Veneer

Defiant AU or whatever.  Can you imagine how difficult it would be to make Sauron actually like you?  And yet, somehow, Angrod has managed the impossible.  Quenya names used (Sauron = Mairon, Morgoth = Melkor, Angrod = Angaráto).  This is, of course, part of the Defiant arc.  It comes after "Flowers", around the same time as "Fight" I should think.  This arc is creeping along, but it's still moving.  And it's fun to write in any case.  Takes place in Angband in the late First Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: one-sided Sauron x Angrod, implied Morgoth x Angrod

Characters: Sauron, Angrod, Morgoth (mentions Eru, the Balrogs and orcs in general)

Warning: non-canon compliant, non-canon character survival, implied rape, obsessive creepiness, heavy sexual undertones and implications, hints at torture and other unpleasant things

Song: Had Enough

Words: 1,187
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veneer (noun): a thin sheet of a material; a protective or ornamental facing (as of brick or stone); a superficial or deceptively attractive appearance, display, or effect: facade, gloss
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/veneer

It was positively glorious.  

Mairon would almost go so far as to say he had never been so attracted to any living creature before in all his long years of existence.  As he watched carefully the interaction of the eager and seductive elven slave and his disgusting, disfigured "master", he felt his lower body bubbling with wicked heat.  Felt it licking its way up his spine and down to his toes.  Knew his eyes must be narrowed in calculative interest and desire.

For Angaráto Arafinwion was glorious.

It was not merely the physical beauty, though he would admit that the son of Vanyarin blood was indeed a fine specimen of elven grace and refinement, his anatomy so perfectly aligned and his muscles so wonderfully engraved into the pale alabaster of his flesh.  But Mairon was of the Ainur, and he knew physical perfection backward and forward, inverted and twisted around, scar-less and flawless by nature but nevertheless so disenchanting.  Did not find it any more attractive than the ugly, twisted visages of the orcs or the monstrous sneers of the inhuman Balrogs.

It wasn't the defiance either, though he had at first greatly admired the spirit of the downtrodden, chained prince brought low to kneel in the filth and lick the toes of his greatest enemy in supplication.  Not oft came the day that someone spat in the face of the Dark Lord and lived to tell the tale, and Mairon had been grudgingly interested, even respectful.

Even less oft was it that a slave who entered the Dark Lord's bedchambers departed and survived the night of wracking agony sure to follow.  In fact, it was a feat Mairon had never witnessed.  Until now.

By some miracle, untold and unholy, Angaráto had lived.  Had thrived.  His flush was healthy and rosy, growing fuller by the day with purpose.  His eyes were brightly lit with inner flame, red-hot iron and devious cunning.  His body was torn open.  Cut, bruised and abused nearly to breaking.  And yet there was always a smile for the master whose cruel hand inflicted only punishment upon the fragile mortal cage.

Elves were delicate glass baubles.  So difficult to craft, but so easy to shatter.

And yet this creature was reinforced.

Skin bared indecently and body ravaged with vicious bites and claw-marks.  And yet he reached out eagerly to touch and kiss and stroke as a lover.  Draped himself over the hulking, lamed form of skin-crawling black flesh with a sultry simmer to his crooked smirk.  Leaned in to tease his breath over an ear with insidious whispers upon his heady voice, raw from screaming and crying in passion.

So well did the lovely creature play the ultimate game of life, death and sacrifice.

It was a veneer of devotion that was flawless.  A work of art worthy of appreciation of the highest order.  There was the tincture of cruelty mixed to perfect equilibrium with the extreme masochism and fanatical devotion of a servant giving all his spirit and soul to his master.  All the treasures, slaves and material gifts in the world could not manipulate the Dark Lord as words from lips stained red from violent kisses and spilled blood, lips that once had spat upon his face in revulsion.

Beneath that facade, though, Mairon knew there was hatred of the purest form lurking.  That the elf felt the same disgust slithering beneath the thin membrane of his raiment each day that did Mairon.  And yet when the Lieutenant faltered beneath a branding touch or a stabbing word of his master, wanted nothing more than to reach out and strangle or take a knife to the egotistical bastard's bared throat, the golden-haired slave just smiled and bent with the blow, seemingly unaffected in his permanent presence at the feet of his lord.  An animal eager for punishment and reward at his master's discretion.

Reeling said master in further and further with that innocuous image.  A spider dressed as a mouse, and its web lusting ambitiously after large and potentially dangerous prey.

Angaráto hated the Dark Lord beneath that smile and those lust-driven, glazed eyes.  Beneath those low and soothingly crooned words.  Beneath the soft-spoken half-truths and white lies and the coy suggestions.  Beneath the tender caresses and soft kisses and blood-drawing nails.  Hated Melkor. 

And yet still he had the Dark Lord--the most powerful being created by Eru in the days of old--eating out of the palm of his hand like a tamed lion.  All the elf need do was sit upon the Dark Lord's lap, wrapping those toned arms delicately about that monstrous body, folding legs intimately about wide hips in offering, and the Dark Lord would eagerly give anything and everything he desired.

Had Mairon actually been loyal to his "master", he would have found such a display to be disgraceful and disturbing.  But this... this show... this game... was amazing.  Worthy of his attention.  Worthy of his admiration.

Each day longer he watched the elf evolve into the perfect pet upon an iron and ebony stage, watched the same elf devolve into a cold-eyed and vengeful spirit behind the curtains, Mairon was more entranced.  Wanted more and more to reach out in pleasure and not in pain...

To have that veneer turned upon him and not his master.  To experience this recherche being to the fullest in the midst of ecstasy and agony, taste that aged wine upon his tongue no matter that it might be poisoned.

Glorious... absolutely glorious...

For elves were not meant to be so dark and stained and yet flourish as though beneath the sunlight and open sky.  They were meant to be flowers that withered in the face of toxin, leaves crumpling and browning and falling to earth as their petals curled into fetal position and wept.  They were not made for carnal satiation and torment and sin.  They were not made for this blackest form of manipulation and seduction and blasphemy.

And yet so well did Angaráto play the part.  The part of a flower burning red and black from shadow but growing only taller and hungrier, more eager for fresh meat to satiate its violent disposition.  A flower that had learned to be ruthless, heartless and carnivorous.

Perhaps too well...

Ai! the beauty of corruption... The permeating stench... The intoxicating addiction...

So well did he play the game.  By day the faithful dog and by night the backstabbing traitor.  But Mairon felt his visceral innards coil tighter.  Because, even with that thin layer, gilded and chained, to protect that tender, vulnerable flesh beneath, there was no kindness or weakness to be found under the shell.  No delicate, broken creature.  Only something reborn from the ashes of utter destruction, formed anew into a form unlike that which came before...

Angaráto could pretend all he wanted, but Mairon could smell it... was attracted with a sanity-defying pull...

To that scent of a kindred spirit.
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Yeah, not really sure where this one is going, but you know that my Sauron is a bit free with his affections.  Which makes his thing with Celebrimbor later even sadder, right?  But this isn't about them.  It's about Angrod and his awesomeness in the eyes of evil bad guys.  Anything to live another day, right?  At least someone can appreciate the effort it takes, yeah?

I actually rather like this take on Sauron's general character.  Evil, but capable of appreciation under the correct circumstances.  He seems to find points of correlation with elves quite often, which is scary if you think about it too much, ne~  I really just enjoy writing him, though.  And eager to continue Angrod's arc, since we now have an almost "ending" point from "Difficult".

The song is mostly just an impression.  I don't even actually know what the lyrics are and don't particularly care.  I just liked the way it sounded as I was writing the piece.  Of course, there are three or four songs I'm constantly listening to and most of them just didn't fit, so I found one that did. :3.  Had Enough by Breaking Benjamin just has the right texture.

And it made me happy.  You know how it goes.