your smile tells me I'm safe by EchoBleu

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your smile tells me I'm safe

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“I’m in love with you,” Fingon says one morning in September.

Maedhros is perched on the couch’s armrest, bent down, struggling to tie his laces. It’s something he can normally do easily, if slowly, his stump pressed against the loops as he forms them with his hand. But on some days, his shoulder protests the twist it requires, and he can’t quite get his forearm at the right angle. That’s why he has several pairs of boots that zip up instead, but today is the first staff meeting of the autumn semester, and he wants to wear his nice shoes.

He looks up at Fingon as the words sink in. His unbound hair makes a curtain in front of his eyes, and he can only see parts of him, the hand on his shoulder bag, the golden beads in his perfectly braided hair, his hesitant, expectant smile.

His face falls the longer Maedhros takes to answer. They’re running late for the meeting, and there’s a lead weight in Maedhros’s gut that pulls painfully as words fail to form on his lips. I’m in love with you too, the words are right there, but it’s like someone has sucked all the sound out of him.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it,” Fingon says, too fast, too high-pitched, a garble of words Maedhros’s brain can barely decipher. “It’s the worst possible moment, but I’ve been waiting and there’s never a right one and you looked so lovely with your hair hanging like that and—”

He stops to draw a breath, shaky and panicked. Maedhros still feels strangled, but he gives up on his laces and shakes off the shoes to cross the room. He cups Fingon’s chin to make him look up.

“It’s okay, I just.” He stops there, abruptly, with no idea what to say. “Need time,” he finishes after a moment, but the pause hangs between them like a condemnation.

Fingon gives him a brave smile. “Okay,” he says. “Take all the time you need.”

But his posture is tight like he already knows how it’s going to go. He expects Maedhros to turn him down – of course he does. To push him away again, this time for good. He expects Maedhros to ask him to move out, or to pine until they drift apart because of the awkwardness.

Maedhros wants to reassure him, but the only things that come to mind are platitudes – it doesn’t change anything, whatever happens we will stay friends – and they will sound far too much like no, I don’t love you back. And if he knows one thing, it’s that it isn’t true.

So he goes to get his zip boots from his closet and they walk out of the flat in silence. Fingon won’t meet his eyes, and he’s careful not to touch him at any point as they board the metro together.

They make it to the meeting on time, somehow, and they sit together through three powerpoint presentations and an hour of arguing because they always do, and Maedhros doesn’t absorb a single thing that has been said.

I’m in love with you.

The words run on loop inside his head, leaving no room for anything else.

It’s not a surprise, not really. Fingon had a crush on him even back before the accident, according to Káno. They’ve grown very close since reconnecting, and his brothers have teased him about it more than once. Looking back, the signs are there. Maedhros should have seen it coming.

And he does love Fingon back, doesn’t he?

Once home, after another awkward metro ride, he lies down on his bed and stares at the ceiling, the question running in his mind.

The reality of it is that he doesn’t know. He loves Fingon as a friend, as his best friend, there’s no doubt about that. He loves hanging out with him, watching movies on the couch together and working side by side on their laptops. He loves how they laugh together about the most ridiculous things, how Fingon beams at him whenever they cross paths at uni even though they’ve already seen each other in the morning.

He wants to be there to comfort him when he has a bad day. He wants Fingon to be there for him when he has a bad day. He wants to celebrate their victories together, and commiserate on the small annoyances, and hug each other through the hard times.

He can barely imagine his life without Fingon in it. He doesn’t want a life without Fingon in it.

Is that being in love?

And if it is, then why couldn’t he say it back?

He tries to say it out loud, alone in his bedroom. I’m in love with you. The words still won’t make it past his lips.

Letting out a frustrated groan, he gets up again and goes to cook dinner.

*

The next day, Maedhros’s shoulder hurts enough that he is forced to use his sling. It means that Fingon doesn’t push, doesn’t ask him anything more. He is as he always is on those days – worried and considerate, and there’s almost no awkwardness. He smoothly anticipates Maedhros’s needs, and if there is a slightly different quality to his posture when they spend the evening on the couch, Maedhros’s head on his lap, well, Maedhros is in too much pain to notice.

It lasts almost three days, leaving Maedhros exhausted for another two. There is no energy to spare for feeling guilty, though Fingon’s words are still in his mind. Fingon grows stiffer with him – not purposefully, but he stares at Maedhros’s back at lot, and he’s quick to look away when Maedhros turns around. Several times, for no discernable reason, he stands up and walks out of the living room, going to work in his bedroom instead.

It’s Sunday by the time Maedhros feels well enough to get out of the flat for any length of time. Feeling cooped up, he goes for a walk, but the sky starts pouring when he’s only made it around the corner. By the time he makes it back home, he’s drenched.

Fingon looks up from where he’s typing on his laptop on the couch. Seeing Maedhros dripping on the welcome mat like a wet dog, he starts laughing.

It’s a beautiful sound.

“That’s right, make fun of my misery,” Maedhros rolls his eyes, but he can’t help smiling.

He runs his hand through his dripping hair to get it out of his face, and Fingon’s smile slowly wanes, a thoughtful, sad look taking its place. This has happened too many times in the last week. Fingon hasn’t brought it up again, but it’s obvious that he’s thinking about it.

Maedhros steels himself as he dries his hair with a towel in the bathroom and changes. While he’s not Fingon, who tends to run head-first into danger, he’s never been one to avoid the things that scare him. He can do this. Fingon deserves an explanation, at the very least.

“What you said the other day,” he starts as soon as he comes out of the bathroom. “Are you certain?”

Fingon startles, looks at him, closes his laptop and takes a breath. “Of course. But it’s okay if you don’t feel the same.”

He doesn’t sound as if anything about this is okay, but he’s trying. He’s just never been a good liar. His hands are restless, pulling on one of his braids compulsively.

Maedhros sighs and sits down in the armchair across from the couch. “I can’t be with you in that way.”

He’s half-proud of the way his voice didn’t waver, but Fingon looks gutted, and all of his pride immediately fades away.

“May I—” Fingon says, working his jaw and looking anywhere but at him. “May I ask why?”

Maedhros thinks of all the excuses he’s constructed in his head. That relationships between roommates often end in disaster. That they’re basically cousins, and their fathers hate each other, and it would be terrible for the family unity. That Fingon is already taking care of him far too often as it is, that Maedhros and his chronic pain and his missing hand and his depression would make a terrible partner. They are all true.

They’re also just excuses.

“Because,” he says. He pushes his still-damp hair out of his face. “Because you’re lovely, and kind, and brave, and beautiful, and everything I could ever want, and I love you, but… I can’t give you what you want.”

Fingon frowns, now biting on his nails. “I don’t want anything except for you.”

“No, I can’t—I can’t be the person you deserve.”

“I don’t understand.”

Maedhros sighs. There they are. He takes a deep breath, looking at his lap.

“You deserve someone who can love you back, fully, who can be with you in every way, and I don’t—I don’t have it in me. I just don’t… It’s not there. Something in me is broken. I don’t know if it’s the depression, or the trauma, or if I was born this way, but I can’t give you that, and you deserve better than someone who can’t love you properly.” He swallows a sob on the last word. “I’m sorry,” he adds, his voice hoarse. “I’m so sorry.”

Fingon stares, and doesn’t say anything. Maedhros can’t tell if he’s shocked, or disgusted, or simply waiting for him to pull himself back together. He buries his face in his hands.

He works on the breathing exercises he learned in therapy for a minute, in silence. When he feels calm enough to look up, Fingon is still staring at him, his head slightly tilted, as if trying to solve a mystery.

“Maedhros,” he says slowly. “Are you aromantic?”

Maedhros blinks. His brain halts to a stop.

Is he?

“I—” He gestures helplessly. “I don’t know?”

“It means you don’t experience romantic attraction to people,” Fingon explains helpfully, but Maedhros already knows that.

It never seemed like a very useful description to him. What does it even mean? Is he supposed to get butterflies in his stomach? That’s just an overly dramatic metaphor from teenage romance novels, surely adult relationships are about something else…

Right?

“Ah,” he says, because he can’t think about anything else.

“It would be okay,” Fingon says, still trying to be helpful. “If you are.”

Maedhros thinks about that, and he definitely can’t dig into it deeper without getting overwhelmed. He puts his head in his hands again. Breathes.

“Maedhros.”

He looks up. Fingon has stood up from the couch, and he looks like he wants to come closer, but he doesn’t. He starts pacing instead, in a tiny line down the length of the couch, four steps forward and a turn. Then he sits down again.

“What I’m hearing,” he says, enunciating carefully, “is that you’re perhaps not attracted to me romantically, but you think you could have been if you were wired that way. Which suggests that you are perhaps attracted to me in other ways?”

Maedhros feels himself blush. “Um, not… not—”

“Sexually? No, I already know you’re ace, I’m not expecting you to— Wait,” he stops himself when Maedhros’s eyes bulge out. “Are you not ace?”

“I—”

Fingon grimaces. “I assumed because of how you’re always avoiding the subject, but I should have asked, sorry.”

“No, I… I don’t—”

Maedhros searches for words for an awkward moment before Fingon finally catches on. “Valar, you don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you?”

“I know what ace is,” Maedhros says. “I just. Don’t know what I am.”

Fingon bursts out laughing. Maedhros watches him uncomprehendingly, still reeling from the new thoughts hammering in his brain.

“I’m sorry, this is totally inappropriate,” Fingon says, wiping his eyes. “I just… Only you. You’re proudly out as queer, you go to pride, you’ve known that you’re nonbinary for – how long?”

Maedhros hesitates. That is, somehow, something they’ve never really talked about. Fingon took it in stride when Maedhros came out to him, but they never really dug into the subject. “When—when you came out, and Ñolo wasn’t… great about it, I started researching, you know, studies and articles about gender, so I could make sure I was informed and maybe send them to him.”

He feels his cheeks heat up. Fingon’s amused grin turns into a beaming smile, lighting up his face. “For me?”

“Of course. It took me a couple years to really start questioning it for myself, and by then…”

“We weren’t speaking any more.”

“Yeah.”

He opens his mouth to apologize, for the hundredth time, but Fingon holds up a hand. “And in all that time, all that research, you never heard about aromanticism?”

“No, I did. I know what it is, I just…”

I just didn’t think it could be me. I just thought I was broken. He doesn’t say it out loud.

He’s not convinced that it isn’t the truth of it. That there are the real aromantics, the ones who are perfectly valid in their (lack of) orientation, and there’s him, the imposter. It took him years and dozens of hours of therapy to accept his gender – he still slides back on the regular, feeling like he’s claiming a label that he has no right to. This – this is too much.

“Whatever I am, whatever – it doesn’t matter,” he says. “It doesn’t change anything for you.”

Fingon worries at his lower lip. “Putting words on it helps. And it means…” he hesitates. “It means it’s not me you can’t love.”

He’s fiddled with the bead at the end of one of his braids so much that it’s coming apart. Maedhros sighs. “It’s not you,” he confirms. “If I could want someone, anyone… It would be you.”

He wonders, suddenly, if Fingon will want to keep his distance now, if trying to get over him (how do you get over love?) will mean staying away. The thought slithers inside his throat and swells until he can barely breathe.

The idea of losing Fingon…

Fingon is following his own train of thoughts, and giving him a sad smile. “I’m glad to know that,” he says softly.

“Is this— Does this mean—” Maedhros can’t even ask. He runs his hand through his hair, pulling hard at the ends.

“I don’t know,” Fingon says. “It depends on what it means for you, I suppose.”

Maedhros frowns. “How?”

“If you can’t feel attraction to me, does it mean that you also don’t want a relationship? It doesn’t have to be romantic, or sexual.”

“What else is there? You’re already my best friend, unless you don’t want to—”

“No!” Fingon almost shouts. Maedhros blinks at him, surprised. “Not that, I’ll always be your friend if that’s what you want,” he says more softly, but no less forcefully.

“Oh,” Maedhros murmurs, only now noticing how fast his heart is beating. That eases some of his dread. “Good. Because I don’t want to lose you.”

“Me neither. Never.”

Fingon looks close to tears. Maedhros wants to hug him. He makes an aborted gesture toward him with his stump, to check if it would be welcome, and Fingon opens his arms.

Gratefully, Maedhros switches from his armchair – which suddenly feels too far away – to the couch beside Fingon. Fingon scoots over so that Maedhros can be on his right, and slide his left arm across his back. He’s careful of Maedhros’s shoulder when he returns the hug, nuzzling Maedhros’s neck.

“I’m not letting go of you,” he murmurs. “No matter what.”

Then he raises his head again. “Some aro people have queer-platonic relationships. I think. I’m not exactly knowledgeable, but we could research. Is that something you’d want?”

Maedhros gives himself a minute to think about it properly, running his fingers up and down Fingon’s arm. He tries to push away the intrusive thoughts – you’re just broken, you’ll never be good enough for him, he’s generous enough to give you the benefit of the doubt – and actually considers the question.

“I don’t know,” he says.

The thing is – the thing is, he doesn’t think he would want any kind of relationship, aside from friendship, with anyone else than Fingon. So what does that make him?

And Fingon… Fingon is normal, and beautiful and smart and kind, and he could have anyone he wanted. He shouldn’t have to settle for someone like Maedhros.

“Fingon,” he says slowly, prompting him to meet his eyes. “I love you, and I want you in my life more than anything, but you still deserve better. You deserve someone who can love you for real.”

“Oh, Mae.” Fingon reaches up to push his hair back behind his ears. “It doesn’t make your love any less real.”

“But I can’t love you the way you love me.”

Fingon shrugs. “I don’t care. I just want you. From where I’m standing, this just means that we get to define our relationship in whatever way we want. We can just throw other people’s expectations out of the window. I don’t need romance. I don’t need sex. We can figure out what we like together.”

“So if we just continue as we have, you’d be satisfied?”

He smiles. “Without being afraid that you’ll bolt if you find out my feelings? Without feeling like I’m lying every time I look at you? Yes. I don’t need more than that. I just want to be with you.”

“With me,” Maedhros repeats, trying to taste what that would feel like.

Fingon turns to lean against his chest, propping his feet on the edge of the coffee table. “So, can we try? We can research QPRs and see how other people do it. And if nothing fits, we can just make it up.”

“I— Okay,” Maedhros whispers. “We can try.”

It feels easier, perhaps, to say it to the top of Fingon’s head, rather than to his face. He’d do anything for Fingon, but he can’t give him what just isn’t there. How long until Fingon gets bored or frustrating and realizes what he’s missing? How long until Maedhros’s lack comes between them?

But Fingon looks so relieved, relaxed in Maedhros’s arms, and they’ve been cuddling like this on the couch for months. Maybe things don’t have to change too much. They can figure this out as they go along, and if one day it’s no longer enough, then – they’ll cross that bridge when they get there.

So for now – for now, maybe.

*

“Shit!”

Maedhros looks up from his sketchbook, alarmed. He twists around to check on Fingon, who is standing in front of the sink, peeling tomatoes.

“What did you do this time?” he asks nonchalantly, when he’s determined that nothing majorly dangerous has happened.

“Nicked my finger. It’s fine, it’s just a small cut.” Fingon turns on the tap and holds his hand under the water.

“No need for stitches?”

“No, just a band-aid, maybe.”

Maedhros nods, even though Fingon has his back turned to him, and he puts down his pencil to go get band-aids and antiseptic from the bathroom cabinet.

“Give me your hand,” he says, hooking his foot around the rolling stool they keep in the kitchen area to pull it closer. He sits down and Fingon holds out his now dripping hand. Thankfully, it is only dripping water and not blood, and the cut is objectively very small. Barely enough to justify a band-aid at all, if not for the fact that Fingon will never leave it alone and keep re-opening it if it’s not protected.

Maedhros struggles a little with the box, which is not made to be opened one-handed, and takes out one of the child superhero-themed band-aids. He got them for Fingon as a joke, because he goes through boxes of bandages seemingly like candy, but Fingon unironically loves them. They already adorn several of his fingers like so many rings, little explosions of colour against his dark skin.

Maedhros slaps the newest one on his index finger and jokingly bends to kiss it better – but he lingers, just a little. Fingon doesn’t take his hand back. It lasts no more than an extra second or two, but it’s enough for Maedhros’s brain to start spinning.

Very little has changed between them since their talk. Some of the awkwardness of the last weeks has faded, and new embarrassment arises in entirely different places, but it’s all very subtle. They’ve hung out just as much as they usually do, and Fingon truly seems content with what they have.

Maedhros is still cataloguing moments. Trying to sort what counts as romantic, and what is just friendship. What the distinction even means to him. Kissing Fingon’s finger – is it a joke, or a moment of tenderness? Can it be both? Is it an issue if it’s both?

“You’re overthinking again,” Fingon says lightly.

“Ugh,” Maedhros mutters, standing up and leaning forward to gently headbutt Fingon on the way.

“Whatever feels right,” Fingon reminds him. “It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.”

“What if what feels right to me isn’t what feels right to you?”

Fingon shrugs. “If it feels wrong to either of us, we don’t do it. You just have to be honest about it.”

They’ve looked up queer-platonic relationships together, but there seems to be as many ways to be in one as there are people who are. The only requirement is, well, declaring it a relationship.

If Fingon is truly serious about this, about not wanting to seek someone who can actually love him properly, then Maedhros wants to give him at least that. Commitment.

It shouldn’t be difficult. Tyelko often jokes that Maedhros is more loyal than a dog (but then, Tyelko loves dogs more than people). He has, always, given a hundred percent of himself to those important in his life – more than was healthy, sometimes. He loves Fingon, and there is no doubt in his mind that he wants that to continue.

But he’s abandoned Fingon once. Not out of any desire to hurt him – on the contrary – but that’s how Fingon experienced it, and it stands between them even now. He pushed Fingon away, and they didn’t see each other again for almost a decade. They went through the worst times of their lives separately, because of Maedhros’s misguided desire to protect him.

Maedhros takes a breath and catches Fingon’s arm before he can turn away.

“I want a queer-platonic relationship with you,” he says – just a touch too fast, but going by the sudden glow of Fingon’s eyes, it’s still understandable.

Fingon has already made his desires clear. He’s been patiently waiting for Maedhros to express himself, never pushing.

“I don’t know what it will look like exactly,” Maedhros warns, like an apology. “I just know I want to be with you.”

Fingon beams. “I will never push you to do something you don’t want,” he promises. “We can explore. Take it slow. Not do anything different at all, if that’s what you like.”

“I—would like to hug you,” Maedhros says.

And it’s not something new, they’re both tactile with each other, but they’ve never hugged as partners before. Or whatever words they’ll end up using.

Fingon makes a noise of excitement and launches himself at Maedhros, catching himself with his arms around his neck. Maedhros would have toppled over, had he been even a little shorter or lighter. As it is, he hurriedly stabilizes himself with a hand on the counter and returns the hug, squeezing Fingon tightly against his chest.

“I love you,” Fingon says. “Is that okay to say?”

“You already said it before,” Maedhros points out.

“Just wanted to make sure.”

Maedhros squeezes him a little tighter, until Fingon squeaks in protest. They both laugh, Fingon’s head still buried in Maedhros’s shoulder.

“I love you too,” Maedhros says quietly, and it doesn’t feel romantic, or wrong, or anything but the most genuine truth. He loves Fingon. Fingon loves him.

If this is to be them, this openness and communication and mutual respect, then – then he thinks he can get used to it.

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Chapter End Notes

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