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1.
The first time is not, in fact, the hardest.
The sentiment slips so easily from his lips that for a moment, Glorfindel doubts whether he’s spoken out loud at all - and then decides he must not have. Ecthelion is still tapping his fingers on the mug. The rhythm had not broken once since the minstrel began to sing, and if the slightly disgruntled expression on his face is any indication at all, he does not think too well of the singing. Glorfindel can hardly fault him. The Lord of the Fountains is a generous judge, when it comes to men other than himself, but cynicism is well within his capability, and in this art, at least, he has almost every right to employ it.
And yet the fingers continue to flit, blunt nails and scarred tips dancing gracefully on the smooth earth-ware, and it really can be quite distracting. Ecthelion is by no means slight, but it’s true that he often gives the impression of being taller than he actually is. Glorfindel squints, disconcerted by the lines of bones drawn on the back of those hands. Bones. They must be white. Bones are white, aren’t they? Namo ought to wear white. Death must be white.
And he must be very, very drunk, or else he won’t be hearing the words he’s hearing.
“I do, too.”
Glorfindel snaps his gaze up. It’s the last day of autumn. The winds outside would be cold, but inside the newly-built hall the warmth flows like wine, like water. All around them lamps burn merrily, and for this night, shadows are nothing but the phantoms that they are. Ecthelion’s eyes are solemn as ever, storm-grey and utterly, absolutely serious. For a second Glorfindel feels his breath catch.
Then a wide, happy grin slowly splits his face.
(Who’d have thought the first time would be the easiest?)
2.
That year, that decade, no, that century, he learns to walk. He learns to tread the line between friendship and, maybe, possibly, something more. He pushes it, teases it, even breaks it into a muddy mess, in places... but always, always he steps back.
He doesn’t say that again. For some reason, he’s never drunk enough, never sober enough, never contended but never uneasy, learning to navigate not only his friend but his whole life, which is after all new, shining in a way that new things tend to shine. Like the Sun tends to shine.
Until he does, anyway. (Between the two of them, he’s not the one known for his patience.)
Ecthelion looks up from his book, a supposedly light reading that consists of eleven notable essays on the dialects of Northern Sindarin, and smiles. He has a way of smiling that never reaches down to his lips - but at this point, after a hundred years staring at the same sort of people day after day, there’s not a single man in the city who would miss it.
Today, the smile has a mischievous edge to it.
(Because while Ecthelion may be known for his patience, it is exactly the sort that arises when one attempts to curb his own impulses. All patient Noldor are like that, in one way or another.)
“I know,” he says, with cheer that Glorfindel might have missed a few dozen years ago, and reaches out to pinch his cheek.
Soon, they dissolve into a full-blown skirmish that ends with Penlod kicking them both out of the archives. Ecthelion grumbles under his breath. Glorfindel laughs. Totally worth it.
3.
For the record, he does blame inebriation. To be more specific, he blames the thrice-damned Dorwinion wine.
He watches, his fists clenched under the table, as Ecthelion hurries into the council chamber - late, although it’s been some time that he’s fallen into tardiness along with the rest of the lords - and claims a splitting headache. Egalmoth chuckles. Galdor chortles out loud, to which Ecthelion responds with a well-aimed smack and the declaration that is all at least I drank you under the table and Rog after you, don’t you dare go forgetting that, and not at all very regretful.
Well, there’s something in that. Glorfindel relaxes slightly. Ecthelion walks over to his seat, pulls it out, and half-sits, half-sags into it in an exaggerated manner - but anyone who didn’t know better would have blamed it on the hangover. After all, it’s been only five minutes since another lord (namely, the lord of Golden Flower) dragged himself head over heels into the room, and promptly collapsed in his chair.
After the council ends, though. They are the last to leave the room, lagging far behind even the King, who shoots them both a troubled look but does not ask any questions. Small blessings.
Ecthelion’s still sitting, shuffling a stack of reports, when Glorfindel says it, because, you know, third time’s supposed to be the charm, though really he’s just hoping that Ecthelion wouldn’t lope his head off. He’d deserve it, to be honest.
Glorfindel notes that his expression is quite unreadable. An unusual occurrence - indeed, such a thing had not happened for a long while now.
But Ecthelion nods once, thoughtfully, and says, “There’s a difference. Loving, and being in love, and being in love with.”
It’s more a question than a statement, and Glorfindel answers it as such. He leans in, kisses him.
4.
And then there was that lazy afternoon, out on the Tumladen, by one of the hidden springs. (Not hidden in a literal sense, as nothing on the fields are beyond the sight of watchers on the walls, or the eagles circling above, nor in a figurative sense, as the spring’s exact location, depth, and quality of water is no doubt filed in among the many, many confidential informations that really aren’t very consequential, but they have to make do somehow.)
Just when the rays of Anar, or rather, the being that steers it and her eyes, start to become a bit uncomfortable, Ecthelion sighs, reaches down to his face, and tucks a strand of hair behind his ear.
He must think he’s still sleeping.
Suddenly it becomes a struggle to keep his breathing even, and he feels rather foolish doing so, because he’s not quite awake yet, either, and he’s wondering whether this could be a dream. And he becomes very, very glad that he lies rolled on to his side, so that Ecthelion cannot see his face.
The hair on the back of his neck stands up, against his will. Not a moment later, there’s a subtle, warm pressure there, and a muffled word: “Yes.”
Glorfindel nearly gives himself away, then and there, but the lips move again, and this time the words are stringed into whole, incomprehensible sentences, and he breathes in, breathes out, rolls over, and meets those grey eyes.
“And I wouldn’t call it the sole cause, but there’s some correlation... Ah, you’re awake.”
“Hey,” he mumbles. And because it’s such a fine day, because they may be in sight but out of hearing, because it feels like it’s a splendidly right thing to do, he adds it, for the fourth time.
It had not occurred to him before to count.
Ecthelion laughs gently, like raindrops on the windowpanes and the murk of foul weather.
“Would that you didn’t.”
5.
They do not fight, not exactly, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less brutal.
The day Turgon decides to send out the messengers, Ecthelion screams himself hoarse at the King, until Glorfindel has finally had enough and drags him bodily out. It is, he thinks, undoubtedly selfish. Everyone makes sacrifices in this war, and sure, Ecthelion does have some valid points, but isn’t he making this a bit too personal?
(The men Ecthelion holds closest in confidence, the children he has always loved, no matter what, they are the ones with the greatest reverence for the Lord of Waters, as Rog’s people look to the Smith and Egalmoth’s to the Forester. Outside the Council, Ecthelion speaks calmly, and only of what a great honour the whole mad endeavour is, and further irrittes Glorfindel. His eyes are dry when he opens the Great Gate for them.)
(What did he think, when Ulmo spoke through the voice of a son of Men? He had liked Hurin and Huor well, too, he knows. Did he look at Voronwe and wish it had been someone else, not a dear friend of a Captain of the Guard?)
Even so, it’s tiring, and rather confusing, because they still drink together on the nights of Anarya, still spar with naked steel with a grim sort of joy that has nothing to do with the prospect of death, still fall into bed (and leave blood on the sheets more often than not). And it gives him hope, for some inconceivable reason.
And so he says it, when the things are, for a space of a breath, almost as it had been before, when saying it had not felt like crushing his sword through troll-skin, when all had been bright in the Dawn of the world.
Ecthelion slumps against the headboard, strain etched in every piece of bone as he drags the heel of his hand across his brow.
“Please don’t,” he says.
“I hate you.”
The words drop onto the paved stone, no heavier than feathers, no lighter than a thousand years.
And Ecthelion smiles, all white teeth and blood-red lips, brilliant.
In that moment it is so easy to see why this man flaunts the dubious title of the Fairest of the Noldor - this bleeding man who can barely lift his head is somehow dazzling enough to light up his whole world that has shrunk down inexplicably to the size of a thumbnail, somehow shining brighter than a bonfire on a summer’s night. Blinding, blinded, with the certainty of knowledge, of knowing.
Ecthelion smiles, and even before the words form themselves, Glorfindel can all but hear them, can do nothing but turn away, take a step, raise his hands halfway to his ears. (Anything to avoid that claim. That claim which is decades, centuries late in coming.)
“Is that so?” Ecthelion says, his voice lilting strangely - his accent has never been this thick before.
Glorfindel might be a fool. He might not see the moment when it crumbles, when his beloved’s reason-restraint-resolve finally breaks, but he can see this. He can see, he can recognize the shattered remnants of pride, and some small, whimsical fraction of his mind whispers that yes, this is the worst of it all. Bearing witness.
“That’s a shame,” and Ecthelion carries on, uncaring, and Glorfindel stands frozen to the spot. “Still, I suppose it can’t be helped.”
And then, almost as an afterthought:
“I love you.”
Someone, at some point in time, declared that fate was a bitch.
Falling through the burning, frigid winds, correlative causality swimming in his head and love, love singing on the tip of his tongue, Glorfindel cannot find it in himself to disagree.