Lessons In Love

A Hundred Years

(Warnings: none)

Lazy fingers ran gently through soft blonde hair and carefully swept over the pointy ear they encountered while doing so. The Elf was resting his head against the well-built bare chest of the one playing with his hair. Some of the Elf's fair hair had spread across the muscular chest, which by nature bore some dark hair, in a way it looked as if someone had meticulously placed each and every straw of it there.

Suddenly a deep, yet soft and a little hoarse voice broke the drowsy silence.

"I wish I had a hundred years... A hundred years I could give to you..."

The Elf, resting his head still against the Man's chest, opened his blue eyes slowly. His immediate reaction was "Shut up, Bard!" but he only yelled it inside his head.

A hundred years. Bard wanted a hundred years - something they both probably knew he would never get - whereas the Elf could perfectly remember stating "a hundred years is a mere blink in a life of an Elf". Yet there he was. Risking every little bit of his happiness and therefore even his life. And for what? For quite a lot, actually, if you came to think of it. For thousands of seconds together, for hundreds of little kisses, for dozens of lazy mornings shared with each other... It was a lot, even in a life of an Elf, which could last for centuries in Middle-Earth and continue forever in the West.

For the tiny details, the passing moments he risked the chance of his heart breaking. And it would, as a day would come when the life of a mortal was taken away by time after it had washed away the grace of youth and the colour of life off the doomed physical form.

"Thranduil?"

Bard's voice pulled the Elf's track of thoughts back into the very moment: to the bedroom they were reclining in; to the camhanaich - the morning twilight peeking behind the windows.

"Hmmh?" Thranduil replied tilting his head back a little so he was able to look up at Bard's face. He did not bear dark hair only on his chest but also on his face. His chin was covered with short black hair, he had a noticeable moustache and his thick sideburns had partly spread onto his cheeks. Thranduil had soon learned that Bard was not a fan of grooming. He did, though, keep his facial hair short enough to not go for dwarf-look.

As their eyes met Bard gave him a tiny smile. Thranduil moved his fingers a little on Bard's chest and sent a pleasant tingling emotion running through Bard's body.

"Did you even hear what I just told you?" Bard checked.

"I did," Thranduil replied. The tone of his voice was enough to tell Bard not to repeat the sentences.

There were topics Thranduil was not good coping with. The topics included dwarves, dragons and time. The third only when discussing Bard, though. The mortals had very different sense of time. They had added an extra day, Oraearon, to their reckoning. The Elves counted a six-day week whereas mortals had seven days in their week thanks to this addition. Did it really give them extra time was another matter. Bard was living his fifth decade, and Thranduil had already seen thousands of years. Their view on life and especially on the usage of time was different.

They were seemingly too different to be able to coexist in such an intimate relationship. One came across as a vain, self-confident Elf with the experiences of thousands of days on his shoulders, and the other a newly crowned king of Men still trying to figure out how to be worthy of his title. What was hidden in their hearts, though, was a strong emotion that drew and bound them together.

"The sun must be up already," Thranduil stated to fill the empty silence.

"Probably," Bard agreed. He knew well enough what it meant. The Elvenking would pull himself away from him and leave him longing for more. A kiss, a touch, even a look of the beautiful blue eyes. Bard did use the moment he still had for his advantage; he wrapped his arm a little tighter around Thranduil and ran his fingers through the Elf's blonde hair one last time.