Snakes and Lovehearts by elvntari

• Eönwë

There’s a story in this, I think -- standing out here in a night so dark I feel as if the sky is a pool of black ink, any light from the stars hidden beneath the cloud cover. It’s late -- well past midnight -- and I’m here in an empty street, hiding in the even deeper dark of the shadows cast by trees from the local park hanging over the fence that keeps them from truly capturing the street. Of course, there must be a story.

Where does it start? I guess it starts wherever I want it to; with the first time we met; the first kiss, date, time -- maybe it starts with betrayal. Maybe it starts with the first moment I realised something was off -- something wasn’t right because he doesn’t act like this. Maybe it starts with guilt -- or some, twisted version of it where the only victim is myself and it’s also my own fault -- because I liked it, almost. If I could pinpoint the exact beginning of this, maybe I’d be able to find a way to at least take the edge off it, tackle it at the root. But some things are set in stone. There’s no going back.

It’s so dark, and the rustling of the leaves behind me has me on edge. I’d’ve worn headphones, but I need to have all of my senses to my advantage. Except sight, apparently -- but I can’t flip my torch on, not when it would so easily give everything away.

My parents didn’t want me to do this job: Eönwë , it’s dangerous, unskilled work -- you have so much more potential than that, Eönwë . And then, of course, he didn’t want me to do this job: you’re going to join the pigs? Really? With a raised brow and a look of disgust -- or maybe it was disdain -- painted across his perfect face. I thought it was just one of his things, at the time -- something he’d mature out of, but then he ran off with a criminal, so I suppose that explains it.

The signs were there from the beginning and only now, in glorious hindsight, do I see them; like the tail of the viper caught in the torchlight as it slithers away into the brush, leaving you alone with two clean puncture marks and your regrets.

I wanted to do this to help people. Now I do this because I want to hurt him back.

Or maybe I want to get hurt -- like my father mused one evening when it was just the two of us, and he caught me crying at my desk. He was never good at comforting crying children, but he tried then, told me he could see the warning signs as he stroked my hair.

My warning signs.

My warning signs.

I asked him if I worried him.

Only most of the time, he said.

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say right now I’m populating the area of most of the time , out so late like this. My breath forms gentle clouds of vapour in front of me. My hands shake; I should’ve worn gloves. It’s too late to go back and get any now, though -- no, that window of opportunity has long passed.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d have referred to this case as some sort of organised crime , but the patterns -- well, there aren’t any patterns. The first month one of their guys gets caught in a gang fight, the next there’s a robbery attributed to them, then the third they’re dealing fake drugs in alleyways behind public buildings. They call it venom , and I have a hunch I know the exact snake that it came from -- he always was good at chemistry.

Oh, what a truly divine double agent, with those bright eyes and that sly smile. Tells me not to train to become a detective then, when I do it anyway, uses me to his own cruel end. Maybe there was some psychological trick to keep me complacent -- I’d quote Romeo and Juliet at him and he’d quote Othello back at me. He was priming me, and now I’m bearing Hamlet’s fatal flaw -- whether that’s taking justice into my own hand, or hesitating to enact it is anyone’s guess. But I suppose I’m a fool either way, because I miss the warmth of his lips against mine, the taste to his tongue -- the everything.

But I don’t miss him.

So, I wait, leaning back against the chain link fence, trying not to make eye contact with the dark, empty field that lies next to the abandoned hair salon. I could swear I saw a flash of light between the boarded windows just a minute ago. What do I expect to find? Do I expect some concealed suite of black velvet with gentle curtains of red silk and gauze, candlelit and dim, so that the flecks of blood on that lie on the walls and floor aren’t too obvious?

The flashes of light are bright white, though, so logically it’s simply the skeleton of a building, a blue plastic crate like the one we found round back of the old sandwich shop. It probably stinks of chemicals and that cologne he always wears.

I could get closer, listen for voices, but I’m fairly sure that sound will travel in this street; I heard a woman hissing a curse three storefronts down. Besides, if I get closer they might see me. I don’t want them to see me. I don’t want him to see me. Moreover, I don’t need to bust them now -- all  I need is more information for their file. We’ve tried to nab them three times already -- we need our case to be airtight. Oh, how he would hate knowing that he’s on a file, and what information is already stored within it -- he likes to think of himself as careful. His hubris has led him to believe that he’ll never be caught -- never face any kind of consequences. His hubris is a liar, but what about him isn’t?

A sharp ringing cuts through the silence, and I swear I hear some noise I wasn’t even aware of cease to listen. Shit. Shit, shit, shit; I forgot to silence my phone. I turn on my heel so that no one could see my face if they were to peek out, and slip it out of my jacket pocket.

“Hello?”

“ Eönwë , dear, it’s two am. Where are you?” Mother’s voice is quiet and rough, but I can still hear the edge of fear in it. She’s probably been waiting up to hear from me.

“Out, sorry.”

“ Out? Out where? It’s two am. ”

“For a walk?” I wince.

She sighs. “We both know that’s not true, darling.”

“Look,” I lower my voice, “I found some place promising -- it looks abandoned, but I can tell there’s some shady business --”

“Just come home.”

“Right -- yep, doing that.” I hang up. There’s no use in arguing with her.

It takes me a good minute of scrambling with my frozen fingertips and my phone to find out which buses I need to hop on to get home, and another minute to realise that the reason there’s a twenty-minute wait time for all of the buses is because it’s two am. It’s alright, though, it’s only  forty-minute brisk walk home in the dark. What could go wrong?

I silently curse the acute class-divide that plagues this city, leaving me lost on the wrong side of the centre to try and make my own way through the maze of skyscrapers until I reach the rich townhouses embedded between, like carved pearls in a necklace of dark steel. It’s not a walk that I’m afraid of -- after all, I used to walk it with him, and he’d tease me every time I flinched at sudden movement, or froze when I caught the reflection of light in the corner of my eye -- us poor folk don’t bite. Usually, at least. Even back then did he know what he had planned? Where he would end up? Where I would? Every memory becomes evidence to be dissected and run through with a fine-tooth comb, looking for clues.

Yet I’d still trade everything to walk here with his hand in mine again.

I try to slip in quietly -- I made sure to bring my keys with me for that exact reason, but it turns out that a pair of gloves would indeed have been the better choice: both of my dear parents have stayed up to wait for me. I can see my mother, with her feet up on the sofa, leafing through an old copy of Vogue -- if I had to place a bet, it’s the one she was interviewed for back when she was young and a model with an astronomy degree, full of potential. They asked her why she was swapping such a glamorous lifestyle to have a baby. She wilfully misinterpreted the question: well, as a scientist, my hours are flexible.

She’d always planned to have it all, but now the only telescope in our house is several decades old and covered in dust. She used to say that she blinked and suddenly she was forty-seven, then she’d add that she wouldn’t change it for the world. But she would, I know she would -- she’d trade this life over, and over again to have all that promise back.

Maybe I feel guilty, because she had to make do with sitting me out in the back garden and trying to teach me the constellations through the light-pollution.

“Nice of you to finally show up.” My father is tired.

“Sorry.”

“Where were you?” He watches me with narrowed eyes as I heave my coat off.

“Just -- just down by the -- yeah.”

He shakes his head. He knows what I mean. “You’ve got to stop going back there -- don’t give me that look -- it’s a habit , and it’s one you really ought to break.”

“I don’t go there much,” I mumble.

“You find some way to link every case back there --”

“This one is actually linked, look -- I have the file and --”

“The file that you made,” mother interjects from the living room, without looking up.

“That doesn’t mean anything -- it’s my job!”

“If you say so.” She gets up. “Anyway, now that you’re home safe, I’m going to bed.”

“Are you not more concerned with the fact that he has the file on hand if he needs it?” My father was always such a nitpicker.

“Goodnight!” Mother calls from the bottom of the stairs.

He shakes his head at me, which is fine, I guess, I never expected him to get it. They both think it’s because I’m still upset over the breakup, but the truth is it’s because I know him, and I know that he’s involved, and how he thinks, and why he would see fit to take his business back to the same place that we met. This has his name written all over it. Quite literally, too, because as soon as I’m in the privacy of my room, I slip the battered manila folder out of it’s draw. In the upper right hand corner, in neat black print that reads simply: Mairon Kuznetsov. Then, below it, in my own messy scrawl, the names that listening to the chatter on the streets gave us.

Gorthaur.

Sauron.

• Fingon

There’s a woman talking to me -- something about… what was it, again? I tune back into her voice -- something about the gates, and the dates -- actually, those sound similar, I think she only mentioned one of those and, well, we don’t have any real gates.

The front desk isn’t really at the front at all: it’s got it’s back to the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, and it faces the glass sliding doors, which sit below their own set of giant windows. If you squint hard enough, you can make out the birds in the bird’s nest in the ring of trees that encircle the centre through them. If you sit there long enough on a sunny day, you begin to overheat from the intensity of it. It’s so bloody hot. I reach to take my shirt off -- wait, there’s a woman standing in front of me. She looks mad .

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” I tap the lobe of my ear, hoping she’ll (wrongly) interpret that as meaning that I’m hard of hearing, and not just awful at listening to people.

“My membership hasn’t been renewed.”

“Right,” I try to contain my relief -- I can paint this as not my problem, “I’m sorry; I’m not responsible for finance, so if you could speak to my colleague over there --” I wave a Blue Seas Leisure Center (stupid name, really  -- we’re nowhere near the sea) branded pen in Molly’s direction -- “she should sort you out.”

The woman huffs, but does as I say. Okay, technically , I’m Molly’s superior, so technically, I’m at least a little responsible for that, but I can barely count, and Molly’s the kind of person that would rather do things right herself the first time than have to go through and correct someone else’s mistakes. And honestly? I’d rather just sit here and keep watching the birds. The architects really did a good job on those windows, but they did an even better job choosing to use misted glass on the ones overlooking the pool, because if birds can draw my attention, imagine what a pool full of people can do.

It’s still too hot in here, though. I reach for the back of my shirt -- wait. I’ve been here before. No stripping at the reception desk.

I bite my lip. That lawyer should’ve been here ten minutes ago . I’m only waiting at the front desk so they can find me easily.

I can just about make out the rough figures of the elderly swimming class through the glass, Uinen standing at the poolside, a group of heads bobbing in the pool beneath her. And there’s Ossë, of course (when are they ever separated?) slipping through the door at the side.

My gaze drifts up to the clock above. Ah. I was misreading it. It’s not ten minutes since the lawyer should’ve shown up; it’s ten minutes until they show up.

Then the view of the clock is blocked by Ossë looming above me in full lifeguard get-up (which isn’t very full at all).

“Fingon!”

“Oh, hi.”

“You -- you didn’t hear me the last two times?” The woman from earlier is staring at me.

“I did not.”

“Are you free this weekend?”

“Are you asking me out?” I grin. He punches me in the shoulder. Gently, of course.

“The police need someone to interview, and I don’t want to do it for, uh, reasons.”

I sigh -- I’d almost forgotten about that other problem. And of course Ossë wouldn’t want to hang around the police, not when he’s a notorious stoner. We used to get high and makeout in our dorm, back when he was a physiology student and I was training to be a doctor.

“Fine,” I take a deep breath, mourning the loss of my Saturday, “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you so much.” He gives me a lazy wave as he jogs back over to the changing rooms, and just as he slips through the door, the sliding front doors open, and a smart young man in a suit steps through. He’s young for a lawyer -- and I’m pretty sure that’s what he is, because no one ever comes to a leisure center dressed like that. He has a light tan and neatly styled copper curls. And his face -- his face is something else entirely, like out of a magazine, but also strangely familiar. I feel the corners of my mouth twitch.

“Maedhros?” I chance when he gets within earshot.

“You remember me?”

“Of course.” I stand up. I wonder -- should I shake his hand? Is that too formal?

This is the guy I used to sit on the beach of the lido and make sandcastles with; who would dress up with me in his grandmother’s old clothes; who’d I’d follow around at those huge fancy parties because he said he didn’t like to look like the only people he had to talk to were his brothers. Who I haven’t spoken to since I was sixteen.

I shake his hand, then nod at the people around us. “Maybe we should go somewhere private.”

We move to sit in a side room and talk legal, but talking legal takes a surprisingly short amount of time, and I get distracted trying to guess what all those big professional words mean anyway. I try to remember the last time I saw him as an adult -- probably at one of those parties, all dressed up in rust and gold. Probably let his parents pick out what he wore because his teenage self never saw the value in all that ‘frivolity’.

I would approach him, and we’d talk about our parents and how stupid big parties like that were. He told me about how his brothers would probably be looking for him, and how none of them were really allowed to slink off unsupervised into the crowd like that.

I asked him why, and he shrugged.

“Fingon?”

“Hm?”

“You still with me?”

“Yes! Sorry!” I sit up in my chair.

“Basically this is extremely clear-cut: there was no misconduct on the part of the centre and --”

“Are you free after this?” I ask.

“I’m sorry?”

“Wait -- no -- I didn’t mean that as in are you free after this? I meant it just, generally, are you --”

He cuts me off with a laugh. “I have some paperwork to catch up on, but after that? Sure.”

“Sweet!”

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” He smiles a little and a little wearily. Can’t be an easy job, he has. Actually, now that I’m noticing it, he looks really tired; dark under eye circles, dull skin, the way he squints a little in the light. Somehow he still wears it well. Stupidly well.

I wonder if that almost-kiss we shared back at that party was real, or just another case of my wishful thinking bleeding into my memories. It must’ve been real, though, right? I can still remember how I could almost taste his lips -- isn’t that too detailed to be fake? Is that too detailed to be real ? I’m not even sure if that moment is something to be ashamed of or not -- maybe it’s easier on my dignity if it is a fabrication.

“So I’ll see you back here in a bit?” I ask.

“Sure.”

It’s too hot in here, but this time I manage to keep my hands away from my shirt.

• Eönwë

Training at the leisure centre is always an experience. It always seems like something happens -- not necessarily goes wrong -- but definitelyhappens. This time it seems serious. Some official business, by the look of the guy bobbing his head in goodbye to the assistant manager, but if I look closely enough at their body language, neither of them look tense at all.

I don’t really consider the assistant manager a friend , but I do know his name, and I can list at least three of his family members from memory -- he really likes to talk, and to talk about his family, which is usually sweet enough to make me smile. But, God, does he like to talk. Father used to ramble on about making connections over dinner, and how I should talk to everyone I meet, but all I ever got from that was an affirmation that making friends was a good thing -- except I don’t tend to make them in high places, like he intended. Mairon once told me I was too nice to people -- that I was naive, which was probably another warning sign, looking back.

Mairon, I call him, but I know full well that calling him those unflattering nicknames would piss him off, and doesn’t he deserve to be at least a little pissed off?

Sauron never seemed to see any sort of optimism as a virtue -- only ever a weakness. I hate that he ended up being right.

Fingon catches my eye and waves. I might as well ask him what’s going on.

“Someone slipped.” He sighs as his eyes follow the man in the suit leaving. “You how we have all these signs telling people not to run on wet tiles? Apparently that’s not enough, and we’re being sued.”

“The centre is being sued?” I ask.

“Seems like it. Luckily, my cousin --” he freezes, frowning, “well, that’s not right -- he’s more my friend -- I mean -- we aren’t actually related, except by marriage.”

I hold up a hand. He always gets distracted so easily. “You were saying?”

“He’s a lawyer,” he says avoiding my eyes. Friends. From the way he says it, I suspect there’s a little more to it than that. There’s a pointed silence for a moment, as if there are words trapped behind the wall of his teeth that he isn’t too sure he wants to let out. He turns to me anyway, meeting my blue eyes with his turquoise -- both of us are strange like that, with light eyes against dark skin or, well, dark enough skin that it could hide the darkness under our eyes, but not so much to conceal the contours of any imperfections. Maybe I trust him because he feels familiar. Another fallacy for which Sauron would’ve chastised me. My father probably would, too. I smile at the thought that they actually used to get on.

“And some of your guys came around earlier.”

“What for?”

“Someone left some ‘suspicious packages’ lying around.” He shrugged. “They’re pretty sure it isn’t one of us, but apparently we’re all persons of interest until further notice.”

“I’m certain it isn’t one of you.”

“Hm?”

“I think I have a lead on that already -- just need to figure out how it links back to here, or why. ”

“Well --” he pats me on the shoulder -- “good luck with that. Hope you catch ‘em.”

“Thanks,” I say, as he turns on his heel and heads for the pool door, yawning. I recall that I’ve never seen him here this early. There must’ve been some reason for him to show up (probably had to do with his friend).

There’s some hint of a memory tugging at the back of my mind, telling me that that isn’t all I can learn from this place -- some malformed hunch.

As I leave, I circle the building, just to see, and one of the guys inside catches my eye and, despite the frosting over the glass, I can feel his eyes upon me. I scan through all of the names of the people I know, trying to find one that clicks into place, and one that clicks into place here . I come up blank on that front, but I do recall Sauron having a friend that frequented the leisure center.

Would it be inappropriate to slip back inside an ask about him? Almost certainly, but from the way I can tell he’s sizing me up, I don’t think I’ll have to.

- Maglor -

Sweet notes cut through the heavy air like a freshly sharpened knife, glimmering in the afternoon sun, through a sheet of silk. I can feel it in the bones of my hips, the curve of my shoulder-blades, the pounding of my heart -- I’ve always wanted to set something to that rhythm. Some song about life. Or sustenance. Or, perhaps, if I’m feeling conventional, love.

Violin and acoustic guitar -- with me on vocals -- it’s a strange combination, but it’s a beautiful composition. Not to mention one I couldn’t wait to show off. I think it was clear. I felt it myself in my own sharp gasp, the way I drummed my fingers against my thigh, how I bit my lips. It burns through my veins from top to bottom, and it doesn’t stop until I do.

The silence as the final notes ring out around the theatre is torturous. I want to lean back toward the mic, to say something, ease the emptiness, but experience taught me that you have to give the sound time to resonate. Eventually an audience member begins to clap, then the rest, and then I take my bow to the closest I can get to thunderous applause in an establishment as small as this.

“Thank you!” I call out, voice slightly hoarse from the strain. My range still isn’t as good as it could be -- if we were looking for range we’d have Daeron sing -- but there’s a fullness there that suits places like this so well. I sense him take his bow next to me, and our eyes meet as he straightens out. I focus in on the flecks of amber and brown amongst the green. Like moss against a fallen tree , I once told him, when I was feeling particularly poetic. Or drunk. One of the two. Was that the night I first kissed him, pressing him back against the bare brick wall of the backroom of the club? I don’t quite recall. His lips tasted like amaretto and sugar. I was tripping on absinthe.

As we turn to leave the stage I leave a whisper in his ear: “Just wait until we’re alone.” I catch the twitch at the corner of his lips.

- Maedhros -

“Maglor?” He picks up fast enough, but doesn’t say anything.

“Sorry,” he sounds breathless, “I just got home.” Ah, of course.

“Is it alright if I come over to check on you?”

“I’m twenty-two, Maedhros, I’ve long since left the helplessness of childhood behind.”

“Mags, we both know that’s a lie.”

He sighs, “fine -- sure, just for a bit.” I picture him as he usually talks; gesturing, one hand scrunched into his mop of curls, winding his fingers around them.

“Also, I’m bringing Fingon.” I look over to where he stands, leaning back against the feux-metal plating of the leisure centre wall, watching the clouds.

“Do you want me dead?” He snorts, then, after a pause, “just give me thirty minutes to shower. I have to look presentable, after all.”

“Since when did you care about being presentable?”

“Since you mentioned that you’re bringing our estranged step-cousin to see me, for whatever reason -- actually, speaking of that…”

“We’re reconnecting.”

“Should I raise my eyebrows, or is that inappropriate?”

“A little bit.”

“Got it.” He hangs up, and I turn to Fingon, who seems to have gotten bored of cloud watching, and is now scrolling through his phone. He looks up.

“So?”

“Apparently we aren’t allowed to show up for thirty minutes.”

He nods, then hesitates. “Why Maglor?”

“I just think it would be nice to reconnect, it was always the three of us -- the three eldest -- after all.” There I am using that word again: reconnect. Like it’s the word of the day, and my teacher will give me a shiny, gold achievement point if I use it enough in the right context. I can’t blame my high school for trying, but law school did a much better job of expanding my vocabulary than they ever did.

Fingon grins. “Well, we’ve got thirty minutes to kill; how about we buy some snacks and make a thing of this?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Fingon sits neatly in between the two of us; a year younger than me, and a year older than Maglor -- we were born in a rapid succession of three which, at the time, seemed perfectly reasonable, but in hindsight, my parents were young. I can’t image having two kids by the time I’m twenty, and definitely can’t imagine planning a third.

We walk into the nearest Tesco express while he babbles on about nothing in particular and I occasionally contribute an anecdote or two about that one time Celegorm tried to capture a fox, or Curufin’s first experience with nuclear physics in the form of sneaking into dad’s lab when he was five and pushing all the buttons he wasn't supposed to. If dad wasn't his own boss, he would've been fired.

The more I think about it, the less it makes sense for Maglor to be showering after the show. He’s never so energetic that he would break a sweat, and thirty minutes is way longer than he takes in the shower anyway -- back home it was always ten minutes maximum unless if he was washing his hair, and hair wash day is Saturday, not Tuesday.

“He’s hiding something,” I murmur, before I realise I’m thinking out loud.

Fingon gently places the pack of Oreos he was holding back on the shelf, “Maedhros, why are you accusing the Custard Creams of lying to you?” He grins at me. I feel my cheeks grow hot. He peers over my shoulder, “actually, that ‘zero sugar’ label is pretty suspicious.”

I elbow him.

He’s quiet for a moment, then, because I forgot that one of his defining traits was, as Maglor would call it, ‘jest’, asks, “has it been thirty minutes yet? I’m tired of interrogating the biscuit aisle.”  

---

Maglor opens the door in a baggy shirt (worn inside-out) and a pair of camo cargo shorts clearly stolen from Celegorm. His apartment is a mess: the sofa is strewn with sheet music, the new rug is still rolled up and rested against the wall, there are assorted items of clothing strewn about the space. He steps aside to let us in.

“Sorry about the sofa, the floor isn’t too uncomfortable though, if you wanna sit down.” He gently lowers himself to the ground, as if to prove the point, leaning back against the armrest. “I really wasn’t expecting to have guests today, but what do you know?”

Fingon sits across from him, leaning against the wall. “You look so different.”

Maglor shrugs. “It’s been a while.”

I, like always, because I know my brother, head straight for the kitchen, separated from the rest of the flat by a single half-wall. The kitchen, too, is pretty barebones; a sink, an oven and fridge, with a small countertop, half of which is filled by the secondhand microwave that sits on it, balancing over the edge, threatening to fall into the waste bin below.

I open the fridge door: it’s empty except for a bottle of ketchup and a half-eaten chinese take-away. Then the fridge: also empty, but this time the exception is a bag of ice cubes (I can’t believe he buys bagged ice cubes). Then there are the four cupboards, two attached to the wall and two under the counter, all also empty, save the one that houses the alcohol (a few bottles of wine, Kopparbergs, some brand of what seems to be whisky, and an empty bottle of absinthe), and the cupboard of canned food. Most of it is stuff that should go with meals, but there’s some canned tomato soup right at the back.  

“Maglor?” I ask, and I hear the gentle background lull of his conversation with Fingon die down.

“Yes?”

“Have you been eating? Like, at all?”

He laughs. “Delivery food.” He nods at his phone, lying face down on the coffee table (he has a coffee table and no kitchen knives-- I don’t understand his priorities.)

“New question.”

“Mhm?”

“How are you alive?”

He bursts out laughing, or rather, cackling, and I sigh. “I’ll heat up the soup.”

It doesn’t take long to make three bowls, and we sit on the living room floor in a triangle as we eat, each with a glass of red because Maglor said he would be a bad host if he didn’t at least offer. He seems to sink further back into the armrest with each sip, reacting to it as the sleeping elixir it is, but he keeps shifting in his seat -- or, well, his patch on the floor.    

“I’m so uncomfortable, I’m sorry,” He sits himself up straight. “Is it okay if I take off my binder?”

“I don’t mind,” says Fingon. I nod. He puts his empty bowl down on the ground and heads off into the bedroom.

“It’s dark out now,” I say.

“I guess you’ll have to be a gentleman and walk me home.” Fingon grins at me.

“I suppose I shall.” I smile back at him. “Do you want a kiss goodbye, as well?”

If I didn’t know better, I’d think he flushed slightly at that. I wonder if he forgot how nearly we kissed back then, and all the flirting that lead up to it. He takes a second to respond. I fucked up. This wouldn’t make sense if he doesn’t remember. This is probably far too inappropriate --

“Maybe you should buy me dinner, and we’ll talk.”

“I just made dinner!” I laugh, hoping that it hides the waver in my voice. Truthfully, I just wanted to see if this is still on the table and, if it is? Well .

He starts, but then Maglor clears his throat from the doorway. He’s all raised eyebrows and mum’s ‘really?’ face. I take another sip of my wine. He shakes his head at me, before turning his attention to Fingon.

“How’s Fingolfin? Haven’t seen him in ages,” he asks.

“He’s fine. Should be getting back from -- shit. ” Fingon freezes.

“What?” I ask.

“I was meant to go and meet him at the airport. Shit. I have to go, I’m so sorry.”  He grabs his things and bids us goodbye. We listen in silence as his footsteps fade away into the night. I try to avoid making eye contact with my younger brother. It doesn’t help.

“Maedhros, in the most crass way possible: are you fucking kidding me right now? I could not think of a worse person to flirt with.”

“It was just joking, Maggie.”

He walks over and kicks me in the thigh. “Don’t let dad find out -- if you do do anything, I mean.”

“I won’t,” I say, and I mean it, because to do anything with Fingon would be like Romeo and Juliet , but ten times gayer, and with pseudo-incest because granddad had to marry the grandmother of the childhood best friend I’d always had a bit of a thing for. Dad doesn’t see the nuance of the situation at all, only the fact that one day his mother was gone and there was someone else in her place. “It won’t too far, I promise.”

“Swear.” Maglor sits back down across from me, pouring out more wine. This must be, what, his third glass? Sometimes I forget he isn’t as much of a lightweight as me.

“I swear.” But superstition has me crossing my fingers behind my back.