Work Text:
When Túrin looked upon Beleg in the moonlight, it was like no time at all had passed between them. His friend, vast expanse of skin glowing as if from within and the tips of his hair brushing the water at his waist – it’s like they’re younger again, bathing after a long fight, tallying up the Orcs that fell to their blades.
Thankfully, Beleg’s back was turned to him, as Túrin felt tears burn in his eyes again, as they did when he first saw his friend strung up by his men’s camp like meat. How far he must have fallen in the eyes of Beleg Cúthalion.
“Will you not join me?” The voice cut through his thoughts like an arrow through air thick with rain. Beleg still had his back turned, hair slung over one shoulder and bending forwards now, to dip the tips into the still waters of the riverbend. The stars danced across the ripples echoing out from his body.
“If I join you, the water will stain and I will dirty you,” Túrin said into the darkness between them, and knew it to be true – the years had caked dust and mud to his skin, his hair.
“Even more reason for you to come in,” Beleg said, straightening up. He lifted the thick curtain of his hair over his shoulder, onto his back again, and turned around, finding Túrin’s eyes with a surety gained from years hunting and fighting in the woods together. He extended a hand, beckoning slowly, lazily, and Túrin had thought he learned to abstain from luxury in his time away from Doriath but evidently, he was still weak to his old companion, for he followed the invitation almost blindly, unthinkingly.
Clothes abandoned by the riverbank, he waded into the waters until he was chest to chest with Beleg. His eyes fell to clear eyes, a long nose, loose hair curling around his collarbones. Beleg didn’t say anything more, just wet his hands in the water. He brought them up slowly, carefully. Túrin saw the action as if in slow motion, an approaching wolf, the tip of a sword aiming straight for his sword, and before he knew it, he’d slapped one of the hands down with his own, teeth bared in a snarl, body curling in on himself. Shame flooded him, first at his own sorry state, the things he had done with these men that tortured his oldest friend – then, at his actions in the moonlight. What had he become, first a plundering animal, now some trembling, frightful thing, backed into a corner by a kind hand?
Beleg was simply looking at him as Túrin took a deep breath, lowered his hands, and tipped his head towards him. He closed his eyes. Time stretched indefinitely, until there was the sound of disturbed water and then, gentle fingertips against his temples as Beleg started massaging water into the matted roots of his hair.
“Will you not reconsider? Will you not come back, friend?”
Túrin opened his eyes slowly, looking blankly at the water in between their bodies. He saw, as if it didn’t belong to him, one hand drifting slowly towards Beleg’s hip only to flinch away when the first fingertip connected with skin. Instead, he took a deep breath and lifted his hand out of the water to trace his knuckles lightly over Beleg’s ribs, in stark relief and mottled dark in places.
“Do not fret. You know my constitution – I will be good as new soon,” Beleg said, then let out what Túrin knew to be the huff that always tugged the corners of his mouth up. “I am not as easily bruised as the egos of Men.”
Túrin stiffened, then swayed forwards into Beleg, bowed head almost bumping his chest, as he felt some unknown tension lift off his shoulders. “Have mercy, my friend,” he mumbled, eyes slipping shut again. Beleg hummed, and steadily worked his hands deeper into Túrin’s hair. Neither of them spoke again, and Túrin never knew whether Beleg looked down to see the tears dripping into the river between them.