Disaster

Mellow Soulmate AU?  Maybe?  Celebrimbor discovers Annatar's betrayal.  You can kind of imagine how that goes down.  Sindarin names used.  Annatar is one of Sauron's many aliases.  The guy has almost as many names as Aragorn, I swear.  Really, who the hell needs that many names?  (In his defense, at least Sauron has a legit reason.  Aragorn just seems to not like using his.)  Anyway, takes place in the Second Age in Eregion.  Introspective.

Disclaimer: Tolkien owns the characters.  The slash is mine.

Pairings: Sauron x Celebrimbor

Characters: Celebrimbor, Sauron (mentions Fëanor, Círdan, Gil-Galad and Galadriel)

Warning: canon-compliant AU, slash, allusions to torture and violence, borderline suicidal thoughts, mentions of sex, but nothing explicit

Song: Carnival of Rust

Words: 1,099
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disaster (noun): a sudden calamitous event bringing great damage, loss or destruction; broadly: a sudden or great misfortune or failure
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disaster

Around them, the darkness curled and twisted, blackening the world to Celebrimbor's eyes on the night of the new moon.  It was night's like this that he had once despised, that would remind him of the curse that lay heavily on his shoulders, that kept him apart from all others.  Isolated.

Alone.

But he was not alone.

Safely, he was wrapped in powerful arms, cradled, comforted, warm.  A familiar chin, square and sharp, rested atop his head.  Every time he blinked, his eyelashes brushed the delicate skin of his lover's throat, blue veins visibly throbbing so close that he could count the pulses.  About him, the thick musk of sex twined with the other man's natural lavender scent, perfuming their room so intimately it made him shiver.

Annatar.  His beloved.  His One.  The only one he would ever love with all his soul.

He had become used to this comfort wrapped around his body, holding back the chill of shards of memories that he never wanted to piece back together.  He had become used to the presence at his side, driving back the knives that waited in the dark, the nightmares that haunted these chambers, waiting to ensnare and devour him.  Protecting him.

But tonight he had no rest, felt no comfort.  No protection was to be found in this embrace.

Celebrimbor held still, hardly daring to breathe where he lay entwined with Annatar, golden hair blanketing their glistening bodies.  He hardly dared to think lest he wake the other, lest he be discovered.

His world had collapsed, and he could be certain of nothing.  Not his lover.  Not himself.  Not his own mind.  The tower of his trust had broken at the foundations, crumbled and toppled and buried him beneath thousands of tons of stones carved from secrets and cemented in place with the glue of sweet memories.

Sweet memories of lying together, sharing heat, their laughter lighting the shadows crawling over the land until they were banished from his sight.  Memories of strong hands guiding his arms, of gentle touches that barely touched skin yet burned hotter than white flame.  Memories of lying beneath the wide open sky, blanketed by only darkness and cushioned by only the thick grass and earth, where nothing existed in the world but them, two becoming one.

Memories of being together in the most intimate way two beings could be.  So close Celebrimbor could not be certain where one ended and the other began.

It only happened once in all an elf's life, and he had chosen Annatar.

What a fool he had been.

"You should not trust so easily that which appears divine," Galadriel had warned.

"I would not keep his company in my kingdom even were it to kill me," Gil-Galad had informed.

"Watch him closely.  Keep your council quiet to your breast," Círdan had advised.

Blinded, infatuated, fascinated, he had ignored them all.  For they had never met Annatar, never spoken to him, never basked in his golden warmth and his sweet, deep amber eyes.  They could not possibly understand how he felt!  They could not possibly condemn this stranger on a mere whim of their ancient hearts!  For what did they know?

More than he had.  They had trusted their intuition and had not been blinded with powerful, false light and slippery, seductive words.

Even now, even with the afterglow hazed around him, Celebrimbor shivered, listening to the steady, deep breaths of the man wrapped around him.  Those hands that touched with such tenderness and control could wield a whip or a knife with equal proficiency, could make poor souls scream and wail with but a slash, could draw forth the blackest secrets from a heart in but an hour.  Stained in blood and horror, they now felt spidery and unclean where they rested on his back, no longer reassuring, but traitorously threatening.

Everything he thought he had known now felt wrong.  Sullied and violated.  This was the maia--the man--with whom he shared even the sanctuary of his mind and body.  Pain rippled through him at the thought, almost physical in the destruction it wrought, in the sting of tears it brought to the eyes that had not cried since the long lost days of terror and fire wrought by Fëanor.

Without Annatar, how could he be whole?  Without the golden presence, the sweet lavender and amber gaze, the comforting strokes on his shoulder and the sultry voice in his ear, the nights without loneliness and despair, the days full of laughter and company, how could he possibly survive?

Without his other half, who was he supposed to be?

In the wake of devastation, what was left?  Not his freedom.  Not his dignity or pride.  Not his innocence.  Not even blessed ignorance.  There was nothing left to him but knowledge of betrayal, for even the fury that burned in his heart of hearts was tempered and smothered by the powerful devotion he felt towards his other half.

Reality had been uprooted, revealed for what it was--nothing but a naive daydream.  The truth slashed across his spirit like a rusted blade and left him broken on the ground.  Uncertainty.  Terror.  Confusion.  Betrayal so powerful that he wanted to scream and cry, to break something, to wrap his fingers around Annatar's throat and strangle him so that he could never do harm to anyone ever again, so that he could never fully carry out his ultimate betrayal of Celebrimbor's unwavering trust.

Frightened to death, the Lord of Eregion closed his eyes and prayed.  He would need all his strength to balance on the edge of the disaster that had uprooted his soul.  The war was only just beginning, and if he did not do something he would lose before it even began.  Now the betrayed would become the betrayer and the cursed would become the savior.

And then, when all was said and done, when the last vestiges of his scarred and shattered soul had been crushed to dust by hatred in beloved eyes and agony from familiar fingers, he could close his eyes and welcome the peace that lay only beyond the cage of the body.

Maybe there, he would recover.  Would rebuild himself from the ground up, would reclaim some of who he had once been before Annatar had welded himself into all that Celebrimbor was and would ever be.

But he would never be the same.

The damage had been done.  Irrevocably.  Irreversibly.

Forever.
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This couple has been on my mind for days now.  This very scene has been on my mind for days now, and so I absolutely had to write it.  In any case, I feel sorry for Celebrimbor, that poor baby, because really, his life sucks at this point.  Sauron, you asshole. >.>

Was listening to Carnival of Rust by Poets of the Fall.  I have loved this song since I was probably 13, maybe longer, because it is just that amazing.  So listen to it if you haven't already.  Of course, the original video I watched had this song playing to scenes from vampire movies, but that was way back when I was still obsessed with Sherrilyn Kenyon romance novels.  I mean, they're good books, but they get old after a while, and the sex scenes get a little boring.

Naming Creativity and First thing to say by ~kittykatkanie on dA.  Because they're adorable and Celebrimbor needs non-death-scene love.