Though the Gods and the Years Relent, Shall Be by Helholden for sg1jeditardistrek
Fandoms: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (TV 2022), The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Warnings: Explicit, No Archive Warnings Apply, F/M, Work in Progress
Tags: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Alternate Universe, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, First Meetings, Developing Friendships, Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Developing Relationship, Conversations, Bonding, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Fluff, Eventual Romance, Slow Romance, Romantic Fluff, Galadriel Grows Up in Front of Mairon's Eyes, Cutesy, Hurts So Good, First Kiss, Galadriel's First Kiss, Also Mairon's First Kiss, Yes I'm going there, Falling In Love, Idiots in Love, Living Together, Cohabitation, Apprenticeship, Marriage Proposal, Marriage, First Time, POV Female Character, POV Male Character, Only Rated Explicit for the Last Chapter
Summary:
After the final Breaking of the World when existence is remade by its creator Eru Ilúvatar, second chances are possible. A little Artanis goes into the city with her brother, Finrod, and meets someone who isn't an Elf at the forge. Intrigued by Mairon, who is a Maia instead of an Elf like her, she keeps coming by to visit him throughout the years, and he visits her family, too. They develop a fast friendship, but the older Artanis becomes, the harder it is to remain just friends.
Written for a tumblr prompt for sg1jeditardistrek: Sauron/Galadriel fic post-canon, post-LOTR. Anything goes. This is where my mind went.
Chapter 5: A Request of Great Magnitude
Finarfin, Finrod, Mairon, and Artanis make a journey to the summit of Mount Taniquetil, home of the King and Queen of the Valar in order to make a request never before asked of the Valar.
The last chapter of my ‘Call Me By Your Name’ au! Thanks to everyone who read along and shared their thoughts with me...I hope you like the ending!
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One Year Later
It’s been a long time since Charles’ last visit.
The house was much the same as it had always been, doors creaky and windowsills warped from the heat and humidity of the Italian summer. The grounds too had not seen any change since he was a boy, the orchard lush and green and obviously loved, his parents still spending enough time here to ensure that the property was lived in and well maintained.
In the years since he left for Oxford Charles had visited less than a handful of times, though Raven still spent part of the summer here every year, and brought her husband and son along now to enjoy the town’s rustic charms. Without fail she would ask Charles to join them on holiday, so the entire family could reunite and revisit those idyllic days, and he would pretend to consider it, to promise to fit it into the crazy schedule that he maintained. And inevitably something important would come up and take Charles to another part of the world, allowing him to keep his distance and the memories at bay - of one perfect summer and a love that should have long been forgotten.
It got easier as time passed and his life took him further and further away; he could even look back and see it for what it was - joy made all the more precious for having been found and then lost. It was something that could be cherished and missed, he told himself, but never truly remade.
But then he’d made that mistake more than a year ago, seeking him out in a vain effort to recapture the magic they once shared, wanting – closure? A second chance? He still had no idea what he’d hoped to accomplish from his visit. And Erik...
There had been others in Charles' life, since he fell in love with Erik Lehnsherr; longer, deeper, more meaningful relationships with both men and women in these past sixteen years. He had known their hearts, and their dreams, and lived for months and sometimes years by their side. Why then did Erik still matter to him, beyond being his first love? And did Charles simply want him so much because the man was married with a family and well beyond his reach?
Whatever the answer was it didn't reflect well on Charles and the man he'd become, unwilling - or unable - to give himself fully to another, and capable of sleeping with a married man without any regret or shame.
He thought of Erik's words to him that night, and how it had ripped his chest wide, to hear what had never been spoken between them in the halcyon days of that beautiful summer. 'I loved you,' he'd said, as though it was obvious, and Charles should have known, like it didn't matter because it had always been and would always be, for the rest of his life. It was impossible not to give in to temptation after that, and take what Erik so plainly and whole-heartedly offered…
At least he had the decency to let the man go afterwards, without tears or recrimination, free to forget their night together and return to his happy life. It was the least he could do for Erik and for himself; somehow it was easier to let him go when Charles had confirmation of his feelings, and that Erik had loved him, and had never forgotten him.
It taught him too that he couldn’t marry anyone else, not until he’d truly mourned what he had with Erik and find a way to put it all behind him.
Being here, where it all happened…
It was a good place to start.
He eventually found his way to his father’s study, and settled by the open window, taking in the familiar view of the gravel path that led from the road to the front of their property. The scenery was definitely better from the bedrooms, as they overlooked the back garden, or over the treetops for a glimpse of the sea. Yet he returned to this spot time and again over the course of the week, without ever making a conscious choice, as though a part of him needed to be here, watching, waiting for someone he knew wasn’t coming.
Then one morning, as he sipped his coffee in one of the chipped earthen mugs he saw it; a car winding its way up the path, pulling to a stop beside the house just below where Charles stood. It was not a car he recognized, that might have belonged to a neighbor, or one of their caretakers, and his heart throbbed painfully in his chest at the thought of who it might be.
He sucked in a breath when the driver’s door swung open, the mug almost slipping from his fingers when a familiar silhouette stepped into view.
Erik.
In Charles’ mind he looked the same as he did all those years ago, the first time he laid eyes on the grad student who had come to spend the summer at his mother’s invitation. He felt it then as he did now, the electric thrill and burgeoning excitement that made his breath quicken and his heart race; the curious pull towards a handsome stranger that held himself with such confidence and grace.
He sprinted down the narrow staircase, startling Erik when he yanked open the front door and stepped out to greet him.
“Hello, Charles.”
“What are you doing here?”
Erik smiled, looking more relaxed than Charles had ever seen him, his whole face lighting up with tenderness and unadulterated joy. He tried to think of another time when Erik had looked like this and found none. Where were the reservations he carried from that first summer together? Or the guilt and longing when they saw each other last?
“I came to see you.”
“Why?”
The smile faded a little, as Erik took in the guarded expression on Charles’ face, and the way his arms were crossed over his chest, so he wouldn’t be tempted to run over and wrap himself around Erik and never let go.
“I spoke to your mother, and she told me you were here at the house. She said you were here alone, and didn’t mention anything about an engagement, or that you’d gotten married—”
“So you thought you’d come here and what?” Charles snapped, “Did you think I’d just fall into your arms and have sex with you again, and then send you home to your wife? I’m not interested in being your dirty little secret—”
“No, Charles.” Erik sighed, slowly edging closer until he could reach to take his hand. “That’s not why I’m here. I just—” he stopped abruptly, frustration coloring his face, trying to find the right words it seemed to explain his sudden reappearance in Charles’ life. “My divorce was finalized a while ago—”
“Divorce?” Charles deflated, swallowing the bile in his throat. “Was it…did your wife find out about us? God, Erik I’m so sorry; that’s not what I wanted for you.”
“No it wasn’t because of that,” Erik said, before he quickly added, “no that’s not quite true is it? But what happened made me realize I’ve been living a lie. That all these years I’ve been in love with you and not Magda. I mean, I love her, very much and she’ll always be my family, but that’s not enough. Not for her and not for me.”
“But the children—”
“Are my children, regardless of the divorce,” Erik said, “and we’ve talked to them together, to help them understand. The twins are fifteen now, Charles…almost as old as you were when I met you. They’re smart and they love us both and we’ll get through this as a family.”
He was glad that Erik seemed so optimistic; that the children wouldn’t resent his choice to leave their mother for some stranger they’d never met, though Charles didn’t believe it would be quite that easy.
Shaking his head, Charles answered, “This isn’t what I wanted, Erik, for you to leave your family for me.”
Erik shrugged. “I didn’t, at least not the way you’re thinking. You said you were getting married, and if that was the case I had no intention of getting in the way. If you’d moved on, and put us behind you, I would have understood it completely. I had no idea that you weren’t married until I called your mother a few days ago, and I only did that because I wanted to come here, and see this place again, and remember.”
He knew he was staring, mouth gaping in shock at the revelations of everything that had happened in Erik’s life – the choices he’s made, without knowing Charles' circumstances and whether he would even get another chance. His heart ached for him, even as longing and hope surged through his mind in a dangerous and heady mix. “I don’t want you to regret this. Giving up your perfect family life for something we’ve never really talked about. Something that might not work out.”
“There are no guarantees in life, I know,” Erik said, his gaze intent as he reached to brush a stray hair from Charles’ forehead. “But the only regret I’ve ever had was not giving this – giving us – a real chance. So I’m asking you now. Give us a chance. Please.”
Still Charles hesitated, unable to believe that any of this was real and actually happening, as he’d wanted it all those years ago. “And if I asked you to wait? Until I was ready?”
“Then I’d wait,” Erik replied, and this time he moved to cup Charles’ face tenderly between the palm of his hands. “For as long as you need. Forever, if that’s what it takes.”
“Forever is a long time,” Charles murmured, and leaned in to kiss him.
Tommy remade the potato salad—potatoes cooked. Though overcooked, this time around, so that they dissolved into a mush of starch and mayonnaise when they hit Alfie’s tongue, but then again, it was bound to turn into that form at some point. Saved Alfie the labor of chewing, is how he spun it when Tommy eyed him from across the table. A silly justification, but Tommy did not object.
The Christmas feast was more of a snack, really. Tommy had tried with the salad, served it alongside some frozen peas and cubed carrots. There were charred chicken breasts at the bottom of his trash bin, concealed by the vegetable wrappers, but he refused to admit to those. One failure was enough, though after Alfie’s comment about the potatoes, Tommy was a bit curious how he would excuse something entirely inedible.
The only other thing that was on the table were their glasses filled with cranberry juice, a Santa-shaped candle holder and Alfie’s fruitcake. He’d baked it with extra walnuts—an hour before their agreed time—the middle still warm when they bit in. The candle holder was brought over from his house as well—one of the many decorations on display there.
Tommy had delivered on the music, just as he’d promised. One of the items among his odd blend of belongings was an old record player, paired with a box of Christmas records. His grandpa’s, he explained. Though the truth was that Tommy simply liked Christmas and everything related to it—he had bought the set on sale at some antique store, a long time ago. Lying about it meant that he could avoid the exhausting explanation of why someone like him could be caught humming along to Jingle Bells, something everyone always demanded upon finding out.
With the music, an unlit candle in the middle, and the crumbs of what used to be cake on their plates, quaint, is how Tommy described the scene before him—as opposed to the pitiful he would’ve used just a few months ago.
Perhaps people could be thawed after all.
-
It began snowing somewhere in between dinner and dessert, the flakes dusting the grass and trees outside.
They were washing dishes at the sink, their night coming to a close. Alfie had used the typical It’s getting late line, half-hoping a Christmas miracle would occur and Tommy would insist on him staying. But he didn’t, so Alfie forced the miracle into existence by offering to help clean the tiny mess they’d made.
Alfie was standing beside Tommy, drying the plates, their shoulders only a few inches apart, and he wished it was draftier in here—so that he could blame leaning into Tommy on a sudden gust of wind. Though the air was painfully still, and the task ended quickly.
The only miracle which occurred was Alfie finding the present he had for Tommy hidden under his jacket, as he dressed to leave. He’d forgotten about it, excitement expanding behind his ribs.
“Ah, right—Merry Christmas, Tommy Shelby.” Alfie admitted it was a challenge to choose a gift for someone who did not want to be unwrapped, but Alfie had been taking note of the bits of interests and characteristics that sprouted out of Tommy when they were together. He hoped they had not misled him.
It was a jar, filled with alternating layers of sand and seashells, encased in seawater. A little piece of Margate. Alfie had a whole collection of them—it was a hobby, of sorts, that he began after learning that the family would be selling their summer home soon. He created them using materials scavenged from around the property, because he was particularly fond of that town—nostalgic for the childhood bliss. And considering Tommy was constantly fussing over straightening the picture frame, it seemed he was fond of it too.
Tommy took it from Alfie apprehensively, surveying it in his hands.
“I don’t have anything to offer.” He meant it gift-wise, though the phrasing came out ambiguous, and he did not correct himself. Any interpretation was acceptable, really—Tommy had nothing to offer. Red splotches began blooming on his cheeks. Tommy was cold, and he was emotionless, and he was distant, too selfish to consider that perhaps, buying something for a man who had been showering him with gifts for months would be an appropriate idea. And now he was giving him another one, Tommy once again empty-handed.
This had happened before—he perpetually shivered within a white wasteland, but he would refuse to extinguish Alfie’s warmth with his own chilled existence.
“I wasn’t expecting anything in return.” Alfie explained, hand idling in the space between them.
“I can’t.”
“But—”
“Understand that I can’t.” and he handed back the jar, careful to not accidentally brush Alfie’s fingers.
And that was that.
He turned his attention to the table, pretending to busy himself with the hem of the tablecloth and did not look up until he heard the click of the door shutting behind Alfie.
Pitiful. The word had just been hiding beneath Tommy’s lie.
-
Uncertainty was a concept that Alfie had difficulty with. Ironic, considering the person he had been aching for since late September was the embodiment of that, along with a bundle of other unknowns.
Contact had broken off after that interaction. No window messages, no knocks on his door. He could have even pretended that the house beside his was vacant once again if it weren’t for the gift still lying on his counter, taunting Alfie for his own stupidity.
He spent New Year’s Eve on the couch—counting down the seconds in his head as people danced on the TV screen—and took a single sip of champagne, just in case. For good measure. To avoid another layer of regret from piling onto the current heap pinning him down.
-
It only took about 3 days into the new year before Alfie developed his resolution—he would continue to bake for Tommy.
He had seen the inside of Tommy’s refrigerator and tasted his cooking on multiple occasions, so it would be inhumane to deprive him of the only good food he had access to. That was, at least, how Alfie justified his own desperation.
New recipes, that was the alternate explanation—the one he would turn to if ever prompted. He’d been rummaging around in the basement, storing away the holiday decor, when he came across a forgotten box of recipes his mother had given him. The last one in the set.
They were sorted by name—bagels, biscuits, breads, buns—and Alfie decided he would bake alphabetically, eventually exhausting the list. All 30 variations.
And then, if Tommy had still not made any contact—because that was the underlying purpose of this plan, Alfie admitted to himself—then Alfie would stop. Entirely.
A month should be enough for him to finally accept the expiration of their friendship.
-
Alfie made and remade the first 5 recipes, never fully satisfied with how they tasted. He rolled, sliced, sprinkled and mixed, writing down his exact movements on a scrap of floury paper, hoping that it would somehow solve the issue, but he was still unsatisfied with every result.
It was because they were new recipes—needing to practice was natural—but he did not have that time and worried that serving Tommy something that tasted wrong would offend him even further.
He packaged the products of his baking tightly on disposable plates, bowls and sheets. There was no need to make Tommy feel obligated to return the ceramic dishes, and aluminum would hold in the heat well enough until Tommy found them on his doormat.
Which Tommy did find them, judging by the disappearance of the silver packages. Alfie successfully forbade himself from checking the giant trash cans outside of Tommy’s garage.
-
On the 6th day, Alfie realized he had not baked in something other than his pajamas in this new year yet.
The recipes were perfect from day 7, onwards.
-
If you squinted hard enough and ignored certain details, this little cycle of indirect give-and-take was basically the same thing as the routine they had before. You had to squint very hard, but Alfie did so gladly.
Tommy never responded, but purely out of habit, Alfie checked the empty window at the end of the hall every day.
So it was fair to say that his heart fluttered when he realized that there was now a white blob in it.
I think I’m going to do some renovations.
Day 20.
-
On Day 21, Alfie responded to the message. His immediate reaction the day before was to rush next door and ask in person—before inviting himself in onto the project—but a few deep breaths and some peppermint tea to settle his excitement produced this decision.
What kind of renovations?
On day 22, he received a response.
Some painting. Maybe some furniture. Some decorations. It was as descriptive as Tommy tended to get. Alfie smiled to himself.
He waited until day 23 to write back—even if this did turn out to be the tail-end of their relationship after all, there was at least one outstanding benefit that Alfie had reaped from it: more patience.
Very nice. Some bright colors will complement the flowers nicely. He stayed up the night leading into day 24.
-
Across the stretch of grass and behind the glass, Tommy tossed around in his own bed.
He had extended the olive branch—he had done this intentionally, partially tormented into doing so by the scene from Christmas rattling inside of his head.
Tommy Shelby was used to loneliness. He had pushed and been pushed away by enough people to eventually grow indifferent to being alone. Though in none of the other situations was anyone so persistent in continuing to care, however small the gestures might be.
Knowing Alfie, he had conjured up some reason for why he was still baking—probably something about it being ‘inhumane’ to deprive Tommy of good cooking. It was nice of him to do so, Tommy thought, but the food turned sour in his mouth without Alfie’s commentary as a side-dish.
Therefore, the renovation was a cluster of a few things: a legitimate goal, a weak apology, and a cryptic excuse to re-ignite their friendship. Because in 23-plus days, Tommy had learned that he preferred to be alone, together.
hey just curious. why is your animation "sea of eyes" privated? i just want to know because i really liked that animation and song so i want to know why its down (also if i can find the song anywhere else, where?)
I took it down for personal reasons. Which is a shame because I also really liked that animation.
The song was a demo and I don't think you can find it anywhere.
