Snakes and Lovehearts by elvntari

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Romeo and Juliet, Debatably

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- 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.