Remembrance Is All by Agelast

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Fuck With Dynamite

Finrod/Curufin. Explicit. Finrod takes a walk, Curufin works late, and nothing is ever the same again.

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He woke with his lost brothers’ names still burning on his tongue. Blindly, he stared at the ceiling, at the white gemstones that were meant to mimic the stars in the night sky. His body, his heart ached, victim to some phantom pain. With a sigh, he pushed aside the bedsheets and got up. His only thought was to leave behind his stifling bedchamber, though the echoing halls that replaced it gave him no great relief.

Finrod went down a broad flight of stairs, to the workshops below. Nargothrond slept on, and it was easy to pretend that he was the only living creature here still, as it had been in the first days there. The workshops were as quiet as the halls had been. The air hardly stirred as he passed, and still smelled of dust and paint, and sharp scent of metal.

No diligent apprentice had thought to spend his midnight hour here, and for that, Finrod was grateful. Here, he could work, alone, and beat back the old ghosts for a little while longer. With that in mind, he came to a table and picked up a chain that lay there. The chain was light and of an unremarkable alloy. It wrapped around his hands, for a moment, he wondered what it was meant for. Surely, given its plainness, for work, rather than decoration.

The jangle of links clinking together was interrupted by a distant clang of a hammer.

Finrod tilted his head, listening. Perhaps he was wrong about the diligence of some apprentices. Curious now to see, he turned the corner, and opened the door that separated the common workspaces from the private ones. He followed the sound down the hall, until he came to the workshops that had been claimed by the Fëanorions and their followers.

As he opened the door, he saw a figure bent down to retrieve something that had fallen to the floor, dark hair falling over his face.

Finrod knew, as a point of fact, that young Celebrimbor often worked here, late into the night and early into the morning, forgetful of meals and sleep, or the need for conversation. Celebrimbor was already was more dedicated, and say, more obsessed, than any other craftsmen in Nargothrond.

It had taken a great deal of concentrated friendliness on Finrod’s part to crack open Celebrimbor’s shy and cautious exterior, but the effort had been well worth it.

But a light greeting died in Finrod’s throat as the figure turned, to reveal not Celebrimbor at all, but his father, Curufin.

Curufin’s hair was unbraided, it fell on his shoulders and down his back; he had only just pulled it loose, the tie was still in his hand. Like Finrod, he was still attired for sleep, and wore a light cotton shirt, with fawn-colored breeches along with it. His face betrayed no surprise to find Finrod here.

Instead, he bowed, and greeted Finrod, with no trace of mocking in his voice.

“Atarinkë,” Finrod said, “what are you doing?”

It was the wrong thing to say, of course, for Curufin took a step back, as if to hide what was on the table behind him. Then, his hands, quick and clever, flew to his chest, palms up. He beckoned. “Come closer, I’ll show you.”

Finrod did, though in the back of his mind, he wondered if that was not a mistake. There were knives, laid out neatly in a row on Curufin’s worktable. The blades were missing their handles, and had not yet been given their final sharpening, but still they gleamed dangerously, sharper than the most unkind thought. Finrod had the most terrible urge to touch them, to test them. “You are trying to replicate Angrist?”

Curufin stood next to him, radiating cool satisfaction. “So I don’t have to explain, good. Yes, I am.”

“And your results?”

“So far inconclusive, you can see that they are not yet finished.”

Finrod nodded, and placed a finger gently on the edge of a blade. Curufin came close, bumping his shoulder against Finrod’s.

“Careful,” he said, his lips brushing against Finrod’s neck, a breath tickling a lock of his hair.

Inevitably, Finrod’s finger slipped, and a drop of blood, red as a ruby, bloomed on his forefinger. He hissed, more in surprise than pain and stuck the finger quickly into his mouth.

Curufin shook his head, apparently saddened by his cousin’s carelessness.

“Why are you carrying around that chain?” he asked, and Finrod noticed at last that he still held it in his hand.

“Perhaps I would like to tie you up,” he said, laughing with humor he did not feel, and instead of laughing along and letting the awkwardness pass, Curufin tilted his head, as if to consider it.
“What would you give me, if I let you do that?”

“What? Nothing,” Finrod said, a little astonished.

Curufin drew up his brows, and looked as if he wished to argue the point, but instead he said, “What you would have from me, dear cousin?”

“I require nothing, just now,” Finrod said, and suddenly in his mind’s eye, he saw himself and Turgon as boys, as they raced away from Curufin, a little younger and already pale from spending every waking hour side-by-side with his father at the forge. Now, Turgon was a memory more than a living person, and here stood Finrod and Curufin, confronted with their kinship, but not friendship, which, in fact, had never existed between them.

To his everlasting shame, Finrod had never tried to befriend Curufin as he now did with Celebrimbor.

Finrod shook his head, ruefully.

After a moment more of consideration, Curufin seemed to lose interest in him. Instead, he turned his attention back to his project. Carefully, he covered the blades with a soft cloth, and put them in a flat wooden box.

He said, his voice matter-of-fact, “I will give you one, when they are finished.”

“Ah -- thank you.” Finrod stood awkwardly by as Curufin arranged his workspace to his pleasing. He was at loss as to what to say. I am sorry we did not include you in our play. It was just that you looked so much like our uncle, and he terrified us, even then.

“I did not need to play,” Curufin said, and Finrod wondered if he had spoken aloud.

“But do you wish to do it now? To play?”

There was a strange light in Curufin’s eye, a promise of things that Finrod could only begin to guess at. “If we did anything now, it would no longer be for play.”

Finrod could only agree, and he bent down, almost without thinking, and kissed Curufin in the mouth. Curufin’s lips were thin, severe, he had all of Fëanor’s beauty, but pared down, eroded with time in ways that Fëanor could never be. He was rough, biting hard against the soft flesh of Finrod’s lower lip.

But Finrod did not cry out, he did not pull away. The last person he had kissed had been Amarië, and that had been gentle and regretful, full of longing for the time they no longer had.

This was nothing like it. They tottered together, hands clutched to each other’s sides, and Finrod had a brief fantasy of taking Curufin to the floor, among the dust and stray pieces of metal and stone, to change that mocking smile on his cousin’s face into something altogether different. But before he could do so, Curufin led him to a little chamber off of the main workshops, a place Finrod vaguely remembered looking into, when Nargothrond was being newly delved. A few narrow cots took up the west wall, intended for craftsmen who wished to rest briefly, before going back to work.

Finrod pushed two of them together, and shoved Curufin down. Curufin complied with a hiss of satisfaction, and his legs, muscular but lean, wrapped around Finrod.

Finrod was still content to touch, to explore, until a distant part of his mind called out -- but this is your cousin. This is your male cousin. This is your male cousin who, before now, you disliked as much as you allowed yourself to dislike anyone!

Ah, well...

The chain was too short to wrap around Curufin’s neck and still have a handle for Finrod to hold on to, to yank at. But still, the links pressed down against the pale flesh, made marks upon it. Curufin was breathing harshly, bared his throat to Finrod, and it proved too great a temptation. Finrod let the chain rattle down to the floor, and he covered Curufin’s body with his own, as he wrapped his hands around Curufin’s neck and sucked kisses down his throat, kisses that were edged with teeth.

He could feel Curufin’s moans, his whimpers, vibrate through to his mouth, and he reached down and pushed his hand under the waistband of Curufin’s breeches, and ran his fingers through the fine hair he found there. Curufin bucked against him when Finrod gave his cock a few hard strokes.

He stiffened and came with a muffled smith’s curse, as familiar as it was obscene.

With deliberate slowiness, Finrod pushed Curufin’s breeches down -- Curufin thrust his hips upward to make it easier -- and left them pooled around his ankles. Finrod’s own nightshirt was hiked up around his stomach. Curufin watched, avid, as Finrod rubbed his come against the inside of Curufin’s thighs.

“Ai, cousin, how did you become so knowledgeable,” said Curufin, breathless, mocking, and Finrod silenced him with his mouth against Curufin’s wicked, curving one.

Finrod was great observer of all sorts of human behavior, and he was not at all afraid to take the necessary leaps. He thrust in between Curufin’s thighs, and there was just enough of the push and pull, and heat, and friction, to send him over the edge quickly, making a mess of Curufin’s thighs.

He pulled away with a sigh, his brain happily fogged with sex and -- well, not love -- it wasn’t love surely? He turned back to his cousin to see how he fared, and Curufin was perfect still, or so it seemed to Finrod, his eyes closed; the only movement in his body was the rise and fall of his chest.

Finally, he spoke, his voice less smooth than it should have been. “We will never be friends.”

“No,” Finrod agreed, and it was less of a wrench than he expected. He pull a tentative hand on Curufin’s stomach, and slid it down until he reached his hip. “We are lovers, instead.”

Curufin turned to him and gave him a tilting smile that made Finrod’s stomach plunge to the bottom of his feet. There were secrets, and there were secrets, and Finrod wasn’t sure what this one was, and he knew, he could guess, that this would not end well, it could not end well, but --

He kissed Curufin on his mouth, again, and Curufin touched his cheek, more affectionate than not.

It was, at least, closer to the beginning than the end.