Nightmare

Mellow Soulmate AU.  What do you do when you don't want to admit the ugly truth, even to yourself?  Quenya name used for Celebrimbor (Telperinquar).  This is a continuation of "Heat", and thus is related to the Lust arc (including "Lust", "Disaster", "Lies" etc...).  As such, it takes place during the events of The Lord of the Rings at the very end of the Third Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Sauron x Celebrimbor

Characters: Celebrimor, Sauron (mentions orcs I think... of maybe not?)

Warning: non-canon compliant, embodied Sauron, dub-con semi-explicit sexual content, dub-con marriage implied, rape, torture and mutilation heavily implied, insanity (clearly)

Song: The World

Words: 1,163
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nightmare (noun): an evil spirit formerly thought to oppress people during sleep; a frightening dream that usually awakens the sleeper; something (as an experience, situation, or object) having the monstrous character of a nightmare or producing a feeling of anxiety or terror
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nightmare

Some days, it was difficult to tell which world was the real one and which one was the nightmare.

The endless days of staring off into the distance with nothing to do left him aimless and empty.  The sky was always a thunderous gray, layered in a choking coating of ash as lightning rained down in white-hot branches from the heavens to scorch the already-blackened and cracked earth.  There was no green here, only rivers vaguely muddy and poisoned cutting across barren rock, flowing down from the towering wall of mountains fencing in this hellish realm.

Off in the distance, there was the rising peak of the solitary volcano, constantly rumbling and spewing its filth into the sky, noxious and angry like a vent for all the earth's malice and hatred.  With hazy eyes, Telperinquar watched its ebb and flow of liquid earth and fire, trying not to see...

Not to see those eyes in the depths.  They burned so hot, branding his flesh again and again.  Filled with such heartbreaking cruelty.  Such harrowing, sadistic glee...

There, on his balcony, he would sit and watch the unchanging earth rocking.  Waiting patiently until the end of the day--until the sun in the west dulled and all the world fell to black as pitch around him, drawing a curtain over his senses so that he could see not even his own slender digits right before his eyes.

He did not mind, though.  Not truly.  Better the blackness...

Than being able to see the truth.

And then he would retreat into his chambers.  Would lie upon the silken sheets of his vast ocean of a bed and languish in the nude, relishing the softness running in heavy streams over the curves and smooth angles of his bare legs.  Would wait patiently until he heard the door opening, the hinges creaking ever so slightly...

Like the doors of a cell swinging wide to the patter of booted feet upon ice cold, unforgiving stones.  What came next was--

The fluttering of sultry eyes and the broad smile behind bloodless lips hiding deceptive fangs.  Sickly pale flesh would near-glow against the dark background, the form gliding as a ghost silently across the room to settle upon the mattress beside him.  To drape itself over his body.  To embrace him close and wrap tense muscles about him as a mouth descended...

To bring him to bliss.

--was the screaming and the writhing and the blood splattered everywhere.  A hand closing around his throat, cutting of the sweet tang of oxygen even as soft words of passion brushed against his skin in contradiction--

In the aftermath, he would be content.  Would curl into that body and feel nothing but the heat and the tenderness and the languid jelly of his lax muscles trembling in his outstretched limbs.  Beside him, that presence would linger, stroking clawed fingers through his messy hair and trailing them over the twitching, shivering layers of his bare skin.

Telperinquar would fall slowly into sleep and dream...

And there was nothing but pain.  Pain as never he had experienced before.  Looking up into those eyes, he saw not love and devotion within their tumbling waves of flame.  Saw instead the ugly reality hidden behind the gold-plated veneer.  Saw that rotted, wicked spirit sneering down at him in disdain...

"Tell me," that voice always demanded.

Always, he remained silent.

And always there came more and more pain.  More and more blood.  More and more broken, opened and torn wounds scattered across his body until no inch seemed untouched.  Until his feet gave out with the agony and his wrists screamed from the strain and his fingers clawed at their bonds, trying so desperately to escape this nightmare...

And he would wake up.  The process would begin again as he arose from bed and went to bathe.  Spent his day pretending that all was right in the world.  That the blackened plains were something beautiful instead of stripped and gory.  That the mountains were walls to protect, rather than to detain.  That the phantom who visited him at night was gentle as a crooning lullaby, something closer to his soul than a mere passing bedmate.  That the other really cared...

That the iridescent glow of fire-opals set in gray-cracked alabaster softened upon his form in adoration...

When he knew very well that they narrowed in calculation and glowed with hunger so predatory it left him shuddering in the wake.  Left his blood racing wildly with a shot of pure adrenaline at the sudden movement of scalding eyes.  Left him watching as the one he loved--and despised--more than anything drew closer and closer and closer...

Knowing he would be betrayed... That everything was a lie...

Such a beautiful lie...

The lovely, rose-tinted nightmare he did not wish to awaken from.  All around him, it settled so deceptively peacefully. Allowing him to look away from his disgusting reflection.

For what did the mirrored inversion offer him but suffering and lamentation?  At least there was pleasure to be had in this delusion of love.  At least there was sustenance upon which his spirit could thrive in such inhospitable conditions.  Against all the odds.

The lover of the Dark Lord.  The prisoner locked in the topmost spires of his hideous dark tower piercing open the smoggy, toxic sky.  The captive kept only for the sexual satisfaction of a sadistic rapist...

"If only you had given me what I had desired..." Soft kisses.  And the feeling of runes being carved as lines of acid into his back. "If only you would give in, I would not need to harm you..."

"You see, my love, you belong to me..."

But he pushed aside those dangerous, unbalancing thoughts.  Did not allow them to linger and burn their twisting and knotted images into the back of his mind.  Did not allow them to mar his idealistic perception of his glorious lover with the soft, luxurious pale hair.  As he looked out across the blackened plains, shielded from the blinded stars, Telperinquar thought of nothing.  Nothing at all except the next moment.  Nothing at all except those fiery eyes.  Nothing at all except the illusion.

Nothing at all.  And certainly not of a trifling golden ring that rested about his trembling finger.

Still white-hot.  When the metal cooled and his shaking hand dared pull it back from tender and violently stinging skin, a charred shadow of its width was left in its wake, branded into a permanent band that no amount of scrubbing or clawing could hope to remove.  A vile brand.

This was all a dream.  And he was not certain he ever wished to awaken.

Not to the other harsh reality.
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Too tired, sick and drugged up to add much more to this.  Forgive me if the logical train of thought dwindles as the story writes itself.  It makes perfect sense to me, but meh~  Whatever interpretation works for you is good for me :3.

I just love this pairing.  Love making Celebrimbor suffer (I have ideas now) and love Sauron's blatant evilness.  He's not a nice guy just because he wants to get his dick up Celebrimbor's ass.  However, he's also still abrasive enough to stay in character.  Wouldn't want him shitting butterflies and raindows or anything, now would we?

The song is The World by Nightmare.  The opening theme of Death Note.  You can guess pretty easily what I've been watching all day from that, I should think.  Anyway, I read the English translation of these lyrics and it just made me squeal and do a small happy-dance.  I personally think the pair of them fit together rather well, but it is, of course, just my opinion.  No need to listen to the crazy half-asleep chick.