Life, Like a Face Between Your Palms by gaydhros  

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Chapter 8

Maedhros and Fingon have the fight they have been avoiding. Both of them are right, and both of them are wrong. Maedhros has a discussion with Gwánthon.

Content warnings for this chapter: References to past torture

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Maedhros looked at Fingon, tangled in the bedsheets and flushed beautifully with the afterglow, and considered him.

It was not that Fingon was distant with him. It was not that Fingon was any more not-himself than Maedhros would expect of one who had just lost a father and inherited a crown in the same fell twist of fate. It was certainly not that Fingon was cruel, for in this very moment a light smile was gracing his lips and he was playing idly with Maedhros’ hair, twisting strands of silver and copper around his fingers as if in needless apology for how hard he had pulled. The kingship itself might have been to blame, but in truth, now that Fingon had rested some he seemed all the more ready to take it on, prepared to return to his work with a new and strengthened heart. But it had grown increasingly clear throughout the evening that something was plaguing Fingon, and Maedhros would know what.

He caught Fingon’s hand and kissed each of his fingertips in turn. Something in the blue of Fingon’s eyes warmed, even as the rest of him seemed to waver, the cracks in the veneer showing through.

“What troubles you?” Maedhros spoke softly. A silence, delicate as a rose petal, had settled over them, and for his part he would not see it disturbed.

“Nothing.” Fingon’s smile did not meet his eyes. “I am weary. The day was long.”

The sky outside the window had darkened in the hours since their return. Great clouds, heavy and swollen with coming rain, hung low and obscured the canopy of stars.

“You can talk to me,” said Maedhros, after a beat. “If there is something that troubles you. I shan’t make you speak about anything you do not wish to, but it can help. To get things off of your chest.”

“Can it?” A strange coldness came suddenly into Fingon’s voice. “Tell me more about how I should cope with the things that I feel. You are famously good at that.”

Maedhros froze. Baffled, and abruptly on the defensive, he said, “We aren’t talking about me.”

“Are we ever?” asked Fingon. “How can you expect me to share anything of how I feel with you when you refuse to let me in?”

“Fingon,” Maedhros pushed himself up to sit, “what are you talking about?”

“Do you know that I thought you were dead?” Fingon demanded, doing the same, the blankets pooling about his hips. “For months?”

He said it as though the words should hang between them like a struck gong, which only confused Maedhros all the more. “During the Bragollach?” he blinked. “I feared you dead too, Fingon. Do you think I was not terrified every minute of the day that Barad Eithel had fallen, and you with it? Himring could neither send nor receive word from anywhere—”

“Then you should have reached out for me!” Fingon’s voice raised to a shout. His eyes flashed, but their anger was muddied by sudden, shining tears. “Night, after night, after night, Maedhros. Every night. I opened my mind and reached out seeking yours, desperate for anything at all that would tell me you yet lived, but you gave me nothing.”

At first no words would come to Maedhros. He opened and then closed his mouth. “This is about ósanwe?” he finally said, dumbfounded.  “Finno, you know I cannot abide the risk. There are none I allow so close to my thoughts, not even Káno.”

“I am not your brother!”

Maedhros was hopelessly lost and growing increasingly furious. His aversion to thought-speech was not new, nor was it unfounded. On a time Maedhros had kept his mind open to all those he held dear, but since Angband— since his strength and his will had been so utterly beaten down he could no longer withstand the threats and entreaties of Morgoth nor the prying, icy fingers of his dread lieutenant, ready to sink inside his head the moment his guard faltered— Maedhros couldn’t. He couldn’t. The thought filled him now with panic, frigid and rising, an ancient dread that was wont to chill his spine and tighten like a serpent around his throat.

A dry sob bubbled up and out of Fingon, and he shook his head and looked away. “I was alone, Maedhros. We were utterly destroyed, and my father was as a ghost haunting our halls— a shell of a man, like an urchin picked clean. Ever more bitter and despairing and withdrawn he grew, and I…” Fingon turned back, stricken. “I was terrified, in every waking moment, that I would turn my back and when next I looked grief would have taken him, or if not grief, then his own hand.”

Awful silence stretched for a beat, two. Maedhros’ heart felt torn open by jagged glass.

For did he not understand this grief better than any? He, who had watched Fëanáro madden in his grief; he who had endured months of fear under the enveloping darkness of a Treeless Aman, convinced that if he let his attention slip for a moment too long he would look back and find his father crumpled dead upon the floor, just as he had found Finwë?^[1]

“Findekáno,” said Maedhros softly, and then, for a long while, he said nothing else. He wanted to say that he was sorry, for he was, but such platitudes were useless and trite, and Maedhros loathed to give them as much as Fingon would loathe to receive them. At last he settled on, “You should not have had to endure that alone.”

“No,” Fingon’s voice quavered. “I should not have.” He took a deep, steadying breath. “And yet I did. For my siblings are dead, or hidden so well they might as well be. And you could not bring yourself to let me know even once that I was not so utterly alone as I feared. You say you feared me dead just as I feared you, but not enough to reach for me.”

Maedhros did not want to be angry, but he could not help it.

Himring had been besieged. Every Elven kingdom was cut off from the next. The only focus for months on end had been staying alive, and keeping as many of his people alive as he could. Of course he had feared for Fingon’s life; and it was for fear for Fingon’s life that he could not allow his guard to waver.

“Do you think I did not want to?” He failed to keep the growing tightness of fury from his voice. “Do you truly think me so heartless?”

“How can I presume to know anything about you when you refuse to let me in?”

“How long have we known one another?” demanded Maedhros. “How long have we loved one another? Valar, Fingon, be rational—”

“Rational!” exclaimed Fingon with a cold, fey laugh. “Rich, coming from one so terrified of surrendering enough control to let himself be fully loved he must hide forever behind a spectre of danger that is no longer even there.”

The words struck Maedhros like a knife-twist between the ribs.

Suddenly he could not think, nor grasp onto any of the whirling emotions that rose in him like a tempest. Several times he tried to reach for a response, but each one dissolved the second he touched it like a drop of ink in an entire ocean. Maedhros forced himself to blink and willed his eyes to bring the world back into focus.

“Is that truly what you think?” he finally asked.

Fingon looked at him with cold, tearful eyes. “No. Or—” his chin trembled. “Maybe, yes. A little bit.”

Maedhros felt like his insides had been turned inside out and gone numb. Fingon came suddenly closer and put his hand on Maedhros’ forearm, fingers sliding over the twisted scar where his arm ended just above the wrist.

“Do not misunderstand me,” he said urgently. “I know why you are fearful, I do. I cannot presume to know all that you have suffered, although—” he took a halting breath, “it is a burden I would gladly bear with you, if you let me. I know it cannot be easy. But Russandol, you know as well as I that the mind of an Elda is their own. Granting access to one does not grant access to another. Opening yourself to me would not grant the Enemy passage inside, if even he was looking for a way in.”^[2]

Maedhros shook his head. His skin was hot with anger, and with shame long-buried. “You do not know, so do not presume to. We are not talking about another Elda, Fingon. This isn’t Turukáno in childhood trying to eavesdrop on a private conversation between our minds. This is one of the Powers— the very first of the Valar wrought by Eru’s mind.” Maedhros was breathing faster, but he could not bring himself to stop speaking, fury and urgency rising together inside him like a great wave.

“Look!” He threw his hand towards the window, towards the scorched plains that stretched far away into the North and East. “Look at what he is capable of! Think of what he was able to do with the might of our people standing against him, and now imagine that might turned on you.” Maedhros’ skin was crawling.

After months on end, beaten-down and drugged and too weak and terrified to deny him any longer, Maedhros had endured Morgoth inside his head, sifting through his thoughts. With Sauron it had sometimes been weeks at a time, or so Maedhros had been told— in the deep dungeons of Angband, time did not exist in a way that mattered.

“Do not tell me,” he hissed, “that the Enemy would not exploit the smallest crack in my defense to get his claws back into me, if that was his wont. Do you think I am not exhausted? Do you think I enjoy suffering so? Do you think I do not wish every day that I could be as flippant as you?”

There was nothing at all remaining of Maedhros’ mind that was his alone. No secret that was still his, no fear or shame that had not been uncovered and inspected. The Enemy knew just how dearly he held Fingon; and he knew, therefore, that if there was any vulnerability that still existed in Maedhros’ defenses through which he might slip inside and turn him, or make him once again his thrall, or fill his head with lies and terrors until at last he maddened beyond repair, it was Fingon.

Maedhros swallowed hard around a dry throat. “I cannot risk it.”

I cannot risk you. Please, please understand.

“There was a time,” Fingon said, after a long and awful silence, “when you would have shared everything with me.”

The blow was aimed low, and it struck just as intended.

The memory, shame-clouded and grey with the blanketing fogs of Mithrim, rose to the surface and squeezed like a first around Maedhros’ ribs. The very eve before he was to ride east, he and Fingon entwined in his bed in the Fëanorian camp, his hand cupping Fingon’s warm, soft cheek. Maedhros’ heart yearning, yearning, yearning, fearful and frantic with how much it needed.

Maedhros would have bound his soul to Fingon’s for the rest of time that night, if only Fingon had said the word.

“And you denied me.”

Gradually, in a change so slow Maedhros had not seen it happening until the transformation was already complete, the anger on Fingon’s fair face had morphed into raw and aching grief.

Fingon said, “You denied me first.”

And Maedhros had. Beneath a silver sky on an eve in Tirion not unlike the eve on the lakeshore, just before he was to ride to Formenos.

Fingon had been naive then to think that wedding one another would fix everything. He had been full of starry-eyed visions of a future where love might conquer all, where the feud between their Houses mattered not, where the resentments they already held for one another were utterly inconsequential. Maedhros had been right to deny him. Just as decades later, Fingon had been right to deny him.

“Yes,” said Maedhros, softly, and he found that all the fight had drained out of him.

Perhaps this was their fate. To be forever out of step; to always be either yearning or yearned for, but never both at the same time.

No further words came to either of them. What more was there to say? The past could not be unwrought, the course of a darkened future could not be changed by love alone.

Finally, Fingon let out a long, drawn breath and let himself slump against Maedhros' side, his tired eyes downcast. Even now, the warm press of his skin worked to sooth the frantic, pulsating thing in the centre of Maedhros’ chest. Even now.

Fingon tipped his head onto Maedhros’ shoulder and let it rest there, heavy. In silent answer, Maedhros slipped his hand into Fingon’s and squeezed.

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The following morning Maedhros woke to the mattress shifting.

“Sorry,” Fingon grimaced, sliding out of bed and reaching for his dressing gown. “Sorry, go back to sleep.”

“Where are you going?”

Fingon hesitated, then returned to sit on the edge of the bed beside Maedhros. “My father’s study. Or— my study, I suppose. Things have surely been piling up, and I am ready, I think, to face them.”

He reached down as if to touch Maedhros’ cheek, but at the last second he faltered. Maedhros took his hand and coaxed it in to close the rest of the distance. His eyes fell briefly closed at the warmth of Fingon’s touch.

“Mm,” he hummed, “I am glad to hear it.”

A small smile graced Fingon’s lips. “I am glad to feel it,” he confessed. “You were right— resting a while did me well.”

They had never been much good with apologies, either of them. This was as close to one as Maedhros would get. He took it for what it was and offered up one of his own in the form of a kiss to the centre of Fingon’s palm. Fingon’s smile widened a little.

“Sleep again, now,” he said, “it is still early. Come and see me once you wake.”

Another quiet hum, and Maedhros pushed himself up on his elbow and eased Fingon down into a kiss. It was only a brief, chaste thing, but when he heard Fingon sigh into it he felt a knot loosen behind his ribcage. Once the kiss broke Fingon embraced him tightly and buried his face in Maedhros’ hair. He stayed there a long while. When at last he pulled back, though the tension was not fully gone, some of their usual ease had returned.

Maedhros fell back against the sheets as Fingon padded off towards the bathroom. For a time he dozed in and out of consciousness, aware in the back of his mind of the sounds Fingon was making as he puttered about. Finally, there came the quiet snick of the outer door closing, and Maedhros allowed deeper sleep to claim him.

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Daylight, grey and feeble, was coming in the window when Maedhros woke again to the sound of movement in the next room. The shock of suddenly waking always brought a split-second flash of fear, but when the fog of sleep receded a heartbeat later and he remembered where he was, the feeling ebbed. He listened to the weight and rhythm of the footsteps, his ears twitching. Gwánthon, he determined.

After a brief moment of consideration, Maedhros rose. He dressed quickly in his own trousers and a loose linen tunic he knew Gwánthon would recognize as Fingon’s. It was too short on Maedhros’ frame, but not terribly so. Maedhros stood in front of the mirror and smoothed down his hair, loosened the laces at the vee of the tunic, and adjusted it to reveal a little more skin.

When he opened the bedchamber door, Gwánthon was busy picking up and wiping clean with a dry cloth the assorted pieces of Maedhros’ armour from where they had been left in a heap just inside the entryway. Gwánthon, ever a professional, did not startle to see him, but Maedhros still took great pleasure in the way Gwánthon’s eyes snapped onto him before sliding quickly away, colour rising to his cheeks.

For a very long while Maedhros watched him work in silence. This, too, he took pleasure in; observing Fingon’s esquire growing increasingly uncomfortable beneath his relentless gaze. At last, when Gwánthon was nearing the end of his task and seemed wont to soon make a hasty exit, Maedhros said, without mocking or ire, “Findekáno is very fond of you.”

The blush on Gwánthon’s cheeks deepened. He was trying valiantly to hold Maedhros’ gaze, but his eyes kept drifting down to the exposed skin of his throat, and the impressive trail of bruises Fingon had left there.

“I have served him for centuries, Lord,” he replied steadily, “and I have been fortunate to do so.” It was a diplomatic answer, but one that was nonetheless revealing in precisely what it did not say.

“You love him beyond your station.”

Maedhros did not leverage this as an accusation; merely as fact, spoken without true cruelty. Gwánthon’s eyes grew wide and confused. His expression morphed rapidly between shock and confusion and finally, into fear.

“Lord,” he began, stammering.

“I care not,” Maedhros cut in before he could work himself into a state. “I, of anyone, understand how easily he attracts affections. I care not for the wont of your heart; let it do what it will. It does nothing to change the fact that I have held his heart for far longer than your memory can stretch, just as he has held mine.”

Gwánthon swallowed thickly. He wet his lips, seemingly struggling to find his voice. “Lord,” he managed after a moment, “you must believe me, never would I think to come between—”

Maedhros could not help but chuckle. “That does not concern me. I raise the point only because I must ask a favour of you, and it is prudent that we both be on the same page.”

“Yes, Lord,” Gwánthon nodded rapidly. “Anything.”

“You love your King,” Maedhros said again, “though understand that you can never hope to love him as I do. He is half of me and I am half of him; not if you tried until the breaking of the world could you hope to love him even half as much as I.”

Gwánthon’s lips pressed together. He nodded in silence.

“Yet because you have served him loyally, and because he cares for you and trusts you as he does, I am now trusting this to you: if ever you grow worried for your King, or you fear that he is not well in mind or in body; if you see that he is faltering, or struggling alone beneath the weight he bears, you must tell me. Write to me and send the letter under his seal, and bid your messenger come as quickly as they can. Your King is a valiant man, and he is not easily broken, but neither is he invincible. I would not have him here shattering alone.”

Rapidly, Gwánthon nodded. “Yes, my Lord. Of course I will do as you ask, without question.”

“Good,” Maedhros smiled tightly. “It comforts me to know there will be one watching out for him when I cannot.”

With that he turned, prepared to take his leave. Gwánthon spoke again in haste.

“Lord—” he began, before hesitating.

Maedhros turned back, his eyebrows raised.

Though Gwánthon’s face was bright red, he held himself straight and proud. “Please, do not tell the King of my… affections. They are mine to bear, and I would not want him to be troubled.”

With this, Maedhros softened. He went to Gwánthon and squeezed his shoulder. “Do you not think he already knows?” At the look on Gwánthon’s face, he said, “Do not blame yourself. After all the time you have spent in his service, it would surprise me more if you did not love him so. He will not speak of the matter to you unless you raise it yourself, which I expect you will not.”

“Yes,” Gwánthon whispered. “It is as I said; never would I presume to do such a thing.”

“Good.” Maedhros offered him a truer smile. Then he went into the bathroom to wash, leaving Gwánthon standing alone.

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Chapter End Notes

^[1] In the version of The Darkening in Morgoth's Ring, it was Maedhros and his brothers who discovered Finwë's body after he had been slain by Morgoth. It was also said that after Finwë was killed, Fëanor was so anguished it was feared that he might slay himself. I love that version of the story, and I really wanted to parallel it here with what Fingon experienced in the months leading up to Fingolfin's death.

^[2] According to the Ósanwe-kenta, it's impossible to communicate with a closed mind via ósanwe. If an elf has closed their mind, not even Morgoth applying all of his power and will can overcome that barrier. However, I'm not entirely clear on how much precision is allowed to the elves here (i.e. whether it's possible to keep one's mind open to ósanwe with a specific person but closed to everybody else)— the Ósanwe-kenta says that affinity between two people can strengthen the communication, but I'm not aware of anything beyond that. For the purposes of this story, what Fingon is saying here is correct.