“Fin!” The name came out as a hissed whispered squeak, and Erestor skidded into the room. He nearly tripped on his robes as he came to a halt before Glorfindel who had just stood from his chair. With a giggled snort, Erestor trusted his balance to his officemate, looking over his shoulder as Glorfindel steadied him by the elbows. “I need you to protect me!”
“What is the matter?” asked Glorfindel as he was pulled around the two desks that faced each other and shoved into Erestor’s usual chair. The sounds of someone approaching from down the hallway were audible as Erestor squished himself under the desk and yanked on Glorfindel’s legs so that he was suddenly at the desk and appearing alone in the room when Elrond entered.
“-and furthermore, I am not ‘fat’! You are simply too skinny, and we peredhel-“ Elrond paused, looking around quickly, and glancing back down the hallway. “Where is he?”
“Who?” The fact that Glorfindel was a bit confused as to what was going on made acting the part all that much easier.
Elrond crossed the room, seized the curtains and pulled them aside. “You know who,” he said in a low voice, his eyes falling upon the closet. He grinned and approached.
Glorfindel tried to make his legs more comfortable, as Erestor was taking up all of the good spots beneath the desk. Finally, he rested his bare feet in Erestor’s lap. “I have no idea who you-“
“Oh, yes you do,” argued Elrond, mumbling this at the closet door, and then stating rather clearly, “Erestor, open this door right now! I demand you stop hiding from me!” Grabbing the knob of the door, Elrond flung it open, and though a bag of feathers for making quills fell from the top shelf and drifted down upon the elf-lord, it was quite clear that Erestor was not inside.
“Shall I... call for a maid?” offered Glorfindel, who was trying hard not to laugh – but this was due less to the mess Elrond had made, and more because of the fingers vengefully tickling between his toes at the moment.
Elrond turned around and waggled a finger at Glorfindel, narrowing his eyes. “You tell me where he is right now, Glorfindel!”
“Oh, if only I knew. Where, oh, where could he be? Let me think...” As Glorfindel mused this to himself, he patted his feet about, keeping his toes away from Erestor’s hands while patting them against his friend’s shoulder, chest, stomach, ears, and of course, smooshing his entire foot against Erestor’s face at times. “Could he perhaps be under-“ *BANG* “Yeeowch!”
Elrond’s expression softened suddenly. “Glorfindel? Are you alright?” He began to walk toward the blond.
“Fine, fine, I am fine, yes, just- whoo, those old Gondolin war wounds, every now and then they just sneak up on you,” he said, rubbing his knee.
“Would you like me to take a look at it?” questioned Elrond with much concern.
Glorfindel adamantly shook his head. “Oh, no, best just to walk it off.” He stood up, walked a brisk circle around the chair, and sat back down. “Yes, much better,” he grimaced as he bent his knee, for it had banged into the top of the desk when Erestor, apparently not happy with having toes in his face, bit the underside of his foot.
“Drat, he probably is halfway to Lorien by now,” cursed Elrond as he made his way to the door. “If you see him, bring him straight to me! ‘Fat’, my eye,” he mumbled as he left the room.
“Old Gondolin war wound?” Erestor popped his head up from under the desk – and Glorfindel cocked one brow up, for Erestor was looking up from a rather compromising position. “You are just lucky he didn’t catch me!”
Glorfindel chuckled and patted Erestor on the head. The dark advisor made a face at him. “Yes, but I have,” he said with a grin.
Before Erestor could protest, there was a knock on the edge of the doorway, and Glorfindel sat upright in his chair, shoving Erestor’s head back underneath the desk with the rest of him. “Lindir! How good to see you!”
“Good day to you as well.” Lindir stepped into the room, and Glorfindel held his breath until the minstrel paused just a few feet from him. His grey eyes were perusing the office with interest – no doubt, Elrond had sent his protégé in to spy. “I thought I heard voices coming from within.”
“Just me,” said Glorfindel abruptly.
“You were talking to yourself?”
“I thought everyone did that,” returned the blond. He felt his legs being repositioned beneath the desk and tried not to appear too fidgety. Glorfindel began to sort through random piles on the desk, hoping Erestor would forgive him later for disorganizing the neat stacks.
Lindir perched himself on the few inches of bare space on the desk, and Glorfindel looked up at him. “Have you see Erestor?”
“No, have not seen him, no, never.” The last word earned him a pinch to the inside of his thigh, and he clamped his teeth together to keep himself from yelping.
“You have... never seen Erestor?” questioned Lindir incredulously.
Clearing his throat to give himself a moment to think, Glorfindel replied, “That is today, I have not never seen him. Ever. Not ever today at all. A-hem,” he punctuated, clearing his throat again and looking over a request form as if it were most important and much more interesting than what Lindir was saying.
“I thought I saw the two of you at breakfast together,” mused Lindir.
“No, that must have been a different Erestor. A different elf that looked liked Erestor. Someone else,” Glorfindel hurriedly finished, as Erestor hit his head repeatedly (but silently) against Glorfindel’s knee under the desk.
“How many elves in the valley look like Erestor?” questioned Lindir, trying not to smirk as he circled the room. Glorfindel felt the dark elf under the desk retreat to the very back while Lindir studied the cabinets, looked beneath a table, and even knocked on a wall the young ellon suspected at times was false.
“Well, obviously, at least two. Erestor, and the other one.”
“And who is this other one?” asked Lindir, ignoring the mess of feathers on the floor as he further examined the closet.
Glorfindel squirmed in his chair. “What other one?”
“The other one who looks like Erestor whom you were breaking your fast with this morn,” prompted Lindir.
“Oh! That other one. I do not know,” admitted Glorfindel, wiping the sweat from his brow when Lindir looked away for a moment, checking behind the cloaks on a rack by the door.
Lindir turned around, giving him the look that Elrond made famous. “You ate with him, and you do not know who he was?”
“That so long ago – hours and hours. How am I to recall the name of everyone in the valley?” insisted Glorfindel.
For a moment, Lindir did not say anything, but then, he countered with, “Breakfast was only forty minutes ago.”
“And a LONG forty minutes it has been,” Glorfindel assured the young minstrel. “Now, if you please,” he said, standing up (Erestor grabbed his ankles in panic, but Glorfindel gently tugged them away), “I have work to be done.”
“Of course.” Lindir smirked. “I shall leave you and Master Erestor to that.”
“Thank you. I mean-“ began Glorfindel, but Lindir was grinning.
As the minstrel left the room, he called over his shoulder, “I think doing one’s work beneath one’s desk is VERY productive indeed – in fact, I am about to suggest it to Elrond right now!”
“Shite!” Glorfindel would have continued his cursing had Erestor not grabbed his arm and yanked him out the door. “Wait, where are we going?”
“Where Elrond will not find us!” Erestor pulled his robes up from the ground a bit with one hand and prodded Glorfindel down the hall with the other. “Come on! I know you can go faster than that!”
The pair raced out of the house, and Glorfindel blindly followed Erestor through the gardens and out to the oldest of the barns, the one used for keeping poultry and hutches of rabbits. “Up!” hissed Erestor when Glorfindel looked about in confusion. The scholar ran to the other end as Glorfindel began to climb the slats that were inset in the wall to a crude platform that made a sort of loft. When Glorfindel looked down, he saw Erestor running back to the wall to climb it, and noticed that both doors were now open. “Keep going; someone is bound to have seen us!” Erestor said with urgency, having a bit more trouble keeping his footing with his long robes.
When Glorfindel was on the top, he turned about and offered his hand to Erestor. As the dark elf came close enough to reach out to him, they heard the voices of Lindir and Elrond approaching. Glorfindel hoisted Erestor up the rest of the way, and then Erestor pulled Glorfindel to one end of the platform. There they pressed against the only part of the loft bordered by a wall that did not drop down to the ground. Erestor clamped his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
“Well, this is just fine.” Elrond had just entered the barn and huffed upon seeing the open door at the other end. “They ran right through and we lost them.”
“Are you sure?” Lindir began to explore around the hutches and coups, and Elrond nodded.
“They will have to come back to the house at some point – and then, we shall have words,” promised Elrond. He steadied himself against the wire frame of one of the coups while Lindir continued his half-hearted search.
Finally, Lindir gave up and said, “Next time, we will catch them. You just need to get a bit more in shape – all the winter months inside caused you to store a little extra weight. Now with the spring here, you can be out and about to enjoy your strolls in the garden after dinner to walk it off. What exactly did Erestor say to make you so upset?” Lindir asked when Elrond did not converse back.
“He said I was getting sluggish and fat,” Elrond told Lindir flatly.
Charmingly as possible, Lindir grinned. “Would you look at the time! I have SO much to do...” The minstrel flew in the direction of the house as Elrond grumbled and then headed there himself.
“What sort of secret hideaway is this?” asked Glorfindel when he was sure that he and Erestor were alone in the barn. The loft was mostly bare, but it did have a few old pillows that Glorfindel recognized from a couch that had once been in the Hall of Fire, as well as a few bales of hay that were pushed together as a sort of lounge or bed. There was wine, and lembas in a sealed canister next to jars of preserved fruit. A stack of old books were piled against the wall.
“Mine.” Erestor sat down on a hay bale and patted the one beside him. “If I need a place to hide when Elrond is in a mood, then I come here. Today, I set him off rather unexpectedly and had no where else to run but to you.”
Glorfindel smiled. “I am glad that you know you can trust me.”
Erestor looked about for a moment, and then snorted. “I called Elrond fat.”
“I sort of got that impression,” laughed Glorfindel.
“Do you really talk to yourself?” asked Erestor as he retrieved a bottle of wine and some food for them to snack on.
“Erm... sometimes?” Glorfindel nodded. “Crazy, I know, but I do.”
“Oh, good,” Erestor said with a sigh of relief, taking a drink from the bottle and then handing it to the blond. “I thought I was the only one.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
Erestor needs a place to hide