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When Fingon first brought Maedhros back, Maglor thought, for a brief, awful moment, that he had returned with a corpse.
But then—Maedhros cracked open an eye—the one that wasn’t ruined—and reached for him. In the wordless touch of their minds, Maglor’s first language, before he learned speech, before he had known anyone else, Maglor had known his brother.
And he knew that Maedhros would live.
Maglor was so relieved, discretion was his last concern. He held Fingon’s gaze for too long, in gratitude and affection. Unwittingly, he revealed a too-casual familiarity, cultivated over nights stolen away from camp, touches that began in sheer desperation but grew into something sweeter, more intimate, less easily explained.
That first evening, the healers did what they could with bandage and song. Then they bathed Maedhros, plaited what remained of his hair, dressed him in soft warm wool, and put him to bed. Maglor did not leave his brother’s side. He helped Maedhros sip from a sweet-smelling draught for dreamless sleep. He readied himself to stay the night. Maedhros was too weak to speak. The light hurt his brother’s eyes, so Maglor could not read or write. His mind wandered.
It was as Maedhros drifted off, in his last waking moments, that he returned to Maglor’s mind, at the worst possible time.
Maglor was thinking about fucking Fingon on a blanket in the woods under the light of the silvery moon.
Hmm, thought Maedhros.
Maglor was so surprised, he banished Maedhros from his mind with violent force.
Then guilt, the enemy Maglor had kept at bay from the moment Maedhros was taken and he did not mount a rescue, finally caught up to him. It engulfed him and submerged him whole in a rolling, ruthless ocean of regret.
“If I could—” said Maglor out loud, but Maedhros was already asleep.
Maedhros slept for twenty-eight days.
Maglor avoided Fingon the entire month. (He was well-attended by his own people, who were desperately relieved that he returned alive at all, and by the Fëanorian faction, too, who drowned him with gifts and gratitude. Even Celegorm, whose long-standing hatred for Fingon seemed to obscure a deeper, messier kind of feeling—in Maglor’s opinion—gave him a fine stallion.)
On the twenty-ninth day, Maedhros woke. The healers sent for Maglor at once, and, heart pounding, he ran for his brother’s tent.
Maedhros, sitting up in bed, called out. “Káno! They will not give me anything to eat. Thirty years of torment, and now, I am starved by my own people? Betrayal! Treachery!”
Maglor stared at him, mouth hanging open.
Maedhros burst into laughter. Then tears, when Maglor joined him on the bed and gathered his living, breathing, terrible brother into his arms.
Ouch, thought Maedhros. I’m still very badly hurt, you know.
Maglor relaxed his grasp and cried with Maedhros. From then on, Maglor was careful not to hold Maedhros too closely, not to jostle him or undo the hard-earned weeks of healing. He was also very, very careful with his thoughts.
And he worried.
He hoped perhaps Maedhros did not remember.
It turned out, Maedhros was simply waiting for an opportune moment.
When Fingolfin got word that Maedhros had awakened, he and his sons came for a long visit, during which Maedhros expelled all brothers and healers from the tent. At last, their uncle and cousins took their leave. Fingon said his good-byes with such brisk courtesy, Maglor had no chance to speak with him in private at all.
Maglor went back to his brother alone. It was late, and Maedhros would be weary. But before he could give Maedhros his sleeping-draught, his brother pinned him with his eyes and his mind.
You’ve had him, Maedhros thought.
The ocean of regret swirled around him once more.
Yes. Maglor could not lie. Not to Maedhros. Not in their minds.
Many, many times.
Not before. Not until Beleriand. But yes. Many times, here, by the lake.
Show me.
What? No. Had Maedhros gone mad?
Show me.
I cannot. Do not ask this of me.
I am your elder brother and lord, and you will show me!
And that was when Maglor truly came to understand that while Maedhros’s body remained weak, his spirit was yet a terrifying white flame.
And Maglor could not resist.
In his mind, he recalled the last time he had lain with Fingon, a few nights before his covert departure to Thangorodrim. And he showed Maedhros.
By then, Maglor and Fingon had learned each other’s bodies well. They knew what sounds meant yes or please or harder, what stretches of skin were most sensitive, how to take and give pleasure in equal measure. Their affair had, in truth, become more than comfort, more than relief, more than mere distraction from shared sorrows. When Maglor kissed Fingon, he was not always thinking of his lost brother.
Fingon was sweet, for one thing.
Not like that, thought Maedhros, interrupting. He likes rough. He likes to be taken. And Maedhros showed Maglor one of his own memories, of pushing a young Fingon facedown into a mattress, twisting a hand into his long, unbound hair, and pulling hard.
Maglor flinched. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked out loud.
So you can better please him, thought Maedhros. Obviously.
He does not want that from me, thought Maglor. He did not let himself think why that might be so. He could not.
Maedhros looked at him for a long, withering moment. “Well, then,” he said, finally, with his ruined mouth. “I suppose I will have to teach you both.”