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greenleaf4stuff · 4 months ago

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In Convenience, Chapter 1, Part 2

(all previous parts of "Of Convenience" and "In Convenience")

Adar x Celebrimbor (silverscars) political marriage to marriage of love AU, post story chapter 1, part 2. Despite Adar’s reassurances, the smith tries to overcome his own apprehension and create the wedding rings himself. After facing difficulties, his uruk husband offers them both an alternative solution.

Poor Celebrimbor is getting hit with a dose of ambition again. It's good he has Adar with him this time. A big thank you to @plotdesigner once again, who undoutably inspired some of the ideas about uruk marriages and related customs with her writing! <3

As Celebrimbor quickly found out two days later, the thought of forcing himself to make rings for himself and his husband was, indeed, a bit of a foolish one.

It was frustrating, to say the least. He’d given the others instructions to spend the day outside and rather help the uruk better set up their camp to brave the bright sunshine, since there had been few clouds during the last couple of days.

It had been both an honest attempt to help Adar and his children, but also a welcome opportunity to sit in the remnants of the forge and try to reclaim another part of himself.

A part that Celebrimbor felt had been stolen from him, tainted and twisted, when 'Annatar' had taken his knowledge and skill and used it for his own means.

Some of it, he had already regained in Gurlak’s little forge. But some facet of him – his pride, he’d come to suspect with a scowl – wasn’t satisfied with that. It wanted to work in his own forge again, and it wanted to work on something similar yet wholly different than what he’d last worked on in here.

Weddings bands. Simple, elven wedding bands.

Celebrimbor knew the tradition well – silver rings for engagement, and then a simple gold band for married pairs, worn on the right index finger.

Of course, as a smith with his heritage and due to the fact that this was not a traditional Eldar marriage, Celebrimbor had felt as if that would have been too simple a task for him.

No, he wanted to create something that encompassed both the beauty and the depth of the love he felt for his husband, perhaps even rivalled the elven rings of power. Something that Adar would be proud to wear and display, simple enough for a warrior, yet distinct. Shaped with intention as well as skill.

Yes, that would be a good way to represent their union.

The problem was that Celebrimbor had been unable to complete even a single, satisfactory sketch.

He was ruffling his own hair in agitation as he faltered, then stopped, with yet another design – too clunky, too big, too elaborate – and leant back in his chair with a loud, frustrated groan while he rubbed his hands over his face.

He’d been at this for hours, judging by the movement of the sun outside. And yet he had nothing to show for it.

The elf flung the graphite he’d used across the table in a sudden, almost petulant surge of anger at himself. It jumped off the table once and, as it did so, broke apart.

Celebrimbor’s anger broke right alongside it.

At the door to the forge, he heard movement. The elf could immediately guess who it was, but did not consider himself to be in the right state of mind to turn around and greet the other. Instead, he leant forward and buried his face in his hands, elbows propped up on the table.

Out of anyone, he’d hoped his husband might not be the one to find him here, like this.

"A very kind gesture, to send us your assistants to aid my children in erecting sun tarps," the uruk spoke as he entered the forge proper. "However, I must admit that I was missing your presence at the camp."

It was said in a teasing manner. And yet, Celebrimbor almost felt as if that made it all worse.

He remained hunched over his work table, unmoving, and let the thought pass him by. This was his husband – he had obviously missed Celebrimbor, had actually decided to come and visit him in his forge despite his many tasks. He did not and could not know of the smith’s struggle with himself.

The uruk fell silent when he got no answer, and soon, measured footsteps were nearing the table. While the elf didn’t particularly look forward to the conversation they’d undoutably soon have, he felt a weight fall off his shoulders knowing Adar was here.

He had felt terribly lonely, all by himself, amid the remnants of destruction and previous failures.

The uruk finally came to stand directly next to Celebrimbor’s table, so close that the elf could feel his body heat. It was tempting to remain in the dark and imagined safety of his own hands, but Celebrimbor had never been the one to choose the easiest route over the most sensible.

Most of the time, anyway.

He let his fingers slip off of his face, before he folded them and pressed his mouth against them, staring straight ahead. He needed a moment, and then glanced up at his husband, aware that his unhappiness, the sheer dismay in regards to his current predicament, was likely showing on his face.

Adar had leant his hip into the side of the table where he stood next to Celebrimbor, close enough that his cuirass was almost touching the elf’s arm. If they hadn’t been together, perhaps the proximity, the other’s stance, the way he looked down at Celebrimbor with a straight back and a tilted head, would have been intimidating.

As it was, the elf knew it to be concern, and he didn’t make any attempt to hide his failed sketches or the broken graphite as Adar took in both his husband and the work table with quiet, intense eyes.

There was a slight frown to his face for a moment, before that expression smoothed itself out again, as the other seemed to come to a realization, or perhaps a conclusion. He looked at Celebrimbor for a while longer, then turned around and stepped back into the room.

It only took a short moment for him to return, this time carrying a stool, which he placed close to the smith’s own chair.

Adar soon sat down upon it, legs facing away from the table and into the room. He propped the elbow closest to Celebrimbor onto the table’s surface, and then leant over, moving in close enough that their upper thighs were pressed against one another.

His face was open, and it carried a silent request – that Celebrimbor talk to him.

They stared at one another some more before the smith finally lifted his face from his hands and averted his eyes. His words came out haltingly at first.

"I thought I was ready. It would have been...I’d hoped to replicate what I managed to do with Morgoth’s crown, I suppose. I wanted that same feeling of – of doing something worthwhile. Something beneficial. That would not cause harm and misery."

He paused, took a breath, leant back in his chair. Why did he feel so defeated, when the evil that was darkening his thoughts had already been vanquished?

The slump of his frame felt uncharacteristic even to himself. "I know you said I shouldn’t push myself for your sake, and I also know you were right about that. And yet, who but you would deserve to have a ring made for them? It might not have the power of the three, granted. But I wished for yours to have a measure of their beauty, at least."

He felt his face pull into a grimace for a moment, and tilted his head this way and that as he grit his teeth. "He doesn’t deserve to taint this. He’s done far too much to you, to both of us, to also steal this. My joy in creating, and you having a token that shows the whole of Middle-earth what you mean to me. I- it feels like a defeat, that I cannot overcome this hurdle. As if he’s won, in some small way."

He turned towards Adar again, and could feel excess moisture in his eyes before he managed to blink it away, but barely. "Do I make any sense?"

Adar considered him intently, but not for long. He hummed. "Far too much, in fact. Yes."

The elf blinked, and moved forward in his chair as Adar reached out to wrap an arm around his waist. Soon, Adar had pulled himself into Celebrimbor’s side, against his arm and hip, and lifted his own chin over the elf’s shoulder.

He placed a kiss at Celebrimbor’s temple before pressed their faces together, his nose and lips and jaw to the elf’s cheek, his chin on the elf’s shoulder, both staring at the sketches.

Celebrimbor, himself, reached out and held onto the arm Adar had propped onto the desk still. He soon found his hand held in Adar’s as they both applied gentle pressure.

"It honors you, that you would wish to display our bond so openly to the world. In a manner none could misunderstand," Adar said, slowly. "That you wish to claim me like this. Believe me, you have already done so, even without a public display."

The reassurance was like a balm to Celebrimbor’s troubled mind.

Still, Adar continued. "Eventually, you will reclaim this part of yourself as well. I have no doubt about that. You are far too passionate about your craft not to."

"But not today, not here, and not like this. You cannot force a wound to heal. Even if your intentions are noble. And truly appreciated."

The elf hummed in response, and turned his face into Adar’s until their foreheads and noses touched. He let himself lean onto the uruk as he breathed a quiet sigh.

"I suppose you might have a point there," the smith replied and a small, but humorless grin found its way onto his face for the blink of an eye. "I’m sorry, I know you have a lot on your plate right now. And don’t get me wrong, I do not think of our marriage as diminished if we do not wear rings, or if I’m not the one make them for us."

A pause. Being this honest with both Adar and himself was still a novelty, and at times a little painful. "I suspect it’s less my love for you so much as the expectations I have for myself that are making this such a difficult topic for me. I love you, and us, just as you are. Never doubt that."

That was important to him. As much as he still struggled with what had happened during Sauron’s stay in Eregion, he never wanted Adar to feel as if their relationship needed to hold up to some kind of outside notion. The problem was, at least partially, in Celebrimbor’s own head. And not with their marriage.

He could feel Adar smile against his face, and opened his eyes to see the uruk with his own half-open, watching Celebrimbor with an incredibly fond, if sad look.

The elf felt as if his own feelings were directed back at him.

He wanted to further reassure the other, but Adar was faster to speak.

"Let me try something," he asked. The way his expression was changing had the elf perk up quickly; there was a spark in the uruk’s eyes, as if he had gotten a particularly good idea.

Intrigued, Celebrimbor nodded.

Adar leant back from his husband, taking his warmth and his hands with him. The elf, however, was far too curious to mourn their loss.

The uruk grabbed his own belt; he had stopped carrying his large broadsword everywhere he went, but as the smith soon saw, that did not mean he was unarmed. He carried a small knife, made in a similarly improvised manner as most uruk weapons. From what the other had told him, it had been fashioned from the broken-off tip of his sword.

Celebrimbor briefly frowned in response, especially when Adar lifted the knife up and towards his own head. The only thing the other did, however, was to grab a fine, thin strand of his own hair, and then cut it close to the root.

The elf blinked and raised his eyebrows in confusion as he watched Adar put the knife away again and tie a small knot at one end of the strand of hair. Soon, his husband was reaching forward and grabbed a hold of the elf’s hand.

He put the knotted end of the strand in between Celebrimbor’s digits, tucked between thumb and index finger. As he pressed the tips of the two digits together with his own, he sought out the elf’s eyes once more.

"Hold onto this tightly."

Again, Celebrimbor could only nod mutely.

And then watched as Adar sat back, separated the strand into three smaller sections, and began to braid it.

Judging by the speed and the evenness of the braid as it came together, he had done this before. Not even the gauntlet seemed to be a detriment, but rather, the pointed tips helped him separate errand pieces of hair from each other. It was quite fascinating to observe.

"Among the uruk, marriage in the traditional, Eldar sense of the word did not exist for a long time," Adar began as he braided, focused on his task. "Unions between two of my children have only become somewhat common after the first time I managed to defeat Sauron. Under his and Morgoth’s reign, it was just not feasible."

"But my children endured, and developed their own traditions and customs in response. We had no precious metals, but we had other means to show affection and loyalty."

Finally he had finished the braid, and tied another small knot at the end. Gently, he slipped the side that Celebrimbor had held onto from between the elf’s fingers. Though not without brushing his own over his husband’s hand as he did so.

The elf kept his eyes on the finished braid, now utterly captivated, as Adar twisted it around and into itself. Again, this seemed to have been something the other had done before, Celebrimbor could not guess how many times.

His mouth fell open and his eyes widened slightly when, by the end of his motions, Adar was left with a braided ring in his hand. Small, thin, yet intricate. Beautiful. Made with intention, and skill.

Celebrimbor stared at him in what was both surprise and awe, eyebrows raised and mouth still slightly open. The uruk took his husband’s right hand, held it up with his gauntleted one, and used the other to slip the braided ring onto the elf’s finger.

Celebrimbor found his breath stuttering on his next exhale, as his eyebrows knitted briefly and he stared at the little trinket he now wore. It fit perfectly.

A myriad of emotions overcame him then, from astonishment, to wonder, to love. He looked up into Adar’s eyes again, and his face split into a wide smile as he did.

The uruk had looked...not apprehensive, per se, but a little questioning. After seeing Celebrimbor’s reaction, he seemed to be fully at ease once again.

"We usually carry braids or strands of hair, but sometimes turning them into rings is a safer option, to avoid losing it. Perhaps, this might serve as a solution to our conundrum until you have healed enough to attempt making rings again."

Celebrimbor smiled and felt moisture creep into his eyes once more, though this time, for a much more welcome reason. His smile turned lop-sided as he looked down and carefully moved his fingertips over the ring, felt the smoothness of the hair, marveled at how it shone in the color of rust in the sunlight.

"That...that is more than a compromise," he decided, and looked at Adar again. "Or a replacement. I quite like it, and what it represents. As well as the thought of renewing it with you. Thank you, Adar."

He tilted his head to the side a little. "Do you think my hair might be long enough for a braid as well?"

It was Adar’s turn to be stunned for a moment. Soon, a small smile touched his face, and the edges of his eyes crinkled. The uruk grabbed his knife again. "I think I can figure something out. Turn your head a little, so I can find a good strand to cut."

Celebrimbor gladly let Adar touch his jaw and chin to move his head in the direction he desired, smiling all the while.

It took the uruk a bit more time to fumble with the hair for the second braid, but Adar did end up making another ring. When Celebrimbor gingerly took it from him and then slipped it onto Adar’s index finger, it contrasted nicely against the uruk’s skin – and the hair of Celebrimbor’s ring.

Both of them held up their hands next to each other, turning their new tokens about this way and that, watching the light play off of them, the delicate details of the braids. When their eyes found one another once more. They both were smiling.

Yes, Celebrimbor would need more time to fully reclaim all that which he felt he had lost in the last few weeks. But the fact of the matter was, he had also gained something in turn.

He and Adar both had time, now. They’d figure it out together, and forge their own path.

#sometimes romance is when your warrior husband uses an unexpected skill to find an alternative solution to your problem #(and also sometimes romance is just understanding what your partner is going through and helping them with their struggles)#fun fact I listened to the Disco Elysium soundtrack writing this “Whirling in Rags 12 PM” and “Detective Arriving on the Scene” to be exact #of convenience #adar #adar trop #adar the rings of power #celebrimbor #adar x celebrimbor #silverscars #trop #the rings of power #marriage of convenience trope #political marriage trope #fanfic #my fanfic #my trop fanfic #mine

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