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"The blood of Beren! The Man's blood, and Lúthien's anguish - if Thingollo wants blood then he should look at the blood of ours they nearly spilled! Some anguish, riding off on Curvo's horse with - "
The wrath in Celegorm's voice snapped like a branch in a windstorm, just before the words stopped, and he gave a furious gesture of his arms for lack of anything he might hurl at the stone of the walls in lieu of Thingol's face.
Maedhros did not so much as blink. What threat was a little brother's violent display of temper with what he had faced? Always the fair-minded, letting insults to their family slip past in the name of harmony and righteousness - no, Celegorm took the accusation back with a twinge of guilt almost as soon as he'd thought it, but it all only made him scowl all the more.
But his eyes were gilded with steel nonetheless. "I thought you were taught better than to cast blame about so," Maedhros said, in a voice that matched his eyes. "You and Curufinwë acted poorly, more like common brigands than the princes you so often remind others you are, and you will not attempt to excuse your actions and the justified retribution you brought down upon us with talk of what hurts you might have suffered."
The urge to throw something rose in him again like a swift cloud of dust disturbed by a horse's gallop with the first of his brother's words, and -
Might. Celegorm's throat felt like it had closed off, the way he'd swallowed gulps of the river-water that bowled him over as a child the first time he went swimming. He could almost hear growling in front of him, smell the mud and bark of the forest and see Huan below while his own horse shied…
His stomach was like roiling bile, edging into the very back of his mouth. "My best friend betrayed me, and you fucking say I might have suffered hurts?" Celegorm nearly shouted, with a few agitated paces before he strode close to Maedhros.
His eldest brother's expression remained frosty as he looked down, and Celegorm could have hit him for it. "Friends are not puppets, Tyelko, and if your actions provoke them to -"
Celegorm did not let him finish. "What the hell kind of friend would literally stand between me and saving my brother's life?" he yelled, feeling like little more than a torrent of heat and torn-up violence. "Beren was strangling Curvo to death and Huan stood there and kept me from running the bastard through!"
Even Maedhros paled, then.
----
He told Curufin what happened, later, after he'd stormed off without another word and blown into their shared guest quarters like a raging windstorm, suddenly-cracking thunder.
Curufin at least was understanding. In his own way. Blank, hardened face; evaluating eyes (had they always been quite that sunken?); mouth becoming a thin line and the cords of his throat twitching when Celegorm related what Maedhros had said. His fingertips had brushed Celegorm's at the mention of Huan, and Celegorm found a certain anchor in them to the world, to things that were real, and he quieted. Though his gaze stayed removed.
"He backed off when I explained about Huan," Celegorm said, finally. He sounded forlorn. He felt forlorn. All he could think about was his brothers' stares when they had first arrived at Himring, both on a single horse and the hound nowhere in sight. Concerned, and perhaps angry, and Celegorm had brushed all of them off with not a single word about it. They had to ask, before he offered up even a sliver of the story - until the letter had arrived.
The reply he got was only silence, at least for words, but his brother slipped his hand away from him and when he returned it was with the remnants of his half-eaten supper plate of spiced venison, leeks, and fresh-baked bread.
Celegorm was too angry for proper hunger, but he hadn't eaten just as Curufin had guessed and the lingering smell from when it had come hot from the kitchens was too good to pass up even in such a state. He took the plate and shoveled a heaping forkful of his brother's supper into his mouth.
"But only when I said what he did," Celegorm continued after a swallow, stabbing his fork into the chunk of meat. "Anybody decent would have sympathised with the betrayal on it's own, but no, Nelyo had to stay on his moral high-horse -"
His hands trembled, and he set the plate down onto the table before he could drop it. Or upturn and throw it, remaining food and all, at the floor, as if that would make it any better.
When he looked back at Curufin, his brother had added alarm to the anger already present lurking in the corners of his face.
"What he did?" Curufin asked, and his voice, his mouth, his eyes, the tension of his shoulders and arms, might have been sharp enough even to make up for the loss of Angrist.
The sick feeling was back, and Celegorm had to look hard to convince himself, yes, yes his brother was here and he was safe and alive… (He would have pulled him close against his body, because feeling it was always better than seeing, but he knew better than to do that with Curufin in such a mood already.) "How he nearly let you be -"
He didn't want to say it.
And yet now his brother was very still, like holding a breath, like being frozen in place - except at the edges, Celegorm noticed, as if they'd been painted in sharper relief than anything else, the slight quiver in his hands and eyes. There was a feeling like his heart being swallowed.
Curufin's mouth twisted, and then the anger was back fully. "Did you think?" he asked. "Did you think, before telling tales like that, whether I wanted him to know? Wanted anybody to know?"
A chill ran through him, sharp and painful and what he wouldn't give to just be curled up sharing body heat and letting contentment (and strong wine, likely) wash away all of the past several weeks. Months. "He thought Huan's betrayal was nothing, Curvo," he half-pleaded, reaching out to touch his brother's arm. "And if he didn't care about just that on its own then I thought…"
He pulled his arm away, shoulder and side and all. "I was humiliated once; you needn't drag me through the mud once over again as though it would persuade Nelyo of anything," Curufin snapped.
Celegorm's hand retracted as though he'd been scalded. "I wasn't dragging you through - Curvo, will you -"
- his temper splintered. "Will you stop fucking acting for once like you're the only one whose pain matters because you can dress it up properly as offense instead!"
All that moved on his brother's face was a shine in his eyes and brows, but it cast a shadow more like bared teeth and rising hackles. "I am the only one who matters? When I've let barely a word past my lips - but surely if actions were as good as words, I've let hundreds or thousands in through my ears about that bloody dog."
Celegorm didn't stop for hurt, this time, not with Curvo. (He'd never even been sure if he could, in truth; Curvo's barbs and insults and tongue cutting like steel were meant for others, never him, never him; when they got close enough to prick him it was only because he'd been doing something wrong, and Curvo was right, always, like Father -)
"If no words are coming from your mouth now then it's because you've left it stuck in the past spinning bullshit excuses for why you're the one betrayed," he snarled, fury making him eloquent the way he never was when he was calm, "as if you never wronged anybody yourself, and when it's not doing that it's busy belittling your fucking son, or wrapped around Findaráto's fucking cock."
The only thing not whip-tense and frozen along Curufin's body was the shallow shift of muscles in his torso with his breath. That and the way his eyes burned, as though a matching fury tried to escape his soul and turn him to ash as well, only stopped by how damned cold he'd made himself.
From the corner of his eye, Celegorm spotted his brother's plate again. Better if it might have shattered in one of their hands and give them true injuries, so he wouldn't know how much he'd run back and crawl to his knees to wipe metaphorical Curvo's cuts if he were to make him actually feel a fraction of the pain he liked to close up inside walls of stone around his heart.
With a shuddering breath and a reflexive twist of his hand in nonexistent fur, Celegorm bit at his tongue, turned, and left the room with a slam of the door.
----
Riding through the mountains down into the low-lying hills his elder brothers had been slowly winning back bought Celegorm a certain steadiness, at least, all his energy expended on the wind stinging his face like ice shards and the need to focus on guiding his horse so that there was none left to set his emotions spinning and galloping along the peaks and valleys he'd left behind him.
Not that it meant, exactly, that he felt much better. More an unvarying misery, rather than eight different kinds in quick succession.
Maybe if he'd found a band of orcs during his ride, he might have felt better, but doubtless if that had happened he'd upset Curvo coming home smelling like blood and probably tracking it over the floor and getting black stains on their furniture, and his mouth and eyes would get tight and his words sharp, and that would just undo the entire purpose, wouldn't it. Best he hadn't.
When he got back, he stripped of his riding leathers before going inside for once, brushing the dust and grass off his tunic and the leaves and pine needles from his hair - much more easily accomplished now than with it all done up in his usual myriad braids and gems.
Curvo had always liked quiet corridors like the ones that greeted him much more than Celegorm had. The lack of people wasn't what got to him, though he would have appreciated a few voices, in the distance probably because if anybody spoke to him directly he'd probably respond with something more like a growl than words. But with no click-clack of nails on four trotting paws against the stone floor beside him, something in his nerves felt like the fraying edge of an old ribbon that he wished to snip off in one stroke and be done with it.
Other people might have thought to require an apology. Celegorm knew he wouldn't get one, or not in words. It didn't matter, much; he'd give away the anger and sick, wretched desolation with much more gladness than he'd receive a mumbled sorry. And with what he'd said himself, to receive it to begin with would only be a worsening of the blow he'd dealt.
Entering the rooms they shared, Celegorm's steps were cautious, quiet as they rarely were but lacking in some of the grace that came when louder as a trade. His brother sat on the couch before the fire, back to the entrance and head bowed, presumably over a book or some papers that he would feign attention to.
The way he sat was an intentioned choice and a wall with a certain coldness and cruelty seeped into the foundation and between the bricks, Celegorm knew from long familiarity or crumbling illusions or some ill-fated mix of both; he would have slunk back out of the room without a word as he was intended to but for a wish to thaw that same mix and some courage borne of the pit in his stomach that send him walking further into the room instead, up to where his brother sat.
Aftershocks of the argument they'd had still reverberated like small tremors in the crevasses of his mind, and perhaps it showed in the hesitance of his movements. He was not… he was not quite sure, was he, how long Curufin might stay angry, if they had never fought so…
But he brushed his brother's hair aside, over his shoulder, anyway, even if it was more uncertain than it might otherwise have been. Curufin turned his head, and when his expression flickered, briefly, to cold anger and then equally quickly back to something softer and more peaceful, Celegorm took it as a cue that he wouldn't hold it against him if he had reason not to (was it strange for Curufin, too, to find his displeasure turned on his brother? Or had he grown so accustomed that one new object of it was not such a terrible thing? The former, the former, Celegorm hoped) - and he ducked down to press his lips to the pale triangle of skin he'd exposed on the back of Curufin's neck.
He could see Curufin set his book aside, in the corner of his vision. And Curufin's eyes fluttered closed for a moment, his head falling slightly forward, as Celegorm slid his fingers stroking through his brother's loose black hair.
"Curvo," Celegorm murmured. His brother had been more patient with him of late than he'd had any right, he supposed, to expect - but that didn't mean the cracks he sensed sometimes would have disappeared, as much Curufin denied them...
When Celegorm's hand stilled, Curufin turned more fully this time, and if he allowed Celegorm a look at the slight glaze of deadness in his eyes, it was only for a moment (not long enough for him to become concerned) before he reached up and pulled him down by the cloth of his tunic into a kiss. It was lingering, stillness hovering in moments and fractions of breath passed between their parted lips. Bending in such a manner was hardly ideal, though, and Celegorm broke the contact after not so very long to straighten his posture.
Curufin gave a long look up at him, searching, perhaps; and then stood, wordless, crossing around the couch to pause beside his brother. This time it was Celegorm who shifted to face him. But Curufin only glanced at Celegorm's hand, light against his wrist, and moved his arm away, before walking past him, toward the door to his bedchamber. Slow enough that Celegorm did not take it as a command to leave, at least.
Celegorm shut the door behind him as Curufin was inside already, casting aside the heavy material of his outer tunic with a listless sort of movement. The next impulse he had might have like as not been copied from Huan originally, and long after practised enough to become instinct; enough at least that when he encircled his brother with his arms and bent to rest his chin against Curufin's shoulder, it seemed enough of simply himself absent any source that he felt only a slight pang of hurt to do so.
I didn't mean to fight with you, he wanted to say; but Curufin wouldn't have appreciated it anyway and so it would be rather of the opposite of his intent. Instead he just ducked his chin further against Curufin's shoulder and spread his palm flat against the soft material of his undertunic.
Curufin seemed to shift slightly on his feet, and then he turned his head back to the side, nearer Celegorm's. When Celegorm raised his own head up off Curufin's shoulder, Curufin kissed him again.
Between the open warmth of their mouths, the touch that passed felt of desperation; regret that their spirits were separated by such solid forms rather than seeking all the hollow gaps between them like pooling blood. After a moment, Curufin turned properly, until he was against Celegorm chest-to-chest, fingers twining in his hair and one hand reaching around his waist.
He clutched tighter, then, when Celegorm moved to kiss in a line down Curufin's neck, warm and soft like the sound that came low in his throat and made Celegorm pause a moment to wet his bottom lip. There was an aroused sensitivity he could begin to feel, in his stomach and between his legs, from the sound Curufin made and the way he pressed so firmly against him, and the way he had tilted his head to the side to expose more of his pale skin. It was slightly reddened now, and when Celegorm caught a section of that skin in his mouth again he sucked it even redder, deep and dark and spread across the side of his neck while Curufin gasped and stiffened even more against him.
(It had been a guess, that Curvo would like that so much, but not an altogether difficult one, not from the few times he'd caught him alone in his rooms after a long evening "discussing administrative matters" with Findaráto, faded splotches of red and purple along his neck and shoulders where his long hair and the open collar of his shirt couldn't hide them.)
Celegorm was caressing Curufin's sides, enjoying the little sighs spilling from Curvo's mouth as he slid lips against Celegorm's jawline, ear, throat, when the fingers toying with the edges of his tunic grew more insistent, pushing the cloth up and tugging him back all at once.
They spilled back onto Curufin's bed, the sheets coloured like deep red wine and shimmering like silk in the candlelight where Curufin's hair fanned out across them. Celegorm kneeled over his little brother, Curvo with his head back and lips parted just a sliver (eyelids not parted at all), expression half one of abject misery and half one overtaken by pleasure.
(He was not as bad as he had been in Mithrim. That, at least, was one small comfort. If comforts were even possible, when the world seemed too dim and too bright in shifting cycles now, kicking up pieces of memories and feelings like clods of dirt in his face.)
Celegorm's chest gave a shudder of objectless loathing, which he swallowed and buried in a roll of his hips against Curufin's (he gasped and his eyes flew open, sharp with something Celegorm couldn't quite see). Panting, Curufin slid his hands up under Celegorm's tunic properly now, warm and callused against bare skin and giving Celegorm reason to shudder a second time.
The gasps from Curufin's mouth turned to the barest of whimpers when Celegorm moved lower, to see evidence of his own aching arousal mirrored between Curufin's splayed legs, and he pressed his mouth there. And then they became louder, joined by soft groans from Celegorm's own throat.
Curufin's breeches had only been bunched down around his calves when Celegorm abandoned the task of removing them as sufficiently done regardless, and returned to the one he'd already started with a wanting sigh and the hungry slide of his outspread hands up Curufin's muscled thighs. A moment later, he had to dig his nails hard into the skin of his hips to hold them steady against the bed, and the weak laugh Celegorm had at that mixed amongst all the sensations sweeping inside him with the low moan his brother gave and the heavy throb of his own cock, pressed aching against the inside of his breeches.
When Celegorm took himself in hand, crouched low and curling his tongue against Curufin's cock, the shudders he felt with each unanticipated breath only fed the distraction of overwhelming bliss he found a margin of solace in - and hoped, at least, he might be able to create for his brother, as well.
Curvo shook, entire body taut and strained and his fingers clawed into bunches of the sheets, milk-pale and red as blood. He gave a protesting, almost furious whine, nearly starting to push himself to sitting, when Celegorm's mouth slid free of his cock with a small wet pop; it fell low into a whimper with the exchange for a tight-gripped fingers and palm instead, Celegorm pumping fast and rough as he fell forward, pressing Curvo back down onto the bed with his full weight in the hand pushing against his shoulder.
There was glass in his brother's eyes. Celegorm could not stay angry, not stay feeling so wretched with Curvo; it melted all away into the heat in his loins and fluttering shakiness in his chest, and he might have sobbed with relief if he'd the space to feel as much as well. He hung above Curufin, his brother nearly senseless and flushed and beautiful, and leaned down almost to touch the parted lips that Curvo had bitten red himself, breathing the salvation of this contact they shared between their open mouths.
He saw the proof in Curvo's face as he came, and hoped that for a time it might be enough.
Curufin hated mess, of course. If Celegorm lingered a moment, heart pulled tight at the miracle that was bliss on his little brother's face, he'd climbed off before Curufin could open his eyes lying sated against the sheets, and retrieved a cloth to wipe himself off with.
When he returned, Curufin had pushed himself upright, flush still in his cheeks and neck and breeches removed entirely instead of pooled around his ankles, as he'd pulled his feet beneath him. He took the cloth from Celegorm with a movement that was almost gentle, and with the last soft swipe of it against Celegorm's skin, kissed him in a manner Celegorm would have in anybody else associated with a shy, sweet pair of youthful lovers.
(The thought occurred to him that he doubted even Findaráto had ever received such a kiss, and could not say whether the notion was pleasing or saddening; and that enough of itself made him wish to put the thought away.)
Although the next touch he felt was rather less chaste, and the involuntary jerk of his hips up into Curufin's warm, callused hands drew Celegorm's attention quite suddenly back to the liquid ache between his legs. His need became sudden, urgent, spilling out with the pent-up desire whose slaking he'd near as soon abandoned as begun - he braced himself once more against Curvo's shoulders as those delightfully skilled hands worked him near to the point of breaking. One hand by moments loose and tight against his cock; the other tracing rough lines up his arm, his chest, his neck, his jaw -
Celegorm finished with a long, low groan and slid as if boneless down into Curvo's arms, head coming to rest in the crook of his neck. If only he never need leave; if only, if only.
Curufin's hands stroking his back, his sides, his skin, were slow, calm and steady, comforting as he might not truly have believed possible if forced to honesty some time before, and Celegorm did not mind when they stilled and encircled him that they clung too tight.