Pierce

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Curufin is beginning to see disturbing parallels between his cousin and his wife.  Quenya names used (Curufin = Curufinwë, Finrod = Artafindë, Celegorm = Turkafinwë, Celebrimbor = Telperinquar).  This story mentions, of course, Amarië and my OFC Lindalórë.  She did, in fact, appear in the early drafts of "Apart" (a story of mine of dA), which is Finrod's POV of this scene.  That was written two years ago, and she's stuck permanently.  Anyway, also related to "Whispered", "Hidden", "Evidence" and "Cut" amongst others.  Takes place in Nargothrond in the First Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: pre-Finrod x Curufin, Finrod x Amarië, Curufin x Lindalórë (OFC)

Characters: Curufin, Finrod (mentions Celegorm, Celebrimbor, Lindalórë (OFC) and Amarië)

Warning: non-canon compliant AU, OFC warning, non-canon relationship implied, pre-slash, pre-incest and pre-adultery, mentions murder, faint sexual undertones

Song: Soundscape to Ardor/Morning Remembrance

Words: 1,779
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pierce (verb): to run into or through as a pointed weapon does: stab; to enter or thrust into sharply or painfully; to make a hole through: perforate; to force or make a way into or through; to penetrate so as to move or touch the emotions of
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pierce

Too many evenings were spent this way.

Before the fire, Curufinwë perched upon a think, cushioned chair, perfectly still and quiet.  The heat from the golden-red waves dancing in the fireplace burst across his face, their glowing shadows flickering over the picture he cradled within his palm.  The picture to which his eyes were riveted.

He wondered if she remembered him at all.  If she even missed him.

If she felt as he did...

So beautiful she was before him, her dark curls piled into an elegant coiffure atop her head and her smile out-shining the stars for its whiteness and purity.  And her eyes, a mixture of the newness of spring and evergreen of winter, burned out at him, piercing and unblinking, eternally captured with their shimmer of delight and adoration.  So glorious but bringing such sadness.

Almost he could imagine running his fingers over her cheek and reaching up to pull her hair free of its bonds to flow loose in the ocean air.

Even so far apart, Curufinwë could swear he fell in love with her more and more each day.

But all he had of her was this locket.  The heavy golden trinket--one of his earliest and clumsiest but by far most beloved works, a treasure forged through his own blistering sweat and tears of utter frustration--held her portrait.  Were it not for the tiny painting, done with remarkable detail and skill to capture perfectly her visage in vivid color and graceful line, he was afraid he might have forgotten her face beneath the weight of tragic fate and ruthless battle.

He wore it against his heart.  Every day.  To bed.  To battle.  To death, should it strike him down.

Licking his suddenly dry lips and trying to ignore the stubborn sting of his eyes, Curufinwë released a sigh, still enraptured with her image.

More than anything... he missed her.

Felt a shroud of loneliness falling over his life and blocking out comfort and contentment.  It was not that he stood alone physically.  Turkafinwë haunted his every shadow and Telperinquar remained as fiercely loyal as ever.  But it was not the same.  Not the same sort of companionship and trust and that which had rested between him and his wife.

What he had with Turkafinwë was between brothers.  Familial devotion and buried fondness, but a certain sort of distance.  A coldness of embraces and a calculating gleam of the eyes.  And what he had with Telperinquar was little better, the love between a father and his son.  They had affection and bonding, some measure of trust.

But he longed.  Longed terribly for someone to sleep beside him.  To kiss his lips.  To be his confident in the dark when he reached his most vulnerable.  Not for a brother and not for a son.

All those things she had been for him.  But he had left her behind, fool that he was.

Alone.  He was alone.  And even he, the ruthless killer and heartless manipulator, was no less of a soul than any kind-hearted gentleman or sweet-cheeked lady.  No less needy.  No less wistful.

Looking down at her face was its own form of torture.

Black on snowy white and ringing the brilliant verdant.  Dazed, he ignored the flicker of firelight across her face--reminding him all too painfully of candlelit nights of passion--and concentrated on memorizing and remembering and driving away the need.

That was how it had been for centuries.

At least, until a shadow flickered across his eyes and disrupted the vision.  Reflexively, he snapped shut the locket and stuffed it beneath his shirt, hiding it away from prying eyes.  There were very few people he would trust with his weakness.

Glancing upward, a part of him was disgustingly grateful that it was Artafindë who had infringed upon his privacy.  His noble and kind cousin would not willingly use any knowledge of this sort against him.  Not even to save his own life.

"Cousin, was there something you needed?"

Artafindë gave him a knowing look, but thankfully did not bring up the subject that hung heavily between them, filling the air and bricking up a wall of miscommunication.  Instead, the golden-haired man grinned wryly. "I merely found myself in a spot of boredom and decided to seek out my favorite cousin.  Is that a crime?"

Without waiting for an answer, the King of Nargothrond sat down in the adjacent chair, relaxing back into the stuffing with a bone-weary sigh.  Had one been unfamiliar with the mannerisms of the King, they might have believed such a blatant lie because of the relaxed nature of the body and the steadfast and languid stare of the eyes, but Curufinwë knew better.  He had practically shared a nursery with this man and knew all too well what exactly was eating at his mind.

Probably the same that is haunting the corners of mine own.

Her.

Curufinwë's Lindalórë.  Artafindë's Amarië.  In some ways, the pair of cousins were all too similar and yet so very intrinsically different.

But Curufinwë knew... knew that his cousin felt this cursed weight as well.  This loneliness lingering as a deadly heaviness over the spirit, suffocating and dampening, weakening and tormenting.  Just as Curufinwë longed for the companionship of his wife, Artafindë longed terribly for his fiancée, his sweet Vanyarin lady wreathed in gold and softness.

Artafindë first broke their silence. "You miss her."

It stung, like dirt in an open wound.  Stiffening, his eyes flashed toward his cousin, a sneer twisting at his lips.  To say it so openly... so blatantly...

"I do not see what it should matter to you, cousin."

It hurt.  And even before the eyes of Artafindë, the last thing he wished to do was cry.

"I was just--"

"I do not care.  If all you came here to do was bother me, you should leave."

Leave me alone to suffer in silence.  Leave me to my loneliness and go drown in your own.  Please, make not the truth any more real.

But at his acerbic manner, Artafindë's eyes only gentled further with that softness which embodied the inner beauty of his cousin's spirit.  Until they were liquid with empathy, the kind of pure understanding that sent a heart-wrenching jolt through Curufinwë's chest.  There was just this power about those eyes and that sad, crooked little smile in the flickering light of the fireplace.  Sucking him in and brushing away the resentment.

This man was staring straight through him.  Knew him so well that Curufinwë could not hope to hide away from the piercing eyes... like hers...

So agonizingly familiar.

He understands.  Damn him.

Because despite the pain, there was deep-seated pleasure.  The feelings Curufinwë craved like a drunkard craves fine wine, the bond of companionship that he missed, seemed to abruptly snap into place, like a jolt through his spine.  Sending the Fëanárion's heart pounding.

"I miss Amarië as well."

Damn him for making me feel this way.  So easily.

The feeling of compassion washed through his veins, poisonous in its terrible lightness.  Tearing through the loneliness.  The heavy glow of camaraderie instead settled over them, blanketing their private little world.  Almost against his will, Curufinwë released a small, bitter smile.

"No one likes to be parted from their loved ones."

And, of course, Artafindë read him like a book.  Effortlessly. "If you ever need someone to speak with..." you may come to me.  I will stay silent.

"I see... I think you need someone to speak with more than I, cousin." And I will listen to every word.  Because those same insecurities--

The thought of her turning away...  The thought of returning home to an empty house and cold bed...

--haunted him at night in the dark when the silence became too much.  When there was no breath in his ear to quell the rising surge of need.

"Do you suppose she shall wait for you?" he asked.

"I hope so..."

For that long moment, that impossible gap was bridged.  The wall between them--their sundering through sin and feuds and violence--was completely pierced.  Curufinwë felt almost as if... as if he could reach out and touch...

And feel...

Though he shouldn't...

"Is that why the King of Nargothrond has yet to find a sweet elf-maiden to produce an heir?" he teased coolly, trying to draw away from sudden, dangerous heat. "It would be safer, would it not be?"

For everyone involved.  You.  And me.

As soon as Artafindë parted his fine, full lips, Curufinwë knew he was about to hear an excuse. "I do not care much about the line of succession.  I have a brother, and that is plenty enough."

Curufinwë knew how he felt.  Understood that there would be no other spouse.  No matter how it pained Artafindë to be so completely alone, the sole ruler of a stronghold under constant siege and danger, standing against a near undefeatable foe, shouldering such responsibility.  The kingship was more a curse than a blessing, one Curufinwë would never desire.

But there was something else... an insidious little idea at the back of his mind...

"I hope you meet her again, one day..."

As their moment drew to a close, they had a connection.  So close and so perfect that it resonated.  That it planted those little seeds in the back of Curufinwë's dangerously impulsive and unpredictable mind.  He looked again at his cousin, who was smiling oh-so-sadly and averting his ocean-deep eyes, staring into the flames.  Reflecting.

All of Artafindë was reflecting.  Like a mirror.

But as they sat in silence, the feeling drained.  The piercing, left unattended as those of the flesh, healed over and left between them that wall once more, draping them with their iron-weighted shroud and leaving them to their individual bitterness.  Only so long could he stand the chill before Curufinwë rose and bit his cousin good-eve, daydreams of his beloved wife once more overtaking his wild mind.

Leaving him cold and empty and alone again.  The feeling left a bad taste upon his tongue.  As he returned to his quarters, he tried not to think of what had transpired.  Tried not to remember that little sparks of pleasure amidst a sea of pain.

But still, the thought was planted.

And the need for that companionship, assuaged for a moment only, came back ten times as fierce.
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Originally I had planned for this to end with Curufin actually propositioning Finrod (or vice-versa, possibly), but then it just sort of went off in its own direction and I decided I wasn't going to make the scene longer in order to force the issue.  Besides, I think the story itself got the point across in several different ways.  I actually rather like this.

The dialogue is nearly exactly the same as it is in "Apart" (I think I changed one word), but "Apart" is written from oblivious Finrod's POV and ends before "Pierce".  You could kind of say that they are partner-pieces, I guess, even though "Apart" isn't actually on my blog and was written several years ago.  And yes, the locket with Lindalórë (she was an unnamed OFC at the time) was already present, as was her appearance.  I had to take it out in the final on dA so it could be filed in the family archives as technically "canonical", but the unedited version is on fanfiction.net under my username EbonyKittyCat552.  I wince whenever I read stuff I wrote two years ago, but it could have been much worse LOL.

I chose Soundscape to Ardor/Morning Remembrance (Rayden's remix combines both songs together) mostly because I've been listening to it for a while (and like the breakbeat remix better than either of the original forms of either song--they're both from Bleach, in case it wasn't obvious), but I thought it had a suitable presence about it.  This one I just don't know how to explain, but it just does.  And, though dubstep is definitely not my cup of tea, I really do like this.

That is all I have for you today.  I am going to go collapse in bed now.  College starts again next week!  I have a shit-ton of stuff to get done. *dies*