Work Text:
Estel
Maeglin takes fucking Celebrimbor very seriously. Sometimes, Celebrimbor reaches up and tries to smooth away the crease between his eyes. That only makes Maeglin frown harder, as if by concentrating, Maeglin can transcend the sometimes silly, often messy, frequently ecstatic act of making love. Such determination does not actually improve the sex, but Celebrimbor finds it endearing, so he throws his head back and moans and babbles and gives voice to every filthy thought that crosses his mind. And Maeglin flushes and pants, though he still does not speak, especially if they are face to face, and Celebrimbor can see him unravel before his eyes, broken, blooming, beyond the self-consciousness that armors him in daily life.
During the day, Maeglin is taciturn and solemn. He rarely cracks a smile or talks of matters outside of craft and necessity, but after they fuck, in a tangle of limbs, pressed together away from the damp spot on the bed, words tumble out that would never escape otherwise.
Celebrimbor would be happy to simply rest in his arms, sated and silent, but he doesn’t mind Maeglin’s chatter. Most of the time it only necessitates a hum and an occasional ‘really?’ when the tone changes. Other times Maeglin pulls him out of his contented haze with a line of inquiry that can’t be ignored and they end up discussing his theories on chemicals, elements, and mechanics. Half the time that leads to Meaglin scribbling furiously at his desk, with only short pauses to castigate Celebrimbor for turning the bed into a nest of notes.
Rarely, in the soft quiet of the bedroom, darker worlds slip out. For all his confidence in the power of his mind, Maeglin harbors oceans of self-doubt. The branching paths of the world shine in his thoughts, and the possibilities of the paths untaken accuse him constantly. Most of the time he hides this, even from Celebrimbor, but sometimes he reveals the shadowed fears in his heart.
The first time this happens is not long after they start sleeping together. Celebrimbor is still reveling in the triumph of making Maeglin moan audibly while sucking him off when the turn of Maeglin’s one-sided conversation breaks through.
“Next time, I’ll go north-east. The deposits of galena and zinc, and even the fine-grained—“
Celebrimbor lifts his head off of Maeglin’s arm. “You’re leaving? You didn’t tell me that.”
“Well, not immediately, but—” Celebrimbor feels Maeglin shrug behind him.
With a moment of regret for the vanishing vestiges of sexual contentment, Celebrimbor rolls over to look Maeglin in the eye. “But, the mysteries of mineral deposits in the northern Hithaeglir call to you?”
“Not especially, but if I must, ” Maeglin says.
Suspicion prickles Celebrimbor. “What has Tercáno said to you?”
Maeglin tenses. “Nothing. Tercáno has been perfectly civil. Beyond anything I could expect.”
“He doesn’t like you of course, but Tercáno signed off on your admittance to the Mírdain like everyone else.” There are several former Gondolindrim in Eregion, but Tercáno is the most prominent as a master of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain and part of their central council. Tercáno is kind and courteous to a fault, but his entire family had died when Gondolin fell, so he has more than enough reason to make Maeglin’s life difficult.
“Signed off? I don’t think forgiveness is won so easily.” Maeglin’s smile is bitter.
“It’s not. Who said anything about forgiveness?”
Maeglin’s face falls and he moves to extricate himself from the bed. “Of course not. I did not expect it.”
“Stop.” Celebrimbor grabs his arm, worried the awkward conversation will scare Maeglin away for good. “It’s not for me to forgive you, or speak for anyone’s personal grudge, but we granted you and the rest of your people a place among the Mírdain. No exceptions, no caveats. I expect my fellow guild members to hold to that, regardless of any shared history.”
Maeglin shrugs his hand off, but only moves to sit up against the headboard. “There has been nothing like that, you entirely misunderstand.” He offers nothing more, his typical reserve settling over him.
Celebrimbor props his head up on his fist. “Why do you think you’ll have to leave?”
Maeglin glares at him, then his gaze drifts away as he truly considers Celebrimbor’s question. “I don’t know if I trust myself. How can you then trust me?”
“We’re not the only people who have spared you, or thought giving you a chance was better than discarding you.”
“But why?”
“Because I hoped that you would be able to help us, and we to help you. And both have happened.”
“You’re not that good in bed,” Maeglin grumbles.
Celebrimbor laughs and rolls back over onto his back, his mind drifting back to a winter’s night in Sirion.
~
Tuor was typically jolly in his cups, liable to start singing and soon enough turn the room into a choir, but that night he had been pensive, verging on distraught. Celebrimbor had tested the alcohol beforehand, and while the grain liquor was rough, but there was no methanol or toxins other than ethanol that would cause Tuor’s dark mood.
“Celebrimbor. Celebrimbor.” Tuor’s northern accent shone through when he was drinking. “I should have killed him, you know.”
“Who?” Celebrimbor sat up straight, thinking through the recent skirmishes, some against orcs but a few against raiders and bandits — Men who were given enough weaponry by Morgoth to make them a threat yet starved enough to attack the well-defended elven settlement.
“Maeglin. I should have killed him, he tried to kill my son and what he would do to Idril—” Tuor slammed his empty cup on the table. “I can barely stand to think of it.”
“No one would hold that against you — you did what you must to defend your family. Wait—” Tuor’s words finally struck Celebrimbor through the haze of alcohol. “Should have?”
Tuor dragged his finger through some spilled drink on the table. “I could not do it. I said his body smote the slopes three times, but—” He swallowed. “But I did not cast him from the wall. I struck his sword from his hand, and he was injured in the fight, but I bid him flee.” Tuor looked up. The lines of his face seemed more pronounced than ever. “Did I do rightly? Could he have caused further harm, even alone in the wilderness? Or worse, do I lie when I say to myself I was granting mercy, when instead I guaranteed a life of thralldom and torture for him?”
Celebrimbor gazed into his own cup. “I don’t think I am one who can answer that for you. Have you spoken with Idril? She is wise in these matters.”
“No, for in my darkest thoughts I wonder if it were cowardice that made me spare Maeglin; cowardice that won over protecting my family.”
“You are no coward; of that, I am certain. I think—” Celebrimbor paused to collect his thoughts, wishing Tuor had brought this up several drinks ago. “I think mercy is never the path of the coward. To show mercy in the face of the evil that surrounds us — that is a hard thing. It requires hope; hope that the shadows of the past does not guarantee future darkness. That something marred can still yet be healed.”
“Hope. Hope!” Tuor used the same work Celebrimbor had — estel — though he said it like a curse. “Some days I hardly have amdir, how can I have estel?” Indeed, earlier that week they had realized that at the current rate, their stores would run out before spring, even including the bitter calculus of the Edain whom Tuor thought would not survive the winter.
“It is hard,” Celebrimbor agreed. “But Idril—”
“Idril has hope.” Tuor smiled at that, as he always did when he spoke of her. “When I speak to her I have hope too. When I speak with her, I believe we can cross the Sea despite the dozens of drowned ships that precede us. And we will be heard, though our pleas have fallen on deaf ears for years. And then I close my eyes and see the shining mountain, rising into the clouds, and its feet in glimmering surf.” Tuor paused to pour himself some water. “Why would the Lord of Waters grant me, a Man, that vision if not to nurture hope in my heart?”
“Are you still planning to sail this summer?”
“Yes, yes. Círdan has agreed to it and will help build the ship.” Tuor stroked his beard. “You are right, my friend, I should confess to Idril. She will understand, and there must be nothing between us before we undertake the perilous journey to Valinor.”
After that they toasted to Idril, to safe journeys, and to grain alcohol that improved with each sip, and soon after left for their beds, but the conversation stuck with Celebrimbor for years. Sometimes the memories came with bitterness; if one blessed by Ulmo struggled to find hope, what chance did one cursed by Mandos have of retaining his? And when Idril and Tuor did not return, it grew more difficult still. And when he surveyed the wreckage of his former home, saw banners that once were his torn and covered in mud and blood, and when they realized Elwing was gone and so were her sons, then it was hard to feel anything other than black rage and despair at the evil his family and their followers had brought themselves to commit.
But when Círdan and Gil-galad brought him to the soldiers who had defected, awkwardly huddled in a knot, watched by the hard eyes of guards, he found he could not completely condemn them, twice over kinslayers that they were.
“I don’t wish to slay them anymore than you do,” Gil-galad said. His silver hair had a streak of blood in it — not his own — he had been helping to rescue anyone he could. “But, how can they live among us? What do I tell the Iathrim who remain? And there are multiple tales as to when each one actually turned on the Fëanorians — if they hurt one of our own in the battle, how can I let them go back to Balar and roam free?”
“There is always exile,” Círdan offered.
Celebrimbor stared at the sad huddle of prisoners. He thought he recognized a few, but they were mostly those who had been loyal to Maedhros and Maglor from the beginning. He had rarely visited Himring and the Gap, and neither had Celegorm and Curufin frequently hosted their eldest brothers in Himlad. “They gave themselves up. They acknowledged wrong doing. I think they should be given leniency. It’s not like we don’t have a use for them.”
Círdan raised an eyebrow. “Are you taking responsibility for them? This won’t be like running a forge with a few apprentices.”
“Yes,” said Celebrimbor, thinking that it was easier to talk of courage than to have it.
It was hard. The people of Balar were slow to grant them freedoms and for the Fëanorians, after years of pride, it was hard to humble themselves. But they fought side by side in the War of Wrath, and sacrificed for each other, and in the end there was no doubt in Celebrimbor’s mind that his sparing of the soldiers had saved his life and the lives of many others several times over.
Some of these same elves were standing next to him when Maeglin announced himself to the council. They made no claims about what must be done, but there were several glances at them as the debate progressed. They all knew what was possible to overcome.
~
Work
They are very different at work. Maeglin is skilled, there is no doubt about it. Those skills and the rare knowledge he possesses is what earned him a place among the Mírdain in the first place. Celebrimbor could talk about hope until he was blue in the face, but it wouldn’t matter unless those of the Mírdain who had survived Gondolin agreed to let him in. There are only a handful of them, but their grief and anger over their fallen city boils up when the pot is stirred.
First, they agree to let Maeglin’s followers in as novices. There are many former thralls among the people of Eregion and they pride themselves as a place to start anew — they all have their reasons for not returning to Valinor, and those who bear Morgoth’s brand are no more questioned than anyone else.
Maeglin is something else. To labor in Angband’s mines is one matter, to lead Morgoth to Gondolin is another. There are impassioned speeches on both sides and on a few occasions their council almost comes to blows. What turns the debate in Maeglin’s favor is a mild question posed by one of their youngest members: do you remember how to make metal glow in the presence of enemies?
Maeglin is interviewed, and professes to have the knowledge. It doesn’t end there though; he knows forgotten techniques from the dark years through his father, the basics of Angband’s mechanisms, and more about geology and metallurgy than anyone among the Mírdain. There are still a few protests, but they are half-hearted; Meaglin’s place among them is assured.
Maeglin teaches and is taught, as all among the Gwaith-i-Mírdain do. Maeglin absorbs knowledge like a sponge, and is eager to put what he learns into practice. But where Celebrimbor could happily spend all day in the forge, following his intuition rather than a design, iterating endlessly on whatever has caught his fascination, Maeglin does not have that same joy of making. He loves to research, to share ideas with the other Mírdain, and he takes great pride in the outcomes of his work, but he has no love for sweating for hours over the forge nor for the detailed decoration that Celebrimbor loves — he prefers the beauty of simplicity.
It’s a pity, Celebrimbor thinks as he watches Maeglin’s muscles flex and his skin shine as he hammers away, that his focus is always on completing the task at hand as fast as possible. Maeglin frowns at the metal, daring it to shape counter to his will.
He’s also not very receptive to Celebrimbor’s overtures after working all day in the forges. This is most unfortunate — they frequently work together at Celebrimbor’s behest, he has as many ideas as Maeglin has singular bits of knowledge, and after spending all day crafting there’s nothing Celebrimbor wants more than a quick fuck.
Today though, something is different. As they’re cleaning their workstations, Celebrimbor makes a suggestive comment about Maeglin’s skill in hammering. Instead of Maeglin’s usual annoyed huff and eye roll, he smirks and grabs Celebrimbor’s arm.
On his knees in a supply closet, it finally registers how odd Maeglin’s behavior is. Celebrimbor’s mouth is full though, so he files away the question and focuses on the task at hand. Celebrimbor is as skilled with his mouth as he is with his hands, which are busy finding his own pleasure, and it doesn’t take long before Maeglin’s come is dripping down his face.
Breathless, Meaglin leans against the wall and slides down. “Did you—? Oh, you did,” he says as he notices Celebrimbor wiping off his hand with a handkerchief. “Here, let me.” Maeglin takes his own rag out and leans over to clean Celebrimbor’s face. The wicked smile is gone and the frown is creeping back. “Such a mess. I shouldn’t have—”
“I wanted you to,” Celebrimbor assures him.
“But I’m so dirty. We’ve been working all day—”
“How long have I been trying to get you to do something like this?” Celebrimbor asks. He’s still faintly surprised — Maeglin likes to be meticulously clean before sex and is generally appalled at the thought of any natural odor.
Maeglin glances down and Celebrimbor finally asks the question on his mind. “What happened? What sparked this…” He runs a finger up a bare arm, tracing the line of Maeglin’s tricep. “…Meeting?”
“I don’t know,” Maeglin mutters.
“You seemed in control,” Celebrimbor says, trying to stave off the unvoiced fear.
“Did I? Did I?” Maeglin glances at the door and keeps his voice low, but the worried crease doesn’t leave his brow. “That’s not how I felt.”
“How did you feel? Tell me.”
“Like I was on fire. The patterns of the world were clear. Singing power into the shield didn’t diminish my strength at all — it made me stronger. I felt like I could do anything.”
“Yes, it’s exactly like that.”
“Is that how you feel all the time when you’re crafting?”
“Not all the time, but the good times.”
“And you don’t worry.” Maeglin is silent for a moment. “It reminds me of my father.”
Maeglin never talks about Eöl, so Celebrimbor just makes an indeterminate humming sound and begins to play with one of Maeglin’s braids, toying with the bronze beads woven in.
“He would always leave the forge brimming with energy. Most of the time that meant a celebratory night. We’d break out the liquor, build up a big fire. Sometimes he’d dance with my mother. Other times… It was not like that. Yes, he would be full of energy, but it was dark, and anything could set him off. Sometimes he just yelled. Sometimes he would get violent.”
“You weren’t violent. Did you want to be?”
“I pulled your hair.”
“Valar.” Celebrimbor could not stop himself from rolling his eyes. “You tenderly wound your fingers in my braids. You suggested the rhythm you wanted. We’ve had rough sex; that wasn’t that.”
“I suppose.”
“If you don’t like crafting like that you don’t have to do it.” It kills Celebrimbor to say that, letting the potential great works leave so quietly.
Maeglin knows him too well, and raises a skeptical eyebrow. “And what else would I do?”
“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
“Travel east with Kahlvek and Norin.” After his admission, Maeglin’s lips press together.
“So why don’t you?”
“My crew — they need me still. They’ve dealt with so much suffering and change; it would be an ill thing to leave them now.”
Celebrimbor doesn’t know if he agrees with that; the ex-thralls were well integrated into the Gwaith-i-Mírdain at this point. “But someday?”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“No, of course not. I’d miss you terribly. But the world is wide and you’ve spent enough time caged. Don’t cage yourself.”
“If it’s a cage, it’s the nicest cage I’ve ever been in.” Maeglin frowns at Celebrimbor’s hair and wipes something away. “You’re still a mess.”
“I’m an eccentric genius.” Celebrimbor stands and straightens his clothes. “It takes more than walking out of a closet with a smudge of a mysterious substance on my face to face any reprobation. You could enjoy the same benefits, if you only stopped caring so much about what people think.”
Regret
Celebrimbor loves Maeglin’s scars. They are old now, silvery ridges on his dark skin. Celebrimbor is straddling Maeglin, ostensibly giving him a massage, as he traces the lines on his back. Maeglin appears to be dozing, his head pressed into the mattress.
It had taken years until they could spend time like this, easy and bare, with no plans or pretenses. Maeglin had preferred making love in the dark or partly clothed at first. It had taken Celebrimbor showing him his own scars, the constellation of nicks and burns on his hands and arms, an impressive cut from battle, and a large and embarrassing scar from an accident in the forge before Maeglin seemed to accept Celebrimbor would not be horrified by Maeglin’s naked skin.
Celebrimbor was not horrified, but he was curious and sad. Missing digits, limbs, eyes, ears, and noses are not strange sights in Ost-in-Edhil. They had created all sorts of devices to help with movement and dexterity, and a missing part of oneself is sometimes replaced with a bejeweled replica. Maeglin’s lingering hurts are barely a hindrance; sometimes he limps after being on his feet for a whole day and he finds some foods difficult due to damage inside his mouth. The scarred and choppy flesh covering the roof of Maeglin's mouth is an injury that Celebrimbor, who has seen all kinds of horrors after the War of Wrath, finds hard to think about. He doesn’t ask how it happened and Maeglin doesn’t offer. The other scars were less mysterious. The layers of whip-marks tell a plain story, but the long miserable years that they suggest are no less sorrowful for their blatancy.
Celebrimbor sweeps his hands down Maeglin’s spine. His partner opens an eye. “They were all added after Gondolin’s fall, you know.”
Celebrimbor’s hands don’t stop. “No, I didn’t know. You never talk about it.”
“This may come as a shock, but I don’t like to talk about my greatest shame.”
“Understandable.” Celebrimbor pours a bit more of the oil over Maeglin’s back. “But there are parts of Angband to be proud of, are there not?”
“Pride is not an emotion I associate with that place at all,” Maeglin says. Celebrimbor stays quiet, and begins to work on the knots around his shoulder blades. “Yes, I kept more of my crew alive than most, but doing what I could to keep a few surviving after being responsible for the slaughter of most of a city is nothing to be proud of.”
“Well, Morgoth helped a bit with Gondolin, but I see your point.”
“And of course, leading a mining crew in Angband was a mockery of the lordship that was promised to me. What a fool I was, to believe the Master of Lies.”
“There was a bit more than gullibility, no?” Celebrimbor treads lightly, not wanting to tell Maeglin what to feel but unable to listen to him castigate himself more than necessary.
“Do you mean greed and lust?”
“I was thinking about the torture.”
“I told you, he barely touched me.” Maeglin is growing tense under his hands.
Celebrimbor thinks of isolation, and chains, and cold, and terror so strong it never fully leaves a person. He firmly presses down, trying to wring out the anxiety he did not mean to summon. “I don’t think I could withstand what you did.”
Maeglin turns his face into the mattress. “Yet still I regret my weakness.”
“You know that wasn’t where you erred, right?”
“It wasn’t a mistake to tell Morgoth how best to vanquish the last stronghold of the First Age?”
“I really don’t think anyone can fault you,” Celebrimbor insists.
“So I am absolved of all blame?”
“Not in the least.” Celebrimbor digs his thumbs into the knots and Maeglin grunts at the pressure. “But your mistake was not in telling Morgoth, but in withholding your captivity from Turgon.”
“I know, I know, and we come back to my cravenness.”
“Cravenness which you have since overcome, if even half the tales are true of you and your crew’s escape from Angband and your survival by the Bay of Forochel.”
Maeglin is quiet for a minute as Celebrimbor continues to knead. “The evil I did will never go away,” he finally says.
“No, but neither will the good.”
“Always the optimist.” Before Celebrimbor had a chance to protest, Maeglin corrects himself. “No, you don’t always expect the best. But you don’t let me wallow, which is perhaps more annoying.” Maeglin squirms and Celebrimbor raises himself so that Maeglin could turn over. “I’m not sure why you thought this conversation would relax me.”
“Maybe I didn’t think that. Maybe I wanted you a bit more alert than you were.” Celebrimbor settles his hips over Maeglin and raises an eyebrow.
“Fine. But you have to do all the work.”
“Sluggard,” Celebrimbor teases, and grabs the oil.
Love
Celebrimbor’s interest in Maeglin begins with his thirst for knowledge, as it so often does. Pulling words from Maeglin is a fun challenge, and Celebrimbor prides himself from the beginning with getting more detailed explanations than anyone else from the quiet elf. He tries several techniques: dropping incorrect facts, laying down trails of inventions like bread crumbs, and simply working next to him in silence all have varying levels of success. Eventually he finds the most fruitful, if information is what he’s after, is to ask a technical question with just enough detail to interest Maeglin, but not too much as to make him think Celebrimbor already knows the answer and is just testing him.
Celebrimbor also tries flirting, of course; in his experience it’s one of the best ways to get people to open up. The effects are intriguing. It seems to be a detriment to obtaining knowledge, but it's interesting how flustered Maeglin gets, how his eyes slide away, and how dexterous fingers become clumsy. At first, Celebrimbor does not act on the insight; he has techniques to learn after all. But opportunity is dropped in his lap, quite literally, during a summer festival at the point in the evening when the games passed from serious to silly.
The games’ turn towards the ridiculous has not lessened Maeglin’s competitiveness, but he hasn’t been able to win the past few rounds of competition where small motor skills are more at an advantage than raw strength or intelligence. Raenel, also at a disadvantage when it comes to throwing small objects, has proposed the chair game, and they have had enough wine that running around trying to sit in chairs is not refused by even the most staid of their group.
There are only three of them left, circling the chairs, as the last one out chants the ancient tune, plotting to end at the point of maximal chaos. The chanter claps her hands together and Celebrimbor and Maeglin dive for the last chair, which is how Maeglin ends up in Celebrimbor’s lap, breathlessly accusing him of being a terrible cheat. They’re so busy arguing, the remaining player declares himself the winner, and the group moves on to another variation of tossing small objects near a target, but Celebrimbor has his hand on Maeglin’s waist and has decided it's finally time to attempt obtaining a different response to his flirting than usual.
Celebrimbor is confident in both his looks and his charm, but he’s still a bit surprised when Maeglin kisses him. Not as surprised as Maeglin though, who leaps up and vanishes from the celebration. Celebrimbor doesn’t let him pretend it is only the summer wine, though, and invites him to his room the following evening, prepared with a nice dinner, the perfect lighting scheme, and interesting rocks.
Over the years, the flirting turns to sex and the working relationship turns to a partnership, but they never discuss what they are to each other. Celebrimbor doesn’t feel a lack — there’s something comfortable in the space between friends and lovers. Maeglin seems happy too; there’s no jealousy of former lovers or fears over the future.
Of course when they finally talk about it, they are in bed, Maeglin taking them on a journey through cultural misunderstandings he’s witnessed over the years. Celebrimbor is still grinning for two reasons: one, because the last tale of gender confusion between Aredhel and some visiting dwarves is very funny and two, there is joy in sharing the little unexplored corners of their lives. He notices Maeglin has gone quiet. Celebrimbor opens his eyes, trying to read Maeglin’s face from below, his head pillowed on his thigh.
“Is it supposed to be this easy?” Maeglin asks.
“Hmm?”
“Love. Is it supposed to be so simple?”
“Is it simple?” Just the other day they had quarreled again about Maeglin’s refusal to accept the rank of Master despite having served as such for many years. To Celebrimbor, love is many easy things, but it is also learning to live with the parts that will always grate.
“Well, yes. I never worry about where you are or who you’re with — I love when we’re together, but when we’re apart I feel no fear.”
“What would you be afraid of?”
“That I would no longer have you.”
“Have me?”
“Well, I suppose I don’t really have you right now—”
“You do.” Celebrimbor frowns. Now that he’s said it out loud, it doesn’t sound right to him either.
“I do?” Maeglin looks down and smooths a thumb over his brow. “I suppose what I’m saying is that I don’t think of us in terms of possession, and that is strange to me.”
“Do you think you possess your crew?” Celebrimbor asks.
“Yes.” Maeglin is serious. “We owe each other our lives, many times over — what is that but possessing each other?”
Celebrimbor thinks of the bonds of fellowship he has — they are deep, but not bone deep like what Maeglin speaks of. He decides he’s glad he’s not another weight on Maeglin’s shoulders, that what they have is light and easy, for all that it seems the dark, heavy love is what the epic tales prize.
“I hope I haven’t hurt you,” Maeglin says, now looking away as he strokes Celebrimbor’s hair.
“No. Just given me much to think about.”
“Perhaps I am not so easy.” Maeglin’s smile is self-deprecating.
Celebrimbor catches his hand and holds it. “No, but you know I like a challenge.”
Ambition
Maeglin lets out a hissing breath and yanks on Celebrimbor’s hair. “You’re going to leave a mark!”
“And?” A burst of laughter from the guests still talking on the back porch reaches them
“And I don’t have a—”
Celebrimbor cuts him off with a kiss, sinking his teeth into Maeglin’s lower lip.
Maeglin wrenches his head back. “What has gotten into you?” He looks half-annoyed, half-amused.
It’s fitting because Celebrimbor is almost as irritated as he is turned on. “Why didn’t you say anything to Khalvek? A mining expedition to the Iron Hills following the discovery of trace amount of mithril? You were just talking about the fact that you thought the occurrence of mithril with copper and lead ores was a coincidence, and that Lamp era conflict was more likely the source.” It’s hard to look as stern as he wants to, perched on Maeglin’s lap, but he tries.
“I don’t think it’s for me. Ouch!” Maeglin swats at Celebrimbor after a sharp nip.
“I thought you liked some teeth?” Celebrimbor plants his knees on the stone bench and grinds against Maeglin, who is unmistakably hard.
“Yes, but I don’t like drawing attention to myself, and coming back from our ‘walk’ looking like I was used as a chew-toy is not exactly discreet.”
“You don’t like drawing attention to yourself, except you do. Don’t think I don’t see how you’ve been preening over all the praise you’ve been getting over the latest Ithildin iteration.” Celebrimbor shifts against Maeglin again. Maeglin bites off a moan. “Do you want to stop?” Celebrimbor settles back and allows Maeglin some space but still looks at him expectantly.
Maeglin looks away. “No. Stay. Keep going. It’s just, I don’t like wanting things.” Celebrimbor slips a hand between them and makes sure Maeglin is still fully hard. “Not like that—” Maeglin rolls his eyes, but also lets Celebrimbor slowly stroke his cloth-covered cock.
“You don’t like wanting things?” Celebrimbor raises an eyebrow.
“It’s turned out badly in the past.”
“What did you want in the past?”
Maeglin huffs. “You know.”
“Idril.”
“No! Well, yes, of course, but she was just one part of what I wanted. I wanted everything.”
Celebrimbor moves to fit himself against Maeglin’s torso. Maeglin is more likely to open up when they’re not making eye contact. “Tell me what you wanted,” he murmurs in Maeglin’s ear, and feels him shiver in response.
“I told you, everything.”
“So, the stars and the moon, the power of the sun and the sky and the sea, and peace eternal with—”
Maeglin grabs his hair and pulls Celebrimbor’s lips away from his ear. “No, stop that.”
“Really? You don’t want that?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s what I want,” Celebrimbor says.
Maeglin frowned at him. “The power of the sun and the sky and the sea? That’s a prayer, not something you can actually achieve.”
“Even so, it’s what I want.” Celebrimbor props his elbows on Maeglin’s shoulders. “What did you want?”
“It was so long ago.” Maeglin sighs. “First, Turgon’s respect and not his pity. Then a lordship. Freedom. To be able to explore the wide world, answering to no one. A family who would obey me because they loved me, not because they feared me. To know secrets no one had discovered before, and to learn truths that had never even been dreamed. Then to be a king, a hero, a master of Song and Craft like in my mother’s tales of Valinor.” Maeglin’s voice goes tight at the end.
“That’s all? That’s not so much.”
“To you maybe, Fëanáro’s heir.”
“Oh, don’t start that, scion of Nolofinwë.” Celebrimbor’s strokes have stilled but now he plucks the laces of Maeglin’s breaches to create enough space to fit his hand inside. “I want you to want again. I saw it lurking in your face when I and Narvi were working together; you want to carve your mark on the world just like we did. You duck your head modestly when your light generation techniques are praised, and they are said, rightly so, to be the bedrock of the light we wish to bring to all of Eriador, but I want you to boast. You trace the blank edges of the map with impotent yearning when you could just—” Celebrimbor paused to secure Maeglin’s hips firmly between his thighs as the other man squirmed at his approaching climax. “Just be free, as you used to dream.”
Maeglin was breathing heavily, but his eyes were still bright and present. “And do you want me to come in my pants too?”
“Yes, I want to leave you damp and sticky, uncomfortably rubbing against hardening laces as Raenel goes on and on about the expression of traits in her insects.”
“Well, maybe I don’t—”
“And then we’ll finally be able to leave, and we can go to your place, and you can punish me as much as you want.”
“You just want marks that will last until tomorrow,” Maeglin accuses.
“Yes. Please.” Celebrimbor flushes at the thought of Maeglin unleashed, punishing him enough to feel it the next day as he only did when he was actually a little angry. “Do you want that? Do you want to come?”
“Yes,” Maeglin groans.
It only takes a few more strokes before Maeglin is muffling his shout in Celebrimbor’s shoulder, his whole body tensing with orgasm. He pants for a few moments with his face still pressed in Celebrimbor’s hair, before leaning back against the wall. Celebrimbor stands and adjusts himself in his own trousers, already plotting what they’ll do after they leave the party for Maeglin’s rooms.
“You’re awful,” Maeglin says.
“No. If I was awful I would have held you on the edge until you promised to tell Kahlvek to take you on the trip.”
Maeglin laughs. “Unbelievable.”
“But you’ll think about it? Maybe after they return with no doubt exciting reports of new mithril deposits and make plans to go even further east?”
“I’ll think about it,” Maeglin says, and Celebrimbor believes him.
Wanderlust
Celebrimbor feels a faint pang as he thinks about the years they will spend apart, but it’s hard to stay sad as Maeglin talks about plans and maps and forgotten caves brimming with wonders.
“I’ll write, of course,” Maeglin says.
“How will you write? You’re exploring unknown wildernesses.”
Maeglin swats his arm and props himself up on his elbow. “Not for several years at least. Who knows how long we’ll stay in Khazad-dûm. Then we’re off to that mountain Norin discovered a cave system in — Erebor they’re calling it. Half of the purpose of the journey is to establish a base and see what resources are housed there. And then we’ll go further east.”
“I know, I know — aren’t I allowed to miss you a little bit though?”
“Only a little. When you’re traveling it’s nice to be able to think of home and imagine what the people you love are doing.”
“Rest assured I won’t be sitting around moping.” Celebrimbor wraps his arms around Maeglin’s shoulders as he lays his head back down on his chest. “I am happy for you. And excited to hear what you discover.”
“The world is wide and I have seen so very little of it. First east. Then south. But in-between that I’ll come back here and marvel at all you’ve done.”
“And who says I’ll be here still when you return?”
“I do,” Maeglin says with a chuckle. “Every choice you make seems to root you further into this land. It’s not a bad way to be — I think the land appreciates the care.”
“And how will I know that without you to tell me of the singing stone?”
“I taught you how to hear it for yourself.”
“So you did,” Celebrimbor says. They lie in silence for a moment. “I don’t particularly want to spend years on end in the wilderness, but depending on what you find, you may tempt me away someday.”
“Perhaps. I used to wonder if I was spared for no reason but for further misery—”
“Many people would refute that,” Celebrimbor says quickly.
“I know,” Maeglin cuts in just as fast. “And I can now see the people I’ve saved, but I still didn’t hope I would finally be able to travel as I once dreamed.”
“We were spared for a reason, I think. There’s still many more ways we’ll leave our mark on the world.”
“I think you're right,” Maeglin says. They speak no more of the future and their hopes, and drift off into dreams together for the last time.