#your call

Set immediately after Maedhros surrenders the crown of the Noldor to Fingolfin.

900 words, can be read as gen or slash. PG.

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“Kneel,” Fingolfin says, voice gentle and implacable, and Maedhros falls to his knees at once.

Fingon has seen his father like this before, with others of their household, and never thought much about it. His father is kind and patient with those who are loyal to him, it is only right they should freely come to him for comfort at need. It is nothing like the way his father was with his mother, no hint of the desires of spouses coloring it. But seeing Maedhros on his knees like this, obedient, trusting, he feels the sharp clench of desire deep in his belly and wonders if he should not.

His father’s hand strokes over Maedhros’s tight braids, copper head unburdened by the crown Fingolfin now wears, and Maedhros leans into the touch like a loyal hound. Something passes between the two of them, a private exchange of thoughts that Fingon knows only from the way Maedhros’s shoulders unknot.

Fingolfin turns away from Maedhros and walks to his armchair, settling down in it beside the crackling warmth of the fire and drawing a blanket across his lap. Maedhros waits unmoving on his knees in the center of the room, barefoot and wearing only his shirtsleeves and hose. Fingon knows he must be cold on the stone floor, his right knee and left hip aching as they so often do, but he remains perfectly motionless, eyes cast down beneath coppery lashes and hand clasping his wrist behind him.

Fingon had never had the patience for these kinds of quiet intimacies, too restless to either give or receive, always shooed off even when merely present for being too noisy or distracting. Now, when it was Maedhros at his father’s feet, he was transfixed. He did not think he could move or speak if he wanted to.

Long moments pass while Fingolfin stares into the leaping flames, seeming to wait for something. The itch to speak, to act, begins to grow in Fingon, but Maedhros’s stillness yet holds him captive. “Come here, Maedhros,” his father bids at last, and to his shock proud Maitimo shivers and crawls across the floor on hands and knees. He finds himself bracing for one of the sudden dark turns that too often afflict Maedhros since his rescue, the act awakening some memory of unbearable cruelty.

The whites of his eyes are showing, the faintest keen rising in his throat, but still Maedhros settles on the thick rug at Fingolfin’s feet. The king gathers up the now warm blanket on his lap and wraps it around tense shoulders, drawing the copper head down to rest in his lap. He murmurs something to Maedhros that seems to sooth him, and looks up to catch Fingon with his gaze.

“Fingon, come here. Unbraid his hair.”

The knot of desire that had loosened within Fingon at once drew tight. His steps were ungraceful as he drew close to Maedhros and began to kneel down.

“No, don’t kneel. Draw up the footstool there and sit on it as you work,” his king directed.

He did as he was bid. Like this his knees were level with Maedhros’s shoulders, just right to unpin copper braids and drape them across his lap. They are bound and beaded with green-gold, pinned up by long forks set with garnet. Unraveling them is a lengthy task, but one Fingon has always loved. It keeps the knot of desire within him drawn taut, but Maedhros seems at ease and that is too rare a gift to disturb.

When every pin and bead and clasp has been set aside safely and copper waves fall in a halo around Maedhros’s shoulders, Fingolfin speaks again. He cups Maedhros’s chin and tips it up to catch hazy grey eyes. “My brush is on the table there across the room. Go fetch if for me, dear one, and the crystal flask beside it.”

Maedhros makes a quiet noise of assent and rises, unsteady on his feet in a way that Fingon has seldom seen before and only after the application of several bottles of wine. There was a single cup of wine shared between Maedhros and his father at the ceremony, but no more; hardly enough to cause his cousin’s loose-limbed relaxation.

The brush is retrieved, and Maedhros returns to settle on his knees again before them.

“Well done, thank you,” the king praises him, and a smile of simple happiness glows on Maedhros’s face as he hands over brush and flask. Fingolfin passes the brush to Fingon, and spreads the sweet oil in the flask on his own hands, then presses his fingers to Maedhros’s temples. He rubs small, tight circles there, then slowly moving along Maedhros’s hairline, down to his brow and back out to the temples. Fingon runs the brush gently through copper strands and watches the way tension melts from uneven shoulders and knotted arms, caught up himself in whatever magic his king is working. Soon Maedhros is nearly asleep, and Fingolfin stays Fingon’s hand, trading soothing touches for a quiet song.

It is hours later when Fingolfin rises and guides Maedhros into Fingon’s arms. “Put him to bed, with hot stones to warm him, and see that he has a warm drink before he sleeps and a pitcher of water for when he wakes. He should not have nightmares tonight, but he would be glad of your presence nonetheless, if you would stay beside him.”