“Like the sky.”
Glorfindel snorted in disgust. “That is one of the most clichéd things I have ever heard you say. Sky blue indeed. Come, you can do better. Were there no poets in your line?”
Elrond yawned ostentatiously and shook his head. “No poets, no. Dancers, singers – no poetry. I am left with a prosaic approach to words.”
“You are a lore master,” Glorfindel reminded him. “You have a reputation for words and learning to uphold. Are you telling me that in all your studies you have never read poetry of any kind?”
“I know a good one about marching off to war with swords new-bright from the forge?”
Glorfindel rolled over on the bed, pinning his companion with a strong arm while his free hand quested under bedcovers, seeking vulnerable flesh.
“Glori, don’t you dare….”
Glorfindel insinuated a hand between a determined elbow and a sensitive waist and the words were cut off in a flurry of movement and flailing limbs, all to no avail. Half-voiced protests dissolved into helpless laughter as Elrond was tickled mercilessly.
“What colour are my eyes?” Glorfindel asked, chuckling, his lips near the approximate location of Elrond’s ear under his wealth of soft brown hair.
“Sky blue?” Elrond suggested, gasping for breath. The attempt was followed by howls of laughter, interspersed with begging as the tickling resumed.
“Colour?” Glorfindel asked again, effortlessly keeping him flat on his back, a hand hovering between waist and hp bone.
Elrond squinted up at him through a tangle of spiderweb-fine hair, his face flushed with mirth, his eyes sparkling. “Some indeterminate shade of blue that you’re going to describe to me?” he hazarded, trying unsuccessfully to wriggle loose.
“My eyes,” Glorfindel informed him with great dignity, “are the blue of cornflowers, the blue of a robin’s egg, the blue of…”
“Those are two completely different shades,” Elrond pointed out helpfully.
Glorfindel offered him a stern look and a warning twitch of fingers. “Try and pay attention, my lord,” he said coolly. “The exact shade is less important than the tone, the romance of the words. Your trouble is that you have not a single grain of romance in your soul. All practical descriptions, useful information. No poetry, no…”
“Flowery bits,” Elrond cut in, finishing the sentence for him. “My life has tended to be short on flowery bits, Glori. “
Glorfindel’s face softened, the laughter left eyes that were suddenly tender. “I know that, my love,” he said more quietly. “Your life has been dark and hard and lonely, with very little space for frivolities.”
He bent his head and for a time words were replaced by slow, deep kisses and breathy sighs, while playful touches gave way to pleasure. Pausing eventually to draw breath, he tidied Elrond’s hair back from his face and murmured, “We are never too old to learn, my love. I had to make a new home, build a new life for myself here. And you…”
“Did you know your eyes are almost the exact same colour as the little flowers on the rosemary in the herb garden?” Elrond interrupted, his full-lipped, aristocratic face blandly innocent.
Glorfindel gave him a dark glance as he tried to remember the look of flowering rosemary. Then he smiled smugly. “Probably not. But I think your first lesson in offering romantic compliments has progressed very well indeed.”
~*~*~*~*~