Dust is the Only Secret by Agelast

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Chapter 1

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The air around Maedhros was like ice, bitterly cold though the spring had pushed into this part of Beleriand already. But it was always cold when he was there.

And then, with a breath, the cold dissipated, leaving behind nothing but the dull ache of loneliness.

*

Maedhros knew what madness was like -- he had seen its shadow creep across his father’s beloved face. Though never one for vanity -- despite what others -- what his brothers may have thought -- Maedhros did not need a mirror to know that his own face sometimes had upon it a look, a strange and slanted look. He felt it come upon him when he thought of the list of the missing, the dead, of everything lost from the battle. All of them, the sheer numbers, the scope of it threatened to crush him.

Feanor had gone mad at the death of his father and the theft of the Silmarils. But Maedhros was going mad through simple addition.

*

Maglor gave him an inscrutable look when he returned to camp, still dripping from his bath in the river. He had not bothered to undress. “We were about to send out a search party for you,” Maglor said. “We didn’t have the men needed for that.”

“You do not need to do anything for me,” Maedhros said, shambling towards his tent.

“I know I cannot,” said Maglor in a low voice that nonetheless followed Maedhros back.

*

Inside the tent, there was a smell of smoke, as well as a noticeable chill in the air. Outside, dusk gathered, but Maedhros lit no light. He undressed quickly, rubbing the river water out of his hair. It had grown only colder since he had come in. A finger of ice seemed to travel lazily up his spine. Maedhros shook his head, once, and went to his bedroll, lay down and waited.

And in the darkness and in the cold, he came.

*

Fingon had always been a bold one. Valiant, they called him, but shameless was what he was, in truth, gloriously so. Maedhros did not know exactly when he had attracted his famed cousin’s attention, but when he had it, Fingon was relentless in pursuit, relentless until Maedhros, painfully aware that he was older and supposedly more responsible, capitulated all too easily.

It had been so easy to love him, to believe what he said, with so much conviction. I love you, Maitimo. I will always find you, wherever you are.

But Fingon was dead. That strong, beautiful body smashed into the ground, his bright blue eyes open and sightless. He had died waiting for Maedhros come, to rescue him as he himself had been rescued.

But Maedhros had failed him. Fingon had died, and he was the sorest loss.

*

It always started the same way. The cold kept Maedhros awake, his breathing misting the air around him. He pushed away the blanket and sat up, only to pushed down again. Maedhros, his eyes closed, pressed his face against coase hair, breathing in the scent of something metallic and a pine liniment. A kiss brushed against his cheek. He reached out and took a hold of a braid, wrapped it around his hand to pull.

He heard a growl and was pushed against his bedroll. Eager for this touch -- cool, everywhere, the slide of skin against his skin, Maedhros cried out. A hand closed over his mouth for a moment, and then was gone.

Maedhros, afraid to lose what he had, spread his legs and dared to speak, the words he thought would either shatter this illusion, or strengthen it. “Findekáno…”

He thought he heard a familiar chuckle over him and then silence. The cold departed and Maedhros brought himself off, without any pleasure.

*

His surviving brothers gathered around him, all speaking over each other.

“See here,” said Curufin, his finger stabbing at a point on a map. “My men say that this is the most accessible route into Doriath.”

“If we attack in winter,” said Celegorm, “there would be fewer patrols on the borders, so we can penetrate through their defenses with hardly a fight.”

“The Silmaril is ours to take,” said Caranthir. “What right has some half-mortal Dark Elf to gainsay us? When he sees us in his precious caves, he will beg us to take the jewel and depart in peace.”

Maedhros looked to Maglor, who had hung back from the discussions. “What do you say, Makalaurë?”

Maglor rubbed his temple for a moment and frowned. “I doubt. Nothing I know of Lúthien’s child tells me that he is craven. I do not think he will give over the jewel without a fight. What is your decision, Maitimo?”

Maedhros smiled at that old, half-forgotten name. He rose from his chair and his brothers moved away from him. “I will let you vote on it.” He pressed a finger on to the point in the map that was Menegroth. “I want to finish it, for myself.”

They took a vote. Five of them for, one against.

They would attack Doriath.

*

They worked all hours to ready themselves for battle, and so it was not for many days that Maedhros would stray into his bed. But finally, he could not avoid it. The atmosphere around the tent was dreary and cold, but nothing out of the ordinary. He collapsed into bed and fell asleep immediately.

Maedhros dreamt that he was in his sleeping chamber in Himring once again, the winter sun making long shadows through the narrow window in front of him. He looked around, curious, and saw that all around him was as it should have been, severely neat and sparsely furnished. Nothing like the cramped and fetid tent where he knew that he actually lay asleep.

“You make it so hard to speak to you,” said Fingon behind him, as he turned to look. Though there was no injury upon him, Fingon looked grey and strangely unreal, even in a dream. Dead. He smiled at Maedhros’ thought. “A work of a lifetime, Maitimo. I follow you still.”

“You are dead and not houseless,” Maedhros said firmly. “This is just a dream.”

“Do you know my soul’s condition better than I do?” Fingon stepped closer to him, and it seemed that he grew firmer, more alive, the closer he came. “I have chosen you.”

“I did not wish you to, I told you not to --” The rest of his words became a garbled mess. Fingon kissed him and he felt real, he felt alive.

Perhaps that was the reason he let Fingon kiss him and pull him to bed. To claim him again, though knowing it was a dream, it could only ever be a dream.

Fingon’s cock rubbed against his, insistent and heavy through the cloth of his leggings, the shape of it, the feel as familiar and beloved to Maedhros as Fingon’s face, or his hands or any other part of him.

“Put your hands on me,” Fingon breathed into his ear. And he did, he wrapped his hands around Fingon’s neck and squeezed, as Fingon panted and moaned above him.

*

Maedhros felt just a moment of bliss -- until he began to shake -- until he realized that he was being shaken awake. He woke to Maglor’s face floating above him.

“Wake up,” Maglor said. “We must pack up the camp. The scouts have returned -- the way is clear.”

There was nothing to say to that. Maedhros rose from his bed and cleaned himself up as best as he could. Maglor cast about for a lamp, and eventually found it. The light flared up and cast strange shadows across the wall of the tent. Maedhros blinked, unused to the light and noticed a pattern of bruises across Maglor’s neck.

Maglor saw him look and said, brusquely, “Come on, we must go. They’ll expect you to address the men before we start.”

After a moment, Maedhros shook his head. “Yes, of course.”

*

As Maedhros rode to Doriath, he considered the possibility of his own death riding with him. He did not think he would die in Doriath, no more than he had thought he would in Angband. He would not allow himself to hope for it.

He would not die until everything that pursued him -- both dead love and his own cursed duty, fell behind and were gone.