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Their first kiss is singularly unpleasant.
Fingon fists his stained fingers in Maedhros’ braids and mashes their mouths together inexpertly as Fingolfin shouts for him from the shore. They knock teeth, slipping on the wretched deck of the swan-ship, splattered and gasping. The taste of the blood on Fingon’s lips makes Maedhros’ gorge rise, and he pulls away, coughing.
Then Fingon is gone, answering his father’s call, swinging down to the pier as suddenly as he had arrived, just a flash and a sparkle in the torchlight. He will never quite run with that same compact, self-assured grace again, once he learns exactly what they have done.
Maedhros licks his lips and watches him go. Something he had never considered has its claws in him, suddenly, and all he can think is that he wants more.
But there is no opportunity – then, or for a very long time afterward.
And when Fingon comes to the mountain, it is not with passion in his eyes, but rather a hollow pragmatism that speaks volumes, silently, about what the Ice has taught him and how far they both have wandered from their sheltered, pampered youth. The rescue is no impulse, no lover’s quest. It is politics, with an eye to their people’s survival. He carries Maedhros home like a treaty, not a treasure.
They never speak of it: that false start in the darkness, in the heat of their greatest shame.
Maedhros hones himself to diplomacy and slaughter, sharper-edged and far more resistant to pleading than he ever was before. Fingon shines, charms, gives himself over to his father without a whimper in an endless, unspoken penance that sends him cantering back and forth, back and forth across the green lands of the North, chasing some elusive breath of clean air. They meet at council, and on festival days, and occasionally, painfully, on the field of war. They are polite, distant, excruciatingly correct, and – unless fighting – restrained.
But when the news of Fingolfin’s mad ending comes, Maedhros covers the distance from Himring to Barad Eithel at a flat-out gallop, singing his horse’s heart steady for league after league with the harsh, rough croak that has replaced the music of his youth. He kneels to Fingon before the assembled court; touches the royal signet on his cousin’s hand to his forehead, his lips, his heart; dispossesses himself and his House again and forever. He lifts his head at Fingon’s command, and, for the first time in centuries, looks him directly in the eyes.
It is still there, beneath Fingon’s grief and resignation: that flame that sparked between them on the dark waters, under the unforgiving stars.
And Fingon is waiting in Maedhros’ rooms when he retires for the night – swaying, exhausted, in the center of the fine carpet that someone in Fingolfin’s retinue had brought from Tirion. He looks very much his younger self, weary and heartsore and lost.
He does not reach for Maedhros; there is nothing of the demanding lover in him now. He simply tips his chin up, offering his mouth.
Maedhros closes the distance between them carefully, quietly. He traces Fingon’s jaw with gentle fingers, draws his thumb softly across Fingon’s lips. When he bends to kiss him, it is feather-light, a brush of skin on skin that sets them both to shivering. And again, and again, and again.
They kiss in a honeyed haze – both, for all their notched swords and bloodied boots, still innocent of this.
Then Fingon tilts his head and parts his lips, gathering breath to say he knows not what, and Maedhros, instead of drawing back, leans in. There is the heat, the tender skimming suddenly gone deep. Fingon moans into his mouth. Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!
The world slows and recenters, falling into the well of gravity formed by those kisses. Fingon’s arms slide up to wind around Maedhros’ neck; Maedhros’ arm catches Fingon’s waist as his hand cups Fingon’s cheek.
It is easy as breathing, even after all their separation.
Maedhros no longer prays, but some deep part of him begins tentatively to sing.
He has ridden out of the wreck of the world to come to Fingon, and has no illusion that they are moving toward anything but their endings.
There will always be blood between them. But perhaps, for a little while, they can shape a tender peace.