To Build The Bonds That Tie by ThatFeanorian

---

The Power Of A Name

---

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.