What Happens at Camp Eglarest, Stays at Camp Eglarest by polutropos

---

Beren

---

The shrill sound of the tent zipper tore through the silence of the night and Beren winced.

“Mmm,” Lúthien hummed and shifted against the air mattress. “Where are you going?”

“Sorry, birdie,” he whispered.

“Did you have another nightmare?” she mumbled.

“No, no. I just gotta pee.”

Feet out first, he slipped on his sandals and shuffled out of the tent, zipping the door shut behind him. Moving a little ways from the campsite, he found a tree to relieve himself behind and tilted his head back to gape at the glittering smear of stars across the night sky. He never ceased to be awestruck by the sight of the stars undiluted by city lights. It was something he missed about working in the oil sands, much as he was glad to be free of the industry and the monsters he had to work for – the remoteness, the silent nights, and expansive skies. Well, he thought, tucking himself back into his pyjamas, he was doing better work now with the conservation society, even if was stuck in the city most of the time. And soon they’d be living on Dead Man’s Island full-time.

He spotted a light trailing along the ground on the road ahead and blinked, straining to make out the two figures approaching.

“Daeron?” he said when they were near enough to distinguish. “Maglor, hey. Are you just getting back now?”

“Uh…” Daeron glanced at Maglor, who pulled out his phone to check the time.

“It’s dead,” Maglor said, stuffing it back in his pocket. “Is it really late?”

“Yeah…” Beren said, “It’s like 3 a.m.”

They stared at each other and Daeron shrugged.

“Ah ha, well,” Maglor laughed a little awkwardly, “I guess we better go to bed, then!”

“We were just talking,” Daeron said, looking intently at Beren.

“Yeah, it’s a nice night,” Beren said. “Hey, I’m sorry about, uh… I mean, you’re right about what you said. I agree with you, you know. And I really love your sister, and I know she means a lot to you, I couldn’t stand it if you felt–”

“It’s fine,” Daeron replied, rubbing his hands over his bare arms, “I’m sorry. Who knows what’s right any more.”

“Alright,” Beren said with a smile. “Good night, you two.”

He crawled back into the tent and listened to them return to theirs. Lúthien nudged his calf with a foot.

“Was that my brother?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Beren replied, “and Maglor. Hey, birdie?”

“Mhm?”

“Is Maglor gay?”

Lúthien exhaled a little laugh and turned to face him. “Well, he was married to a guy in Valin.”

“Really? He’s divorced?”

“Yeah, I guess. It happens.” She leaned in to kiss him on the cheek.

“Is your brother… into guys also?”

“He claims he isn’t,” she said through a yawn. “I’ve never believed it.”

“Hm." Beren pursed his lips. "I think him and Maglor–”

“Yeah, I know, babe. It’s pretty obvious. They'll figure it out – now, go to sleep.”

 

*

“Good morning!” Maglor said with nervous joviality. “How did you sleep?”

Beren dragged his feet over to the picnic table where Maglor was flipping pancakes. He already had a large stack piled up on a plate, and there were dribbles of batter all over the table and camp stove.

“Um,” Beren said, uncertain what to say about the scene before him. “Good, yeah. Did you sleep at all?”

“Oh yeah, definitely, I don’t need much sleep.” Maglor flashed him an exaggerated grin before turning back to flip a pancake. It stuck to the pan and folded over on itself, creating a sloppy sort of calzone-cake. “Dammit,” Maglor said.

“Do you want some help?” Beren asked, scratching at his head. He was supposed to be making breakfast this morning and had planned a veggie hash with the rest of the mushrooms. Celegorm was going to forage some stinging nettle for it.

A flash of desperation passed over Maglor’s face before he began to answer, “No, I’m okay–” but he was cut off by Huan bounding back into the campsite, soaking wet. He leapt up and pawed at Beren, barking excitedly.

“Huan! Quiet!” Celegorm shouted, running up behind him and laughing. He drew up beside Maglor and raised his brows as he surveyed the scene.

“Oh god,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“What?” Maglor said, not looking at his brother and still trying vainly to salvage the folded pancake. “Nothing. I’m making breakfast.”

“You hate cooking.”

“This is barely cooking,” Maglor replied, followed by a groan as he flipped the blob-cake at Huan, who leapt to catch it mid-air.

Celegorm grinned and turned to Beren. “When my brother gets upset he copes by mothering everyone.” Maglor glared at him but he carried on. “Does this mean you are up for Meltdown Act 2?”

“Shut the fuck up!” Maglor said, sliding his eyes past Beren as he clamped down on his jaw.

“Hey, well,” Beren said, patting Maglor on the shoulder, “that’s lucky for us! Pancakes are great! And we can still make the veggies to go with them, eh Celegorm?”

“Yeah, sure,” Celegorm said, patting Huan’s side, apparently having already moved on from the tense interaction. He wasn’t particularly good at picking up on the vibe, Beren observed, while his brother seemed a little too good at it for his own well-being. He wondered if the other Finvesens were as badly-matched and dysfunctional as these two.

“Did you want to go find some nettles still?” Beren asked Celegorm.

“Huh?” Celegorm said, tossing a ball for Huan. “Oh, yeah. Sure. Come on, Huan boy! Let’s go find some nettles!” He ran off into the forest with the dog bouncing over tree roots and shrubs behind him.

“So, uh,” Beren said, coming to stand by Maglor, whose cheerful expression had completely faded. “I can make the rest, if you want?”

Maglor didn’t reply, so Beren went about wiping up the splattered batter.

“Have you ever…” Maglor started to speak and trailed off.

“Ever what?” Beren asked.

“Nevermind, it’s stupid to ask you. No offence.”

“Well, okay,” Beren said. “If you say so.”

“Okay,” Maglor said, pointing with the spatula for emphasis. “I just… so, this is stupid. I’ve been married, you know. I should know how this works. And I’m like... eight? nine? years older than you. No offence.”

“I get it,” Beren said, “you’re not trying to offend me. You’re not doing a great job of it but I’ll let it slide given your apparent distress.”

Maglor smiled weakly. “Sorry. It’s just the, uh, the guy I was married to, he was my first boyfriend, from highschool, and then I was just with him until I moved here.”

“Sorry to hear, man,” Beren said, pulling some veggies from the cooler and laying them out on the table.

“No, it’s fine, it was a stupid idea to get married anyway. We were barely 20, it was really just because we could. It was legalised, I mean. Me leaving was just a convenient way to get out of it. Anyway – agh, not again!” He sighed loudly over the pancakes. “Well, whatever there are probably enough now.” He dumped the last ruined pancake on the ground and put a pot of water on the stove. “Anyway, I don’t really know what the hell I am doing.”

“You mean… romantically?”

“Yeah,” Maglor said, landing the heels of his palms on the table to prop himself up and meeting his eyes hopefully. “Like, if you think someone might be interested… in you.. how do you just – ask them?”

“Well,” Beren said, slicing through a red pepper, “when I decided I wanted to be with Lúthien I just went to one of her shows and asked her out after and she said yes.”

“Not true!” came Lúthien’s voice from their tent. “Absolutely not true!”

Maglor looked horrified that she’d been listening to their conversation. Beren gave him a reassuring smile.

“He’s full of shit.” Lúthien rustled around in the tent. “The first show he came to he just stared at me and Daeron in the lobby for like half an hour, until we left. Totally freaked Daeron out. Lucky for Beren I thought it was kind of cute.” She emerged from the tent and joined them at the table. “Then the second time he just came over, said, ‘Hi. I love your dance,’ and walked away. It must have been at least the fourth or fifth show before he got up the nerve to carry on a conversation. I asked him out for drinks that night.”

God, she was beautiful when she put him in his place, Beren thought.

“Anyway,” she said, grabbing a pancake from the top of the pile and tearing off a bite, “if you like my brother you should just tell him. Personally, I’m bored of listening to you two flargue”

Maglor’s jaw dropped open and his ears flushed red. “I…” he breathed, “I… flargue?”

“Flirt-arguing.”

“Oh,” Maglor said. “But – I live with him. And he’s not even… been with… Wait, has he?”

Lúthien smiled around a bite of pancake and shrugged. “Do you think I’d suggest this if I didn’t think you had a high chance of success?”

“I’m…” Maglor backed away from the stove as if it was a rabid animal. “I’m going to go for a walk.” He spun on his heels and stalked off towards the beach, cupping his hands over his bright pink ears.

“Good morning, babe.” Lúthien planted a kiss on Beren’s cheek and took over the coffee preparation.

“I think you broke him,” Beren said with a shake of his head. “You could have been more subtle.”

“Why?” Lúthien asked. “Life is too short for subtlety.”

“Well, you know…” Beren said, “I mean, are you sure it’s a good idea? They do live together, it could be awkward.”

“Oh, listen to you,” Lúthien teased. “Mister Subtlety himself. Need I remind you? ‘Nice to meet you, Mayor Singh, Ms. Goel. Thank you for having me for dinner. You must want me to marry your daughter.’”

Beren grimaced. “You know that I meant to say, ‘You must be so proud of your daughter.’”

“Yeah, sure,” Lúthien laughed. “But that’s not what you did say.”

“Oh, come on, birdie. I was just thinking how beautiful you were, and how you seemed so happy with your family, and I wanted to be part of it right away. Anyway, it all worked out, didn’t it?”

She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, kissing the top of his head. “Yeah, it did.” She straightened and her grip tightened. “Is my brother seriously still sleeping? DAE!!” she shouted, and Beren flinched. “GET UP!”

Silence followed, and she opened her mouth to shout again, “DA–” but mercifully a loud groan resounded from Daeron’s tent.

“We’re going paddleboarding today, remember?” Lúthien said. “Reservation is for 10 a.m.”

There was a long, drawn-out sigh that might have been the first syllable of a curse. Daeron crawled out of his tent, his normally-straight dark hair kinked in three directions. He stood there with his mouth slightly open and squinted at them.

“Ugh,” he said, dragging a camping chair over to the table and collapsing into it, “I forgot about that.”

“Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t have stayed up until 3 a.m., hey?” She poured some water over a coffee cone. “What were you doing anyway?”

“Just talking.” Daeron scowled at her.

“For four hours?” she said. “That’s a long-ass time to talk to someone you live with.” She winked at Beren.

“Yeah, well,” Daeron said lamely, “at least he cared enough to follow me.”

“You hate it when I follow you.” She handed him the mug of coffee and he gave a grateful half-smile.

“Got some nettles!” Celegorm announced, traipsing through the underbrush behind the site. “And some huckleberries for the pancakes!”

 

*

After breakfast they all piled into Lúthien’s car – even Huan, who sat awkwardly on her lap the whole way to the rental shop so that she could barely see the road ahead. Daeron, whose mood had shot steeply upwards after he had been fed and filled with coffee, called shotgun and insisted on putting on some album of hip hop covers of traditional tiki songs (how did he find these things?) to ‘set the right vibe’ for the day. Beren was not sure what sort of vibe this was supposed to set, but at least it was mostly keeping everyone quiet. That is, until they hit an area with cell reception and Celegorm added to the cacophony by calling his brother and yammering loudly over the music.

“What do you mean he kicked you out? Yeah, but Tyelpe is like 11, just tell him to screw off. So? Listen, I don’t care about Finde’s sketchy debts or whatever, that’s a dumbass thing to do. Curvo, you’re an idiot – I can’t believe you have an eleven-year-old kid who bosses you around. Well, I guess that’s what you get for knocking her up. Yeah, yeah, it’s hilarious, you should’ve come. Maglor is upset about something. I don’t know what, do you think I have the time to ask him every time – ugh, okay, one sec. Hey, Maglor,” Celegorm leaned over Beren, who had somehow ended up in the middle seat, “what are you upset about?” Maglor just glared at him, mouth open in disbelief. “No idea, he’s just making that face like mom. Okay. Well, tell Finde ‘fuck off’ for me when he comes back. If he comes back. Bye, love you.”

Beren straightened against the back seat and cleared his throat. That was at least one more dysfunctional Finvesen, then. Maglor was leaning against the window frame with his head in his hand and Beren could feel the rage emanating from him, though once again apparently Celegorm could not. Lúthien glanced at them in the rearview mirror.

“Dae,” she said. “I don’t think your vibe-setting is working.”

“Okay, fine,” Daeron said, turning off the music. “Next time we can take both cars. Even if we don’t need them.”

“Oh, I think we need them,” Lúthien replied, finally pulling up to the parking lot.

They all clambered out and, after some fussing with finding a board big enough to hold Huan and Celegorm, they were ready to launch.

The thing is, Beren had never been on the water. He didn’t even know how to swim. He hadn’t thought that would be a big deal but now that they were about to go, he was wondering what he’d gotten himself into. He slipped his arms into the life jacket and took a deep breath.

“Babe.” Lúthien, sensing his distress, came up beside him and spoke softly. “You know how to swim, right?”

“Uh, no. I mean, I get the idea of it. I’m sure I’d figure it out.”

Her eyes twinkled with repressed amusement as she pinched her lips shut and smiled sweetly. “I have no doubt you would,” she said, running her hand down his arm reassuringly, “but why don’t we get a tandem board to start?”

Once settled on the tandem board, Beren quickly got the hang of it and enjoyed the gentle rocking of the waves and the beautiful scenery while Lúthien sang quietly in front of him. Daeron had gone off by himself and was lying stomach-down on his board, floating over a bed of sea kelp and apparently talking to whatever he saw down there. He was a strange person… but so was Lúthien, and Beren loved her for it. He figured they got it from their mother, whom Beren had rarely met. When Melian Goel did appear, she would silently scrutinise him with her hauntingly pale eyes before warning him that Mars was in retrograde, or that Venus was entering Cancer and he ought to guard his emotions closely. More often he would hear her rather than see her, chanting over singing bowls from her ‘House of Prophecy’ – a converted shed in their backyard perpetually surrounded by a cloud of incense smoke.

Celegorm and Maglor, who seemed to be enjoying each other’s company for a change, were paddling back in their direction.

“Hey!” Celegorm called to them. “Mags and I need your help settling a disagreement.” Oh great, Beren thought. “Is Uncle Bór’s or Papa Uldor’s better pizza?”

“Obviously Bór’s,” Lúthien replied without missing a beat. “Pretty sure whatever Uldor’s calls pepperoni is something else.”

“Okay, okay, fine. What about ice cream –”

Just then a seal head popped up between their two boards and Huan started to bark frantically. The seal stared the dog down a moment longer and then dipped beneath the surface. Huan launched himself after the animal, striking the side of Beren and Lúthien’s board and sending it spinning towards Maglor’s, who was knocked off into the water with a shriek.

“Sorry!” Beren shouted, as Maglor emerged, gasping, from the cold water and clung to the board. Celegorm was laughing as he hoisted his dog out of the ocean. In a panic, Huan started yelping in his face and struggling, eventually freeing himself and swimming straight towards Beren instead.

“No, Huan!” Lúthien ordered. “There’s no room for you here, go back to Celegorm!” The dog ignored her, grabbing hold of a rope dangling from the back of the board with his jaw and tugging them towards the shore.

“What the fuck!” Celegorm shouted, followed moments later by Maglor yelling, “Shit!”

As Beren and Lúthien continued to drift away from them, Maglor had gotten himself back up onto the board and was laying on his back dramatically clutching at his neck.

“You lost it?” Beren could hear Celegorm scream. Maglor shouted something back that he couldn’t quite make out, then Celegorm said something about their dad.

Relenting to Huan’s urgent need to return to shore, they paddled back. Beren watched the scene unfold as Maglor repeatedly dove down looking for whatever it was he had lost and Celegorm shouted at him each time his head popped above the surface. Daeron had taken notice and paddled hurriedly over to see what was going on. They were now both urging him to stop – Celegorm with flailing arms and curses, Daeron kneeling on the edge of his board and gently pleading – and by the time he finally gave up he was curled up on his board, shaking with cold. Celegorm towed him back and Daeron paddled alongside him.

When they got to shore, Daeron lifted Maglor up and wrapped him in towels higher up the beach. “Why did you do that?” he asked.

“My dad…” Maglor said through chattering teeth, “gave…”

“He lost a necklace our dad gave him.” Celegorm said, exasperated. “A really expensive one, opal from a meteorite from Mars or something. Probably cost as much as a house. We used to have three, that was the last one.” Maglor groaned and clasped his temples. “You shouldn’t have worn it out in the water!”

“I didn’t… know…” Maglor said, “I was… going to… fall in.” He glared up at Beren.

“Sorry,” Beren said, wondering how exactly he was to blame but having the wits not to get into it. “Are you sure you were wearing it?”

“Yes!” Maglor snapped. “... I think. I don’t know.”

“Should we look for it on the beach?” Beren offered. “Maybe you took it off.”

“We should go back,” Daeron said. “I think he has hypothermia.”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Celegorm said, pacing the beach. “The water isn’t even that cold. He’s just panicking.”

“Well, if he’s panicking, that’s also a reason to go!” Daeron replied.

“Shut up!” Maglor spat. “Let’s just go. Forget it. Do you know how anxious it made me having something that expensive around my neck all the time? Good riddance, you shitty opal of unattainable paternal expectations!” he shouted out to the sea and coughed.