And I'll Bloody Up My Hands (As Long As You Don't Have To) by electroniccollectiondonut

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Chapter 6

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Fingon walks out. He looks at the arrows, meets Celegorm’s eyes for the smallest fraction of a second, and walks out, hands shaking so badly he’s hardly able to manage the door.

And of course, Celegorm goes chasing after him down the wide, empty stone halls. It’s mostly quiet, this late in the evening, with everyone who’s staying in the palace sleeping so they’ll have the energy to enjoy the festival tomorrow. The quiet would help more if Fingon’s footsteps didn’t echo all through all the corridors and make it impossible to tell which direction he’s walking.

Celegorm tunes out the headache-inducing cacophony and makes his best guess as to where Fingon is. It seems he’s in luck, because it’s not five minutes before he catches up with Fingon as the other comes out from behind a tapestry. Celegorm watches with mild interest as Fingon slides a panel of the wall shut and adjusts the tapestry over it. He didn’t know Barad Eithel had any real secret passages, but it is a Noldorin city and Noldor do love their marvels of engineering, so he probably should have assumed.

Fingon turns around and startles when he sees Celegorm, hands flying to his heart with a little gasp. Then he registers who it is and his arms drop back to his side and he shakes his head. “No,” he says, with a remarkable amount of conviction for someone who looked about to jump out of his skin three seconds ago. Then he shoulders his way past Celegorm and continues walking in the other direction.

Celegorm catches him by the wrist before he can go very far. “Fingon,” he says, the word firm but not entirely ungentle.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Fingon bites out, but Celegorm’s hand on his wrist tightens just a little and he stops trying to pull away.

“Fine, but I’m going to talk to you whether you want me to or not. Your father is determined to get himself killed in a stupidly heroic way. He’s going to go out there and challenge Morgoth to single combat and you’re  never going to see him again .”

It’s mean. He doesn’t have to look at the anguished expression it puts on Fingon’s face to know that. That doesn’t mean he's not going to push that weak point as much as he can get away with and then a little more.

“I want your father dead as much as you do.” It feels like this is the millionth time he’s reiterating this point in the short time they’ve been here, but Fingon still hasn’t gotten it through his head. “A regency is our best chance at getting that. I suggested something that will give us what we need. Your father will be alive and you’ll be regent and you can get started on building an army so that when your father gets back on the throne he’ll have a reasonable way to do something against Morgoth.”

“You can’t shoot my father,” Fingon says stubbornly. “You can’t shoot the king.”

“Then what do you expect me to do?” Celegorm demands. “Because really, I’m open to suggestions.” He waits several seconds, but Fingon doesn’t say anything. “If your father- if the king was to suddenly fall ill or something right after me and Curufin arrived, what do you think everyone would say? Who would they blame? They’d blame us, the sons of Feanor. The kinslayers .”

Fingon flinches. Good. He was there at Alqualonde just like the rest of them, but he’s the crown prince, so Valar forbid anyone even suggest that he’s as guilty as any of Feanor’s people for the blood spilled that night.

“Orc arrows make it look obvious who was attacking and why. Everyone will assume that it’s just another orc attack and if your father gets sick after, then that’s to be expected since orcs are known for using poison.”

Celegorm gives Fingon a few moments to consider this. Fingon still looks reluctant, but Celegorm thinks maybe he’s coming around to the idea.

“Poison?” he says at last, very hesitant.

Celegorm nods. “If it doesn’t look bad, then there won’t be a need for a regency. Maedhros rearranged the entire continent from an infirmary bed a month after you cut him down from Thangorodrim. Your father is just as stubborn and just as strong. If he’s conscious, he’ll be trying to rule. And he’d probably still be doing an alright job of it, honestly.”

“Right,” Fingon agrees, though his heart isn’t in it.

“Look, didn’t you say this family is all about revenge? I’m pretty sure you’re a part of this family, and if it seems like your father is dying from orc poison, you can play up the revenge angle when you start putting together an army. Do something to Morgoth because he did something to you.”

“What makes you so sure I’m going to make an army?” Fingon asks irritably.

“You will.”

That only serves to frustrate Fingon more, and he pulls his arm out of Celegorm’s grip and walks a few steps away. He turns around and walks back. He turns around again and starts to pace in earnest.

“You can’t be completely sure this won’t kill him,” he says, voice an odd mix between dejected and angry.

Celegorm steps forward and puts his hands on Fingon’s shoulders to stop the pacing. Fingon meets his eyes and he drops his arms back to his sides. “You’re right. I can’t. But I’m a really good shot and I know more than a little about herbs and poisons and all that. It’ll only be for long enough for you to get this army thing going, that’s two or three months at the absolute most, and then we’ll let him get better and hand over the kingship. Maybe a scare is what he needs to be rational again.”

Fingon is quiet for a while. Then, “Maybe.”

Celegorm grins. Fingon hits him for it, hard.

“You don’t get to smile about this,” he snaps.

Celegorm has to admit that it was in bad taste, but Eru, when did Fingon get that strong? He nods, bringing his hand up to prod gingerly at his cheek. He hisses. He’d have a spectacular bruise come morning if not for the burn scar. As it is, he’s fairly certain scarring and bruising are mutually exclusive, but it’s still going to hurt for a good long while.

“Right. Sorry.”

Fingon inclines his head, accepting Celegorm’s apology and not quite offering one of his own. “What’s the plan?” he asks.

“Can you go on your father’s morning ride with him tomorrow?”

Fingon nods.

“Good. We can make it look like an ambush, if you can act frightened.”

Fingon looks like he wants to take offense to that, but apparently decides it’s not worth the effort. Still, he scoffs. “Of course I can.”

Oh, right. Fingon did a stint with a theatre troupe back in Aman. He was good right up until he decided to take up painting instead. Fingon always was ridiculously talented at any artistic pursuit but music.

“Alright. So you’ll ride out tomorrow morning, I’ll shoot your father and try not to shoot you, and then you’ll come back to the city and act like you don’t know exactly what’s going on.”

Fingon nods, even though he looks like he’d rather do absolutely anything else. “Alright.”

There’s a moment of awkwardness where neither of them says anything, then Fingon sighs, all the tension bleeding out of him. “I’m going to bed,” he says, quietly.

“Goodnight,” Celegorm says, and it’s as close to a peace offering as he’s going to get.

“Goodnight,” Fingon returns, inclining his head in acknowledgement of their fragile truce. He opens his mouth to speak as he begins to turn away, then shakes his head and closes it. Celegorm watches him walk away, wondering what he was going to say.

It mustn’t have been important, he decides, and stubbornly ignores the slight sinking feeling in his stomach that tells him he doesn’t actually believe what he’s telling himself. Their family’s luck isn’t good enough for that.

It takes nearly a half hour for him to find his way back to their room, as he wasn’t really paying attention to where he was going when he was chasing after fingon and he hasn’t been to Barad Eithel often enough to know the layout the way he does in Himlad or Nargothrond. And besides that, he’s angry with Fingon, which is making it more difficult to focus on the corridors. He doesn’t have the slightest clue as to why, but he is.

When he does get to their room, Curufin is sitting at the vanity in sleep clothes, untangling his hair with a comb that looks too expensive to be one he found in the guest room. He goes to stand behind Curufin and his brother pauses, meeting his eyes in the mirror. After a few seconds, Curufin hands him the comb and Celegorm begins working through the knots like he had when they were young.

Curufin is like their father in most aspects, but his hair is incredibly fine, like Celegorm’s. Like their grandmother, Finwe used to say, when they would sit at his feet and have him braid their hair in the elaborate styles he was so adept at. He hits a particularly bad tangle and Curufin hisses in pain, pulling away. Celegorm stills.

“Be gentle,” Curufin warns, and he may be their father’s image but he sounds just like their mother when he says that. She used to do the same thing when Celegorm was angry, hand him a comb and sit down in front of him and tell him to be gentle, to force him to calm down for long enough to think. He misses it, misses her , more than he’ll ever admit.

Part of him wonders why he’s thinking so much about Aman tonight. First their father and the fireworks, then Fingon and his artistic pursuits, and now their grandfather and mother. He doesn’t let himself wonder long. He clamps down on the thought as he twists Curufin’s hair into a single braid so that it won’t tangle while he sleeps, pushing away the nostalgia. It won’t help.

He ties off the braid and Curufin turns around in the chair to face him. “What happened?”

Celegorm purses his lips and tries not to sound petulant. “Fingon agreed.”

Curufin’s brows go up. “Then why do you seem upset?”

Celegorm shrugs and starts to change into his own nightclothes. “No idea.”

Curufin sighs and goes to sit in the middle of the bed. “Come here,” he commands, patting the spot in front of him. Celegorm does so without complaint and Curufin runs his hands over his back and his shoulders.

Celegorm lets all the tension melt away with a slow exhale and folds forward. When he speaks, his voice is muffled against the bed. “I’m sorry, this shouldn’t be your problem.”

“You died and woke up in Nargothrond. I don’t think it should be your problem either,” Curufin says, and he sounds amused. It’s almost enough to make Celegorm turn around and look at him, but he’s gotten comfortable where he is and he’s loathe to move, regardless of the fact that it really shouldn’t be even remotely comfortable.

Curufin continues to run his hands lightly, slowly over Celegorm’s back as he talks. “Listen, the way I see it, it’s simple. We make sure Fingolfin doesn’t do something stupid and get himself killed, and as long as he’s alive, it doesn’t matter what Fingon thinks about it. And maybe there’s something you aren’t telling me and Fingon’s feelings actually do matter, but I think you would be trying harder to stop him from getting upset with you if that were true.”

Celegorm makes a sound of agreement.

“Alright. So we keep Fingolfin alive and Fingon in charge, and then we worry about all the other things like Nargothrond and Doriath and anything else I’m forgetting at the moment that you said happened.”

Celegorm hums appreciatively. “I knew there had to be a reason people always think you’re the smart one.”

“Of course there is,” Curufin says. Then he stands up. “You don’t want to fall asleep like that or you’re going to have a bunch of new aches in the morning.”

Celegorm groans, but Curufin is probably right, so he pushes himself up. Curufin is standing at the edge of the bed with a corner of the blanket in his hands and when Celegorm moves he pulls back the covers and climbs into the bed. Celegorm looks at him and then at all the candles still burning around the room.

“You can’t sleep with the lights on,” he says, and goes to blow them out.

“Maybe you can’t, but I absolutely can.” Then, in the dimming light, he looks uncertain for a moment. “Are you sure you can shoot accurately with only one eye?”

“Yes.” Celegorm only hesitates a little, but it’s enough for Curufin to give him a knowing look. He blows out the last candle and goes to the bed. He hopes he can still shoot accurately enough for this to work, because there isn’t time to come up with anything else. He really, really hopes he can.