A Great Friendship in Every Need by Urloth

---

Chapter 1

Alrighty! Welcome to the dubiously romantic tragedy I never knew I wanted to write. It snuck up right behind me between writing a slash version of Miriel and Finwe and a black-haired!Legolas story and stabbed me in the back as all good Feanorian stories too.

 

For your safety and comfort please mind the following warnings: there will be an AU backbone with a canon ribcage, some mind breaking to allow this, badly written smut and probably too much of it, an older woman, gender issues ('issues' doesn't quite cover it though), questionable morals for everyone, magic, a giant dog, legitimacy issues, a distinct lack of dresses, purposeful ignoring of later corrections to the silmarillion, dub-con if I can make up my mind about it, possession and of course death (because it's not a tragedy without death.)

 

Oh and really lame swearing because I don't know any good middle-earth style curses. 

---

The soft, cat like noise accompanied by the sudden tenseness of his men should have been a warning for Findaráto to flee. Honour kept him where he was. Instead he turned and kept his smile placid,  though he winced internally at both the throb of his bruises and also the fact that it was the louring, coal black eyes of Turkafinwë (no, call him Tyelkormo as he had asked) that he was now looking into.

Tyelkormo was the only one of Finwë’s many descendants to inherit his eyes but their shared grandfather’s gaze had been permanently serene like two dark pools of water. Tyelkormo’s gaze was rarely serene and was more like looking out into the darkness, knowing something out there was staring back and waiting for you to let your guard down so it could strike.

His cousin’s full lips were thinned and the pinched corners were turned down in a scowl that, after only half a sun-year of his residence, Nargothrond knew they should avoid.

“Yes cousin?” Findaráto forced himself to ask, wincing at the pain in his throat when he talked. All he wished for was a bath, a long one, and then to fall into his bed and sleep the deep sleep, not just walk in reverie.

Tyelkormo opened his mouth and then shut it, his gaze fluttering over Findaráto and taking in the new dents to his armour, the little rips in the clothing beneath …and the smell. Findaráto watched his cousin’s nose begin to delicately crumple and wanted to laugh. He did not though because he could not deal with Tyelkormo’s temper right now.

“Morgoth constantly stirs the waters,” he commented lightly instead, “and his orcs do not seem to know what baths are.”

For a heartbeat something else stirred. At the mention of the great betrayer, like a sleeping dog sometimes snaps its jaws at the prey that only exists in dreams, the Oath of Fëanor caused Turkafinwë’s eyes to glow briefly with a scintilla of dangerous fire before the fire died and Tyelkormo inclined his head in agreement.

“He will never cease until he returns to the void where he belongs,” Tyelkormo agreed in low, smooth tones that pleased the ear and air alike. “As for the bathing habits of his minions… I can only hope that yours are better and offer to help with your hair since you are swaying on your feet.”

Findaráto did not lick his lips nervously, though he wanted to, and considered the offer very carefully. A great many things Tyelkormo offered were two edged swords. On one hand, it was not an unusual offer from one of the Fëanorians who had all been raised with less social modesty then most. On the other, it meant that Tyelkormo had something to say that could not wait, and perhaps needed privacy. The thought of what it might be made his stomach twist with stress.

“Come now Findaráto, you can’t be feeling modest can you? I’ve helped you wash before…”

“When I was a child,” he had to remind his cousin, who gave a rippling shrug and a slight sneer.

“I doubt very much has changed. You!” He pointed a long, sharp finger at a passing servant, who froze like a deer before a huntsman. "Go get a ginger and honey posset for your lord’s throat and bring it to his rooms.” A hand on Findaráto’s elbow was already tugging him away from the remnants of his men who had lingered in spite of the Fëanorian.

He spared a moment to worry that Tyelkormo knew the route to his private rooms so well.

“How many songs did you sing?” Tyelkormo pushed him inside as his body stalled, and his armour began coming off at a dizzying speed.

“Twelve…” he rasped, and cringed at the increasing roughness of his throat before a cough forced a proper moan of misery from him at the hot, raw feeling of his vocal cords. There had been songs of bodies rending, songs of breaking swords, of weakened limbs, of sudden blurred sight. And many other songs in amongst those: songs he wished he didn’t know.

“Amazing.”

There was a rumbling in the walls as the dwarven plumbing delivered water into the bathing room’s tub and he stripped himself of his own clothes lest Tyelkormo take that upon himself to do as well.

“Your voice is a magnificent weapon cousin.”

As is yours, he thought but did not let his cousin hear that little piece of mental backtalk. He used a pitcher to wet his body and lather it with soap as he waited for the tub to fill, and listened to the noises of Tyelkormo moving his armour onto its stand so it could be cleaned later. It was a relief in some ways. He and his brothers had not been raised to be as skin-sure as his cousins and he felt awkward just to be naked with someone in his rooms despite the bathroom door being firmly closed with no way of Tyelkormo seeing him naked. 

In the bedroom a door clicked open and he tensed.

Please don’t let that be Curufinwë, he thought and even crossed his fingers. He avoided his uncle’s fifth son for most of the reasons that he had avoided his uncle, and his list of reasons to avoid Fëanaro would have filled a weighty tome if he had ever decided to put them down on paper. 

There was a soft whine and he heard claws on stone. The tension immediately melted out of his shoulders and he straightened up from the slightly hunched posture he’d automatically taken at the mere thought of Curufinwë being in his rooms.

“Ah, you have brought the map with you. Thank you, my friend; I would be lost without you.”

Findaráto’s eyes rolled a little as his cousin crooned over Huan and he returned to washing his body only to jump as the door creaked open. Huan slipped into the room with a slight pause as the wave of warm air fluffed out his wiry fur and gave Findaráto an alert look, long tail sweeping gently against the floor and disturbing the gathering steam.

When he didn’t move, soap still in hand, the hound gave him a long pointed look and trotted over to press a cold wet nose against his back, herding him into the tub. He got the distinct feeling his cousin’s companion was scolding him given the set of Huan’s ears and the slight nip to one ankle he received.

“I was right. Nothing has changed.” Tyelkormo  had slipped in behind Huan and poured a pitcher of water over Findaráto’s head before he could reply.  The bar of soap that Findaráto had used on his body was dismissed when Tyelkormo noticed the debris that was now embedded in the soft tallow.

“At least this time it’s not horse apples though.”

Tyelkormo’s hands gently worked a new bar soap through Findarato’s thick gold hair with a patient ease that was so at odds with his usual demeanour. Findaráto did find himself squirming a little at the embarrassing memory of having this done to him at a much younger age in one of their grandfather’s fountains after an incident involving Curufinwë and the manure heap behind a stable.

“Or gutter slime, slugs, apple preserves or glue” his cousin mused, and left the lord of Nargothrond to wonder if Tyelkormo kept a mental record of all the embarrassing incidents that had occurred in Findaráto’s life. Possibly, Tyelkormo had been witness to most of them since they only seemed to occur at the constant (for the hope for family unity of their grandfather sprang eternal) and acutely chaotic family gatherings when the offspring of all three Finwion’s were forced to interact.

Findaráto had not been the only one who had found these occasions to be not worth the effort to even get up the morning of them. He had just been old enough to recall the time when Matimo, still in children’s smock, had climbed a tree in desperation to escape the hounding of a toddler Sarafinwë, upsetting a nesting hawk which in turn had somehow lead to the destruction of three flower beds, a bird bath, nine of ten balustrades holding up the balcony railing which in turn had been turned into a make shift table with the lunchtime spread and finally their grandfather’s boots. Findaráto himself had somehow wound up with the discarded nest and all the mess in it on his head.

“Hold still,” a hand slapped his shoulder without any force but simply to get his attention, “there is a clum… oh sweet mother of Manwë, Findaráto, why is there a bone imbedded in this?!” He hissed a little as his scalp was tugged on when Tyelkormo’s clever hands attacked the part of his mane that he’d felt dragging with unfamiliar weight since the skirmish and soon it eased though the water of his tub was turned a septic looking brown-green and he had to leave it while it emptied and refilled, blessing dwarven plumbing the entire time.

As they waited for the tub to replenish, Tyelkormo set the small shard of bone to the side and, with Findaráto sitting on stool and enduring the attention, worked the soap through Findaráto’s hair again. Tyelkormo used the pitcher he had used before to clean the strands and sluice the water away down the floor drain with a small moue of utter disgust at the things he could see in it.

“You don’t have to do this,” Findaráto thought to belatedly protest as he slipped into the tub again and Tyelkormo knelt behind him with a bottle of oil to work through the cleansed mane of gold. He got the justly deserved dismissive snort from his cousin who was working the oil into the ends of his hair towards the roots. He relaxed again, eyes sliding to half-lidded as fingers began to kneed his scalp and very carefully find the slight bumps and bruises where his helm had not quite deflected the entire force of a blow.

“You are good at this,” he commented after a lazy while, more to keep himself from falling asleep in the bath and thereby open himself up for mockery from his cousin then for any conversational purpose.

“It was my job when we used to get Curufinwë and Ambarussa into the tub; Carnistir would wash their feet and hands thoroughly,” the voice near his head was distracted and he felt Tyelkormo carefully skirt a cut near his temple, a sudden cool spreading sensation telling him that a dob of salve had been applied “while Makalaurë and Matimo took care of the rest and I would wash their hair. Ambarto was a good child and would clean himself and only needed a little help but with the other two… it was the only way to clean them effectively else they’d escape before they’d touch the water.” Tyelkormo’s fingers avoided a bump on his head with a slight sympathetic grunt as Findaráto hissed at the aching throb of the tender skin all around it.

“I would have thought that the twins would work together,” the knots in Findaráto’s hair were easing, he could feel by the weight, and most of it now lay over the side of the tub where it would not get wet while Tyelkormo wrestled with the final few tangles.

“They did in most things but Ambarto…” there was so much mourning and pain in Tyelkormo’s voice, his fingers stilling in Findaráto’s hair for a moment and through the thin strands still held Findaráto felt Tyelkormo’s hands tremble minutely, “…but Ambarto loved the water, be it to swim or to bathe and he would give us no trouble.”

“And where were your parents when all of this bath time battling was happening?” Findaráto wondered, and then shuddered abruptly when Tyelkormo’s hands slipped down and spanned the back of his neck, kneading there forcefully untill, with great reluctance, the tightened muscle abruptly loosened and the rising ache in Findaráto’s temples abated.

“Napping after a day spent chasing after seven sons before they had to serve dinner,” Tyelkormo finally pulled his hands back and Findaráto felt strangely bereft without the warm, relaxing touch.

“Why did you not have sons yourself Tyelkormo?” Findaráto asked, unsure of how to approach that statement. Tyelkormo’s tone was light and airy but he knew that their father’s death and mother’s earlier abandonment were still gaping wounds neither talked openly about. Findaráto felt Tyelkormo had already strayed as close to his emotional wounds as was healthy just by bringing up Ambarto and did not wish to cause his cousin any further misery by causing him to recollect happier times. Thus Findaráto sought another topic but he must have asked it too abruptly because it caused his cousin to pull up sharply. Findaráto turned about in the tub and stared at his cousin who was staring back down at him with his eyebrows creased together and his lips pinched unhappily.

“Why do you ask?” Tyelkormo asked after a moment, his cousin carding his own fair hair back from his face and making the bright opal studs in his lobes flash with fire. Findaráto belatedly recognised them as part of the begetting day gift Finwë had given Tyelkormo when he had come of age and wondered if the corresponding circlet, necklace, rings and anklets had been lost. Had Tyelkormo been wearing the studs when he was forced to flee with his people from Himlad? How else would the studs have survived?

“You had many female admirers,” and lovers if rumours had been correct, “yet you never married. You have always shown a great love and patience for children as well, one that you never give to adults, yet you never begat children yourself.”

“I like children,” Tyelkormo agreed, “because they are animals at heart. They are easy to deal with and their minds are simple to understand. Once they are adults I usually find them repugnant and boring.” He raised an eyebrow at Findaráto’s expression and reached for a towel, snapping it open pointedly and looking away, to the lord’s relief, till Findaráto was wrapped securely in it.

“As for why I did not marry… my mother did not wish for me to marry.” The strangeness of this admission shocked Findaráto silent for long enough that he was seated and digging a spoon eagerly through the grace of his posset to reach the soft custard beneath before he thought to ask why.

“Why what?” Tyelkormo was holding up a map and had been explaining something to him but Findaráto’s ability to concentrate on anything serious had joined the rest of his abluvion down the drain. All he knew that there was an awful amount of red ink on the map. Too much red ink.

“Why did your mother not wish for you to be married?”

There was a potent silence and rage painted red across Tyelkormo’s cheek bones before, in a tightly controlled voice, he asked: “Have you heard anything of what I just said?”

Findaráto tipped the posset pot in his hands and drank down the hot, potent drink that had been beneath the custard and grace that poured from the spout. “No cousin,” He replied bluntly, throat much relieved by the heat and spice of the drink, never mind the alcohol, “for I have not slept in four days.”

The anger drained from his cousin like there was a tap and a long silence spread itself around the room while they considered one another, Findaráto blinking more than needed as the dwale of the posset worked upon him and made him yearn for his pillows.

“Sleep then cousin…” Tyelkormo sighed “…and I will leave the missives here for you to read when you are able.”

“Missives?” A large yawn shook him in that moment.

“Missives. From our dear cousin and king along with the map…” the far too red map was gently waved near his face “…of Morgoth’s movements.”

Oh dear, that did seem important, how could he have missed that Tyelkormo was walking about that?

“Bed cousin.” Tyelkormo’s voice was stern as Findaráto reached for the letters and had them drawn out of reach. “There is nothing there that needs urgent reply else it would have been in a private letter and not one meant for whomever it reached first.” He let himself be manhandled into his bed, sleep like a fishing hook and he the bait on it.

“You smell like mint” he thought to mumble as his cousin’s long braid slithered over his shoulder and swung near his face just for a moment, close enough for him to smell the oil Tyelkormo used in his hair. His nose wrinkled. Mint did not suit Tyelkormo.

“And you are too old to pull a tantrum over someone changing the scent they use, like you used to pull on your poor mother.”

“Orange blossom made her smell like fruit cake. I hate fruit cake,” he protested, but the door was swinging open and the only reply he received was a swipe of Huan’s tongue on his hand where it dangled over the edge of the bed.

“Huan come!” There was a canine sigh, the gentle tik of claws on stone, and the door clicked shut. He lay there, not quite asleep, and his eyes fell on the missives and the map where it lay on the desk. He really should read them now, he thought, but his body didn’t even twitch against the mattress and his eyes were sliding half lidded.

“He didn’t answer the question,” Findaráto realised in the final second before his consciousness happily shut itself off.

 

---

Chapter End Notes

Celegorm + opals must be credited to Spiced Wine. I've been unable to disassociate him with opals (amongst other things) ever since I read her version. Ahh. Opals. <3