For this last Sunday of May, I wanted to share this little piece of nature with you. Thank you for your support, your kind words, and your daily presence here. Wishing you a calm and beautiful day! 🥰🦋💐
This story has been written for @sortumavaara and is accompanied by chibis made by this amazing artist!
Chibi commissions are open!
Characters: Glorfindel x Erestor
Prompts:Neighbours - Locksmith - If you ask me to beg, I'll beg
Words: 2 110
Warnings: a kiss (and potentially criminal activity)
Glorfindel squinted at the door accusingly.
The very next day, he vowed, he’d finally buy a doorstopper to keep those pesky drafts from accidentally locking him out of his flat when all he’d wanted to do was retrieve his mail.
Of course, it might have been a supremely silly idea to do so in the middle of the night, but—being a busy professional—he tended to these domestic chores whenever the thought struck him.
Unfortunately, even the best, most earnest resolutions in the world wouldn’t unlock his undeniably firmly closed front door now.
He considered calling Elrond, but he suspected that he’d gone through all of the seven spare keys his friend had been squirrelling away for emergencies: one, he’d lost at the mall, the other had fallen down an open manhole, two of them were surely somewhere inside his inaccessible apartment, and he couldn’t remember what happened to the others for the life of him.
Maybe, he mused, one was still in the old, battered car he owned but never drove. That sudden burst of inspiration did not help him much either, as the key to that accursed vehicle was in his bathroom drawer, inside his flat.
Fishing his old, battered flip phone, the little battery in the top right corner flickering alarmingly, out of his pocket, he reviewed his options with as much level-headed rationality as he could muster.
He didn’t doubt for a moment that his friends, annoyed and incredulous as they would undoubtedly be, would offer him food and shelter in his hour of need, but the thought of their faces and sympathetic cooing made his blood run cold.
Blowing a stray strand of golden hair out of his face, Glorfindel sagged against the closed door in dismay.
How did this always happen to him?
He was an accomplished ophthalmologist—respected and cherished by his colleagues and patients alike—and yet, he seemed utterly unable to manage something as fundamental as not leaving his flat without a key.
“Hello there, do you need help?”
Glorfindel shot up, banging his head against the doorknob and yelping loudly.
He’d never heard his mysterious neighbour, occupying the flat at the end of the landing, speak this many words in a row. And they were addressed to him!
“I’ve locked myself out,” he confessed in a tiny voice.
“Again?”
Grimacing, Glorfindel brought his hands to his face to hide from the disapproving gaze of the handsome stranger. If even his neighbour, who’d never granted him more than a sharp nod in passing, had caught on to his shortcomings, what were people in general thinking and saying about him behind his broad, muscular back?
“I could help you with that,” the other went on, callously disregarding Glorfindel’s existential crisis in his unshakeable pragmatism. “But you’d have to pay me the common rate for an emergency locksmith.”
That made Glorfindel look up once more; he’d always been so distracted by the darkly magnetic aura of the furtive, slender man with the impressive glower that he’d never stopped to notice that his clothes, while well-tailored, seemed rather threadbare and had been mended with meticulous skill.
The complex they inhabited was far from cheap to live in, and an ungracious but pervasive thought arose in Glorfindel’s befuddled mind: How could this man afford to pay his rent?
As far as he could tell, the mysterious siren with whom he shared a floor and the occasional lift ride went out at all hours of the night, often only returning after morning light when Glorfindel, rising from another night of bleak insomnia, got ready to go to work himself.
“Are you a locksmith?” he asked suspiciously.
“Something of the sort,” the smirking man gave back with a nervous shrug. “I can open your door, right now, isn’t that what matters?”
Glorfindel hesitated for a moment. “What’s your name?”
“Erestor, but don’t worry, there won’t be an official bill.”
The unshakeable sensation of doing something wicked and reprehensible overcame Glorfindel, but he nodded solemnly. “Very well, Erestor. I shall pay you…and I’d like to invite you to stay over for dinner sometime. As a reparation for the time you’ll lose getting me out of this mess?”
Cocking one eyebrow, Erestor moved down the hallway to retrieve his tools from his own flat. “This won’t take all evening,” he said calmly.
“Maybe…it could?” Glorfindel heard himself say in a voice that sounded considerably more suave and confident than he felt.
As soon as he was alone in the hallway again, Glorfindel pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation; his glasses were in the flat and his head had started pounding with a tension headache five minutes ago.
He truly hoped that Erestor would make good on his promise to overcome the treacherous lock quickly.
"You have to move away from the door," a soft, mocking voice resounded.
Glorfindel’s head snapped up, and when he beheld Erestor once more, his tongue went numb in his mouth—he’d tied up his glossy, dark hair neatly and squatted down before the lock, squinting at it in concentration.
The alluring shape of his behind and the elegant curve of his spine didn’t go unnoticed, and Glorfindel desperately tried to redirect his wandering thoughts to something less incriminating.
“Listen, I’m an ophthalmologist—if I can offer my professional services to you one of these days…”
Looking up from his work, his hands enviably steady, Erestor merely cocked one eyebrow. “My eyes are fine, thank you. There just seems to be a considerable amount of lint and other debris wedged into this lock. Do you ever check your key before ramming it into the keyhole?”
Shamefacedly, Glorfindel had to admit that he did indeed not do such a simple inspection.
His slender wrists were moving delicately until Glorfindel heard the telltale click echoing through the deserted hallway, and his heart sank.
“There we are,” Erestor declared, provocatively pushing open the door and stepping back.
“Do you…want to come in?” Glorfindel asked, all but stumbling over his words.
To his surprise, Erestor seemed to consider his invitation for a few seconds before shaking his head in what looked strangely akin to dismay and regret. “I must be somewhere else. Another time, maybe!”
Softening that ambiguous rejection of Glorfindel’s clumsy advances with a radiant smile, he strode towards the stairwell, tucking his tools surreptitiously under his arm.
Glorfindel threw his suitcase on the bed—he’d only just come home from a symposium about new laser technologies, and he already yearned to be anywhere other than his deserted, slightly disorganised flat.
For three days, he’d been bathed in the company of his peers. At that moment, he’d found them rather dull and boorish, but he now regretted every ungenerous thought bitterly as the gaping emptiness of his own home seemed to expand like a black hole, ready to suck every last drop of light and happiness out of his soul.
Just as he was about to do something laughably dramatic, though, he heard the loose board outside his front door creak treacherously.
Rushing to the spyhole, he was taken over by a recklessly idiotic idea—so much for having overcome that first impulse of madness!
Before he could give himself a moment to think things over, he strode out the door and looked around as if searching for something, pointedly feigning not to notice Erestor standing just outside his own flat.
“I was sure I’ve left it somewhere around here,” Glorfindel mumbled, his eyes glued to the worn carpet, and suppressed a grin as he heard his door clunk shut. “Oh misery!” he exclaimed. “Locked out again! And it’s the middle of the night!”
“I wouldn’t have thought that eye doctors have to work this late,” Erestor commented dryly, gesturing at the long, white coat Glorfindel was wearing and his uncharacteristically neat, smooth hairdo.
“I’ve only just come home from a medical convention,” Glorfindel explained defensively, as he didn’t want the other to get exactly the right impression of what was happening here.
“And, instead of going to bed and resting, you came out here to search for…” Erestor cocked his head quizzically as if it was entirely normal to have vaguely flirty conversations with one’s neighbours in the middle of the night.
“My bag,” Glorfindel replied, trying his best to look appropriately crestfallen. “My medical bag! It was full of goodies too!”
“As I surmise that you’ve been inside your flat already, I dare say that you’ve retrieved your key from said bag and consequently took it in. Do you need help looking for it?” It was evident in Erestor’s tone that he hadn’t in the least bought Glorfindel’s little subterfuge. “I could unlock your door again, and tonight, I have no other plans, so I’d gladly take you up on that late-night snack if you’re not too tired.”
Startled, Glorfindel stared at the apparition in worn grey overalls—had he ever found sturdy work garb to be this attractive before?—partially obscuring a clean, orange button-down until he was sure that his eyes were positively bulging out of his skull.
“Or did you change your mind in the meantime?”
At once, Glorfindel shook his head vehemently, carelessly unravelling his uncharacteristically tidy bun. “By all means, unlock my door and come in!”
All fatigue seemed to have drained out of his system, and he was shifting from one foot to the other impatiently, overjoyed at the prospect of observing those nimble fingers at work again.
Erestor smiled, tapping his skilful fingers against his toolbox playfully, and waited patiently.
“If you want me to beg, I’ll beg,” Glorfindel murmured, suddenly struck with how profoundly unreasonable his whole ploy had been. “I just want to get back into my flat…now more than ever!”
With a breathy peal of laughter, the unorthodox locksmith bent to his task, humming happily under his breath at the sight of the flustered doctor hovering above him.
As soon as the door swung open with a protesting groan, Erestor burst into laughter. “Your pesky bag seems to have hidden in plain sight! It’s right there, in the middle of the foyer, glaring at us!”
Ducking his head in shame at being found out, Glorfindel slunk in and threw an exasperated look into his clean but empty kitchen—he’d not been home, and he knew his fridge to be woefully empty.
“Can I maybe tempt you with delivery food? I’m afraid I don’t have anything edible in the house,” he confessed, avoiding Erestor’s amused gaze.
“Aren’t you a doctor?”
“I’m an eye doctor,” Glorfindel laughed. “And pizza is food for the soul!”
That was a statement with which even Erestor, contrary by nature, couldn’t disagree, so he followed his distracted host into a slightly cluttered living room where he simply halted.
“You may sit,” Glorfindel invited, hoping that he could at least unearth something to drink from the depths of his refrigerator.
“I’m dirty,” Erestor replied.
“Take the overalls off!” Moving towards the kitchen slowly while also refusing to take his eyes off his guest in case he took him by his word, Glorfindel wracked his brain for something smart and charming to say. “Do you also come from work?”
“Something of that kind, yes,” Erestor grinned. The sound of the fastenings of his protective garment coming undone echoed through the tense silence between them, and Glorfindel swallowed thickly.
The need for a beverage was both eclipsed and exacerbated by the revelation of Erestor’s maddeningly form-fitting trousers and impossibly unwrinkled shirt, leaving Glorfindel hovering on the threshold of the kitchen indecisively.
“Are these yours?” Erestor asked with a hint of sharp interest in his voice as he held up a pair of lightweight glasses that had been threatening to slip off the coffee table.
“Hmmm,” humming his embarrassed assent, Glorfindel decided that the refreshments could wait a little longer.
“Very sexy! Put them on for me,” Erestor demanded, getting to his feet and padding over like a sleek predator on the prowl. “I do want you to have all your senses about you when I name my price for my second rescue mission!”
“I thought I’d pay for dinner,” Glorfindel said somewhat sheepishly as he took his glasses and slid them onto his face; Erestor’s impish expression—his twinkling eyes and the tiny wrinkles around his smirking mouth—came into sudden focus.
Before he could dispel the suffocating mist of confusion and desire pervading the room, Glorfindel felt a strong, slightly calloused hand wrap around the back of his neck, and then, warm, soft lips brushed across his own.
“That too,” Erestor smiled. “Later. Much later!”
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Thank you so much for joining me on this new adventure.
