#while Maedhros and Maglor can still show the boys off as safe and happy to anyone close to them

[lendmyboyfriendahand]

Modern AU kidnap family

Maedhros and Maglor are high up in the mob. They kidnap Elrond and Elros for leverage over Earendil and Elwing.

Elwing leaves town and cuts off contact before she can hear exactly what she's being extorted into.

Maedhros and Maglor aren't going to actually abuse the boys if they can't give orders to the parents - that would just be cruelty for it's own sake.

But they sign Elrond and Elros up gymnastics and children's karate. Every time the boys fall during practice, Maedhros takes pictures so "we can track how well you're healing, in case you need a doctor". He posts the pics online tagged only "my kids are so clumsy", faces carefully cropped out so the police algorithms won't spot them. The message history of that account is obviously him though, if anyone knows about Maedhros's mob position. He links the photos on any message boards Elwing might be reading.

Maedhros sends links to the whole forum to Earendil's email as well from a burner account, so Earendil will have to wade through dozens of irrelevant pages while getting more and desperate for word of the twins. (Maglor got Earendil's email from the family group emails that Anaire still sends out for everyone's birthdays.)

Maybe if Earendil thinks his sons are being abused, he'll actually be motivated to take up his part in the family business, if only to save them.

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

more thoughts about the homecoming au, the au where maedhros and maglor get brought back to tirion after the war of wrath to be prettied-up trinkets on finarfin’s shelf, with painted-over scars and muffled screams. it is dark, it’s full of all kinds of emotional and caretaker abuse, and the brothers weren’t exactly in a good state of mind before any of this happened. @sunflowersupremes wrote the initial au that wasn’t even meant as horror, @outofangband - this au is as much theirs as mine, several of the concepts here were originally theirs, and a lot of this originally came out in dms with them. part 1 is here. this part contains gaslighting, loss of autonomy right at the end, more suicide mentions (thanks mae) and just general abuse from people who care more about their own comfort than the people they’re supposed to be caring for. it’s worse than the first part, honestly

most of the stuff the fëanorians had on them when they surrendered got taken away pretty fast. which is honestly understandable; some of it was cursed, a lot of it was weaponry, all of it stank to the high vault of the stars

but they both managed to hold onto some personal effects, or get them back before they went in the incinerator. a broken locket, a torn-up book, nothing fancy, nothing large, but things that still mean a lot to them

the valinoreans aren’t entirely comfortable with this. they find a lot of the brothers’ comfort items mildly disturbing, stained with darkness and (occasionally literal) blood as they are. maedhros had this dessicated finger he refuses to explain anything about that got disposed of very quickly

maglor has a few strands of brightly coloured thread, spun around each other somewhat inexpertly. he tends to pull it out when he’s feeling depressed, working it between his fingers until he feels like he can face the world again

one day, one of his minders who gets along better with him asks where he got it. from the twins, maglor admits. it’s part of some embroidery elrond abandoned when they left -

and it’s snatched out of his hands. his minder looks down at him compassionately. ‘i know you miss them, but you caused those boys a lot of pain, you know? you shouldn’t romanticise your relationship with them’

which - maglor’s relationship with the twins was complicated, and while it wasn’t nearly as hellish as elwing fears, it wasn’t entirely healthy. maglor was dependent emotionally on the kids a lot more than any adult should be to children, and vice versa

because the twins were the last people he had left. when maedhros executed celegorm’s servants with no warning at all, this rift began to grow between the sons of fëanor and their followers. they’d always been terrifying, but they’d also been comradely and inspiring, the white-hot stars around which their people orbited. but when they turned their fangs on their own host, all that started to fall away, leaving only the fear behind

it got worse after sirion. by the time vingilot rose in the sky, maglor’s only real remaining relationships were with maedhros, who he hated as much as he loved, and the twins. watching over them, talking to them, not hurting them - it kept him grounded in reality, kept him sane

he knows, he knows, he knows, they’re better off without him. but his time with them is the only happiness in his memories that still feels real

but the valinoreans can’t accept that. the exile was an awful time with nothing in it worth keeping, and the sooner he can recognise that the faster he’ll be back to his old self

besides. their caretakers don’t like being reminded of their more... unpleasant deeds

(elwing sidebar: elwing and eärendil are having an easier time, because the teleri have experience dealing with trauma and are also just more accepting of the right to have your own take on your own experiences. still, though, elwing occasionally hears that a proper telerin mother would have stayed with her children, even if she had to give up the treasure her people died for to the monsters of her childhood nightmares)

(elwing was a young adult in a horrendous situation with no obvious way out, elwing is dealing with her own damage as best she can, elwing is valid, we stan elwing. she’s also one of the few direct-ish sources the noldor have for beleriand and what the fëanorians did there, and her (perfectly reasonable!) perspective colours a lot of their treatment)

in general the valinorean noldor are quite sure they know what beleriand was like and how it felt to be there, and aren’t particularly interested in being proven wrong

it was miserable, it was harrowing, it was nothing anyone should want to think about. it was a long nightmare maedhros and maglor are so fortunate to have finally woken up from

and you can kind of see why they think like that? the ones who have seen the hither shores saw them when ash rained from a void-black sky and almost everything was dead, and the survivors told stories of a long hopeless defeat and cruelties beyond imagining

but that deep black image blots out the genuine joy they felt in those five hundred years, the chance to prove their own greatness, the knowledge they were doing something good, nights when music echoed across the gap, warm hands in a cold fortress. there were things in beleriand worth remembering, aspects of the people they became there legitimately worth keeping

and even if there wasn’t - five hundred years. the scars on their bodies make it plain to see, every little piece of who they are was shaped by beleriand, for worse and for better. they just can’t leave it behind

their valinorean caretakers find this horrifying

maedhros likes to exercise. it keeps him calm, gives him something to do. it’s not something nelyafinwë was super into - he was more the peripatetic type - but it’s a feasible hobby for a noldorin prince to have, so he’s allowed to do it

sometimes, though, he’ll unconsciously shift into the old combat forms, precisely timed drills ingrained into his bodies. the first few times he does this, his minders are bemused more than anything, but then one day he happens to have a stick in hand to use as a mock-sword

then every time he starts to slip away into that meditative trance, hands reach out to stop him and hold him in place. ‘there’s no need to fight here, maitimo,’ an elf he knew before the unchaining tells him ever so gently. ‘you’re safe now’

... they say that, but maedhros’ nightmares keep getting worse

it’s like that with everything that makes the valinoreans uncomfortable. whenever they try to speak of their time in beleriand, no matter what they say, they’re told that oh, they know it was hard, but it’s all over now and they don’t have to dwell on it

but even after they’ve spent years in paradise, maedhros and maglor still won’t let go and allow themselves to heal

they just can’t come to terms with the truth of their ordeal

the narrative the valinoreans have constructed erases all of the bright spots, but it also bleaches out the true darkness

certainly they did horrible things, but did they really have a choice? in such a harsh world, they always had to be on guard, lest they themselves be killed. these poor boys never meant to harm anyone, but their father’s cruel madness and the painful chains of their oath and the vileness of beleriand forced them into atrocities they never wanted to commit

(surely the monsters the sindar spoke of wouldn’t cry. they wouldn’t lose themselves in waking nightmares or curl up shivering in well-hidden closets, they wouldn’t jump away from a casual touch or watch every new person like they might be a threat. they wouldn’t convince themselves the children they stole were happy, or talk to the shade of a dead kinsman they abandoned. surely they wouldn’t. surely)

(because if they are, and they’ve let a couple of orcs loose into the royal palace...)

(maglor and maedhros’ movements are pretty restricted. this is mostly for their own protection, but it’s partially - well, just in case. just in case)

this rankles at maedhros, though he tries not to show it. terrible they might have been, but his choices were his own

he was a warlord, he was a king. he expected to be hated for the things he had done. he didn’t expect to be pitied. he didn’t expect to be dismissed

sometimes, when he’s surrounded by people earnestly telling him that he’s not a bad person, he never was, it was all pressure from his father and the oath, he wants to scream that he chose to attack sirion because he was so, so tired of diplomatically dancing around problems he knew he could solve with his blade

but he stops himself, always. he knows how much what little freedom they do have is based on them not being a threat

and he will not wash this peaceful, innocent land in blood. he’ll kill himself first

maglor has lost all such scruples

it’s not often, but when they’re behaving themselves and no one who’s likely to take offense is in town, the brothers get taken out to court events

they paint makeup over their scars (which still won’t heal, everyone is concerned by the implications of this) dress them up in finery, string them with jewels, and show off how well they’re doing

(even if maedhros rarely says anything, and they never leave each other’s side)

tonight, it’s a feast. a minor celebration, nothing too crowded, nothing too loud. there’s revels and merrymaking and all kinds of fun

and after the food has been cleared away, there’s music

would his nephew like to play something, finarfin asks. it’s hard to tell if it’s a request or a politely phrased order

maglor decides he doesn’t have the patience to be taken aside and tell how much everyone wanted to hear his music, and accepts

finarfin smiles kindly. he’s thinking about how maglor’s minders have been talking about how he’s finally stopped trying to sing depressing or horrifying songs and how his voice grows more melodious by the day

maglor is thinking about how they won’t even let him sing about his wife. he wrote no odes to her beauty or her skill in the forge, but he sang ballads about the swiftness of her spear and her laughter after a battle

none of which the valinoreans want to hear. they want to pretend that love never existed, that there could be any joy found in darkness, that she’s at all worth remembering -

he gets up to play, and launches into the most vicious, most hopeless, most painful part of the noldolantë

they try to stop him, but he’s the greatest warsinger the world has ever seen, he’s sung with blood in his lungs over the roaring of dragons, there’s little they can do to block out everything they’re trying to ignore. he wails defeat and death and grief and death and despair and death

when they finally manage to knock him out, their whole petty festival in tatters, shock on their faces, tears streaming from their eyes, all he can think is that if they understand now, even a little, it’ll have been worth it

for the first time, but not the last, he wakes up in a cell

finarfin comes to visit, and starts giving a very disappointed lecture maglor is in no mood to hear. instead he just snarls that nothing they’ve been doing is helping him at all, and he’s so sick of false sympathy and no one listening to what his actual problems are

finarfin shuts his eyes, says ‘i’m sorry to hear you feel that way’ and leaves

a few days later he wakes up with a collar around his neck

it’s demeaning, but he gets released that morning, so he rolls with it. he gets told to never do that ever again, first by his minders and then by maedhros

his minders he nods at until they leave him alone. maedhros he snarks back at that it’s not like he’s doing anything to improve their condition

only he can’t

the words don’t just freeze in his throat, they can’t even form in his mind. what’s happening, he can’t say. what did you do to me, he can’t say. he can’t even scream

as maglor is clutching at his neck (he can’t get it off he can’t get it off) and all the colour is draining out of maedhros’ face, the minder in the room smiles

‘see? this way you’ll stop making yourself and everyone around you miserable. you can still talk about happy things -’

‘they did this in angband!’ maedhros roars, a statement that provokes his first actual fight with their minders. he’s harder to pin down than maglor. bigger

but their caretakers are becoming annoyed with the brothers’ obstinate refusal to let themselves get better. they may be content to wallow in the misery of their past, but inflicting it on others is a step too far

they clearly aren’t going to move any further down the road to recovery on their own volition, so it’s become clear they need a gentle push. is it a little distasteful? yes, but such things are sometimes necessary in medicine

the bright cheerful princes they will be again will thank them for it

oh god how did this end up so long. the last one should be shorter, it’s mostly clearing up some loose ends. why did i write this

[sweetteaanddragons]

31. Earendil and Maglor, 15. It Followed Me Home, Can I Keep It?, 42. Hurt/Comfort

This is sort of an AU of my story “And Family Means No One Gets Left Behind.” If you haven’t read that, you can find it here:  https://archiveofourown.org/works/16412804

Or just get the relevant points here real quick - Elwing doesn’t see Earendil and flies right past him and ends up in Aman alone. Earendil sails back, finds out what happened to his sons, and goes after them. He manages to catch the trail, but actually reclaiming them is another matter.

That’s where our story here picks up.

Maglor hears the twins cry out and curses himself for a fool for letting them out of sight even for a moment. He runs ahead into the clearing with its shining pool that he checked for dangers just this morning.

The pool still stands unpoisoned. More or less. There is, after all, an elf slowly leaking blood into it.

Elros stands guard over him with far too much wariness for his young years, knives at the ready. Elrond crouches beside him, examining the wound on his arm. Both look up when Maglor runs into the clearing, something he’ll have to scold them for later. At least one of them should have kept their eyes on the other potential threat.

“He’s hurt,” Elrond says unnecessarily. “I think his arm got infected.”

The wounded elf’s fever glazed eyes have been locked on the boys throughout all of this. Only as Maglor approaches do his eyes drift upward.

He immediately reaches for a sword he is half laying on and cannot possibly draw. “Back,” he rasps, “Back! Away from them!”

Maglor kneels slowly, hands outstretched. “Peace, friend,” he says and laces just a touch of power into the words. “Peace. Rest. You have no enemies here.”

The words are bitter on his tongue. He has earned the fear in this elf’s eyes, though he tries to comfort himself by thinking that perhaps the other elf is delirious and not really thinking of him at all when he cringes back from Maglor’s touch.

But his movements are slower now. Less able to resist.

“Not infected,” Maglor says quietly after a moment’s examination. “Poisoned. An orc blade, I would think, perhaps a week back. Some of their poisons mimic infections, but the final results are even more deadly.”

Elrond nods solemnly, obviously committing the information to memory. “How will we treat him, then?”

There is no doubt at all in Elrond’s voice that they will treat him, that this stranger they have found will be allowed back into their camp.

Maedhros might not like it. It’s a risk.

He looks up into their expectant eyes and then down into the quiet dread of the wounded elf’s. 

Of course they will help him, he thinks firmly. The Oath does not at all apply to this. They have not fallen so far as to trouble those innocent of standing between them and their Oath.

“First we must get him back to camp,” he says firmly. With rations cut as short as they are - and his own shorter than most as he strives to make sure the Peredhel’s growth will not be stunted as some of Men’s children are - he is not sure enough in his own strength to try the deed alone. “Elros, run swiftly back to the camp and fetch - fetch Lauriel.” She’s the least likely to question him.

Elros nods and takes off like an arrow from a bow.

This war has turned them all to weapons.

He looks back down at the wounded elf, who is watching the departing child with desperate eyes. Maglor smiles. Faking these is far easier than it used to be. He’s had long practice. “You’ll be just fine,” he promises. “Elrond, have you given him any water?”

Elrond shakes his head but hastens to do just that.

“Help will be here in a moment,” Maglor promises while Elrond helps the stranger drink. The elf seems strangely reluctant to relinquish Elrond’s touch. Is he from Sirion? “May I ask your name?”

“Earendil,” the stranger says with surprising strength before the fever surges again and catches him in delirium dreams.

Elrond jerks as if hit.

Maglor feels much the same.

Elrond’s eyes dart between the two of them. “He - he can’t be. Can he?”

“I don’t see why not,” Maglor manages. Suddenly his throat seems to be the one parched.

Elrond’s hand closes around his father’s, his real father’s wrist. Maglor reminds himself that this has no right to hurt. “We’ll still take him back with us. Won’t we?”

Maglor does his best to swallow. “Of course we will,” he says. “Of course.”

Outside the tent of healing where the twins wait with their delirious father is not where Maglor would prefer to do this, but Maedhros is in one of his fell moods and has apparently decided it can’t wait.

“He actually followed us?” Maedhros asks incredulously.

“I did tell the twins he would.”

Maedhros doesn’t dignify this with a response. That had been a comforting lie, and by this point even the twins knew it.

Only apparently this lie has turned into the truth.

“And you brought him the rest of the way.” Maedhros rubs his face tiredly. “What do you plan to do with him now?”

“He has to stay here at least till he heals.” Anything else is a death sentence.

“At least?” Maedhros’s voice turns sharp.

Maglor’s shoulders tighten even as he shrugs. “Three hostages are better than two?” he tries.

“We don’t have the men to set up a constant watch,” Maedhros says. “And we would need a constant watch. He’d have to be a true prisoner, and soon he wouldn’t be the only one. Do you really think the twins will stay happy to be with us long with their real father returned and telling him the truth of us?”

“We’ve never hidden that,” Maglor says quietly. “They might . . . “ He doesn’t know. Maedhros is right, of course. They can’t keep Earendil like he’s a spare puppy found in almost forgotten Tirion. “So we can’t keep him here,” he says in defeat. 

“When he’s well we let him go. We let them all go.” Maedhros’s tone is firm, but there’s sympathy in his eyes. Sympathy and perhaps a little fear. He reaches out carefully, like he’s afraid Maglor might break.

Maglor feels a bit like he might break. He allows the touch. But - “One elf, freshly recovered, and two children, alone in the wilderness, is a death sentence. It’s a long way to the Isle of Balar.”

“Gil-Galad would slaughter anyone we sent. We can’t ask that of our people.”

“I volunteer,” Maglor says instantly. He hasn’t been planning this, but it makes sense. The path unfolds straight before him.

“No,” Maedhros growls. His grip tightens painfully. “Absolutely not. I can’t - Don’t ask me to allow that.” The fear is in full force now. “Don’t ask me to face this alone,” he adds, so quietly no one else has a prayer of hearing.

“Then we’re out of solutions,” Maglor says in defeat.

Maedhros’s lips press together. “We’ll think of something.”

“Of course,” Maglor says dully. “Excuse me.”

He ducks into the tent. The twins have fallen asleep on the ragged rug by the makeshift bed. They’re holding hands for comfort as they haven’t now for years.

Earendil is awake and coherent, though probably not for long; his eyes snap from them to the tent flap when Maglor comes in. Maglor holds up his hands to show he is free from weapons.

“You heard, I assume,” he murmurs. The last thing he wants is to wake the twins.

“I heard,” Earendil says. He swallows hard and looks back down at his sons. “They can do so much already.”

“They’re growing up well,” Maglor says with pride he cannot help, no matter how little earned it is. 

“But they’re still so small.” Earendil looks back up at him, and there is nothing of pride left in his eyes. “I cannot get them from here to the Isle of Balar alone. I thought - I don’t know what I thought. That things were not quite so bad as this when I last walked these lands, perhaps. I should have realized things would have gotten worse. I never should have come without a better plan to take them back. Do not - Please. For the sake of whatever pity stayed your hand then, please do not send them out to die for my failure. Do what you will with me, but please do not doom them to the dangers that wait in this land.”

It takes Maglor a moment to claim his voice from the shame that has cloaked it. “I will not agree to any plan that would expose them to that,” he says firmly. “Little as you may believe it of me, I love them far too well to allow it. I will find some way to see you and them to whatever safety might be left, you have my word.”

“And we have all learned how you will hold to that,” Earendil murmurs, eyes already fighting to stay open. 

“Yes,” Maglor says softly. Pained. “Sleep now. All will still be as well as may be when you waken.” There’s very little of power in his words, but there hardly needs to be. Earendil’s body has been pushed past endurance.

The moment Earendil’s eyes firmly close, the twins’ snap open. Maglor bites back a groan. He might have known.

“How much of that did you hear?” he asks, mindful to speak quietly.

“All of that,” Elrond says, nodding to Earendil.

“And most of what you said to Maedhros,” Elros concludes. “You know you forgot an option when you were talking to him.”

“Oh?” Maglor is desperate enough to listen to just about anything.

“Instead of him talking us around like you were afraid of,” Elrond says in his most reasonable tone of voice, “we could talk him around. And we can all stay here together.”

Maglor thinks of burned Sirion and shakes his head. “How could you possibly convince him of that?”

“It’s the only way we’ll all be safe,” Elros says. “Of course he’ll come around.”

“If he really wants to stay with us,” Elrond adds with more uncertainty.

“Of course he will,” Maglor says. “He came back, didn’t he?”

Elrond nods. “Now if only Mama will come back, the six of us can be a proper family!”

Maglor chokes at this depiction of a ‘proper’ family, even as his heart warms at the word six.