What If? by oshun

Fanwork Information

Summary:

I wondered recently if I ever thought of writing a Fingon/Maedhros piece where they made different choices. This was as close as I could get. So, the answer is, I guess I do not have it in me to change their fate. Canon heretic that I am, however, I’ve already changed it plenty to suit my taste—happily ever after in Valinor together after the suffering and unhappy deaths given them in The Silmarillion and their requisite rehab in the Halls of Mandos. It’s the only way I can sleep at night.

This is a gift for Himring, who makes them suffer more than I do.

Major Characters: Fingon, Maedhros

Major Relationships:

Artwork Type: No artwork type listed

Genre: Romance

Challenges: Gift of a Story

Rating: Teens

Warnings:

This fanwork belongs to the series

Maitimo and Findekáno
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 199
Posted on 10 December 2014 Updated on 10 December 2014

This fanwork is complete.

What if I got it wrong?

Read What if I got it wrong?

What if I got it wrong?
And no poem or song
Could put right what I got wrong –lyrics, Coldplay, “What If?”

Fingon startled awake sweating, his legs tangled in rough sheets and heavy woolen blankets. The room had taken on a musty air of sleep—from his becoming overheated in a closed room? It must be the damp sheets he thought.

He sniffed at Maedhros, warm but not hot, fresh, sweet, sleeping like the dead. What an expression: like the dead? Their activities the night before had proved him very much alive.

“Hmm,” Maedhros muttered. “You’re awake?”

“I had a dream. I dreamed you stayed with me instead of going to Formenos. Then I realized I was dreaming, but I fell asleep again and dreamed that we both stayed in Tirion after everyone else left.”

“Whoa! And you think I have scary nightmares. Those kinds of dreams are the path to madness.”

“Oh, fuck you!” Fingon said, hitting him with a limp pillow.

“Poor thing! Let’s fix this snarled mess you’ve made of the bed, make it comfortable.” Maedhros shook out the sheet and straightened the blankets over them. Fingon felt loved and cared for. He always did in Himring.

Comments

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I saw this when checking the site this morning and, as soon as I was rid of my students, treated myself to it! :D But I'm going to say what you always say about ficlets: I want more! I would love to see this go on. But don't mind me ... I very much enjoyed it as it is too. :)

"He sniffed at Maedhros ..." This is so intimate and still sweet somehow.

Interesting how, post-Thangorodrim, consideration of the what-might-have-beens are more frightening to Maedhros than what he has already endured. But I can understand how, in the inevitable slide into eventual defeat (which they must surely, on some level, understand is coming), the idea of going back and changing a single choice to undo all they have and will suffer ... and how out-of-reach that must feel. The path to madness indeed.

Thanks, Dawn! You really understood what I was trying to say in the snippet! That is gratifying. Whenever I write something short I am always wondering if I can actually say anything in a few words! I do feel much more comfortable in a longer form.

I think in one of my earlier collections of drabbles and ficlets, I called these kinds of drabbles or ficlets "seeds of stories". Sometimes a seed sprouted a more developed story sooner rather than later. Others took years and some are still frozen in deep soil, but not forgotten! So, I probably will get back to these concepts another day but it might not be soon!

Thanks again so much for reading.

I have a lot of empathy with Fingon and Maedhros--my attitude about my own life choices is kind of a "sorry! not sorry!" Others might think I have made some terrible mistakes but I still, even now, feel like I made the best, most informed, choices I could have at the time.

Thank you so much, Oshun! How unexpected--and how very kind of you!

I like that ending with Maedhros straightening out the bed so much! The very best kind of antidote to scary nightmares and what-ifs!

Although I make them suffer more, I guess my version of Maedhros might agree that those kinds of dreams are the path to madness...

Dedicated to you because I was inspired when I ran across an older story you wrote for me on AO3 ("Bindweed") and one of the commenters on it on AO3 said, "I'm curious to see someone writing a fic in which Maedhros never took that oath." I thought about it and wondered if I could write such a "What if?"/AU. I decided it would be difficult but not impossible for me to read one and enjoy it, but virtually impossible to write it. This was my articulated failure.