Buttonhole

Title: Button Hole.
Author: Fishy (fishyz9@yahoo.com)
Beta: Kei.
Pairing: Glorfindel/Erestor.
Rating: PG, AU.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: How one small boy saw the world, how one grown elf joined him.

Buttonhole.

I see my world through a buttonhole, strange I know. I always liked the idea of detaching myself from all else, to watch people and their worlds turn from a safe distance. Through a small lens, through a secret opening the size of a slit, through an invisible, quiet scope. Through a buttonhole.

You see, that’s how I met him, and that was where he joined me.

Ever a quiet child, I shied away from all of your regular behaviour. Some would say I was not normal, that I did not speak because I was simple of mind or even morose. And then some would say that I was gifted with a quiet gentleness, an old heart for one so young. And I had always hoped for the last to be true, otherwise why was I…the way I was?

I will not deny that I was, and I suppose am, strange. When I was at my youngest, to the point of only just becoming aware of my own self, when I was most innocent and naive, I ran away. I stole away in the middle of the night, and was found nearly a mile from my home the next day, crouching down somewhere behind a remote bridge beside a plant I cannot recall the name of, weeping at how beautifully the morning sun reflected in its dew.

I suppose I do feel a kind of guilt for having worried my parents through my entire adolescence, for they were convinced that I, unlike any other, had been born with a broken heart. If I had had the inclination perhaps I would have refuted this, for why were my tears so assumed to be of sadness? The dew had robbed me that dawning day of feeling anything but sheer wonder. The spider web in the corner of my room had always made me feel connected and amused. The moss growing on our garden gate had always shocked me to stillness. Perhaps it had been my stillness and, more importantly, my silence, that was the problem.

Healers had been called after a certain point, but I bore no physical injury. My parents, who at such a young age I had started to regard with a regretful amusement that still tickles me to this day, had all but begun to despair. Until one eve when, for the first time in my short life, they heard me laugh.

I had been lying on their bed, which was big and soft and so very reassuring in its four postered superiority. In the sitting room many people sat, mainly my parents’ closest of colleagues, in deep discussion about, of course, me. See, my parents were kind folk, my father a great councillor to the king, easy to love and so even easier to pity in a truly caring way. So now they sat, being counselled, something so unbearably ironic that, when none else could see, I would smile at the pure symmetry of such a Paradox.

While they sat with their polite conversation and tea, I lay on the bed. And I had this thing I used to do, where I would empty my father’s wardrobe of every robe and tunic he owned, splay them out upon the bed, and hide beneath them. At first my parents had attempted to gently chastise me but, misinterpreting my silence for incomprehension, they had after a time left me to my odd habit.

So this one evening, I lay in glee beneath all these plush, soft, warm velvets, satins and cotton, relishing my invisibility, my secret place, the conversation of my worried parents and other, less significant, people all sounding like a low mumble and hum from beneath my palace of soft felts. And, of course, I had my ever faithful, ever secret and most precious spy hole. I would watch the door, lest it open, through the buttonhole of one of my father’s robes, and I would feel a master.

I don’t know how long I would have gone on this way, for how long I would have kept my silence in exchange for deep reflection and double vision thoughts, had the door to my parents’ bedroom not creaked open.

At first I had actually wondered if he was an elf at all. I remember thinking how big he was, even bigger than my own father. And his hair was this shining gold colour, nothing like mine or my father’s.

I was not afraid, simply aware, and so very interested as I lay as still as a stone beneath my father’s robes. I watched as he looked about the room with passing interest, and actually held my breath as his gaze fell upon the disarrayed bed, or rather the telling elfling-shaped bundle of clothing. He stepped closer, very slowly, and sat upon the side of the bed. A smile that surprised me split across his face as we made eye contact. My small, brown, blinking eye amidst a sea of clothing, peeking out through a buttonhole, to his blue gaze that seemed so oddly kind at that moment.

He leaned closer, and I sucked my breath in when he whispered to me.

“May I join you, little one?”

No one had ever asked to join me before. And stranger still, I found myself - with slow, careful movement - lifting the edge of the fabric, holing it open for him. His own movements as he gently slid in beside me were also careful, I noticed, as if he feared scaring me off, a silly thought I had mused.

“Can I have a little look?” he had asked so nicely.

So nicely that I moved aside, holding up the robe for him until he was in line with my spy hole and, for the first time, I let another see the world as I did.

“What a wonderful hideaway you have here, my little fellow, so very clever.”

I was unsure of what to think of such a response, and found myself experiencing another first - for the first time I found myself interested, intrigued even, in another elf - another person. But still I did not speak.

“Phew,” he exaggerated. “It’s very warm under here, are you not a little warm, Erestor?”

I don’t know why, but I found myself immensely pleased that he had said my name, and could not help but nod ‘yes’ in reply.

“Ah,” he said wisely however. “You like that though, don’t you?”

Again I nodded, amazed at how insightful this person was.

“You know, I have a couple of very nice buttonholes right here.” He patted his chest, or more specifically the lining and fastenings of his tunic. “Would you come out only for a moment and see them?”

Hesitantly I nodded my acquiescence, and allowed him to peel away the heavy clothing. I sat upon the bed blinking at the sudden brightness of the room, and watched perplexedly as this elf with gold hair then began to unbutton his tunic.

“Come here, little one,” he beckoned in a gentle voice.

I moved closer, and then found myself pulled into his lap. I remember how soft the inner lining of his tunic felt. and instinctively leaned my head against his chest. He then, with an uncanny sense of how the child’s mind must work, pulled his outer tunic over and around me, cradling me closely, and I suddenly found myself in eye line with a most lovely buttonhole.

I had smiled in delight, a delight I recall well as this particular buttonhole was outlined in golden thread. I peeked through, and was surprised at feeling a low rumble against my back and hearing a chuckle from above me. Looking up, I saw him smiling at me and, Valar help me, I smiled back.

“My name is Glorfindel.”

I nodded, unwilling to speak just yet.

“Shall we go show your parents your smart little hiding place? I bet they don’t know about it yet, do they?”

I shook my head.

“Well, come then.”

He lifted me in his arms, still holding me close to his chest, and instinctively I pulled his tunic closer around me, hiding and looking out from the golden-lined buttonhole. He took me to the sitting room, my legs dangling down in view and the rest of me hidden. The room fell silent.

I looked up to this Glorfindel with worry when I felt all of their eyes settle intently on me. He smiled down at me, however, and whispered.

“They can not see you, little one, only me.”

His words, though I did not realise it at the time, so cleverly warned any others there to either leave the room, or act as if nothing were amiss in the least. And when they looked away I had, without a pause for thought, giggled.

My mother’s hand had quickly moved to cover her mouth, and my father had gasped. I would have been surprised myself, had I not been having such an enjoyable time.

All others chose that crucial moment to leave the room, leaving only Glorfindel, myself and my parents.

“Shall we show them?” he whispered down to me, and I nodded my head vigorously.

He allowed me to pull back the fabric myself, and when uncovered I smiled up brightly to my mother and father, proud at having fooled them.

“Well, well,” my father spoke in a soft and somewhat emotional tone, smiling gently at me as he leaned down to look me in the eyes. “What a smart little boy I have.”

My mother stood there astounded, and let out a small, delighted cry when I giggled again.

That had been the beginning. It was only a few days afterwards that I spoke my first word in all my six years. My father had been seated in his study, gazing upon some scroll or another as he did. He had smiled down at me, and ran a heavy, reassuring hand over my hair when I leaned my head against his thigh.

He had looked a little surprised when I reached out on tip toes to unbutton his tunic, but he had not dared to stop me in my rare show of attention. When his tunic lay open, I had at first attempted to climb upon his lap, to look through his buttonholes of course, but when unable to get my knee up high enough, I held out my arms to him.

“Ada,” I asked quietly.

I could not describe his expression to you, even now. To say it had been of pure joy and elation would be close, but not quite accurate. Even more surprising than the sudden use of my voice was my giggle when he then scooped me into his arms and ran to the kitchen where my mother was baking bread. All very exciting for a young boy, you understand.

He then sat me down on the kitchen counter, and I giggled again as both of my parents were then before me, their hands gently touching my knees, my shoulders, and stroking my hair in encouragement.

“There’s a good boy, Erestor, say it again, say it for Amme.”

Paying no heed to them at that moment, I idly swung my legs, banging my little booted feet against the counter as I again reached for his open tunic and buttonholes once more.

“Are you sure he spoke?” my mother had asked.

“I’m certain, darling…” he replied, not looking away from me until, with a sigh of defeat, he turned back to her. “I’m certain he did.”

Now being ignored and unable to reach the buttonholes, I frowned and reached out with splayed fingers.

“Ada,” I said, louder this time.

My mother’s reaction had been stranger than my father’s, she had pulled me into her arms and then swung me in circles, laughing and crying!

“Oh my smart little boy, my smart little boy!”

Things had never been the same after that. I would speak more, but only when the notion took me. I grew into a very fine young elf and proved to be, to the shock of others, quite well spoken. And to my father’s utterly blinding pride, I spoke always with an astounding politeness and insight, so very eloquently and, later, deeply intelligent. I am glad I gave him that, gave them both that. My father was able to experience the pride and pleasure of a parent as I eventually walked and worked beside him in the palace. As brief as it had been.

I would see Glorfindel at times. In my earlier years he would visit me, spend time with me. Later on, however, I mostly saw him in council, and he would always smile at me in such a way. At first it was with the kindness I had seen as a child beneath my father’s robes. And then, as his visits became less frequent, it had been with something else entirely. He would look at me in his last few years with an uncertainty, an endearing nervousness and longing. And so certain am I that I returned this new look that, had all not been lost as history tells, I am certain we would have lain upon a four poster bed once more, yet with intent far different.

So that was me, and here I am now, lying upon my bed beneath all my robes, afraid and tense, looking to hide, but waiting for one other. As chief advisor I should have been in the courtyard to welcome him when he arrived, such an unprecedented and monumental occurrence his rebirth is. But I have not moved from my hiding place.

Finally, after waiting an eternity, I hear my bedroom door creak open, and this golden elf - that still, after al these years, seems so much larger than memory would tell - enters my room. His gaze falls to the bed and, once more, I am as still as stone, spying him through my buttonhole that, as with all my other robes, is lined with golden thread.

He treads slowly, his brows drawing together, displaying a sense of nervous, much craved apprehension. He approaches the bed, and slowly crawls over me so as to be looking down to one brown eye that watches him intently through the open slit, and he whispers,

“May I join you?”

I resist the urge to pull loose the silk shirt he wears to see if the birth mark he bears in the shape of a flower still graces his lower abdomen. And, with great strength, I resist the urge to roll up his sleeve to check if the scar he received from teaching me to cast off when fishing is still in its rightful place on his left wrist. Instead of all this, I abandon my buttonhole and bravely face him. Gently I ease him down to me, and pull the soft fabric back over our heads.

And he joined me, never had any other but him thought to join me.

The End.