A/N: Warnings for a very, very unhealthy amount of drinking. I mean, that's basically the whole fic lol but I can't stress enough as a doctor myself that Finrod's liver is probably made of mithril and this sort of drinking would probably kill the average human

Chapter 3: Bitter Spirits and Liquid Gold

To Maglor's surprise, Finrod does not turn up the wide boulevard to the Finwëan district and the King's House; instead, he leads Maglor down the wide, lantern-lit avenue and down towards the eastern part of the city.

"I didn't know you ventured much into the Fëanorian district," Maglor says as they approach the towering arch of Fëanor's gate, hung with crimson banners and eight-pointed rayed stars.

"The establishment is owned by a friend of mine," Finrod replies, his stride steady over the cobblestones despite the dozen drinks Maglor has seen him consume since dusk. "One of my lieutenants, actually. His liquor stock is of particular quality."

"Your lieutenant?" Maglor frowns, curious. "Why ever would he raise a tavern in my father's district?"

Finrod's smile is sharp. "He fell at Sirion. After he returned from the Halls he sought the warrior that had slain him. I am told he wished to see if reconciliation between our people was possible by speaking to her; in the end he found much more than that. They were married a few yéni ago."

Maglor stops short. "But she killed him," he says, astounded.

Finrod halts before Fëanor's gate and turns to face Maglor. The wind catches the crimson pennant above and casts Finrod's face momentarily in shadow, but he remains smiling – sharp and firm and unwavering.

"Of my eight remaining lieutenants after Nargothrond fell, six fell at Sirion," Finrod says conversationally. "You killed three of them personally. And yet here I am, taking you for a drink."

Maglor cannot breathe.

It is as though Finrod had struck him. It would almost be kinder if he had.

"I am sorry," he rasps, because there is nothing else he can say. "I am…there are no words to express how sorry I am."

Finrod's hand lands on Maglor's shoulder, clenching a little harder than strictly comfortable.

"I know you are," he says, and for the first time since the evening began, Maglor sees an ember of exhaustion in Finrod's eyes. His smile turns wry. "Now put your hood up. I don't want to explain your bloodstained robes to your loyal soldiers."

Maglor squeezes Finrod's wrist at his shoulder once in acknowledgment. He raises his hood, and together, they step through the cool shadow of Fëanor's gate and into the crimson-bannered streets beyond.

(:~:)

"I propose a game," Finrod says, sliding a flagon and two small crystal glasses onto the table.

Maglor quirks an eyebrow at his cousin as Finrod sits opposite. "A game?" he says reservedly.

Finrod pours a measure of liquor into both cups; it glistens in the candlelight, a thick, shimmering gold. "We take turns. A question per drink. That, or we sit and drink until you forget and begin to laugh. You know which I would prefer."

Maglor considers the offer. The proprietor of the establishment had lived up to Finrod's description; the sharp-eyed Elf that had clasped Finrod's wrist, taken one look at Maglor's disheveled appearance, and promptly shown them into a private booth.

"I should have known you had an ulterior motive," Maglor says flatly. "Fine. If it is to be an interrogation, then so be it."

"It is not an interrogation if the questions come from both sides," Finrod says, supremely unaffected. "Would you like to ask first, or shall I?"

"Oh, I'm going first," Maglor says, snatching up a glass and tossing it back in one. He coughs into a wrist. "Damn. What's in this?"

"What it appears to be," Finrod says. "Gold. Now, my turn."

Maglor scowls. "That wasn't my question."

"But it was a question," Finrod counters. "One question per drink, as per our agreement."

"Were you always such a conniving bastard?"

"Again, one question per drink," Finrod says languidly. His hair falls like a waterfall of gold over the oak panels of the booth wall. "That's two you owe me now. And yes. I was."

"Damn you," Maglor hisses, pouring himself another drink, downing it, and slamming the empty glass down on the table. "You've bought yourself two questions. Go on."

Finrod tosses back his own glass fluidly. "Hmm. What happened back there with the mutton pies?"

Maglor smiles flatly. "It didn't agree with me. Hence my regurgitating it into the gutter."

A spark of challenge in Finrod's eyes. "Ah," he murmurs.

"Two can play this game," Maglor says blithely, pouring Finrod another shot. "Go on. You have another question."

Finrod salutes Maglor with his glass and downs it in one. "I should have expected no less. Very well. Why didn't the mutton pie agree with you? And don't think about lying and saying it was the drink. It wasn't. I'm familiar enough with that."

Maglor refills his glass and spends a long moment staring at the iridescent patterns that swirl through the golden liquor.

"It reminded me of a similar meal I once had," he says emotionlessly. "The circumstances were…less than ideal."

He feels the echo of soft wool under his fingers, cooling rapidly in contrast to the burn of spurting blood.

The liquor burns as it slides down his throat, metallic and thick. Maglor is unsure if it tastes like blood because of the memory, or if he has bitten his tongue. The heady thrum of liquor at his fingertips helps still his them.

"My turn," he says, leaning back against the oak wall and propping one knee up against the edge of the table. "You didn't always drink like Turgon, Finrod. Why do you drink wine as easily as water now?"

"Ah," Finrod says, pouring himself another shot and holding the glass up to examin it. The golden liquor and crystal refracts the candlelight above, casts a shimmering fractal of golden freckles across the blue of his eyes. "I spent hardly any time at all in the Halls," he says quite calmly. "For the first few months after I came back, I couldn't get the taste of wolf out of my mouth."

Maglor chokes on an inhale. "Morgoth's shit."

"Quite," Finrod says. "Though I suspect that would have tasted even worse."

The liquor in Maglor's stomach makes a good effort to regurgitate into his nose; he finds himself wheezing a laugh into his elbow as Finrod smiles slyly from across the table.

"I think there's something very wrong with you," he tells Finrod sincerely, wiping his eyes.

"I think it might be the same thing wrong with you," Finrod says.

Maglor sobers immediately. "That's not a question," he says, voice hard.

"No, it isn't," Finrod says, tipping back his glass. "But I gather pressing about the mutton pie won't get me much farther. My next question: How long have you been shielding Maitimo by taking his hurts on yourself?"

Maglor stares.

Finrod pours him another glass.

"No," Maglor says.

Finrod tilts his head. "That is not an answer."

"No," Maglor says, louder. "I am not answering that question. Ask another."

"You would lose our wager."

"We didn't wager anything," Maglor spits. "And I swore no oath."

The word falls between them like a hammer blow.

They are both breathing a little too quickly at the reminder. Maglor closes his eyes as the liquor rushes to his head; he wills it to rise faster, hoping to blot out the memories.

"My mistake," Finrod says, with careful lightness. "Remind me to put in a wager of some sort next time."

Maglor raises his head. "You've still got a question. Hurry up with it. I'm not getting drunk fast enough for this."

Finrod taps his lips with one long finger, looking contemplative. Then: "Does what happened this evening to Maitimo happen often?"

Maglor forces his jaw to loosen. "Often enough, those first few decades after his return. Occasionally, during the long peace; recurring with increasing frequency after Doriath, and worst after Sirion." He pauses, swallowing past a suddenly dry throat. "He tried to forswear the oath. Maitimo, I mean."

"Ah," Finrod says. "That would have been when Elrond and Elros were no more than children. That cannot have been easy for you."

"They were children even when we sent them to Gil-Galad," Maglor says, a little bitter despite himself. "What are a mere four decades to a Peredhil? When they chose after the war they were barely fifty."

"All true," Finrod agrees. "But you bore the bulk of the work caring for them those first few years, I gather."

Maglor squints balefully at his cousin. "That is not a question, and it is not your turn."

Finrod nods easily. "It was merely an observation. You may ask as you wish."

Maglor tilts his head back to swallow his next glass. The liquor is starting to blur the edges of the world together now; he feels his thoughts begin to skid diagonally across the well-trod paths of his mind.

Finrod, on the other hand, looks perfectly unruffled, if a little red around the eyes.

A sigh. Maglor scrubs a hand over his face. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?" Finrod says, genuine confusion on his fair face.

"This," Maglor says, gesturing to the clean ivory robes and pristine waterfall of silver-gold hair that is his cousin after nearly twenty drinks in a handful of hours. "How did you manage to come out of all of it well?"

Finrod does not reply for a long moment. His wrist tilts in a practiced motion as he refills both their glasses.

"And how would you know I am well, Makalaurë?" he says, and he sounds for a moment like he did in a command tent in Beleriand, soft and challenging and already somehow very much a king though Fingolfin then was not yet passed.

They look at each other for a moment, wordlessly, connected by an aching, quiet understanding that echoes from the moment Fëanor raised his sword in thunderous oath through to this quiet candlelit breath, both of them reborn and unmarked in all ways but one.

"I'm not going to count that as a question," Maglor says tightly.

"You're not?" Finrod says, the corner of his mouth curving in a smile. "I am indeed fortunate."

"Contrary to popular belief, I'm not an arse," Maglor says, rolling his eyes.

"Contrary indeed," Finrod says, and gamely ducks out of the way of Maglor's halfhearted strike. "Anyhow, my next question." He tosses back the drink. "How is that symphony coming along now? You've been writing in your head, I can tell."

Maglor snorts. "I've near given up."

"By the Valar," Finrod laughs. "My cousin Makalaurë, giving up a symphony two and a half pages in? You've truly changed."

"Quiet," Maglor mutters. "I'd like to see you try. Are you even writing anything remotely near to what you used to now?"

"Oh, I don't know," Finrod says, his gaze a little unfocused. "The music I once wrote when I did not know the feeling of a sword in my hand seems so different now. I'm told I have a certain style, but I couldn't tell you what it was for the life of me."

"You do have a certain style," Maglor tells him. "At least you still did, that last time you visited before you rode back to Nargothrond and Beren sought you." He pauses, brow furrowing. "Did you know you would never return? You left me your second-best harp."

"I knew," Finrod says, smiling faintly. "That was why I left you my second-best harp. Orodreth wouldn't have played it half as well as you, and I needed my best harp to duel Sauron."

Maglor snorts into this next drink. "What a sentence," he rasps, wiping at his nose and blinking at the smear of gold on his sleeve. The world is spinning gently at the edges now.

"Did you put the harp to good use?" Finrod says, refilling both their glasses and bumping the rim of his against Maglor's; they both drink together.

"A warg used it as a toothpick," Maglor mumbles, pouring them both a new serving; the flagon is much lighter now. "I'd lost my shield, and my sword was stuck in the orc-rider's skull. The harp was really the only thing between the warg's sharp teeth and my soft, crushable insides."

"It was carved from a cutting of the first tree we planted by Lake Mithrim," Finrod says mournfully as they firmly clink their glasses and down the drink as one. "I'm sorry it met its end that way."

"It bought me time enough to pull my blade free and behead the warg," Maglor points out, fumbling for the flagon with uncoordinated fingers. "That is better than nothing. Are we still counting questions?"

Finrod blinks a little, and Maglor glimpses the sheen of liquor in his cousin's eyes for the first time that long evening.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Finrod says. "Goodness. It's been a while since I was properly drunk."

"Good. Catch up to me," Maglor says, pouring Finrod another shot and leaving his own glass empty. It takes him a few tries; the soft clouds of cotton in his head seem to have multiplied into a cotton field.

"This seems hardly fair," Finrod says with the ghost of a pout, but he tosses back the shot obediently, and the next two that follow.

"Are you properly drunk now?" Maglor mumbles, reaching out clumsily to clasp Finrod's shoulder.

Finrod blinks rapidly. "I believe so," he says, the faintest hint of a slur to each syllable. "Why do you ask?"

"We never did have a proper competition," Maglor says, swaying to his feet and catching the booth wall when the world tilts alarmingly on its axis. "I think we should remedy that."

"A competition?" Finrod's eyes widen, impossibly blue. "In Song?"

"Yes," Maglor says, craning his neck to peer about the tavern. "Are you interested?"

"Oh,"Finrod breathes, pouring himself a last measure of liquor and tossing it back in one. He gets enthusiastically to his feet, and nearly bashes his head into the candleholder on the wall. "Damn. Yes."

Maglor squints about the crowded tavern until he finds what he is looking for. "Ah!" he exclaims, plunging into a group of younger Noldor and blithely ignoring their cries of alarm. He pulls a dark-haired young ellon from the throng. "You'll do, Lindir."

"My lord Maglor?" Lindir all but squeaks. "Did you – that is, how may I be of service?" His eyes slide from Maglor over to Finrod, and widen with awed recognition.

"This is Lindir," Maglor says proudly to Finrod. "One of Elrond's."

"Ah," Finrod says. He looks delighted. "The musician! Harp-song From The West."

Lindir blushes to the roots of his dark hair. "I am honoured that my work is recongised, my lords," he stammers. "I cannot claim even a tenth of your skill."

"He'll do," Finrod says to Maglor. "Should we pay him?"

Maglor blinks. The thought had not occurred to him in the comfortable thrum of liquor through his mind. "Lindir," he says – ignoring the silent, awed stares of Lindir's young friends – "How much should we pay you?"

Lindir looks at them both, wide-eyed. "For what, my lords?"

"My cousin and I have decided to hold an impromptu contest in Song," Finrod tells him slowly and kindly, as though he speaking to a small child. "You would be judge as to the victor."

Lindir makes an indescribable noise. It is somewhat like a muffled shriek. Behind him, a murmur rises, and begins to spread, growing louder and more excited as faces turn in their direction.

"So," Maglor says, smiling at him "Is that a yes?"

Lindir nods, looking a little as though he might asphyxiate with joy. "I– that is, you don't need to pay me, my lords."

"We'll buy you a drink," Finrod says, throwing an arm around Lindir's shoulders and guiding him firmly towards the raised dais by the bar, despite the wobble in Finrod's step. "Síronwë!" he shouts over the crowd at his former lieutenant, the tavern-keeper. "My cousin and I are having a contest!"

The murmur around them explodes into a roar. Whistles and cheers rise into the heady air as the candlelight almost seems to grow brighter.

Maglor is pushed towards the dais by a dozen pairs of hands, eager, familiar faces all around; it brings to mind the impromptu concerts he would give on nights drinking with his brothers, long ages of the world ago under the silver-gold light of the trees.

He finds himself laughing.

Up onto the dais, the liquor thrum in his veins and already weaving the beat of his heart into music; he hums a long, fluid ripple of notes, and a harp of white wood coalesces in his hands to a renewed roar from his gathered audience.

Maglor looks Finrod directly in the eye, grins in challenge, and begins to sing.

(:~:)

Maedhros is halfway to his feet, intending to surge up the slope after his brother, when Fingon's hand comes down like a vice about his wrist.

"Let him go," Fingon says, as Maedhros snarls and attempts to pull away. "He needs time."

"No," Maedhros hisses, feeling something a little like panic rise in his throat as Maglor's cloaked figure passes out of sight though the city gates. "'Laurë isn't well–"

Finrod gets fluidly to his feet. "Then I'll follow him. I'll make sure he doesn't pass out in a gutter somewhere." He nods deliberately at Fingon. "Findekáno."

Fingon returns Finrod's nod, something unspoken passing between them. Finrod begins languidly making his way up the slope of Túna.

Maedhros wrenches his wrist free, his stride lengthening into a run, but the next moment there is rapid patter of boots against grass and two arms snap around his waist.

It is only after Maedhros's chin makes painful contact with the grassy dirt of Túna's southern slope that he realises Fingon has tackled him to the ground.

His panic coalesces like starfire into liquid, burning rage.

"Get off me," he snarls, writhing around to twist a hand into those gold-ribboned braids and twisting sharply as he used to do when they wrestled as youths. "Get the fuck off me, Fingon."

"No," Fingon hisses into his ear, wincing as Maedhros's fingers wrench against his hair. "Be quiet and listen to me, Maitimo."

"Makalaurë–"

"–Needs time."

Maedhros spits out a mouthful of dark tresses braided with gold. "He needs me."

"No," Fingon says, in a voice like quiet death. "I think it's quite the opposite, actually."

White-hot rage flashes like wildfire across Maedhros's vision. The starlight focuses into a blazing, singular point, and he blinks out of existence and only returns to himself when he realises the knuckles of his left hand are smarting and Fingon's weight on him is gone.

Maedhros struggles to sit up and comes face-to-face with Fingon, half-collapsed on the grass a pace away.

There is a purpling bruise on Fingon's right cheek, and his lip is split.

Maedhros watches, breath frozen in his chest, as Fingon carefully rises on one elbow and brings a hand to his injured lip.

"Well, Maitimo," Fingon says with false cheer, wincing as his lip stretches. "You always did know how to land a strike. In more ways than one."

"Finno," Maedhros whispers, horrified.

Fingon turns aside to spit into the grass; the droplets stain the viridian blades crimson in the starlight.

Maedhros feels his heart seize within him; he reaches for Fingon, only for his cousin to bat away his shaking hands.

"I bit my cheek," Fingon says tiredly. "I'm fine."

"I'm sorry," Maedhros whispers, feeling his voice catch in his throat like a jagged wound. His chest feels as though it has cracked in two. "I'm– I'm sorry, Finno."

"Good." Fingon breathes a sigh. "If I spend the next few minutes sitting instead of holding you in place, can I trust that you won't try and run off after 'Laurë?"

The wound in Maedhros's chest opens a little more. "Of course you can trust me," he says, hardening his voice to hide the ache in it. It is always much easier to be angry than to hurt.

Fingon looks at him oddly. "I know. That isn't what I meant." Speaking has opened the cut in his lip again. He winces. "Ah, shit."

Watching Fingon swipe at his lip with a sleeve, Maedhros's anger snuffs out as quickly as it flared.

He moves a little closer, raising a careful hand to tilt Fingon's bruised cheek up towards the starlight. "Do you want me to sing this well again?" he asks, quiet and reserved, as though they are on a battlefield and the injury was not by his own hand.

"Goodness, no," Fingon says, and Maedhros is momentarily stung until his cousin laughs and pushes lightly at him. "This is something I'd leave for Makalaurë. I wouldn't want you to ruin my good looks."

That draws a tired chuckle out of Maedhros, despite his better judgment. He drops his hand to Fingon's shoulder. "I am sorry, Finno. I was… I was a poor cousin, but an even worse elder brother, in Beleriand. 'Laurë took the brunt of it."

Fingon breathes a wry laugh, bringing up a hand to wrap around Maedhros's wrist. "I know," he sighs. "I wanted endlessly to ride east to visit you, you know. I was almost jealous of Finrod for a time. But my father needed me at Mithrim, and by the time the long peace passed I was king, and there were something like ten thousand orcs between Hithlum and Himring."

Maedhros remembers the letters, strewn like a thousand parchment swans across the table of his study in Himring – Fingon's familiar hand, and Maedhros's careful writing. They had planned to lay siege Angband together, from the East and the West, and hoped to meet at last at the fallen gates of Morgoth's fortress and embrace in victory.

Instead, when at last what little remained of Maedhros's host had escaped Glaurung's flames southwards into Ossirand, there had been a lone Elven rider from the northwest, pierced with so many arrows that she had been nearly unrecognizable as one of Fingon's lieutenants.

She had delivered her last, awful message, and died a half-hour later, despite the best efforts of Maedhros's remaining healers.

"And then you were dead," Maedhros whispers, feeling the memory of rage-filled grief thrum at his fingertips where they press into the embroidered fabric of Fingon's cloak. "And my mind went to pieces."

"So you've said before," Fingon says lightly, though his other hand rises to clasp Maedhros's shoulder, as though to steady himself as well as Maedhros.

"I tried to forswear the Oath," Maedhros rasps. "After Sirion. For you, for my brothers, for myself. But the Oath wouldn't let me."

He takes a slow, tight breath. It is good that Fingon is here to ground him. Maedhros had felt so faint, so gossamer thin when he fought the Oath – so far from this warm summer night on the southern slope of Túna with his closest cousin holding him.

Maedhros swallows painfully, and feels Fingon draw him closer, so his brow rests against Fingon's shoulder as it did against Maglor's a few hours ago in the shadow under the tavern table.

"The Oath gnawed at my mind until I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat." Maedhros closes his eyes against the smooth silk of Fingon's cloak. 'Laurë tended to me all winter, and Elrond and Elros were only six. I don't know how he managed it – we had precious little in terms of provisions." The guilt clogs at his throat even now, after so long. "I only realised how thin he had become after he somehow managed to scrounge up a mutton pie for us in the bitter depths of Hrívë."

Fingon stills. "A mutton pie?" he says slowly.

Maedhros lifts his head off Fingon's shoulder. They stare at each other a handsbreadth apart, a little stupidly, as in their youth when they had spent an hour attempting to come up with an excuse for some mischief or another only to realise that Fingolfin had been laughing at them from behind a pillar for the better part of a quarter hour.

"Ah," Maedhros murmurs. "I see."

"There's a start," Fingon says, smiling despite the cut on his lip, and he is suddenly simply Findekáno Ñolofinwion again, with a smile bright enough to match the gold ribbons in his hair. "I knew you'd get there eventually. For someone whose craft is diplomacy you can be quite thick when it comes to your brothers."

Maedhros smiles sharply and draws back his elbow.

Fingon gives a little oof as Maedhros's fist connects with his stomach, but returns Maedhros's embrace anyway, arms folding tightly across Maedhros's spine.

Far above, the moon begins to drop from its zenith. Maedhros lifts his head to find his vision obscured by crimson and sable tresses and the occasional gold ribbon, drifting in the wind. Fingon's cloak is warm under his fingers.

"Should we go find 'Laurë?" Fingon murmurs into Maedhros's shoulder.

Maedhros considers the slow, descending arc of the moon.

"No," he says quietly. "Let's sit a little while longer."

They rest, two cousins properly reunited at last, as the fiery stars wheel above.

Next up: We finally get to the contest of song (I keep saying the rap battle is coming next, but this time it definitely is as the next chapter will be the final one), the the tragedy of the mutton pie finds its resolution, and a new dawn comes at last.

A reminder that this story is set between chapters 15 and 16 of The Ransom of the House of Fëanor, so Maglor hasn't tracked down his wife yet, but the festival of reunion (where the grandsons of Finwë had their impromptu fight club) has already happened.

Also I love men who model healthy masculinity by also being gentle and emotionally vulnerable with each other. I love me some Tolkien men.

Thank you to everyone who's commented so far! I love you all 3