It was midnight, and somewhere, there were wolves howling. Somewhere, a pair of new lovers were shyly sharing glances over a bottle of wine. Somewhere, plans were being made. Somewhere, songs were sung, secrets were learned, and someone was falling asleep.
But here, now, on top of the roof of the library, a memory was being made. Under the starlight, after the passion of their lovemaking, it was silent except for the deep exhales and quick inhales as they held one another.
They had made a pact – no more talking tonight. There was too much to learn, too much that would overwhelm. Lips spoke without words, and hands said what lips could not. Glorfindel had his back to the low wall, legs wrapped around Erestor. Erestor rubbed Glorfindel’s calves as hands played in his hair, braiding the pale strands only to unbraid them and begin again.
When he tired of this, Glorfindel pressed his cheek to Erestor’s back and hugged him tightly. Erestor hugged his arms around the embrace and closed his eyes. In the distance, the faintest sounds of a flute and a fiddle playing in harmony could be heard.
“Glorfindel?” Leave it to Erestor to break the rules.
“Mmhmm?”
Erestor took a deep breath. “You need to know something.”
“Hmmm?”
Erestor tightened his hold on Glorfindel’s arms. “I died. And not just once. That was why everything from my childhood never made sense. Nothing was ever in order.”
“Mmhm.”
It was not the answer Erestor expected and he shifted so that he could look at Glorfindel. “What, mhm, what is that for?”
Glorfindel untangled one of his arms and brought his hand up to rub the back of Erestor’s neck. He pushed the hair away and said, “I suspected you must have died at some point. You have freckles.”
“What? Where?”
“Back of your neck. On your back, too, and right behind your ears.”
“Huh.” Erestor rubbed the back of his neck as if he could feel them now. “Why did you never tell me?”
“There are a lot of things we need to tell each other,” was all Glorfindel would reveal before he pulled Erestor close again.
Chapter End Notes:
This story is one that has, in some form or another, sloshed around in my head for years. In fact, for nearly a decade. Now that it's out there, there's such a massive amount of joy for it finally to be there, and not just bits of thought.
It is, at the same time, bittersweet. Greyson has, since his introduction, been the 'self-insert' of my dog, Smudge. Smudge was born on a Saturday morning - Year of the Dog, on September 10 in 1994. I was fifteen at the time. He was the runt, born hours after his siblings, rejected by his mother, and hand-fed by my family. He stayed in our family all of his nineteen years, living with my parents, my brother, and with my husband and I. Smudge was three when I got engaged, five when I graduated, six when I got married, ten when he started to run agility (yes, ten, as part of an ascpa program on teaching old dogs new tricks) and on it goes. There are photos of him dressed up as Nibbles the purple bunny, compliments of my creative brother. He was sixteen when he came to live with us, and even at eighteen, this amazing dog, who by all standards of nature should not have lived through his first day, still wanted to run up and down the driveway at eleven at night.
Almost a year ago, on Good Friday of 2013, Smudge had a seizure and collapsed in our yard. He was prone to them before that, but this one was bad. We thought we were going to lose him. Instead, he started to recover, until we discovered a wound on his hip. As it got worse, we consulted vets, and they performed surgery. Once again beating the odds, scans showed no cancer, and 'stellar' bloodwork. He made it through surgery, where the muscle in his thigh was removed. He even recovered from that, and walked again. Another seizure in the fall caused more trouble, but still he pressed on, always trying to hobble, walk, and run again.
On Christmas Day 2013, he spent his final day with us. None of us knew it would be his last - he ate hotdogs, watched television with us, and dozed off in the middle of a movie. Smudge never woke up the next morning.
Losing him has been one of the most difficult things I have ever dealt with. Most people lose their childhood pets during the childhood, or when they're teenagers. Sometimes, in college. For me, I had the blessing of the childhood pet who I didn't have to say good-bye to until I was 34. The trouble is, after nineteen years, it's really, really hard to say good-bye.
I started writing this story out during his recovery. Some of it I wrote while sitting next to him, not realizing it was Greyson's swansong. I stopped abruptly when Smudge died; I opened the file again on Ash Wednesday. It just seemed appropriate somehow. I think I needed to finish this, as much for Smudge as for me.
If you read this far, thank you, through your readership, for being a part of Smudge's life.
And yes, to answer the question, while not full-blooded like Greyson, Smudge was part wolf. May he howl on in Heaven.