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"Lord Maedhros," called the young elven scout, hurrying forward with a small scroll. "You said to inform you the moment the messenger from Hithlum arrived."
Maedhros stood quickly from his desk, and held out his hand, fast enough that his scout started, and handed it over. He read it carefully, and then his head snapped up. "Where is the courier who brought this?"
She blinked. "I assume he is waiting for a return message?"
"I see," he said, and left the room with long strides. Only the sentries were on the walls, sharp eyes fixed ever towards The March and the Lothlann.
A missive, addressed to Lord Maedhros of Himring, in East Beleriand, from High King Fingon, Lord of Dor-Lómin in Hithlum, 471 F.A.:
Maedhros,
I will come.
Nay, I am coming, for I have no patience, and am faster than any messenger anyway.
So when you read this, reach out and touch me, for I am here.
Yours.
~
Maedhros threw open the door to his own bedchamber, and knew at once that Fingon was here.
The fire was stoked high, roaring in the hearth in a most wasteful fashion. The curtains were drawn, though he was certain he'd left the windows open, and best of all, Fingon was standing silhouetted in the firelight's flickering orange glow.
For a heartbeat, everything was stillness. Maedhros drank in the sight; it had been nearly two years since they had seen each other, and his dreams had grown dark again, full of shadow and flame stamping out bright lights. But here was his own bright light, and the shadows of his mind fled as if they had never been.
And then Fingon looked up at him, put his hands on his hips, and said, offended, "Do you know what your Men said to me on the way in?"
Maedhros blinked. Usually, Fingon was on him before he could close the door, with words of love and ardor upon his lips. He drew the door shut, bolted it firmly, and raised an eyebrow. "No. What did they say? And who?"
"Evidently not believing I had enough Mannish to understand them," Fingon said, sniffing at the idea that there could be a tongue he was incapable of learning in a fortnight, "they made snide remarks about my arrival--they knew me not for their High King, of course. I came in haste, and only in traveling clothes, and alone. And as I entered, I heard one rather ancient fellow telling his children--I assume they are his children, they all look somewhat the same to me--that he had seen me come in The Old Days. The Old Days! As if I am withered. And his daughter asked, 'What news does such a fair warrior bring?' And do you know what the old man said to her?"
Maedhros unfastened the prosthetic he wore, then the heavy cloak around his shoulders, amusement tinging his lips. "I do not." Though he thought he could guess, as Old Gerog loved to sit by the gates and gossip, and he knew the general tone of the old man's favorite rumors.
"He said--of me, the High King!--that it was wise to vacate the Eastern Overlooks on nights that the gold-braided warrior appeared, for he was come to be catamite to the Lord! Needless to say, I knew naught of this word, and turned to ask my escort, who turned a most peculiar shade of red."
Fingon's eyes flickered, the firelight dancing there. "Do you know what she told me, Maedhros?"
Maedhros struggled to keep a straight face. "I confess, I do not."
"She said she was loathe to speak such words to a person so august, but I was insistent--and then, under duress, she told me this is the word for a comely youth kept locked in a chamber for bed-pleasures only!"
Fingon, clearly indignant now, gestured down at himself. "As if I have no other uses! Am I not strong in both war and song, and learned? Am I not the High King of the Noldor in Middle-Earth? Do I not command the forces of the Hithlum? Do I not wear, even now, even upon my ride, the Moonstone Crown of Dor-Lómin?"
"You do, you are, and of course you do," Maedhros assured him, stepping close to lay his hand on Fingon's cheek, leaning in to rest his forehead against Fingon's. "Though the thought of having you ever at my demand for bed-pleasures is not one of no appeal."
Some of Fingon's outrage melted away at that, and he leaned into Maedhros's touch, like a flower opening to the sun. "You would tire of my attentions."
"Never."
"No, you would, for I am ever insistent."
"I would bear it. In fact, I believe I am usually the more insistent of us."
"I am limited only by body," Fingon replied, and let his arms rise, running slowly over Maedhros's chest. Even through the thick woven fabric and furs, that touch was enough to set fires under his skin. "Never spirit."
"Which of those is it that always falls asleep right after?"
Fingon's mouth dropped open. "I--"
Maedhros laughed, and covered Fingon's indignant squeak with a kiss.
A moment later, though, Fingon gripped his shoulders, pulling away, once more looking cross. "I do hope that Himring is not full of comely youths, locked away for bed-pleasures only."
"Not for my ardor, I assure you," Maedhros answered, amused. "Would you care to make assessment of my virtue since I last saw you? I can strip and accommodate such an inspection."
Fingon turned a most peculiar shade of red himself, much as the guard must have. "I do not doubt you, husband. I am merely astonished at the idea that you would allow such a thing here, or anywhere."
"That, I do not," Maedhros said firmly, and took Fingon's chin in his hand. "Lords of the Houses of Men may do such a thing, I hear, but it is not so common as the gossips would have you believe. I told you, once, that Men have strange tastes, when it comes to passion."
Still looking vaguely suspicious, Fingon relented slightly, flicking out his tongue to dart the tip over Maedhros's thumb. "You said they have a profession called 'whore,'" he recalled from a long-distant letter. "A man or maid that takes coin to perform ardent acts?"
"It is not only that of which I speak. They are...uninhibited." A tiny tremor ran through Maedhros at that; the first time he'd seen a pair of humans rutting in an alcove, clothing still on and making bestial sounds, he'd thought them orcs come inside his walls, and nearly slain them. "Not so much the Great Houses of the Edain, as dwell in your own land, those of Bëor's kin, but these rougher sorts, the Easterlings. More of them are moving into my lands day by day, and they bring their strange customs."
Fingon did not look as if he were paying a great deal of attention to this talk of Easterlings. There was mischief in his eyes, and he pulled away, unfastening his vambraces, his pauldrons, letting them fall onto Maedhros’s large writing chair. “If we were Men,” he said slowly, unwrapping the scarf from about his neck, “do you think I would be a good catamite? Or a better whore?”
Maedhros’s heart thudded, as if it were suddenly pumping far too much blood through his body. He swallowed, mouth gone dry as he watched Fingon undress. “Neither,” he said, voice low. “For you are precious to me, and I would share you with no other, and you are far too skilled a warrior--“
Fingon leaned close, and lay a finger across his lips. “Then perhaps it is you,” he murmured contemplatively, and Maedhros felt another shiver go through him, of an entirely different kind. “Ahhh. I thought so. You have a way of writing about a thing, you know, when you wish so badly for me to ask more questions, that you might lead me to a certain conclusion.”
“I do?”
“You do.”
“And...what conclusion would that be?”
Fingon’s hands came up to the neck of his cloak, and summarily stripped it from him, and everything underneath, as if all the secrets of everything Maedhros was were known to him. “The conclusion that you wanted me, very badly, to play this game with you.”
“Finno, that was nearly two decades ago...”
“Yes. But I keep forgetting.” Fingon beamed at him. “So tell me how to play this game.”
Heat rose in Maedhros’s cheeks. He should have known, long ago, that it was impossible to play against Fingon, and win. “Ah...I suppose...” But this was Fingon. He never needed to fear Fingon, or being embarrassed in front of him.
“You would call for me,” he said, finally giving some voice to the thoughts that had lit a fire in him, nearly ten years past, and had visited him many times since, in the cold nights of Himring. "For you are my lord. My king."
Fingon sucked in a breath, and stepped back. His shoulders straightened, and even in nothing but a loose shirt and riding breeches, he looked very kingly indeed. As well he should, after having the rule of his own realm for centuries, and the High Kingship for over a decade. "Aye. And I would have sent for you, because you caught my eye. How could you not? With hair like fire, and that proud look in your eye, and your legs so long."
Maedhros's breath caught. Of course Fingon would be good at this, even the first time. There was something of crackling heat about the notion of being desired by a man like this, but only for his form, for the pleasure he could give. Not cruel, not terribly dark, but vaguely forbidden all the same. "And then," he continued, loosening the neck of his shirt, unwinding his arm guards, "I would come to your chambers, my King. And you would tell me what you wished of me."
"And we," Fingon asked, looking up to make certain he was getting the game right, "have had no knowledge of each other? Are you innocent of touch?"
Maedhros nearly swayed on his feet, the sudden rush of arousal was so strong. "No," he said, the word a rasp. "I have been touched by many, in my short, Mannish life. For I am always hungry, need to eat every day in great amounts, and have no skill in the arts of trade or war."
"None?" Fingon looked nonplussed for a moment at the idea of a person so useless, then shrugged. "Well, I am a great lord of Man. And as such, I...have a wife? Or do I not?"
"You may. Or you may not, as your fancy decrees. Most lords do, though."
"Hmm. Then, yes, I have a wife. And I choose not to take pleasure in her." Fingon paused, parsing out this character trait. Then he smiled, resolved. "Ah! She is away. And I hunger for touch. My life is quite short, you see."
Maedhros tried to recall the way the few whores he'd seen had acted. He had met four, he thought, three women and one man, all of whom had bluntly offered him their services, not understanding Elven custom. More humans had offered him daughters, avariciously pointing out that he had no wife, and suggesting that he might take one of them for concubine, if he wished.
He tried to emulate the way the girls had stood, casting his eyes down, letting one hand come up to the fastenings of his shirt. Doubtless it did not have the same effect, lacking as he was in the swell of breast the women boasted (humans were so disturbingly round). "You may assuage your hunger with me, lord," he said, eyes flicking up to see how Fingon reacted. "And then send me away, once your lust is slaked."
"With one such as you, it may never be slaked." Fingon came close, and reached up his hands, pulling off the hat that protected Maedhros's head and ears from the cold. "Tell me what it is like," he suggested, "to be touched by many, for coins, and because you prefer spreading your legs to learning a trade."
Of course Fingon would understand.
"This is my trade," he responded, and ran his hand down Fingon's chest, down to cup the growing hardness between his thighs. "Pleasuring human males for coins. As such, you will find I am quite skilled in the arts of lovemaking, as I have been passed from hand to hand for many years, and have well learned how to make any man spill his seed."
A soft touch of sadness lighted Fingon's face, but he mastered it swiftly, and gave Maedhros a firm kiss. "Then come to my arms," he said, back in character as some Mannish lord. "And show me your craft, whore."
Heat surged through Maedhros, and he nodded, stripping off his shirt, pausing only to take off his boots. A moment of longing--he would so have loved to drop to his knees and take Fingon's boots off for him, but his own had a magnificent contraption from the hand of Curufin, to make them easy to be rid of or tightened one-handed, and Fingon's had no such design. For riding, he knew Fingon always knotted the laces several times over, and he had little skill in divesting him of such in his present state without gnawing at them with his teeth. "My craft lies in supplying fantasy," he said, eyes dragging up and down Fingon's body, openly enjoying the sight, even over his clothing. "Does my lord wish to feel my mouth? There is nowhere I would not use it. A great lady like your wife must be loathe to do such things."
Fingon could be led, always. His own eyes burned, and he stripped off his breeches, raising an eyebrow. "I would take my wife upon the bed. You, I think, will kneel on the floor."
Maedhros dropped to his knees with a thud. Pain flared in the one that had never fully healed, that still ground sometimes when a loose chip of bone came free, but he ignored it, looking up at Fingon through his lashes. "Yes, my lord."
Fingon threaded hands into his hair, urging his head down. "Serve your lord," he murmured.
Maedhros closed his mouth around the head of Fingon's cock, as the words sent a shiver through him he could not disguise. He'd always loved the feeling of Fingon sliding between his lips, how overwhelming it was, how it cut off his air, how a single flick of his tongue could make such a powerful warrior come undone.
Fingon brushed the hair back from his face, his gaze intent as he rocked his hips forward, slowly burying himself in the wet cavern of Maedhros's mouth. "How many times have you done this?" he asked, and if his voice was quiet, it was not soft. "With how many men?"
Maedhros shifted, adjusting his own hardness with the stump of his right arm, unwilling to let go of Fingon's cock. The words made him achingly hard, false though they were, and he pulled back, letting the head of that familiar cock rest on his bottom lip. "How many chairs might a carpenter make? How many orcs might a warrior slay?"
"How many cocks might a whore suck?" Without waiting for a response, Fingon pushed in further, effectively silencing him.
"I've heard this word in Dor-Lómin, too," he whispered, suddenly intent, his grey eyes shining like steel. "The Edain use it frequently. Don't dawdle, use your tongue, you know how I like to feel it."
Games and goading it might take to get Fingon to this point, where he began to indulge the desires Maedhros hesitated to tell him, but once he attained the mood, the effect was devastating. Maedhros ground his cock against his stump for some friction, but all his effort, all his eagerness was on pleasuring the cock in his mouth. He worked his tongue against the head, delving into the slit, dragging it up the underside, until Fingon groaned.
"Just like that," he panted, and fisted a hand in Maedhros's hair--hard, hard enough that for once, Maedhros didn't have to beg him to do it harder. "It isn't a term you would use for a friend, is it? You're no mere tradesman, you're a creature of base passion, who could not bear to go a day without taking a cock into your lovely body."
Maedhros let out a choking whimper, arousal and the thick length in his throat making his eyes water. He would have dropped his hand to his own lap, but Fingon saw the motion, and caught it before he could.
"You're here for my pleasure, aren't you?" he murmured, voice deep and low. "To serve my needs, and keep my cock warm?"
The moan that escaped around Fingon's cock was a shuddering, pathetic noise, but it seemed to inflame Fingon, judging by how much harder he rutted in, fucking Maedhros's mouth as if it were his hole, the thick head shoving against the back of his throat. He was achingly hard himself, and ignored it, bending himself to his task, hearing the sloppy, wanton sounds escaping from him with every bob of his head, as Fingon yanked him down by the hair. The rough treatment sizzled through him like fire, and tears spilled from his eyes, the discomfort and pleasure and Fingon's words melting together to overwhelm him.
"Look at me."
Through wet lashes, Maedhros obeyed. Fingon thrust mercilessly into his throat, and held his eyes. He wore an expression Maedhros knew, and knew Fingon was searching along their marriage bond--not ósanwë, just what he referred to as the place in my mind that is you--and ensuring that this was still fine, it hadn't gone too far.
If anything, Maedhros was deliriously certain it hadn't gone nearly far enough.
Apparently satisfied with that, Fingon threw back his head, hand twisting viciously in copper locks, shoving his head so far down that he choked, spasmed, and swallowed reflexively, as Fingon spilled down his throat in hot, eager pulses.
Then he pulled slowly out, not all the way, resting the tip of his softening cock between Maedhros's lips. "Clean it, whore."
Maedhros shuddered, and came on the floor untouched, his eyes gone heavy-lidded in pleasure. Gasping for breath through his nose, he licked Fingon's cock clean, bathing the head with his tongue until Fingon finally pulled out.
Fingon knelt in front of him, the Mannish persona gone in a heartbeat, stroking his face. "I didn't hurt you, did I, beloved? It wasn't too much...in implications?"
Maedhros let out a shaky laugh, and shook his head. "Just the right amount. If we ever wish to do such a thing again, we have worked out the quirks, I think. Like Curufin's first drafts of his fine projects."
"And you are fine indeed," Fingon told him very seriously, and kissed his brow. "Now, come to bed. The Lord of Himring should not spend the night on his knees on cold stone."
Maedhros nodded, and waited until Fingon turned away to climb to his feet, not wanting him to see the first failed try, the twisted position so he woudn't have to put pressure on his stump, the locking up of his knee. But he was a warrior, and a son of Fëanor no less, and bore it, and hid it, and was standing by the time Fingon beckoned him forward. "Take off your shirt," he said, shaking his hair out of his face.
Fingon paused. Then he frowned, and said, "No, sit, your hair is a mess, and not just from me. Honestly, it looks awful, I should have said something sooner."
Maedhros waved this away. "It has been long since I had anyone to braid it. I comb it, and fix it in a tie when I am on the walls in the wind. That is enough."
"But it's so beautiful."
"But I care not. I care only for its beauty because you will see it again one day, and deserve your joy in the sight. Though, had I known you were coming, I would have beautied it for your pleasure."
Fingon huffed, and grabbed a comb from his desk. "Nonetheless, you will sit, and I will fix you."
Would that you could, in so many ways, my love.
Instead of that, he just teased back, "Take off your shirt, and you may do as you wish. I want a view."
Again, Fingon paused.
Apprehension flared in Maedhros's chest, and the humor vanished. "Take off your shirt, Finno," he repeated, more quietly.
Fingon saw, and gave him an exasperated look. "I was going to tell you," he warned. "But you looked so beautiful, and I was so distracted, I didn't want to spoil the mood."
Then, moving with a slight grimace (how had Maedhros not noticed? Had he been so distracted himself?), he stripped off his shirt.
Maedhros knew Fingon's skin better than he knew his own, and loved it far more. Darker than his own, smooth and unblemished, soft to the touch but covering hard muscle, he had kissed every inch of it.
And now, it was marred.
Something sick, hot, and dark welled up inside of him, some part of him he had not heard from in centuries. "That is a wound from a poisoned orc-arrow," he said, tone flat.
For so it was. He knew the look of such a wound all too well. Many of the captives in Angband bore similar marks. The wound was a puckered hole, the skin raised all about, just beneath Fingon's lowest left rib. Just above the kidney. "When?" he asked, and heard his own voice sound hollow.
"A few months hence." Fingon affected to sound casual, but Maedhros knew that tone. He'd heard it in his own voice too many times not to recognize the sound of someone once unmarked, disgusted by his own marring. "I didn't want you to...well..."
Maedhros's left hand itched for the hilt of his sword. So did his right. That didn't happen often anymore. "What healer left you in such a state?"
Fingon grimaced, and determinedly set about combing his hair, as if that would distract him. "A band of them came as far as Ered Wethrin. They came upon us in the night when we were making camp. My chief healer was taken, as were several other soldiers. I, and three others managed to escape."
"Finno!" Maedhros's voice cracked, and he turned, eyes wild, grabbing for Fingon's arm. "You told me naught of this in your letters! Why?"
"By the time there was aught to tell, it would have done no good!" Fingon shrugged, biting his bottom lip, looking rather more like a youth who had been caught stealing sweets than a King in his own right. "We found a small settlement of Men nearby, and they had an herb-woman. She kept me from passing, and got me hale enough to make back for Hithlum. By then, there was little the healers could do about the mark."
Beauty, marred. Courage, unrewarded. Fellowship, unreturned. Why should these be the hallmarks of life for one so great as Fingon, son of Fingolfin? It must be a design of the Enemy, Maedhros decided, and bent to kiss Fingon's lips, with a soft brush of his own. "Then come to my bed. It will be lost in a sea of marks."
~
"When do you have to leave?"
They lay together in the darkness, Maedhros's hand stroking Fingon's braids, playing delicately over the curve and point of his ear, brushing over his jawline.
Fingon sighed, and wrapped his arms more tightly around his husband, burrowing into his chest. His lips rested upon a scar, but that was hardly possible to avoid, and he didn't seem to notice. "In the morning."
"You did not ride all the way to Himring for one night," Maedhros said, aghast.
"Mm. I did, though."
"Finno, even for you--"
"Mm, fine, I didn't. Well, I did. But I didn't intend it." Fingon's eyes flicked up, catching his. "I have had dark dreams of late. They compelled me to come and see you, out of a fear I could not name. But the last few nights on the road, I have felt very strongly that I must be back in Hithlum, before the Union."
A qualm stirred in Maedhros's chest. "Let me give you companions."
"No, no, I'll be fine," Fingon assured him. "I travel fastest alone. And alone, I can cut through Doriath and avoid the gathering siege."
"You cut through Doriath? And the Hidden King?"
Fingon beamed at him. "He likes me just fine."
"Of course he does," Maedhros said with a sigh. "Everyone likes you."
"This might have escaped your notice, cousin, but I am quite charming."
"If you think it escaped my notice, I did not take you hard enough."
"And if I say you did not, and you should try again?"
"Then I think you will find it most uncomfortable to leave in the morning as planned, cousin."
"But leave in the morning, I must," Fingon said with a sigh, and rested a hand on Maedhros's chest, stroking his skin. "Loathe as I am to abandon the peace of your bed for dreams of war, I feel I have no choice."
Another thrum of disquiet rippled through Maedhros. "War? Not merely dark dreams?"
Fingon closed his eyes, and his hand stilled. "War," he confirmed.
He spoke no more, but neither of them found sleep.