Can I get there by Candlelight?
by Tathren

Part 5

In his dream, Emmett was a child. He saw himself, remembered the tent and the day, remembered the boy who'd stood a step behind the preacher ready to catch the falling parishioners when they got so full of the spirit they passed out from the strain. The boy had been tall and broad in the shoulders, and the dark shadow of his nipples showed through the crisp thin linen of his shirt. Everyone had been watching the preacher. Emmett had been watching the boy. There with the hot heavy air of the tent feeling like hands on his skin, he wanted to faint so the boy would catch him. He wanted to be the one that the boy would take off into the grass later to roll around and laugh and lay with.

When he lifted the tent flap, the sun was blinding, and the fields beyond were a haze in the glare. He walked through sunlight thick as mist, and when the sounds of the tent had receded in his wake he followed a sweeter voice that led back again to the tree line and the woods beyond where suddenly he felt he was home.

He awoke, blinking in a beam of light, and found that the song had slipped from his dream into wakefulness, the voice so ethereal and other-worldly, the language so astonishingly foreign that Emmett had no question of what he'd find upon stepping into the other room.

His eyes were not disappointed: there, seated in the open window, his back leaning against the sill, one leg dangling outside, and the other hugged with knee close to his chest, sat the "elf". The first rays of sun out of the east haloed him in rosy gold light and made his long loose hair glow like spun silver on his shoulders.

He turned his head quickly to look over his shoulder as Emmett entered. The song stopped abruptly, cut disappointingly short in mid-note. "Apologies," the elf made a gesture with his hand as he spoke, "I did not mean to wake you."

"No. No, that's all right." There was an awkward pause and silence between them. "How long have you been up?"

"A few hours," the elf shrugged. "I wanted to see the sunrise but it is shielded here by the...buildings." He spoke the last word awkwardly as though it felt cumbersome in his mouth.

"Oh. Would you like some coffee?"

"Some what?"

Emmett walked to the kitchen and put the coffee pot on. The elf watched him momentarily before turning his attention outside once more.

"Are you sure you should be sitting there?" The man didn't want to seem scolding, but neither did he feel comfortable having a near-total stranger sitting in his open third-floor window. "It's a long way down." He felt as though he were still asleep, speaking to someone in his dream.

Rumil looked to the ground and then back at the man as though he was utterly mad—a long way? That? Silence was his only answer.

"Is Éomer awake?" Emmett asked after a pause.

"No. I think he slept poorly through the night."

"What about you?"

The elf sighed wistfully, "It is no simple thing to be at ease in so foreign a land. The air here feels heavy, like it's been thickened with...oil." He grimaced a little in distaste and then crinkled his nose, looking over his shoulder again, "What's that smell?" A thin stream of opaque near-black liquid was dripping into a glass carafe, already more than a quarter full. Rumil frowned at it deeply.

"Coffee," Emmett explained, pouring a cup. The stream of black abated until the carafe was back in place. Emmett added milk and sugar, bringing the cup to Rumil who took it with some measure of wariness, sniffing cautiously as he watched Emmett prepare his own, skeptical that the liquid was indeed meant for drinking. He stirred the taupe-toned concoction with his forefinger.

"People here drink it to help them wake up," Emmett explained, and Rumil wondered if the man might not be poking fun at him.

"Am I not awake already?"

Emmett opened his mouth to answer but his words were caught by the ringing of the phone. Rumil's eyes grew wide.

"Hello? Oh hey, Teddy...Yeah, I'm fine. I guess I just forgot to turn my cell phone on after I left...Actually I was going to call in sick."

Rumil puzzled—Emmett was talking into a strangely shaped box, and he was holding this cup of oddly-colored hot liquid that was supposed to wake him up when he was fair certain he was already awake. He stirred the coffee with his finger again and licked clean the lingering droplet, testing it and immediately grimacing in distaste.

"Really this isn't the best time to talk about it. No, I promise I'm fine it's just that..."

There was movement at the bedroom door and the elf brightened. Emmett stumbled on his words. Emerging from the bedroom, Éomer crossed to the window and placed a tender lingering kiss on his lover's forehead. "Who is he talking to?" he cast a frown towards their host.

Rumil shrugged and took the opportunity to push his coffee cup into Éomer's hands. "Here," he proclaimed with mock sagacity, "It's co-fee. People drink it to help them wake up."

"Hmm? Oh, n-no one. Hey, do you think you could swing by on your way to work anyway? I'll explain later, promise. Thanks sweetie." Emmett kissed into the phone and hung up. His guests were staring at him expectantly. "It's a telephone."

Blank stares.

"You pick it up, and you talk to people. They're not really there, though, in the phone, I mean. They're uh...somewhere else." Emmett realized he wasn't very good at this sort of thing and instead adopted a tactic of avoidance, scampering off to find his day planner instead.

Éomer and Rumil looked at each other in silent debate before the man stepped forward and lifted the handset, listening expectantly. The hollow monotony of the dial tone met him. He held the phone to Rumil and the elf returned his confused shrug. They waited. Perhaps Emmett was just mad. But just then a sudden trilling hum called from the devise, and the man jumped. A woman's voice, nasal, pinched, and scolding filtered suddenly through, "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again. If you need help..."

"What did you do?"

Éomer was shaking his head, his eyes wide, "Nothing!"

Which was when the phone screamed; a loud discordant staccato of beeps. Rumil squeaked and Éomer dropped the handset in shock, staring at where it fell on the garish orange sofa cushions still shrieking at them in its shrill digitized voice.

Rumil looked at the man with big discontented eyes. "Do something!"

The Rohirrim glared at the blaring devise, pulled down a couch pillow on top of it, then added a few more for good measure. The beep's angrily muffled voice proclaimed its lingering discontent.

"Emmett, I..." the big man began hesitantly, gesturing towards the dully beeping sofa as their host reentered the room.

"Éomer broke it."

The man shot an incredulous frown at his lover and would have denied the charge had it not been, as far as he could tell, absolutely true.

"Oh I doubt that," Emmett soothed with a nonchalant pat on Éomer's arm as he surveyed the disarray of his couch. A rubbery crest of purple had been uncovered in the pillow shifting. Emmett plucked it free.

Shiny. Translucent. Twelve-inch. Latex. Dildo. "Hey, I've been looking for that!" He smiled, sticking his newly-retrieved toy down on the end table where it stood erect, held by its suction cup base, looking inescapably and exactly like what it was meant to be. "Now, if you will excuse me a moment, I have to call and find someone to cover for me at work today."

Éomer frowned at the table in silence. The proximity of the dildo to his coffee cup made retrieval of the latter perilous at best. He abandoned it and moved to stand by his lover who was gazing wistfully out the window once more. The elf leaned back and nuzzled against him, turning his head so that his nose brushed the soft carpet of beard on the man's cheek. Neither man nor elf could help hearing the conversation behind them.

"Hey Keith? It's Em. I'm good, um listen, remember that time when you called me to ask if I would work for you so that you could go to that concert in New York with that guy you met at the baths?"

The elf purred softly, tried to focus on his lover alone. "You smell nice. What is that?"

"...Right, the one with the nine inch cock."

Éomer turned his head to gently claim Rumil's lips. "Emmett's soap. I bathed last night before coming to bed. Come I will show you."

"...Actually, I need you to return the favor. Could you just, pretty please, cover for me at Torso today?" Emmett chewed his lip as he watched his two guests slip past the bathroom door and out of view. "Great, you're a life saver. Yup 10 to 6:30. Oh, I'll tell you all the details later," he promised hollowly as he hung up the phone.

"Éomer?"

The Rohirrim stood in the kitchen pouring himself a second cup of coffee and staring with some perplexity at the near black liquid that looked so distinctly different from the cup he'd just finished.

"Most people put milk and sugar in it."

Éomer took an experimental sip. "It tastes better like this."

"Umm Éomer, could I...have a couple of those gold coins that you've got?"

The big man's habitual frown deepened but only for a moment. "Of course. If you wish to be paid for your kindness to us you had only to ask."

"Oh no no, it's not that. I don't want your money. Not that I've really got all that much on my own, and I have always had a thing for gold, but that's more about jewelry gold and diamonds, you know, girl's best friend and all," Emmett babbled away absently. Éomer looked perplexed. "Anyway, you need money you can use here. We've got to get you some new clothes, toiletries, membership to the gym, maybe a trip to the hair salon, and other," he picked up the purple dildo from the coffee table and gestured casually with it while he spoke, "assorted extras."

Éomer nodded his assent with slow caution. He thought he trusted the man, but the purple dildo made him wary and Emmett was looking at him a little oddly as he waved it. What the Rohirrim didn't know: his host was trying to picture him clean shaven with about ten inches less hair.

By the time Ted knocked on the door a few minutes later, Emmett was holding three ornate gold coins in his palm. He stood in the half open doorway, his body blocking the entry, and passed them over, "I need you to get some cash for me, ok?"

"Emmett! Where did you get these?" Ted was aghast.

"It's kind of a long story."

"You're not in some kind of trouble, are you? What is going on? Why aren't we going inside?" he stepped forward; Emmett blocked him, about to protest, assure him that there was no problem, promise an explanation—later, but Ted's gaze had already shifted; Éomer was standing by Emmett's shoulder.

"He got them from me." The man's voice sounded firm, confident. "If there's a problem..."

Ted's manner spun 180 degrees on its heels. "No! ...No, there's no...problem," his eyes were wide and liquid brown, melting under the Rohirrim's gaze. He looked like a man who'd just been introduced to his favorite porn star. Emmett swore silently to himself. He'd been hoping to delay revealing Éomer and Rumil until he'd managed to disguise their origins with some modern-day clothing at least. He could already feel the heat of Teddy's building questions.

"Éomer, this is Ted. Ted, Éomer." Emmett let the door swing open, with a little sigh of resignation admitting his friend.

"Hi." Ted felt himself blush and he felt foolish. He'd seen this man last night at Babylon, but he was altogether more stunning up close, stunning in ways that made Ted want to move mountains to gain his favor. Of course, as an accountant, Ted was not in the mountain-moving business, but changing some gold coins he could handle. And the details—for now, that hazel-hued gaze was hypnotic enough that he didn't care a fig for details.

The big man had not returned Ted's smile; Emmett wondered if his friend had noticed. "...And Rumil." The elf emerged almost silently from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, his golden hair damp and loose and shining.

"Ted," Theodore said, raising his hand in that minuscule self-conscious wave he always used when backbone and assuredness failed him.

"Quel amrun."

With a gentle touch at his elbow, Éomer was leading the elf to the privacy of their bedroom. Emmett wondered when he'd started thinking of that room as theirs.

"Tell me you slept with both of them!" Ted whispered, disbelieving and conspiratorial, as soon as the door clicked shut.

"Of course not, Teddy. It's not like that."

"What? What do you mean not like that?"

"They needed a place to stay...They're not from here. They're from," Emmett searched his friend's eyes and plunged forward, "...another world or something."

Ted gaped. "A what? Emmett, are you insane?"

"No, I mean it! They really are. They're incredible. I mean look, Teddy, real armor!"

Theodore shook his head in denial. "Em, listen. People don't just materialize out of Nevernever Land! It's not possible! I know they might seem real, but they're not! They're probably con-artists, Emmett. Did you think of that? Don't be foolish!"

Emmett stiffened, setting his jaw in defiance; he did not consider this matter to be open for debate. "And why isn't it possible?" he huffed haughtily, "Because you've never heard of it happening?"

"No one has ever heard of it happening!"

The defiant set did not leave Emmett's jaw, and he looked away with a resolute expression that Ted recognized far too well. "Just don't give them any money or anything, ok?"

Another room and one closed door away, calloused palms brushed down still-damp shoulders.

"The man, Ted, he does not believe," Rumil whispered into the stillness, his breath stirring the loose strands of Éomer's hair. "He fears we mean to trick his friend, to harm him."

The Rohirrim kissed his lover's brow. He could barely hear the voices in the other room, but he knew Rumil had no trouble discerning them. "And why should he not be wary? Would you believe, Rumil, if one of them turned up in your woods?"

"I know not," the elf sighed.

"This is what Men call magic."

"It is only a name for that which you don't understand."

The man breathed a little chuckle. "Hmm. What is it then?" he teased, brushing the elf's nose affectionately with his own.

Rumil tasted the man's lips, drawing comfort from their closeness. "Magic," he acquiesced with a sigh, "for now."

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