Add Another Stone by StarSpray  

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One

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Hello, my old heart
It’s been so long
Since I’ve given you away

And every day
I add another stone
To the walls I built around you
To keep you safe
- “Hello My Old Heart” - The Oh Hellos

 

- - 

 

First Age 465
Nargothrond

 

Finrod dismissed all his attendants and sat down before the mirror to remove his jewelry. He counted three rings and two bracelets before the door opened without a knock. Right on time. The door shut, not quite slamming, and he heard the lock fall into place. Then a low growl: “Do not involve yourself in this, Findaráto.”

“Do not forget yourself, Tyelkormo,” Finrod replied, keeping his tone mild as he fumbled with the clasp on his next bracelet. He shouldn’t have worn this particular one today; it was prone to catching. Finally, he got it open, and carefully set it into the jewelry box, keeping his movements slow and deliberate. Controlled. “I am not and have never been yours to command, least of all here in my own city.”

Celegorm stalked across the room to lean over Finrod, who still did not look up, not even to catch a glimpse of him in the mirror. “This is madness,” Celegorm said. “He seeks a Silmaril, Findaráto. You know what that means!”

“It means he has more courage than all seven of you put together—” Finrod knew as the words left his mouth that he was playing with fire, and when Celegorm’s hands drove him from his chair to the wall, fists bunching in the fabric at his shoulders, it did not come as a surprise. He let it happen, let Celegorm lean his full weight against him; Celegorm was bigger than he was, slightly taller and bulkier, muscles hard under the fine linen of his shirtsleeves, but he wasn’t trying to do harm. Not yet.

“Don’t you dare,” Celegorm snarled. “Do not speak of what you do not understand!” Their faces were mere inches from each other, and Finrod felt heat start to coil in his stomach as want slammed through him, making his heart race even as he managed to keep his breathing even. He knew that Celegorm saw it anyway—he saw the same fight happening behind Celegorm’s eyes; this was not the first time Finrod had been shoved against a wall, but usually it was for very different reasons. Now they were both furious, but whether that ended with them in bed or opening an irreparable rift remained to be seen. 

Or both, Finrod supposed. He felt oddly detached from himself, from everything that was happening—he’d known this would never end well, but had fallen into it anyway, almost accidentally after a night of drinking, both of them angry and grieving, bodies almost but not yet fully healed from the Dagor Bragollach. Finrod’s own heart was broken beyond repair, but at least when Celegorm pinned him to the mattress or when Finrod had him wrestled to the floor, when there was nothing but skin and mouths and teeth and mingled breaths, it was easy to forget about everything else. To forget to be wise, to forget that he was a king, to pretend that he and Celegorm were both free to be only themselves—all hunger and heat, without any crowns or oaths or anything else to come between them. It had been years now of a sometimes-tense but mostly-easy alliance, of evenings spent telling stories or planning stratagems while they played chess, of arguments and negotiations—and of the reckless thrill of secret trysts and white-hot want that was more intoxicating than Nargothrond’s finest wines.

Turgon would not have hesitated to tell him how stupid he was being. Turgon also wasn’t there. 

But if he had known it wouldn’t end well, he had not expected it to end like this—or for it to hurt so much. 

“I can’t let you do this,” Celegorm said, his voice low and quiet and dangerous, rumbling through his chest into Finrod’s. “You know that. You know that I can stop you—I can turn all of Nargothrond against this, and I will.”

“You don’t have to,” Finrod said quietly. He grasped Celegorm’s wrists, but only loosely; he didn’t dare hold on too tight. “What if—Tyelko, what if we joined together? What if we were able to retrieve all of the Silmarils, and fulfill your Oath and Beren’s quest at once?”

“Surrendering a Silmaril to Elu Thingol would not be fulfilling the Oath.” Celegorm shoved himself away and turned to pace across the room. Finrod leaned against the wall and wrapped his arms around himself, missing the warmth and knowing with that terrible certainty that plagued him more and more of late that he would never get it back. 

“I can reason with my uncle,” he said anyway, even though he knew better. He would never again see the shining halls of Menegroth or wander through the glades of Neldoreth. The weight of the oath he had sworn to Barahir sat heavily on him, as heavy as the grief—for Barahir, for Bëor, for his brothers, his uncle. Himself. Still—for a moment he dared to hope that there might be some way to change the notes of this song. If Celegorm would just listen, they might be able to—

He wouldn’t. Instead he just turned around with an expression as hard and as bleak as the Helcaraxë before it softened into something desperate. Finrod almost did not recognize him—if Celegorm had ever been soft, he was not anymore; they had certainly never been soft with one another. That was not what either of them had wanted, and he didn’t know what to do with it now. “Please,” he said, very quietly, “don’t do this. Please do not make me act against you, Finrod. I do not want to.”

“Then don’t.”

“I don’t have a choice!”

“Neither do I!”

There it was. The Doom of the Noldor playing out again. No matter what they did, it was always just behind them, just waiting to trip them up. Finrod looked at Celegorm and saw blood on the quays of Alqualondë, black in the starlight. He saw the ice at his feet and the flames on the horizon—and he saw his friend and his erstwhile lover, poised to become his enemy. 

To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass.

But Beren—Beren walked under a very different Doom. Finrod could not see what lay ahead, except that his own end was coming for him, dark and cold, but he was certain down to his bones, as sure as he knew the sun would rise again, that Beren would make it. And if Beren made it—then all that Finrod did now would be worth it, because the world would make it. He didn’t know how, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t need to know.

Nargothrond would fall, someday. Maybe Doriath would too. Maybe even Himring might one day succumb to dragonfire and the might of Angband. But Finrod refused to believe that all hope was yet lost. His own death, his own broken heart—those meant so little, in the end. They were but small notes in a far greater song, one that he could not hear the whole of, yet he knew was going to be beautiful in the end. 

He could try to explain all of that, but he already knew that Celegorm wouldn’t listen. His own Oath rang too loudly in his ears, and he had long ago lost his faith in everything except perhaps his brothers. Almost Finrod could see it, the Oath, wrapped around him like twisting vines, thorns digging into his heart, eating away at him like poison. It was almost enough to make Finrod regret taking him into Nargothrond after the Bragollach.

But only almost.

“If you go with him, you go to your death,” Celegorm said finally. 

Finrod laughed and did not try to disguise his bitterness. “Death is coming for us all. Even you—your end will find you in the dark as surely as my own will.” He turned away and pulled off the Nauglamír. “All we can decide is how it finds us. Mine will not find me faithless.”

Celegorm crossed the room again, catching Finrod’s hand. “Finrod,” he said, almost whispering. “I—”

“Don’t.” Finrod pulled his hand free, hating how it was only now that his voice shook. “We have never lied to one another before. Do not start now, in pretending we are something we’ve never been.”

A flash of something Finrod couldn’t understand passed through Celegorm’s eyes before his expression went blank and hard again. “Fine,” he said, and stepped back. “Death might find you faithful to the children of Men, but you will meet it friendless and alone, having forsaken your own people and your own kin, fallen from wisdom into folly. I hope you are satisfied, Felagund.”

Finrod met his gaze. “Perhaps,” was all he said. Let Celegorm say what he would, let all of Nargothrond turn its back. Their paths were laid; the song would unfold as it was meant to. The chance for change had passed, if indeed there had ever been a chance at all, and it was out of their hands.

Still, when Celegorm left, this time really slamming the door behind him, Finrod sank to the floor and wept.