squeezed her around the shoulders affectionately. "Flattery will get you everywhere, pet."
"I know."
"What do you want? A new dress, your grandmother's jewels, one of my Galadhrim on indefinite loan?"
"Grandfather," she whined.
"Yes, darling?"
"Stop being so silly."
"My wife has abandoned me for some strapping young lad from Mirkwood, my dear; it is only by my own silliness tht I stave off the flood of tears." He struck an overly dramatic pose. Arwen giggled. "O woe, woe, to be cuckolded by my wife of millennia and a princeling younger than our grandchildren!"
"Legolas is here?" She stood on tip-toe to peer curiously around the room. "I don't see him."
"You, too, will abandon me! Alas, alackaday! Cast aside by wife and loving grandchildren, and all for a pretty blond tart!"
"As I recall, you were rather tartish yourself before your marriage," Glorfindel interjected, a bit sourly. "Stories traveled all the way to Gondolin, involving you, Cirdan, and an overturned rowboat."
"Did they really?" he asked, preening. "Well, I wouldn't have done it with anyone other than Cirdan. The things he can do underwater..."
"Grandfather!" yelped Arwen. "Be quiet!"
He grinned.
Erestor swallowed nervously and hovered indecisively by the door leading to the Fire Hall. I look like an utter tart, he fretted to himself. How did I let Arwen talk me into this?
"My lord?" One of the Galadhrim who had come with Galadriel and Celeborn-Erestor hadn't gotten any of their names straight yet, and they all looked so much alike it was really a futile endeavor-approached him, smiling diffidently.
"Yes?"
"Lady Arwen sent me with a message."
Erestor waited impatiently. "Which was?"
"I apologize in advance for this." He opened the door and forcibly shoved Erestor through it.
Erestor stumbled a few steps and turned to glare at the younger elf, who looked apologetic and blocked the doorway. Erestor sniffed indignantly and stalked away.
Noticing his undignified entrance, Elrond beckoned his harried advisor to his side. "I see you've decided to attend after all. I assumed you wouldn't be coming when Glorfindel arrived alone."
"So I cannot do anything by myself anymore?" Erestor demanded sharply.
Elrond smiled serenely. "You may do many things by yourself, Erestor, but as a general rule you avoid festive gatherings as a human does the plague, unless Glorfindel should drag you in by the scruff of your neck." Erestor could find no way to deny the truth of Elrond's statement, and settled for glowering at his lord. "Speaking of our dear erstwhile Balrog Slayer, what on earth happened to make him so gloomy? I've not seen him so unhappy since he broke your wrist on the practice court last year." Erestor blinked. "I.... Where is he?"
Elrond pointed discreetly to the blond, standing by the wall and watching Arwen dance with Celeborn, wearing a distinctly miserable expression. Guilt washed over Erestor, and with a hurried nod to Elrond, he hastened to his lover's side.
Glorfindel heard the approach of another elf, but ignored it, assuming that either Arwen or Celeborn had returned to attempt to cheer him up. At the soft touch on his shoulder, he looked up, straight into Erestor's hesitant eyes.
Without pausing for thought, he wrapped his arms around the slight elf, so tightly that Erestor gasped for breath. Glorfindel loosened his hold immediately, but did not release Erestor entirely. "I'm sorry," they both said in unison. They stared at each other, then broke into only slightly hysterical laughter.
"No, truly, I'm sorry I screamed at you," Erestor said at last.
"And I'm sorry I'm an insensitive lunk." "You're forgiven. I wouldn't have you any other way." Erestor stood on tip-toe, resting most of his weight on Glorfindel's shoulders, and kissed him in full view of the entire hall.
"What is this that you're wearing?" Glorfindel asked a few minutes later. "It's... not black."
Erestor smiled shyly. "I stole it from the twins. I wanted to... make up for yelling at you. I thought you might like it if I dressed up."
"You didn't have to," he said, touched. "You're perfect just the way you are."
"Crabby, cranky, and dressed in perpetual black?" Erestor asked, smiling slightly.
"Of course. You wouldn't be Erestor otherwise." He paused, then added, "I do love you, you know."
"Well, I love you too, so that's all right," Erestor replied imperturbably. "Would you care to dance?"
"I would love to." As they moved onto the dance floor, Glorfindel ventured, "What did happen during your first dance in Lothlorien?"
Erestor shuddered. "It was horrible. An entire flock of flighty females cornered me. I was forced to dance with every single one of them-Celeborn was no use; he spent the entire night laughing at me. I wanted to throttle him. And to crown insult with injury, I received over a half dozen propositions. One of them invited me flat-out into her bedroom!" he added plaintively. "What is it about females that leads them to be attracted to the least masculine males?"
Glorfindel shrugged helplessly. "I have no idea. By the way, although I do of course love you no matter what you wear, might I suggest stealing this little outfit from the twins on a permanent basis?" He grinned down at Erestor. "You look like the most adorable tart."
He rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Most people would not consider that a recommendation, you know."
"In this case, it is. And since I really think you look your best in nothing at all, this makes for a good compromise."
Erestor thumped his head against Glorfindel's shoulder. "You are utterly hopeless."
"I know. It's part of my charm."
"What charm?" Erestor muttered, but before Glorfindel could respond, they were surrounded by a group of chattering girls.
"Lord Erestor! Won't you dance with us?"
"Ah..." Erestor said eloquently, casting a panic-stricken look at Glorfindel.
"I apologize, my dears, but Lord Erestor is promised to me for the evening," he prevaricated smoothly. "If you are in search of partners, Lord Celeborn seems to be sitting out at the moment. Perhaps you could extract a few dances from him. Excuse us." He skillfully maneuvered his lover out of the crowd. "Do you have any particular interest in dancing?"
"Not if it involved those harpies," he replied promptly.
"Then let us make a timely escape."
They raced down the halls together, giggling like truant schoolchildren, until they reached Erestor's suite. Glorfindel flung the door open with a flourish, and Erestor stopped dead.
"I really do love you," he remarked to Glorfindel.
"That was the reaction I was trying to evoke," he said in a pleased tone. "I love you too, sweetling."
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Dance by Belladonna Poisoning
Story notes: Falls somewhere between Swimming Lessons and Interruptions and Consequences Genre: Romance/humor
Warnings: None
