If You Are the Healer by polutropos

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Chapter 1

“For Maedhros begged forgiveness for the desertion in Araman; and he waived his claim to kingship over all the Noldor, saying to Fingolfin: ‘If there lay no grievance between us, lord, still the kingship would rightly come to you, the eldest here of the house of Finwë, and not the least wise.’ But to this his brothers did not all in their hearts agree.”
- The Silmarillion, Of the Return of the Noldor

---

Time runs under the light of the new Sun – and yet drags. It has been a year of slow healing, and grief, and quarrels, and Maedhros longs to be gone from this place: this room, this fortress, the suffocating embrace of the Ered Wethrin.

His cramped bedchamber is cold, damp, as though the mists of Mithrim have been trapped between its walls. The desparation with which his brothers erected this fortress is evident in its construction: hasty, imperfect, lifeless. It does not breathe, and Maedhros struggles to breathe within it.

His bedchamber, he calls it – but it was never meant for him. There were no quarters set aside for him on this shore of the lake. This room was built for Maglor, who stands in the doorframe now, awaiting permission to cross the threshold.

Maedhros waves his brother in, crosses the floor to a table near the hearthfire. Some warmth, at least, fills this corner of the room. He fumbles with the cork on a bottle of bitter liquor. It is a herbal concoction that burns the throat but dulls the incessant pain, the showers of flaming arrows fired from the base of his skull down to his blunted wrist.

He is too slow, Maglor is too quick coming to his aid. His brother already has one hand around the bottle and another reaching for the glass.

Maedhros wrests the bottle from his hand. “No.”

This is all it takes for Maglor to assume an expression of betrayal. That bodes ill for the progression of their conversation. No, Maedhros consoles himself, perhaps he will understand. There was a time Maedhros would have known without a doubt. But these long years have changed them both. Sometimes, Maedhros hardly recognises his brother – though he suspects that is a fault of his own disordered memory.

He pours back the drink in one gulp, grimaces, and sets the glass on the table.

“Sit,” he says to Maglor, sinking down into a chair himself.

“No.”

Maglor throws the refusal back at him with such obvious mimicry that Maedhros smirks.

It doesn’t help Maglor’s mood. “Tell me first why you have asked me here.” A pause, not nearly long enough for an answer. “I sincerely hope it is to explain why you went to Ñolofinwë’s camp without a word to your brothers. Not even to me.”

“Yes,” Maedhros sighs. “It is for that. And I called you here so I could tell you first. Now please, would you sit?”

Maglor sweeps behind a chair opposite him, clasps its back and leans forward. “I don’t want to sit. Tell me.”

“Very well,” says Maedhros, too tired to stall any longer. He fills his lungs and exhales. “I have told our half-uncle that the House of Fëanáro cedes its claim to the Kingship of the Noldor. The council will hear of it at our next meeting. I will tell our brothers tomorrow. When I’ve rested.”

Once, when still a child, Maglor gashed his hand on a kitchen knife. Now he’s staring at his knuckles, gripped tightly around the chair back, the same way he had watched the blood from that wound seep from his palm. Then, he had burst into tears. Now, Maedhros does not know what he will do.

The hearthfire cracks and sparks.

“Why did you–” Maglor cannot finish. With a harsh cry, he yanks the chair back so that its legs crash down onto the stone floor. “Blood and darkness, Maitimo. You are King of the Noldor! Not Ñolofinwë!”

Maedhros swallows. He had allowed himself to hope for a better reaction, but he had prepared for this one.

In a tone that is bland and dismissive to his own ears, he says, “The decision is made. Our House lost its right to that claim when we abandoned our kin in Araman. You know this."

“Do I? Do I? Then why do you think I held on? When Ñolofinwë’s host came marching over the hills, blaring their trumpets and bathed in golden light – how obviously the Valar favour him! – why do you think that I did not beg forgiveness and bend the knee to him? It would have been easier, far easier, to rid myself of the burden and the threat of war between us. But I did not because you are my king. You are our king. Finwë’s heir. And if I gave up the kingship, I gave up on you–” He chokes back a sob and instead slams the chair down again.

It is one of many times since they left Aman that Maedhros has regretted teaching his little brother to hold back his tears. It had seemed wise, then, in a family that felt so much already.

Fëanor would have chastised him. Maedhros should, but he cannot help but pity him. He has always been weakest for this brother. Loved him most, though he knows he should not.

So he decides to let Maglor’s angry grief unravel.

And unravel it does: tangled, ugly, frayed. He continues: “So no, I do not know this. I do not know why you would abandon your own House, why you would dishonour the memory of our father–”

That thread Maedhros cuts short. “Stop, Macalaurë. You do not understand.”

“Oh, I think I do!” Maglor steps around the chair, close enough that he can look down on Maedhros where he sits.

“You are giving Ñolofinwë all that we have left in recompense for our abandonment.” Maglor scoffs. He begins to pace the room in a wide circle. “Ha! Abandonment – perhaps you have forgotten what you called it then. Shall I remind you what you said in Araman? You said it was to save them. Because they could still turn back, and we could not. Is that not how you justified our flight? And I believed you, without question.”

Maedhros clenches his jaw. Maglor glares from across the room, marches on.

“Then you set foot on these strange shores and you decided, because of your reckless love for one who, might I remind you, abandoned you out of loyalty to his father long before you abandoned him – you decided that because Findekáno was fool enough to stain himself with Elven blood for your sake, he meant more to you than the love of your own father, and all of your brothers. Let us go back, you said, for Findekáno. You knew full well Father would not turn back. Certainly not for him! You say to me: you should know that we lost our claim to kingship. Well, I say that you knew what would happen at Losgar. If not for you, if not for your dissent, the ships need not have burned.” Maglor circles back, looks at Maedhros with eyes that are bright and fey – so like to Fëanor that Maedhros flinches. “They chose to pursue us across the Ice. We did not ask it of them.”

Before Maedhros is aware of it, he has risen from his chair. The back of his hand swipes across Maglor’s face. “I would not be here if they had not followed us,” he snaps. “Or have you already forgotten that?”

Maglor does not move from where Maedhros’ blow has positioned him, head to the side and angled down.

Too easily have such gestures become a part of their shared language. Violence forced uncomfortably into a much more intimate vocabulary of touch, honed over centuries of affection and understanding. It was always so easy, before, to love him. Now, there is a formless, ugly weight between them.

When Maglor turns back, his spiteful glare is made keener by a sheen of tears.

“Is this the price then,” says Maglor, venomous, “that Findekáno demanded in exchange for your life? To make his father King?”

Maedhros strikes him again. The hit is hard enough this time to send his brother staggering back and stumbling over the chair behind him.

"Enough!" Maedhros shouts. "Though I am not your king, I am yet your lord. It is my right to make decisions for this House, and I do not owe my reasoning to you or any other. I had thought to tell you my reasons, as my most trusted vassal and once ruler of our people in my stead, but you have shown yourself unwilling to hear them. We are done for tonight, brother."

Trembling, Maedhros falls back into his chair. Trying to be both brother and lord, he fails at both. How could he have ever been King? The irony seems to have escaped Maglor. Maedhros massages his temples, waits for Maglor to leave. He does not.

Maedhros slowly lifts his gaze to see Maglor frozen in place, holding a hand over his jaw. He drags it across his mouth. There is blood streaked down the side of his index finger.

Maedhros’ stomach churns with shame. It was only meant to warn, not to harm.

“Macalaurë…” He searches for something more to say, but the sting of Maglor’s words is still too raw for an apology. “You are not cruel,” he says instead. “Try to remember that.”

“And you were never violent." He holds his arms at his sides and tucks his chin down. "I will go, my liege."

He stops before the door, adding, “You were right to strike me for my insolence. Good night.”

---

They do not speak again for several days. Maedhros informs the rest of his brothers of his decision, in a wide open hall, by the light of day. Celegorm’s objections are much the same, but they hurt less the second time. No – they hurt less because it is Celegorm and not Maglor. The rest of them, even Curufin, accept the inevitable.

Tomorrow, Maedhros will bend the knee to his half-uncle before their people. They will make a performance of it. The horses that Fingolfin’s people already ride will be gifted in ceremony, their heads adorned with gems cut by Fëanor himself, who is dead. Maedhros will place a crown upon his half-uncle’s head, confer on him the title he has, in truth, held since the Valar exiled Fëanor to Formenos. But it is tomorrow that historians will record in the annals as the day the House of Fëanor became the Dispossessed indeed.

It is tomorrow that Maglor will commemorate in song.

Maedhros lies on his bed and studies the ceiling’s wooden beams. The straw mattress is firm but comfortable. The sheets are crisp. The blanket, soft wool dyed crimson. He wonders how Fingolfin sleeps – if his bed is larger, warmer, plusher. His wool dyed a deeper, richer hue. Red dye is not so rare as blue. He wonders if the High King rests at all.

There is nothing extravagant about the bed of the High Prince, though. Fingon rests, and takes delight in life. Fingon forgives. It was on his humble bed that Fingon, with one hand resting over Maedhros’ heart, forgave him for failing to take delight in touch, as they once did. Where he said, “Perhaps, some day, you will again.”

Maedhros does not think he will. Not that sort of touch.

A strip of amber light appears along the door frame.

“Maitimo?” It is Maglor. His candle casts strange shadows on his face.

“Mm,” Maedhros acknowledges.

“May I speak to you?”

“Is this how you would seek an audience with your king?”

“No, I suppose it is not. But I have heard that you are not my king.”

Maedhros grunts, and that is it. Days of tension, diffused. The door latch clicks shut and Maglor crosses the floor towards him. There’s a soft smile apparent on his face as he sets the candle on the bedside table. Instinctively, Maedhros scans for any remaining signs of the violence he inflicted upon him.

Maglor guesses at the meaning of his roaming eyes. “It healed easily.” He sits on the side of the bed. “I am not sure I can say the same for the words I threw at you.”

No, Maedhros thinks, that wound has not healed. But it was there before Maglor poured his poison on it, and it will remain when the poison is gone.

This is as close to apology as they come.

Maglor is pulling off his boots, swinging his legs up onto the bed. Then the length of his body is pressed up against Maedhros’ side, his arm draped across his ribs.

“You are right,” he says, and lightly touches his lips to Maedhros’ temple. "I know you are right, to cede your claim. Our claim. Of course I see the inescapability of it. It will make for a sad song. You always have had a sense for that sort of thing. They will pity us, you know.”

Maedhros elbows him in the stomach. “That is not why I did it.”

“I know.” Maglor’s arm tightens around Maedhros’ torso. “But that is how I can accept it. Can you allow me that indulgence?”

Maedhros tilts his head to face him. The corners of his mouth pull tight at the glimmer of fondness in his brother’s eyes. Maglor has a way of smoothing over grief’s rough edges, like a receding tide that levels the sands. Leaves them shimmering.

“I can allow it,” Maedhros says, turning back to face the ceiling.

“Thank you. One other request?”

“Mm, I think I shall have to set limits on your requests. But go on.”

“Let me call you king.”

Maedhros huffs, dismissive. “This is not a game, Cáno. We are not boys anymore. You cannot simply play pretend to make the situation palatable to you. No. My king is yours also.”

"Not in my heart." He reaches down for Maedhros’ hand, brings its knuckles to his lips. A gesture that is both deferential and too intimate.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Maedhros, but he does not pull away.

Maglor speaks, and his breath slowly fills the shell of Maedhros’ ear.

He says, "You have chosen to make Ñolofinwë king, and I will not speak against you. But I cannot ever imagine anyone but you as my king. Not before, and not now. I will bow to our uncle, I will perform whatever is expected of me, but in my heart I will only ever call you king. Forgive me, my liege, for I can do no other.”

The profession of devotion pours into a hollow space that Maedhros did not even know was there. It rises up into his chest, stops his throat, and builds behind his eyes. Maglor’s body beside him is a bed of coals grown too hot, and when Maglor rubs a thumb over his palm, Maedhros’ thoughts thicken and stop.

No. Not for him. Not for Macalaurë.

Maedhros' body thrums with sensation, with a feeling that he had long ago taken for dead, carried off by dry winds and buried in the snowdrifts of Araman.

The tightness of his throat holds back his words. He untangles his hand from Maglor’s and rolls onto his side, facing him. He sets a distance between their bodies, hoping this will stop the rioting of his heart.

“Nelyo?” Maglor’s voice is small.

Then, Maedhros' thoughts are running. In the depths of his brother’s eyes, he sees a black mire, and he is leaning over it, clinging to the banks to keep from drowning. If he falls in, he will never return.

“You should leave,” Maedhros says.

Maglor sighs and props himself up on an elbow. His forehead creases, his eyebrows slant down at the corners. “I’m sorry. I only want to help you. I will leave.”

He leans forward, places a chaste parting kiss on Maedhros’ mouth, as he has done so many times before. It unfurls a knot of desire. Maedhros grabs hold of his wrist.

Maglor freezes, stays there, hovering above his lips. Each breath that washes over Maedhros' vulnerable lips is like a wave eroding his resolve. Maedhros pinches his eyes shut.

Where are the edges, the limits of a mind assaulted by the prying fingers of the Dark Vala? Thus does Maedhros justify the fulfilment of this need, despite the clamour of thoughts raised in protest.

These, he hopes to crush between their bodies. He reaches, and captures Maglor’s mouth with his. It is supple, warm. There is tentative nipping at his lips, then more earnest searching, mouths opening. Maglor’s hand closes around Maedhros’ upper arm, repositioning himself to reach deeper. A groan leaps to Maedhros’ throat when their tongues touch, startling him into awareness.

Stop, stop, stop.

But the sweetness of his brother’s mouth is like a nectar to which he returns more hungrily with each drop. The taste, the humid warmth reminds him of the mists along the coasts of Aman, streaked with the early-blooming light of Laurelin.

It reminds him of home, and innocence.

Maedhros shoves his arm between them and pushes Maglor off, flings the arm over his own eyes. A wave surges and crests from the pit of his stomach, but does not fall. The roiling and roaring in his head is sickening, and it nearly drowns out the sound of Maglor’s voice beside him.

“What is it?” asks Maglor.

Such a simple question that Maedhros laughs, abrupt and awkward. Maglor is shuffling his weight against the bed, arranging himself in a seated position.

“I want to help you,” Maglor says.

Soothed once more by the balm of his brother’s easy presence, Maedhros peels his arm away and dares to look at him.

The offer, more of a plea, hangs on Maglor’s swollen lips, slightly parted and shining with spit. He is beautiful, and Maedhros has lost. He has fallen into that black pool, and found in it an unholy salvation.

Strangled with shame, Maedhros barely manages to say, “Not tonight," and rolls away.

Maglor slips off the bed without a word, pads across the floor still in his stockinged feet. The door makes a hollow, wooden sound when it shuts behind him.

Familiar nausea threatens to overwhelm, but the urgent need of Maedhros’ body holds it at bay. His left hand is clumsy, unused to this task. The ghost of his right makes futile attempts to grasp at the sheet. Nonetheless, his release comes quickly, graceless and perfunctory.

Rivulets of tears well up along the rims of his eyes. His face contracts around the emotion, and Maedhros weeps.

Maglor's mind scrapes along the edges of his thought, sparking like flint against iron.

---

Maedhros steals a last glimpse of the circlet before he drops to one knee. Sunlight caught in sapphire: blue to replace the ruby of Fëanor, to replace the diamond of Finwë. Once, when Maedhros still entertained the thought of wearing it himself, he intended to have it set with his father’s greenstone – but that stone sits instead in his breast pocket, unseen but close. The golden hand strapped to Maedhros’ wrist rests over it now, as he bows his head to his half-uncle, and though he cannot feel it he takes comfort in knowing it is there.

(In years to come, he will press it into Fingon’s hand, and Fingon will thank him with a kiss, and Maedhros will not recoil from his touch, and they will renew their love beneath the cold stars of Himring. But for now, he keeps it.)

The six bodies of his brothers lower and bow their heads behind him. His thought searches for each of them: Celegorm is a raging fire, but walled behind a fortress as strong as he is; Amrod is ashen, complacent; Amras is the ointment for their burns, but he is running thin; Caranthir simmers; Curufin is a white flame, imperceptible and all the more deadly for it.

Maglor, as ever, is water. And today, he is becalmed. He is the glassy surface of a lake, and any who looks on him will only find their own reflection in his placid features. But he lets Maedhros in. He wraps him in his cool embrace, crowns him in reeds, says, ‘Drink deeply of me, Nelyafinwë Fëanárion, King of the Noldor.’

And when the ceremony is over, Maglor is waiting for him in his chamber, where Maedhros knew he would find him. They both know why, for since it was ignited, the thought has travelled between them like a vein of lightning that reaches and reaches and finds no resolution. Maedhros’ chest is heavy with it, his breaths uneven. He latches the door and turns. All day he avoided looking into his brother’s eyes because he feared the passion it might move him to. His fears are confirmed by the sharp tug at the core of his being, the press of his shaft against his breeches.

Maglor stands, insouciant, behind a high-backed and cushioned chair. He says, “Will you sit, my lord?”

It would be easy to make mockery of the staging. It is what Maedhros would do under ordinary circumstances, but these are not ordinary circumstances, and the illusion is persuasive.

Whereas Maedhros was cast in bronze, regal and hard, Maglor has ever been soft as clay. Maedhros has envied his pliant features, how easily he moulds himself to the desired mood. And now he makes himself innocent; he makes this not a blurring of lines that can never be redrawn but a triumphant thawing of bodies seized by cold for far too long.

Maedhros does not sit, not yet. He grabs his brother by the wrist, backs him against the door, cocoons him with his body, and lets him feel the fullness of his desire. Maglor gasps, his lips quivering around a smile.

“Macalaurë." Maedhros caresses that same face he struck only days ago. "Tell me you are certain.”

“Mmm,” Maglor hums. “I am certain.”

And if words were not enough, Maedhros feels the erection pressed against his thigh throb and jump, even separated as it is by too many layers of clothing. He catches his brother’s mouth in a kiss, rolls his hips, pushes against the intrusion of his memories. But the discordance, the mottled darkness on the fringes of his awareness, overwhelms him. He pulls away, covers his mouth with the back of his trembling hand.

Maglor, but for the flush on his cheeks and the swell of his pupils, is all calm, all reassurance.

“I want this,” he says, gently drawing Maedhros’ hand away from his face. “You want this.” He traces the shape of Maedhros’ lips with his thumb. “And you should have whatever it is you want.”

But Maedhros’ marring is obvious, bluntly proclaimed by his severed limb – Maglor is immaculate. How can such depraved desire exist beneath such faultless beauty? How can Maedhros, whose faults are scrawled across his flesh in raised scars, deserve to take it for himself?

As if in answer to his thought, Maglor whispers, “What righteousness is left to murderers?” His thumb pulls at Maedhros’ lower lip as he drags his hand down over his chest, squeezes it between their hips, parts Maedhros’ robes at the waist. “To we who have sworn to do violence even against the gods?”

His fingers slide over the length of Maedhros’ constricted shaft, the heel of his palm grazes over its head. A damp spot blooms on the fabric.

Maedhros moans. He is so full of life and heat, ready to burst, burning more fiercely than he ever has. This fire could desecrate an army. This fire will destroy his brother.

“I might hurt you,” he says.

“I know,” says Maglor. “And I would be yours all the same.”

Those words are wind on the fire, but even as he makes overtures of fealty, Maglor has his lord constrained. He makes no attempt to free Maedhros from his breeches, but rather increases the pressure of his fingers, feeling and moulding the shape of him through the cloth with the careful attention of a sculptor perfecting his work.

It is maddening. It is insolent.

“Then I will take you." Maedhros grabs him by the nape of his neck. "Now.”

“Yes, my liege,” Maglor says. “Would you have me standing or upon your throne?”

Maedhros would laugh if he were not so pent and desperate. He does smirk as he is shuffled backwards and falls into the chair – but the smirk fades when Maglor kneels before him, cups his knees with both hands, and slots himself between Maedhros’ thighs. He looks up, eyes dark and open and yearning.

At last his fingers reach for the laces of Maedhros’ breeches, deft and rapid in their work, and all the while his gaze remains locked onto Maedhros’ own. When Maedhros springs free, Maglor’s palm accepts the heft of him. The other hand Maglor slicks with spit, then circles him with both, slowly strokes him, and rises from his heels. Stooping, Maedhros meets him, and his lips are enveloped in a deep and searching kiss.

Teetering on the brink of ecstasy, Maedhros almost falls then; would have, spilling into his brother’s hand, had Maglor not taken his lips away and left him feeling exposed and cold. But it is not a moment before the warmth of Maglor’s tongue is at the base of his cock, licking a stripe up the length of it, swirling around its head.

Shame still chafes at the edges of Maedhros’ pleasure, and he seeks to dull it with a roughness of his own. His fingers push into Maglor’s bound hair and tug at his scalp. He bucks into his mouth.

A honeyed whimper slips from Maglor’s throat, and he sits back, removes the silver spear that holds his knot of braids in place. Maedhros loosens his grip, feels the fineness of his brother’s hair between his fingers. And when Maglor takes him again in his mouth, he is saying, ‘Trust me,’ and Maedhros does. For the first time since his torment, he trusts. The realisation topples and flattens the battered walls around his desire. He surrenders.

Maglor moans, accepting his trust with gratitude, and opens his throat. A burst of sensation shoots from the tip of Maedhros' cock to the base of his spine and radiates out, out through his limbs. With throat and tongue and hands and mind, Maglor coaxes him to completion. The room goes dark, then flickers white, and Maedhros is no longer aware of anything but the urgency of his lust.

A climax long-building tumbles from deep within him. Like the sudden break and fall of a mountainside eroded by rains and the weight of time, it crashes into the sea and is swallowed by its waves.

Maedhros stutters and kicks with the force of it, but Maglor keeps him wrapped in the tender heat of his mouth until Maedhros has spent the last of himself. Then he slips off, swallows quietly, and pulls the fringe of Maedhros’ robe over his raw and aching cock. He rises, brushes the hair from Maedhros’ face, and tucks his head under his chin. His hands creep under Maedhros’ arms and spread over his shoulder blades.

“I love you,” he says.

Still in the languor of his climax, Maedhros lifts his right arm to place a hand on his brother’s head. Instead, the ruined end of his wrist lands on the nape of his neck. Maglor hums and nuzzles against his chest. Maedhros leaves it be, places his left hand on Maglor’s back to close the embrace.

Soon, the fire of his lust will roar again, and all throughout the night. Then Maglor will accept him, as often as his lord requires it, and he will drown the din of Maedhros’ failures in his paeans of pleasure.

But now, Maedhros lets his heavy eyelids droop and kisses the crown of Maglor’s head. “I love you, too,” he says.

---

Chapter End Notes

Thanks to firstamazon for beta and cheerleading. Once, I swore there was no way I would ever write this ship -- and my muses apparently took that as a challenge. 

Title is from You Want It Darker by Leonard Cohen:

If you are the healer, it means I’m broken and lame
If thine is the glory, then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame

For those who haven’t encountered it, the “Green Stone of Fëanor” was a (it seems passing) idea that Tolkien had for the early history of the Elessar. The story (annotated in the Later Quenta Silmarillion, WotJ) is that Fëanor on his deathbed gave it to Maedhros, who then gave it to Fingon. I enjoy the idea of an heirloom that passes between these three, so I’ve adopted it.

Maglor is speaking out of anger in the first scene and the accusations he throws at Maedhros aren’t all true, of course. But folding together the versions of the burning of the ships in the published Silmarillion and in the Shibboleth of Fëanor, I do headcanon that Maedhros asking Fëanor if they would be going back for Fingon (Silmarillion) is one of the things that instigates Fëanor’s decision to burn the ships rather than risk treachery among his followers (as in Shibboleth, where Fëanor says, “Now at least I am certain that no faintheart or traitor among you will be able to take back even one ship to the succour of Fingolfin and his folk.”)