On a Night of Snow by Elleth

Snow was dusting up around Pilin's hooves as Fingon rode into the inner courtyards of Barad Eithel, the rest of his hunting troupe following behind him with deer and hares, pheasants, cranes and grouse, even a boar that they had managed to bring down - but all the same, his father would be disappointed with the meagre success. Game was becoming sparse since the feral wolves out of Angband harassed their land more and more frequently and drove the herds and flocks further south than even the winter did. Some wolf pelts they also brought, but once again, too few to make a marked difference. They would have to go out once again when the snows lay thicker, so that tracking Morgoth's beasts might be made easier.

He shivered at the thought of winter. Already, the waning days of autumn had not been kind to the expedition, leaving the valleys around Eithel Sirion full of a thick, freezing mist that swallowed the sun during the day and sent darkness falling early. Then, during the final two days of the hunt, a light snow had started falling, at last adding a little light and beauty to the land. Still, he felt frozen almost to the core, as if the icy numbness of Helcaraxë had once again crept out of his bones, where it lived perpetually, into the rest of his body. He did not look forward to winter.

As he was rubbing down Pilin with fistfuls of dry hay, a stablehand passed, and Fingon's eyebrow rose. He was already anticipating his wife's promise to help warm him up when he returned, but it seemed that Alphangil had more than kept it: The stablehand was wearing Fëanorian livery, her tabard in the russet of Maedhros' people.

His heart beat a little faster. How his wife had arranged for Maedhros to be present at Barad Eithel at this particular time was a mystery, but he decided to take the surprise and perhaps learn more over the course of the evening. At any rate, he would have to repay her thoughtful gesture with some very specific attention. In fact he was touched - he knew that Alphangil and Maedhros were jealous of one another, less of an impetus to get along and more to consider each other rivals vying for his attention. Maedhros had stubbornly refused to attend the wedding, then showed up unexpectedly and only took the missing accommodation as further insult, there had been harsh words and sadness on either side, and Fingon in the middle of a double heartbreak, loving them both.

Perhaps they meant, he hoped, to turn over a new leaf. He would find out.

With Pilin settled and contentedly munching his oats, Fingon made his way up into the keep, breathing easier inside where the walls kept out the chill and the heating pipes running under the floor did aught to make it a more hospitable place. He passed several servants who greeted him with smiles and curtseys, climbed the stairs to his and Alphangil's private wing after finding his father's great hall empty, and realised that his feet and hands still hadn't warmed. A cold lingered in his core as well - the one that would be hardest to drive out.

In their own reception hall a fire was roaring in the hearth as he entered; the air was warm enough to prickle on the skin of his face. As he came in, he spotted Alphangil rising from her chaise longue by the fire, putting her embroidery aside and crossing the room in quick strides to meet him. He swung her up and nuzzled into her hair, kissing it, her forehead, her eyes, nose and finally her lips.

"It is good to see you, beloved," he said, smiling in return to the way her face was lighting up. "I hope you missed me."

"Very much - although I had someone here to stave off some of the loneliness." She kept her voice low, he noticed, and made a motion to the other chaise that he usually occupied. There, sagged sideways into the pillows as he slept, was Maedhros. His mouth hung half-open as he breathed, his eyelids fluttered in a dream, but against Fingon's initial second of alarm at a nightmare, Maedhros seemed relaxed and calm, his hand lying open and splayed on his thigh and his wrist tucked under his cheek, a book beside him.

After a moment - or perhaps several - that he spent regarding Maedhros, the way the firelight made his freckles dance and left new highlights and shadows on his spectacular hair, he turned to Alphangil, fondly saying, "What is this? Are you going to tell me that the two of you finally managed to get along?"

Alphangil shook her head, her black braid swinging over her shoulder. As always when she was nervous, she ran her hands over it and twisted the end around her palm. "Not quite," she said. "But we are both willing to try. He accepts that you married me for more than just alliance with my people, or to imitate and mock Maglor and Lasbaneth and all the folk of Mithrim. I accept that you have known and loved him since you were young in Balannor. It is what it is. And I would rather share you with him than lose you to him, or have him lose you. He agrees. He answered my summons and came because he missed you."

Just like that, a flicker of incorporeal warmth rose in Fingon. He wrapped his arm around Alphangil's hip and pulled her close against him, once again kissing her hair, lingering. "I love both of you so much more than words can do justice," he said softly, smiling. "And I almost feel like I do not deserve to be so spoiled."

"Maybe if you were Maglor you could attempt to come close to doing your emotions justice, but he has said the same about Lasbaneth," a new voice interjected: Maedhros was awake and rose to step up to the two of them, still standing arm in arm. His strides were somewhat hesitant, and he stopped short of joining them in the embrace, his eyes questioning.

It was Alphangil who reached out, caught him by the hand and pulled him in before either of the men had the courage to say or do anything more. "Kiss him already, you fool."

In short order, Fingon found that kissing Maedhros had not changed at all since the last time they had done so. They fit together comfortably in spite of their difference in height, but when the kiss ended and Maedhros buried his nose in Fingon's hair, he pulled away with an expression of mild disgust.

"I hate to say so, given how much I longed for you, but I can smell that you have been out hunting for a fortnight."

Fingon laughed. "Well, I was distracted by your presence before I was able to request a bath, but - "

" - but your dearest wife is not a fool, knows her husband and indeed promised to warm you up once you returned. She has everything ready. What would you do without her?" Alphangil, smirking, finished the sentence before he had the chance. Maedhros laughed, unrestrained, and Fingon's heart jumped when Alphangil joined in.

"I feel that we should retire to the baths, then. I am cold, and fooling around with the two of you might help warm me up eventually, but some hot water would be the quickest way to go about it."

"I say that 'both' is the way to go, then," Alphangil objected. "Hot water and fooling around with the two of us."

"I like that even better," Fingon agreed, giving Maedhros a lingering look. Maedhros nodded.

*

Fingon shed the layers that had failed to protect him from the cold on the way to the baths. His cloak was joined by his boots and leather hunting armour on short notice, then by the leggings and shirt underneath, followed by the gold bands in his hair as his braids came undone, and finally by his underclothes. He walked the rest of the way in the nude, acutely aware of the two sets of eyes following him and strangely thrilled by it. But the cold hadn't left him yet, and when the blast of warm steam hit him entering the bath, he left Alphangil and Maedhros dressed as they were and hurried down the steps into the large hot tub waiting there for him, kept warm by the same technology that heated the keep.

Fingon sighed luxuriously at the burn of the water on his skin as the heat of it soaked into his flesh and bone. Tipping his head back against the rim of the tub, he slowly sank deeper and let himself be weightless for a moment.

"You are so lucky - he is beautiful," he heard Maedhros say to Alphangil. "Would that I could always see him like this."

"We must simply find more reasons to travel to see one another, however long this peace lasts," Alphangil said. "While we have it, let us make the most of it."

"He praised your sensible head before, in letters, and I see that he was not exaggerating."

"My sensible head?!" Fingon could hear the laughter in Alphangil's voice; he was not so sure that Maedhros also could, amid all the mock-indignation.

"He also praised your beauty, but…" Maedhros sounded sheepish and a little awkward now. "But I have never found any woman anything more than objectively beautiful. Men, certainly, though no one even came close to him."

Alphangil huffed, though she seemed at least a little mollified. "At least we agree that he is stunning - or that he can be when he is not just returning from a hunting trip smelling like horse and wild boar."

A smile. "Let us get him clean, then." Maedhros made his way over to a shelf set into the wall, where an assortment of bottles, jars and bars of hair soap were stored, and in short order returned with a bar that smelled like frankincense and smoke. He knelt by the tub, gathered up Fingon's wet hair in his hand - and looked to Alphangil for help. Fingon's heart clenched a little to see the soap slip away from his stump, old guilt coming to life, but he pushed it down decisively: he had saved Maedhros' life then, and Maedhros bore him no more ill will over it, else he would not be there.

Alphangil took Fingon's hair from Maedhros and handed the soap back to him. "I think this will suit him well for tonight. Well chosen." 

Maedhros began lathering up the soap into Fingon's hair, and as he breathed in the scent of it, Fingon had to admit to himself that they were right - he did smell rather unpleasant, of week-old sweat with distinct undertones of game, and of course of Pilin, whom he had slept next to for warmth most of the freezing nights out. He hadn't noticed then, but it was for this that he enjoyed all the more how Alphangil was beginning to move the lather through his hair, and then Maedhros' hand joined hers, carding spread fingers from his scalp down to the ends of his hair.

Fingon hummed low in his throat as relaxation and warmth finally began to course through his body. He tipped his head back and smiled to see Alphangil and Maedhros working together, seemingly now without awkwardness or animosity. It was a beautiful sight and one he felt blessed to be able to see at all. As he watched, he saw Alphangil brush her hand over Maedhros', receiving a look of confusion swiftly followed by dawning understanding. She was making an effort. Maedhros did not pull his hand away, but in turn leaned closer, brushing his nose against her cheek in a caress, perhaps an aborted kiss that he was still unsure to attempt. Alphangil's eyes crinkled at the corners with a hidden, private smile meant only for Fingon when she caught him looking. They continued working quietly.

"There," Alphangil said at last. "Rinse, so we can go on. Maedhros brought a special treat from Himring for you, knowing how you love to be pampered."

Fingon's heartbeat picked up, joyful. "Have I said yet that I love you, Russandol?" he asked, inadvertently slipping into the use of the old epithet as he washed the soap out of his hair and sat back up.

"You do not need to say it in words. I know. I have always known."

Maedhros finally produced a small, stoppered bottle from the pocket of his tunic, slipped the cork out with his thumb, and Alphangil gathered up Fingon's hair from the now-cloudy, sweet-smelling water, twisting it to squeeze out the water. Maedhros upended the bottle over the lengths and ends of his hair to let a viscous liquid flow out. With clawed fingers he worked it in, this time unaided by Alphangil, who was content to watch.

"With regards from the Master Healer," Maedhros said. "There is so little for her to do but tend to her herb gardens and stitch up training injuries that she has started dabbling in improving our cosmetics."

Fingon snorted out a laugh into the water. It wasn't hard to imagine Mistress Estelindë, who had been with the family since their grandfather had married Míriel, being bored in a time of peace. She'd always been restless. At least in Aman there had been many mothers and their children who needed help being brought into the world, and ample time to further her craft in all aspects of medicine under the tutelage of Estë, whom she had been named for. In Beleriand, on Himring as elsewhere, there were fewer of either, no Valiër to tutor her, and during this long time of peace, not enough battles or skirmishes to keep her occupied.

"In that case, thank her for me - and thank you for being so diligent in your guard that she has this leisure time. I can already tell that whatever this is, my hair is going to be smoother than silk," he all but found himself purring. While Maedhros still worked his fingers through his hair, Alphangil had started massaging his shoulders and the back of his neck, kneading his sore muscles until the knots in them softened and disappeared. It was almost too good to be true, leaving Fingon boneless and relaxed as the water sloshed and stilled around him, with only one urgent need arising. He was only waiting for Maedhros to tell him to rinse out the creamy substance from his hair, then he'd ask them both to join him.

Alphangil eventually relinquished his muscles; he briefly chuckled at the thought of being tenderised like a piece of meat. Hopefully a prime cut. As if she had caught his thoughts - and likely she had; Alphangil was skilled at osanwë and often open to it, and Fingon hadn't been guarding his thoughts - his wife joined in the chuckle and swatted at him playfully.

"There is a certain prime cut of meat," she leaned in to whisper, "that I have been missing quite sorely these last two weeks. I hope it returned from the hunt ready and willing for action? There are two of us who will want a piece of you this night."

Fingon nearly choked. His eyes darted to Maedhros half behind him, who, with a too-innocent smile, untangled his hand from Fingon's hair and gave an almost imperceptible nod. He was already stirring from Alphangil's words alone, but to see Maedhros' grey eyes laugh as they did, was not helping matters. Not that he wanted matters to be helped.

"Are you quite done now?" Fingon breathed. "If you want my attention, then come take it." That said, he reached for Alphangil and pulled her bodily into the tub, clothes and all. She resurfaced yelping, soap suds spluttering from her mouth, and pounced. Fingon felt himself pushed underwater, blinded by his billowing hair, and was gratified that the entire rinsing process had been cut short for him. At least they could proceed more quickly now.

As he broke the surface and wiped the water and hair from his face, he smiled to see Maedhros undressing at his leisure, and Alphangil, still in the tub, peeling herself out of her sodden skirt and overtunic, baring herself to his sight - and to that of Maedhros, who had paused to watch, half-undressed, standing tall with his bare, pale chest already spotted with flushed patches. His attention on Alphangil was rapt, and Fingon's was rapt on him, the half-parted lips, the wide eyes.

He did not say anything, not wanting to spoil the moment and wanting to leave Maedhros time to come to terms with this new development. Instead he reached out a hand to help Maedhros into the tub when he was done undressing, while Alphangil dropped the last of her sodden clothes onto the tiles.

Space was a little less generous with three people in the tub, and in short order he felt himself switching places with Maedhros who was now leaning back against the rim of the tub, and Alphangil's warm weight on top of him so that he was helplessly, wonderfully sandwiched between the two of them. He could feel Maedhros' lips trailing along the back of his throat to the side of it and down, leaving goosebumps in their wake, while Alphangil pressed against him from the front with a demanding kiss. He couldn't help but moan, loud and unashamed and more than a little overwhelmed with the contrasting sensations.

Maedhros, behind him, reached out to touch Alphangil's cheek for attention, a soft gesture. "Will you allow me to have him?" Indeed, Fingon could feel Maedhros' arousal press against the cleft of his ass - he would only have to position himself and thrust in, if he truly meant to. When, not if, Fingon hoped.

"You already have him," Alphangil replied. "But as for this - yes. Take him." The beatific smile his wife gave him was at odds with the breathy, confident voice. "Both you and I know how much he enjoys it."

Fingon found that he did not mind in the slightest that they were talking about him, not with him; it filled him with a warmth that surpassed even that of the hot tub. He trusted them both with his life, and Alphangil was right - he had all but pushed her to commission, from a discrete craftsman, a beautiful wooden phallus and matching a harness for her to wear it.

"Do you, now?" Maedhros murmured into his ear, biting down gently on his earlobe and chuckling, while his left was busy in a pocket of his discarded clothes, to finally pull free a little tub of smooth, slick salve and coated his fingers in it. Fingon recognized the scent from times long ago, and his stomach clenched involuntarily, a mixture of nostalgia for Treelight-dappled shadows and the feeling of Maitimo against him, inside of him, and the expectation of what was to come.

He turned to kiss Maedhros. "It's been too long. Don't make me wait any longer yet," he said against Maedhros' lips, mapping their familiar, beloved shape, the bow of his upper lip, their softness and how they parted for his tongue just as two of Maedhros' fingers pushed into him underwater and Fingon shouted wordlessly, bucking against them as Maedhros was teasing and massaging and opening him.

At the same time, Alphangil climbed on top of him, spreading her legs and slipping against his hardness in a motion that drove him mad at the best of times, and now outright chased stars across his vision before she sheathed him inside herself, tipping her head back and gasping as she wrapped her arms around him and began moving to her own rhythm. The movement pushed him down further on Maedhros' fingers and Fingon, breaking the kiss, pressed his forehead into her shoulder and muffled the noises he was making into her skin.

Then Alphangil stilled, panting. Sweat was blending with the bathwater droplets still on her skin, her eyes were wide and even darker than usual. Behind and underneath him, Maedhros shifted, finally withdrawing his fingers. As much as Fingon wanted to protest the emptiness, when Maedhros said in his ear, "Look at me. I want to see your face as I enter you," no power in the world could have kept him from obeying.

Maedhros claimed him slowly, carefully, his eyes half-shut but still on Fingon's face with a glint of sharp grey, his nostrils flaring, his pale cheeks red with a deep flush that was not only the heat of the water. Maedhros took him fully with a sigh falling from his lips, contentment to be so close visible in every line on his face. A shudder ran through his beloved body, and Fingon pressed himself further down, seeking the most contact he could have, wishing he could melt into both his wife and his lover at once.

Before long, though, they broke the intense almost-stillness they'd settled into. Maedhros began moving in him, rocking rather than outright thrusting, but angling himself in such a way that he brushed across Fingon's most sensitive spot with every move, and Alphangil's enveloping warmth became Maedhros' perfect counterpoint. Fingon wasn't sure when breathing had become a chore, only that it was, and that the places where their bodies joined, brushed, moved against each other, were on fire, that he was a bird on the wings of two storms at once, pushed and pulled and entirely lost, and that he never wanted to be found again.

Alphangil rose off of him almost entirely, sinking back down onto him in one smooth motion, gasping as though she herself could not breathe, and then he could feel the telltale tightening around himself, the great shudder that ran through her, and almost at the same time, Maedhros bit down onto his shoulder, a bright spot of delicious pain as, nearly simultaneously, all three of them found their release.

Once he trusted that he could breathe again and see anything but light bursting behind his eyelids, Fingon reluctantly opened them, finding he had sagged against Maedhros, who was laughing in a low, incredulous tone, his nose in Fingon's wet hair. Alphangil remained on top of his softening cock, pressed against him as close as their positions allowed him, happily boneless and smiling. Her arms were around his hips, holding him, but at the same time reaching out for Maedhros, one on his wrist and the fingers of their other hand tangled.

Fingon's heart pounded, near-painful with joy to see them this way. It was a beginning, if nothing else, and it promised, perhaps - hopefully - an even fairer future. For the moment, though, against his overheated skin, the water felt nearly tepid, and he leaned forward to nuzzle Alphangil. "Do you think we could move to the bed before the tub is entirely cold? Not that I mind needing yet more warming-up…"

"Still as insatiable as you always were, and however much I welcome some changes, I am glad other things have stayed the same," Maedhros murmured, teasingly, just as Alphangil said, "I would not mind if we retired together… the night is long yet, and the bed is warm and large enough for three."

Tired though he was, Fingon smiled, joining his hand to theirs just before they moved apart to rise.

In wise foresight, Alphangil had set out enough towels and robes for all three of them to warm in the bath's antechamber. When Fingon, Alphangil and Maedhros finally emerged from the tub, cleaned-up under fresh, hot water and warmed inside and out, finally, by their lovemaking, Fingon found that he was not quite as tired as he'd initially felt, now that the drowsy afterglow had faded.

Outside the steamed-up window into the sky above the dark courtyards of Barad Eithel, it was snowing in large, blurred-out flakes, and Fingon could not help a sigh from deep in his chest. Tipping his head toward the weather outside was enough for Maedhros, who had seemed animated and even happy, to quiet down and hunch under his towel as he tried to dry himself off with one hand.

Fingon knew the feeling of guilt for Losgar had never quite left his lover, though he himself had stood aside at the burning of the Telerin ships. Alphangil was watching the two of them, her eyes shadowed, studying. She knew about the events, had even seen the fire mirrored in the clouds from across the mountains - as she had told Fingon - but she was an outsider to it. Her father had withdrawn his people from the Fëanorians coming into the land; Annael had only approached the House of Fingolfin when they settled on the other shore of the lake, and even then had been cautious. It had taken until the Mereth Aderthad, when he had first laid aside his reservations to introduce his daughter to Fingon.

She cleared her throat now. "Dry off and come to bed, both of you. If you are not tired, I have more in mind for tonight." She pragmatically towelled herself off, let the towel flutter to the ground and walked, leaving the door open, and herself now as nude as Fingon had been before, down the corridor toward their bedroom. A cool breeze, compared to the humid air in the bath-chamber, blew inside in her wake.

Fingon couldn't help but stare, and once again he noticed the stillness from Maedhros, standing half-behind him, and turned to look at him watch Alphangil go.

"Are you coming? I would… I would like that." Fingon cleared his throat awkwardly, unsure where the sudden confusion had come from and whether Maedhros would indeed want to continue whatever they had begun. "She would like it as well, I think."

Maedhros nodded, though there was care in his movements, as if he was unsure whether he was permitted, wanted, now that this awkwardness had arisen. Fingon wanted to kick himself for it, but instead he also let go of his towel and reached for Maedhros' hand instead, pulling him along before there could be any more misconceptions or more of Maedhros' misplaced guilt.

"I know you are thinking about Losgar and me on the Ice, and I forgive you for that, if you need to hear it yet again, albeit there is nothing to forgive. You were not the one who raised that torch and set those ships ablaze. You stood aside."

Maedhros replied something that came so low under his breath that Fingon failed to pick it up, and he decided not to pursue it. At any rate, Maedhros' fingers closed more tightly around his palm, and that was enough for him, as if they had not shared a much closer bond just a very short while ago.

When they entered the bedchamber with Maedhros still holding the towel to himself with his left arm, Alphangil was sitting on the large bed in the round tower chamber, in the half-light of the fireplace. There was a hearth here as well, and it was blazing with several fresh logs that had kindled to flame already, driving away the dark - and even naked, it was pleasantly warm. The deep blue curtains had been drawn over the stained-glass windows in the round, making this room, for the moment, their entire world. As much as he forgave Maedhros, Fingon did not mind not seeing the snow fall.

It was Maedhros who closed the door behind them and slid the bolt home decisively. Fingon's heartbeat picked up once again seeing the mixture of expressions on his face, a mingling of tenderness and love and determination.

There still was water beading on Maedhros' skin; he hadn't dried himself off completely, and water trickled down from the ends of his hair, his back twitching under the touch of the droplets. Fingon stepped up to him and took the towel he was still clutching so awkwardly, patted Maedhros's hair until it was no longer soaking wet, and wiped down his back, over the scars that the whips of Angband had left in his pale skin and that would probably not ever fade.

Fingon had seen them many times before - from the rescue to his recuperation, when he had to be forced to leave Maedhros' side, and then when they had once again become lovers in all but deed for a long time, when Maedhros could not, nor would, tolerate anyone touching him after the tortures that he had endured.

"Are they why you hesitate?" Fingon asked quietly, knowing he didn't need to name the scars, acutely aware of the tension in Maedhros' body. He rubbed the towel in what he hoped were soothing motions. Maedhros stood still under his hand.

"No," he said eventually, his voice rough and low, so Fingon had to lean forward against his shoulder to catch his words at all. "Not the marks themselves - but I have no desire for either your or her pity."

"Pity?" Fingon asked. "You know me. Why should I pity what is a mark of your survival? Not the marks themselves. They are an evil that was done to you - but your living body bears them, and that, to me, is the most important and the most beautiful."

Fingon knelt swiftly, pressing a kiss to Maedhros' hip, where he knew a lashing scar tapered out toward his front, downward into the dusting of red hair at the joining of his legs, leaving, there, a thin strip of white where the hair had not regrown. His heart ached to think of all that Maedhros had endured, but he did not pity him. Cautiously, he opened his mind to his wife, sharing what he knew.

With his back to the bed, he only noticed Alphangil approaching when she laid a hand on his head, a caress over his hair, and their connection faded. She stood before Maedhros, tilting her head back to look fully at him - as a Sinda woman, she was the least tall among the three of them; Maedhros stood a good head and a half taller than her. There was a veneer of steel in her lovely eyes, but she spoke softly. She reached out to touch the same scar Fingon had kissed.

"My people have lived with Angband longer than yours have - even when Morgoth was imprisoned over the sea in your realm, there were evil things here that would stop at nothing to destroy us, or turn us into them even in the absence of their Master. Sometimes they succeeded, twisting a mind so that its owner would no longer recognize kin or bonds of love or fealty. Plainly you do, or you would not be here. I do not care what you look like. You are not your scars only."

She spoke with the stern conviction that Fingon had come to value on his councils, the daughter of a leader of the Mithrim Sindar and the wife of a high prince of the Noldor, whose words only brooked dissent when it added to the solution of a problem. Fingon, still kneeling, lowered his head to her.

Maedhros' tension seemed to fall away, and he leaned forward toward Alphangil, leaning his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. "Forgive me. I - "

"There is nothing to forgive." Her voice was soft, still, and she caressed Maedhros' face, who leaned into her touch with his eyes still closed, then took her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles. Alphangil breathed out soundlessly, her lips parting, then she tilted her head down to brush her lips over Maedhros', a minute movement that was over almost before it began. Maedhros breathed out, a tentative question on his face. His eyes opened and flickered to Fingon.

"Go on," Fingon heard himself say over his heart hammering in his ears to witness the sudden tenderness between the two people he had chosen to love most. "If you want to kiss her, kiss her. I think Alphangil is asking." He smiled, with only a smidgeon of jealousy that mingled deliciously in his stomach with new heat flickering up there. They were beautiful.

It was Alphangil who initiated the kiss in spite of Fingon's encouragement, but at the very least, Maedhros did not pull away. He hummed against her mouth, against her lips sliding over and massaging his until he relented and opened enough for her tongue, teasing and deepening.

Maedhros' hand was cradling the back of Alphangil's head, the dark hair, then slid down and, digging fingernail-crescents into the skin of her buttock, grasped her ass. Alphangil moaned into the kiss.

Maedhros' eyes were on Fingon the entire time, and Fingon could feel a still-unfamiliar kind of lust flicker hotly to life within him, throbbing and aching in his belly. As he rose from kneeling to join the two, he could not help a small groan, feeling himself, already, so soon, filling and hardening. He joined the kiss, brushing his nose against Maedhros' cheek in warning, although it was not necessary, and finally nuzzled up into the edge between the two of them to let him in, licking Maedhros' lips and then Alphangil's, and finding their mingled taste more potent than wine rising to his head.

"Come now, bed," he urged, and Alphangil came away as well, a smile on her face. Maedhros looked thoughtful, touching his lips with his hand, but from what Fingon could read on his face it was pleasing confusion, confusing pleasure, his lips red and plump from the kiss. His eyes sparkled.

"This was… good," Maedhros said at length, crossing the room after them, and laughed softly. "I never thought that kissing a woman could feel this way. Until this night I never thought I would kiss a woman, truth be told."

Alphangil grinned and tossed her wet hair back, all but preening. "I know. Fingon keeps telling me what a phenomenal kisser I am."

Fingon smiled. "I do. And I stand by it. Even more now that you could sway Maedhros of all people."

His wife rewarded him with a fond smile. "I think I shall be minded to reward you for saying this… wait here, both of you."

She padded across the room to an armoire set against the wall and busied herself with one of its drawers. Fingon shuddered in happy expectation, knowing what it held. He pulled Maedhros, who was still standing by the bed, down to the mattress and used the moment to kiss him once again, thoroughly, half on top of him. Maedhros pulled away with a groan when Fingon's hand closed around him, stroking, finding him already hard to his touch.

"You will finish me before this has even started," Maedhros said. "Careful, go slow. I want to watch what she does to you. You are so beautiful when you come undone, and I want to relish it properly."

Fingon couldn't help moaning in reply, at the promise, at the dark-tinged, amused voice, and Maedhros swallowed the sound up, hungrily.

Fingon found himself gasping against his lips.

"Yes. Please."

He was rolling his hips, even more desperate for contact now, wanting their cocks to rub together, wanting to be within Maedhros.

Infuriatingly, Maedhros pulled away again. "What did I just tell you - careful." He chuckled. "Alphangil, is there anything soft to bind his hands?"

New heat pooled through Fingon. They had only rarely played at this, but he had found himself enjoying it, and now, with Maedhros there, his expectation climbed to new heights.

"The bathrobes have belts - they are very soft. Take one of those," she suggested, and Fingon could hear the laughter in her voice. He forced himself to not look over his shoulder at her to keep the expectation, but he heard the familiar sounds of the harness being put on.

Maedhros, meanwhile, rose from the bed and walked back to the bath's antechamber, returning with one of the soft bathrobe belts laid out over his hand and the stump, almost certainly deliberately presenting it to Fingon this way. Fingon squirmed against the mattress. Now that Maedhros and Alphangil weren't at his side, he had become even more desperate for any sort of contact, trying to be patient - not trying very hard, admittedly - and failing.

They returned to him nearly at the same time. He was still watching Maedhros when the mattress dipped under Alphangil's weight and she crawled toward him on all fours, all prepared for her plan. In one hand she held a bottle of scented oil, and set against her middle was a harness in light brown suede nearly the colour of her skin. The wooden cock she wore was a little darker, lacquered to a fine sheen, too smooth and beautiful to be quite realistic, but it never failed to excite Fingon to see her with it.

Alphangil bent down to kiss him and he rose to meet her eagerly.

"Would you have me prepare you before I take you?" she asked, and Fingon shook his head. "I'm fine - from before," he managed. "And if it hurts a little, I do not mind."

"My good husband, my brave warrior." Alphangil laughed softly, making the freckles on her face jump, and Fingon once again felt overwhelmed with love for her. "Although it seems you got too impatient again with poor Maedhros, and look what he brought to keep your hands off of him." She moved aside, pulling out of the kiss and Fingon sighed at the loss of contact.

"On your elbows and knees, I think," she said to him. "Hands tied and off of us. If we allow it, you may use your mouth."

At that point, Fingon was reduced to helpless obedience to her, assumed the position she had ordered, and Maedhros set to work tying his hands together with a little fumbling, one-handed. Fingon held the other end of the bathrobe belt for him as it threatened to slip away and looped it over and under until his hands were in a loose, comfortable tie, the belt robe's fabric soft against his skin.

"Good?" asked Maedhros, his eyes a little narrowed, a crease running briefly over the bridge of his nose.

"Very good," Fingon confirmed, all but purring out the reply. "Although it is cruel and unfair play to have me at your mercy so entirely." He winked at Maedhros, whose face relaxed.

"That is not what your body is telling me. I'm afraid I should have been more concerned about you not lasting, not myself. I possess at least some self-control, even with you, you incorrigible fool," he said fondly, running long fingers lightly over Fingon's cock from the base to the tip. They came away with evidence of how far Fingon was gone, and Fingon shuddered hard under his touch, a wave through his entire body.

"You are weeping already, look at this," Maedhros said and raised his fingers to his mouth to lick them clean.

He could hear Alphangil wet her lips. "Let me have a taste," she said, leaning forward and - surely quite intentionally - dragging her cock against the cleft of Fingon's ass to make him squirm harder. Tilting his head up, Fingon could just see Alphangil's lips close around Maedhros' index finger, swirling her tongue around it like a cat lapping up a treat. His eyes fluttered imagining her doing this to his cock instead, where she could have all the taste she wanted.

"You are cruel, both of you. Cruel, I tell you." But Fingon knew that his protests were vain by the breathiness of his voice alone, and more so when both Alphangil and Maedhros shared a look and seemed to come to an understanding, perhaps by ósanwë, because the motion was too coordinated to be coincidence: Maedhros moved back against the headboard of the bed and Alphangil came to lean against his chest, sitting between his spread legs.

"Fingon, I think your lady wife needs attention as well. You have been so greedy for me, and you would leave her so unfulfilled?" Maedhros stated, his left wrapped around her hips.

"I filled her only a little while ago," Fingon managed in weak protest.

"And you did so well, but what about my cock?" Alphangil chimed in. "That hasn't received anything more than looks from you, husband dear, and it is awfully lonely. Come now, be good to it."

Fingon cursed under his breath and moved forward on his hands and knees, careful not to undo the loose tie around his wrists. When he came to kneel between Alphangil's legs he could smell how wet she was, her arousal plain and poignant. His mouth watered for her, but he knew that if he did not comply with her request, she - they both - would surely make him wait longer, and so he dipped his head, closing his lips around the smooth head of her wooden cock, slowly working his way down and up to breathe, and down again, until his nose brushed the soft suede of the harness and he whined deep in his throat.

Dimly above the roaring in his ears and the heat in his body turning near-unbearable, he heard Maedhros exhale in that quiet way of his that told Fingon that Maedhros was as aroused by the sight of this as Fingon was by doing it. A slender hand - Alphangil's - came to rest on the back of his head, holding him down with gentle pressure. He could have pulled away easily, but stayed in place.

A tear ran from his eye. Spittle ran down his chin.

"You are so very beautiful, Fingon mine," Alphangil praised, breathless. "Isn't he, Maedhros? Go on, tell him."

"The most beautiful man I have ever been blessed to lay eyes upon, the one who holds my heart and always shall," Maedhros replied. Alphangil's hand slacked in his hair as she turned to Maedhros and from the sounds of it, kissed him again, softly.

"I thought your brother was the poet of the family," Alphangil murmured, teasing, and finally Fingon had to pull away from her cock, trailing strings of saliva, and once his mouth was free, he burst out coughing and laughing; he did not know which of them needed out more desperately.

"Promise me," he wheezed, and flopped onto his side, coughing again," promise - please - that you will never invite Maglor into our bedroom."

He hiccuped in his haste to gulp down air, and that sent him over the edge of laughter again; another coughing fit followed. He didn't pay Alphangil and Maedhros much mind, although he could hear them murmuring and laughing under their breaths as well and through eyes blurry with tears could see them shake their heads fondly at him.

Finally, he found himself being pulled up into a sitting position by three hands on him. Maedhros' arms came around him and he felt his cheeks and ears being nuzzled by both him and Alphangil. In between the laughter and the coughing, his arousal had abated somewhat, but he found he did not mind that he was not jumping out of his skin with want any longer at the merest touch and the littlest praise.

"Breathe," Alphangil murmured. Fingon sucked in a laborious breath, trying not to choke on his own spit again. "Good, and out." He breathed out. Maedhros hummed approval into his ear. "Better?"

"A little," Fingon confirmed, wiping at his eyes with his still-bound hands. Alphangil withdrew, and he could hear liquid being poured from a pitcher she kept by the bedside; in short notice a goblet of water with mint leaves was placed on his lips. He drank gratefully, and found that the herbal tang of the mint did make breathing easier.

Before Fingon could thank his wife for her care, Maedhros picked up the conversation as if it had never been interrupted. "Know this - you are the only Káno I shall ever invite into a bedroom - or any other place - with this particular intent." Fingon could hear the smirk in his voice. "Recall the terribly boring poetry classes that Grandfather made us take? I know you did not mind them much, but I think Maglor and Finrod were the only ones who truly enjoyed them. Still, perhaps a little of them stuck with me. Or perhaps I simply love you so that it brings out my talent. At any rate, we have no need of Maglor to sing your praises."

Thoroughly mollified, Fingon kissed him, taking his sweet time teasing Maedhros' mouth open, nipping his lower lip, and running his tied-up hands up and down Maedhros' chest until his back arched into the touch, even more so when he ghosted fingernails over Maedhros' nipples until they puckered and he followed his hands with his tongue.

With the pitcher and goblet set aside, Alphangil rejoined them, fitting herself smoothly at their sides. She was still wearing the wooden cock, and perhaps to tease, this time dragged it along Maedhros' length, "So you get to know me also."

She fisted a slender hand around the two cocks, and with a few strokes, Maedhros' cock began to swell fully again, his breath coming shuddering before he prised Alphangil's hand away. "The same is true for you," he remarked with a half-smile, "as was for Fingon before - careful, so you do not spend me. I would watch, and know his eyes on me as you take him."

"As you wish," she said softly, a little wonderingly. Fingon loved the expression playing over her face that moment - a growing realization of fondness, maybe a little yearning, but no jealousy, nor any remnant anger at either of them.

Without any more commands from either of them, Fingon - only a little reluctantly - pushed himself off of Maedhros and got back to his elbows and knees, lifting his ass, tied hands once again in front of him, and felt expectation and heat rise to his face as Alphangil took her place behind him. She had the bottle of oil in her hand.

From this vantage point, with his thick hair falling over his shoulders and into his face, Fingon could barely see her, only a blurry silhouette outlined by the fire in the grate, but he could feel the warmth of her silk-smooth skin pressing against him.

Without warning, a trickle of smooth liquid hit his lower back and ran down toward his opening, and the sweet, wooden smell of frankincense once again permeated the room. "Fitting," he murmured, pushing his hips backward to chase her elusive touch. "At least I will not smell as if I had tried all your perfumes at once."

Alphangil laughed, a bright peal, and then he could feel her lips and teeth on his buttocks, nipping in warning even as her fingers slid and massaged around his entry. "No more jokes, my love, or you shall disrupt the mood again."

He moaned in answer at the sensation; his cock tightened momentarily. "Please," he managed with difficulty, "If you take me, I will stop talki-" then the sensation of her hand withdrawing and guiding her cock into him abruptly cut off his words, as he'd promised. His wife sighed behind him, canting her hips forward as she slid further into his body, closer against him, and he felt Alphangil's slender weight on top of him, now draped nearly full-body against his back. Her open hair falling down tickled his sides and he squirmed. An oil-glistening hand came forward to cup his cheek, sought his mouth, and he opened eagerly, closing his lips around her digits, and felt his eyelids flutter.

"There is my good husband, just as I enjoy him most… look at you, we barely started and already you are so overcome," her voice murmured, praising, and Fingon moaned again around the sweet taste of the oil on her fingers and at the lack of movement of her in him, no longer even wholly sheathed, torturous and lovely and altogether incredible.

While he was still trying to grasp a clear thought, Maedhros' voice broke through the haze on his mind, speaking as if in wonder. "If you could see yourself now…" he swallowed hard, the sentence trailing into nothingness. He licked his palm and Fingon could not help following it downward with his eyes, too far for him to reach. Maedhros' cock lay erect and beautiful against his stomach, and as Alphangil moved backward, once again entered him fully, and finally, finally began to move, she set a rhythm with Maedhros starting to stroke himself.

"Eyes on me," Maedhros reminded him. "On my face, my beautiful one." Fingon did his best to comply. He'd always loved Maedhros' grey eyes with their tiny specks of green and hazel and their intensity; now his pupils were large and dark and soft with love.

It seemed to him, as the three of them moved in their rhythm and the heat began to build ever more and heavier in him and even Maedhros' eyes seemed to lose their focus, that they flickered to Alphangil every now and then. Once more. As if on another unspoken signal, she not only changed her pace and the angle of thrusting into him, but coaxed, "Let us all feel what you feel, love. Open your mind to us."

He did. He had held on tenuously to that control until now, finding it more and more difficult, not wanting to overwhelm Maedhros with his and Alphangil's bond that first time in the bath, nor now, nor grieve him, not now or ever, he thought, jumbled, and let the barriers to his thoughts fall as he felt both of their minds caress against his.

Unfulfilled need from Alphangil and self-denial from Maedhros raced through him, so heavy and demanding that he lost focus of what was his own sensation and what was someone else's. There, the gentle chafe of the leather straps against overheated, sweat-beaded skin as she moved, the wonder and joy at all this - there was the ornamental star in the headboard that Maedhros had fallen back against, the friction of his hand, the self-control that he was clinging to still, the gratitude to be in that very spot of all places, and the well of love that knew did not come from him alone, but from both of them, the impatience and the need and the direction, thrust just so, my love, please, again, Alphangil's compliance and the field of sharp white stars that he saw as he tipped over the edge, out of too much, too much, into a moment of perfect stillness, still dimly aware of Alphangil and Maedhros, each chasing and finding their own bliss.

When he returned to awareness, spent, heavy and lazy with contentment, he found that he'd been eased down, stretched out on his back and covered with a blanket. Alphangil was fitted against him on one side, her head pillowed on one arm and watching his face through eyes half-lidded with fascination and tiredness, while Maedhros lay on his other, the heat of his taller body radiating through him. Someone had pulled the bathrobe belt off of his wrists and tossed it aside, and Alphangil had divested herself of the harness, which lay abandoned at the foot-end of the bed.

Circling his fingers over the pressure-marks the toy had left on her hips and thighs to try and soothe them a little, Fingon wet his dry lips, chuckling deep in his chest. "I think I have no words left to say to describe this…"

"No need," Maedhros said softly beside him, against the nape of his neck, and draped his right arm across Fingon's body.

Alphangil hummed out a final laugh, already on the edge of sleep. "We know, my love. We are right here."

Chapter End Notes

Many thanks to the folks on the SWG server as well, for helping me un-derail Fingon's Maglor joke, which completely blindsided me in the middle of writing. I love it when characters come to life, but that was unexpected. Also not meant to mock any shippers of any of the possible pairings involving Maglor in this fic, it's just that this particular Fingon is content smutting it up with one particular half-cousin.

Hope you enjoyed! ♥