#valandur

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Valandil isn’t sure what shines brighter: the gleam in Isildur’s eye or the car’s overhead light bouncing off the plastic bag in Isildur’s hand. All he knows is that it shouldn’t make his heart jump the way it does.

“Since when do you know how to roll a joint?” Valandil asks, teasing.

Isildur rolls his eyes. “Don’t need to when you have a brother who can do it for you.” To Valandil’s raised eyebrow, he adds, “Whatever, he won’t miss it. You should see his stash, dude.”

Valandil ignores the pang in his gut at the staunchly platonic nature of the comment and smirks instead. “Hey, free weed is free weed.”

In the backseat, the lighter hisses, sparking once, then again. Isildur shakes his hand in the air in frustration and then shakes the lighter. “I swear it isn’t empty,” he mutters.

Valandil reaches a hand over. “Let me try?”

The lighter is warm. So is his friend’s hand. Isildur gives up the lighter easily, accepting defeat and biting the side of his thumb where the hot metal wheel stung him. Their eyes meet for a second, and Isildur is quite a sight, big brown eyes and thumb halfway in his mouth. Valandil almost feels sick to see it.

Miraculously, he gets the lighter with only one click, and resists the urge to tease Isildur even further as the flame sparks up between them. Instead, he just leans his hand over to spark up the edge of the twisted paper held between Isildur’s fingers. An image flashes across his mind, of men in old movies lighting each other’s cigarettes, but he pushes that away: he isn’t in a Hays Code era movie but the backseat of his best friend’s car. Just two buddies lighting up together. There are no homosocial undertones in real life anyway, right? Luckily, Isildur doesn’t seem to be able to read his mind, and takes one long inhale after another. Already, smoke is swirling in the air as he hands the joint over to Valandil.

“Should we open a window?” Valandil asks.

“Nah,” Isildur shrugs, waving smoke out of his face. “Who gives a shit? I can air it out later.”

So Valandil shrugs too, and takes a hit.

They continue like this for a while, passing back and forth as smoke slowly fills the air. Soon they’re giggling about how the car’s light looks filtering through the haze, challenging each other to blow smoke rings, relaxing into the warmth and softness of their high. As the joint burns out and Valandil is ready to accept this being a chill and uneventful evening, Isildur pulls a plastic pre-roll tube out of his pocket with a grin.

“Not to worry,” he says. “I came prepared.”