Chapter Text
Turgon was staring down at him. Again.
He had been sitting and moping on the balcony for a while now, he supposed, it only made sense that his brother would come check on him, especially considering the amount of people - their father, their mother, Elenwe, their sister, the list went on - who might have put him up to it.
The problem was, to put it quite bluntly, that if he had wanted to talk to his brother, or to anyone really, he wouldn’t have gone to the most inaccessible, uncomfortable, and abandoned of the balconies of his family’s house in Tirion, but maybe that was not an obvious enough request for solitude, maybe he needed to go and find himself a hidden mountain valley to get his family to leave him alone.
He missed Russo. He always knew when he needed company and when he needed to be alone, and usually went along with his wishes. But Russo was still in the Halls of Mandos, and while Fingon had caught glimpses of him, from time to time, his cousin had always managed to disappear before he could try and talk to him.
He wished he had never left.
But Lord Namo had been impatient to get rid of his father, who somehow managed to get into fights with uncle Feanor even when they had actually made peace just a few years after Fingon’s own death. They managed to start to fight even after Namo, and therefore the Halls themselves, started striving to keep them apart.
So Fingolfin had been politely asked to leave, and he had asked for the release of all his children with him.
It said something towards how annoying his father and uncle had been that Namo had agreed immediately, and most of the time Fingon was grateful, for the Halls of Awaiting were very boring indeed, but sometimes, like now, he realised that he was still in need of the healing they afforded, or maybe just wasn’t ready to leave, and what was the difference, really?
Russo would have known.
If he had just stayed in the Halls, eventually Maedhros would have healed enough to be willing to talk to him, to be his Russo again. But he would never know, because he had followed his father and abandoned him. The irony was overwhelming and yet the least funny thing to have crossed his head in millennia, and considering the things that had passed through there, that was saying something.
Turgon was still standing there silently, staring at him and apparently waiting for him to say something. He had appeared to bother him and couldn’t even get his “we’re concerned about you” speech out of the way in a timely manner? He had done many things wrong in his life, but Fingon was sure it wasn’t enough to deserve this.
He sighed. Better to get this out of the way quickly.
“What do you want, Turno? Please just get it out and then leave me alone, I’m here for a reason.”
“I wanted to talk to you, you’ve been avoiding us again,” Turgon said, frowning mildly. His brother did nearly everything mildly, it was infuriating.
“And the logical conclusion to me avoiding you is not just wanting to talk to me, it’s wanting to stare at me creepily until I explode. I see. I can see the perfectly sensible train of thought that leads from point a to point b.” He could, his brother was forcing him to talk, and he was falling for it, even knowing it was happening. He hated this so much.
“It’s just. This is not like you, Findekano! You’re so quiet and reserved, and I’ve never seen like this! I’m worried about you,” his voice had been rising, but dropped to a normal speaking level again. Thankfully. “You used to be so energetic, I want to understand what’s wrong. maybe try to help. Anything.”
“If I apologise not wanting to put in the effort to maintain my usual personality, and the worry this has caused you, will you go away?” Fingon said, knowing already what the answer would be. It seemed he was more of an optimist than he thought.
“Why would you need effort to maintain your personality?” Turgon asked, apparently genuinely puzzled.
“Because, like everyone’s personality ever, it’s in part an act? I’m not sure what you want me to tell you, Turno, but in the same way that you have to control what you say to keep up that wise and stuck-up image of yours, I’m not actually the most entertaining and amazing anyone’s ever met just by opening my mouth and letting everything I’m thinking flow out,” he paused, briefly overcome by the realisation that he was going to have this conversation.
Maybe he could stop it before it got anywhere too damaging, maybe “I used to be a lot quieter before you were born, so it’s understandable that you would be confused when I suddenly stopped being my usual scintillating self, I can’t fault you for being worried. I guess. I’ve just been thinking, and I don’t have enough energy left to bother.” Please let that be enough to make him go away.
“What have you been thinking about? Maybe I could help.” Turgon said, obviously not going to leave him alone, and starting to smile gently, as he would have when talking to a frightened animal.
“You couldn’t. And even if you could I wouldn’t let you, will you go away now?” He wasn’t going to unload all his troubles on his little brother, why was Turgon still insisting?
“Maybe I can’t help, but I could still listen,” the hopeful tone in his brother’s voice was rising rapidly, and it hurt already that he would have to break that. “It might help you work through your problems to have a willing ear.”
“I have already worked through this repeatedly, I don’t need you to listen to me do it again,” he sighed “especially because you’re the last person with whom I want to talk about this.” He added, a little viciously.
“What do you mean?” Turgon was obviously trying to sound mildly concerned and yet reassuring, but his eyes betrayed his agitation, or maye fear “is it something to do with me? If it is please tell me, that I may try and set it right!”
“You can’t. To start with, because a great part of my anger is irrational, and therefore mine to deal with, and because the rest of it pertains to things long past and the only thing that will make it better is to get over it. So I am not going to hurt us both unnecessarily by telling you.”
He sighed, again, and decided to try one more time “Will you just leave me alone, please?”
His brother was already drawing himself up to try again, and he couldn’t deal with this, he couldn’t.
“Findekano, if you are angry at me you should tell me, not just stew in it. It’s unhealthy for both of us. I won’t break if you shout at me a little, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I am not a small child to be coddled anymore.” he was obviously trying for his usual infuriatingly sensible tone, and it was working, he could feel the rage bubbling under his skin, ready to escape in words he wouldn’t be able to take back.
“Turno, while it is true that just holding in any anger I might feel, instead of just coming to you and Atar with it, isn’t the smartest idea, I don’t see how you can help. Everything I am upset about I know your reasons for, or isn’t a decision you had a hand in, so the only thing you could say is meaningless comforting blabber, or useless apologies, so I really don’t see the point of burdening you with it if it won’t even help.” Why wouldn’t he leave.
“Findekano, brother, if you are upset at both me and Atar, maybe it’s best for the wellbeing of our family if you tell us as soon as possible, or it might break us apart.”
And he was being so earnest about it, too.
Oh well, he’d asked for it.
Fingon drew his feet onto the chair, to resist the impulse to pace around the narrow space.
That would be counterproductive.
He took a deep breath, and put on his fakest smile.
“Maybe you’re right! Maybe I should just let it all out and let you two deal with it! It’s your fault, after all! Where should I start, though? Should I begin by yelling at you about your fucking off to nowhere, leaving everyone else to suffer even more, for the incredible privilege of being the last to die?”
“Or should I start with Atar and his oh-so-dramatic suicide? And how he left me alone to deal with a realm traumatised by a devastating defeat and the realisation that their brave king had lost all hope and preferred killing himself, with a decent chance of capture and torture, to dealing with his situation?”
“Or maybe I should start with how condescending he’s been about the whole Nirnaeth thing, like it wasn’t an attempt at buying ourselves a few years of peace, instead of a glorified suicide, like how some people I know died. And yes, I’m talking to you too, my lord “My glorious city is lost so I will die with it” of Gondolin.”
He saw Turgon wince. Good.
“That’s a lot of parallels, wouldn’t you say? Maybe that’s why it was the disappeared second son who got Atar’s body carried to him by one of the Eagles, leaving the rest of us to wonder what the fuck had happened to him.”
“Or maybe that happened because dear little Turukano, who is ever so obedient, was still distraught over the recent death of his beloved sister, which the rest of us knew nothing about, of course, and had to be helped out of his depression by knowing that his father, who he had abandoned, had died heroically and bravely, so now he had the opportunity to prove he was still capable of being a loyal son by taking care of the funeral. Which do you think is most likely, Turukano?”
Turgon had gone pale, and was breathing a little too quickly to seem capable of answering.
“You’re right again, maybe it’s cruel of me to be talking like this, not like I didn’t warn you, maybe it’s a sign that I should still be in Mandos, instead of having been dragged out because now Atar didn’t want to leave his children behind.”
“Maybe someone should have listened to me when I asked you to leave me alone, you’d think I would know my own emotional state better than you do! And maybe, just maybe, when I say I don’t need or want your help, I might be right!”
Maybe he had all the emotional stability of a particularly wobbly pudding because he didn’t have Russo, he just had the shredded remains of a relationship that they had been in the middle of rescuing from codependency when he died, not that his family needed to know that.
“Imagine that, me having a valuable opinion about something! Wow! What a surprise! And now two of the people I love most in the world are crying because of me! How was this supposed to help anyone, again?”
He heard his father gasp in surprise behind him, and though Turgon was in mild shock, not just in tears, he managed to talk at this.
“Findekano, how did you...?”
“How did I know he was there? Really? I know that I used to behave like an airhead, and that I’m currently depressed and distracted by my own problems, but I’m not actually stupid enough not to know when there’s someone standing behind me! Is that what you two think of me? That I’m an idiot? Is that why you think it’s acceptable to call me Findekano, when I have repeatedly asked you to please use Fingon? Because you think I’m an idiot and you know what’s best for me?”
He was crying too, of course, he shouldn’t have blown up like this, he had only hurt his family with nothing to show for it.
He pulled his knees up against his chest and looked away from his brother.
“Please, just leave me alone.”