so willing a furnace by TheChasm  

Driving off an invading dragon, it turns out, results in an obscene amount of paperwork. His father tells Fingon that he must write up his own report of the incident, and require every one of his archers to do the same, and then collate everyone’s work into one readable account: a task considerably harder than it should be, because the flawless memories of the Eldar have become muddied here, and almost every recollection seems to contradict the others.

Fingon cannot blame them. He, too, felt the freezing chill sweep over him when he met the great Worm’s golden eyes. But he does not know how to explain that to the High King and his advisers, who are waiting patiently for his report. And when he brings his best attempt to his father at last, feeling no very different from a chastened schoolboy late with his assignments, Fingolfin reads it over with knitted eyebrows and then says, “I think we had best call a council of the great lords of the Noldor to discuss the matter.”

“Is that necessary, brother?” asks Lalwen, seated as always by her brother’s side. She turned her sparkling smile upon Fingon. “My nephew has dealt with the issue very thoroughly, it seems.”

“No,” says Fingon, whose heart has leaped at his father’s words; “no, that seems wise, I believe.”

He is watching on the battlements when the delegation from Himring arrives. Punctual, as he expected. Sometimes he thinks Maedhros fears being thought disorganised yet more than accusations of treachery. Or perhaps it is all a subtle form of politicking: a way to show that he gave up the crown of the Noldor out of choice, and is yet efficient enough to take it back, should the whim take him.

Fingon does not like to think of it, is tired today of hints and implications and the way things look. Still he stands at his father’s right shoulder and greets his cousin formally, watches Maedhros kneel to kiss Fingolfin’s fingers and tries not to picture those warm lips upon his own skin. The council is tomorrow, for Finrod has not yet arrived.

“No word from Turgon?” asks Maedhros, who must know the answer already.

Lines on Fingolfin’s brow. “No,” he answers, steadily enough. “We do not expect him. Rest as you please, nephew — you made the journey at speed.”

Maedhros bows, and takes his leave without so much as glancing at Fingon. He is good.

But when Fingon slips softly into the guest chambers without knocking Maedhros is waiting for him, his dusty travel clothes discarded in a hasty pile on the floor and his long hair unbound from its utilitarian braid, his grey eyes bright and hungry.

“Eager today,” Fingon says, raising an eyebrow. “Have you even had the chance to bathe?”

“You were not so nice after the Dagor Aglareb,” says Maedhros, “blood between your teeth and all.”

Fingon smiles and acknowledges the point. Maedhros sits on the edge of the bed, entirely naked but for the shroud of hair falling across him, taut with obvious lust; and yet in Fingon’s muscles there is only a weary ache, an urge for tenderness. He comes to sit beside Maedhros, and lays a hand on his bare hip.

Maedhros’ breath hitches.

“I have missed you,” Fingon says, and he takes a few strands of that bright hair between his fingers, acquainting himself as though for the first time with its impossible silkiness.

“And I you,” Maedhros says, raising pleading eyes to his, “Finno—”

“My father will be expecting us for the banquet soon,” Fingon says.

“Not for two hours at least,” says Maedhros; “and I cannot wait—”

“Alright,” says Fingon, relenting as he knew he would, with the hot scent of Maedhros close in his mouth and nose. “Let me hold you, darling.”

Maedhros comes into his arms, near-trembling with want, and kisses him quickly, messily, hot and wet and desperate, and his fingers are at Fingon’s breeches, tugging them off, and the air outside his embrace is so very cold that Fingon shivers, and thinks that after all it will do him some good to warm himself against so willing a furnace, and let the burn dispel some of the ice that has been lodged within him since Glaurung looked at him.

"How I have hungered for you,” Maedhros breathes in his ear, “since first the news came to Himring; how many nights have I lain awake and dreamed of the way you will move inside me—”

“Not so many, surely,” Fingon says, with half a laugh. “It has not been a six-day since we rode out against the beast.”

But Maedhros tilts his head. “Three six-days, by my reckoning.”

The chill again, even in the encircling warmth of his arms. Is there nothing it will not ruin? Is there nothing he has not touched?

“Of course,” Fingon says, and dips his head to kiss Maedhros again where he sits. “O, but you are warm.”

“Kiss me,” Maedhros whispers, “touch me, I want your fingers on me—”

There were days when even this was too far for dreams to reach; days when the brush of Fingon’s lips on his skin would be enough to make Maedhros tense and stiffen. He ought to be glad, Fingon tells himself, that after all Maedhros endured in Angband he still aches for Fingon’s touch, that the whisper of his fingers across Maedhros’ scarred nipples makes him moan and shudder.

Fingon pushes Maedhros down to lie on his back on the bed and then sits astride him, straddling his hips, the press of Maedhros’ desire warm against his stomach. “Were you hard the entire ride here?” he asks, amused. “I suppose that explains how quickly you made the journey.”

“Stop talking and fuck me,” Maedhros rasps out, “be inside me — oh, you are still wearing your clothes—”

He reaches with trembling fingers for the clasps on Fingon’s shirt, fumbles them in his haze, lifts pleading eyes to Fingon until he relents and removes the shirt himself. He has been wearing more layers than usual recently, although the autumn has been mild in Hithlum this year, and when his skin is bared to the air he shivers despite himself.

But here is Maedhros tugging him down onto the bed so that they are pressed together, skin on skin on skin; Maedhros kissing him full and sweet on the lips, panting into his mouth; Maedhros flinging both of his arms around Fingon’s neck as though even this closeness will not satiate him; Maedhros shoving a small vial of oil into Fingon’s hand, wrapping his fingers tight around the glass. Fingon does not like the feel of it, cold and smooth against his palm, so jarringly unlike the warm living flesh below him. He has to be prompted to uncork it by a breathless, “Finno, please.”

It is better when his fingers, slicked with oil, are inside Maedhros; then Maedhros’ moans near-drown out the thundering in Fingon’s ears, and his strong muscled legs shudder where they rest on Fingon’s shoulders. Better to make Maedhros writhe with pleasure upon the silk sheets, to watch that flawless hair clump and tangle in his abandon, to draw forth half-coherent pleas from those warm lips that so rarely betray even a sliver of emotion. The vain young princeling Fingon was in Valinor delighted to know what power he and he alone seemed to hold over his careful, politic cousin; he revelled in it. He has not often wielded it in this land, has spent more of his time promising Maedhros that it is he who controls all their measured choreography, he who chooses when and where and if they meet like this. He has shied from any hint of dominance all these years.

And now Maedhros is quivering and helpless, prey-like on the mattress, begging for Fingon, keening for him; and Fingon must cover Maedhros’ mouth with his own hand to keep him from crying out as he slides into him.

“There,” Fingon grunts. “Can you take that, Russo? Are you strong enough to bear me?”

To his ears the words are ugly, his eyes surely flashing gold as he speaks them. But they make Maedhros melt beneath him, stuttering out Fingon’s name, clenching and gasping as Fingon drives deeper into him. “O, my love,” he chokes out, “my hero, my fearless warrior — how I ached for you when I heard what you had done, how I longed for this—”

Rare to hear such sweetness from Maedhros; but for some reason it leaves Fingon cold. “Hush,” he says, before his face can betray him, “be quiet and let me fuck you,” and he presses his lips to Maedhros’, the better to silence him. Maedhros acquiesces at once, his body pliant, the only sound that escapes him the little sighs that brush Fingon’s ear with warm air. This is better, then, the rocking of their bodies together, the slide of skin on skin, the wet kisses Maedhros deposits on Fingon’s neck and the salt taste of his sweat when Fingon returns the favour; most of all the honeyed softness of his mouth, a a nectar brighter and richer than the dew of lost Laurelin. When Fingon closes his eyes he can fancy himself in Tirion again, trysting in the hidden corners of King Finwë’s palace grounds at the Mingling of the Lights. He could make Maedhros beg, then, put his fingers and his tongue to such use that Maedhros would be left flushed in the face and trembling and then leave him like that for hours, until whatever feast or court event they were attending and he would come into his chambers to find Maedhros naked on his bed and desperate for him. He has missed those easy, simple games for many years; and now he finds he cares very little to play them.

Maedhros wraps his legs around Fingon, grasps his shoulder with his clammy left hand. “Harder,” he rasps, “deeper — fill me up, Finno—”

Fingon does not want to. There! Is that so dreadful? Is it so wrong that all he wants is to hold Maedhros close, and kiss his bare shoulder, and feel the silken mass of his hair veiling them both? But how is it that even with that white-hot blaze beneath him he is still so, so cold?

“Hold me,” he breathes, pressing all of himself into Maedhros, burying his face in Maedhros’ white neck. Can he stay here until all of him is melted? Or is there, as he has feared since the dragon’s eyes met his, some hard impenetrable core of him that will always be frozen?

It takes Maedhros some time to finish, as still as Fingon is within him, but at last he shudders and spills stickily between their bellies, and does not protest when Fingon withdraws from him. But he makes a small sound deep in his throat when Fingon stands instead of coming to lie beside him, and fetches a damp cloth to clean them up. “You are not done,” he says, sitting up, his eyes wide and troubled now. “Let me help you.”

“I am done,” says Fingon, tugging on his clothes to hide the obvious evidence to the contrary, “it is no matter.”

“Then come here at least,” says Maedhros, “so that I can hold you.”

That was all I wanted from the start, Fingon nearly says, or Now that you are sated you are tender with me, or Did you even ask if I was well? Oh, but Maedhros is so sharply, heart-piercingly lovely, his keen starry gaze following Fingon’s every movement, his lips rosy and kiss-swollen. Fingon is not so petty as to waste these snatches of time they can spend together on anger.

Clothed, he comes to stand beside the bed, presses their lips once more together. Maedhros melts beneath him, the heat of his hand where it grips Fingon’s hip palpable even through the layers of fabric.

“You always warm me,” Fingon murmurs. He hopes it is enough.

“Stay awhile,” Maedhros breathes against his lips.

“I cannot,” says Fingon; “there are preparations I must attend to before the feast.” And he makes for the door without turning back.

When Maedhros appears at the welcome banquet, neither late enough to give the appearance of a snub nor early enough to seem over-eager to curry favour with the High King, his attire is simple but elegant, the hair that tangled so as he writhed under Fingon’s touch now sleek and pristine. He knows better than to cast Fingon any lingering glances; but once they are seated, Fingon at his father’s right hand and Maedhros beside him, hot fingers brush the inside of his wrist.

All the rest of him is cold, still. But perhaps in time, touch by burning touch, the ice will melt away.

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