Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion
Pairings: Finrod x Amarië, Curufin x Lindalórë, Finrod x Curufin
Characters: Finrod, Curufin (mentions Amarië and Lindalórë)
Warning: non-canon compliant AU, slash, non-canon relationships, unhealthy coping methods, politics in the background, adultery, incest, sexual undertones, kissing and touching
Song: The Heart of Everything
Words: 977
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twisted (adjective): mentally or emotionally unsound or disturbed; sick
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twisted
What they had could not really be called friendship. Not anymore.
Artafindë felt a shudder run through his body. Felt his heart quivering beneath his ribs.
It should have felt horrible, slimy and dirty and filthy, full of sin and disloyalty. It should have made his skin crawl with disgust and his throat clench in horror. It should have made his mind revolt in shock against the unwanted needs and desires of his flesh and blood.
But it did not. This liaison instead left him warm.
Where once there had been mere looks, distantly shared for a single moment of time, a connection that left him breathless but hungering for something more in the back of his mind, now there were hours. Hours and hours of touching and feeling and giving and taking. Of feeling slick skin against his own, sliding and hot and flexing. Of feeling so closely connected to another being that it was astonishing, so closely that Artafindë had never even imagined it was possible. Of long, languid kisses and gentle, teasing caresses. Of lying in the pitch dark, whispering secrets into the night.
If anything, it felt beautiful and safe.
It was as though the friendship that once they had shared, practically from the cradle, had suddenly evolved. Evolved and adapted into something glorious.
So that those silver eyes lightened whenever he was nearby, their shadows chased away beneath golden rays. So that, on those days when his beloved cousin's face was long-drawn and his shoulders stooped with the weight of loneliness and wistfulness, he could reach out and brush away the burden.
So that he could see Curufinwë smile again. And laugh again. And cry again. Like the person he had, mere weeks ago, thought to be extinct, bones buried deep within the layers of a ravaged, ash-filled mind cluttered only with bloodlust and hatred.
Part of him loved this man, his cousin and brother in all but blood.
He loved the camaraderie. He loved sitting in a dark room with only the fireplace's flickering, dying light to guide him, so private and safe tucked against his cousin's side. There, they would sit and talk for hours, nestled against one another on the floor before the dancing flames, speaking endlessly of weaknesses and secrets and burdens better left hidden deep inside.
He loved that he could speak of Amarië and he was understood. That, when he came to his cousin in tears, the missing piece in his soul aching so sharply it became pain, he would be cradled safely in an embrace beneath watchful, gentle eyes. And he loved that, when Curufinwë felt the longing become too great to bear, he could but open his arms and receive his lover against his chest, cradling and stroking and crooning through the tears and the rants until there was peaceful silence resting between their bodies. Until his kisses, teasing and tender, were returned with sultry abandon.
He loved feeling needed and wanted.
But he did not love Curufinwë. Not as one spouse to another.
Between them, they shared bodies and minds and hearts, but never souls. And some part of Artafindë knew that it was, perhaps, unhealthy, this fixation.
It was not right, this closeness and security. It was not right to feel this need so acutely. To hurt when he went too long without his lover's touch.
There were long days when his fingers itched to touch bare, pale flesh and his muscles groaned at the momentary thought of being massaged. Long days when he stared at the wall and felt the want growing and growing until he knew, like a drunk to wine or an addict to leaf, he needed to seek out his cousin, lie in his bed, make love and speak of all his doubts and worries with the shroud of darkness pulled over their head, keeping them away from reality.
An addiction and obsession, this connection. It was twisted, a mockery of a bonding with a true spouse. He might as well have been spitting on his love for Amarië, betraying her as he was with his own kin. With his own enemy.
But he could not stop...
From knocking on the door and feeling his heart leap with anticipation and nervous affection when his ears perceived the familiar gait of boots echoing upon the stone floor beyond. From grinning when the door opened with a creak and that surly, irate face peered out, silver eyes fixed like stars upon his face.
From feeling that ever-present craving ease when the door swung wider, allowing entrance.
When Curufinwë whispered "Come inside" in his low, husky voice. When the dark-haired man's hand brushed across his side as he entered the small, private rooms, making himself at home within the dimly-lit sanctuary.
When the connection between them, a tangled maze of friendship and intimacy and hate, snapped into place, sending a cool wash of relief through the fire of his blood.
The door clicked shut and silenced all the world. Here, there existed none but they, the oldest and closest and dearest of friends and lovers. Again, that safe feeling, building into giddiness in the back of his throat, enveloped his being entirely. Quelled the anxiety and the upset and the dark thoughts of right and wrong...
"I missed you," he whispered, hugging close the other form until they mingled, skin-to-skin. Ignoring the maleness. And the darkness. And the marriage band on the left hand.
A kiss was pressed beneath his chin, and carefully he was guided before the fire.
They sat together, legs tangled and breaths mingled. Hands stroking bodies until everything disappeared and there was only the pleasure and the possession and the warm tang of welcome. The glorious, rotting lie covering the ugly truth.
Artafindë did not wish to stop.
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Ah, finished. I've been majorly distracted today by stories. Classes start tomorrow, but I need to keep my mind off everything or I'll freak out like a dork LOL. Anyway, I've had this in mind for this prompt for several days and have been anxiously waiting to write it. It ended up more monologue than I had intended, but not all of it is introspection, ne~
In any case, I've a weakness for slash pairings, and ones like this especially (as in, slightly realistic ones involving incest and not the typical Maedhros x Fingon stuff you see everywhere... because really, he's going to fall in love with his baby half-cousin whose diapers he probably helped change? Really?). I can't help myself. I hope it doesn't bug too much. I actually kind of like the complexity. And poor Finrod, everyone thought he was so virtuous.
The Heart of Everything by Within Temptation doesn't really have anything to do with the story itself, but I thought the sound of the overall piece (as in the music, not necessarily the lyrics, though I love them as well) fit with the theme. I mean, there are half a dozen other songs that I've been listening to today, but most of them just don't fit with the framework of the story, if you know what I mean. But WT is one of my old favorites. <3
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