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"I'm sorry that I had to go but you seemed to have managed alright without me." Maglor's laughter was a pleasant sound, musical and fair. Elrond hated it, just a little, for he felt himself leaning towards the elf, towards the laughter and its comfort, all that it represented. A kindness, maybe, fairytales and lullabies and quiet reassurance, but it was a false thing because Maglor was not someone they could trust. Absolutely not. Definitely not. A monster, Elrond knew, even as a child; a kinslayer, the one who had burned their home to the ashes and forced their mother away, the one who only stayed his blade for their age, not any goodness in his heart, stained as his hands were. Elros seemed to have no such issues, of course, at least not while Maglor was there, where he could look him in the face and not have to think about it. He forgot too easily, Elrond knew. Elrond would not. "You were taken care of? How was my brother?"
"He told us we weren't eating enough, but he gave us his to make up for it," Elros informed him excitedly, eyes sparkling in the way that Elrond's never did, no matter how hard he tried. Elros was the brilliant one, had always been the brilliant one, talkative, lovable, the one that people loved and mother would show off whenever someone new arrived at court, and Elrond was the one who faded into the background, standing always in his brother's shadow. He was better at Song, excelling where Elros had only ever failed, true, and Maglor would always praise him for that, true, but Elrond got little satisfaction from watching the one person he had left flounder under the tutelage of the elf who responsible for the twins only having each other to cling to, holding on as tightly as they could to because neither could bare to lose the other because what else would be left? Too much, they had lost too much.
Darkness flashed across Maglor's face for a moment before disappearing into a glad smile, eager to take care of them. It wasn't gone fast enough for Elrond to miss it, but it was gone a moment later, the thought vanishing for his mind as their caretaker began to speak again, exactly as glad as before, reassuring and lively, the familiar melodic dips and waves of a storyteller's tale. If they had done something wrong, if they had crossed a line, Maglor would have pointed it out, if only to call in the looming, blood-spattered elf he called a brother or any one of their many soldiers that they could never escape (and they had tried, earlier into their captivity, where it was not just Elrond but also Elros who lived in fear and questioned all that surrounded them). He hadn't done that. He never had, truly, but that did not mean that he never would, and the fact that he had not was not enough to dispel the fear that wrapped itself around Elrond's heart.
But he did none of that, and simply continued on as he always did, and Elros laughed and smiled alongside Maglor's words, and the sound made Elrond's heart glad, and made his fear less, for it is hard to be afraid when people are happy. And so he was content, and thought nothing of what he had previously saw, for it did not feel important. And for him, and at that moment, it was not, and he was allowed to be happy, for then, and ignore all that seemed wrong in the world. But not forever, for the world was not in the habit of being kind to the young, or the scared, or the small, and never had before, and it would not suddenly become that was for his sake.
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Elrond had always had a bad habit of not going where he was supposed to, and listening when he was not allowed to either.
It was after their noontime studies, when they were supposed to run along and wash up to get ready for the night, but Elros had run ahead to their rooms and Elrond had lingered in the library, paging through old books and reading of herbology and healing, history and myth. For though Elros' curiosity was loud, and bold, and made itself known as an energy pushing him forward and a brightness in his eyes and a need to always ask why, Elrond's was quiet, and shy, and manifested often but was rarely acted on, except when he was alone, and typically he could find no answers there, without any other to question. With the library, however, rows of books on all topics imaginable lined the walls, and he could find the answers to the questions he held in his head by himself, without any need for outside assistance or odd looks or doubt, and he often spent every spare moment he had inside of the vast hall. He had started to make a pile of the books that were the most interesting to him off to the side, so that he would not have to search for them each and every time he came, and it was there, pouring over a heavy tome and its accompanying pictures, when he heard the noises outside.
Raised voices, a snippet of conversation. Someone there. All in Quenya, but they had begun on their studies long ago, and Elrond had a decent handle on the language by now. Better to know what people didn't want him to know than not, even if it wasn't their language, their real family's language; not a surrender, just an advantage. It wasn't hard to place the words in the right spots to understand what was being said, and neither was it to connect the words - and voices - to faces. There was no shortage of Elves around them, always busy, rushing and paying the children little mind, but few sounded as musical, melodic as their dark-haired lord and even fewer with raspy baritone, hard and low and unyielding. It truly was not hard to tell.
"Do you not see the problem here?" Maglor's voice was raised, angry in a way that Elrond had never heard him be before, save except for that night-
Maedhros spoke quieter, with no emotion that Elrond could hear, and still he shook, for he rarely heard Maedhros speak, and the elf was a frightful thing, too tall and distant to be anything but a child's nightmare, with nothing mortal to him at all. Not real, but Maedhros was, and that was where the problem started. "I think I have done a perfectly adequate job caring for your children, Káno. If you wanted something else, you should not have gone to me."
"This isn't about them, it's about you, Neylo." There wasn't as much anger in Maglor's voice now, with a desperate, pleading edge added to his words in its place. "They shouldn't be an excuse to neglect yourself, and I know you haven't been eating enough, even though you've been doing well-"
"That you thought that shows how little attention you've been paying." The page in his hand wrinkled as Elrond cringed, hunching in on himself at the poisonous tone. He wanted to know but he wanted to be safe, also, not caught up in this, not trapped between the two people who had slaughtered his entire family. He wanted to go home (home was a smoking ruin, destroyed and abandoned). He wanted Elros (Elros would only make things worse through his intervening, because he could not see how dangerous their position was, how fine a line they were walking). "I wasn't hungry, and you'd hardly notice if I was. Go play with the children all you want, just don't turn around and pretend that you're worried about me, Káno. Deception doesn't suit you."
"I do care, because we're family, Neylo," Maglor burst out, and Elrond was reminded, once again, that he was not supposed to hear this, that it was a private conversation and he was breaking the rules and he was going to get caught- "We're all that each other have left. Atar is dead, and Tyelko, and Moryo, and Curvo, and Ambarussa, and all the rest of them. Just us. And it's not how it's supposed to be, but it is how it is, and there's nothing we can do about it." His voice softened, quieted until Elrond had to strain his ears to hear it. "I wouldn't have taken care of you so long just to forget about you now. It's just, with everything, and the kids... It's a lot for both of us, and I'm sorry that you have to deal with that too."
"None of us wanted this, but we all have to deal with it." Maedhros sighed, and it was more emotion than Elrond had ever heard from him before. "Fine. I just get...touchy, about that."
"I know, I know, I'm sorry." Maglor's voice was still quiet, still so quiet. Hard to hear, and for a moment Elrond wished he would speak louder, clearer, before the guilt squashed that thought; this was not for him. It was wrong to even pretend that it was, despite no one ever knowing, despite only thinking it for a second. He just knew it was, a pit of snakes swirling inside his gut with his shame, with his selfishness. This was not for him. "I should have known better. But I could never stop loving you."
"It's okay. You're a very easy person to love."
There was a choked noise, someone holding back a sob. "But, please, just try. I can't lose you now, Neylo. Not with everything going on, and-" And there was a word that Elrond didn't know, one he probably wasn't supposed to know even if he did. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
"I'll try." And that was a promise, Elrond could make that much out through the door, despite every instinct yelling at him to run, his mind screaming not to listen, not to feel bad about the people who slaughtered his family, had driven the mother he barely remembered off a cliff. "Káno, Kanafinwë, Makalaurë, I promise that I'll try."
"Thank you. Nelyafinwë. Thank you." Maglor said it like a prayer. To him, it seemed like it was.
Elrond sat there still, frozen in place, until the two brothers began to move, walking further down the hall and away from the library, his hiding place, their voices fading away into nothingness. Then, and only then, did he began to breathe again, and move, and peel himself off of his pages and run back to their chambers to get ready the way he was supposed to what felt likes ages ago. He was late, but he was there when Maglor arrived to take them to supper, and no one ever asked if he had heard anything strange, so he kept his mouth shut. It wouldn't be right, and it was for that lack of rightness that his home was burned, and parents killed, and family destroyed. It was not his to tell, so he did not. It was not his right. Elrond knew that, at least.
It was not his right.