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Fingolfin massages his temples as he rests his elbows against the desk. He had received several complaints from his now-reborn family about his second son. Even his other children had expressed their irritation with their brother’s behaviour; Turgon was, for lack of better word, being an ass.
It’s confusing, and Fingolfin is troubled. Turgon had never been a rude child. Quiet, sure, and aloof, but not once had he been as grouchy and irritable as he had been acting after rebirth. Fingolfin understands, to an extent; they all went through great trouble in the East, and came back changed. But not even his half-nephews— because yes, they had been returned despite their oath, alongside their father— had experienced such a drastic and unappealing personality change.
So when Finrod— sweet, loving Finrod— comes to him seething and tells him to get his dastardly son under control, Fingolfin decides to do something about it. He drags himself to Turgon’s chambers with his face in his hands and doesn’t bother knocking, opening the door with a sigh.
Turgon looks up from where he’s hunched over his desk like a marble arch and puts his quill to the side. “Do you need something, Atar?” He asks, perfectly polite and precisely like he used to be. Fingolfin sighs again, throwing himself inelegantly into the chair that sits on the other side of his son’s desk.
“What’s up with you lately?” He asks, resting his chin atop his palm. He looks at his son— really looks— and finds himself withering at the grey pallor of Turgon’s skin and the deep eye-bags no elf should have.
Turgon’s brow furrows. “I don’t know what you mean,” He says.
“I mean I’ve had several relatives come up to me just to tell me you’re being an ass, Turukáno. Maglor, Angrod, even your siblings and Finrod. Finrod, Turgon. What in Varda’s name did you do to him? ”
Fingolfin’s son scowls at him, proud propriety lost. “Nothing. He was being a fool, braying his woes about the Edain. I just called him on his folly; I don’t know why he took it so harsh.”
Fingolfin takes a deep breath, presses his face into his hands and leans forward so his elbows are against the wood of Turgon’s desk. “My son. My dear, beloved second son. What folly?”
“Well, trusting them. Finrod has always been too quick to trust. It’s almost as if he only ever sees clearly when everything is ash— he put his faith into the mortals, and he died for it.”
Fingolfin greatly prides himself on his level of self control wherein he does not strangle his son. “Did you say that to him?”
“Yes?”
“Turukáno—” He starts angrily, then stops. Takes a deep breath through his nose, pulls his face from his palms and stands up. “Come to my chambers with me,” He says, holding out a hand to his son.
“I have work to do, Atar,” Turgon argues, his face tense with the telling lines of his disinterest in conversation— this conversation.
“It can wait,” Fingolfin says, and grabs Turgon’s wrist, tugging him up out of his seat and to the door. “I have something I want to talk to you about, and I’d rather not do it sat in front of your desk while half of your mind is awash in thoughts of the papers you were working on.”
Turgon sighs, resigned, and allows himself to be dragged through the halls.
When they reach Fingolfin’s chambers, he manhandles his son by the shoulders to take a seat upon the bed and stands before him. “What’s wrong?”
Turgon’s brow furrows. “Nothing,” He says, and his words are smooth but his tone is ticked and Fingolfin is his father; if he couldn’t pick apart that voice, he couldn’t pick apart a child’s building toy.
“There’s something. What is it?” He thinks hard about what he knows could ail his son; he loves to work, so the load could not be an issue. The return of his Fëanorion cousins? No, Turgon loves family, he’s sure to have settled by now. And then, looking at the creased corners of his son’s eyes, he realises.
Turgo loves his family, and upon his release, neither Elenwë nor Idril, nor Maeglin and such Gondolin friends, wished any much to do with him. For Aredhel’s son had been forgiven by them, and been accepted by them, but not by Turgon. And apparently, their appreciation for Maeglin stretches farther than— and he says this with love— their patience for his son’s pigheadedness. I mean, really, he thinks, he has forgiven his kinslayer cousins, but not his tortured nephew?
“Turno…” Fingolfin begins gently, kneeling down and clasping Turgon’s hands within his own. He runs the pads of his fingertips along his son’s knuckles and allows himself time to settle his words. “Do you, perhaps— and this is an observation— miss your wife and daughter a little more than you say? Your Gondolinian friends maybe too, hm?”
“I…” Turgon starts, and the corners of his eyes crinkle in narrowed focus. “I don’t miss them. They don’t want anything to do with me, Atar, and I don’t know what I possibly could have done to offend them.”
Fingolfin sighs lightly, tugging his son to the floor and resting their backs against the frame of the bed, leaving them side to side. “Why can’t you forgive Lómion, Turukáno?” He asks knowingly.
Turgon’s brow furrows, but not with denial, and Fingolfin almost sags in relief. He really has no interest in talking circles with his son. “Atar, he betrayed Gondolin. He gave up my city and got me and my people killed. We were flourishing, and we were safe—“
“You were hiding. You were hiding and— I love you— but it was cowardly. Morgoth would have found you eventually. You know this. Why can’t you forgive him?”
“… I don’t know,” Turgon says, lifting his knees to cradle them close to his chest, and oh, he looks every bit the gentle elfling he once was. Fingolfin grieves.
“Turno,” He says, and his voice is shredded because that is his baby, his second son, and may the Void take him if he doesn’t love him and hold him and then layer his thoughts thick with advice. Fingolfin wraps his arms around Turgon’s shoulders and drags him over so he is draped across his lap, head pressed into Fingolfin’s neck.
“I miss them, Atar. I miss them so much, and I try but— every time I see him I get so angry again, and I just can’t do it, and every time I think they start to hate me a little more.” His son’s voice is wet, and for a breath he marvels at how quickly Turgon fell apart. He’s unsure, though, if it’s growth and trust or just sad.
“Oh, yonya,” Fingolfin says, pressing a kiss to his son’s hair. “I know, I know, but… you must understand, Lómion was in the Great Foe’s hands. He did not seek him out and betray you, he was taken. You have long forgiven your cousins, Maedhros and Maglor and the like; can you not forgive your nephew?”
Turgon weeps against his neck. “I miss Gondolin,” He says, in lieu of an answer.
“I know, Turno. But did you not build Gondolin only for a piece of home; a replica of what you missed then? We are home now, yonya; you don’t need Gondolin anymore. We have Tirion again.”
“I know,” Turgon says, but he sounds unsure. He tries to pry himself from his father’s hold, but Fingolfin clutches him tighter and cradles the back of his head.
“Do you?”
Silence billows up in the room like a drowning cloud, immortalizing the sorrow and choking them thick. Fingolfin looks down, presses his forehead against Turgon’s hair, and lets his breath billow down over his son’s face.
“I don’t know,” Turgon says quietly at last, and Fingolfin lets the hand resting atop the back of his head scratch his nape. Lets himself rock the elf in his arms like he’s his infant boy once again and not a fully grown ellon, one with war behind his eyes and pain within his heart.
For a long, uncounted hour they sit like so, as comfortable as can be on the outside but achingly, rawly drawn tight in the fëar. Turgon still has not settled by the time his father shifts from where he’s wrapped around him and sighs. “I will go with you,” Fingolfin says.
“What?” asks Turgon, twisting so he looks his father in the eye.
“To apologize. To forgive.”
Turgon pauses, mouth twisting into a frown. Did he want to forgive? Goldolin was destroyed because of his nephew. But he feels the warmth of his father’s arms, and the steady breathing from his chest, and realises that, perhaps, he doesn’t want everyone to hate him. Perhaps he isn’t so alright with that after all.
“Okay,” Turgon says, letting himself fall back down against his father’s chest, head tucked once again within the crook of Fingolfin’s neck. “Okay.”