Mockingbird

MOCKINGBIRD

Once upon a time and in brighter days it had been Vinyerue’s gentle warmth and soft breast that would lure him to rest, her sleep-softened limbs a trap which caught him. His wife had been quick to sleep and to dream, known and sometimes teased for her distant and daydreaming demeanor. That had been perfect for him, because even from childhood, for as long as he could remember, Maglor had struggled to sleep.

He would spend as many hours as he slept tryingto sleep, with melodies and harmonies building in his mind, twined with the urge to get up and write them down. Only still and placid Vinyerue made it as easy to sleep for him as it had always been for others. If he was beside her, sleep would take him easily, pouring over him with every one of her slow, chamomile-scented breaths. Before he married her, he would often sleep beside his older brother, or as a small child with his mother. Both of them made sleep easier, though not as easy as Vinyerue would. When alone, he was hopeless.

As such, one thing Maglor indulged in during his quite-frequent visits to Himring was wasting much less time trying to sleep by just sleeping in Maedhros’ bed.

He could not recall them actually discussing that arrangement. When Maedhros had been brought back from Angband Maglor had spent many days and nights beside him, soothing him, and the basics of the practice if not the exact tone had been carried on. Maglor would journey to Himring, the heralds and squires and so forth would do their ceremony, the brothers would embrace, there would be dinner and drinking, and then when they retired, they simply retired to the same room and slept. Maglor did not have to waste four hours trying to get two hours of sleep, and he could wake Maedhros up if he started having a nightmare. In the morning he could help Maedhros fix his hair and jewels and do other fiddly things, and then they could attend to war together as it demanded them while better rested and better dressed.

The arrangement was never remarked upon except once, when one of Maedhros’ people had asked Maglor, “Prince Maglor, do you sleep beside our Lord in his bed when you take your rest?” and he had said, “I do, as we did often in childhood,” and they had replied, “Good, then I shall not have to wash the bedding in your guest room,” and that was that.

In his own house and own land Maglor often kept terribly irregular hours since he had to seize sleep whenever possible. That made him quick to leap up at signs of distress and the mountain-gap named for him was well-known for its constant alertness against the Enemy. Without needing much sleep or having any skill in keeping a hold of it, he was as perfect a pass-guardian as could be asked for. He felt like wind, quick, sharp, not fully tangible. In Himring, with his regular and relaxing rest, he felt heavier. Himring made him feel older and younger at once, more solid, more vulnerable. Strange, but he could afford to feel strange with Maedhros’ uneven, grumbling breaths on the pillow beside him.

Again, he did not recall any conversation about how to alter this arrangement for Fingon, and in truth he did not think there was any such conversation.

The journey from Barad Eithel to Himring was too perilous for most, and even for valiant Prince Fingon and his dauntless retinue it could only be undertaken rarely. The irrepressible and inexcusable affair between Himring’s Lord and the Crown Prince, which in truth had its roots in ages long before either of those titles existed or could have been thought of, was carried out mostly in letters which in theme alone could traumatize a young lordling who fancied himself world-wise, let alone the thoroughness and ardor with which those themes were expressed. (Maglor read every one of those letters that he found and sometimes recomposed them in a proper lyrical structure to subtly criticize the overall artlessness of their addresses to each other. For fun.) When in rare summers Fingon did have the time and manpower to make the trip and spend a season with his most passionately beloved cousin, they spent an amount of time in Maedhros’ bedroom together that went right past ‘suspicious’ and into ‘blatant’ and ‘undeniable’ and ‘frankly embarrassing’, according to the same house-staff that again had been delighted that Maglor didn’t mess up any bedding they would then have to clean.

Even though Maglor was often visiting Himring, it just wasn’t that common for him and Fingon to be there at the same time. Still, it happened, as it would sometimes happen that two wandering stars would be visible on the evening horizon at once, and just as in such a juxtaposition what might have seemed like a fiery issue to an outside observer did not in actuality present one to the bodies in question. If Fingon and Maglor were both there, they just both slept with Maedhros, which was fine.

He did recall that one of his own captains had once brought up the arrangement, saying, “Maglor, do you not bed with your brother when visiting him?” and Maglor had replied, “I do, as it makes it easier for me to sleep,” and his captain had said, “Which is good, because you do not usually sleep,” and Maglor had said, “I do not.” But his captain had then asked, “but doesn’t the Prince also bed with him, on account of their completely secret and frankly astounding incestuous affair that no one knows about (and I certainly don’t myself)?” and Maglor had replied, “Yes, and that makes it harder to sleep.” On account of that being a full and complete explanation, Maglor’s captain had said, “Ah,” and that was the end of that conversation.

Though, really, it did not make it that much harder to sleep. He simply left the room if Maedhros and Fingon were having sex. If it took an hour or two, well, that was how much time he would have wasted trying to sleep if he were alone anyway. Then when they were done Maedhros would be warm and exhausted and the moment that Maglor fell into bed next to him he would crash like a falling star and sleep like he was embedded in the earth.

Frankly, everything worked out great.

One such night began after a spring equinox celebration, when all three of them had collapsed into Maedhros’ bed at a late hour, expecting to drift away into exhausted and drunken sleep immediately. But Maglor found himself, after only a few seconds of relief, restless again, plagued by the syrupy sound of wine-drunk blood in his ears, whose rush and throb had begun to sound rhythmic. He heard thrumming strings above it. Low, and slowly transmuting, like the pour of molten metal into molds; he listened to them rumble and reform. He tried to pick notes out of the unripe melody and also tried to resist, always searching for the haunting power that music had before it was transformed into written song and always incapable of resisting the urge to pin it down anyway.

He heard also Maedhros’ breathing, low, and rattling, and heard it shift. He did not mark the change at first because he was focused on the blood-music, the music in his ears. But then he felt a nudge at his shoulder, and his brother grumbling his name.

Maglor hummed, sleepily, and got onto one elbow. Through bleary, sleepy eyes he saw that Fingon and his brother were kissing, and becoming entangled with each other.

Oh, are you going to have sex? He asked between minds, yawning.

Yes, Maedhros replied, half the bluntness that often came with osanwe, and half an unwillingness to be too connected to Maglor while his body was shifting its attention.

I need to write something down anyway, said Maglor, and slid off of the bed and onto his feet. The floor was cold; Maedhros did not put rugs or rushes onto the stone floor of his chambers, preferring the solid foundation. Maglor shivered as he walked across the room and opened their shared wardrobe to find a warm coat and some socks. He heard Fingon and Maedhros’ mingled breathing behind him, and considered a syncopated counterpoint to his melody; no, it was too arrhythmic for his taste.

He tied the coat around his waist with a sash and piled his worn braid onto his head. No one here would care. He did not glance over his shoulder as he walked over to the door and opened it; he could hear the sound of one body climbing onto another quite well enough, and the short gasps that followed. “I’ll be back,” he said, just so they’d recall that he wasn’t locking the door, and left.

Instead of going to ‘his’ guest room, which he never used, he stopped by the room in which Fingon’s courtesy bed laid entirely unused and stole a pen, some ink, and several sheaves of paper from him, as well as a nice pair of earrings. Then even as he was walking to the kitchens he began to compose the melody half-formed in his head with the stolen pen and paper, keeping himself from strangling it by too-quickly determining its form but instead sketching sparse chords, notes flirting, half-ideas, tensions that he might resolve.

He did not look up from his page as he greeted the people who were still in the kitchen at that late hour. They, too, did not look up from their scattered working or snacking as they said “good morning, your highness,” or “good evening, Prince Maglor” (for whether it could be called morning was a matter of debate), or even “hello Maglor” as just about everyone here was very used to him. He found some dried apples and some rolls and asked for a cup of tea and then simply joined them, nibbling and sipping, writing lines of music that slowly lengthened and deepened. The point that always came when he was writing music and, regrettably, no longer touching dream-music came, but that meant he had something to work with. Not the sound of blood and sleep and sighs, but a fine tune nonetheless.

His wrist began to hurt and he stretched it. He sipped his tea and it was very cold. How long had he been writing? No one standing in the kitchen was the same as when he last looked up, and outside the window, dawn was well on its way. Fingon and Maedhros would be finished with each other, then, unless one of them was truly taking their time, and that was unlikely considering how drunk and tired they had been. He checked himself for signs of sleep and eventually found a dull sense of fatigue under everything else in his mind.

Normally that would mean he would still have hours to go before it grew strong enough to force him to sleep, but with Maedhros there it would be enough. He brought his plate and cup to the sink and then bundled up his papers of music and, since that was where he had got them, walked back upstairs and deposited them back on ‘Fingon’s’ writing desk. He could just come back for them again if he felt like it. Then he climbed one more thin, winding set of stairs to the high tower room Maedhros had made for himself, the one that for the most part made himself feel safe.

He listened for just a moment at the door, and heard what he expected to hear, which was nothing. He opened it without knocking, and once he did, felt the wing-like brush on his face of Maedhros and Fingon speaking in osanwe to each other, low, under his head. (He could often tell if other people were speaking in osanwe, but did not feel it strongly. When Maedhros and Fingon spoke he could hear all but the words they said to each other, a tonal call and response, as if there was a window cracked open in the wall between them.)

Maglor closed the door behind him. His brother and cousin were in bed, under the heavy, warm quilt. Their eyes were closed, and they were falling asleep. Maedhros lay in the middle, on his back, and Fingon at his side, curled in.

Maedhros remained still, but as Maglor shut the door, one of Fingon’s eyes opened a crack to take him in. They looked at each other a moment before Fingon closed his eyes and snuggled into Maedhros again.

Welcome back, Maedhros thought sleepily to Maglor.

The touch of his tired voice was already having an effect on Maglor, who felt himself growing drowsy even as he took off his coat. Hello again. Feel better?

Maedhros replied, don’t ask me questions that you don’t want to hear the answer to, and Maglor smarmily dared him to go on. When push came to shove, if one of them was a prude, it wasn’t Maglor.

Indeed, after a moment Maedhros grumbled, too tired for this, with a few fond insults tacked on. As Maglor approached the bed, Fingon, too, reached out for him. He was much closer to sleep than Maedhros, so what Maglor felt at the edge of his mind was less like Fingon’s voice and more like a brief touch of fingertips. Maglor responded by batting him back and then lifted the quilt just enough to crawl into bed.

Maedhros was naked. Maglor assumed they both were. It was clear they had washed themselves before they had laid back down together, and that in itself was such a purposeful act of consideration to Maglor that it would have made him balk in earlier ages. But then again, he and Maedhros used to bathe together all the time. They still did on occasion, and there was nothing about his body then or now, covered in wretched scars, that would put him off. He settled in, not fully clinging to him but pressing his head into Maedhros’ shoulder. Maedhros grumbled and adjusted slightly, so he could give both of them plenty of room without being suffocated himself.

Good night,Maglor thought.

Good night, Maedhros responded sleepily. In the length of his body Maglor could feel his warmth and his soothed aches, the dull, settling strain of pleasure, how soft and pliable he had become for a man who was known for his unbending coldness in both battle and debate. Just as he had predicted and hoped, Maglor’s ridiculous body leached that warmth like the moon drank the light of the sun, and he felt how he was drifting off to sleep.

He could feel Fingon rustling, a little, from Maedhros’ other side. It did make him feel a dull annoyance, a petulant wish that he would just go away, but Maedhros’ warmth still worked.

His little Vinyelire would sleep between him and her mother when they all slept together. Even as young as she had been when he left, she had already started developing the same inability to sleep he had. It helped her to sleep with them, even though her squirming often kept Maglor awake and focused on her. That was a small price to pay.

But Vinyerue had become pregnant again at the worst time, just as it had been decided that they would hunt Morgoth and the stolen Silmarils across the sea. How could he have taken her? How could he have possibly? She surely would have lost the child. Surely Vinyelire was sleeping just fine with her mother. Surely she was.

Don’t think about it, Maedhros thought to him, tired, a little testy. Maglor clung to the dissatisfaction; the feeling of shame was a feeling of sinking and with it he could finally fall asleep.

--

“Give me back my earrings,” Crown Prince Fingon greeted Maglor, walking out of the freshly-blossoming spring garden with a fistful of early wild strawberries. His other hand grabbed Maglor’s shoulder and arrested him in place.

“Cousin,” Maglor replied, and took one of the strawberries. “I am writing a sung-through drama, a trite piece with no real value, a comedy of manners; the part for the villain of the piece I have written based on you, with your shrill tenor that cuts through harmonies in mind. A spinto, I think, as a lighter voice wouldn’t have the strength needed to do the character acting. Or perhaps I’ll make it a countertenor.”

“I’ll—hold on,” said Fingon, and ate one of the strawberries himself. Then, having just enough fingers free, he began trying to unhook the earrings from Maglor’s earlobes himself. “I knew it was you, you wretch.”

“A female actress doing a male role, even—quit it, you’re dripping,” Maglor complained, fearful of getting the bright pink juice on his coat.

“Then take them out yourself.”

“Who says they’re yours?” Maglor asked.

“Who says they’re mine? They do,” Fingon said, and struck one of the dangling earrings with the back of his nail. The bells that hung from the golden bauble jangled and chimed. “No one is wearing jingle-bell earrings except me, you ridiculous creature.”

“I’m wearing them right now,” Maglor countered, snatching another strawberry.

“Because you stole them. From me. Don’t leave a calling-card if you don’t want to be found out.”

“What do you mean, calling-card?”

“On the night you stole my earring you left your music in my room as well. I thought it was good, and my favorite part was when you documented every note you had heard me breathe in over the course of the evening.”

“Did I?”

“Yes, you did. You should finish that piece, it’s good, and I think could actually be weaponized in combat. Now take those out or I will.”

Maglor shook his head just enough to make the fun little jingle balls jingle. “I won’t. They’re mine, now. Sleep in your own rooms if you don’t want people going in and out.”

“You’re one to talk! Everyone does know those are my earrings. I’m the one who has bells on me. If you wear those around, people are going to start asking questions.”

“Like what?”

“‘Oh my, Lord Maglor is copying the Prince’s style now; does he have no sense of fashion of his own?’“

Disgusting. Maglor hadn’t thought about it that way. His entire goal had been to annoy Fingon. He reluctantly began to unhook them. “Well, they are starting to hurt my ears; how can you wear anything so heavy?”

“I need to show off at all possible times, else anyone feel underwhelmed or even understimulated in my presence for even a moment,” Fingon replied matter-of-factly. He ate the last strawberry and then held out his palm to retrieve his earrings, which Maglor plunked down one after the other. “I’m not naturally a walking show like you are, I have to work at it.”

“Mm. I promise you are indeed an ambulatory disgrace naturally,” Maglor sighed, curling a hand under his chin and looking down at his cousin critically. “I remember when you were almost grown—at the time we had no idea you would end up so short and thought you had a little while to go yet—and everyone was wonderingif maybe you would grow up to be a vain and contrary peacock who is also an egregious pervert. As in, there were some who still hoped it would be otherwise. Now you do not hear any shocked gasps when you enter the room drenched in gold and love-bites, but that is because we’ve gotten used to it, not because it’s gotten less embarrassing.”

“By Eru,” Fingon said, completely unbothered, examining his earrings as if he thought Maglor had damaged them or maybe slipped a tiny piece of parchment into one of the joints which when unfolded would reveal a coded but devastating insult (not that he would do such a thing), “all I do are things normal to do with a husband. You are the one I practically have to push out of my bed.”

“Your bed! It is my bed. I sleep there.”

“If in any particular bed there is a man, and when you climb upon him to mount him he says ‘yes,’ it is your bed now.”

“Astounding,” Maglor replied. “It is astounding that you would even say that. Could wargs or wolves speak, they would speak with the same poetry.”

“One of you is definitely my strangest bedfellow, but I have yet to decide which,” Fingon continued, reaching up to unlatch the earrings he already had in so he could replace them with the ones Maglor had stolen. “You’re also wearing his shirt, by the way.”

“No, it’s my shirt. We have the same closet.”

“Do y—that explains quite a lot. Frankly, I should have noticed. Well, that one smells like him,” Fingon revealed, and clutched the one set of earrings in his palm as he returned the larger, shiner, janglier pair to where they belonged.

“Then it should be washed,” Maglor noted.

“I don’t find the smell unpleasant.”

“No, I mean that he does not have what he wears washed.”

“What, ever?”

“Not until I have it done.”

“I think this reflects more badly on me than anyone else,” Fingon said thoughtfully, perhaps re-examining what he found compelling about the smell of filthy unwashed despot, not that Maglor thought he was endowed with the necessary powers of introspection. “Well, anyway,” he said, and then extended the hand with the replacement earrings to Maglor.

Maglor unthinkingly accepted the discs, and then looked at them in his palm. They were still obviously earrings made for Fingon, if not as showy as the set he had just reclaimed. “What am I supposed to do with these?” he asked.

“Well, your look is really unbalanced now, since you have studs in up top but nothing below.”

Maglor made a face. “You’re right,” he said, and put in the earrings.

“You can do with them whatever you do with all of the rest of the things you steal.”

“I never steal anything,” said Maglor, who was wearing an outfit that almost completely did not initially belong to him. “I often recognize that fine things have not been given to someone as fine as they. Or if I saw a stunning rose-bush in someone else’s garden, perhaps, and thought they were not taking proper care of it…”

“I think I’ll start spreading rumors that you’re trying to depose Maedhros and take over rule of the North for yourself,” Fingon decided, hands on his hips and gaze roaming across the field. “People are too used to princes coming and going here. We need a semblanceof that ancient rivalry or else all the drama just falls flat.”

“They won’t believe it.”

“Oh, they will; you’re such an excellent villain, Maglor, and you’re the only one that doesn’t realize it. Absolutely typecast. A silver voice that can convince anyone to do what you bid them to, unearthly beauty, and the sort of brother complex you don’t usually see outside of conniving, jealous sisters-in-law. If you would just lean into the role, you’d be fantastic.”

“I have already cast myself,” Maglor informed him. “Melancholy and brooding deuteragonist dragged reluctantly through the tragedy that the protagonist creates, slowly but surely swooning his way into death behind him. Finally my bleeding body shall be the gristly impetus for a last-act turnaround, a likely pyrrhic victory that will send the audience home wondering whether they even liked that one or not. I intend to stick in their minds just enough to disturb their attempts to sleep, as metatextual revenge. So you can’t let me die before that point or the second-to-last number really won’t have its optimal emotional weight.”

“You are the worst,” Fingon said, but he was smiling, because he liked that kind of thing. “I go then to abuse my position and generally cause disarray wherever I go; see you tonight.”

“See you tonight,” Maglor returned, because of course he would.

--

Maglor was singing. He was singing Vinyerue’s wounds closed. They kept opening up, as though some invisible blade was slicing down her palms, and Maglor sang them shut, but they kept opening up.

He was jostled awake by the feeling of a palm on his shoulder. He knew before he was fully awake that it was the hand of someone he knew, someone who was safe, but he did feel annoyed. Vinyerue fell away from him, slipped out of his hands. It was Fingon’s warm palm on his shoulder, and Maglor was on his back, in bed.

Maglor, wake up, said Fingon in his head; with his voice, he said, “Russo, stop it.”

His tone of voice got Maglor stumbling out of bed despite his grogginess. As he shifted and eventually slumped out of bed, breathy laughter surged and crested behind him.

He knew exactly what had happened. It wasn’t like he wasn’t a male as well. One or both of them had woken up frisky, and now he had to go have breakfast while he was still tired.

“Maglor, don’t be—Russo!”Fingon laughed, with a hint of offense in his tone.

Maedhroshad woken up frisky, specifically. Feeling as though he were the very patron of all aggravated younger siblings who had ever lived, Maglor slouched over to the wardrobe, purposefully snatched several of Maedhros’ favorite shirts and robes and such, and took them to the washroom to dress himself.

He did take his time cleaning up, fixing his hair, selecting earrings and rings from the jewelry-chest without fussing about whose they ‘technically’ were, painting his face and dabbing osmanthus oil on his wrists. He heard on occasion the sound of Fingon’s grating, nasal, quite awful voice behind him in the other room, but his mind was elsewhere. The clanking and tinkling of gold and silver and platinum in the jewelry-chest had gotten into him, and he was turning their clatters around and around in his head, pinning their noises to notes, shifting those notes between his fingers, turning them into a patter of little bells, a song of glimmers and gleams.

Maglor noted with annoyance that he had forgotten to grab a belt. He went back into the bedroom and over to the wardrobe, clicking a rhythm with his tongue as he went. He did hear the noises behind him but honestly did not think much of them, other than recognizing as always the stirring qualities of Maedhros’ powerful bass-baritone; the main reason someone would fall for his brother, he assumed. As he turned on his way back to the washroom he did catch half a glimpse of how Fingon was perched on top of Maedhros. The grip on his hips made it look as though he had not put himself there but had been hoisted and firmly placed.

Maglor stood in front of the mirror in the washroom and tried to decouple the lovely jewelry-music he had been working on from the low power of Maedhros’ voice, which had now gotten tangled in it, and the sound of skin sliding on skin as well. That faint sound bothered him until he assigned a note to it—a very low E, it turned out—and then though he tried not to he noted how well it worked for an undertone to the pretty clinking music, how much nicer it sounded with that sinister note under it. Like the clatter of an earring, maybe, being tossed or tugged as one wore it. The ear-drum distressed.

He felt more than ready for a warm cup of tea, so headed back out of the washroom and through the bedroom, to the door. As he unlatched it (Maedhros used double-locks on his doors) he heard the sharp voice behind him, losing control. Because Maedhros’ voice, like much of the rest of him, had been broken in Angband, it had cracks running through it, now, that exertion such as this could exacerbate, making a sound that Maglor thought no instrument in all the world could imitate. The closest sound, he thought, was a snapping blade, and he shied from imagining the symphony that would score that instrument.

He left, and walked down to the kitchen with something forming in his head which he thought he would not put to paper. He tried to write the jewelry-song that day but could not get it into shape.

--

A hand curled onto his shoulder; Maedhros’. He knew without looking, in fact had known who it was the second he entered the room. Maedhros leaned over his shoulder, and placed a slow, firm kiss on his cheek. Maglor hummed in response, but did not look away from the work at his hands. He was fixing a belt that had fallen apart, a sword-belt unhinged from scabbard, and he had to keep his focus on it.

“Sorry,” Maedhros whispered in his ear.

“For what?” Maglor asked, turning around the notes in Maedhros’ voice in his head. It glossed through half a dozen as it dropped low, and his breath contained yet more.

“For this morning.”

“Oh,” Maglor said, and sighed. He returned his focus to the clatter of the sword-belt, its music out of joint. “Listen, I don’t care if you prick him right next to me if you just don’t wake me up. I go to bed to sleep. The problem, Russo, is that I don’t—”

“Sleep. You don’t sleep. You really wouldn’t mind?” Maedhros asked, a tone creeping into his voice which Maglor knew as dangerous, a sound that even in childhood told him he had to be prepared to be perhaps pushed into a river or pelted with a snowball or have something tangled into his hair.

His head whisked around and he glared right at Maedhros. “Wouldn’t mind what? No. I would mind. Go away.”

Maedhros smiled but did not quite laugh at him. “You weren’t listening.”

“I was.”

“You were listening to the wind, or the notes in my voice, or some melodic clattering in the pipes.”

“I was listening.”

“Maybe so, but not to the words you were saying.”

“Pits. What did I say?”

“That you wouldn’t mind even if I pricked Fingon right next to you, as long as we didn’t wake you up.”

“Oh, Valar, come back for us. Put us out of our misery. Immolate me now. Just crush my head under your divine feet. You’ve taken that as a challenge.”

“I won’t really do it,” Maedhros said, innocently, “if you’re offended.”

“How could I not be offended? You have a disgusting relationship.”

“The disgusting relationship you lie down next to each night.”

“You put him in my bed. My bed. I am not moving.”

“So perhaps he and I will move to another one.”

“No, you will not.”

Maedhros backed off. “Peace! I’m joking. I wouldn’t really do it if it bothered you.”

“I know you are joking; you are a joke. Even our grandfather, whose actions perhaps have doomed all of the Noldor, had the sense to wait for one bedfellow to die before putting in a second one.”

Maedhros coughed through his laughter. Pleased, Maglor returned to his work. “Anyway,” he said, once Maedhros was coughing a little less, “I do not mind.”

He tried to think about how to say it, but couldn’t find the words. How could he even phrase it? ‘It is so rare to hear you happy, but you certainly are when his hands are on you.’ ‘I miss my Vinyerue so much, and there is nothing else that resembles having her.’ ‘Every time I hear the two of you together it uncovers a trove of sounds I find fascinating and harrowing and so impossible to transcribe that the only way to recapture it again is to hear it again, and it is not the sound that appeals but the nature if its impermanence, not the music but the fact that is isn’t music and can’t be.’ ‘I feel a closeness and comfort that doesn’t belong to me when you couple with him, and it would certainly burn my hands if I tried to take it, but I can steal slivers of it in proximity.’ ‘Everyone likes to be the audience sometimes.’ ‘I need to sleep, Maedhros.’ None of that was quite right, except that he did need to sleep.

“Oh, I am not trying to torture you,” Maedhros said, still with a smile. “I do want to see you happy, though that quest drives one to unusual ends.”

Maglor’s heart shuddered. “It is not your fault,” he said, “and you do not have to make up for it.”

“Be it my fault or not, it is still my desire. If there is anything that would make you happy, even if it were unusual, just ask for it.”

…What did that mean?

Maglor stubbornly stifled a wisp of fear and resolved to similarly stamp down fine memory of this conversation. He was good at it; the sound of ice breaking in the distance and rain falling on spring leaves and voices calling back and forth would drown it all out by evening. “A river of wine, two winged horses pulling a pearl chariot, and two smiling children to spoil sweet, and I won’t fuss about where you find them.”

Ah. He had meant to be carefree with his ridiculous responses, but didn’t quite make it.

How old was his younger child now, the one who would never have a father-name? Were they a daughter, or a son? Or had Vinyerue lost it in her grief? What if she had faded away herself? Who had then taken over the raising of Vinyelire? Her stone-faced, sorrow-hearted grandmother Nerdanel, or her other grandparents? Was she a ward in Finarfin’s court, doe-eyed and without defenders in a world of politics and power?

“A river of wine,” Maedhros said consideringly. “Red or white?”

--

On the night before Fingon was set to depart, they had an honestly overdone feast. It was really for the entourage that would be taking the long and dangerous trek back to Barad Eithel—in fact the three of them had discussed it blatantly in those terms, ‘something for everyone who has been working so hard, you know’—and so the great hall got rather raucous and crowded and Maglor spend most of his evening standing beside the fountain (delightful) of white wine, continually refilling his glass and turning the sounds of winefall into a sonata.

He had actually been planning to abstain from sleeping, as he figured it would be better to let Fingon and Maedhros have the room to themselves on the last night of Fingon’s stay, so he was honestly a bit confused to find himself falling down dizzily into Maedhros’ bed.

Had he stumbled up drunkenly? Rather he got the impression that he had just been tossed, though he wasn’t sure.

“I don’t think I intended to be here,” he mumbled, one hand perched between his eyes, curled on the bridge of his nose. He felt the bed shifting under him, with sliding whispering noises, as other bodies pressed down near him.

“Who did, really?” asked Fingon, sounding downright decent with wine softening his otherwise shrill voice. Lower than it usually was; still tenor. Maglor heard him sigh, pleasantly, and the sound of a kiss, perhaps on his throat.

Maglor used to kiss Vinyerue’s neck when she was deep in pleasure to feel her voice vibrating on his lips. He heard Maedhros and Fingon kissing each other, wet, unlyrical, and yet like rain dropping on a tree-canopy it had a music that sense and structure could not reproduce.

“I didn’t mean that I had no say in the circumstances of my existence or actually almost anything that has happened since it started. I mean that I think I intended to let you both have the bed for the night. Oh, morning, damn it.”

“It’s fine, Laure,” he heard Maedhros rumble, his voice now dipping into a rich bass, dulled by soft flesh at his teeth. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

Maglor grumbled in response. He felt his cheeks with the back of his hand; they were both warm with drunkenness. The back of a lapis lazuli ring bit into his skin with pleasant coolness, and Fingon groaned as Maedhros’ canines worried at his throat. The bed dipped down again as Maedhros was pressed onto his back. Maglor knew it was Maedhros, because he could smell his hair falling against the pillow. Fingon used scented oils (violet or cedarwood or black pepper) but Maedhros’ hair smelled simply like hair.

Reminded, he reached into the fabric of the pillow he was lying on and pulled out a coarse, violet-scented dark hair that certainly hadn’t come out of his head. It had been tickling his cheek. He dropped it off the side of the bed as he listened idly to the delicate sound that hand-ruffled clothing made, a sigh of power, surrender, permission, acceptance, and trust that even the finest lute or pipe would struggle to imitate. “I don’t worry about it,” he eventually, sluggishly responded. “I got over the fact that you two are together years ago. I really don’t even care. I don’t know what I’m doing, though.”

“That’s what I don’t want you to worry about,” Maedhros responded, his voice roughened, cut off by a sound of pleasure, maybe as Fingon began to undress him, or maybe slotted a muscled thigh between his legs. “…It’s fine, Laure. It’s fine. I want you to know that it’s fine.”

Maglor felt his hands unclench, and his head tip forward. It was as though he was sinking into the lapping waves of white wine within him. “It shouldn’t be,” he mumbled. “Nothing should be fine.”

He heard Maedhros murmur in response. He heard sounds of skin on skin, of the bed creaking and sighing. He heard his own heartbeat in his ears, a perpetual underscore, the endless throbbing that just wouldn’t let him rest.

--

Fingon stopped, suddenly, one hand pressing down on Maedhros’ bare chest and the other lifting up a thigh to spread him open. He looked incredulously down at his weirdest relative.

“He fell asleep,” he whispered.

Maedhros laughed in his throat.

“He fell asleep!” Fingon marveled again, as stunned as he was offended.

Maedhros crackled with the effort of keeping his laughter inside. He coughed and covered his mouth.

“I don’t know what I expected, but that was still the last thing I expected. He fell asleep! I’m not completely sure yet, but I think I’m impressed.”

“I told you it wasn’t sexual,” Maedhros rumbled, his voice still broken through with laughter.

“Clearly, but what is it?”

“At least affectionate.”

“I had begun to suspect that he desired me,” Fingon admitted, experimentally tapping Maglor’s arm and getting absolutely no response, “a prospect that worried me, but he clearly does not. Nor does he desire you, a prospect which I tried to keep from worrying me. Nor does he want to watch us together, which would be astonishingly perverse but fundamentally understandable, in the way that I can understand a sexual fascination with anything as being exactly what it is. What under the stars is this?”

“Well, he’s asleep, and I assume because he’s tired.”

“What is wrong with your brother?” Fingon asked fondly.

“Considering the things I have seen our kin driven to in this fallen land, is this so bad?”

“No,” Fingon said, leaning down a little so he could perch on Maedhros’ breast, “No, it is not so bad, and the more I ponder it the more I think it isfantastic. It’s at least funny, which is quite valuable. Maedhros, why are we putting up with this?”

“What, you don’t want to see what happens next?”

“Don’t I? This is all I’m going to think about for months. I won’t rest until I can write and mail Maglor a full dissertation on why his mind works the way it does. Maedhros, I think he is the most depraved person I know. Surely the most miserable. I need you to keep him safe, and preferably in some kind of contained area where he can continue to be observed without harming the world outside of him. A greenhouse, or a large birdcage, maybe?”

Maglor made a comfortable little grumble in his sleep, and Fingon had to hide his face in the crook of Maedhros’ shoulder to keep from laughing out loud.

Into that soft skin, he said, “your married adult brother is acting like a child, Maedhros, who wants to wiggle into his father’s shirts as he wears them and marry his mother when he grows up, and who is mad they won’t let him join their special hugs at night.”

“And what? Will he be brushed off into the particularly dark void for particularly weird kinslayers for it?”

“If it gets him a place next to you, he might,” Fingon sighed, but now that he was close enough to smell Maedhros’ skin, he started half-involuntarily moving his hips. He felt Maedhros exhale and stretch his thighs. “Do you think he’ll sleep through it?”

Maedhros hummed. He pulled out the tie of Fingon’s braid with his two smallest fingers and dropped it off the side of the bed before saying, “He used to be woken up by the slightest thing. It’s gotten better, but I would say, if you were too loud…”

He left off with a quiet huff as Fingon pressed his hips down onto him again. “Surely he can hear us anyway, as he dreams?”

“Did he mind awake?” Maedhros asked, his voice sinking into his throat. “Mm. And maybe he dreams of his wife, and maybe I do not mind.”

“I shouldn’t ask, but do reassure me of just one—”

“What?”

“—Just tell me I’m still of more interest to you than your little brother,” he smiled into Maedhros’ skin.

“Mm.” Maedhros began, in earnest, to work on pulling out the cloudy braids of Fingon’s hair. “Between the two of you, he is the one that really does need some extra care and attention. And you are the one that should put your cock inside me. Now.”

--

In his dream Maglor lies in a blood-warm ocean tide, which sighs and murmurs over the lower half of his body over and over again. Its maia-babble brings a message from the far shore, from Vinyerue, which laps at his skin.

He woke because of a noise, the call of a bird. He opened his eyes to see its wide, dark wings beating just outside the window before it disappeared into the sky.

It was morning. He didn’t feel terrible. His head hurt somewhat, but less than he deserved. He felt fantastically warm, half-melted; he rolled over to press close to Maedhros, but then he smelled him.

He made a retching noise in his throat and sat up. “Nelyo,” he grumbled, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Maedhros growled.

Maglor did it again, harder, and said his name louder and with another syllable. He saw that Fingon is at Maedhros’ side but not attached to him. He was on his back, limbs open, like a satiated tick.

Maedhros feebly tried to bat Maglor away. Maglor shook him harder and said his name with more syllables.

“What.”

“You need to bathe,” Maglor said.

“I don’t.”

“You fell asleep after coupling. You need to bathe. You both do,” he said, leaning over Maedhros so he could do the same to Fingon.

But, when his hand was nearly at his shoulder, Fingon sighed, “I’m awake, Maglor.”

“Good. I’m washing Nelyo, and you’re stripping the bedding to be washed.”

Fingon grumbled something, but didn’t argue. Fingon was by volume more faults than blood or bones or meaty parts, but he was someone who could and did own his actions. It came right along with never being ashamed of himself, Maglor thought, slipping off of the bed. Why would he be embarrassed to acknowledge it was his seed all over Maglor’s bed when he couldn’t be made to feel shame over it?

Maedhros got out of bed behind him. Maglor reached out to drag him to the washroom, but really, all he did was put a hand on his wrist and then start walking. They went, Maglor first and Maedhros leaving the door slightly ajar behind him. Then Maedhros stood, naked, unmoving, and with his eyes closed as Maglor fought with Himring’s equally genius and stupid piped water system. The levers always worked beautifully and one always received somethingwhen one turned the wheel that opened the flow, but exactly what came out depended on factors up to and including the day of the year, time of day, and moon phase.

“Good enough,” he sighed five minutes later when he had a decent wash-tub of decently warm water (Maedhros had been standing there with his eyes closed the entire time). “Get in.”

Maedhros crept over. It was late spring, but still spring; the nights were still cold and that meant Maedhros was still having trouble with his joints. He wordlessly accepted Maglor’s help with crawling into the water, including him bracing his thigh for a second when he nearly slipped on a little bit of water on the floor.

“My fault,” Maglor said. It was. He looked at Maedhros’ scars as he settled in, in their places just as surely as constellations in the sky. He saw how his hair had been roughly grasped and yanked, how there were bruises on his neck. He saw a fresh wound on his calf, though what had caused it was a mystery. He saw the tacky patch of semen stuck to the inside of his thighs, where it had dripped out of him. A fact, like milk dribbling out of Vinyelire’s mouth, like sap pouring out of a struck and tapped tree. Once Maedhros settled into the basin, Maglor’s eyes were drawn to his face, where expressions first of suppressed pain and slow relief blossomed one after the other.

Maglor just watched him for a minute.

“Please do not actually wash me,” Maedhros finally said.

“I am going to fix your hair.”

Maedhros did his little jerky shrug, a silent acquiescence. Maglor gathered a few things from around the room, a bottle of hair-oil tilted on its side, a bone comb, a low porcelain jar of powder, and then sat on his thighs behind Maedhros. He reached out to pull all of his hair out of the basin and drape it over the side, then picked up some cedar soap and deliberately handed it to Maedhros so he would actually wash himself.

Maedhros began to slowly scrub himself down. Maglor focused on his hair. He remembered it being almost as long as Maedhros was tall, and he remembered it being shorn nearly to his scalp. The thick, badly damaged curls that filled his hands now were approximately two feet long, but considering Maedhros cropped it himself and whenever it bothered him, there were sections rather longer than other sections, twined around and through each other.

It had bothered Maglor at first, because he had just wanted Maedhros to be the same at first. Years and years of watching and learning later he had come to understand and often love the things which were different about Maedhros now and which would not be what they used to be again. Maglor would never wear such wild hair himself, but Maedhros would and he did it for reasons which made sense to him and that was good enough.

He began not by focusing fiercely at the tangles as he once would, where Fingon had gripped it in passion or Maedhros had snarled it himself, where it had been bitten by cloak-clasps and collars or kissed by door hinges and candle flames, but by coating his palms in oil and running them through all of it, feeling, sorting it into place. He found the knots and worked them slowly, the braids that had been forgotten and turned into snags, the leaves and threads and bits of things the great red mass had swallowed up. He poured water over it and worked out the dirt, then filled his palms with oil again and began in earnest to neaten it all out.

Fingon walked into the washroom as Maglor was about half-way through that great work. He had stripped the bed and himself and so was naked and loose-haired as he went. Maglor did not really even look at him as he came in, yawned, and then settled himself into the wash on top of Maedhros. Maglor watched his red hair wiggle in his hands as he adjusted to Fingon’s weight on top of him.

“There is soap in there somewhere, and you might use it,” Maglor said, pulling the weight of Maedhros’ hair again into his palms.

“I really should,” Fingon agreed. “I am not exactly at my most princely right now.”

Maedhros rumbled, and said something to Fingon in osanwe, his hand carding through Fingon’s disheveled braids. It shouldn’t have been so, but Maglor half-heard it, syllables rushing by like leaves half-dipped in a river, not quite enough to comprehend but more than he should have heard in a thought not offered to him.

“Mm. You’re doing my job, Maglor,” Fingon noted tiredly, raising himself over Maedhros just enough to clean himself.

Many would certainly see it that way. It wasn’t wrongfor Maglor to have his hands in his brother’s hair, but it was Fingon who had just unbound it to make love to him. There were many reasonable things Maglor could have said, and he chose to say “I’m better at it.”

Fingon snorted. Maglor finally worked through the last of the knots in Maedhros’ hair and began to gather it into sections to make the sort of loose braid he favored. “Oh, I’ll just make you do mine, too. Make it even.”

Maglor’s eyes widened and his palms clenched around Maedhros’ hair.

Fingon’s mother has bequeathed unto him her rich, voluminous, stunning black hair, which when washed and air-dried floated around him like a cloud on a mountain-top. It felt like the curling fronds of ferns when you brushed against it and Fingon had never let anyonebut his husband, his sister, or his mother style it.

“Oh, fine,” Maglor squeaked.

Maedhros betrayed him by snorting with laughter. Maglor grumpily tugged his braid together. He would swirl it and pin it onto the crown of Maedhros’ head, so that it curled nicely once it dried. And then, for Fingon —stars, he could do anything. Fingon usually worked the great cloud into thin braids which he could then style as a large braid, or a few plaits, or a crown around his head, of course threaded with his golden bells and ribbons, but Maglor could fix it into waves, he could twist it and pile it, he could braid it half-way into a halo and let the ends puff out of it like a cloud, he could—did he still have the feathers and little ornaments from the midwinter drama?

“Would you like to snip off a bit of it to keep in your nest, too?” Fingon teased him, watching the shine in Maglor’s eyes.

“No, but you can leave the comb with the dove enameled on it. It would look excellent on me.”

Fingon hummed, reaching up to start teasing out what was left of his braids. “Doves don’t suit me, I suppose. Whatwas I thinking?”

“Eagles, Fingon. Eagles, hawks, falcons. Kites,maybe. You need to keep on theme. Color scheme, too. Gold eyes, dark skin…”

“Not that doves are very you.”

“Me enough,” Maglor argued.

“Songbird,” Maedhros smiled. “Nightingale, thrush, robin.”

“Mockingbird,” Fingon said instead with a smile.

“Vultures, both of you,” Maglor snapped in return. He took a golden pin from his jewelry-chest and finished Maedhros’ hair. The final look revealed his ears, one almost whole and one terribly ragged. To see them bothered some, but not Maedhros, and not Maglor any longer. Maglor reached for the torn one and gently ran his thumb along the serrations of its edge; a crest and fall, a crescendo-decrescendo. He wondered, did the shape change his hearing? Was even music different to him, different notes appealing or grating?

Maedhros closed his eyes. Fingon was nearly done pulling out his old braids, which meant Maglor couldn’t get too snippy with him. He wanted to dig his fingers into that thick, dark night too badly. His brother’s husband; once upon the time, he would have been scandalized by the mere suggestion of touching his hair. Nor did he know why he suddenly wanted it so much. The warm, heavy weight on his hands, the choking darkness of it. The sensation sounded overwhelmingly pleasant, satisfying, delicate. The sound of water running up and down the washbasin, and the sound of wet skin sliding; he would surely scream if either of them grabbed him, but he would stay as near them as he could for as long as no one said anything about it.

When he began to slowly comb out Fingon’s hair, he made alternating noises of pain and comfort in his throat so quiet that everyone had to cease speaking for Maglor to hear them. It took a very long time to fix such hair, or at least to do it right. It was when he was about halfway through the process, after Maglor had given in at first subconsciously and then purposefully to the urge to discover which tugs and twists madeFingon make noises, and how forcefully he had to pull him to elicit them, that it occurred to him that he is working with a musical device. Not as precise as a harp or a dulcimer, nor as sweet, but an instrument fine-tuned all the same. This one had had the power and precision to sing a straight path through Angband, possessed some note of compulsion that convinced even the King of the Valar to heed him when he cried.

“Maglor?” Fingon asked.

Maglor had put a hand around his neck.

Maedhros was watching him, but Maglor could see he wasn’t concerned. Since Maedhros wasn’t afraid of what Maglor had just done, Maglor wasn’t afraid either. He leaned forward to put his face for a second into Fingon’s wet hair, and though he had only done so in extreme circumstances before, opened his thoughts to him.

Thank you for rescuing my dear brother, he sang, which made Fingon hold his breath. Maglor was aware that hearing his thoughts (his in particular) was quite overwhelming for someone who wasn’t used to it. (“Like honey,” Vinyerue had said, flushed red. “Like honey dripping on my lips.”) And for… doing for him what I cannot.

I could say the same, responded Fingon, quite upsetting Maglor with the realization that his inner voice was beautiful. He sounded like strings being struck with a bow, passionately, a heart-piercing song. After all these years, what a time to thank me.

I never fully trusted you with him.

And you do now?

I suppose.

Why is that?

Oh, I suppose it’s been long enough. You would have slipped up before now if you meant him ill. I’ve given you no peace at all and at this point I would know if you had any plots or indeed thoughts at all not focused on getting between his thighs. Not that I really thought you had some kind of evil plot for him; I just thought you were too stupid for him, or too much of a bullish blunderer to handle him now that he’s so delicate. I wasn’t going to come back after every time you visited just to see that you’d torn him all up again. I can admit now that you have a soft enough touch.

And then Fingon tilted his head up to look at him, and though Maglor was not much of a visual person, he was stunned by his bright golden eyes, shining with amusement. Makalaure, you shrieking insane harpy, you have no idea how well I know you. I also trust you, and I also am thankful that you take such good care of your brother, and I love you too.

Up to his palms in Fingon’s hair and slithering around his mind, Maglor felt himself flushing as red as a ripe strawberry. He snapped his mind shut and shuddered. Then he began to attack Fingon’s hair, muttering under his throat to block out all the sweet little noises.

“Fingon,” Maedhros reprimanded, lying back in the warm water, his eyes closed, potentially sliding back into sleep.

“He started it,” said Fingon smugly.