I Won't Bite by Agelast

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Chapter Six

This chapter contains some sexual situations. Possibly even some sexy sexual sitations. But that's pretty subjective, you might not find it sexy at all. 

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It was early winter, and they had made camp on the bank of a narrow river – more of a stream than a river, but still, one deep enough to cross with care. Their hunt had been a success, as it happened. The werewolves they did not catch, they chased off deep into the wild.

Maedhros' tent was the warmest one – the brightest lit, and most closely guarded. Oropher stole in easily enough – the guards turned their faces away as he approached. See no evil was as good a guide as any, he supposed. Maedhros was hunched over his letters, which arrived daily from all points of the compass, and did not look up as Oropher sauntered in. He did not look up when Oropher decided to test the sharpness of a certain blade and bumped into a table.

Oropher dropped it then, and wandered over to Maedhros, and peered over his shoulder.

The letter twitched in Maedhros’ hands. He hated, more than anything, to have someone read over his shoulders.

Oropher said, “Did you have to teach yourself how to write, all over again?”
“Yes,” Maedhros said, going back to his letters.

“You gave up being king. I wouldn't have. Not for anything.” Oropher sat himself on the divan, next to Maedhros, looking critically around him. “And now you have all the responsibilities of a king, but nothing to show for it. It seems to me rather thankless.”

“I do sometimes think it is thankless, when people come to me and bother me with their nonsense. What do you want, Oropher?”

“Nothing! I was only making conversation.”

“Well. I gave up being king because I had to, and because I wouldn't have made a good one.”
“Yes, kings are expected, after all, to have sons to follow them.”
“They are indeed.” Maedhros dipped his quill into the inkwell. “And what's all this about kings anyway? I should think you already had a king. You keep telling me about it, anyway. Don't tell me that our –“

Maedhros raised his eyes to him, and Oropher couldn't help but give him an impudent grin.

“Our adventures have made a rebel of you,” said Maedhros, with some satisfaction creeping into his voice.

“No-o-o-o,” said Oropher hastily, “I am as I ever was.”
Maedhros sighed, disappointed. “What you are is an appallingly bad liar.”
“We can't all be as good ones as you,” Oropher snapped back.

“Give it time,” said Maedhros absently, going back to his letters.

* * *

The days were spent like this: riding through the countryside, cold dragging at their bones. They were looking for a fight and found it. Werewolves plagued the land, growing so bold as to venture out into the daylight. They smote them down, with savage glee. They were not, Oropher reminded himself, ordinary wolves that he had some occasion to see in Doriath, but creatures of the Enemy, and remorseless in their pursuit of all good creatures, whether on two legs or no.

Nights were spent like this: passionate, yet strained by the weight of things that could not be said or this delicate thing between them would break, beyond all repair.

* * *

“But tell me about Menegroth,” said Maedhros, before letting his lips skim the edge of Oropher's cock. Flustered, gasping,  Oropher said, “Don't you ever forget yourself? Not even for moment?”

Maedhros shrugged, and realizing that Oropher couldn't quite see him, pulled away. “I only ask because I've never been there,” he said, “nor am I ever likely to be.” It was the way he spoke that set Oropher's teeth on edge. He could feel himself be persuaded with all Maedhros said and did, no matter what, as long as he spoke to him in that way.

“Oh, if you say it like that,” said Oropher, remembering all at once how many rules he was breaking to be here, to be with Maedhros, who was gazing at him with an unreadable, maddening expression on his face, both pleased and disappointed, and planning, ever planning.

Maedhros wiped his mouth, and Oropher turned away, shamefaced.

“Oropher...” And Maedhros was touching him, he was always touching him, who gave him that right? I did, Oropher thought, half-despairing, I came to him.

Maedhros' fingers were at his side, stroking him as if he was a skittish horse. He was almost a head taller than Oropher, and so he bent down, letting his hair brush against Oropher's shoulders, his lips pressing against Oropher's ear.

In a low voice, Maedhros said that he only wished to know more about Oropher, where Oropher was from. How could he not? “You,” he said, touching Oropher again, until he felt like he would burst, “did what no one else would dare, would every dream of doing. Can you blame me for wanting to know everything about you?”

Oropher flushed at hearing his own words turned against him. He said, slowly, “What no one would dare …? You mean do mean yourself?”

(Oropher found it difficult to think when Maedhros touched him.)

“Of course.”
“Of course,” Oropher echoed, feeling too lost to be mocking. “I suppose the worst you could do is have me murdered.”

Maedhros held Oropher's face in his hands. Tenderly, he said, “You're a brave and beautiful boy. I would let no one murder you. I would do it myself, if need be.” He let Oropher go, but  Oropher could not quite bring himself to move away. Then, Maedhros  threw his splendid head back and laughed.

Oropher supposed that was his idea of a joke. Maedhros' sense of humor, like the rest of him, was deeply flawed.

* * *

And yet, it could be so sweet.

It drove Oropher to distraction, the sweetness of some of their encounters, the way Maedhros kissed him, and held him, lightly, as if not to remind him of the freedom he'd lost. Sometimes, mussed and relaxed, he would tell Oropher a little of his childhood in Valinor, in the time of the Trees, a time and place so utterly different from anything Oropher had heard before. In turn, Oropher would tell him about his life in Doriath, and stories he had heard of the time of the stars. Maedhros would listen, and sometimes ask a question or two.

And as Oropher answered, Maedhros would come closer, and touch him and stroke him until he was aching hard, until Oropher forgot his words and begged, wordlessly, for Maedhros to release him.

And he would, he always would, and Oropher would slip, bonelessly against him, inhaling the scent of his skin, and fall asleep, eyes closed, for the rest of the night. Maedhros, who slept but little, and almost never in Oropher's presence, would lie still, breathing even, staring out into the darkness beyond them.

* * *

Maedhros fucked like he was fighting for his life, that there had to be a winner between them, otherwise – otherwise he would fall apart. Oropher woke up with bruises on his hips, darkening against his lightly tanned skin. He looked with wonder at Maedhros, who lay beside him, not-sleeping, but not yet awake. His arm was outstretched, ready to strike, at anytime, at anyone. 

But I love him!

Oropher wanted to say, “I know what you have done, and yet I love you. I do. My heart is given to you,  utterly.” If Maedhros could hear him, of course, he'd only tell Oropher not to be an ass.

Love, he would tell him in a patient voice that drove Oropher mad, could never be so freely given. Nor should it be.

But instead of brooding over this, Oropher got up and started to dress. The rustling of his clothes brought  Maedhros to himself, and he eyed Oropher with suspicion, mixed in part with a certain amount of affection.

“Come back, there's hours yet before anyone will need you –”

A voice, outside the tent spoke aloud. “My lord, there is an urgent message for you, from Prince Maglor!”

Maedhros was ready to receive his message in a blink of an eye, and though both he and the anxious-looking messenger spoke quietly, in their own (forbidden) tongue, the gist of the message was easy enough to guess.

A Silmaril now burns in the woods of Doriath!

* * *

Oropher slipped out before anyone could stop him. He took Maedhros' favorite horse, a milk-white stallion with an uncertain temper, and rode until he reached the Girdle.

To his great surprise, he was allowed in. To his even greater surprise, he found the kingdom in vast disarray. Carcharoth had been there indeed, slaying the party of elves that had been sent to rescue him, and then ravaging the countryside so terribly that the king himself had been forced to join in the hunt to stop him. But even the king and the greatest warriors in Doriath could not stop the beast. It had been Huan, the Hound of Valinor – Celegorm's hound, until the noble beast abandoned his master for the friendship of Beren and Lúthien – that had slain the creature.

And in its belly burned the Silmaril –Morgoth's Silmaril and Fëanor's, before him. ThIngol’s Silmaril – for now.

“It's amazing,” remarked Oropher, to everyone who would listen, “But I came so close to the thing (of course there was a hundreds of pounds of raving mad wolf between me and it) and yet...” He quietened his voice. “And yet...”

Then, he lapsed in to silence and would speak no more about it.

Oropher had, at last, learned the value of discretion.

* * *

Now, everyone agreed that Oropher had returned from the dead a very odd person (prone to strange fits of temper and entertaining ideas far above his station in life) and none were very much surprised when one day, he went missing again, never to return. He took Amdír with him, and whoever else they could persuade to come with them.

But where were they going? Across the Ered Luin, to the lands beyond it, they replied.

But why? To see what was there!

It was all very odd.

What other place did anyone need than Doriath, than Beleriand?