Archive of Our Own

A sudden rush of panic jolts him awake, the nightmare giving way to the blinding light that swallows him as soon as his eyes shoot open. Maedhros tries to catch his breath and ground himself in the present, but everything feels too bright, too loud, too taunting.

The relentless morning light streams in from the open window. It enters the room with the wind, eagerly and undisturbed, before settling on the dark hair of the elf sitting on the end of the bed. Fingon is asleep, leaning against the bed frame, oblivious. The same hungry light dances on his skin, painting him golden.

It had not been long since Maedhros' return, and he was still trying to get used to this tranquility. It had not come gently - everything felt foreign and wrong as if he had returned to a different world altogether. The familiar faces had grown worried and pitiful; the softness of clean sheets burned his skin. Of course, if anything had profoundly changed, it was him, but he had not expected to feel this unmoored. 

He couldn't shake the feeling of being out of place, like a piece of a puzzle that no longer fit. Like something wretched, permanently damaged. And everywhere he went, there was light. So much of it.

After being chained to darkness for so long, the light should have felt welcoming but instead, it laughed in his face. Everything reminded him of a time he would never return to.

For so long, he had persevered in the gloom, ever seeing the hollow light flickering in the distance, and how it had pierced his mind with the feverish burn of regret and longing. For years, he had longed for the days when the light had been bright and gentle and spoke with laughter. When it had not yet been taken away from him.

Now it was here, though, unbearable in its loudness. 

Next to him, the dog shifts. The light had found him, too, traversing the gray fur effortlessly like a river in spring. His tail makes a few lazy pats on the bed as he gazes at Maedhros with his calm and endless eyes. "It will not always be like this," their silence says, but Maedhros trusts little in their quiet, keen reassurance. There was only so little a dog knew.

He turns his gaze back to Fingon, who looks small and delicate and helplessly unbothered by the light that had moved further into the room and now engulfed him wholly. Maedhros considers pulling him away from the burn, but before he can move, Fingon wakes up and blinks, still half asleep. 

It takes a while for him to find Maedhros, his eyes also blinded by the brightness. But he does not flinch from it - neither from him nor the light. He squints and smiles sheepishly. The sunlight hits his eyes, and there is warmth in them. There is warmth in the light.

Maedhros blinks, too. He looks at the light, and for the first time in years, it does not burn.

He looks at Fingon - his deep, silent, inescapable eyes - and light looks back.