‘cause i love you (for whatever that’s worth) by atlantablack

Jesus Christ, it's like I’m going insane
I've made gestures and overtures
That blew up in my face
I know it's nobody's fault, right?
Like, people just change
But maybe somehow we can changе the same
And I said

Fuck it, let's work it out
'Causе I love you for whatever that's worth
And I've never seen it work
But I wanna make it work

when love has gone | Sam Nelson

☀︎

In the end, what stops him are Tyelpe's hands.

A stupid thing really after all he's done already. Certainly Tyelpe would think so if Sauron told him why he had simply stopped moving. But knowing that it's stupid doesn't stop something painful and barbed from settling in his throat and bringing him to a halt.

In the very back of his mind he already knows this is a doomed project. Tyelpe will not tell him where the rings are. He knows he will die regardless and this means that even the threat of destroying his hands, the thing most essential for his craft, will mean little as well. Why worry about one more broken thing when in the end it will all be meaningless.

He's been still for too long he knows. He can feel that Tyelpe has stopped bracing himself for pain and is staring at him instead. He had squeezed his eyes shut when Sauron had picked up the hammer and then clenched his jaw when Sauron had run a delicately threatening finger down the back of his hand.

Just tell me where the rings are, love, he'd said, the endearment still so natural in his mouth. Don't you want it to end? All you have to do is tell me this one thing.

Predictably, Tyelpe does not tell him. Unpredictably, Sauron had clicked his tongue in a way that preceded pain and then had found himself frozen, unable to bring the hammer down.

It's stupid. It's weak. These arguments are doing him no good but he has no others. Tyelpe's death has been a given from the moment he made the master ring. Has been a given from the moment he set him in chains and began crooning threats into his ears.

But for some reason, it is only now, thinking of breaking his hands beyond all return, that it really spears through him that Celebrimbor will never create anything else until he's reborn in Aman. And then he'll be too far away for Sauron to see what brilliant, mad ideas he manages to create all on his own. It is not a pleasant thought.

This is…an untenable situation. And yet, he needs to know where the three rings are that his annoyingly brilliant Tyelpe has made and hidden.

But, a terrible voice whispers, you will destroy his hands and kill him and still, you will have no rings. A truth he is ignoring. There are, in truth, many things he has been ignoring.

He sets the hammer down, turns Tyelpe's hand over and traces a finger down his palm. He's held these hands before. Knows them very well. Knows the way they look wrapped around a hammer and clutching a quill rapidly scribbling down a new idea in the middle of the night. Knows the way they pressed against the false hröa he'd worn and pulled pleasure from him. He had told himself that did not complicate matters. As if the weakness that had curled through him every time he pressed a kiss to these hands had not complicated matters. He had told himself, repeatedly, insistently, desperately, that the first kiss had simply been another manipulation. Admitting that it was simply something he had wanted would complicate matters.

"Annatar," Tyelpe whispers, all he can manage, besides screams, with the way his throat is ravaged.

Sauron closes his eyes. Holds Tyelpe's hand between his and tries to think. He needs the rings. He does not want to hurt Tyelpe's hands. But if he does not then he will have to admit that. If he does not. Is he not already admitting it in his hesitation?

He needs the rings but there is no path that leads him to them. He opens his eyes and presses his fingers to Tyelpe's pulse, turns his hand back over and has to swallow down a startling burst of emotion when Tyelpe hesitantly curls his fingers around Sauron's hand.

Always so terribly good at sensing even the slightest of Sauron's weaknesses and pressing on them, even though he'd never known quite what he was pressing on. He likely could have made the master ring a few centuries ago if Tyelpe hadn't kept pulling doubts to the forefront of his mind through doing nothing other than being himself.

He does not want to break Tyelpe's hands. He does not, he admits to himself, even want Tyelpe to die. His mind is so bright, a flame that had merged so well with his own. Who else could claim the ability of keeping up with him? Of outsmarting him even, as infuriating as that is.

He has made his master ring indestructible to all but the fires of mount doom but — Tyelpe knows the making of the rings as well as Sauron does himself and he knows that if given half a chance there is a very good chance Tyelpe could simply unmake it. He is a threat. He’s always been a threat. The greatest gift had been Gil-Galad rejecting him in Lindon and sending him to Eregion, sending him straight to Celebrimbor’s open arms.  The greatest threat has always been the way Tyelpe knows just as much as Sauron about the making of his greatest weapons.

He's the only living thing on this stupid continent that Sauron truly wants to live. That Mairon, flushed with the passion of smithing again in Eregion, wanted to live. Annatar is not real, but if he was, he would want Tyelpe to live more than any of them.

"Annatar," Tyelpe says again, hoarse but intense.

"You are making things very hard on me," he says, presses a lingering kiss to the back of Tyelpe's hand and drinks in the sound of his hitched breath.

He removes the shackle from Tyelpe's wrist so that he can keep hold of his hand as he crouches down to look him in the face. "We could make such beautiful things if you would only join me," he says completely unable to hide the wistfulness that steals through him.

Tyelpe's lips quirk in a sad smile. "We were making beautiful things. And you destroyed them."

Yes. He had. Eregion, by the end, had been nearly as much his as it had been Tyelpe's. And it had been beautiful and he'd destroyed it anyway. He refuses to let himself regret it. Traces a finger down Tyelpe's cheek and wonders if he isn't already.

But what does regret matter when he's already left a trail of blood in his wake. I need the rings, he thinks again. Closes his eyes and thinks, I want him to live. What a fool he is. What a fool Tyelpe is for, even now, holding onto his hand as if there is a chance for Sauron to redeem himself. His weaknesses were always so very easy to exploit. Even now he could turn both of their weaknesses into a torture all on its own. How cruel to give a sliver of hope and then shatter it. Worse, because for all he’d played that game with many prisoners in the past, Tyelpe will know that there was a sliver of truth in it.

“Could you unmake it?” he hears himself ask, opens his eyes to find Tyelpe staring at him with, not hope, but perplexed calculation.

“Unmake what? The rings?” The calculation fades away and leaves only perplexity.

“I know you can unmake those. Can you unmake the one I made? The master ring.” It’s pure curiosity. Feeling out a threat.

Tyelpe frowns, thinks about it for a long minute, mouths something to himself. “I… don’t know? Maybe. Can I see it?”

Despite himself he pulls the ring out from beneath his shirt, holds the chain out for Tyelpe to look at the ring dangling from it. He frowns at it, tilts his head, tips forward to peer at it as close as he can without touching. “Maybe,” he says slowly, feeling out the word. “I know the feel of your fëa better than most at this point I would say. It isn’t impossible but it would take me a while.” Despite the gravity of even the idea of unmaking it a bright spark of curiosity flares to life in his eyes, his fingers twitching against Sauron’s hand. He looks back at Sauron then, eyes very bright. “It would take even longer if I unmade it in a way that left your fëa unharmed.”

He does not let himself react to that. “You are a trusting fool,” he says tucking the ring back beneath his shirt.

Tyelpe makes a rasping, hacking sound that is likely a laugh. “I don’t trust you.” (truth) “I don’t even particularly like you anymore.” (lie) “But I can’t make myself stop loving you, which I suppose does make me a fool.” (truth)

He sighs, does not say the words back no matter that they lodge themselves in his throat. Hums a note of power and presses his hand to Tyelpe’s throat. Tyelpe flinches and then leans into him with a sigh. He hasn’t healed the damage but he’s soothed it, pushed some of the pain away. More weakness. If he left his ring somewhere else and came back he could push past this and continue where he left off. He’d poured so much of himself into the ring, but inevitably that means that he has poured not only his cruelty and his ambition and his violent need into the ring, but also every twisted piece of love he feels for this maddening elf. With it laying against his skin the emotions are just as close as if he never poured them out at all.

“Don’t bother trying to fight me,” he warns, releasing Tyelpe’s other wrist from its chain as well. Tyelpe sags with such relief that he nearly hits his head against the wall. Sauron ignores any feelings he has about that as well. Sits cross-legged on the floor, ignoring the filth, and considers Tyelpe, considers the problem. “Please tell me where the rings are.” He tries one more time. Tyelpe only graces him with a flat look as he rubs his wrists. Not that he had expected much else.

“I really should just kill you,” he says. Takes Tyelpe’s hand once more and swallows down a furious surge of emotion when Tyelpe grips his hand back.

“That makes it sound like you’re thinking about not killing me,” Tyelpe says quietly, his gaze is very heavy against Sauron’s skin.

He hums noncommittally, presses his mouth to the back of Tyelpe’s hand, and tries to think.  He wants. He knows what he wants. Impossible dreams. Tyelpe will not even tell him where the rings are, he will not stay at Sauron’s side. He wants to have had this stupid revelation before he’d burnt everything to ground.

What does he want? He wants what he’s always wanted. Freedom. Power. Only now he wants Tyelpe as well and that rather conflicts with the other two.

“Annatar,” Tyelpe says, his voice so infuriating gentle.

“You do realize, I hope, that Annatar is not real,” he says, raising an eyebrow as he meets Tyelpe’s eyes.

He shrugs, winces at the movement. “He’s as real as Sauron. Annatar had a life, had friends.”

“He was a lie.”

“All of him?”

Sauron doesn’t answer that. It is clear enough that it was not all a lie. If it had been he wouldn’t be in this predicament.

In the end, he comes to no decisions. He heals some of Tyelpe’s injuries best he can and leaves him in the cell. Goes to his room to think and cannot. Goes and stares into Mount Doom, tries to fucking think, and cannot. Cloaks himself in darkness, goes and watches Tyelpe restlessly sleep, tries to think, and cannot. He has all these useless wants clogging his throat and no way to meld them with his current plans.

The logical path here would be to make a new plan. It’s what he would do if his wants were anything other than what they are. But to make a new plan that revolves around what he wants versus what he’s started. That’s not just a new plan. That’s a complete rupturing of his self.

He goes in Tyelpe’s cell, picks up the hammer, sits down next to where Tyelpe’s sleeping, and tells himself to just do it. Bring the hammer down. Clenches the handle until his fingers hurt and tries to talk himself into it. He cannot. He must. But he cannot. Tyelpe has already made the rings. Could unmake his master ring given sufficient time. What else could he make if he’s already reached such heights? What other beautiful, brilliant mad ideas could he bring to life if given a chance. Sauron wants to know. A bitter truth but the truth nonetheless.

He sighs in frustration and glances at Tyelpe’s face to find him watching him, gaze very curious. “You are infuriating,” he tells him, tossing the hammer away.

“I always have been according to you,” he says, sitting up slowly, teeth gritted like every movement still pains him. Sauron is admittedly not talented at healing. He can heal well enough to keep someone alive while he’s torturing them. But true healing is rather beyond him.

“Infuriating,” he says again, cradles Tyelpe’s face in his hands and presses their foreheads together. Tyelpe sighs, hands coming up to circle his wrists.

“I hate you,” Tyelpe says. (lie) He still leans into Sauron, starved for any touch that doesn’t hurt.

“I believe I am going to do something very foolish because of you,” he says the words very quietly, like that will make them less true. Like if he keeps it a secret they won’t get woven into the music of the world.

“In what way?” Tyelpe’s thumb is moving in small circles on his wrist. He wonders if he’s even aware of it.

“In every way. You’re—” he breaks off, laughs a bit. “They only imprisoned Melkor for 3,000 years before offering him clemency. How long do you think they would sentence me for?”

Tyelpe pulls back and frowns at him. “What is the point of imprisonment?” he asks. Amusement tugs at the corner of his mouth when Sauron simply stares at him. “It doesn’t fix anything. All it does is give you years and years to resent the ones who put you there. If you want to be forgiven do something fucking useful.”

“What would you have me do then?”

“You already know the answer to that.”

He does. He knows Tyelpe. Knows the principles he’d founded Eregion on. Knows his past, far better than Tyelpe had realized. Is he willing to pay the price? There is no point in letting him live if Sauron continues down the path he’s on. Tyelpe would die sooner or later regardless that way, by his hand or someone else’s. But is he willing to pay the price it would cost to let him live?

“Annatar,” he says softly, presses forward and brushes the lightest kiss against his mouth.

“Very manipulative of you,” he murmurs, doesn’t let himself follow Tyelpe’s mouth.

“That implies I have enough power over you to be manipulative with.” A clear question. A clear accusation.

“Is it not manipulation to try and tempt me with promises of a forgiveness you won’t give?”

There is a long silence unbroken in which he watches Tyelpe’s mouth and wonders if he means anything he’s saying. He’s done this once before. Stood in front of Eönwë and asked forgiveness. Had been denied it from the one he’d asked and told only to go west for judgement. He’d gone to find his own penance and found Tyelpe instead. Had been content until he hadn’t. If he didn’t mean it then, when he had a whole shining city and its ruler in his hand, how can he mean it now, with Tyelpe bruised and bleeding in a cell.

“I think I would forgive you many things I shouldn’t,” Tyelpe says finally sounding disgusted and furious. “But that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have to work for it. I won’t be your fool twice.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thinks. He’s being so incredibly stupid. He pulls back and grasps Tyelpe’s hand in his, tries once more to convince himself to just break something. He’s very good at breaking things. Traces his knuckles and tries to think of them shattered. Instead finds himself thinking about forge heat and Tyelpe’s mouth slick and hot against his, hands in his hair and smudging coal and ink onto their skin where they’re grasping at each other. Presses on the thin skin between thumb and pointer finger, tries to think of what a perfect spot it is to pin someone down, and instead thinks of Tyelpe pushing his thumb into Annatar’s mouth, eyes blazing with heat.

“Well,” he says, mostly to himself. “I suppose I’ve lost this war before it’s even properly began.” Looks back up and finds Tyelpe staring at him, mouth parted in shock, and his eyes blazing with all the hope he’s been pushing down.

“You,” Tyelpe starts, stops. He licks his lips and tries again. “You’re being serious. You’re actually being serious.”

He hums, spends a moment considering the words. Turns them over in his mind and wonders if he is. Looks at Tyelpe and his goddamn mouth and all that goddamn fucking brilliance hiding beneath his skin and knows that yes, yes he is. “It would have been a very good trick,” he says, because he thinks maybe he could have broken Tyelpe with this if he’d had a mind to. “But it seems as if I am, in fact, serious.”

Tyelpe stares at him, fingers gone lax in shock. Sauron smirks, pulls the chain holding the master ring over his head and considers it for a moment. He supposes if he is truly going to go through with this absolute absurdity then he may as well go all in. He slips the chain over Tyelpe’s head, watches the ring thud against his heart, and feels something very vicious and hungry tear open in his chest at the sight.

He cradles Tyelpe’s face close, whispers, “Unmake me,” against his mouth, “we’ll see how well I’ve done earning your forgiveness when you’re done.”

Tyelpe makes a wretched noise and kisses him, bites at his lip until they both taste blood. “You fucking bastard,” he gasps, “You absolute fucking bastard.”

Sauron doesn’t deny it, only tilts Tyelpe’s face and kisses him properly. Pours every bit of sincerity he can into it. He will not bother with regret, there’s no point. But he thinks, maybe, just maybe, he can offer himself and mean it this time. He couldn’t for anyone lesser but Celebrimbor who made the rings and betrayed Sauron before he could betray him. Outsmarted him when Sauron had forgotten what it felt like to be outsmarted. Yes, maybe. As stupid and as weak as it is, he thinks he can stake his future on that maybe.

Tyelpe, his tears staining Sauron’s hands, squeezes his wrists, and like a fool, kisses him back.

☀︎

Chapter End Notes

[insert that bird meme but it's Sauron] "The risk I took was calculated but man am I bad at math"

Also, I firmly believe that it is possible to unmake the ring. Anything that's made can be unmade. But yes, it is probably absolutely beyond pretty much anyone except Celebrimbor and Fëanor. Maybeee Curufin. And ofc throwing it into lava is absolutely easier than unmaking it.

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You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together
to make a creature that will do what I say
or love me back. 

I'm not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not
feeding yourself to a bad man
against a black sky prickled with small lights.

I take it back. 

The wooden halls like caskets. These terms from the lower depths. 
I take them back. 

Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out | Richard Siken

☀︎

Celebrimbor is only half-sure he isn’t having a very lucid dream. A nice dream granted, but still, he is having trouble believing any of this is actually happening.

He isn’t entirely sure how long Annatar has had him prisoner, but he knows it’s all been one long blur of pain. There is barely a single part of his body that does not, in some way, ache even with the soothing magic Annatar has sung around him. He knows that he’s seen far too much of his own blood in the past however many days. Has seen just, far too much. If he thinks on it too long his stomach starts to turn.

He hadn’t realized until yesterday that his hands did not hurt. His wrists are raw from shackles and his pulling at them. But his hands, they’re scraped a bit, but they’re not truly hurt. And somehow, despite the pain he’d been so sure was to come, they still don’t hurt.

He pulls the ring up to eye level to study again. Wonders at the way it warms in his grip. It does not burn him, but it noticeably heats up when he holds it. A burst of warmth against his fingers that’s strangely grounding. He can feel Annatar wound through it, around it, within it. A tangible weight that is terrifying for how much of it there is. He could kill Annatar if he takes this apart incorrectly. Could kill him if he decides that he’s more interested in destroying it than preserving any parts of the fëa so carefully woven around it. He knows Annatar knows that. Yet here the ring is regardless. Hanging around his neck.

He should destroy it. He knows this. He should take this trust and do exactly what Annatar did to him. Throw it back in his face. But, he thinks with a heavy sigh, he knows he won’t. Unmake me, Annatar had whispered. As if he wasn’t placing his life in Celebrimbor’s hands. He can’t betray that. If he really means to make this right, if he really means to try, Celebrimbor cannot throw that back in his face. Even if he weren’t still crushingly in love despite himself. He still couldn’t.

Eregion is gone but the principles he’d built it on remain the same. People deserve a chance to leave their past behind. To build something new and good and hopeful. He wants to keep believing that even though he knows most will call him a fool.

He drops the ring, closes his eyes and tries to sleep. He’s mostly clean for the first time in what must be weeks. Annatar had carefully combed his hair out while telling him softly of where he’d asked Gil-Galad to meet with him.

There is a part of him, a rather larger part than he’d like, that still believes this is a trick. He’s being used as bait and Gil-Galad and Elrond and all of Lindon are going to pay the price. It would make sense. It would even make sense if there really were traps laid in his mind. Send him to Lindon and then when he least expects it let the traps trigger and send him off to fetch the rings and bring them back here. What doesn’t make sense is Annatar having some fucked up morality crisis and deciding on a whim to avert a whole war all because he wants Celebrimbor to forgive him. It’s the most absurd thing he’s ever heard, and he’ll understand when no one believes him!

But if it isn’t a trick, he thinks. If it isn’t. Isn’t this what he’d dreamed of as a child in Beleriand. For his father to find some way to forsake the oath and choose Celebrimbor instead of those awful, blood bought silmarils. And now, here is Annatar, foreswearing a war all for him. It’s too convenient. But if it isn’t a trick. If it isn’t.

Eru, please, let it not be a trick. 

☀︎

The moon rises, hanging in the sky outside of the window, and Celebrimbor still cannot sleep. It isn’t only that his body aches, he’s been snatching sleep in increments the last couple weeks despite the pain. It’s only that he cannot stop turning the entire situation over and over in his head.

The door to the room clicks open and Annatar slips in. He keeps his eyes closed, waits to see if this is the moment the illusion flickers.

But all he does is sit on the side of the bed and press gentle fingers to Celebrimbor’s cheek. Strokes his thumb over his over bottom lip and gives a heavy sigh that carries more weight to it than Celebrimbor had expected.

“You should be sleeping,” Annatar says softly and he huffs in annoyance. He should have known that wouldn’t work.

“I’ve been trying,” he says. Wrestles with himself for a minute and then gives it up as a lost game. “Lay down with me?” It’s terrible of him but he wants the comfort more than he wants to maintain a wall.

Annatar’s face is shadowed but he watches the dip of his chin and the slow, purposeful loosening of his shoulders. “If you’d like.” He sheds his boots and a cloak and slips under the covers next to him. Let's Celebrimbor arrange them in a way that is least painful for him. They end up curled in on each other, two halves trying to close ranks.

“Are you sure this isn’t some terribly elaborate trick?”

Annatar scoffs. “If it was I wouldn’t tell you. But no, I can assure you it is not a trick.” He pauses and Celebrimbor can hear his smile when he says, “I realize that was not reassuring. But you must know it was an impossible question.”

“I know. I want to believe you.” Doesn’t say, but I don’t. Knows it’s been heard anyway. “Tell me a story. One you couldn’t have before without giving yourself away.”

Annatar hums, tangles his fingers in Celebrimbor’s hair as he thinks. Sighs after a while and says, “What can I offer you that is not filled with blood? I do not wish to add to your nightmares.”

“Your entire life cannot have been all blood. Think harder.” Though, he supposes most of it likely was blood. But that’s one of those things he’s not thinking about until he knows for sure whether this is a trick. Time later to work through his feelings on all of that.

“You’re very demanding,” Annatar says but does start talking a moment later. Weaves together stories of long before the elves opened their eyes. An earth not yet fully built, clad in darkness and always shifting. The forges burning hot and every day new designs coming to life. Designs that now do not seem so special but at the time were something to find great joy in. He speaks and speaks, and Celebrimbor presses closer to the forge heat he seems to always give off and eventually falls asleep. Dreams of his forge in Eregion and Annatar’s hair flickering in the firelight. It is a good dream despite everything.

☀︎

They leave the next morning. It’s four days to the meeting point Annatar had chosen if they ride slow, which it very much seems as if they’ll be doing. He’s perfectly capable of riding, but many of the muscle deep pains protest loudly if the riding is too harsh.

He will not say that Annatar looks guilty. Or remorseful. Or any normal emotion one may have when they’ve severely harmed someone they supposedly love. But there is a tight, unhappy look on his face that Celebrimbor has not often seen when he slides off the horse the first evening and immediately crumples to the ground, his muscles one giant mess of stiff pain. He so very much hopes this is not a trick because that means he’ll see Elrond soon and Elrond will be able to do a much better job of fixing what Annatar has completely mangled.

“I’m not going to say I’m sorry,” Annatar says later when they’re sitting in front of the fire pressed up against each other. Annatar is playing with the fingers of his left hand while Celebrimbor turns the problem of the ring over and over in his mind looking for an opening to dig his fingers into.

“I didn’t think you would,” he says after a moment of surprise.

Annatar looks at him and Celebrimbor looks back. Gets hit all over again with how little he knows the flaming maia sitting in front of him. Annatar had been almost soft, his silver hair holding the flame and reflecting it back. Sauron is all sharp edges, hair so red it becomes the fire, eyes a flaming gold. “I won’t, but—” Annatar frowns at him, squeezes his hand. “—I do not enjoy seeing you in pain.”

He laughs. Raises his eyebrows as he says, “Careful, that sounded very close to an apology.”

Annatar rolls his eyes and turns back to the fire. Celebrimbor continues studying him, cataloguing the changes. Finds enough of Annatar in the way he frowns that he thinks perhaps Annatar had not done as good a job at acting as he’d meant to. Wonders what other mannerisms of Sauron had carried over. But. “Annatar is not real,” he says, tests the words out. Annatar looks at him and only nods. “I cannot call you Sauron,” he tells him, knows that if he does forgiveness will never truly come. He hears the name Sauron and thinks of his uncles. Thinks of all the people they lost in the wars and to Angband’s dungeons.

Sauron looks away. Pulls one knee to his chest and presses his mouth to the back of Celebrimbor’s hand. He’d done this before, when he’d been in the dungeons wavering on whether to kill him or keep him. Like having his mouth pressed to Celebrimbor’s skin helped him think.

“I was called Mairon a very long time ago,” he says quietly. “When I was still in Aulë’s halls, still unmarred.” He looks back at Celebrimbor but his eyes are very far away. “I felt more like Mairon when I was in Eregion than I had since I left Aman to join Melkor. It had been, hm, I’m not sure, it had been a very long time since I’d created simply for the joy of creating.”

A stick cracks somewhere in the trees behind them. Celebrimbor turns the name Mairon over in his mouth, says it slowly, savors it. Smirks when those golden eyes sharpen, black bleeding into gold. “Yes, I think I can work with that.”

“Infuriating,” Mairon says softly, twisting to cradle Celebrimbor’s face in his hands. He shivers, turns to meet him, curls his fingers around Mairon’s wrists and presses his thumb against a racing pulse. “It’s been over two ages since I heard that name in anyone’s mouth. Why must it sound so good in yours?”

He isn’t given a chance to think of a response before Mairon is kissing him. He sighs into it, kisses back, lets himself think of nothing but the slick, warm heat of Mairon’s mouth and the way the heat travels through him. Bites at his mouth when Mairon’s hand slips into his hair and tugs. Gets a fistful of that flaming red hair and pulls him closer. Pulls until Mairon delicately settles in his lap, all his weight held on his knees.

He couldn’t say how long they kiss. Slow and then hard. Soft and then violent. There’s blood on his tongue at one point but Mairon’s hands never stop being gentle. Like if he’s gentle enough he can begin to make up for all the violence he’s dealt out.

Later, when he’s falling asleep, his head in Mairon’s lap, and his face pressed against his stomach, he tries to remind himself of all the reasons this is a terrible idea. All the reasons he should be turning and running instead of inviting a monster back in with open arms. But, he thinks, hovering on the edge of sleep, perhaps he’s simply too used to the idea that love is violence.

His father, all his uncles — they’d loved his grandfather to the point of madness, to the point of eclipsing all other loves. It isn’t as if he’s ever quite figured out which percentage of blame to lay on his father’s shoulders for Finrod’s death. It isn’t as if Elrond doesn’t have two slaughtered cities shadowing the love he has for Maedhros and Maglor. Elrond can say he’s forgiven them all he wants but Celebrimbor knows the shadows those kind of things cast. Just like how he knows how violent and all-consuming the love can be regardless.

No one in his family seems to have been able to love anything without digging their teeth into it first. Without having teeth dug into them in return. He probably shouldn’t be surprised that he craves that same rotten love.

☀︎

“You said that the Valar only gave Morgoth 3,000 years of imprisonment,” he says the next night, listening to the hooting of an owl. “If I had asked you to go west to earn my forgiveness. If I had asked you to let yourself be imprisoned. Would you still have done it?”

He’s watching Mairon’s face very closely and sees the flash of furious resentment that carves its way through him. “I don’t know,” he says, voice very even. “I’d rather we not find out.”

☀︎

“I didn’t even make it 500 years before cutting you open,” Mairon says on the third night, gently scrapes his teeth over Celebrimbor’s pulse. “How long do you think I’ll make it this time before something splinters?”

He pulls Mairon in, kisses him hard enough to bruise. “Nothing is going to splinter,” he says furiously, digs his nails into the side of Mairon’s face. “I won’t let it.”

Mairon tilts his head, presses his thumb to Celebrimbor’s bottom lip. “Do you really think you can stop me?”

“I am going to unmake you,” he promises, “and then I am going to meld us together so tightly there is no chance of any splintering.”

“You mean to turn me into another Melian,” he says with an ugly, mocking twist of his lips.

“I mean to make you something far better than a queen who hides behind an invisible wall. You want to change middle earth, then let’s change it. We’re just going to do it my way this time.” Mairon’s eyes are very bright as he listens to Celebrimbor speak and he feels drunk on all the reflected light. Pulls Mairon in for another furious kiss and wonders if he’s set himself on a path to burn up the way the rest of his family did.

☀︎

They stop a couple miles from the meeting spot the last night, Mairon on high alert as he watches the forest suspiciously. Celebrimbor already knows what's in the forest and ignores it.

"You're sure they won't think you're a thrall and kill you?" Mairon asks suddenly, looking genuinely concerned.

It's such a ridiculous thought that he starts laughing. "They aren't going to kill me. Even if I was a thrall and Gil-Galad wanted to, Elrond would never let him."

"You have far too much faith in the Peredhel," he mutters, looking annoyed at even the mention of Elrond.

"Do I? He was right about you after all."

Ah, and there it is, the ugliness still hiding below the surface. "Not about everything. Not about what you are to me," he nearly looks guilty this time beneath his intense, burning dislike of Elrond. "I perhaps did not handle caring about you well, but I didn't lie about that."

"Perhaps," he echoes, scoffing. "Yes, I would say that you perhaps handled the entire thing terribly. We could have, Erigion could still be—" he has to cut himself off, grief welling up harsh and venomous in his throat.

Mairon looks away. "I know. I will not regret it but… it is a loss." He looks painfully uncomfortable, hands clasped tightly together in his lap.

"Do you truly not? Or are you scared to let yourself regret any of it for fear of being overwhelmed?" He thinks he knows the answer even if Mairon won't admit it.

Mairon does not answer. Looks at him with dark, golden eyes that are a shade too miserable to be happy with any of the destruction he's left behind him. Celebrimbor wants to know what this is costing him. If this is truly no trap, if Mairon has truly decided to collapse an impending war — what must this be costing him.

"Would you still have let me leave if I had said I wouldn't forgive you?" Is this entire thing hinging entirely on Celebrimbor loving him back. He does and he will, but is it?

Mairon studies him, looks like he's fighting with himself, mouth twisted in annoyance. "I do not know," he says finally. "You ask impossible questions."

"Do I? Does your love for me hinge on me loving you back?"

"I don't want you to die," he snaps, the words wrenched from him. "Is that not enough? That I want you to live more than I want, want, Eru, I do not know, more than anything else it seems, considering I have given you my ring. Is that not enough?"

It is. Of course it is. "Of course it is." He reaches for Mairon and he reaches back. Isn't that all he's ever wanted? To find someone there reaching back when he stretches his hands out. Eru, of course it's enough. He's done far more for far less.

☀︎

He's almost surprised when they get to the meeting spot the next day and find that Gil-Galad and Elrond have shown up. He had half-expected them to decide it was a trap and not show. But there they are, standing on the other side of the clearing with guarded faces.

He has no doubt there are more soldiers close by, if not circling the clearing right now, but they came.

"I will admit," Gil-Galad says after a moment of studying them, "I expected you to bring us his body if you brought us anything at all."

Mairon makes a disgusted noise. "If I had killed him I certainly wouldn't have bothered to bring you the body. What would be the point in that?"

Based on the face he's making Celebrimbor is sure that if Elrond could have killed Mairon for that comment he would have but he holds his silence.

Gil-Galad just sighs. "Well, what are your demands so that we can take him and go?"

Celebrimbor can feel the way Mairon perks up at that. Straightens from where he's been leaning most of his weight on him. "No," he tells him. "Absolutely not. I'm not a sack of flour. You're not trading anything for me."

Gil-Galad's eyebrows hit his hairline. Mairon twists to look at him, putting his back to the others, which Celebrimbor thinks is less a sign of any trust and more a complete lack of willingness to let the others see him have any emotions other than cruelty.

"They have nothing I want," Mairon says softly. "I am giving them the only thing I'd trade for."

Celebrimbor is very tempted to kiss him regardless of their audience. Regardless of the fact that he is sure Mairon could absolutely think of several things he would like Gil-Galad to trade him if only to deprive him of them. "Manipulative," he says, sighing as Mairon cradles his cheek.

"Is it manipulative now to tell the truth?" He smirks as he says it and Celebrimbor doesn't bother responding beyond rolling his eyes. Presses his forehead against Mairon's chest and takes a deep breath. His body is really protesting, well, everything. "Can you make it across the clearing on your own?"

"I can walk." Probably.

"You're shaking." Mairon points out. Which is… a good point.

"Yes, fine. Let's go." The sooner he gets back to Lindon and Elrond heals him the better.

He goes to move back but Mairon holds him tight, grips his chin with two fingers and tilts his head back. Studies his face with a strange expression and a frown. "Having second thoughts?" he asks. The words taste like ash.

"No, simply thinking." He doesn't expand. Brushes his knuckles down Celebrimbor's cheek and then turns to help him across the clearing. Gil-Galad and Elrond both have their hands on their swords and he can feel the hum of singing burning through the clearing.

Elrond meets them half-way, glares at Mairon the entire time, and hisses, "I am so very angry with you," at Celebrimbor.

"Hm. More or less than you are with my uncle?"

Elrond's glare, if anything, gets worse. "At the moment. Worse."

He laughs. Squeezes Mairon's hand tight before letting go. "And where is he right now? Hiding in the tree line somewhere?"

"I told him you'd notice," Elrond says with a snort. His grip on Celebrimbor's hand is very tight. "He's waiting for us. He's hiding behind Gil-Galad. See?" He points and yes, Celebrimbor can in fact see a cloaked figure doing his best to let Gil-Galad's bulk cover him.

"Hi Uncle," he says, beaming when he gets close enough to see Maglor's face scowling at him from beneath the hood. "Nice of you to finally show back up."

"You brat," his uncle snaps, coming forward to pick him up. He sighs, burying his face in his uncle's chest, happily reminded of days long, long past when there was always an uncle around every corner waiting to carry him. "Just because our family is a disaster didn't mean you had to follow in our footsteps."

"Hm. It got you to show back up, didn't it?" He's quite proud of this actually. Elrond makes a strangled noise that might be a badly disguised laugh and Celebrimbor raises his head to grin at him.

Gil-Galad peers down at him for a moment and he raises an eyebrow, stares back. "Good. I'm happy we got you back in one piece. Let's get out of here." He mutters something else under his breath that Celebrimbor can't catch.

Maglor turns to leave and then — "Tyelpe," Mairon calls. He shifts, pressing Maglor's shoulder until he turns back around, grumbling the entire time. That strange expression is back on Mairon's face as he watches them, still standing in the middle of the clearing. He stares at them for long enough that Maglor starts to tense up.

Celebrimbor is almost about to start worrying when Mairon makes a frustrated sound and strides across the clearing toward them, completely ignoring the swords he can hear being drawn and the way Maglor takes a step back, hands tightening around Celebrimbor like he thinks Mairon is going to snatch him back.

Mairon, completely disregarding Maglor, leans down and gets right in his face. Says harshly, "I'm sorry. Fuck you, I'm sorry, okay." He doesn't sound sorry, he sounds pissed, eyes very hard, but then Celebrimbor doubts he's ever had to apologize for anything and mean it.

He swallows down the laugh that wants to spill out of him. "Terrible apology but I love you too you asshole. Now get out of here before they decide to stab you."

Mairon stares at him for another second before deciding he's satisfied with whatever he sees, kisses him hard once before anyone can stop him, and then walks off and vanishes into a trail of black smoke.

Celebrimbor hides his grin against his uncle's chest and starts turning the problem of the ring over and over in his mind. Unmake me, Mairon had said. Celebrimbor intended to.

☀︎

Chapter End Notes

Elrond when he hears Sauron has called for parlay [meme of banging pots and pans on the beach until Maglor takes note and comes to fucking help] (yeah he's a sad beach cryptid but even sad beach cryptids probably heard about Eregion falling)

I'm on tumblr as well, atlantablack

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