Fruit of the Family Tree by Rocky41_7

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Chapter III

Who's a good boy? Is it Maglor?

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“What were you doing?” Maedhros had returned to the thin-lipped rage of before, pacing jerkily, equal parts the sharp movements of a solider and the clumsy frenzy of a madman, before the desk. (Maglor could never quite banish the specter of Father bent over that desk, scribbling away at some project or missive or diatribe. He never said so to Maedhros.) “What were you doing?” he asked again, far more quietly, far softer, yet none the more reassuring as he paused to look at Maglor. The walls groaned uncomfortably as a breeze struck the house and Maglor felt his heart skip a painful beat.

            “I told you,” said Maglor. “The weather took a turn. I was worried the carriage would wreck if we tried to return. It seemed safter to wait it out.”  

            “The weather!” Maedhros flexed his hands and put his back to Maglor and then whipped around, snarling, “You needed to swallow his cock that badly, is it?” Maglor’s mouth dropped open.

            “I—didn’t!” he exclaimed, stammering in his shock.

            “But you did fuck,” Maedhros said.

            “He is my husband, I can only put him off so much,” Maglor said defensively. “And Thranduil needed…reassurance.”

            “Bullshit you can. You have always managed before. But not this time. You were so insistent that he was the perfect target, the right choice, the only real option…I’m sure he found your hand on his balls quite reassuring!” Maedhros was breathing through his nose like a bull about to charge, with that wild look that came over his face sometimes, the one that said there was no logic Maglor could use to talk him down. He was nearly trembling when he hissed out: “How long have you been planning to leave me?”

            If Maedhros’ last accusation had surprised Maglor, this one took him entirely aback and for a moment he merely blinked, mouth agape.

            “I’m not! I wouldn’t—I would never! Maedhros, what are you talking about?”

“Don’t lie to me.” A vein bulged in Maedhros’ temple. Maglor had for so long envisaged Maedhros’ anger as something cold—calculated and controlled, directed to an end. But if that had ever been the case, it was not now, or at least not on this subject.

Maglor softened his expression and stepped nearer. “I wouldn’t leave you,” he said. “I love you.”

            Maedhros hesitated; Maglor could see the gears in his mind turning, weighing Maglor’s words, deciding if he believed him or not.

            “It was one time,” he ventured. “It won’t happen again. Maedhros…why is it so important? He’ll be…gone soon, anyway. Then we won’t have to think about it anymore.”

            “No…we won’t,” Maedhros agreed after a lengthy pause. Maglor reached out and took his hand, and when Maedhros did not pull away, he leaned against Maedhros’ chest.

            “It was just the once,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “And we’ll never think of it again.” Maedhros placed a hand on the back of Maglor’s head, holding him in place.

“Never,” he said. For a few moments, they rested this way, and then goosebumps prickled over Maglor’s arms and he said:

“Rather cold in here, isn’t it?”

Maedhros shrugged. “I don’t feel anything.” Maglor was silent and then at last he murmured:

“No, I suppose not.” And as they did with many things—many, many things which piled up in the house, filling it until they spilled out under the eaves—they spoke no more of it.

***

            The sound of footsteps in the hall woke Maglor in the dark of night, and it was the rush of them that jarred him from the idle, resting-but-not-sleeping stupor he had been laying in. He kicked back the covers, careful not to wake Maedhros, and fumbled to light a candle in the dark before he stepped into the hallway.

            “Hello?” he called softly. The footsteps sounded again, downstairs, so Maglor crept down the steps, and was nearly run straight down by Thranduil, blanched with terror he tried very hard to disguise when he saw Maglor.

            Maglor threw up a hand and caught Thranduil’s waist as they both tried to avoid a collision, and then he saw how wide Thranduil’s eyes were and how rapidly his chest was rising and falling.

            “Thranduil?” he said quietly. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

            Thranduil panted, clearly trying to gather himself to make a response, and then he blurted out: “Has any other died in this house? Besides your grandfather?”

            Maglor could not move, nor speak, until at last he choked out, with a high, tremulous laugh, “Who else would have? No one lived here after that, until Maedhros and I returned. The ones who stayed—they left after we did and didn’t come back.”

            “A woman,” Thranduil said softly. “Young, with dark hair?”

            Maglor wasn’t breathing anymore. He meant to say something mollifying—“Have you had a nightmare?”—or some such thing, but he couldn’t make himself speak. All he could see were the claw marks Elwing’s fingernails had left on his face when she realized what he was doing to her.

            “Maglor?” Thranduil’s voice was uncertain. His breathing was still a touch quick, and Maglor shook himself hard inwardly. Thranduil had had a nightmare. “Young with dark hair” was hardly a description belonging to only a few women in the world. Maglor’s mind was making connections where none existed.

            “I’m sorry, I was trying to think if there was any opportunity for someone else to die here,” Maglor lied. “I can’t think of any now. What were you doing up, though?”

            “I could not find sleep,” Thranduil said, though there were shadows under his eyes. Maedhros had likely upped the dosage, which ought to have knocked him out all night, but it was possible it was having irregular effects on his sleep patterns. He coughed, and Maglor lifted his hand and wiped a bit of spittle away from the corner of Thranduil’s mouth with his thumb.

            “But where were you?” Thranduil asked. “It looked like you had not yet come to bed.”

            “I hadn’t, I’m sorry. I dressed for it but I was distracted and then I fell asleep in the study.” It was hard to believe there had ever been a time in Maglor’s life when lies didn’t flow off his tongue like sour honey from a rotted hive. He paused, and then said, “Let us return, though.” He could see that Thranduil was still deeply unsettled and felt reluctant to walk away from him like this.

            He led Thranduil back to his bedroom and lit one of the candelabras to give some more light.

            “More rest will banish these phantoms from your mind,” he asserted, but when he turned from the candles, Thranduil had not returned to bed, but stood behind him. Thranduil grasped his hand and drew near to Maglor, who felt his heart suddenly thumping against his chest.

            “I know not that I can sleep now,” Thranduil said.

            “Ah…” Maglor’s eyes flicked towards the door, then back to his spouse.

            “Would you not stay a time with me?” Thranduil pleaded with him. “I know often you sleep away from here, I shan’t ask why…if you prefer more space to yourself, let me not take it from you. But would you not stay just a short time?”

            You want me here? Maglor wanted to ask. He looked at this poor man he’d brought here: exhausted, frightened, ill, dying though he did not yet know it, reaching out to him of all people for comfort, the very one tormenting him. Believing that Maglor could comfort him. Briefly, he thought of Maedhros up in their bedroom, but he brushed that aside and put a hand on Thranduil’s arm.

            “Let us lie down,” he said, guiding Thranduil back to bed. Weary, Thranduil seemed resigned to the rest of the night alone. But Maglor went around to the other side of the bed and turned down the covers he hadn’t touched since he had returned from Beleriand, and slid into the bed he had once promised to share with this man.

            He meant only to lie there and give Thranduil some company, but Thranduil scooted closer to him over the mattress and for a moment again Maglor worried he would want to make love, and he wasn’t sure if he could say no, whether or not his brother lay asleep above them. But Thranduil settled down and seemed content just to lie near Maglor, which made Maglor all the more certain that if Thranduil had reached for him that way, he could not have refused him.

            They lay like that a moment, and then Thranduil reached out and took Maglor’s hands.

            “Cold,” he observed, and clasped them between his own. The corners of Maglor’s lips twitched in almost a smile.

            “How attentive you are,” he teased as Thranduil lowered his head to breathe his warm breath over Maglor’s chilly hands.

            “I try to be so,” Thranduil said more solemnly. To this, Maglor had no response, but when Thranduil released his hands, he put an arm around Thranduil and drew near to him, until Thranduil’s forehead was pressed against his chest. It felt presumptuous and strange, but Thranduil curled nearer and put a hand against Maglor’s breast, and breathed calmly, and Maglor felt curiously and suddenly alert. Not quite tense, but poised in a sense, as if prepared for any danger Thranduil might fear to come through that door.

            “I’m here,” he murmured, rubbing Thranduil’s back, for it seemed for some reason the right thing to say. “Get some sleep.”

            “She was missing a finger.” Thranduil spoke so sleepily Maglor could almost believe he wasn’t even awake. “On her right hand. Her ring finger.”

            He was glad that Thranduil’s eyes were closed, because he could not see the frozen look on Maglor’s face and hopefully did not notice the stuttering in the movement of Maglor’s hand. Thranduil was talking about the ghost, but Maglor saw only the room—saw it with Vanimiel laying in that same bed, and Maedhros over her with a knife from the kitchen, for his own was not made to cut through bone. It’s mine, he said, turning to Maglor with the wedding band bloody on his hand. She doesn’t need it anymore. Maedhros had made sure of that.

            “Shh…” he whispered at last, hoping he did not sound as frightened as he felt. “There’s nothing here. You’re safe.”

            He held Thranduil this way until his breathing relaxed into a slow, sleeping rhythm, but he lay against Maglor, and so Maglor would not move away or disturb him. It felt he lay awake for some hours, but he must have slept, for he awoke definitively with morning light pushing its feeble way through the dusty, cracked windows, and Thranduil still loosely in his arms.

            Jerking himself more awake, he reached for the covers at once. If Maedhros woke and Maglor was gone, his paranoia would be up, particularly after their fight over the post office visit. Maglor could not be caught here, most especially not at this hour. But his movement had stirred Thranduil, who woke incredibly groggy, as he usually did (another side effect of the tea).

            “Maglor?” he croaked, reaching for Maglor before his eyes were even open properly.

            “I’m here,” Maglor said at once, grasping Thranduil’s hand. Thranduil blinked open those captivating eyes and looked up at him and smiled. Faintly, but that was considerable, coming from him.

            “Good morning,” he said, and Maglor couldn’t stop himself from smiling back.

            “Good morning,” he returned. “Did you sleep well?” Thranduil nodded slowly, his eyelids still heavy. Maglor got the sense his body wanted to go back to sleep.

            “It was good to have you here,” he murmured, shifting to put his head on Maglor’s chest. His eyes slipped shut again.

            “Of course,” Maglor said, worried Thranduil would hear the rapid beat of his heart. He placed a hand on Thranduil’s back, rubbing gently. “I felt terrible about last night…”

            “’tis no fault of yours,” Thranduil sighed. “I have always had…unpleasant dreams.”

            “And in this house, who could blame you?” Maglor said with a touch of bitterness. “It’s so cold in this room! Surely something can be done about that.”

            “It was warm enough with you.”

            Maglor flushed, and tightened his hold on Thranduil just a bit.

            “I’m glad,” he said truthfully. It would have been nice not to rush, to simply lay there and enjoy the moment, with this beautiful being who for some unfathomable reason wanted to be with Maglor, but he knew every minute he stayed here he risked Maedhros realizing where he was, and that was not a quarrel he wanted to have. “Shall we get something to eat?” he asked, giving Thranduil a little nudge.

            “Mm…yes, we should.” Thranduil spoke in a sigh, and peeled himself off of Maglor, sitting up to yawn and stretch. His pale gold hair was terribly mussed, and Maglor couldn’t help but snigger a little.

            “You’re looking a bit of a mess this morning,” he said, reaching out to smooth down the worst of Thranduil’s bedhead.

            “You might help me with it, if it pleases you,” he said, rubbing his eyes, working hard to flush the drowsiness from his system. It was no good, as he would get another dose later that afternoon.

            “Oh.” Maglor blinked and then hopped out of bed and fetched a brush from the dresser. “Let me fix that.”

            While Thranduil tried in vain to force away the effects of the drug, Maglor carefully brushed out his hair and braided it back for him, and despite his lingering guilt over leaving Maedhros alone for the night, he was smiling when they arrived in the kitchen at last.

***

            Knowing of Thranduil’s troubled dreams, Maglor found it harder with clear conscience to leave him alone night after night, but Maedhros, he knew, would not be sympathetic to Thranduil’s plight. He seemed to be determined to particularly dislike Thranduil, on account of Maglor’s own sympathy for him.

            Maedhros had gone into town that day, not long after Thranduil’s nightmare, though he had not wished to, and he and Maglor had quarreled that morning about it in their room.

            “Can you manage yourself for a few hours? Or should I worry about you tripping and falling cock-first into our bank account while I’m gone?” Maedhros had asked, and Maglor had responded with something snippy in return, and so they had only begrudgingly said any sort of goodbye.

            It meant that Maedhros was still out when Thranduil took his bath, a fact Maglor was aware of primarily because the warped door on the second-floor bathroom often refused to stay shut, and he passed by it ajar and occupied. He could not resist poking his head in.

            “Did you manage to get the water warm?” he asked.

            “I did,” Thranduil replied. His relaxed tone pleased Maglor, who sidled into the room. Her—Thranduil’s cat was sitting under the sink, and she squinted in Maglor’s direction, putting her ears back and crouching, but when Thranduil held a dripping hand out to her, she came right over to rub her face against his hand as if it weren’t still sudsy with bathwater.

            “She quite likes you!”

            Thranduil shrugged. “I am certain if you gave her a bit of food, she would like you too.” Being as Maglor was the one who tossed her out and chased her from the house to die, he tended to doubt it. (Although perhaps she might harbor some gratitude that he had not done what Maedhros told him to and snapped her neck.)

            Thranduil’s broad shoulders glistened in the light from the stained-glass window—it had a simple pattern of yellow flowers—and when he lifted his golden hair over his shoulder, his body flowed in a smooth curve from his neck down his back to where the cloudy water hid things Maglor would rather see. Exposed too were the tattoos Maglor had first seen in the post office, the rippling calligraphic strokes of ink marking out the tree on his back, the stars under his collarbone, the bird which Maglor could not identify on his chest, the dragon around his right bicep which had nearly made Maglor weep with arousal the first time he saw it. He stirred to the sight of Thranduil then, feeling a thrilling tug in his gut and the wonderous delight of potential.

            Maglor was going to say something else—maybe offer to wash Thranduil’s back, when he heard the sound of the front door, and the familiar pattern of Maedhros’ footsteps.

            “Ah, that must be Maedhros with our supplies…” With this awkward close, he exited the bathroom, doing his best to shut the door behind him.

            Maedhros spoke to him of the visit into town, but Maglor was preoccupied with the thought of Thranduil upstairs in the bath. Perhaps it had been rude to leave so quickly. Perhaps he ought to go back.

            But fate and Maedhros conspired to keep him busy until dinner, and only after it was all said and done and Thranduil had retired to his room for the night did Maglor find his way that direction. Maedhros, perhaps worn out from his excursion, took a rare early departure to bed before the other two. When Maglor entered the room, Thranduil was tying off his dressing robe, a delicate purple-gray piece which Maglor thought complimented his fair complexion quite well. His hair, still damp from the bath, remained in the simple braid he had put it in before dinner.

            “Do you want a bit of help?” Maglor offered, picking Thranduil’s comb up off the top of the dresser. Thranduil did not smile, but Maglor thought him pleased, and he nodded, and sat down on the edge of the bed, tucking a leg neatly under himself. Maglor settled in behind him and quickly unwove the earlier braid.

            “I should count myself lucky to have such a comely husband,” Maglor remarked. “I have said so before, I believe, but no one else at that party in Amon Lanc came close to being as lovely as you.” He worked the comb smoothly through Thranduil’s hair, careful not to scrape the tips of his ears, and was pleased when it hung in a flawless curtain down Thranduil’s back.

            “Shall I sing something for you?” he offered, being in a buoyant mood and willing to be generous. And also, Thranduil had always seemed to like his singing.

            “Yes,” Thranduil agreed at once, seeming, if Maglor was permitted to say so, eager. He could not help but smile at that, and hummed his way into a familiar old folk song, to which Thranduil listened with rapt attention, encouraging Maglor to add a second song, something more complex of his own invention.

            Thranduil leaned back on one hand on the bed, and never looked away from Maglor, and Maglor felt drunk on the attention.

            “How was that?”

            “I should never tire of it,” said Thranduil. “I am afraid I have not your gift for words of praise, but I think you could make even the dreariest cave feel a palace were you singing in it.”

            For this, of course, Maglor had to kiss him. And kiss him he did, with vigor and a need that caught him by surprise, despite its having been lurking beneath the surface since the sight of Thranduil in the bath earlier—or possibly since their encounter at the post office. Maglor’s arousal seemed to spring up at once and he was half on Thranduil’s lap before he thought about what he was doing, and remembered that Maedhros was bedding down upstairs—possibly asleep already.

            By the time he paused to consider that, Thranduil’s robe was slipping off his shoulders, his mouth flushed from Maglor’s attention, though Maglor had managed to avoid mussing his braid.

            “I—forgive me, I shouldn’t have…” he began, but it was hard to convincingly apologize when his body was throbbing to continue. His mind supplied some horrible vision of Maedhros bursting through the door, but Maglor could not say if it made him less or more aroused; a shiver went up his back.

            “I thought perhaps I had displeased you, before,” Thranduil admitted, brushing a stray strand of Maglor’s hair behind his ear, in a way that made Maglor ache. “You claimed I had not hurt you, yet you have stayed so far away since…”

            It was hard to think.

            “Do you…do you think of that night?” Maglor asked, wetting his lips. “At the post office?” Thranduil’s eyes drifted down to Maglor’s mouth, and then lower, lingering for just a moment.

            “Yes,” he said. “Were you unhappy?”

            “No,” Maglor whispered. “I was not.” Thranduil’s fingers brushed over his chest, and Maglor felt like he was going to burst through his trousers.

            “Do you wish to…?”

            “Yes.” Maglor pounced on him again at once, forgetting to even trouble with the lock on the door, hands fumbling to undo the buttons on his pants to give his swollen member room to breathe. Thranduil’s arms wrapped firm around him, pulling Maglor tight to him, and Maglor moaned helplessly as he rocked against Thranduil’s lap. “Please,” he begged. “Touch me, please. Like you did before.”

            Maglor thought of Maedhros lying upstairs in the dark, perhaps still awake, perhaps waiting for him, but the first thrust of Thranduil between his legs made it impossible to care about what Maedhros was or wasn’t doing. He bit down on his fingers, trying to muffle his noises of pleasure, but he felt as if he radiated the fact of it so intensely that surely anything and anyone else in the house must be aware of the experience he was having.

            His head was emptied of everything but Thranduil’s existence until he realized he was moaning his husband’s name like a chant or a prayer. Thranduil kissed him and stroked him like some delicate, beautiful thing, and it was as if Maglor were discovering sex for the first time in his life. Thranduil did not touch him like a wildfire, burning through everything in its path without care for the ashes in its wake, nor as a drowning man seizes the only buoy in sight, but as if he were something valuable, something worth preserving—something which had the capacity to suffer harm.

He knotted his fingers up in Thranduil’s hair, clawing apart the braid he’d just put in, and pulled Thranduil’s head down to him, pleading: “Tell me I’m your good boy.”

Thranduil went on with what he was doing, possibly processing this request, and then he kissed Maglor’s jaw and his cheek and his ear, and murmured, pressed body to body to him: “Good boy. That’s my good boy.” Maglor’s eyes rolled back as he finished instantly, thrust over an edge he had been riding for minutes.

            When they were done, Thranduil lay down alongside him and traced his fingers lightly up and down Maglor’s bare chest and stomach.

            “Was it to your liking?”

            “Could you not tell?” Maglor asked hoarsely, turning his head to look at Thranduil.

            “I…believed it had been before,” Thranduil said hesitantly. “Yet you have not sought me out for this since…”

            Maglor closed his eyes for a moment, then looked at Thranduil again.

            “My work often keeps me busy,” he said. “And I keep odd hours. I must beg your forgiveness for these disruptions. But I have…enjoyed this very much.” Suddenly coldly aware he still needed to return to Maedhros, he sat up.

            “You will not stay.” Thranduil’s words were not a question. Inwardly, Maglor winced.

            “I must have my own bath,” he said with an effort at a smile, but he did not invite Thranduil to join him, for of course it was a lie.

            Thranduil seemed simply to deflate into resignation; he sank into the pillows and looked at the sheets and not at Maglor.

            “As you wish,” he replied flatly, and Maglor could see him receding away. He cursed inwardly.

            “But that can wait,” he said, silently praying Maedhros was asleep and not waiting to ambush him as soon as he entered the bedroom. He settled back down, but Thranduil had been disturbed by his effort to leave, and Maglor could see he suspected he was being mollified now.

            Maglor drew nearer, and stroked Thranduil’s cheek.

            “I must apologize if you have felt neglected here,” he said, and though Thranduil bristled slightly at the notion he was capable of feeling neglected, he did not dispute it. “I know this situation is…not ideal. Once I am able to get backers for my opera, things will change,” he said, his eyes brightening as they did whenever he spoke of this plan. “We will be able to fix the house and have a full staff again—and have parties! Real parties! We’ll host all sorts of artistic types from the city. It will be marvelous, grand fun. Just wait and see!”

            Sensing that Thranduil was still not reassured, Maglor went on:

            “My family tends to become…focused on a task,” he said by way of apology. “This is mine. I hope you can forgive it.”

            “If you are content,” Thranduil said, leaning in to kiss him so gently Maglor’s breath caught in his throat.

            “I will be,” Maglor said. It took him a moment, but he gathered himself to reach for Thranduil’s hand, and draw it near to him, which Thranduil allowed. When Maglor let go, Thranduil put an arm around him, tugging Maglor a bit closer, and though the embrace was unfamiliar, it was not lacking in comfort. For some time they lay that way, and then Thranduil slid out of bed and extinguished the candles, and Maglor did not stop him, only allowed Thranduil to embrace him again before they closed their eyes.

            He woke toasty under the covers with Thranduil’s breath against the back of his neck and Thranduil’s arm slung loosely over his waist, his body half-caught in remembrance of the night before. His right arm was numb, pressed under his body. The barest light of dawn was peeking around the curtains, and Maglor was prevented from vaulting out of bed only by the necessity of not waking Thranduil.

            He stuffed himself back into his pants in case Maedhros was already up and nearly sprinted to the nearest bathroom, where he took a soapy washcloth and scrubbed himself as vigorously as if he were trying to remove a venereal disease, as if Maedhros might take a magnifying glass to his ass and realize someone else had been there.

            When he was done trying to polish the hair off his groin, he took the stairs two at a time up to the master bedroom, hurled his clothes into the chair in the corner (which contained several other outfits of his already) and stopped from flinging himself into the bed by reminding himself he couldn’t wake Maedhros either.

            His heartrate had finally returned to normal and he was starting to think he might close his eyes a while more when Maedhros stirred and threw back the covers. Maglor held his breath, but Maedhros said nothing, only went quietly about the room dressing and preparing for the day.

            Maglor feigned he had been woken and put a feeble grogginess into his voice when he spoke.

“Maedhros? What time is it?”

            “Seven-sixteen,” Maedhros reported.

            “Mm.”

            Maedhros said nothing else, and Maglor let out a silent breath. If Maedhros had not yet reproved him, he was none the wiser as to where Maglor had spent the night.

            Maglor’s night with his husband was their secret.

---

Chapter End Notes

It is definitely not Maglor.

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