Five Times Caranthir Fought With His Brothers (And One Time He Didn't) by grey_gazania

IV

"Thank you ever so much, Carnistir," Maedhros says, once the door to Fingolfin's council room has slammed shut behind them. "That is exactly what we needed. In three sentences you managed to insult our cousins--"

"Half-cousins."

"Our kin," Maedhros snaps. "You insulted our kin, insulted the king of Doriath, undermined our efforts at an alliance – what were you thinking?"

"I ran out of happy primes," he says. His brother's anger is a vice, squeezing the air from his lungs, and he knows his face must be as red as his mother named it.

Maedhros grabs him by the shoulder and shoves him into an empty room. "This isn't a joke!"

"I wasn't joking." He wrenches himself from his brother's grip and turns to glare at him. "Maybe you could laugh his insult off, but I can't. The way he simpers and smirks, you'd think he was Thingol's subject!" Angrod's thoughts have always been painful, from the very first time they met, but his slick obsequiousness in the council made Caranthir want to scrub his own skin raw to rid himself of it. "We may be dispossessed, but at least we still remember that we are grandsons to Finwë!"

"I doubt Angaráto has forgotten that," Maedhros says. "He's simply being a damn sight more diplomatic about it than you'll ever manage. Or he was, until you opened your mouth." He deflates with a sigh, and his voice is quieter when he says, "Mark my words: you'll regret that soon enough. We all will."