Chapter Text
It all started with that pain in the ass Maedhros.
In all his long existence, Mairon had never met anyone so utterly insufferable. Sure, the eldest son of Fëanor probably didn't enjoy being chained to the wall of a dark, filthy dungeon in Angband, and he likely enjoyed the regular torture sessions the Maia subjected him to even less.
But really, he wasn't the first stubborn prisoner Mairon had encountered, and he always broke them in the end. The lack of food, water, and light drove them mad; the screams and tears of the other captives, the squeaking of the rats, grated on their nerves; and to top it all off, a few expertly distilled bursts of physical pain finished the job, making them spit out every single piece of information they possessed.
But not Maedhros. His cheeks had grown hollow, his complexion was waxy, and deep purple circles shadowed his eyes; yet a flame of pure hatred kept burning in them whenever Mairon came to visit, and he would not yield. How many Noldor followed your father? No answer. Who commands your army now? Still nothing. When Maedhros got a bit too cocky, he would pull back his lips to bare his teeth at him, and once, he had even tried to spit in his face. That day, Mairon had nearly drowned him as punishment; but the Elf still hadn’t said a word.
“You’ll find a way,” Melkor had said when Mairon complained to his master.
When Melkor said that, it wasn’t encouragement. It wasn’t a Come on, Mairon, you’ll find a way, I believe in you! type of thing. Nor was it an open-ended question like, Do you think you can find a way, Mairon? Do you want some help? No, no. It was an explicit threat: You better find a fucking way, and fast.
Mairon had tried a variety of more or less painful things before attempting a mental intrusion. He had placed his hand on the Elf’s forehead—who naturally tried to bite him—and attempted to force his way into his mind. But there again, Maedhros was hard-headed, and Mairon only caught snippets: the serenity of the Light of the Trees, the pleasure of listening to another Noldo sing while playing the lyre, the chill of the sea spray on a blood-drenched ship deck carrying him toward Middle-earth.
Sensations and images. Nothing very useful. He was about to call it a day when one last flash caught his attention: the face of a dark-haired Elf with soft features and bright blue eyes. And the emotion Maedhros associated with it... Oh. Oh-ho!
Mairon broke the connection, leaving Maedhros dangling half-unconscious in his chains. Yes! Finally, a weakness! He wasn’t sure who the Elf in the vision was, but he was pretty damn sure it was a brother or a cousin. Probably a cousin, unless Maedhros was way more into incest than he thought.
What to do with this? Try to capture him? It would take months to identify the face and launch a search. No, he needed to act fast; and for the first time, he considered using his shapeshifting abilities as a weapon. As a Maia, he could alter his fana at will: surely he could slip into the skin of this Elf Maedhros cared so much about and use it to pry out his secrets.
But he would have to be careful. The disguise would have massive flaws: he wouldn’t be able to speak, at the risk of using the wrong voice or saying the wrong thing if Maedhros tested him. How, then, could he get the Elf to spill the information he was guarding so fiercely?
“I have a plan, Master,” Mairon announced when he found Melkor a little later. “But I will need your assistance to execute it.”
The Vala sighed heavily. Nothing had really interested him since he had come back with those damn jewels. He spent most of his time sitting on his throne, staring at the Silmarils he had set into a shoddy crown (Mairon could have made one a hundred times better), putting it back on his head, and then staring at them all over again.
“It involves torturing me,” Mairon specified.
The Vala’s eyes lit up. “Very well. You should have said so from the start.”
Mairon did not take it personally. Melkor had always loved violence, blood, and hurting others, no matter who it was. Mairon had been on the receiving end a few times whenever he had been a disappointment, but this was the first time he was actually giving his consent for Melkor to rough him up.
The illusion had to be perfect. Mairon adjusted his facial features, the length and color of his hair, his skin, his eyes, to craft as perfect a replica as possible of the image stolen from Maedhros’s brain; he scavenged a few clothes that were still in decent shape—just dirty and torn enough—from other imprisoned Elves. Then, it was showtime.
Melkor grabbed his arm in an iron grip and dragged him down the stairs to the dungeons. The door to Maedhros’s cell flew open with a sharp crack before he even touched it, and he stormed in, dragging Elven-Mairon behind him. A single torch burned on the wall, along with the glow of the Silmarils on the crown; the dim lighting would make up for any missed details.
“Do you recognize him?” the Vala roared, shaking Mairon.
Then, Maedhros’s perpetually morose face changed. His eyes widened, his lips parted, and he made a spontaneous movement forward, forgetting for a split second the chains holding him firmly in place. Pure panic painted itself across his gaunt features, and he did not answer.
“Now, the choice is very simple,” Melkor continued. “Either you tell me everything you know about your people's forces and locations, or you watch me hurt him.”
He illustrated the latter option by throwing Mairon to the ground, and the Maia looked up with a pleading expression. Maedhros appeared to him just as transformed as he himself was, with a look of confusion and horror on his usually guarded face. Hatred no longer gleamed in his eyes, and he did not look away from Elven-Mairon as he answered in a voice that had lost all its aggression:
“No, I beg of you! Torture me instead if that is what you want!”
Melkor fisted his hand in Mairon’s black hair, wrenching him to his knees before driving a knee straight into his stomach. The Maia barely held back a groan that was only half-faked and curled in on himself; for a being at the pinnacle of Eru’s creation, Melkor sometimes really acted like a low-class barbarian. And the Vala continued cheerfully, raining down kicks on Mairon’s prostrated form, whose borrowed ribs cracked one after the other.
“Stop!” Maedhros cried out.
Melkor froze mid-motion and directed toward him two icy eyes and three sparkling Silmarils:
“Do you have something to tell me?”
The Elf hesitated. Truly hesitated, for a whole second, his cracked lips moving soundlessly, his eyes darting nervously back and forth between Melkor and Mairon. Then a shadow fell over his face, and he lowered his head:
“No...”
“Suit yourself,” Melkor commented.
It had been a very long time since he had tortured a Maia, and he was having the time of his life. Elves bored him: too fragile, they could not take much before slipping away to Mandos. But breaking an Ainu, now that was something else! If he wanted to, Mairon could have stood right back up, healed his ribs with a few notes of power, and readied himself for a second session. Instead, he stayed in character as the tormented Elf, and he did not need to fake the pain while Melkor crushed his bones without the slightest attempt at a method. Mairon, on the other hand, had a whole protocol for this sort of thing.
“Please,” Maedhros sobbed after another volley of blows. “Leave him be...”
Come on, speak, Mairon encouraged him mentally. He, too, was beginning to tire. He could see black spots dancing before his eyes and his cheek was wallowing in the blood he had spat out. But Maedhros—aside from crying, which was already decent progress in itself—still did not seem inclined to share his information. Cursed Elf, putting his people before his lover! Stupid honor!
Finally, after a few more rounds of blows, and while Mairon lay on the grimy floor, Melkor placed his boot on his neck.
“Still no motivation?”
Poor Maedhros seemed to be suffering just as much as Mairon. Being in the same room as the Silmarils while watching his lover-cousin get tortured was clearly not doing him any favors; he looked on the verge of fainting. Yet, he held his ground and shook his head, still refusing to speak. Mairon found him courageous, and very stupid.
Melkor did not kill him, of course. He settled for another kick straight to the face, which shattered his cheekbone. All the better; the blood on his features would disguise any potential imperfections. The Maia rolled over in the most pathetic manner possible, coming to rest against Maedhros’s filthy, bare feet.
“I will return tomorrow,” Melkor announced.
Mairon was relieved; finally, he was going to be able to leave, heal himself, and wash up after this flawless performance!... Except Melkor snapped his fingers, and the chains holding Maedhros slithered away like serpents, restoring the son of Fëanor’s freedom of movement. The Elf could barely support his own weight; he dropped to his knees, and immediately his horrible Elven hands were all over Mairon. The Maia glared at Melkor, who responded only with a lopsided smirk before striding out and slamming the door. The lock echoed, the sound of his footsteps faded, and Mairon found himself trapped in the cell with Maedhros.
Say nothing, do not move, fake a state of shock. That was all he could do in the hope of maintaining the mask until tomorrow. So he remained lying on the floor, eyes wide, wondering why his master had left him there. A complex plan whose intricacies escaped him? Or, more likely, a bad joke. Melkor’s sense of humor had deteriorated significantly since his return from Aman.
“I am so sorry,” Maedhros whispered. “I am so sorry, I could not say anything, I could not...”
His tears fell in heavy drops onto the fake Elf’s cheek, diluting the blood. Mairon was considering faking unconsciousness to make the imposture easier when Maedhros pulled him against his body, wrapping his arms around him to lift him halfway and press him against his chest.
The Maia thought at first that he was going to vomit. It took all the strength of his will to remain motionless while the Elf held him close, tilting his face to rest his forehead against Mairon’s, his long, tangled strands of dull red hair tickling his cheek and neck. Despite his privations, his embrace was solid, the dirty skin of his bare arms and hands a damp warmth against Mairon’s borrowed fana.
“I am here,” he whispered in a voice that sounded nothing like the one the Maia knew. “I am here, Finno...”
Ah, so it was Fingon’s appearance that Mairon had borrowed! The eldest son of Fingolfin, Maedhros’s cousin. With all these dark-haired Noldor, he had not been sure which one it was, but this was a most useful piece of information for blackmailing Maedhros or launching a manhunt—and who knew? Perhaps the real Fingon would eventually join his cousin in this cell...
Maedhros wouldn't let go of him, and worse, he was now rocking him with a slight swaying motion, as if to soothe him—which did absolutely nothing to help the Maia’s nausea. To be fair, no one had ever rocked Gorthaur the Cruel. He had gone directly from being a disembodied spirit to taking a young adult fana, just like all the other Ainur; it was hard to learn how to smith in the guise of a toddler. And, to be completely honest, he couldn't remember the last time anyone had held him for so long and with so much tenderness. Perhaps in Almaren, ages ago.
These sensations were foreign to him, unsettling, but there was nothing he could do to stop them, so he finally resigned himself to it. He let his head drop against Maedhros’s shoulder to prevent the Elf from pressing his face against his own again, and just let himself be held.
“We’re getting out of here, you and I,” Maedhros whispered to him. “I’ll find a way. And once we’re free, we’ll make them pay... We’ll tear this fortress down, we’ll kill Morgoth and his vermin of a lieutenant, we’ll reclaim the Silmarils...”
Mairon took advantage of the fact that Maedhros couldn’t see his face to roll his eyes. Maedhros, who was usually so tight-lipped, just wouldn’t shut up now:
“And we’ll never be apart again. You and I, we’ll stay together. We’ll rule together. When this war is over, when my father’s oath is fulfilled... no one will ever hurt us again.”
His raspy voice remained melodious, and Mairon suddenly felt drowsy. Was it the darkness of the dungeon, the Elf’s warm skin, his steady movements, or his whispers blending with the crackling of the torch? Not to mention the aftermath of the beating Melkor had given him. He almost wanted to smile, thinking that the Vala probably thought he had played a cruel trick on him, but that against all odds, the situation was turning out to be rather bearable. After all, wasn’t he being cuddled instead of managing all the logistics of Angband? He gave Melkor three hours before he realized just how indispensable he was and came rushing back to retrieve him.
But in the meantime...
“We’re going to make it, Finno,” Maedhros repeated in a low voice. “I promise you.”
His fingers caressed Mairon’s black hair, softly, slipping through the strands to gently untangle them. The Maia closed his eyes.
“I love you,” the Elf finally declared. “I love you more than anything.”
He tightened his embrace, and Mairon, strangely enough, had grown too accustomed to it to find it disgusting. Besides, he was disgusting too, with long streaks of dried blood across his face, rags fit for burning, and the dungeon grime clinging to his hair and skin. But Maedhros didn’t seem to care at all as he pressed his lips to his forehead; and the Maia, comfortably settled against his captive enemy, almost purring from having his hair stroked and sharing this comforting closeness, thought that love seemed like a very gentle thing.