Space

Canon compliant AU.  Their love was without foundation, a fire eating away at a wooden building until naught but scorched earth remained.  And, without fuel, that fire had finally gone out.  Quenya name used for Fëanor (Fëanáro).  This is basically part of the arc dealing with "Vital", "Puzzle", "On My Mind", "Tactile", "Muse" and "Burn".  Mostly "Burn" to be honest.  They're kind of companion pieces.  Takes place at Formenos before the Darkening of Valinor.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Fëanor x Nerdanel

Characters: Fëanor, Nerdanel (mentions the Fëanorions, Finwë and Míriel)

Warning: canon compliant AU, dysfunctional relationships, sexual undertones, obsessive behaviors, depression and crying

Note about the song: I am calling it Aftermath because it doesn't really have a name.  It's done by a no-name composer for a BBC special, and its the background music for a video clip.  So there's dialogue.  But I love the music.  So just listen.

Song: Aftermath

Words: 1,253
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space (noun): a limited extent in one, two, or three dimensions; the distance from other people or things that a person needs in order to remain comfortable; a boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/space

She thought he didn't notice the changes.  But little escaped the sight of Fëanáro.

Closely, he watched her, his wife.  Followed her with his eyes as she rose wild-haired and dark-eyed each morning, her feet near to dragging across the floor as she traversed the cushioned rug to reach her vanity.  Watched the way her eyes flickered toward the mirror whilst she brushed her dulled hair and away at the flicker of his eyes drawing near, as though the reflection were obscene or frightening.  Observed her downcast eyes as they sat alone at the breakfast table and hour later, positioned at opposite ends of a structure made for a family of nine.

No longer would he even bother to say anything.  Any words that escaped his lips would inevitably be shoved away with a dainty affirmative or denial without elaboration or consideration.  Met with coldness.

She would then escape his presence--as though breathing the same air as he was actually painfully burning her inner throat and expanding lungs--and hide away in her studio, spending day after day sculpting as though her very life depended upon the movement of her hands and the distraction of her mind.  Sometimes he would hide just beyond the doorway, peering in from around the frame or through the crack of the half-closed door, watching her in her masterful glory and crumbling descent.  Waiting for something.   Some sign of the woman he recalled in his memories, hot-tempered and vivacious.

But all she ever did was stare into space, her body running on automatic.

None of the fire within her that had once so left him enamored--that so incited his passions in those young days of bliss--seemed to be left.  Nothing at all.  Except space.

Lying between them as a chasm.  Too wide to cross and too deep to climb.

And he could not deny that it was, in part, his own fault.  Fëanáro could not blame Nerdanel for her withdrawal or her anxiety.  He could not fault her for wilting beneath his crushing personality, writhing helplessly beneath the heat of his spirit.

Could not deny that he was not the ideal spouse.  Not the man he should have been.

Now they barely interacted other than to lie side by side in the dark and breathe.

Without the vivid wildfire of sexual attraction to burn away the problems that had always lingered underneath the heated kisses and fiery touches, they seemed only to pull farther and farther apart, their bond stretching until its thread was at breaking tension.  All those whispered entreaties and softly sighed words of caution and advice that always Fëanáro had brushed aside with naught but the throaty gasp of her name and the touch of his hand upon her bare skin, they all came back as phantoms in the night, their weight pulling them in opposite directions with cruel force.

Whispering.  And yet for all that they told him he was foolish, Fëanáro dared not admit folly.  Dared not reach out and grasp her hand.

Perhaps it was pride.  Or perhaps he was not certain who she even was.

His wife and lover.  The mother of his children.

An artist.  Wise beyond her years.  Filled with passion.  But nonetheless someone he barely knew at all.  The lady of his house, the mistress keeping his life, and yet...

And yet the call of his own craftsmanship pulled and tugged and twisted.  The treachery of his half-brothers ripped through any thoughts of settling peacefully in the country, darkening his mind with hate and envy.  The obsessive need to be near to his father--the man who had raised him; the only person who undeniably and unconditionally cared for him--and to touch the light that was all he remembered of his mother.

To create and immortalize those sweet memories... his sweet muse fulfilled...

Everything seemed determined to pull him away from her.  And, without children to care for--to father and mother--Nerdanel would not reach out and risk his burn, not even in desperation.  Perhaps she did not wish to.

And there he stood for the briefest moment in time, staring at her back as she worked.  The smooth motions of her hands upon clay, applying pressure to compress the malleable substance into desired shape and form, curving gracefully with ease.  The fall of her hair, fire woven into the finest of silken threads and braided against the slender curve of her spine and the dip between her breast and hip upon her right.  The tilt of her head as she hummed in consideration, such a familiar and foreign expression accenting her jaw and the pale expanse of her throat.

She did not even notice him.

And again he was tempted.  Tempted to move forth and touch her.  Kiss her and demand her attention.  Take them to the bedchambers and--

But in the end nothing would have changed.  In the morning her eyes would still be distant and empty, unloving and uncaring.  Still so very tired and disheartened as she glanced discretely into the mirror, capturing his image into her mind and looking away, as though she could hardly bear the sight.

Even as he watched, she paused.  Her fingertips rested momentarily against the creation, hands trembling ever so faintly.

Until they pressed against the shape that he could not make out, crushing it into pulp.  Into a deformed ball of crushed muse and dream.  The strange woman that was his wife dug her fingers into the clay, her head falling forward to rest upon her hands.

And her shoulders trembled.  From the distance between them, he could hear the faint trill of her cries.

It was then that he should have reached out.  Not in lust.  Not in pride.  But in the purest form of affection and comfort.  As one friend to another, a confident and protector and a willing shoulder.  A safe haven within which she could hide her deepest worries, her most tender vulnerabilities, and feel secure in his keeping.

In unconditional love.

But the space sat heavy and thick between them.  Fëanáro was her lover and husband.  Her lord and the father of her children.  The man with whom she reached the towering heights of pleasure and yet could not speak to or embrace tightly.  Could not hold close for no reason other than to languish in the togetherness and comfort of being wrapped in his warm being.  There was always that niggling fear and hesitation and resentment of the heat and the wildness.

Instead of drawing closer, of taking her into his arms and rocking her sorrows and terrors away to the low hum of his voice in a childhood lullaby, he backed away from her image.  Turned upon his heel and faced the opposite direction, unwilling to stand immobile and watch her weeping alone and in private but equally unable to close the distance between them, that lingering silence that never seemed to cease its screaming and thrashing.

And then he walked away.  From her.  From them.  Not daring to look back.

Giving up.  For the first time.

It ended like he always knew it would end.  Alone and in silence.  Two pieces that had never quite fit together finally cracking and falling apart.