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It took all of a month to find a place to live.
“It’s not much,” Talion had rasped, frowning at the rotted wood that made up the front steps to the cabin. “But it’s not in Mordor, so I’ll take it.”
Celebrimbor nodded. “That’s fair.”
It took them longer to find a bed. Celebrimbor had been close to breaking, grumbling that it would take less time for him to simply fashion beds for them himself, but their supplies and funds were limited and they need to spare as much as they could where they could. For a time they had simply slept on the floor of the house, much the way one might if they were camping- it wasn’t comfortable, however, and it seemed to Talion that Celebrimbor was fit to follow through on his threat.
Then, they got the bed.
The bed.
Singular.
Because that was all the traveling merchant had- Saturdays were market days in this village, and there were vendors that would travel between the local towns and selling what they had from place to place. And as it happened, this one was selling the makings for a bed.
Just the one, though.
One they had gotten it back home and assembled it, Talion and Celebrimbor had found that it was quite a large bed, enough to fit them both.
“I don’t much care whether we share or don’t,” Talion said wearily. “We shared a body for over sixty years; a bed is nothing in comparison. I just want to sleep in something that is softer than hardwood, and not currently molding or playing host to a spider’s nest.”
Celebrimbor’s lips twitched, the closest thing to a smile Talion had seen from him since he’d regained his physical form. “I agree.”
“So we share?”
“Certainly.”
Sleeping in the same bed really wasn’t so unusual. They’d slept next to each other in their own sleeping bags ever since they’d left Minas Tirith, and- as Talion had said- sharing a bed seemed fairly trivial when one considered that they had spent sixty years sharing a body (and parts of their mind) together. All that had changed from their usual sleeping arrangements was the material they slept on.
It was wonderful to sleep in a bed again; Talion had only slept on a bed in Mordor… Perhaps three or four times in the last sixty-odd years. They were hard to come by in a land largely inhabited by Orcs, and the ones that were there were often unguarded and poorly made. And as Talion had never even come close to trusting any of the Orcs he’d branded not to slit his throat in the night, he’d never slept on any of the beds in the fortresses they’d captured when they’d had their Ring.
Beds were one of the thousand little things Talion had missed from his life before Mordor. It was a bit surreal to have it all back now- he couldn’t quite believe it, and half-expected to wake up in Mordor again, ready to trudge through another day of slaughtering Orcs.
If Celebrimbor felt the same way, he kept it to himself. However strange Talion felt to be free of Mordor, Celebrimbor must have felt even stranger: He had been trapped there for centuries without physical form, and now he found himself alive, whole and hale as he hadn’t been in a long time. Still, there were slip-ups that Celebrimbor couldn’t hide: Having spent so long incorporeal, he seemed to struggle with remembering that he was now a physical, solid mass that could not pass through walls or disappear into the ether whenever he felt like it. He would bump into things or drop objects thoughtlessly, surprise and annoyance crossing his face in seconds before tucking the emotions away seamlessly.
“Alright?” Talion asked whenever it happened.
“Mm,” Celebrimbor hummed, never acknowledging it beyond that. As an Elf, surely his pride smarted as being less than graceful as the rest of his kind.
At night, though, he seemed to sleep easily. On the nights when Talion couldn’t sleep, he would watch as Celebrimbor’s eyelids fluttering in sleep: He’d known that Elves slept with their eyes open, but it seemed as though that wasn’t completely true, because occasionally Celebrimbor’s eyes would close, only to open a few minutes later. “It doesn’t hurt?” Talion asked after they’d woken up one morning. “Your eyes aren’t dry, or irritated?”
Celebrimbor shook his head, unruffled. “It’s never been a problem.”
Sometimes, Talion would wake with Celebrimbor’s long, dark hair covering his hand. Other times, he’d wake to find that he was closer to him than he’d been when he’d fallen asleep; a few times, Talion found that his hand or arm was resting on Celebrimbor’s waist. Talion was always quick to move away once he was awake and realized what he’d done, and Celebrimbor never made any mention of it.
Probably because, once or twice, Talion had woken to feel Celebrimbor’s head pressed against his back.
Neither spoke of it.
One day, Talion woke to find his pillow soaked with sweat and his throat clogged with pain and inflammation, the likes of which he hadn’t felt since the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith. He coughed and gagged, and blood and pus came up. “Can you breathe?” Celebrimbor asked.
Talion nodded, though it was only half-true: The swelling had made it difficult, but not impossible to breathe. But every time he took a breath and air passed along his damaged throat, it was like throwing salt into an open wound. He struggled to breathe as Celebrimbor prepared a mixture, something or other that he said would help. Whether he meant that it would help the fever, or to cure whatever infection had settled into Talion’s throat, or simply that it would soothe the pain, Talion didn’t know. At this point, he would take anything.
“Drink slowly,” Celebrimbor advised as he handed Talion the flask. “It’s best that you don’t cough it up.” Talion was grumpy enough to think up a sarcastic, snide response to that- but as he couldn’t talk, it went unspoken. He forced himself to swallow all the liquid, forcing it down his throat and making sure it would stay before giving into another coughing fit. “You should sleep.”
Talion nodded, dropping back onto the bed. Eventually the draught did its work and numbed the pain enough for him to sleep, if not fitfully: Talion would rouse unexpectedly, eyes cracking open and finding that the daylight had disappeared and the cabin was dark. Later, he would dimly recall getting up and trying to get water, only for Celebrimbor to guide him back to bed and get it for him.
At some point, Talion woke to find himself reasonably coherent: The fever had broken, though he was still in some pain and his throat was still a bit too swollen to talk properly, he felt better. A bleary glance at the window showed a pink sky- was the sun rising, or setting? He’d lost his sense of time.
As Talion settled back down, tired enough to sleep more if he could, he noticed a weight across his hip. When he turned to look, he saw Celebrimbor’s arm slung across his side, black hair splayed across his pillow and eyes closed (for now, anyway). The closeness and the position of his arm suggested to Talion that perhaps this particular instance of intimacy may not have been unintentional.
Talion considered that for a moment, and then simply laid down and went back to sleep, leaving Celebrimbor’s arm where it lay.
They didn’t speak of it later.
-End