how almost unbreakable by queerofthedagger

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how almost unbreakable

This has been idling away in my drafts for a while, entirely inspired by the quote at the beginning, and it's really more vibes than plot.

"I watch him in the kitchen, and I think of how much it hurts to love somebody. 
How deep the hurt is, how almost unbreakable. 
It is not the love that hurts; it's the possibility of something happening to the object of your love."

—Augusten Burroughs; Magical Thinking
 

*

They emerge from the Halls together, their spirits so closely entangled that Maedhros does not think he could have stayed behind if Námo himself had ordained it so.

The sun filters idly through the trees of the ancient forest that welcomes them. Fingon tips his head back, closes his eyes, breathes deeply; Maedhros’ fingers hold onto his hand a little more tightly, reflexively.

“Alright,” Fingon says, slanting a glance at Maedhros that is full of sharp-teethed hunger. “Let’s walk, then.”

They move into a small house south of Tirion, overlooking the Bay of Eldamar. They can see Alqualondë from here, Tol Eressëa on a clear day.

Each morning, Maedhros stands on top of the jagged cliff and thinks of falling. Of how it feels like flying, right until it does not. He thinks of his brother, still wandering shores he cannot see no matter how he strains his eyes.

Each morning, Fingon appears beside him, steady to his left. Takes Maedhros’ hand and looks down at the white shores that, ages past, had been soaked red by both their hands.

They both think, then, of how it had been the worst of Fingon’s deeds, save loving Maedhros only. How Maedhros would be hard-pressed to so much as rank his own.

It is not, Maedhros thinks, that Fingon is no longer angry. It is just that Fingon has never let anything as clean-cut as betrayal stop him from loving Maedhros in despite.

Aeons later, and Maedhros still has not learnt how not to hold onto it as fast as he can, fingers bruising against the steady, unflinching pulse of Fingon whenever he may.

Fingon hides it not—his disappointment, his hurt. He presses Maedhros into clean sheets, bites retribution into Maedhros’ skin; holds him down, unyielding, until Maedhros is reduced to the shaking, pleading bones of him.

Their bodies, being back in the world, make it easier. Fingon kisses him afterwards—his face, his hand, the back of his knees—and puts him back together, piece by piece.

“Never again will I leave you, Russandol,” he vows, voice fierce, almost a challenge. Neither of them would ever utter an oath again; Fingon makes it sound like one, all the same.

Of Maedhros’ own family, no one else has returned so far.

He is selfishly, terribly glad for it. For not having to face them yet, for avoiding all the inevitable conflict a while longer. For not having to explain where Maglor is, and to let rest the demands that his brothers would once again put on him if only in keeping them out of trouble once more.

There is no one to expect anything of him but Fingon. Maedhros can finally give whatever Fingon asks; he cannot convincingly spin this into something to regret.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Fingon’s own relatives. Maedhros knows that Turgon has no desire to see him, but he cannot quite bring himself to offer his absence and mean it, too.

It is a strange thing, how even within the supposed safety of Valinórë, distance that may not be bridged with a raised voice leaves Maedhros wrong-footed, makes him grow cold.

They have spent years apart, back in Beleriand, back in a land ravaged with war and doom. They were always aware of it, each messenger a possible cataclysm.

And yet, it is the idea of leaving Fingon to his family for half a day without being close by that makes Maedhros falter, makes him fail at taking himself out of the equation.

Surely, it would be better. Surely, Fingon would have an easier reunion after all that has passed, without Maedhros looming in the kitchen.

Surely, Fingon would tell him so, would ask Maedhros to give them space if that was what he wanted.

He does not. He ignores Turgon’s pinched expression and pointed looks, and so, Maedhros lingers, and breathes a little easier.

Inevitably, they fight.

Neither of them is made to stay tangled together in a cottage at the edge of the world. Neither of them can forgive so easily what sundered them, over and over, through the centuries.

It should be simple, clean-cut. It should be Fingon airing his rightful grievances about all that Maedhros has done in his absence.

And he does, one bright morning, tipped off by nothing that Maedhros can discern.

Maedhros lets him; does not have anything to add to it that he does not already know himself, and merely watches Fingon in his rage, bright and furious and beautiful.

It should be simple, and it is. It is until Fingon says, how could it spiral so badly, Russandol? Were we not united against the enemy mere years before you did his work for him in Doriath?

Until Maedhros throws back, unable or unwilling to stop his treacherously truthful tongue, well, perhaps you should not have died, then. Perhaps you should not have simply left me to it.

It is a terrible thing to say, and still one that he cannot take back. Everything else turns ugly from there, harsh and barbed as if they can only conceive of going forward by burrowing into each other, through flesh and muscle down to the marrow. They shout until the cottage shakes and the sun goes down. Until their voices are hoarse and the plates Anairë had gifted them lie shattered on the kitchen floor.

Until they are shaking and raw with anger and hurt, standing in the middle of it, drawn together so close that they can feel each other’s breath.

“Do not go,” Fingon says, his blazing anger finally simmering low.

Maedhros swallows and pulls him close. Presses his face into Fingon’s braids, and vows, as if it costs him anything, as if he could step away without something cracking irreparably within him, “I will not.”

“I am still furious with you,” Fingon says, even as his fingers slip beneath Maedhros’ tunic.

He means it. Maedhros does, too, when he murmurs his agreement, and then does not let go of him until the sun rises again.

None of his brothers may be back yet, but there is one who Maedhros needs to stop avoiding.

Fingon hovers—through the decision, the writing of the letter, the day Nerdanel agrees to visit. He asks whether they should ensure she carries nothing heavy, and it sounds less like a jest than he means it to.

Maedhros stays sitting at their kitchen table, leans his forehead to Fingon’s breastbone. “I trust you will defend me, if needs must.”

And he does. He does.

It goes as well as may be expected, which means not overly. There is a gulf of understanding between Maedhros and his mother that was torn open long before he left these lands, and he does not know where to even begin bridging it.

Neither does she. Still, she seems willing to try, hard set to her jaw speaking of the same determination that made her a force, a monument, even ages ago.

It is more than Maedhros would have ever dared to expect, and yet.

And yet.

His frustration is a physical thing in the aftermath, a caricature of guilt and anger and sadness that has calcified into something brittle.

Fingon says nought; lets Maedhros push him to the bed, lets himself be taken apart, methodically, ruthlessly, until they are both broken down to nothing but bone and want and all the threads that knot them together—the one clean-cut thing they both have left, no matter how deep the ache.

Maedhros lets himself fall into it and finds—once Fingon pulls him close with their hands turning gentle once more, the transition between blood and comfort still as easy as Middle-earth had once taught them—something akin to peace on the other side of it.

Things, inexorably, become easier.

Maedhros’ eyes still strain for the eastern shores. They still fight. Turgon and Nerdanel are still uneasy in their presence, and neither of them is willing to surrender any space to ease the process along.

There comes an acceptance with time, though. Maedhros watches Fingon in their kitchen late at night, one dream or other having woken them both, as he bakes bread. His loose shoulders, the certain strength of his fingers. The wholeness of him as if he had not once been broken down to a thing made of blood and bones and shattered pieces only.

Maedhros thinks, as he often does, how terror-struck a thing it is. To love like this, to dig his fingers so deeply into another soul and only ever find it reaching back, instead of recoiling as it ought.

Fingon turns, smiles. It is always sharp these days, a little too harsh for Valinor in ways Maedhros would only expect from the mirror.

Or would have, a long time ago. He is not so arrogant to think that all of Fingon’s shadows are his doing.

It is not this that scares him. He rises, wraps an arm around Fingon, and pulls him close. It is the memory of what that space feels like when it is empty, what he can turn into at its coldness.

Fingon reaches for him, his grip a little too tight as he pulls Maedhros into a kiss.

Sometimes—most days—he still kisses Maedhros like he fears that the void may yet swallow him. These days, he kisses Maedhros like he dares anyone to try; like he would follow and do what he must to get Maedhros back.

Fingon is no Lúthien, and neither is Maedhros. And yet, there is a perverse kind of comfort in the knowledge that it would stop neither of them from breaking down the walls of the world.

Not with song, perhaps, but then—

But then, the means matter not. Maedhros returns the kiss, sinks his teeth into yielding flesh, and thinks, what a terror, to be loved as such. What deliverance.

Chapter End Notes

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