To Build The Bonds That Tie by ThatFeanorian

Even before his Grandfather died, family gatherings had always been a mess, and though Maedhros should have predicted that with his funeral, things were bound to get worse, he dared to have hope. An air of dismal silence rests over the car, the only sound Maglor’s feet as he slams his heels repeatedly into the seat below him, and Fëanor’s occasional angry exhales explained to Maedhros in a barely audible whisper by Maglor as “no doubt the result of having to share a funeral with Uncle Nolofinwë and Uncle Arafinwë.” How he knows who Uncle Nolofinwë and Uncle Arafinwë are, Maedhros isn’t sure. He himself doesn’t really know them besides shadowy figures that always seem to feature in his father’s rants. Celegorm kicks viciously at Maglor shins, running a hand through his neatly coiffed hair, which Amil had gone through hours of effort to tame earlier, and hissing,

“Can’t you fucking shut up for one second?” loud enough for us to hear, but not quite so loud as to alert Amil and Atar in the front, who surely would have had some choice words in response to his eight-year-old* mouth spouting that kind of language. Maglor gives an even louder bang to the seat underneath him as his only response. Seeing that Celegorm’s expression is nearing a dangerous level of anger, Maedhros leans over and nudges Maglor’s side. Immediately, he ceases, throwing his older brother an upset glance but not voicing any of his discontents. At ten, he has finally given up attempting to refuse his Maedhros. Sighing, Maedhros settles back in his seat, looking out of the car gloomily. Later in the day, he will look back and give anything to be in this car, away from father’s venomous glare as he yells after Uncle Nolofinwë,

“Snake. Coward. Flee while you can, for I promise no one in the world can save you from the crimes of your false heritage.” He will give anything to be back in the car, where he cannot see his cousins faces, pale and thin under the mist surrounding them, to be back in the car where there is no coffin, and no anger, and no death.

But for now, he is in the car, watching Junior**; who is curled into a ball in his car seat, eyes focused on a small insect crawling up the glass, watching Amras and Amrod --too young to understand what was happening-- gurgling happily in the back seat, and all he wants is to get out. Somehow, even in the huge van, it takes to house all of his expansive family, the black cloud of Fëanor’s grief and simmering hatred still seem to take up all of the extra room. Celegorm shifts uncomfortably, itching at his neck in a movement Maedhros longs to copy, the wool of his collar is itching nearly unbearably. Celegorm looks utterly miserable, and Maedhros is sure he knows the reason: their father forbid him to bring Huan. Even now, on his suit, there is evidence of the hound. The pale yellow hairs only hinting to the desperate struggle that had gotten them out of the house; Celegorm practically clinging to his pet as Fëanor raged, having to bodily drag him out of the house in order to leave Huan behind.

It is no familial mourning that pulls on Tyelkormo’s heartstrings now, but the loss of his closest friend to logic and sound reasoning. Maedhros can not help but feel a flash of anger at that, though he quickly quells it. By the time Celegorm was old enough to remember Grandfather, he had been preoccupied with their new (and first) cousin, whose birth had been shortly after his own. He had never had the benefit of a grandfather with an open lap whose sole purpose in life was to read your stories and cook your food. Maedhros’ relationship with Grandfather was something that Celegorm had never been given the opportunity to have, and one of the few points on which Maedhros pitied him. In that regard, he is unique. Being the eldest meant the deepest love, and the most pain when that love was wrenched away, but he will not cry.

Not again.

He has already done so in the privacy of my room with Maglor’s shoulder below his head, and Maglor’s arms around him. To his twelve-year-old mind, the deed is done, and will not be repeated. When his father parks, Maedhros does not know how his legs carry him out of the van; does not know how they support him, or if they were even there, because his eyes never see them

It is raining, the light soft misty kind that everyone ignores until they are soaked to the bone and shivering. The sky is a bright monotone grey, matching the colour of Maglor’s eyes beside Maedhros where he is clinging to his older brother’s hand; a flawless act of helplessness designed in every aspect to make Maedhros feel needed. He knows that it is fake, and Maglor knows it makes everything better.

Despite the fact that it is quite early, there is already a small group of six people gathered around the plot of land that Fëanor has reserved for his father. Maedhros watches his father’s back stiffen and a defensive scowl paste itself across his mouth as he catches sight of the group, and he grips Maglor’s hand more tightly as if somehow the pressure of his hand could send away the people who are making his father angry.

Hasn’t their family suffered enough? Why do these others have to come and hurt his father more than he has already been hurt?
Maedhros can’t answer these questions. The tallest person in the group seems to catch sight of them and detach himself from the others. He is tall and broad, similar to Maedhros’s father yet not so. Where Fëanor’s eyes are always bright sparks of blue, this man’s are a soft dull grey, seeming to absorb light instead of radiate it outwards as Fëanor’s do.
“Nolofinwë.” Maedhros’s father says stiffly, and the man’s mouth quirks, as if attempting to decide whether to turn up or down. His face is pale and streaked with tears, his suit damp with the misty rain. Maedhros’s first thought is that he looks lost, but he quickly brushes that thought off. They are all lost now.

“Fëanáro.” the man --Nolofinwë-- replies softly, his voice gentle and deep like the thrum of the ocean that Maedhros once visited with his grandfather. He sniffs once and angrily wipes at his nose for betraying him, but the damage is done. Nolofinwë draws his eyes away from Maedhros’s father. A soft smile lights his face upon seeing them as if he simply had not noticed Junior in his father’s arms while the intensity of his grey gaze cast its heaviness elsewhere. Now, however, it lands on each of them in turn, making Maglor squirm beside Maedhros and Celegorm scowl and fold even farther in on himself than he already had.

“Your children are beautiful, brother, I wish that I had gotten to meet them on a happier day,” Fëanor grunts noncommittally, while Maedhros’s mother deftly steps in,

“Thank you Nolo, I think we all wish that today was under better circumstances.” Although he had not been talking to her, Nolofinwë nods once and then turns to walk back to his family. Maedhros follows with his father, head down, careful not to slip in the mud of the unsown earth beneath him. Faintly, he hears his mother behind him hiss,

“You be nice to him Fëanáro, he is grieving just as much as you, there are no grounds for your childish behaviour here.” If his father responds, Maedhros does not hear it. The earth over his grandfather’s grave is already soaked, a brown blight on a field of green. The stone is simple, yet Maedhros can not find it in him to look directly at it, for fear of the finality of death finally being internalized. Instead, he stands very still, grasping Maglor’s hand tightly, and feeling the light rain slowly accumulate into droplets and slide, freezing, down his neck.

It is a shock to realize the grave has already been dug and filled without him, a shock to realize that there were perhaps others in his grandfather’s life who had a greater claim over it than he did. Maedhros isn’t quite sure when he starts to cry, but suddenly the tears are there, sliding down over his cheeks and he is hiding his face, embarrassed to have broken his own vow and even more upset that it is in front of people he has never seen before. (They say Fingolfin was at his second birthday party, but Maedhros can only remember the colour red and a loud voice shouting as he cried into his mother’s dress).

A car pulls up next to theirs and emits five people who go to stand next to Fingolfin, their golden hair darkening in the dampness. The oldest of the children looks to be about Carnistir’s age, but while Maedhros’s five-year-old brother stands scowling angrily at the dirt, ignoring the world around him, the golden-haired boy looks vaguely confused, as if he has been pulled from a nap, his hair a tangled halo around his head. Maedhros feels a fierce burst of pride in his stomach that even little Junior who is only three does not look quite so out of place as this boy does.

But then a taller boy with dark hair and a round young face crosses from Fingolfin’s group and takes the golden-haired boy’s hand, and Maedhros suddenly feels very lonely. The dark-haired boy looks up at Maedhros for a moment, as if sensing his gaze, and his brilliant blue eyes seem to see straight through Maedhros as if in that one glance they boy saw him and knew everything. Which is, of course, silly. This boy looks younger than him by at least three years. He does not know anything at all compared to Maedhros.

As if the arrival of these new people has signalled something, Maedhros’s father lets out a little breath of air, loud enough for Maedhros to hear as he stands beside him, and takes a few steps forwards. His eyes are lowered towards the rectangle of brown dirt as he begins to speak. What words he says, Maedhros does not know. But he knows one thing: When his father steps backwards again, he is supposed to go up (his father says) immediately afterwards and take his turn saying goodbye. He is supposed to wait (according to his mother) until after Fingolfin and the new golden-haired man have taken their turns.

He knows who he will listen to. Fingolfin, with his sad steel eyes, must not go first. Maedhros looks up, only for a minute and sees those eyes filled with barely restrained tears, and falters. As his father steps back, his eyes locked on Maedhros as if waiting, the fire within them simmering, and Maedhros remains, eyes locked on Fingolfin as he is pinned down with the full weight of his eyes, being sucked in with all the light in the world. There is a pause --a second, a minute, a century-- and then Nerdanel, still holding the twins tightly, breaks the tension, and steps up to whisper her own words.

Fëanor’s hand closes over Maedhros’s shoulder, but it is not angry, it is soft, drawing his gaze away from Fingolfin’s eyes, which felt more than halfway through devouring him. Maedhros looks up into his father’s face, and Fëanor squeezes his shoulder gently, reaching farther down to scoop Maedhros’s small hand into his.
When he takes his turn, Maedhros steps up to the ugly bare land which holds his grandfather and whispers,

“I will bring you flowers so that you can have a garden here as you did at home. I will not let them go away.” He turns away, only to meet the dark-haired boy’s eyes. He is staring at Maedhros again, with a little smile on his babyish face that somehow makes Maedhros absolutely positive the boy heard him promise his grandfather flowers. He is not sure why this makes him blush. Maglor reaches over to take his hand again as he steps backwards to hide in the mass of his family but is shooed forwards to take his own turn. Maglor’s mouth moves in the shape of the words,

“I wrote a song for you grandpa, I’m sorry you won’t get to hear it.” Maedhros shoots a covert glance over at the dark-haired boy, but the boy’s eyes are not on Maglor. They are still on him, his hand still clasping the golden-haired boy’s, and Maedhros quickly looks away, barely able to open his arms in time for Maglor to come crashing into them, no longer able to restrain his tears. Maedhros wraps his arms around Maglor’s back, trying to pretend that the reason he is shaking is the force of Maglor’s sobs and not the added weight of his own.
“It’s okay Káno.” He murmurs, not sure if he is speaking for himself or his brother, “Don’t cry. I’m here, and Dad’s here and Mom’s here, and Tyelko and Moryo and Junior and Pityo and Telvo. We’re all still here.” He repeats it over and over and over like a mantra, sure that if he can just say it enough times they will both believe it.

Although he doesn’t look up, he can feel eyes on him and is sure it is the dark-haired boy again. Maedhros wishes he would stop looking. When Maglor’s cries calm enough for Maedhros to let him go and turn his attention back towards the grave --and oh, how he wishes Maglor had kept crying-- he sees the dark-haired boy kneeling close to the brown dirt. Instead of whispering, instead of talking at all, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small piece of paper with something scribbled on it. He reaches out and presses it into the dirt, covering it and hiding it from view. Then he stands promptly, and rushes back to his father’s side, blushing furiously. Maedhros’s eyes follow him curiously, wondering what he knows that is so secret that he cannot say it out loud.

His cousins (who he has never seen before) take their turns. None of them shoves paper into the ground, none of them blushes and tries to hide, but Maedhros finds himself walking in the direction of the dark-haired boy once they have all taken their turn. The rain has let up, but the sky has grown darker the clouds thickening. They have a half-hour before they must go to the restaurant where Maedhros’s mother placed a reservation.
Just for their family. No others.

The boy sees him, and lets go of the golden-haired boy, telling him something that sends him scampering off to another dark-haired boy who is standing, half-hidden, behind his mother. The dark-haired boy fixes him with his bright electric gaze, and Maedhros speeds up, coming to stop about a foot in front of him. Then there is silence, because Maedhros does not know what to say, and has never in his life been the one to actually initiate a conversation.

“I heard what you said about flowers to Grandpa.” The boy says matter-of-factly, and Maedhros is surprised for a moment by the loud authoritative voice that comes out of his little body. He cannot be older than Celegorm, and yet he has never heard his brother talk in such a manner. More often it is whining pleas for more time outside and candy. Still, Maedhros turns pink,

“Are you going to make fun of me?” he asks, embarrassed that he cares so much over the opinion of a child. The boy blinks, frowning,

“No. Why would I make fun of you?” Maedhros’s face turns a deeper shade of red and debates the merits of running to their car and locking himself in for the next half-hour.

“I don’t know,” he says defensively, “It sounded like you were.” The boy’s baby face crumples in confusion as he looks up at Maedhros, but whatever he was going to reply with is suddenly cut off by,

“You are too tall.” Maedhros laughs. The boy is tiny, only half his height,

“Not really… well, maybe. I’m way above average for my age, but Dad says I’m probably done growing.” The boy shakes his head firmly,

“No, you are going to tall forever.” There is another pause as if he is trying to figure out what to say, but when he opens his mouth, all that comes out is,

“I’m Findekáno Vanimar***. I’m eight. My Dad says someday I am going to be a lawyer because I am too good at arguing.” Maedhros fought back another laugh,

“Nice to meet you Findekáno. I guess we’re cousins, right?” Fingon nods and seems to be waiting for something, but when Maedhros doesn’t respond, he says,

“You’re supposed to tell me your name now.” his mouth quirking in an involuntary smile, Maedhros responds

“Okay, I’m Maitimo Noldoran, I’m twelve. Why do we have different last names?” He asked curiously, and Fingon replied

“I don’t know. I think my Dad and Uncle Aro used a different last name than your dad and Grandpa Finwë. I don’t know why though.” Maedhros nods, still curious, but satisfied for the moment with this response and allows Fingon to point at every member of the “other people” to give them names.

Turgon, Aredhel, Argon… (to the messy-haired boy) Finrod, Orodreth, Angrod, there are so many names, and Maedhros tries his best to remember them all while they slip through his fingers like sand, leaving nothing behind but the boy in front of him and his name:

Fingon.

Fingon hops around, tugging on his hand and looking half his age as he leads Maedhros around, taking them on a wide loop of the graveyard and away from their families as he chatters about useless nothings, Maedhros becoming more and more endeared by the second. By the time they get back into shouting distance of their families, Maedhros knows that he wants to be friends with this little boy forever. He opens his mouth to tell him so when suddenly words erupt, though they are not from his own mouth. He whips around, eyes wide because he has never seen his father this angry in his life. Even when Tyelkormo let Huan bath in a mud bath and then lay him down on their priceless wool hearth rug, Fëanor has never been so angry that his eyes are burning, his arms forceful hand back by Nerdanel as he shouts, a twin each shoved hastily into the arms of Maglor and Celegorm, with Junior looking indignant in his shiny black shoes which have never touched the ground before standing ankle-deep in mud. Maedhros turns back only to find Fingon halfway across the yard, legs pumping and dark curly hair streaming out behind him. Maedhros is quick to follow, but even with his long legs it is too late by the time he gets there to stop his father’s words as they fly like daggers from his throat,

“Snake. Coward. Flee while you can, for I promise no one in the world can save you from the crimes of your false heritage and your slander of my father’s legacy.” Uncle Fingolfin, for that is (of course) who his father is shouting at, takes a step backwards, and shoots Fëanor a cool look before gathering Fingon up into his arms (nevermind the fact that Fingon is eight years old and far too old to be carried), taking his wife’s hand and leading all four of his children away and back to the big white car that they must have arrived in.

Maedhros stands, frozen, emotions warring inside of him, anxiety (his father looks livid, and Maedhros hates making him mad), anger (how dare these people come and make his father mad?), and terrible crushing fear: that he will not see Fingon again. Fëanor watches the white car pull away and then scoops Junior back into his arms, wiping at his black shoes, now caked in mud. Junior’s lip is wobbling and he looks ready to burst into tears as Maedhros’s father coos,

Oh darling, oh my baby, I am sorry I dropped you, my love.” Nerdanel has scooped the twins back into her arms and is whispering sweet nothings to them, while Maedhros is left with Maglor and Celegorm, staring at the spot where the white car vanished around a corner and wishing that for once, he might be comforted as well.

The Day After The Funeral (as Celegorm would later think of it) arrives with more rain and heavy oppressive mist, determined to make him upset about a person he has never known. He ignores it, jumping out of bed with a spring in his step as he whirlwinds around them room, dressing and then crawling into Huan’s dog bed, curling around the big grey-white dog until he wakes, letting out a huff of air and standing, hauling Celegorm with him. 

He bounds down the stairs two at a time, with a grin on his face and the excitement of a new day in his eyes, only to hear the sound of something breaking, and to skid to a halt beside his brothers. Maedhros stands with Junior in his arms, sitting silently with big solemn eyes and wearing nothing but his diaper. His clothes dangle from Maedhros’s hand forgotten and useless as Celegorm suddenly realises why they are all frozen. From inside the kitchen, angry voices crescendo, and Celegorm hears his father growl,

“If you think I am going to give in to that pathetic spineless traitor, you can leave this house and go count yourself one of their number.” Celegorm’s heart seems to stop in his chest, and he inwardly scoffs at himself. His parents argue; that is what they do. There is no need for him to be upset over it.

And yet… the tone of his mother’s voice, the venom in his fathers, these are things he has never heard before and he has never wanted to. He would not admit it, but he is almost relieved when Maedhros gives a start, as if he had been asleep, and sets Junior down on the floor, beginning to dress him and saying,

“Come on, Tyelko, coat on please, we’re going for a walk.” Maedhros’s voice is calm and controlled as he gently pushes Junior’s arms into the sleeves of his coat, but it is betrayed by his eyes which are panicked, like a helpless animal trapped in one of Celegorm’s secret holes in the woods. Maglor is clinging to his arm, sniffling, and when he sees Celegorm, he buries his face in Maedhros’s back, clearly expecting to be teased. 

But for once, Celegorm doesn’t want to tease his brother. Behind him, his parent’s voices are loud and angry, and he can hear his mother yelling,

“You worthless, stubborn piece of shit!” Instead, he grabs his own coat and quietly bundles himself into it, clipping on Huan’s collar, and waiting by the door as Maedhros puts on Junior’s muddy shoes from the day before while the little boy sits silently, his eyes wide and his thumb in his mouth. Behind the two of them, Caranthir sits stoically, his too-big hand-me-down clothes making him look tiny as Celegorm --to his own horror-- reaches out, taking his hand and helping him to his feet. Maedhros glances over, and seeing Huan shakes his head,

“No, please leave him here Tyelkormo.” He says gently, and Celegorm panics, tumbling to the ground in his haste to wrap around the big dog. He had been forced to abandon his best friend the day before, Huan is not staying behind. Perhaps sensing his fear, Maedhros lets out a long sigh, looking much, much older than twelve as he purses his lips and scrubs with his free arm at his eyes,

“Okay, fine, come on,” Maedhros says quietly, and the five of them exit the house, closing the door behind them with a gentle click. Even the expanse of wood does not manage to completely block out the sounds of their parents behind it. Maglor takes Maedhros’s free hand, leaving Celegorm and Caranthir to walk by themselves, and Celegorm wishes he had thought to put on a thicker jacket. The autumn air is freezing and bites at his exposed hands like ice, leaving him to ball up his fingers and shove them deep into his pocket. 

In Maedhros’s arms, Junior starts to struggle, letting out a single wail before Maedhros winces and acquiesces to his wishes, placing him down on the ground. He obviously thinks he is being subtle when he wipes his eyes again as he does so, but Celegorm sees. Junior’s steps are small, slowing them all down, and although Celegorm wishes that Maedhros would just pick him back up again, his eldest brother does not; letting Junior toddle his way down the road and keep them all from getting where they are going.
Where are they going? Celegorm doesn’t know. Maglor has stopped crying now, though his fingers grip Maedhros’s so tightly that his knuckles have turned white, and he is so small next to Maedhros that Celegorm often forgets that they are only two years apart. Even he is larger than Maglor at this point, though right now Celegorm isn’t sure whether that is something to be proud of. 
Huan lets out a joyous bark and runs off into the woods that frame their street, and Maedhros turns worriedly back towards him. Celegorm shrugs in response to his gaze,

“He’ll be back. He always does.” They walk for what feels like forever, though when Celegorm looks back, he can still see the faint outline of their house through the mist.

“Where are we going?” Caranthir asks, his voice low and calm as it always is, and Celegorm looks to Maedhros, who is staring straight ahead as if he can see their destination, however far away and concealed by the mist. In the end, it is not he who answers, but Junior, jumping excitedly, tugging on Maedhros’s hand with a goofy grin on his face,

“Park! Park!” He shrieks, and Maedhros seems to consider this for a moment before nodding,

“Sure Junior, we can go to the park.” Celegorm looks at him in surprise. Normally Maedhros, with his hyper fixation on fitting in in Middle School, would have refused to escort them publically to the park, though Celegorm is not sure why this is. The park is a fun place, full of things for him to hang off of and climb, full of small hiding places where even his brothers cannot find him. Maedhros should love the park, the way he loves to do anything and everything with them when they are in private and there are no other eyes telling him how to behave.

“Nelyo, are we going to walk all the way there?” Caranthir asks practically, and Maedhros nods absentmindedly as Maglor shouts out indignantly,

“No, Nelyo that will take a whole hour!” And Celegorm’s heart sinks, he wants to go to the park, but the idea of walking all the way there through this disgusting freezing fog is somehow quite off-putting. Maedhros glances over at Maglor and shakes his head quickly, quirking it in Junior’s direction, but Maglor doesn’t seem to get the message as he continues to complain,

“I can’t walk that far, it’s impossible!” His feet are dragging over the cement now, and Junior, seeming to sense uncertainty in their plan, plops down on the wet sidewalk, rocking back and forth, and starts to cry. Caranthir scowls at all of them, tugging his hand from Celegorm’s grasp and whining,

“I don’t want to, Nelyo, I want to go home.” Maglor stomps his foot angrily, Caranthir crosses his arms over his chest, face flushing dangerously, and Junior overbalances in his rocks, flopping onto the back on the sidewalk and letting out an ear-piercing scream. For the first time in his life, Celegorm sees Maedhros overwhelmed, and he is shocked when his brother drops to the sidewalk, right beside Junior, and buries his head in his hands, starting to cry. A hush falls over the street, broken only by the moaning wind and Junior’s continued sobbing as he pounds the wet pavement beneath him. 

“Nelyo?” Maglor asks quietly, but their older brother does not respond, only burrows farther in on himself, shaking with the weight of his tears. He looks so small as he sits on the edge of the abandoned grey road, only a shadow of what he usually is when he is smiling and laughing and swinging them all around in circles, and for the first time in a long time, Celegorm is afraid. If Maedhros (his strong, tall, smart big brother) can look this lost and helpless there must be some possibility that he could be too.

And he hates Maedhros, hates him for being able to be so weak, for giving up right here on the street when they need him the most, for not being as strong as a twelve-year-old is supposed to be… there are a million reasons he hates Maedhros, but none of them will come out, instead, boiling in an angry bubble deep in his stomach.

He glares over at Maglor, fixing him with the same angry scowl he gives to the kids at school who try to take the swing set before him and pushes him away,

“Fuck off Káno.” He mutters angrily, using the worst word he has ever heard -- and only once, a quiet breath of exhaled air when his father found out that Grandpa Finn was dead. It has become his favourite word, a mean nasty word that he doesn’t understand but that makes every one twitch and move away from him when he wants to be alone.
This time proves no different, Maglor stumbles backwards a few steps, fixing him with one searingly hot scowl before stomping off to the other side of the empty road, and a moment later Caranthir follows, his hands reaching out for Maglor in a rare display of neediness. Junior has quieted, seeing that no one seems to care if he is on the ground or soaking wet, and merely lies face down on the sidewalk, sniffling. 

There is a clap of thunder in the distance, and as if on queue, the mist turns into a light rain, the dark clouds on the horizon threatening a much larger storm if they do not move quickly to get inside. Celegorm approaches Maedhros quietly, the way he would one of the small frightened animals he finds in the woods, and sits beside him, brushing just the tips of his fingers over Maedhros’s.

“Where do you want to go?” he asks softly, sure that that must be the root of his brother’s disquiet, and Maedhrosdhros’ body give one colossal shudder before it stills, with his voice muffled by his coat and his legs he whispers,

“I don’t know Tyelkormo, we don’t have anywhere to go.” Debating for a moment, Celegorm decides this qualifies as one of the emergency moments in which his brother matters more than being cool and shifts closer, snuggling into Maedhros’s side and wrapping his arms around the larger figure. Junior stands silently, with his clothes dripping wet, and pastes himself to Maedhros’s other side, where he says softly,

“You scared.” Sometimes, Celegorm is shocked by just how mature the miniature boy is. One moment he is throwing a tantrum on a wet street, and the next he is putting into words what Celegorm could not manage to confront himself: Maedhros is scared. Maedhros looks up fully, his silver-grey eyes full of a torrent of emotions that Celegorm cannot begin to define, and he gives them a crooked smile,

“Nah, Junior, I’m not scared. It looks like the weather isn’t going to be good though, come on. We can...” He trails off, clearly unsure as to what they can do, and Maglor returns from across the street, grasping Caranthir’s hand firmly in his. Their hair is plastered to their heads by the rain and Maglor looks apologetically guilty. 

“Home,” Caranthir says firmly, “I want to go home.” Maedhros reaches down and pulls the soaking wet Junior into his arms, where he sits uncomplainingly, one small hand on Maedhros’s face.

“Scared.” He repeats as if it means everything in the world, and Maedhros looks so lost for a moment that Celegorm is sure it must be true, so he reaches out, taking Maedhros’s hand in his, and praying that this will make him remember that they are all here, in the street, and the rain is going to come, and they are going home.

“Come on.” He says and leads Maedhros back towards the faint silhouette of their big house in the distance, leaving the others to follow behind him as he leads the way back to the home he was only too eager to exit earlier that morning. Huan is waiting for them, muddy and soaked, panting happily as if he has just had the time of his life, but Celegorm takes one look at Maedhros’s face and says firmly,

“No, Huan, stay.”

 The door has locked behind them, leaving Maedhros with no choice but to reach up and ring the bell, as they all stand under the rain. Celegorm’s father opens the door, his eyes still blazing with anger, and for a moment Celegorm is sure that he has made the wrong choice, that it will be his fault this time when Maedhros begins to cry, but instead, Fëanor’s mouth falls slightly open. It is not Maedhros’s eyes that are enveloped with tears, it is their father’s as he fully opens the door, 

“Well, come in then.” His words are stiff, but there is a tentative quality to them that makes Celegorm nervous again as he clutches at Maedhros’s hand. There is silence, total complete silence in the house as they file one by one into the kitchen, where Nerdanel stands, also speechless, and they take their seats. Breakfast is served, and they eat --cereal with fresh fruit-- in silence. 

“I’m sorry Mom, Dad,” Maedhros whispers, but no one responds, and Junior reaches over, placing his tiny hand over Maedhros’s mouth and saying,

“Shush.” A great bird seems to be swooping over them, like the ones Celegorm has read about in his books: huge and carnivorous, dangerous but beautiful; only this silence is not beautiful. It is terrifying and Celegorm is sure that if any one of them moves or dares to break the stillness that reigns, the bird will dive, and that person will not survive. Celegorm swirls his spoon around inside of the cereal and pretends to be eating while really sending quick glances up to the ceiling, each time expecting to see the bird, and each time rewarded with nothing but plain white. He is almost disappointed that it does not appear, because although a giant carnivorous bird would be terrifying, at least then he could fight it. He cannot fight the air or the phantom of his father’s anger that seems to hang over the room.

Fëanor suddenly lets out a large whoosh of air, and his head falls down into his hand as he rubs at his face. He looks up at Nerdanel, sitting silently at the other end of the table. Celegorm is silent, his eyes flickering around the room, watching for the bird, but the bird seems to have left, the force of his father’s sigh has blown it away.

“I’m sorry, Nerdanel, you’re right. I’ll call tomorrow.” His mother gives a slight nod, and then reaches over, gathering a shivering Maedhros into her arms,

“Okay, you five: shower, now, and then we can talk.” Celegorm shudders, annoyed that on top of everything today he is also going to be made to take a shower; but looking over at Maedhros, who is pale and bedraggled with his red hair plastered flat to the top of his head and beginning to drip, he decides that perhaps a shower today would not be the end of the world. Maybe it will wash away his memory of this whole sorry experience so that he never has to admit he has seen his brother cry.

Maedhros stands beneath the hot water, letting it pound down on the top of his head. He is numb, the tips of his finger’s still shivering with cold, and his skin has turned lobster red under the heat of the water. None of this matters though, as Maedhros is not really paying attention to his surroundings while he stares blankly at the wall before him because he has failed. He wasn’t able to take care of them all when it mattered the most.

Maedhros only knows one thing about who he is for sure, one thing that no one at school can take away or try to steal from him: He is a good brother. Suddenly, he is not so sure. Junior’s cries echo up the stairs from below where he is taking a hot bath and thoroughly rejecting the idea of warm water on his freezing skin, and Maglor, Caranthir, and Celegorm have disappeared off to wherever they go once their turn cleaning is over. 

The air steams around him, clogging his lungs with moisture and flying around in tendrils of curling sparkling water. Maedhros scrubs hard at his skin, the already angry red turning a shade darker in response to his rough treatment, trying to wipe off the sting of the rain, to tear away his failure and leave who he thought he was behind. He scrubs so hard that when he goes to dress again, his jeans chaff against his skin. 

The bathroom door opens with a rush of steam, evaporating into nothingness in the cooler room outside, and his parents sit side by side on the bed, waiting for him. His mother wears a gentle smile, his father a thoughtful frown, but Maedhros knows why they have come. No amount of posturing and pretending can ignore what a supreme failure he has just been to the role of an older brother.

He is supposed to be strong. He is supposed to be able to take care of them when they are upset, but he couldn’t. Instead, he left an eight-year-old to clean up his mess and broke down crying like Junior.

“Nelyo, baby, come here.” Nerdanel sits on the edge of the bed and Maedhros approaches her, his legs as heavier than a mountain as he drops down in the space his parents make between them. He sits slumped over, his eyes stuck on a spot somewhere between his knees,

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs, and Nerdanel reaches over, rubbing soothing circles over his back,

“Honey, what are you sorry about?” She asks gently, and Maedhros looks up at her questioningly,

“I messed up. I couldn’t take care of them all. I was stupid, and--” Fëanor’s hand squeezes his, cutting him off soundlessly,

“Maedhros, you are only twelve years old. No one expects you to take care of four younger brothers all by yourself. It’s okay to need help sometimes.” Maedhros’s head swivels to his father, who is looking at him gently with his intense blue eyes,

“But-- but I couldn’t do it, and now they all hate me, and I let you down.” He whispers, trying to pretend there aren’t tears in his eyes again as Fëanor reaches over, wrapping his arms around him tightly,

“No, Nelyo, you have never let me down. I will always be proud of you.”

“Baby, you are the best brother anyone could hope for, they could never hate you,” Nerdanel says gently, her fingers still stroking down his spine,

“You are so kind, I don’t know any other kid who would take as much time to love those crazy kids as you do, beautiful.” Maedhros’s heart warms ever so slightly at the genuine smile on his mother’s face, and Fëanor chuckles,

“Crazy is certainly an apt word, and Maitimo, if it weren’t for you I’m not sure even the two of us would be able to fully corral them all. They adore you, son, and so do we.” Nerdanel shifts closer to him, rubbing a hand over his wet hair,

“I know we don’t tell you enough, sweetie, but we love you so much. There’s no one out there I would be prouder to call my son.” Maedhros is embarrassed when he sniffs, finally unable to stop his tears from once again tracing tracks down his cheeks, but instead of commenting on this latest digression from their expectations, Fëanor anFëanorrdanel only shift closer to him, hugging him tightly. 

Between them, warm and safe and not alone, Maedhros almost forgets why he is upset. Feeling wanted, loved, being enough, all of these are emotions that only come rarely and Maedhros wants nothing more than to soak them all up inside himself to a little treasure chest he can open when he needs to be happy. It is like a small fire, burning inside his chest and keeping away the ice that threatened to freeze over his insides as Junior cried on the cement, and Maedhros would be happy to sit there, sandwiched between his mother and father, finally feeling like there is something he is good at, forever.

Downstairs, his father lights a fire in the big stone fireplace of their living room and Maedhros sits on the floor, watching as Celegorm and Junior build towers of blocks and then smash them down with as much glee as if it is a third dessert they are being offered instead of a precariously crafted tower of wooden rectangles. Caranthir curls up silently into his mother’s side, a thick book in his hands. The cover reads ‘A Complete History Of The American Capitalist System’, and Maedhros shakes his head with a rueful smile. 

His crazy five-year-old brother, reading a study of American Capitalism. Fëanor slides onto the floor next to Maedhros, one arm going around him as he calls over to Celegorm,

“That one was a little too close to the fire, try to make sure he knocks it towards me please.” The air is sweet with the smell of fresh cookies that Nerdanel appears to have just taken out of the oven, and Maedhros is warm, snuggled against his father’s side and surrounded by his family. Maglor spins around suddenly from his previous position on the piano bench, his fingers ghosting over the keys without noise, and glances over at Maedhros, still looking sad and guilty. 

“Dad?” He asks quietly, and Fëanor glFëanors over at him,
 
“Can I play a song?” he requests, leaving his father to nod encouragingly as his fingers hover a moment longer over the keys of the piano before sinking down with a talent that far exceeds his age. The keys blend together to create a beautiful river of sound that holds Maedhros captive and even brings Celegorm and Junior’s destructive game to an end for a moment as they watch Maglor play, his hands fluttering and tongue sticking out in focus as his fingers fly over the keys. It is beautiful, and although when he finally begins to sing, the lyrics are still hold all the sweet childish innocence they should, Maedhros thinks it is the most outstanding thing he has ever heard.

Maglor has come a long way from when the two of them would sit side by side and play ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ together, from the day Maedhros first lifted him up onto the seat and showed him how to press the keys and create sound.

He was born singing, that is what their parents say, and at the moment Maedhros cannot help but believe it. Maglor is ethereal with his damp hair falling on either side of his face and his pale fingers dancing, creating gentle chords that weave themselves into harmony. Maglor’s brow is scrunched in concentration, his eyes squinting as he invents the tune on the spot, and there is a melancholic undertone that Maedhros cannot help but feel vibrating deep in that part of himself that even now, surrounded by warmth and love, threatens to pull him deep and keep him hidden in the dark and cold, away from all the heat he could have hoped to feel.

Maglor’s fingers dance, they glide, they flutter, rise, and fall, and slowly the lugubrious undertone is replaced by something new, a rising tide of notes which tremble through the air on half-broken wings before gaining strength and planting themselves deep inside Maedhros with all the intense hope and beauty of a newly fledged songbird.

When his brother finally stops playing, Maedhros is breathless, waiting for the last note to finally disappear before Maglor hops off the bench with an embarrassed smile and joins Maedhros on the floor. As if the spell has been broken, Junior shrieks and kicks, sending the blocks tumbling down to the floor again as Nerdanel reappears in the doorway, setting steaming hot cookies on the table where Maglor eagerly grabs three, passing one to Maedhros and cramming one whole into his mouth with chocolate dripping hot and melted down his chin. 

Maedhros chews slowly, watching his little brother gulp down the sweet and immediately shove an enormous bite of the second into his mouth as if he cannot bear for the favour to dissipate even the slightest bit. He looks up at Maedhros, his mouth full and messy and says,

“Did you like my song?” except to Maedhros it sounds more like ‘dish ooh kckph mmh ong?’ Nevertheless, the two questions have the same general meaning, so Maedhros responds without comment,

“Of course I did, Káno. Did you have a name for it, or is it just ‘your song’?” Maglor swallows and frowns thoughtfully, looking up at Maedhros with his blue-grey eyes and saying softly,

“I don’t know if it has a name, but when I made it I was thinking about you, Nelyo.” Maedhros smiles as Maglor reaches for a third and fourth cookie, once again passing one to him, and wraps his arms tight around his little brother. 

“Thank you for writing about me. That’s a very important thing to have in my name.” Maglor grins goofily, chocolate staining his teeth,

“Yeah, someday when I get famous like Mozart you can say, ‘oh I know him he wrote a song for me. It’s called Maesong.’” Maedhros laughs, taking a bite of his own cookie and looks around the room at his big happy family, Caranthir and Nerdanel the couch quietly together, Celegorm and Junior shrieking and crashing woodblocks to the floor, and Maglor curls up into his side, who wrote a song for him. On his other side, Fëanor pulls both the two of them closer to him and whispers in Maedhros’s ear,

“See, you are loved.” And Maedhros feels that right now, that might just be true.

Fëanor sits quietly in the back of the bus, his arms clenched around his backpack as a cacophony of noise surrounds him. A little bubble of calm amidst the insanity, he sits glowing with pride even as words and objects are thrown over and around him, a small tornado existing between the four orangey-yellow walls of the bus.

Happiness, he thinks, comes so very easily to him. All it takes is  a sheet of paper, like the one inside of his bag, or the warm arms of his father, and suddenly the world explodes into colour around him. 

‘Fëanor Noldoran is an exemplary student, intelligent and engaged, he confronts each day with enthusiasm and spunk, amazing us with his diligence and single-mindedness towards expanding his horizons past the confines of what he knows.’ 

The words are much the same each year, gushing and pleased, yet Fëanor knows that no matter how many times his father hears it he will be proud. Finwë will scoop Fëanor into his arms and whisper,

“Your mother would be so proud of you,” and a shiver of pure lightning will run down Fëanor’s spine with the force of the love that his father gifts him with. Once, Finwë asked if he wanted a mother so that there could be twice as much love for him, but Fëanor thinks that is silly. There is no one out there who could give him more love than his father does.

He jumps off the bus, waving behind himself with a bright smile, and runs up the little path that leads to his house. The door is already open, and Fëanor rushes inside, already unzipping his backpack and unlacing his shoes, not willing to waste any time before that electric hug and the powerful force of his father’s love can envelop him.

Except when he enters the kitchen, where his father usually sits waiting for him, he is not alone. There is a blonde woman sitting beside Finwë with a cup of coffee and two boys sitting on the floor, playing with Fëanor’s toys. His father glances up, spotting him and sending him a broad grin,

“Fëanor! How was school?” He says happily, but there is something different in his tone, a slight hesitation that was never there before when Fëanor had something special to share with him. Fëanor glances down at his hands, and the report card clenched in them, and looks up again at his father hopefully,

“I got this.” He says, and Finwë reaches out his hand, allowing his father to pull it from his grip and give him a warm smile. Instead of reading it, however, he places it next to him, and says,

“Indis, I don’t think you have met my son yet?” The woman smiles widely --too widely-- and says in a high simpering voice,

“No, I have not had the pleasure, you must be Fëanor, yes?” It sounds like the type of voice people used to use with Fëanor when he was younger and not expected to be capable of any meaningful contributions to society. He nods reluctantly, and the woman reaches out, her thin flawless spider-like hand taking his,

“I am Isobel, it is wonderful to meet you.” The way she says wonderful leaves a sour taste in Fëanor’s mouth, and he scowls, pulling his hand away and taking a step back. Her hands are moist and smooth, lacking all of the dry calloused electricity that makes his father unique. 

For a moment, Fëanor is worried that she will find a way to steal it all away from him.

Maglor loves mornings. So early that the weak light of dawn is all that exists to lead his way. There is pure beautiful silence and not even the birds are there to interrupt him as his thoughts turn slowly from prose to poetry and staff markings. Downstairs, across the house from his parents’ bedroom, Maglor has a small white room, whitewashed and empty except for a single large window and a grand piano. Two years ago, Maglor made Maedhros paint the door until it was covered in colours, all meshing together into something that approximated the images he sees in his mind as the music flows through him and onto the piano keys.

Morning light makes Maglor’s mind buzz, a million colours and thoughts and music notes appearing and filling his mind like sand until the only thing he can do is leap out of bed and run for the music room where he can release the pressure building up from all the unsung songs. He plays until the birds join him and his fingertips are smudged with ink from all of the notes he has written and written and written again, always revising because it can never quite come out perfect. He stares at the papers, his illegible handwriting looking back at him, full of the hopes and dreams he had poured through his instrument just moments before, and which now he only understands by a fraction. Outside the sky is finally blue and the birds sing joyfully, and Maglor shuffles the papers into order, standing in front of the piano so that he can reach both the pedals and the keys. It makes him angry that Celegorm, who is two years younger than he, has already surpassed him in height and can reach the pedals while seated without any issue.

Hesitantly, his fingers find the keys and then they fly, a small fluttering which swells slowly into song. The notes are beautiful, but out of key, fractured, broken in some places so that Maglor has to stop and pick the melody back out of the chaos he has left on the paper behind him. The damp spring air beyond his window presses to the glass, dewdrops sliding one by one down the glass. The birds have gone quiet again, or perhaps Maglor can not hear them beyond the fractured hope of his own music. As the last notes hang in the air, Maglor hears a loud screech and several bangs as something small and dark-haired barrels around the corner and through his open door. Junior skids to a stop inches from Maglor’s piano and plops himself down looking directly up at Maglor with huge blue eyes and screaming one single high shrill note seemingly without end.

“Junior, shut up! You’ll wake Mom and Dad up!” Maglor exclaims running to shut the door to the music room, but Junior pays him no attention, only altering his voice to shriek a little louder and higher until Maglor, cringing at the noise, grabs the little boy and pulls him into his arms, stumbling backwards with the weight of his younger brother until he can sit on the piano bench. Immediately, Junior’s mouth shuts and he gazes sweetly up at Maglor, popping his thumb into his mouth and giggling around it,

“You play music loud.” Maglor glares at his youngest brother and checks his watch. 5:18. On any normal day, he would have had another hour to play and play and play, rewriting everything until the song no longer sounded broken and empty. Now, he will be surprised if he doesn’t see the rest of his family downstairs within ten minutes.

“Junior,” he complains, not caring that he sounds whiny and young himself, “Why can’t you just be normal? I wasn’t even being that loud.”

“You were too loud.” Junior asserts again, stretching out his hand towards the piano and slamming down a tiny fist, sending a disjointed clash of sound into the air with an evil-sounding laugh. Maglor wants to throw him out of the room and lock the door, to hide and go back to the dawn silence and aloneness that allows him to think. Junior reaches out a hand and slams the piano a few more times with wild giggles before a frown crosses his face, pouting as he looks up at Maglor and whines,

“You better.” Maglor can’t help the smile that crosses his face at that and Junior reaches down, struggling to lift one of Maglor’s hands and drop it onto the piano.

“You.” He says, glaring stubbornly up at Maglor as if there is some possibility he might say no to such a request. Maglor glances over at the smudged ink papers in front of him, wanting nothing more than to go back to trying to fix the song, but instead he picks up a light easy melody, one Junior knows well and now sings along brokenly to, getting half the words wrong and happily tugging hard on Maglor’s hair with every downbeat. Outside the room, Maglor hears a creak on the stairs and turns around just as Maedhros enters the room holding a half-asleep Caranthir. In response to his unasked question, Maglor quickly responds,

“No one was hurt, Junior was just being annoying.” Junior gives another sharp tug of his hair and Maglor winces.

“No,” Junior says fiercely, and Maedhros carefully sets Caranthir down on the bench next to Maglor before scooping Junior into his arms, gently untangling Maglor’s hair from his sticky fingers as he replies,

“That’s good —silly, we don’t pull Káno’s hair, that hurts!” Junior lets out another shriek of laughter as Maedhros pokes his stomach. Curled against Maglor’s side, Caranthir pulls his knees up to his chest and buries his face in them mumbling,

“He knows, he’s just mean.” Internally, Maglor agrees, but in the hopes of gaining his older brother’s favour, he remains quiet, watching as Junior’s eyes narrow evilly and he bites Maedhros’ finger with his tiny sharp teeth. Taking advantage of Maedhros’ yelp of pain and surprise, Junior leaps from his brother’s arms and Maglor’s hands are already half-way to his ears when his youngest brother lets out a shriek and then begins to wail as he lands squarely on his bottom.

It feels very suddenly too loud, all of this explosive sound and colour after the grey of being alone. Inside his head and his music, Maglor can make the silver-blue of Maedhros blend seamlessly into Junior’s maroon while Caranthir’s pale green sings a soprano tying them together. Here, beyond the confines of what he can control, they are all dissonant, a chaotic clamour with no melody at all. Silently, Maglor picks up the sheets and scoots slowly towards the door, slipping out the door as Maedhros frantically bounces Junior, jumping back and forth between cooing words of comfort and barely restraining his frustration. He hurries down the hall and into the kitchen, sheets clutched to his chest like some secret treasure and flops down in his chair, pulling a pen from his pocket and staring down at the scribbled notes. They seem nearly incoherent now, far from the perfect symphony of sound he had intended and Maglor slumps backwards letting out a huff of annoyance and looking up to see his mother already standing at the kitchen counter making coffee.

“Good morning sweetheart,” She says with a knowing smile and Maglor scowls in response, still able to hear Junior shrieking in the background.

“No it isn’t,” He grumbles stubbornly, “Stupid Junior didn’t even let me get anything done.”

“Let me see?” She asks, and Maglor reluctantly hands her the messy sheets, self-conscious and more than aware that they are terrible. Not good enough for her and certainly not good enough (never good enough, he is never good enough) for his father. Junior toddles around the corner, his thumb in his mouth, but somehow still screaming for help as Nora picks up the sheets and she glances up, quickly gathering him into her arms and laughing. Junior reaches out, pushing the papers from her hand and to the floor, leaving the corner slightly crumpled, and Nora reaches down to pick them up again, only to be attacked from behind by Cel, who has appeared from somewhere outside with grass stains in his hair and one of his teeth in his hand, knocked clean out of his mouth,

“Look, Mom!” He says proudly, “Huan knocked it out for me!” Nora takes in a deep breath through her teeth and asks,

“That’s wonderful sweetie, was it wiggly to begin with?” Celegorm shakes his head,

“Nah, Verkeneldo says it’s an adult tooth.” He says with a gap-toothed grin, and Nora looks up as Náro enters the room, stepping carelessly ontop of Maglor’s music as he scoops Junior from Nora’s arms, the dirt on the bottom of his work shoes smearing over Maglor’s messily scribbled notes.

“Náro, make sure you call in another dentist’s appointment for Tyelko,” Nerdanel calls as Fëanor passes her. Maglor jumps up, determined to get to his music before it is ruined any more, but now Náro his hurrying back, kissing Junior on the cheek and placing him on top of Maglor’s papers as he turns around and hurries out the door. Maglor pushes Junior off the papers and gathers them back safely into his arms, only to turn around and have Celegorm dump a glass of orange juice straight onto his head.

Maglor can feel it dripping down onto the music sheets, sinking into the messy notes and smearing the ink slowly down the page. No one notices, no one cares. Junior is crying on the floor, Caranthir is yelling angrily at Celegorm, and Nelyo is on his phone in the corner, hiding from the chaos of the rest of the family.

Giving Celegorm a look which cannot even pass as a scowl due to the tears already spilling out of his eyes, Maglor vanishes up the stairs, slamming the sheets down onto his desk and rubbing his eyes angrily, staring down at the blurred and illegible notes on the top half of each sheet.

The papers were useless to begin with; terrible, disjointed, worthless attempts to explain the music in his mind. Maglor doesn’t even know why he is so upset over their destruction, except for perhaps the fact that they are his. Maglor’s. Maglor reaches down and attempts to split them out from the soaked pile, but instead the top sheet rips across the top, the soggy paper leaving him with nothing but scraps by the time he has finished prising the sheets apart.

Broken, just like the notes of his song. Grasping at the strains of song that remain in his mind, Maglor grabs paper and begins to scribble, but within moments Maglor drops his pen again and crumples up the sheet he had been writing and hurls it at the wall. There is no music. Somehow, during the clamour and dissonance and chaos of his brothers, the melody has fled from his mind and left him with nothing but an empty buzzing sound.

Maglor buries his head in his hands and cries.

A few hours later he is still kneeling in front of his desk with the crumpled paper carefully flattened in his hands as he attempts to piece it back together into what it had been before. The orange juice has dried on the papers and smeared ink covers much of what had once been half-legible writing, but there are a few sections Maglor thinks he might actually be able to read, and in hopes of preserving them he ignores the stabbing pain in his kneecaps and continues trying to piece all the damp edges together.

None of them seems to fit quite right, though, each one ripped and damp so that the edges have deformed and don’t match each other well enough for him to recreate what was once one sheet of paper instead of just ripped scraps. Behind him, the door creaks open and Maglor turns to glare at Maedhros as his brother enters the room.

Only two years older, but those years seem to make all the difference, Maglor’s anger disappears the moment Maedhros kneels patiently beside him and hugs him tightly. Maglor would cry again, but he already used all the tears he has left in his body. Instead, he just trembles in Maedhros’s arms, wishing that his brother could turn the scraps back into a whole as easily as he does Maglor’s heart.

“It’s okay, Káno, I’m sorry Tyelko was being a jerk. We can fix it, right?” Mae says gently somewhere above him, and Maglor shakes his head,

“It’s all wet and ripped up and nothing goes where it’s supposed to.” Maedhros pulls him to his feet and keeps his arm wrapped around Maglor’s shoulder as the two of them move over to the desk looking down again at the shattered music.

“See? Maglor mumbles sniffing and looking down at the wreck, “You can’t even read it anymore.” He looks up at Maedhros, hoping his brother will be able to crack the code he has been unable to break and to see some pattern, some solution to it all, but instead he just sees disappointment and pity.

“I’m sorry Káno, that was… a total dick move on Tyelko’s part. Do you at least remember it?” Maglor shook his head sadly, plopping backwards onto his bed and dragging Maedhros with him. There is silence for a moment, while Maglor trembles with pent up sobs again. Maedhros holds him tightly as if both of them might drown if he lets go.

“I just wanted it to be good, one good song for Dad, but now it’s gone and it was bad anyway. They’re never good,” Maglor mumbles, curling deeper into Maedhros’s much taller frame. Maedhros squeezes him even tighter.

“I think they’re all beautiful, Káno. Your music is amazing the way it is.” Maglor looks up and wants to thank him, to write a symphony so sweet that Maedhros will be able to finally feel how much Maglor loves him, but instead he just whispers:

“But they’re not perfect.” For a moment, Maglor can see tears in Maedhros’s eyes, silvery water making them waver and sparkle in the morning light, glimmering on the edge of his eyelashes, and then the moment passes and Maedhros blinks. What might have been tears are gone, and Maedhros is Maedhros again. He smiles and squeezes Maglor’s shoulder.

“Káno, that’s stupid. They’re not supposed to be perfect. That’s what makes them interesting. I love your songs because they have little moments that remind me of you.” This should make Maglor feel better, but somehow it does not. It cannot fix the song or Celegorm or the fact that he would have been done and the papers would have been safe in his room had Junior just waited another half an hour.

“Yeah, I guess,” he mumbles, because Maedhros is still sitting next to him and his brother’s arms are so warm and perfect. Sometimes Maglor wishes Maedhros had been his father instead of Fëanor. Fëanor is always hurrying from one place to another, never stopping in between to just notice them.

Instead Maglor has to write and write and write, trying eternally to find that one perfect song that might finally be enough to make his father pause and notice him. Maglor’s terrified that he will never find the right one, but Maedhros… Maedhros has so much faith in him. It would be easy --were Maedhros his father-- to feel worthy of being loved, so instead of ruining the warmth of his brother’s hug, Maglor simply stays silent, wishing the damp ripped papers might realign and give him back his song. Wishing the strings of fate would reweave themselves to let Maedhros know just how much Maglor loves him. Maedhros shifts on the bed next to him, leaning over towards the desk and then saying softly:

“You know, some of these are still readable. It’s only bits and pieces, but maybe you can use them for something else?” Maglor looks up into Maedhros’s hopeful face, seeing a sudden flash of fear in Maedhros’s eyes that surprises him because he knows.

Fear that even his best effort to fix things will not be enough, fear that he, Maglor, is not enough. Maglor grits his teeth against the urge to dismiss the scraps, to call them damaged and terrible and ruined, and instead leans over to inspect the tiny snippets of music. They’re nothing. Broken. Ridiculous and useless, but as Maedhros points them out, his voice so full of hope, Maglor collects them all into a pile and looks up at his brother, his heart swelling.

“I.. I know it’s not fixed, but is that enough to help remember?” Maedhros asks, and Maglor nods.

“Yeah,” he lies, “It’s perfect. Thank you, Nelyo.” His brother gives a brilliant smile and hugs Maglor tightly against him. Maglor buries his face in Maedhros’s front, feeling tears come to his eyes. The music will never, never, never be enough or back to the broken but fixable melody that it had been before, but Maedhros… Maedhros is enough.

In the back of his mind, a simple string of notes begins to form, and as if this one tiny phrase is all it takes to break the dam, a million notes come flooding into his mind at once, all vivid and strong in his mind and full of the same love he can feel singing in his heart. Maedhros. Maedhros has always been enough for him, held him, kissed him, told him he is beautiful and enough and…

The song is already far ahead of him, Maglor’s subconscious mind weaving in those same snippets of music Maedhros pointed out, and with his eyes sparkling Maglor jumps to his feet and snatches them up, grabbing Maedhros’s hand and running down the stairs two at a time. It feels far too slow and Maglor’s heart is thumping in his throat as he grabs the nearest stack of empty staff sheets, letting his hand fly across the paper without even thinking, just desperate to get the music out of his head before it is lost.

The melody rises and falls like ocean waves, a million sparks of sunshine dancing across it, and Maglor does not care (for once) that the composition is short and imperfect. He doesn’t care if his fingers fly a little too fast in his writing and some parts are illegible. Standing up with ink smudged hands he finds Maedhros waiting patiently in the doorway, a fond smile on his face and eyes full of so much love that for a moment Maglor cannot breathe. My brother, he thinks proudly, mine. And he thinks I am enough.

“Do you have time to listen?” he asks shyly, and Maedhros’s smile is all the answer he needs as he sits down and begins to play. The music floats effortlessly from his fingers, dancing and leaping upwards towards the sky and filled with all the love he could possibly fit into it. Maglor knows it is not long or stunning or perfect, but for once, he feels happy with it just being what it is. The song comes from somewhere deep inside of him and he can feel the rhythm rocking him gently, filling him up with Maedhros’s love.

By the time Maglor stops playing, he is breathless and it takes a moment for him to even remember where he is. The world seems to have tilted slightly, leaving him --not off balance but feeling unsteady in the sudden silence. Maglor turns shyly towards Maedhros looking up at his brother hopefully, and without a single word Maedhros wraps Maglor up into his warm arms. Maglor wants to cry again, he wants to laugh and sing and cry and never let go of his brother because Maedhros is here. But instead, he just relaxes his head against Maedhros’s shoulder and mumbles,

“I love you Nelyo.”

“I love you too,” Maedhros whispers, and Maglor knows his song isn’t perfect or clean or long enough to be good, but he smiles nonetheless, happy to know that --for once-- what he has is enough.

Maedhros loves school. His teachers, the subjects, the thrill that comes with learning, all of it is beautiful, and more often than not leaves him with a smile on his face that somehow refuses to go away. Still, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Maedhros loved school, because now, sitting in the car as Fëanor drops he and Maglor off for the day, Maedhros is suddenly unsure as to whether he wants to go inside at all. Maglor bounces out without a backwards glance, high-fiving two different boys and laughing by the time he reaches the door, but Maedhros remains in his seat on the pretence of checking his bag for his pencil. A little ball of apprehension presses upwards against his lungs, causing mild panic that has nothing at all to do with the existence (or lack thereof) of a pencil within his bag. Maedhros has carried at least ten with him everywhere he goes since the first day of sixth grade when he forgot to bring any at all. 

No, this fear has everything to do with the school itself, where Maedhros feels out of place with no close friends to speak of. It wasn’t nearly so difficult to survive this way in elementary school, and even in the sixth grade Maedhros had no problem sitting by himself reading all through lunch and recess, but suddenly at the beginning of this year, the rumours had started. Maedhros was an alien, he was an abuse victim, he didn’t actually speak English at all, they went on and on, and recently, the latest consensus was that Maedhros (that tall red-haired weirdo who hasn’t even asked a girl out yet) is gay. 

“Fag,”

“Sissy,”

“Deviant,” they are hurled at him from across the hallways, slipped on bits of lined paper into his backpack and locker, even hissed through closed lips while teachers are present. Perhaps the taunts have only gotten so bad this year because Maglor is finally in middle school with him. Maglor who is funny and popular and has never even questioned his own sexuality in the ways that Maedhros sometimes does. 

Is he gay? Maedhros isn’t sure. He has never kissed anyone beyond his direct family and the question plagues him. Each time someone whispers a new taunt or giggles break out behind him, Maedhros finds himself thinking back on so many moments and questioning himself. He might be gay, he is not sure. 

He knows that is no reason for anyone else to laugh. It is his life, his issue, why do the other children insist upon turning one (questionable) aspect of his person into the single trait that defines his entire image? 
Unlike Maglor, when he exits the car he looks back at his father, who sits alone in the big van, looking oddly out of place as he smiles at Maedhros encouragingly,

“It’s Wednesday, so don’t forget to pick up your brothers on the way home.” He calls out the window as if Maedhros has ever forgotten such a thing in his life. Math facts may slip through his mind like a sieve, but remembering to look after his brothers, to change Junior’s diaper, to help Celegorm with his homework, to pick up new books for Caranthir from the library, these things he has never forgotten. Maedhros nods in confirmation to his father and then turns around and steels himself for the day. As long as he keeps a straight face and pretends that none of it bothers him, the teasing and laughter will only last so long. All the other rumours wore off in the end, this too will have a conclusion if only he can keep calm.

It makes the bearing so much harder when he worries their ‘insults’ might be the truth, that perhaps there is something wrong with him (because how could it not be wrong?), something that makes him different, sort of like a disease where everyone he touches is in danger of contamination. Maedhros wants nothing less than to be marked as the other, but he knows he already is. 

Maglor has disappeared down the sixth-grade wing by the time Maedhros enters the building, leaving him alone in the white-washed hallway with the red and gold mural on one wall reading,

‘Tirion Middle School, building the world of tomorrow.’ He hunches his shoulders forwards to keep the straps of his backpack from sliding down and makes his way down the hall, eyes on the ground. 

The library, he has found, is often nearly empty before school starts; most of his fellow students have gravitated to the cafeteria or the large slab of empty concrete behind the school which marks their ‘playground’ space. As such, it is quiet and cosy, allowing Maedhros relative privacy as he chooses a book from their meagre collection (he has read nearly all of them at this point) and drops his heavy bag by a large squishy orange chair. At most, there are ten minutes before the starting bell rings and he will have to leave his sanctuary in the library in exchange for the aggressive business of the locker hallway. 

Some days, Maedhros manages to find his way out of the pages of his book before the bell rings, walking the empty halls and getting to his locker in advance of the pushing and shoving crowds of children that will flood through the hallway the moment the electronic, ear-piercing shriek of the period bell rings. Today, however, he has only just settled down with his book, curled in the orange chair in his own little bubble of peace before it rings, his eyes torn from the pages as another bolt of anxiety pierces his stomach. Maedhros reluctantly replaces the book onto its shelf and stands, pulling his bag back up onto his shoulders with a small grunt of effort. It seems, in the five months since school started that the effort it takes to lug the backpack around from place to place has tripled since years prior. 

Through the big clear windows of the library, he can see his classmates flying past the glass, chattering and gesturing and laughing, It seems as if a wall of sound precedes them, a sonic boom that leaves Maedhros hovering in the doorway, looking for a nonexistent opening into their world of noise and movement. Pushing out between two groups in the infinitesimal space between, he is swept along by the crowd of children, inextricably moving forwards to the stairs and the day beyond.
Maglor would say there is a rhythm to the movements, to each section of the day, a slow song being build over the hours of each day, and sometimes when they get home he will sit silently in the living room with his fingers flying over the strings of his latest instrumental conquest: violin. The song will weave together seemingly of its own accord, and sometimes Maedhros can hear it, that elusive meaning behind each day that Maglor seems to hear without trying.

At the moment, it is just a tangle, a maze, an undefinable jumble of emotions and smells none of which are good. Maedhros tugs the straps of his bag a little tighter and risks a quick glance around over the heads of everyone around him. Beyond all of his other flaws, he had to be cursed with a height that now rivals his own father’s. His limbs feel too long and awkward, and he sticks out like a sore thumb standing a head above even the tallest in his grade. It is impossible to miss him as he walks along, and Maedhros is unsurprised when he hears a snigger behind him and a yell of,

“All hail, the Mae the gay has arrived!” There is a burst of laughter from what feels like everyone within his (admittedly small) earshot laughs at that and Maedhros ducks his head again, folding in on himself and trying to get smaller. Perhaps if he weren’t cursed with the genes that gave him his height and flaming hair there would not be so much opportunity for teasing. He is like a beacon, calling all of the mean-spirited jokes and absorbing them deep into his skin where they refuse to go away, instead, coming back to him in the depths of his sleep and ingraining themselves into his sense of reality. 

It doesn’t matter, Maedhros reminds himself sternly, If you can just keep your stupid mouth shut, this will go away too. Somewhere ahead of him, Maedhros spots Maglor for a moment, the top of his head bouncing up and down, almost indistinguishable from those around him. What he wouldn’t give to blend in, to be able to reach out and make friends, to not be treated like a piece of rotting meat by everyone around him. 

Tugging his backpack straps back over his shoulder, Maedhros takes in a deep breath and walks the last few feet to his locker, unsurprised to find --when he opens it-- three folded up pieces of paper lying on its base. He has not bothered opening them since June of his seventh-grade year. Instead, they are shoved deep into a pocket of his backpack which is slowly filling with the folded unread insults, waiting for a day when he is strong enough to read them and hear whatever his fellow students thought was so important but felt unable to say to his face.

Maedhros is unsure that such a day will ever come. These are the same people who call him sub-human, a mistake, an abnormality. What could they think to tell him that is worse than that?

Glancing down at his watch, he pulls out a binder and two pencils, shoving one into his pocket, just in case, and keeping the other in his hand as he shuts the locker behind him and --head down, shoulders in-- hurries down the hall and towards his math class. 

Behind him, the door bounces off of his backpack strap, hanging out of the bottom of his locker, and swings open again, but Maedhros doesn’t notice as he makes his way towards the classroom, bent only on reaching the door before anyone else has the opportunity to notice him. Maedhros ducks into the classroom, glancing around to make sure the teacher is there before taking his seat and flashing her a small smile,

“Good morning Ms Fisher, “ he says, hoping his voice sounds more upbeat than it seems to in his own head, and the young teacher looks up from her desktop, giving him a light smile in return,

“Good morning Maedhros. How was your weekend?” Maedhros shrugs, thinking back over the last two days. Caranthir had punched a hole in his bedroom wall, Celegorm broke Maglor’s speaker because of his,

“Shit music fucking everything up,” and Junior had spent nearly three hours straight in absolute silence until Maedhros went into his bedroom to finish the English essay he was supposed to have handwritten and found his brother chewing on the half-dissolved remains of his nearly finished work. 

“It was good,” he lies, and when she motions for him to elaborate, Maedhros fumbles for a moment, searching the depths of his mind for something that actually had gone right.

“Uh… My brother Maglor --you know he’s in sixth grade, right?-- he had a band recital, so I went and watched him. He was really good.” He says finally, not mentioning the fact that he was the only one there because of Celegorm’s inconveniently timed soccer game and Junior’s absolute refusal to get dressed, and Ms Fisher nods,

“But he doesn’t play with the school band, does he?” Maedhros nods,
“Yeah, he plays with the school, but he also does private lessons with a college professor my dad hired, so he has extra stuff to do for that.” People have begun filing into the class behind him, and Maedhros shifts awkwardly in his chair as they clump into social groups, girls giggling at an ear-piercingly high pitch, and boys slumping into their seats, half awake. He is relieved when Ms Fisher turns away from him, offering a perfunctory, 

“That’s wonderful,” before saying to the class at large, “Seats please, did anyone else do something noteworthy over the weekend? I will not be accepting ‘homework’ as an answer.” Maedhros cringes slightly, thinking about the English essay he still has not written. 

There are a few raised hands and a few stories which (in Maedhros’s mind) are much funnier and more pleasant than anything that has happened to him in the last month. One recounting in particular --made by a girl named Naminde— has the whole class laughing, though Maedhros cannot help but think she is not as funny as everyone seems to think she is. How could she possibly be funny at all when it was she who began the schoolwide joke of ‘Maedhros the gay’? Still, no one else seems to care, and Ms Fisher moves on with the class, introducing what feels like the one-hundredth new topic this year that Maedhros cannot seem to understand. Math, with the multitudes of symbols and methods and constraints, feels like a whole separate language into which Maedhros has been thrown headfirst without any sort of understanding of its rules.

He scribbles the figures onto paper, solves, repeatedly gets the wrong answer, and internally berates himself. It seems so obvious when she writes it on the board, and yet somehow Maedhros cannot seem to translate that moment of understanding after seeing the explanation for each problem into mastery of the concept itself. 

“Any questions?” Ms Fisher asks, and Maedhros should raise his hand, should ask for that one last rule that will throw everything into perspective and fit all the pieces together, but from somewhere in the back of the room, he hears whispers, and when he goes to lift his hand it feels like there is a brick wall built around it, preventing him from even shifting his fingers. 

“No.” He choruses with the rest of the room, staring in incomprehension at his own rebellious arm and wondering if he will ever understand the symbols that combine to form math. 

“Alright, I’ll pass back the tests from last week. As usual, I will give you all the range of scores, and anyone who falls below a seventy in this test will be allowed to retake it. There aren’t many of you, I’m quite pleased with how well you all are doing.” She tells them with a smile, pulling a thick stack of the light orange paper they use to take tests. Maedhros forces his heart to calm a fraction from the harsh beat it had been performing in his chest, fear gripping his insides like an iron first. 

This test matters more than the others: It will either bring his grade back to an acceptable B+ or it will ruin him and he will have to tell his father and mother he needs a tutor. Ms Fisher moves slowly through the rows of desks, passing back each test and explaining that next, they will be going over the most commonly incorrect questions. Maedhros’s hands are clenched in his lap, his face calm as his heart thumps at a thousand beats per minute deep inside of his chest, making his vision slightly blurry. She stops in front of him, sliding his test down onto the desk without a word, and moving on to the next student. 

Silent, Maedhros wishes she would give him some sign about whether the papers were safe to turn over, whether he should get it over with now or wait for somewhere more private where he is able to be paralyzed with terror and tears alone with no eyes upon him. Ms Fisher does not do any such thing, and Maedhros is left to turn over his test, burying his face close to it so that no one else can look over his shoulder and see the grade written on the paper right-hand corner. 

71.

Maedhros’s breath stops in his throat for a moment, his entire chest squeezing so tight he sees black spots in front of him, and then he flips the test back over, pretending to listen as Ms Fisher begins her explanations. In his ears, all there is is static, emptiness, and a pulse the same abnormally fast rate as his heart. Somehow, he manages to raise his hand and ask to use the bathroom, somehow he manages to exit the room and make it across the hall before his mind splits in two and he leans back against the wall, trying to remember how to breathe and see. 

Vaguely, he can feel his hands shaking, and cold sweat pouring down his neck, but mostly it is just the enraged screams of the voices inside his head, reminding him that he has well and truly fucked up. Maedhros will have to get a tutor. He will have to tell his father. Another failure; besides the labels of ‘Sissy’ and ‘Fag’, he can add ‘Idiot’ to the mix as well. 

The bell rings, but Maedhros cannot seem to move, stuck frozen against the wall as the halls beyond him fill with noise.

What will they think of you when they find out?

If only you hadn’t been such a coward, maybe then you might have actually learned something.

This is all your fault, Maedhros. 

All your fault. It is always his fault. His fault when Celegorm falls and skins his knee, his fault when Junior doesn’t get dessert, his fault when Caranthir has a tantrum and breaks everything within eyesight, it is always, always, always his fault. 

Maedhros pushes away from the wall and ducks back across the hallway, snatching his binder and pencil from the top of his desk and darting out again before Ms Fisher has the opportunity to say anything. After all, she will only tell him what he already knows: it is his fault. Clutching the grey-blue binder to his chest, Maedhros walks quickly down the hall back to his locker, eyes on the floor to keep the world from seeing just how watery they are. Most people have already moved on to their next class, but there are a few minutes before the bell rings and a few stragglers hang around, an oddly large clump centred around his licker. His locker, which Maedhros realizes is open. 

Seeing him approach, the clump quickly disperses, chatting too loudly to be genuine and pretending as if nothing has happened, but Maedhros can already see this is fake. The door of his locker is wide open and there are shreds of paper trailing out from its base. The second bell rings as he drops to his knees in front of it, intending to ignore the mess, take his folder for science and run to class, but instead he simply places his binder on top of what once was his pristine backpack. 

Now, every paper in every folder has been shredded to pieces, his carefully penned notes ripped into bits so tiny he is sure he will never be able to put them back together. They are strewn over the bottom of his locker, spilling out into the hall in front of it, and Maedhros sees all of his hidden notes, so purposefully shoved out of sight and mind, taped open to the back of the locker.

“Get out of our school you freak.”

“No one wants you here.”

“I hope your parents are pissed they have you for a kid.” Maedhros’s eyes are drawn from one to the next, the words filling his lungs piece by piece, settling in his chest like rocks until he is struggling to keep himself upright under the weight of each letter pressing down and keeping the breaths he takes from making any difference what so ever. Beneath the pinned up notes someone has scrawled ‘fag’ in messy handwriting, the marker a hot pink which -- when Maedhros wipes at it-- refuses to come off. 

His hands move on their own, ignoring the fact that he is missing class, and his time would be better spent simply moving on. The tape is removed, the scraps gathered into handfuls. Maedhros makes fourteen trips back and forth to the bathroom trash can in order to get all of the paper out of his locker, yet no matter what he does ‘Fag’ refuses to be wiped away. 

There is no point, he thinks, in going to history class at all. That homework he had planned to hand in, colour coded in greens and blues, is gone just like every other piece of classwork and homework he has amassed so far this year. All of that seems to have vanished in an instant leaving behind not a trace to indicate it was ever there. And yet, in front of him, the word shines out in an aggressive shade of pink, unable to be removed or hidden. Maedhros is an abomination. Everyone knows that.

Wednesdays, Maedhros’ father is at work late managing all of the new responsibilities of taking over Grandpa Finwë’s job at the company. His mother is busy teaching pottery classes at the local art studio, and Maedhros is left in charge. Today, he stands alone and silent outside of the middle school watching Maglor exit, surrounded by a cloud of friends. He is laughing, violin case and backpack each slung over a shoulder as he makes his way out of the big front door of the school. Maedhros checks his watch, one foot tapping nervously on the concrete below him as Maglor takes longer than any one person should need to exit a building as jokes and childish innuendo fly from one mouth to another among the large group of sixth-graders.

They will need at least thirty minutes to walk across town to Mithirm Elementary, and another ten to get from there to Ms Varyisse’s house down the road from their own where Junior spends the afternoons playing. As it is, Maglor is pushing dangerously close towards the sort of lateness that will have them running to make it anywhere in time.

Maedhros lets out a long low sigh and propels himself forwards, arms crossed tightly over his chest as he walks quickly in Maglor’s direction and trying to much happier and more confident than he is. Maglor and his friends seem oddly intimidating as he makes his way alone towards them, larger than life and howling with companionable laughter that Maedhros has not been able to share with anyone since his earlier years of elementary school,

“Ooh, hide your dicks guys,” A flinty-eyed boy jeers as he approaches, “It’s Mae the gay!” This comment, as per usual, is met with shouts of approval, and when Maedhros looks up he sees even Maglor laughing along with the others. His mouth feels dry and swollen as he says quietly,

“Káno, it’s time to go,” And turns, not waiting for a response before walking away. He doesn’t manage to move fast enough, though, because as he retreats he hears all of the goodbyes and the snort of laughter his brother lets out as another friend yells after them,

“Don’t forget to lock your door before you go to sleep, you never know who could sneak in.” Maedhros shoves his hands deep into his pockets as if to ward off the chill of the early spring air, but really he is hiding them from sight as they curl into fists in his pockets, trembling as he blinks rapidly, trying to pretend it is just the brisk cold breeze that brings the tears to his eyes.

Somehow the fact that even kids two years younger than himself have joined in the school sport of “Mae the gay” ridicule does not seem at all relevant when placed side by side with the laughter of his younger brother. Maglor, who he taught to play the piano, who he tells his every secret because he thought he could trust his brother.

Clearly, Maedhros thinks, he was wrong.
But there is no time to stop and think, it is Wednesday, and he now has twenty minutes to complete a thirty-minute walk, so without looking behind himself to check if Maglor really is following, Maedhros hurries towards the street, hands tight and fisted in his pockets and pretending that everything is fine. He doesn’t even realize that he is running until Maglor’s puffing out of breath voice calls out from behind him,

“Nelyo, wait up, I can’t go that fast with my violin.” Maedhros glances behind himself, vision blurred slightly, then slows just a fraction so that his forward motion can actually be classified as walking instead of jogging. Maglor’s face is red and he is clutching his violin to his front to keep it from bumping up and down on his back as his school bag does. Normally, Maedhros might apologise and offer to carry it for him, but today he keeps his mouth shut and his hands buried deep in his pockets as Maglor falls into place beside him. He does not trust himself to open his mouth, for fear of what will come out of it.

An unnatural silence, heavy and hard, falls as Maglor takes in gulps of air and Maedhros walks quickly, eyes on the ground, hoping that by leaving the school behind he will also leave behind whoever this new person is that his brother has decided to become.

And yet, though the silence has stretched out for longer than Maedhros can ever remember his brother having been quiet before, Maedhros still gulps in a deep breath and pushes ahead of Maglor with long strides when his brother finally reaches out for Maedhros’ hand, as he always has and probably always will do. Maedhros cringes away, shoving his arms deeper inside the pockets of his winter coat, which even against the cold wind has left him sweating slightly.

“Look, Nelyo, I’m sorry,” Maglor says, reaching out again, but Maedhros only grunts and keeps walking, hands hidden out of sight as Maglor’s two bags bounce along heavily on his back,

“That was a really crummy thing to say in front of you, and I was wrong to laugh at it but--” Maedhros snorts,

“In front of me? Yeah Macalaurë, that’s definitely what I’m mad about. Just that you fucking laughed in front of me.” Maglor looks confused and slightly panicked,

“No, that’s that’s not what I meant at all!” He cries, but Maedhros is done listening,

“Don’t worry, I get it. It’s fine. We all have our own priorities,” He says cooly, and checks his watch again, cutting off Maglor’s inevitable retort,

“Come on, we’ve only got ten minutes left.” Maglor, however, seems dissatisfied with this,

“No, Nelyo, I didn’t do it because I wanted to upset you, I just wanted to fit in. Daeron is super cool and we’ve been getting along really well because he does band too, and he’s the one that keeps making jokes about you, so I figured if I just went along with it…” He trails off appearing to realize he is not helping his own case by continuing to talk,

“Yeah,” Maedhros mutters, “I know all about trying to fit in. Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. Like I said.”
They are almost to the Elementary school and Maedhros reaches deep inside of himself, pushing all of the hurt and the anger down into a little bottle and pulling out what tiny shreds of false happiness and love he has left.

After all, there is no reason to burden Celegorm and Caranthir when they are sure to have had a perfectly good day. It is only ever he who seems to experience the bad ones.

They stand, silent and small among the crowd of tall chattering parents who wait for the final bell to ring

“Nelyo,” Maglor says again, shifting his bags on his shoulders and reaching again for his brother’s hand, though this time Maedhros lets him take it, if only so that he doesn’t feel like quite so much of an outlier in this world where he has no place.

“I really am sorry,” He whispers, and Maedhros just shrugs,

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He responds firmly, and Maglor’s fingers squeeze his own tighter. It is not fair, not even to Maglor to take out all of the anger of his terrible day on one person. Maglor could not know about the catastrophe his morning had been, he could not know about the hot pink marker in his locker spelling out the truth for all the world. Maglor didn’t and would never know a thousand things that Maedhros hated about himself and questioned every day, so it was useless to pretend that he was the source of all those problems.

Easier, perhaps, to simply ignore them and shove them downwards into the tiny bottle inside of him where every unproductive thought is stored. The bell rings, and a crowd of children spills out the front door, ordered lines with teachers trying to count their classes disregarded as they push forwards already running off towards busses and sidewalks and parents. Celegorm smashes into his legs with the force of a bulldozer, nearly knocking Maedhros off his feet,

“Hey, Nelyo!” He yells, oblivious to the parents around them who take a step away, no doubt repelled by both the absurdly loud tone of his voice and the fact that he looks to have rolled in mud at some point in the last hour.

“Hi, Tyelko.” He says automatically, a fake cheerful smile rising as smoothly to his face as a real one would,

“What happened to you?” Maglor asks in horror, staring down at Celegorm’s half-dry mud-caked clothes, and Celegorm grins cheerfully,

“It rained last night and the football field was muddy.”

“So you went and bathed in it?” Maglor asks, a disgusted frown pulling at the corners of his mouth, and Celegorm shakes his head with a feral grin,

“I didn’t bathe in it, we played!” he explains and then captures Maglor in a hug that somehow rubs off nearly all of the mud onto his brother’s front. Maglor makes an outraged sound that makes him look like he is going to throw up, and Maedhros internally smirks, simultaneously proud of Celegorm, and disgusted that he would turn against Maglor in such a way.

“Nelyo!” Maglor says, indignant, but Maedhros is spared having to respond by the arrival of Caranthir, who sulks over in his black jeans and big puffy coat with a scowl on his features. Kneeling, Maedhros pulls him into a hug and is surprised when the boy actually responds, reaching up to squeeze his arms tight around his brother’s neck,

“You okay, Moryo?” Maedhros asks softly, making sure neither of their brothers can hear, and Caranthir gifts him with the slightest shake of his head in response. Maedhros checks his watch again over his brother’s shoulder and lets out a worried sigh,

“Okay, let’s talk about it when we get home, yes?” He lets out a groan at the heaviness of his school bag as he pushes himself back to his feet and takes Caranthir’s hand which for once his brother holds back tightly. Maglor is attempting to brush himself off, and Celegorm is standing proudly, trying not to laugh,

“Come on, you two, we have to go get Junior,” Maedhros says, letting Celegorm push through the crowd ahead of them, clearing a little path through which the others can file, Maglor still looking absolutely revolted with every aspect of his situation.

Celegorm chatters aimlessly, telling them everything from how he refused to answer a question the teacher asked him,

“And I said ‘fuck that’ and she threatened to put me in detention, but that’s just stupid ‘cause I know they don’t have detention at this ass-shit school,” To a new art project that he and a friend are working on,

“We’re gonna see how big she’ll let us make it and then we’re gonna take it home and smash it on the driveway!” Maedhros is glad for the distraction because Celegorm’s presence leaves no room for anything else as he rants about meaningless details, and Maedhros finds that the longer they walk, the more Caranthir’s hand loosens around his own. He wishes that the internal hurricane of his emotions would be dispelled so easily. They pass their own house and Maglor breaks away, telling everyone he needs to,

“Take a shower to get Tyelkormo’s shit off me,” And Celegorm joins him, no doubt to go and get himself dirtier by rolling around with the dog in the backyard.

It is quiet without the two of them there to set the tone, and Maedhros feels Caranthir’s hand once again tightens around his as the silence leads each of them back to his own brooding thoughts that were so close to dispelled by the presence of Celegorm’s all-encompassing desire to talk.

“Nelyo?” He says quietly, and Maedhros squeezes his hand once in recognition, humming in response,

“I don’t want to go back to school tomorrow.” He whispers, and even in the quiet street, Maedhros almost misses it. Caranthir’s dark eyes are peering up towards him, stained golden by the sunlight, and his hair blows around him in the wind. He looks like something out of a painting, and for a moment Maedhros’ heart sinks. Here is another for him to sew back together before he can climb into bed and tumble downwards into the dark hole floating beneath him

“Why? Did something happen?” Maedhros asks, sure he already knows the answer to that question. Caranthir is his only brother so far who matches his enthusiasm in academics, and he wouldn’t choose to avoid it unless something truly terrible had occurred. Caranthir --as expected-- nods and squeezes Maedhros’ hand a little tighter. Maedhros checks his watch for what feels like the hundredth time, but for once, they are not late, so he stops, kneeling so that he can see eye to eye with his little brother,

“Do you want to tell me? You don’t have to, but if you want to, I’m here.” His heart contracts in his chest, and it is too painful to breathe in the silence.

These are the words he prays each night someone will say to him, yet so far no one has. His mother smiles lovingly and tells him how proud she is, his father gruffly commands each success, yet there are no questions, none of the probes that could breath his carefully perfected illusions. He wishes they would. He is terrified they will.

Maedhros forces his lungs to contract, to expand, and waits until Caranthir moves a little closer and leans into Maedhros’ arms as they move automatically upwards to wrap around him, steadied by the weight of the little boy.

“We wrote an au- aubigrafy,” He says and Maedhros gives a tiny huff of a laugh into his ear,

“Autobiography?” Caranthir nods, blushing slightly,

“Yeah. We were supposed to say three things we liked to do, but I don’t really have anything I like to do, so the teacher said I could put down people too, but then the girl who sits next to me told her I don’t have any friends and-” He presses his face into Maedhros’ coat and Maedhros hugs him tightly, staying quiet until he has calmed slightly. Caranthir has not cried at all since he was a baby, instead, simply turning red and sitting frozen in place with every muscle in his body clenched until he feels calm again. Maedhros wishes he could say the same. As Caranthir begins to relax in Maedhros’ arms, Maedhros speaks gently,

“That was a pretty mean thing to say to you, huh?” He asserts, and Caranthir nods vigorously, pulling back so that he can glare at Maedhros,

“But it’s true. I don’t have any friends. Not like Celegorm and Maglor. Nobody likes me.” Maedhros wipes a bit of hair off of his forehead and shakes his head,

“That’s not true at all Moryo, I like you a whole lot.” He says, and Caranthir scowls,

“But you’re my brother, you can’t be my friend too.” He explains, and Maedhros pretends this does not hurt him. If family cannot be friends then he is truly alone.

“Of course I can!” He retorts, not sure if this comment is more reassuring to Caranthir or himself. The little boy looks confused, and Maedhros leans in, pulling Caranthir into his arms as he stands up, conscious of the fact that they are supposed to be picking up their youngest brother at this very moment,

“That’s the whole point of having brothers.” It comes out in a whisper, but Caranthir gives him a tentative smile, the first Maedhros has seen on his brother’s face in years, and he grins back, the muscles in his face aching with the effort of the act. Tomorrow he will have to go back and face the jeering and name-calling again, and he is terrified of that: not being strong enough to stand up to them, the possibility that their taunts might be the truth, and his entire body seizes up with the effort that it takes to not drop his brother and run for the nearest locked room where all of his emotions can explode at once without the threat of hurting or scaring anyone else. And yet, Caranthir is curled into his chest, a steady and reassuring weight against his racing heart.

It does not matter than it is Wednesday and he is alone, what matters is the little boy in his arms, feeling all the pain he does, and Maedhros knows he has to protect Caranthir from the rest of the world. That is why he is here, to take their troubles as his own and leave them weightless while he slowly sinks into the ground.

It takes a full half an hour to wrestle Junior out the door, and when they finally manage it, it is only because Maedhros has his brother slung over one shoulder and Caranthir’s fingers are shoved deep in his ears as the little boy screams, punching at Maedhros’ shoulder blades while his tiny feet bounce up and down, leaving dirt marks on the front of his shirt.

Either he is purposefully hurting Maedhros (which is probably the more likely option) or Junior has yet to learn that he finally has enough strength amassed into his little chubby limbs to leave actual bruises on Mae’s skin. 

“No, no, no, no, no!” He shrieks from Maedhros’ shoulder, “I wanna go back, no home!” Maedhros squeezes his lips tight together and ignores this, instead, forcing a smile from his unwilling mouth and somehow managing to thank their neighbour in a civil tone. 

His screaming does not decrease by a single decibel until they once again reach their own house and Maedhros lowers him to the ground, letting Junior fall backwards and land on his bottom on the path, still sobbing and now scratching at Maedhros’ ankles --the closest available body part-- with his too sharp nails. In the driveway, his mother’s car sits, presumably having returned early from her class. Maedhros’ breath releases in an exhale of relief for the first time since the weekend, pushing open the front door without a backwards glance and making for the stirs as fast as he can, his schoolbag still bumping left and right across his shoulders.

It is all too much, and there are some days Maedhros simply is not big enough to contain everything that he is trying to hide inside himself. He is supposed to be strong, to take care of his brothers, to be reliable and responsible, but right now he feels like none of these things. Maedhros locks the door to his bedroom behind him and takes a deep shaky breath as his bag slides from his shoulders to land on the floor with a hollow thunk.

Junior has scratched through the top layer of his skin and there is a tiny line of blood welling up in the crescent shape of his nails in three different places on his left leg. The hot pink marker spelling out “Fag” inside his locker is burning behind his eyes, from down the hall, Maglor’s laugher echoes from behind his closed door and Maedhros can only hear all the nicknames and threats and teasing and hate, and he collapses backwards onto his bed, knees curled up and into himself as waves upon waves of unworthiness crash down upon him, slamming his heart into the rocks and tearing it into pieces, left out and rotting for the seagulls to pick away at their leisure. Maedhros is left with nothing but the pounding of his own heart and an overwhelming feeling of suffocation pressing downwards against his throat, while he gulps at air that is too far away to absorb and there is moisture on his cheeks.

For a moment, Maedhros has the absurd thought that it must be raining, and then he realizes the water on his face must be from his own eyes. Some day’s it is too much, but today it is so far from anything he has ever felt before that it seems the entire weight of the universe has centred itself on his sternum and if he dares to move an inch he will be crushed under the nothingness that he is and--

“Nelyo, darling, may I come in?” Maedhros’ heart stops somewhere dangerously close to the top of his throat, the thumping reverberating through the depths of his brain as his breath comes shallow and fast, eyes fixed upon a point too far in the distance for him to actually see.

“N-no.” he manages, his voice high and shaking, the words sounding sharp and too-loud to his silence soaked brain, where even the barely audible sound of birds beyond the windowpane is like a nail, slowly hammering itself into his skull. 

“I’m doing homework, Mom, please just leave me alone.” His throat hurts and he cannot move, because all that weight is still poised just above him, ready to drop at any moment,

“I just want to check in, Macalaurë said you didn’t have a great day?” Maedhros laughs, light-headed and slightly hysterical because he has never heard such an over-simplification come out of his mother’s mouth, has never even imagined that how he feels right now --poised on the edge of a cliff and ready to jump at the drop of a pin-- could simply be categorized as ‘not having a great day’. 

“No, I’m fine mom, how are you?” The words fall from his lips in a voice so high and cracking he doesn’t even recognise it as his own, the words rushed and blended half-way together. There is a slight pause, and then his mother, says very gently,

“Nelyo, baby, could you please open the door for me, I just want to talk about your day, sweetie, that’s it.” The too fast breaths are still coming, and Maedhros stares at the door, willing it to open itself, and wishing with all his might he hadn’t locked it upon entering. It is simply, too much of a risk to move from where he is right now: there are too many factors, too many things that could go wrong. 

Still, his mother is waiting beyond the door, and Maedhros has still not figured out the all-powerful secret to refusing his parents anything,

“Sure,” he whispers, just loud enough to know that she can hear him, and pushes himself up with both arms, suddenly unable to hear anything at all beyond a low static that he filled his brain to the top like the humming of a thousand angry flies. Arms tight around his middle to ward of the crushing suffocation he is sure will fall on him at any moment, but it never comes. Maedhros’ fingers feel even colder than the metal doorknob as he unlocks it and opens the door just enough to let his mother know she can come in. 

He feels safer, somehow, once his feet are back off the floor curled up beneath him back on his bed. Nerdanel’s footsteps follow him, and he feels the bed sink slightly as she places herself beside him, reaching one arm up to pull his own away from where they have locked around his knees, pulling himself into a tiny ball. Her skin feels warm and real as she pulls him towards her and, all strength gone, Maedhros collapses into her side, his entire body shuddering with the force of the sobs he has fought down all day. 

One hand traces small circles on his upper back, the other gripping his own as Nerdanel murmurs into his ear, words that Maedhros cannot hear over the force of his own crying. 

“Matimo, sweetheart, beautiful, do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” Maedhros considers shaking his head for a moment, pulling away from her and burrowing back into the safety of his bed and the knowledge that no one cares, but he can’t. Not when Nerdanel is holding him gently against her and he can feel her love and care and worry as if it were his own, all right up there against his skin in the rhythm of her heart. 

“‘S nothing Mom, ‘m sorry.” He mumbles instead, not quite an answer but not a refusal either. 

“My love, nothing that makes you cry will ever in any world be nothing to me.” He replies gently, rubbing another smooth circle into his back, and Maedhros wonders why, if this is true, she has not asked before. There have been so many times he has cried, so many times he has hated himself, and a million moments when he has questioned why he is alive if this is all he was born to feel. 

“I was just being stupid, it’s not a big deal.” he insists, hoping she will give it up, because now, suddenly, he is too scared to say anything more. To expose his heart --Maedhros feels-- would be equivalent to signing his own death warrant. There is so much trapped in there that if even one little bit is allowed to escape it will invariably trigger an explosion so large Maedhros’ body will have no chance of survival. 

“Nelyo,” she says softly, and there is a sudden burst of pure fear deep in Maedhros’ gut, so intense that it stops his heart. She knows, she must know, and this means he will have to tell.

“You weren’t being stupid, baby. Please let me into your beautiful brain, let me hear what’s going on in there.” His brain, Maedhros’ brain. All of this always comes back to his brain and something that must have gone wrong in there. There must be a glitch, a mistake, something wrong in there that is forcing everything that he feels to feel so real. Maedhros clutches Nerdanel’s hand, willing his mouth to open, for something to come out, and when it does it feels as if all his self-control has been pushed aside and he is sitting in a copilot seat as a part of him he didn’t even realize existed takes centre stage without his permission.

“I can’t get it off my locker.” That is what comes out, and Maedhros realizes with horror this statement must seem nonsensical to his mother and he will now have to tell the whole story. 

“You can’t what?” She asks, obviously bewildered, and Maedhros feels his chest clench as he looks up at her, scared of what he will find in her eyes, and positive that there will be disappointment, disgust, and a thousand other emotions that Maedhros has in droves when they are directed towards himself. 

“I dunno, Mom,” he whispers, “I failed my math test again and now I’m gonna have to repeat math next ear and I can’t do it and then some kids wrote stuff in my locker and Maca—” he cuts himself off quickly before he can say too much, but Nerdanel’s fingers squeeze his softly,

“What did they write?” She asks, voice hesitant, “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine, love, but we should find someone you can talk to if it’s hurting you.” Maedhros tries to imagine saying this to another person, anyone at all, and he can’t, so instead, he tries to steady his breaths and replies,

“They said I was gay and that was bad and they wanted me to leave and stuff.” He says, his voice trembling slight and the words blending into one another as he hurries them out of his mouth. Nerdanel blinks, obviously not having expected to hear that particular reply, and her fingers tighten around his hand and shoulder, her expression hardening by a fraction of a degree. 

Maedhros’ mind reels, backtracking as fast as he can. He knew opening up was a mistake, why hadn’t he listened to while he still had time to escape? But then Nerdanel says,

“Maitimo, is this the first time something like this has happened?” And Maedhros’ head once again shakes without any of his approval,
“Why didn’t you tell me before, baby?” She questions and Maedhros looks her fully in the eyes, his heart up in his throat because he cannot bear to disappoint another person. 

In her eyes, he sees only worry and love as she pulls him tighter against her, her arms shaking slightly. Maedhros’ eyes well up with tears again, and he feels muscles he didn’t even know he had tensed relax in his back until he is a motionless blob against her, held up only by the force of what he saw in her eyes,

“It doesn’t matter,” he mumbles, “Family is more important than what other kids think about me.” 

“No, Nelyo, family is not more important. Nothing is more important than how you feel and who you are and who you want to be. I know we expect a lot of you, taking care of your brothers and getting them home some days, but that doesn’t mean you can’t feel sad and angry and upset, and that doesn’t mean you should try to suppress those feelings and just keep going. You are human, we all are, and no one should ever feel like other people matter more than themselves.” Maedhros sniffs, rubbing angrily at his eyes, because how could he cry, how could he press more onto his mothers back when she already has so much to carry?

“But it’s my fault, they would think that stuff if it wasn’t true, and I know I’m messed up and wrong and-”

“Maitimo Nelyafinwë Russandol Noldoran, there is not a single messed up wrong thing in your body. I don’t care what the other kids tell you is right and wrong, I don’t care if they think you’re the worst person on the planet, no one has the right to say that to my son and no one has the right to make you feel like you are the one at fault. You got that?” Maedhros nods hesitantly, though he cannot help but think that she is only one person and if even Maglor thinks he is wrong…

Downstairs the door opens, and Junior’s delighted screech can be heard even through the closed door. 

“Hello, Junior!” Fëanor’s voice is loud and boisterous, undercut my more happy shrieks from his youngest son as he gives a bark of laugher,

“Tyelkormo, I don’t want to see you walk through that screen door until you have hosed yourself down and no longer look like a monster.” Maedhros tenses once again in Nerdanel’s arms, looking up at his mother with fear once again clenching in his gut,

“Mom?” he pleads, and Nerdanel gently streaks the side of his face, humming in response,

“Please, don’t tell Dad?” She frowns, looking intently at him for a moment before nodding slowly,

“I won’t Maitimo, but we need to find someone at school you can talk to about this, okay? I don’t want you to have to deal with bullying as part of your school experience. If that means bringing your dad into it, we will, but for now, I won’t tell him if you don’t want me to.” Maedhros nods in agreement, silently vowing that no matter how bad the teasing and pain gets in the future, he will never tell her again. 

Maedhros cannot disappoint his father

Caranthir hates the beginning of every new school year. New classrooms, new classmates, and a new teacher who will look at him like he is an odd specimen of bird she has never seen before. Each year it is the same, because how could it not be. In the bright happy colourful classrooms and among the other laughing bright-eyed children, he sticks out like a sore thumb.

And yet every year his parents insist that he cannot be homeschooled; that this is the only option. Squeezing his mother’s hand tightly, Caranthir walks into the classroom half-hidden behind her. Before the true start of school, there is always a day when parents and students are invited to come and tour the classroom, meet their teacher and learn what materials they will need for the coming year. In the past, his parents have allowed him to skip this day, going by themselves and allowing him to pretend that autumn’s presence has not yet usurped his freedom, but today Caranthir has been told he must come with them, so he hides behind his mother and pretends that he is invisible. 

He wishes it were his father were here with him, but Cel claimed Náro’s presence in his fifth-grade class a week before, his eyes glinting maliciously at Caranthir as he did so. In the room, bright golden streamers hand from the ceiling and happy music plays from the computer in a corner. Already, the classroom is full of children leaping about and destroying the decorations that Caranthir’s new teacher has worked so hard to put into place, tearing at the golden streamers and popping balloons left and right, laughing at the loud noises they make. Caranthir cringes, squeezing tightly to his mother’s hand as one pops only a foot away from him, the noise almost destroying his eardrum. He wants to clap his hands over his ears, but he is afraid of letting go of his mother’s hand, and even more afraid of the other children laughing at him as they go about their wild play. 

Caranthir is six, he cannot let himself be scared of a loud noise anymore. As they make their way towards the teacher who stands near the computer chatting with a few other parents, Caranthir presses closer to his mother’s side, eyes flitting around the large room with all of its brightness and the big windows that look outside onto the playground. On the wall behind the teacher is a big bulletin board that says,

‘We fit together like a puzzle!” Each oversized puzzle piece below it features a child’s face, and Caranthir can see his own school picture from the year before, scowling out at the classroom. He looks away quickly because once again he realizes just how out of place he is here next to the bright happy smiles of the children around him. The other parents have moved away from the tall woman who Caranthir supposes must be his teacher, and Nerdanel steps up, still holding his hand and smiles at her,

“Hello, Welcome to first grade!” She says cheerfully, taking Caranthir’s mother’s hand and shaking it with a smile, and then, to his surprise, she reaches down and takes his as well,

“I’m Ms Adler, I’ll be your teacher this year.” She tells him, and Caranthir blushes, leaning back to hide behind his mother again because he wants nothing less than to talk.

“Thank you,” Nerdanel steps in, pulling him back in front of her by his hand, and Caranthir scowls angrily, trying to hide how uncomfortable he feels,

“I’m Carnistir.” He mumbles, hoping this will be enough, and to his relief, it seems to be, as the teacher smiles, and his mother allows him to duck back behind her again.

“Do you want to go explore a little bit while your mom and I talk?” Ms Adler asks, and Caranthir shakes his head, but his mother smiles and lets go of his hand anyways,

“That sounds lovely, baby, why don’t you go make some friends while we talk about adult stuff over here?” She turns away from him and back to Ms Adler, leaving Caranthir with little choice but to walk off, skirting around the edge of the classroom to avoid the popping balloons and ripping streamers and what looks like an indoor game of tag involving climbing over chairs and hanging from the ceiling. Instead of joining in, as his mother and the teacher no doubt wanted him to, Caranthir spots a small library behind them and makes a beeline for it, taking the biggest book off of the shelves that he can find (which is not all that big and turns out to be extremely boring and useless) and opening it to the first page. He finds a soft beanbag chair nearby, and curls up on it, hoping that if he stays still enough he will not be noticed or trampled by the other children. 

The book is one he could have read when he was in pre-school, something silly and useless about a dog and his lost bone. It is not at all the sort of thing Caranthir likes to read, incredibly unlike the large thick books his father has about the government and the idea of justice, but when faced with a choice between silly dogs and the shrieking blob of children behind him, Caranthir would choose the dumb book every day. 

“Hi!” Caranthir looks up, an angry glare already settling itself onto his face, and he meets the eyes of a messy-haired blonde boy with a big crooked grin on his face,

“Go away.” He growls, not at all pleased with his scheme of camouflage failing. The boy’s smile falls slightly, but he doesn’t leave. Instead, he moves closer and sticks out his hand,

“I’m Findaráto! I think we’re cousins.” Caranthir tries to glare harder, but it hurts his forehead so he settles with a sneer,

“I don’t have cousins.” He says firmly and turns back to his book without a second glance. It is quiet for a minute, besides the obvious sounds of screaming children, and Caranthir is sure the boy has given up and walked away to go join them, but when he sneaks a glance up from the pages, Finrod has simply dropped to the ground in front of him and is watching his face thoughtfully,

“I think you’re lonely.” He says slowly, his light watery blue eyes locked on Caranthir’s dark ones, and Caranthir scowls again, kicking at him,
“I am not lonely. Go away!” The boy doges his leg, and crawls over to lean into the chair beside him, looking down at the book he’s reading,

“You are. I think we should be friends because that’s what cousins do. I’m friends with all of my other cousins, but I don’t know you at all.” Caranthir gives up on reading, slamming the book closed and glaring at this dumb boy who has dared to intrude on him and try to get him to talk,

“We aren’t cousins, and I don’t have friends.” he gets up and stomps off back towards his mother where she stands with Ms Adler and a new woman who is petite and blonde, her hair tied up into an elaborate bun at the nape of her neck. He grabs her hand and pulls at it,
“Mom, can we go now?” He pleads, and his mother looks down, a large smile spreading over her lips,

“Oh good, Caranthir, you’ve already met your cousin. I hope you two will become very good friends, yes?” Caranthir looks behind him and nearly stomps his foot, which he knows would get him in trouble because he is too old to express his anger in his fists and feet. Finrod, however, simply smiles wider and waves up to his mother,

“Hi, Aunt Nerdanel! Moryo told me to go away because he doesn’t have cousins.” He says, with the big smile still in place, and Caranthir blushes furiously, glowering at the ground with enough force to create a deep hole to the centre of the earth. 

“Moryo!” His mother scolds, “Please don’t be mean to Finrod, he’s just the same age as you and I am sure if you just give him a chance you two will become friends,” She presses, spinning Caranthir around with her hand and turning him back towards his cousin,

“Go play, I will be ready to go in a little bit, baby.” Finrod looks at him hopefully, but Caranthir simply stalks past him and towards the door. There is no way he is staying here in this hell-hole for a moment longer. A hand reaches out and grabs his, and Caranthir recoils, jerking his hand inside of his sleeve and looking back to see (to his disgust) that Finrod has followed him out of the classroom and down the hall. 

“That was my mom.” He says simply, and Caranthir assumes he is talking about the fancy-haired woman who had been standing with Nerdanel and Ms Adler. 

“Cool, I don’t care,” he mutters in reply and shoves open the door at the end of the hall that leads to a playground outside. Finrod makes a noise of excitement as he sees the play structures, but instead of making his way towards them, Caranthir walks towards a row of flowers that line the front of the building. They are beautiful and bright, ranging in tones from a deep purple to the bright yellow of buttercups. He sits down in front of them, and gently reaches out, stroking the velvet soft petals and marvelling at the tiny intricate details of the pollen clinging to their insides. 

“We have a big garden at my house.” Finrod’s voice is quiet now behind him, sounding almost reverent in a way Caranthir is surprised to hear. This voice does not sound like the obnoxious pest he just left behind in the hallway, 

“There’s big sunflowers and tall tall trees that I like to climb and a little river that goes through it all and sings me songs at night.” Against his will, Caranthir’s frown slips off his face, and Finrod drops to the ground beside him, apparently not caring that he is ruining the pristine white pants he is wearing with dirt and grass stains. 

“My Dad likes to keep the plants alive because he says that keeping our own spot of nature means we will never have to go away for vacation. He says we can just walk out into the backyard and be someplace completely different.” Caranthir’s hand softens on the flower, and he glances over to Finrod, seeing a pensive frown on his face as his big eyes take in the flowers in front of him. Caranthir finds himself nodding, his expression no longer angry,

“Yeah, we’ve got one too. My big brother Nelyo and my mom are the ones who do all the work though. It doesn’t really look like much right now because Tyelko’s dog just trampled all of the roses, but it used to be super nice.” Finrod giggles,

“You’ve got a dog? I’ve always wanted one, but Mom wouldn’t let me.” Caranthir nods and shudders,

“Don’t ever get a dog. They’re terrible.” He responds, and Finrod laughs brightly, reaching over to pull a buttercup from the dirt,

“Look, my dad says that if you hold it under your chin and it turns yellow, then you like butter.” Caranthir shrugs noncommittally but watches curiously as Finrod places the flower beneath his chin, and the top of his neck is illuminated with yellow,

“Is it there?” he asks anxiously, and Caranthir nods,

“Yeah, it is.” Finrod pulls it out, and scoots forwards, pushing the flower under Caranthir’s. He giggles and pulls it out,

“It worked for you too. Do you want to go find bugs?” Caranthir smiles a little and nods, trying to brush off the back of his pants when he stands, but as Finrod follows suit, he cannot help himself, letting out a snort of laughter at the mess of black, reddish-brown, and green smeared over the back of his clean new pants.  Finrod peers over his shoulder and laughs too,

“Yeah, I think my mom’s used to it by now. She’s gotta get new ones like once a month because the stains can only come out seven times and then it starts to show.” The sun shines above him, summer hot air still in the sky as Finrod pulls him towards the edge of the playground and the two boys begin to dig in the dirt there, flipping over rocks and examining the things they find underneath. The air is filled with Finrod’s squeals of delight, and Caranthir’s reluctant laughs as both of their pockets slowly fill with worms and stink bugs that they find in the deep cool soil under the rocks. 

By the time their mothers arrive, exiting through the same door the two of them did, their clothes are thoroughly muddy, Finrod’s absolutely unrecognisable as the pristine white they had been before and more of a sandy dirty brown. 

“Moryo, time to go, your dad and Tyelko are waiting for us at the car!” Nerdanel calls out, and Caranthir’s shoulders slump in dismay. At home, there is his economics book and the comfort of his locked bedroom door, keeping everyone out, but here there is Finrod who is pouting sadly, a worm dangling half-way out of his pocket. 

“Okay.” He says reluctantly, and attempts to clean his clothes a fraction so that Cel doesn’t laugh at him as he walks towards his mother,

“Wait,” He turns, and Finrod is running after him, joining at his side as they walk the last few feet towards their parents. 

“Friends?” Finrod asks, and he reaches out, taking Caranthir’s hand. For once, the pressure on his skin does not feel oppressive but comforting, and he offers Finrod a small smile,

“Yeah. but…” He trails off, flushing again with embarrassment as he leans forwards,

“Can you keep a secret?” Finrod nods, curiosity shining from his eyes as he leans closer so that Caranthir’s mouth is an inch from his ear,

“You’re my first, so I might mess it up.” He mumbles into Finrod’s ear, and the boy pulls back, taking his mother’s hand with a grin,

“That’s okay, I’ll be your friend anyway. Bye Moryo!” He skips off in the direction of the parking lot, and Caranthir reaches out to take his mother’s hand, smiling gently, but making sure she can’t see. It would be far too embarrassing to admit to Nerdanel that she was right, but as they follow Finrod and his mother, she hums softly, and Caranthir gets the feeling that she knows anyways.