Work Text:
You have not given
one
single
thought
to his face.
(You have only seen it painted under your eyelids, all permanence and all you, and that is not the same as thinking.)
(It's not.)
"Let me," Curufin says, and from the basin of boiled lake water, long cooled, he draws a drenched rag towards Celegorm's cheek.
Celegorm flinches, like the touch will burn him.
"No."
He does not sound like Celegorm.
He is shaking, which makes him like Maedhros, and Curufin does not want that. Curufin shuts his eyes, and opens them.
Until now, Celegorm has never looked like anyone other than himself.
"Let me." And his voice is harder now, hard in the way that makes Maglor grimace. Hard in a way that rings like a hammer on metal (do you think the hammer aches?)
Celegorm sets his jaw. Curufin washes his brother's face.
Mud--river mud. Why did Celegorm go to a river?
Twins are bad. Hansel and Gretel--who Mamaí says are twins--are good and smart, since they burned the witch in her own oven. But the twins Curufin knows are not like that at all. Since they have learned to walk, they have gotten into everything. They tried to eat Curufin's acorn collection. They stole his place on Athair's hip. Maglor said Curufin was too heavy to hold, and Maedhros did not reach for him much anymore since Curufin bit his ear.
Curufin sits under the shadows of a crabapple, scowling. He is all alone today; Maglor and Maedhros are visiting Grandfather Finwe, and Athair and Mamaí are napping together in their room. Celegorm is supposed to be minding his brothers, Curufin and the twins, but he and Caranthir have snuck away to chase frogs in the creek. The twins do not count, as...companions. That is the word Mamaí uses for what brothers should be.
A little ways away from Curufin's tree, the twins are in their fenced-in pen. They waddle, still in diapers, for all that they are two.
Curufin remembers being two, and he was in dresses then. The twins ought to be, but they soil all their clothes at once with food and dirt and things much worse than that.
Curufin wrinkles his nose.
Amras bumps into Amrod, and Amrod falls. They both squwak.
Curufin unfolds himself, coming close.
They look very pink and helpless, like the mice children Celegorm rescued from the barn last night, before Athair could take a hoe to them. They also look like Baby Moses, in Mamaí's picture Bible.
The mud is gone from Celegorm's face. His hair is in scarecrow tatters, but Curufin only pushes it back with both hands. "Why did you do it?" he asks, and lets his voice go quiet again, nothing more but a drop of water in a pool he cannot see. "Why did you think you could save--"
"Don't," Celegorm whispers, and his face screws up like the flesh rebels against the bones that give it shape. "Curufin, don't ask. Don't ask. God almighty, don't ask."
But if God is almighty...
Curufin knows Celegorm. Knows him well enough to know that this--hands on the side of his face, forehead to forehead, steady, steady, "Breathe," Curufin says. It is advice he has not taken himself. Advice he will not--
You are alone down here and you are going to be alone down here forever.
But at least this half, this heart, belonged to you anyway.
"I couldn't, I couldn't," Celegorm stutters, his breath hot on Curufin's face, and Curufin stays like that. Doesn't let him go.
Don’t go. Can’t be—can’t be here without—
Quiet. It is all very quiet. They are in Curufin's room, but they might as well be in the mine. Curufin eases back, their foreheads no longer touching.
"Couldn't?" he asks (a question).
"They were gone," Celegorm says. "They were gone." His voice is not even like a voice, and Curufin knows what that is like.
"We'll kill them," he promises gently. "We'll kill all of them."
"So then," Curufin whispers, mouth almost pressed against his clasped hands, "I found the apple baskets, and I put blankets in them"--this detail seems important--"and I opened the fence."
Father Llewellyn clears his throat. "The fence?"
"Yes. The twins' fence."
"Ah. Go on."
"I got them to follow me to the creek..." Curufin takes a deep breath, remembering. They had taken a long time to follow him, with those chubby legs. And that wasn't fair, for they had been walking for many months and could run swiftly when they wanted to. Curufin has seen them chased enough times to know. He chirped to them like Mother did to her chickens.
"Oofin," said Amras.
That was how they said his name.
"Anyway," Curufin says, before Father Llewellyn becomes impatient as Mother and Maglor sometimes do, "I put them in the baskets. But they didn't float."
Father Llewellyn does not gasp, which is rather disappointing, though Curufin supposes he must know that the twins are still here.
"You can stay here as long as you like," Curufin offers. Before, Celegorm wanted to stay with Maedhros and Maglor, in their narrow room, but he was rejected as a suitable sleepmate. Such is their way.
"I can't stay anywhere," Celegorm chokes, and he stumbles as he stands, and Curufin helps him down, down to the floor, so that they sit cross-legged and facing each other, and Curufin has so much to ask but he won't ask it.
The face inside your eyes when you shut them--it's Athair's face. But you're not thinking it.
"We must be strong," Curufin urges. He has been here for the last lonely days with the beautiful darkness of the mine around him, with things twinkling, gems and not-gems. Above him, Maglor paced and wrung his hands. Above him, Maglor believed he was--but Maglor is weak, like the crown of a young tree.
Celegorm has never needed to be anyone else but Celegorm.
"I failed him," Celegorm says. "And he--"
"And he could not save Amrod, could he?" Curufin demands sharply, and Amrod's name slits his tongue in twin halves, doesn't it? Doesn't it?
"Gone." Celegorm shuts his eyes, and tears spill out over his clean-scrubbed cheeks. "I..."
They mewed like kittens as the baskets sank and their diapers were soaked, and Curufin was very--worried, suddenly, like a mother hen might be. He tried to chirp again, but they could not get out of the baskets. The water was as deep as Curufin's knees.
It was also very cold.
"I got them out," Curufin says. "And they don't remember it, now."
"It's easy to be jealous of younger brothers," Father Llewellyn observes.
Curufin finds he does not like the word. When the priest asks, are these all your sins, he thinks of locking the door against Cousin Argon's wails, and says--
"Yes."
Huan is outside the door, whining. Celegorm does not whistle, does not move to let him in. What does this mean? Curufin finds himself fascinated again by the mud, now tangled in his brother's hair--river mud, river mud.
"How far did you ride?"
Celegorm's eyes flare, blue-grey-haunted-not-like-Ath--
"Curufin."
"Aye. No questions."
Celegorm's face is swollen, and red. Burned and roughened. Still capable of being beautiful, because that is their family. That is...
...his work.
Curufin leans his elbows on his knees, props his chin in his hands. Does not think of what dead means, for Maedhros or--Amrod, or anyone.
Curufin says, "We have no friends here. You know that, don't you?"
Celegorm, with something grinding in his jaw, nods.
"We have each other." Curufin could mean all of us, but he doesn't.
He never has.
"We have each other," Celegorm echoes dully, looking younger than nineteen. Young enough to follow where he is led. Curufin's chest aches. Love and bullets will do that to the ribs of anyone.
"Promise me." It is his turn to whisper. "Whatever happens, promise me you will not forget that."