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A warm breeze sprang up, ruffling the summer-dry grass and for a moment, Maedhros could almost imagine it was one of those first autumn evenings he had spent with Fingon. Cold, short evenings, leaves scudding over the fields and Fingon – just a friend, back then – talking nonstop at his side as they shared coffees and talked about everything except the flickering electricity that ran between them every time their fingers brushed.

The illusion of having traveled back in time passed quickly. The air was too warm, and the fields too quiet, the crowds of students gone for the summer, and Fingon’s fingers were interlaced with his in a distinctly more-than-friend-like way. Maedhros squeezed them, a fierce emotion closing his throat, and it was Fingon who tugged them on, newly interested in the tour.

A low hill kept a footpath out of sight of the school, and Fingon stopped to survey it with the air of a veteran perusing a remembered battlefield. “This is the scene of my one and only fight.”

Maedhros raised his eyebrows, surprised. “Really?”

“Well,” said Fingon wistfully. “No. It was staged for drama club. I still won, though.”

This didn’t surprise Maedhros at all.

“And this,” said Fingon, as they walked out onto the practice fields, down around the sidelines where the sumac grew, “this is where I used to take my willfully obtuse cousin to try and get him to mack on me.”

Maedhros didn’t need reminding. For a long time his fantasies had been incongruously haunted by the presence of sumac bushes and the distant sound of whistles on the practice fields. For a year, he had gotten partially and confusingly aroused at the sound of people kicking soccer balls. Just another sign of the unwitting deviancy Fingon had inspired in him from day one, he thought, and grinned.

“You were so oblivious back then it was surreal. Like, how could you be so immune to my desperation?” Fingon clung to Maedhros’ arm and fluttered his eyelashes up at him. “Oooh, cousin Maedhros, let’s catch a ride to the movies in an overcrowded VW so that I just have to sit on your lap. Oooh, best platonic friend Maedhros, my hands are cold, can I put them down your pants? Oooh, cousin Maedhros – ”

“Listen,” said Maedhros, wondering how Fingon could have been so oblivious as to consider him immune, “if you had put your hands down my pants instead of just stealing my jacket or casually linking arms with me – which, let me tell you, was incredibly effective as it was – I would not be here to have this conversation with you. Because I would have died, here on the outfield.”

“Sensitive little thing, weren’t you,” said Fingon. “Glad you’re less so now. Hmm, let me see if I can get that zipper…”

Maedhros carefully evaded his hands, glancing over his shoulder as he did. “Much as I appreciate the motive and the need for some revisionist reenactment,” he said, “if we get caught having sex at a school we will be arrested and I’ve already done that once this year.”

“Ahhh, you and your priors,” said Fingon, leering like James Dean and winking like Paul Newman. “It’s such a chore, dating a felon.”

Maedhros made a face and pulled him on, past the school and into the town center where he had once spent so much time, reading and perusing the books in his favorite bookshop, pretending he wasn’t waiting for Fingon. He scanned the familiar square, noting the differences. Some of the trees were taller now while other had been pruned back, and there were new plantings along the border by the modest fountain. The bookstore he’d once spent so much time in was still there, though looking rather shabby, and the pizza shop the students used to go to after school had moved and been replaced by an unlikely looking gelateria.

Fingon was looking around too, a nostalgic smile on his face. “This is where you failed to reject me for the first time,” he said. “Remember? You were sitting on that bench there and it was cold out. You were reading a book with no gloves on, like the beautiful idiot you were, probably because you knew I liked the gorgeous frozen nerd look. I’d just gotten into Beleriand and I knew everything would change if we could be at school together, or at least I’d have the chance to try, so I ran over here all the way from my parents’ house and I just lobbed myself at you like a maniac. I think I thought you would drop me, or fall over in horror, but you actually kissed me back, which told me a lot about the importance of taking you by surprise. Our first kiss, Mae, they should put up a plaque. You remember? I think I almost lost a tooth.” He turned, frowning, as he realized Maedhros was no longer beside him. “Mae?” He looked back, and then down, and his eyes widened.

Maedhros had gone down on one knee.

“What,” croaked Fingon. “What – what are you doing?”

“Findekáno,” Maedhros began, but had to clear his throat. He remembered the other necessary component to this moment and fumbled in his pocket for the small box. He’d been walking around with it in his pocket for a week now on high alert, half sure that he’d have to whip it out as defensive measure if Fingon seemed to be about to beat him to the punch. He held it up, looked into Fingon’s eyes, and forgot everything he had been planning to say. There had been a speech, about how lucky he was, and how good Fingon was, and something else that he’d probably stolen from Nora Ephron, and a line that Maglor had insisted on over Maedhros’ objections – but every last word of it flew out of his head as Fingon stared down at him in abject astonishment. He held the box a little higher, opening it with fumbling fingers, hoping this would speak for itself.

“So,” he said, and cleared his throat again. “So.”

“Maitimo,” said Fingon, faintly. “You wang.” But there were tears in his eyes, and his hands were trembling.

“That’s not what you’re supposed to say,” said Maedhros, who was kneeling on a pebble that was digging painfully into his knee. He shifted slightly. “Yes or no are the traditional responses, along with – ”

“I can’t believe you’re actually doing this,” said Fingon, his voice thick. “I thought – I thought I would – ”

“Did you really doubt we were headed here? That I wanted to spend my life with you?” Maedhros looked up at him, the sun warming his face, and suddenly he couldn’t stop himself from smiling like a loon. “Or did you just doubt I could actually figure out how much I wanted this?”

Fingon wiped his eyes. “No, I – I had total faith in you.”

“Liar,” said Maedhros fondly, and took Fingon’s left hand in his right.

Fingon’s tears started to flow again. “You haven’t actually asked the question yet,” he pointed out, and then added hastily, “But you can take your time, I know it’s a scary one.”

“You have always been a thousand times a braver and better person than me,” said Maedhros. “But this doesn’t scare me at all.”

He asked the question.

Fingon answered it.

His own hands shaking now, Maedhros slid the ring onto Fingon’s hand and Fingon immediately dropped to the ground next to him, his arms going tightly around Maedhros. Maedhros clutched at him and Fingon buried his face against Maedhros’ neck, whispering things Maedhros couldn’t make out.

Maedhros swallowed twice to make sure he could actually speak, then gently brushed Fingon’s curls aside and said, “What was that?”

Fingon raised his head, and Maedhros’ heartbeat collapsed. Fingon had never been so beautiful as he was right now, glowing with happiness. Fingon, his fiancé, Fingon who had said yes.

“We have to raise the kids Jewish,” Fingon said, and he was grinning now, though his face was wet. “I promised Bubbe when I was drunk at Passover.”

“Okay,” said Maedhros, still concussed with his good fortune. “That works out, because I’m pretty sure I promised my mom I’d never raise any kids Catholic.” Then he paused, panic starting to flit across his features. “Kids?”

“Aw, buddy, don’t worry, you don’t have to be brave about this one yet,” said Fingon, and he heaved Maedhros to his feet.

The ring box still clutched in one hand, Maedhros staggered, began to speak, and then froze, a horrible dawning expression crossing his face. “Oh. No.”

“Already?” said Fingon, “Haha, no, sorry, you’re my fiancé now, I won’t make jokes about you being too quick to co – Mae, are you okay? You look terrible. Oh god, were you in a fugue state before and now you’ve just realized what you did? Listen, I don’t care, you can’t retract it, I won’t let you.”

“I threw out my back,” said Maedhros frantically.

“Oh, good one,” said Fingon, and then, as Maedhros sagged dangerously, “Wait, you’re serious? I haven’t even gotten to kiss you as an engaged man yet! You’re broken already?”

Maedhros clutched at Fingon’s arms. “Is there a nearby chiropractor?”

“Hum,” said Fingon. “Listen…”

“What?”

“Don’t call me a hypocrite, but I might have to take back my answer.”

“What?”

“You were right all those years,” said Fingon forlornly. “You are too old for me.”

Maedhros, torn between exasperation, pain, and a small bit of genuine anxiety, gazed up at him pathetically. “Fin!”

“Just kidding,” said Fingon, and pulled his arm over his shoulders to support him. “In sickness and in health, right? Oh my god, I can quote that kind of thing to you all the time now.”

They set off across the square, Maedhros making noises of mingled pain and jubilation, and before they made it to the sidewalk, Fingon stopped to tug Maedhros around. “Hang on,” he said softly. “I really haven’t gotten to kiss you as an engaged man yet.”

Maedhros looked at him, and for a moment all pain was forgotten in the face of the look in Fingon’s eyes. Then Fingon kissed Maedhros like he had kissed him for the first time on that cold day ten years before, a kiss like Fingon himself, a kiss full of warmth and joy and wild hope.

When they broke apart, it was Maedhros’ turn to weep.

Fingon wiped his tears away gently and kissed him again, this time on the nose. “Right,” he said, shifting his hands through Maedhros’ hair so he could admire the way the ring glinted against it. “How soon after getting your back adjusted do you reckon we can have sex? Will you die?”

“Oh, god,” said Maedhros faintly, as Fingon’s fingers brushed his ears. “I can’t think of a better way to go.”

* * *

Beleriand: 1495 Mithrim Lake Road

Aredhel leaned up against a lamppost, lit a cigarette, and grinned at the night sky. The door of the big, rambling house opened, sending a sliver of light onto the walk, then closed again. Footsteps approached.

“You got more of those?”

Aredhel blew out a stream of smoke and watched a moth flutter dizzily in the light of the street lamp. “I thought you quit.”

Celegorm sloped down the sidewalk to her and winked. “Special occasions only.”

“Cigars would probably be more appropriate.” But she passed over the cigarette and couldn’t help breaking into another wide smile. “Fuck. I can’t believe this.”

Celegorm chuckled, leaning up next to her and taking the cigarette from between her fingers. “I can’t believe it only took Nelyo ten years to get his shit together. Maybe my threat of proposing for him really made an impact.”

“You do know how to put the fear of god into a man.”

Celegorm nudged her slightly. “You next?” There was a twinkle in his eye, but his tone was genuinely inquisitive.

Aredhel shrugged, smiled, and let her head fall back against the post, shaking her hair out of her eyes. There was music drifting from the house.

“Elenwë’s teaching Oromë meringue,” said Celegorm, watching the moth that was still trying to throw itself into the light. “I’m considering making her stilts.”

Aredhel laughed and took her cigarette back. They stood in companionable silence a while, the smoke drifting around them in the warm summer evening, waiting for the text from Maedhros that would announce his and Fingon’s imminent arrival and the start of the party. Aredhel leaned happily against Celegorm’s side and he draped an arm around her shoulders.

“Who do you reckon Findekáno will choose for best man?”

“Me,” said Aredhel at once. “Who else? Mae will choose Mags though, you gotta figure.”

Celegorm scowled. “If he wants a bachelor party sponsored by Jeff Mangum, maybe. I can’t believe he’d pass up the opportunity to choose me instead. I’m the only brother he’s got who knows what it’s like to kiss his future husband! That’s the stuff best men are made of.”

“Yeah, I’m shocked too.”

“But whatever, he’s not gonna get out of having Huan as ring bearer.”

“I hope Findekáno doesn’t have any delusions of wearing white,” said Aredhel absently. “He knows it would be a sham.”

“Also, you wanna wear white.”

“Well, come on, I pull it off so much better.”

They fell silent again, Celegorm cursing softly as the cigarette burnt down to his fingers and he dropped it. From the house came the strains of a faster song, and a clatter as something got knocked over. Someone shouted something in which the word ‘karaoke’ could be discerned, and there was a smaller crash, like an object had been thrown across the room.

There was a buzz in Celegorm’s pocket, and Aredhel pulled away so he could pat at his pockets. He pulled out his phone to examine the incoming text, and a smile spread over his face. “They’re on their way. Got the fireworks?”

“Yep. Got the champagne?”

Arms slung around each other, they set off up the walk to the house. The door swung open, briefly revealing the tableau in the foyer. Maglor was standing on top of a ladder hanging a banner while below, Curufin consulted a complex schematic and waved his arms commandingly. Caranthir was lounging on the stairs, a beer in one hand, Huan resting his head on his lap while Elenwë dashed by, barefoot, pursuing a fleeing cat. Finrod perched on the bannister while arranging a bouquet of flowers, dropping spare petals onto Curufin’s hair until Curufin shook his head and scowled at him. Turgon emerged from the living room, carrying the escaped cat, and Finrod dropped a petal onto her head instead.

Celegorm and Aredhel passed through the door and it closed softly behind them, muting the excitement within and casting the front yard once again into gloaming darkness. In the light of the lamppost, the moth still fluttered.

One last glowing ember from Aredhel’s cigarette glowed briefly, then flickered and died.

The lights in the house shone on.

Chapter End Notes

2. I can’t write this note without choking up, so I’ll keep it short she lied.

This arc has finally reached its end, as it needed to eventually. Part of me was really, really not ready for it – I’d long joked that I am so bad at finishing things that it would just wander on until I faked my death – but part of me knew pretty clearly that now was the time and that holding off/prolonging it was going to result in a lot of frustrated waiting on your end and a lot of subpar writing on mine. This has already extended 75 or so chapters longer than I ever anticipated, and I have no regrets – it’s been more fun than I could have ever imagined. I can’t tell you how much this story, and everyone who’s read it, have meant to me.