Sören was in the bathroom with The Silmarillion when he heard Mark's car pull in. Usually that sound was comforting to him - that his beloved was home safe and sound.
This time it wasn't comforting at all. Sören froze, like a deer trapped in headlights. He felt his muscles tense, his fists start to clench, like he was ready to spring. His heart raced, mouth dry, head spinning.
Sören had gone into reading the book with few expectations - Tolkien had written about elves and maybe there might be some sort of clue here, something that Ari saw and thought he should look at. What he found went above and beyond his expectations.
His jaw had dropped, hair standing on end, when he came to the line
Maglor the mighty singer, whose voice was heard far over land and sea
and later
And it is told of Maglor that he could not endure the pain with which the Silmaril tormented him; and he cast it at last into the Sea, and thereafter he wandered ever upon the shores, singing in pain and regret beside the waves. For Maglor was mighty among the singers of old, named only after Daeron of Doriath; but he came never back among the people of the Elves.
Suddenly it all came together: Mark's claim to be the second son of seven brothers, all of whom were dead but him. Mark claiming the scar on his hand was a war wound - for so much of the story had been Maglor and Maedhros fighting together. Mark's father, the artist, his mother, the sculptor... his uncle, the politician. Why he was here living among humans now, instead of his own kind. Sören wondered how long indeed Mark had been away from his people.
At some point in his reading, Sören had grabbed his laptop, typed "Maglor" into Google, to see if there was anything he'd missed, or any apocrypha from Tolkien's other writings. And on Wikipedia he'd come across the line
Maglor is a Sindarin rendering of his Quenya mother name Makalaurë (or Macalaurë), which means "Gold-cleaver" — alluding to his skill with the harp, and possibly the power of his voice.
He thought of that painting he'd done, where he'd painted Mark as an elf, golden light streaming from his harp, as if the light in the forest were coming from his music and not the sun. And then it hit him like a ton of bricks:
Macalaurë... Mark Lauer.
It was an even worse pun than the Dadpocalypse, Dadnarök, Dadgor Dadgorath jokes. Sören had groaned, facepalmed, shaking with silent laughter, actually a little proud of him.
A chip off the old block.
And that had been even worse than the revelation that "Mark" was more than what he'd let on, was living a double life, had not been completely honest with him all this time. Into his reading of The Silmarillion, Sören had started shipping Fëanor and Fingolfin. There was of course no mention of an intimate relationship between the brothers in the story, but Sören could see it in his mind's eye, could feel it - sibling rivalry spiced with sexual tension, loyalty born of passion. Fingolfin, mad with grief at the loss of his brother, his beloved, his soulmate, had challenged Morgoth to single combat - a suicide mission, intending to take Morgoth down with him, avenge the man he loved.
But then Sören realized he wasn't just shipping them as a fan, doing what fans do. The pieces started clicking together. The dreams of burning to death that had been plaguing him since he was four. The flames and the phoenix that he'd inked onto his own skin. The dreams he'd had of wearing a crown of three brilliant jewels. Making things in a forge. The vision yesterday of writing in that strange script that had been in Mark's journal, teaching a boy who looked like a small version of Mark how to write.
The dreams of a secret marriage with a man who looked like Mark, only not... and laying with Mark, together and separately. The passion between them. The fire.
He was still passionate. Still creative. He still burned.
He was Fëanor, the Spirit of Fire, reborn into mortal flesh. It had been the curse of the Valar for his defiance. Even now, he was still defiant - after Seth, what seemed to be the latest punishment of the Valar, he'd struggled with the occasional suicidal feelings, half-wishing the car accident had taken his life. And he was still alive in large part out of spite, not wanting to let "the bastards" win. The bastards meaning Seth, Einar, the peers who'd bullied him in school for being so different. And now, Sören knew that the Valar were the biggest bastards of all, wanting him to break.
His crime was pride... and passion.
I seduced my brother and later my son, when he was of age. And it was glorious. I would do it again. A shudder, remembering how it had been. Again and again.
And yet, none of it sat well with him at all. It was one thing to see the true length of Mark's hair, and the pointy ears, and suddenly have it backed up by something Tolkien had wrote, as if it were a historical document passing itself as a piece of fiction. It was another thing to claim to be the reincarnation of Fëanor himself. That was crazy. That was even worse than the New Age people who claimed to be the reincarnation of Cleopatra or something.
And it was another thing to commit incest. And still, Sören wanted him.
But that want was tinged with anger now, anger that flared up again when he heard Mark's car pulling in. Mark had been lying to him. It was an understandable set of lies - Sören knew Mark couldn't live openly as an elf among mortals - but it had been a set of lies nonetheless. And it raised a lot of questions about the future... their future.
"Sören?" Mark called out as he walked in. "You OK, babe?"
"In the bathroom," Sören called back. No, I'm not fucking OK at all. His hands were shaking. "I'll be out in a minute."
"OK, you want anything from the kitchen?"
The truth. "I'm good, takk."
Sören splashed some cold water on his face and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down. But he couldn't. It felt like something snapped inside his head, and he found himself storming out of the bathroom, not able to think, only feel. Mark was sitting there in the armchair with a glass of Sprite, writing in that damned journal again, and knowing what was in there - the script Fëanor had invented, taught his son - and Sören flew off the handle. He'd wanted to bring up this subject calmly. There was no calm anymore. There was only fire.
Sören threw The Silmarillion at Mark, which he caught just before it could hit him in the chest - lightning reflexes that once again were superhuman. When the book was in Mark's hands he glanced at it, poker-faced... and then his brow furrowed, and he looked up at Sören, looking stricken. As if he knew the hammer was about to strike the anvil.
It was suddenly very, very warm in the living room. Sören completely lost his ability to speak English. "Þú fokking lygari! Hvernig get ég einhvern tíma fokking treyst þér aftur eða trúað einhverju fjandans orði sem kemur út úr munninum?"
Mark's lips parted, and he was breathing a little harder.
"Fokking lygari. Varstu að ljúga þegar þú sagðist elska mig? Hefur þetta allt verið lygi fyrir þig, bara höfn í stormi, áður en þú ferð?"
Sören was shaking. He realized that he was going off in Icelandic and nobody but Icelanders spoke it, and he should probably try to calm down and find his English...
"Sören. Sören, I can explain -"
"Það er bara það. Þú getur útskýrt, en það gerðir þú ekki, allan þennan tíma. Hversu mikið lengur varstu að skipuleggja að ljúga að mér? Myndirðu einhvern tíma segja mér eitthvað af þessu? Myndir þú?"
Mark's brow furrowed again, his face stern. When he spoke, it sounded like he had raised his voice, but he hadn't. "Sören. Sestu niður. Róaðu þig. Rólegur og leyfðu mér að útskýra fyrir þér hvað er að gerast."
Now it was Sören's turn for his jaw to drop, his eyes to widen. He pointed at Mark, finger shaking. "Þú ... þú talar íslensku?"
"Ég tala allt, Sören Sigurdsson. Ég er Söngurinn."
Sören flopped down on the couch, trying to catch his breath. He started to wheeze, and cough, and fumbled for his inhaler, taking a puff. Mark got up, calmly walked to the kitchen, and came back with a glass of ginger ale for Sören. Then Mark turned on the stereo - putting on a pop station - before sitting down again in the armchair, across from Sören. They just stared at each other for a few moments, with Katy Perry making a ridiculous contrast to what was playing out here.
When Sören found his words again - found his ability to speak English - it was that he remarked on. "You hate this kind of music."
"I hate most of it. I don't hate all pop music. I like Madonna... well, earlier Madonna." Mark laughed softly.
"Why is this on?" Sören asked.
"This is the kind of conversation I'd rather not be overheard by neighbors or passerby. My experiences over the years have taught me I can't be too careful. And it's easier for me to mask everything if there's music in the background..."
"...Mask?" Sören was confused.
"It's one of my superpowers, I guess." Mark took a sip of his drink and leaned back. "Manipulating sound... don't ask me how it works."
Sören had a sip of his own ginger ale and then he also sat back, his arms folded. "You have a lot of explanation to do."
"It seems to me you already figured out most of it," Mark said, looking at The Silmarillion and then back at Sören.
"Most of it. But I have more questions than answers, now."
Mark took another sip of his drink and waited, hands folded on his lap.
Sören took a few deep breaths.
"I suppose we can start by me asking you a few questions," Mark said. "How did it occur to you to go digging for information? What was it that set it off?"
"I saw you last night on the beach," Sören said. "I saw your ears. I saw how long your hair really is. When I painted you in the forest, as an elf, I hadn't seen any of that. When I paint, I tend to paint what I see here..." Sören pointed to the middle of his forehead. "And it was like seeing you, last night, confirmed that there's something going on with me, when I make art." Because I'm Fëanor. It's my own "superpower", as you called it. But Sören didn't say that aloud. He didn't want to touch the Fëanor part of this conversation with a nine-foot-pole. "Actually..." Sören laughed bitterly. "There's part of me that's still convinced I'm hallucinating all of this, because what I saw last night... too beautiful to be real..."
Mark inhaled sharply, and Sören found himself closing his eyes reflexively. When he opened them, Mark's hair had lengthened from the middle of his back down to his thighs. Mark's eyes were iridescent, like pieces of labradorite. His already-flawless skin was even more flawless, save the scar on his hand. Mark tucked his hair behind his ears and Sören gasped at the points.
"The glowing...?" There was only a faint aura around Mark.
"It's more noticeable in a dark room or at night, neither of which we have at the moment, but I think this should suffice to show you what you saw wasn't a hallucination." Mark pursed his lips.
Sören's eyes teared up. His head was spinning again. He opened his mouth to try to speak, and a sob came out. The last time he'd cried like this in the presence of such beauty was back in April when Dooku had taken him out to the middle of nowhere on the Oregon Coast Highway to see the stars without light pollution, and they'd looked at the Milky Way. Sören broke down, and Mark came over to him, putting an arm around him, then the other.
As angry as Sören still was for being lied to - and as much trepidation as he felt knowing this was his son, this was the taboo to end all taboos, the sin to end all sins - he melted into Mark's touch, and found himself petting the mane of hair, stroking the flawless cheek like smooth marble, gently tweaking the point of Mark's ear, which made Mark smile.
Mark took Sören's hand and kissed it, and pulled Sören against his shoulder. Sören fell apart on him, crying, and Mark rocked him. "It's OK, my love," Mark whispered, petting Sören's curls. "It's all right. You have nothing to be afraid of..."
Sören pulled back. "I have everything to be afraid of." He swallowed hard. "This changes everything."
Mark nodded solemnly. "It rather does, yes."
"I don't even know where to begin with the questions. There's too much."
"Just the first thing that comes to mind, and... we can take this a piece at a time. It doesn't have to be all unpacked today." Mark gave a small, rueful smile. "One thing I've got quite a bit of, is time."
"I guess we can go with that. How old are you?"
"Old."
Sören snorted.
"Approximately eleven thousand years," Mark said.
"Jesus. Well... older than Jesus."
"And I've spent over half of that around mortals. I've been around humans longer than I've been around elves, at this point."
"So I'm not... the first relationship you've had with a mortal."
"No, Sören, but you're the first mortal partner I've had in a good long time." Mark looked into his eyes, before looking away, shifting uncomfortably. "It's painful to get attached, and watch them age when you do not. Watch them succumb to their frailty, one way or another. There is only so much the heart can take. I told you when we got together I'd been trying to fight my feelings for you. This is why. Especially with it being you." Mark looked back at Sören. "More than any other mortal I have loved, you have stolen my heart. I will always remember what I had with others, will always love them, cherish them, but... you are leagues beyond anyone else." He stroked Sören's face. "The fire of your spirit..."
And once again, Sören thought about telling him. We have been reunited. But he couldn't bring himself to say those words, confess that truth. That terrible, awful truth. There was a part of Sören that was convinced it might not even be the truth - he'd been right about Mark being an elf, his perceptions, intuition, hadn't been wholly off. But even a stopped clock was right twice a day. Delusions of grandeur. Maglor was magnificent, and he was nothing. Nobody. He'd been told as much over and over again.
And Sören didn't just have reasons to doubt his own perception that he was Fëanor reborn, but Mark speaking of his love wasn't as comforting as hoped.
"You say you love me," Sören choked out, "but do you? Because you've been lying to me -"
"I haven't lied to you about everything, and when I have lied, it's been as close to the truth as possible."
"Has it?" Sören glared.
"Yes, Sören. For example - I really am from Connecticut... in a sense. Wethersfield, Connecticut. I came here in the 1600s, when Connecticut was still a colony. I keep going back there every few decades for the nostalgia of it, my home away from home, I suppose you could say. I did go to Yale... a few times." A little smile. "I've been in the United States Army - the American Revolution on behalf of the Americans, the Civil War on behalf of the North, World War I and World War II. I was a prisoner of war a very long time ago, back in the old days, before the world was what it became... and I was imprisoned for a time in the 1970s by the US government."
"They..." Sören swallowed hard. "You... did they find out about you?"
Mark nodded. "I was a leftist civil rights activist when the government was spying on 'commies' like us, and what was a routine arrest turned into, well." Mark cringed.
"I'm so sorry, Mark." Sören couldn't even imagine what hell that was like - a vision flashed across his mind's eye of needles. Electricity. A cell... My son. Oh my son, what have they done to you. The crazy, wild urge to get up and burn the entire world to the ground, somehow. For everyone's sake - most of all Mark's, his own - he locked himself into the moment, concentrated on this. His brain focused on the name. "Er. Should I still call you Mark? Should I call you Maglor?"
"To be honest, I'd prefer you continue to call me Mark," Mark said, looking into Sören's eyes. "It's not just that I've been Mark so long that it feels like my name now, but you're less likely to slip if you call me the same thing consistently. And it's very important that... we keep this information contained as much as we possibly can."
"Are you on the run from the government?"
Mark shook his head. "I was eventually let go, with some conditions. I have to relocate every seven to ten years, because I don't age, and with my personality I can't convincingly pretend to be under thirty, thirty-five, so by the time I edge closer to 'fifty' -" He made air quotes. "And I'm still looking like this, it raises eyebrows unless I claim I've gotten some work done. Which, you know, claiming to get Botox done is fairly incongruous with my personality. So. They help with moving me around, giving me new paperwork, it's like the Witness Protection Program but I have more freedom of where I go and what I do, so long as I register with them and keep them updated on what's going on."
"Jesus."
"It's a hard life, Sören. Though to be honest it was harder before, when I had to move on my own without help. I'd had to part with some irreplaceable things to cover travel expenses. Now all of that is free, so long as I keep my head down, keep my nose clean, live as quiet and 'normal' of a life as I can. I do worry about how things are going to change in the Trump administration, since the government seems a lot more hostile to foreigners, and well... what am I if not a foreigner. The immigrant of immigrants." Mark gave a bitter laugh.
Sören had to. "The Noldor aren't sending us their best people -"
Mark's laughter rang out. Then he frowned. "Well, no. Because the best people died." He closed his eyes. "I miss my father and my uncle Fingolfin so, so much."
Sören missed Fingolfin too, wherever he was. The other half of my soul. And again, that wild urge to tell Mark I'm right here. But he didn't, couldn't.
Instead, Sören put his arms around him, and now it was Mark's turn to lean on him. Sören's anger was starting to fade. He just hurt for Mark, wandering endlessly around the world - having to uproot once a decade. Getting attached, loving and losing. Sören could feel the ancient grief bearing down on him, the weariness.
"I never liked lying to you, Sören, but I'm sure you can understand that I couldn't just come right out to you and say, 'Hi, I'm an elf.'" Mark picked his head up and smirked. "Even if you'd probably respond with 'Hi An Elf' -"
Sören snickered, and kissed the tip of Mark's nose.
"And I wasn't lying to you about my feelings. I'm not." Mark sat up and stroked Sören's face some more, looking into his eyes. "I do love you, Sören. More than you know."
"What I want to know now is if you were going to tell me."
"Eventually I'd have to. I knew it was a matter of time before you'd see my ears, or I'd accidentally slip and you'd see me unglamoured."
"Un...glamoured?"
"What I call the little bit of magic I do to, ah. Make myself look more human. With some concessions - I don't want my hair short. This is as short as I'm willing to go, these days." Mark gestured to the middle of his chest. "Back in the late 60s through the 1980s I didn't have to hide the length of my hair at all - the glam rock days of the 80s were a lot of fun. I could probably get away with my hair being its full length in Portland, it's a city full of weirdos, but I'd also probably get a lot of random strangers wanting to touch my hair and talk to me about it."
"You don't hide the scar on your hand though, or your ears...?"
Mark shook his head. "I could, but it takes a certain amount of effort to sustain the glamour and as time has gone on I'm tired and have become a bit of a slacker. So I just... never put my hair up, or back, I wear it loose to hide my ears. And the scar, well... it's a reminder of who I am, where I came from. Sometimes I doubt my own sanity, and it's harder to doubt when I have the evidence of certain events right in front of me."
"And you don't need the glasses."
"No. I have perfect vision. The glasses are part of my slackass approach to glamour - the eyes are the window to the soul, and all, and tend to be the first thing to go when emotions are running high. So that's part of the disguise. Though, I've also gotten used to seeing myself in them. I feel naked without them now." Mark laughed softly.
"You're beautiful," Sören husked. "You don't have to glamour around me when it's just the two of us, if you don't want to."
Mark kissed Sören's forehead.
They held each other for a moment and then Mark said, "So, yes. There have been untruths, and I regret those - I know you have trust issues. I know you've been gaslit by abusers... and I hope you'll forgive me. As I said, though, I try to keep the lies as close to the truth as I can. Not simply because lying puts a bad taste in my mouth, but I'm less likely to slip and be caught in a lie, that way."
"Your name." Sören nodded. "Mark Lauer... Macalaurë."
Mark's breath caught. "That does sound lovely when you say it in your accent."
"Macalaurë," Sören repeated.
Mark kissed him hard. When they pulled apart, Mark was breathing a little harder - so was Sören - and Mark said, "Yes. But save that for more intimate moments."
Sören grinned. There was a frisson down his spine, wanting more of those intimate moments - and then the pang of guilt again. Incest. Sin.
But Fëanor had no guilt, no shame, back then. They had been consenting adults - wildly consenting, frantic in their need for each other, begging for more. Always needing more. Never enough. I need you like life needs life, Mark had said to him a few days ago... and Sören understood that need now. The fire in their blood.
Sören needed to change the subject - the thought of him being Fëanor, or more likely, the delusion that he was - was more uncomfortable to him than the thought that the pleasure and passion he'd known with Fingolfin and Maglor a long time ago had been incest. "It does seem strange," Sören said. "You're trying to avoid exposure, and you're hiding in plain sight to avoid a slip-up on your end... but you're also leading a bit of a bread crumb trail to yourself. I'm not exactly the brightest crayon in the box sometimes -"
"I beg to differ. You're not stupid, Sören."
"Sometimes I am." Sören cringed. He'd made a lot of stupid mistakes in his life - his days of reckless partying. Choosing Seth as a partner, staying with him past the first round of red flags, buying his "baby I'll change" lies. Since he was a child he'd felt like an idiot compared to his twin brother, who'd been sent off to Oxford at age fourteen. He and Dag both had genius-level IQs, but Dag soared like an eagle, and Sören still felt like an awkward ugly duckling with all there was to learn about the world. "But even I was able to follow that bread crumb trail to who you are, and your name helped with that." Sören raised an eyebrow. "I'm used to calling you Mark, we'll go with Mark. But... you couldn't use a more imaginative, less obvious name?"
Mark gave him a look, and Sören wondered if this was not the first time Mark had heard this lecture, and from who. In his mind's eye he could see an old man, older than Dooku, long grey beard, spectacles, a pipe... "Such as?" Mark raised an eyebrow.
Lady Gaga was on the radio now and a mad giggle bubbled out of Sören. "Alejandro?"
For a brief second, Sören felt like another version of himself was glaring at him across the multiverse. Ha. Fucking. Ha. Ha. Then as quickly as that feeling came on, it went away.
And the gigglefit gave way to sobbing. This was all too much. It was one thing to know the world was weirder than he thought possible - the painting of Marilwen the paladin that Sharon said had been taken right out of her dreams. It was another thing to have tangible, irrefutable proof of it right here in his arms.
Proof that changed everything. The future seemed even more uncertain now. They had love - so much love - but was that really enough?
Mark cried with him. Seeing Mark so distraught made Sören cry even harder, not wanting to see him in so much pain - Mark had already known too much pain and sorrow in his long, long life. Sören leaned in and kissed Mark's tears, and then they were kissing again, and Sören clutched at him - but he couldn't give in. Not just yet.
Mark seemed to know something was bothering Sören enough to not let go into his usual spontaneity with sex. He held Sören again, petting his curls. "Thank you," Mark whispered.
"For?"
Mark took Sören's chin in his hand and tilted his face up. Their eyes met. "I took a real risk by telling you... which is part of why I was holding off. I knew there was a chance that you'd freak out. That you'd bolt and never want to see me again."
"Oh, Mark. How could you even think that?" Sören stroked Mark's face. "I love you." However angry he had been at being lied to... he couldn't deny how much he loved Mark. Wanted that love to continue.
Mark looked down, pain visible on his face. "Past partners or would-be partners have reacted badly to the truth of me. Not all of them. But more than once, I've been rejected for this. And once, betrayed." Mark took Sören's hand and kissed it.
Sören grabbed Mark and held him tight, sobbing. "You've got me, Mark. As long as you want me." The words came flooding out before he could stop himself. "You've got me for life, if you want it. You're the one."
Mark wept as brokenly as Sören had ever heard him, holding onto Sören so tightly it almost hurt. They cried together, rocking, falling apart in each other's arms.
"I love you," Mark husked. "I love you so much..."
"I love you." My Song. Sören felt like his heart would break - Mark finally had one of the people he'd lost. Except maybe he didn't, Sören still couldn't quite believe he was Fëanor...
They continued holding each other, and then Sören made a noise - the rash on his legs was bothering him again.
"Jesus Christ," Sören growled, desperately trying not to scratch.
"Oh, honey." Mark kissed the top of his head.
Sören got up, marched off to get the calamine lotion and cotton balls, and came back. As he shook the bottle of calamine lotion, Mark gently grabbed his wrist and took the bottle of lotion out of his hand, setting it down on the coffee table.
"What... are you doing," Sören said, confused.
"I really badly wanted to do this for you yesterday, I was so tempted, but it would expose me," Mark said. He rubbed his hands together and Sören watched them glow brighter.
He grabbed Sören's legs and put them on his lap, and then he put his hands on Sören's left knee. He began sliding his hands down Sören's left leg and Sören watched, open-mouthed, as his leg was encased in silver light. And it was soothing, like being in a warm bath, or a soft pile of pillows. Sören felt the tension roll out of his body, to the point of almost falling asleep.
But he couldn't quite sleep, watching Mark. It was beautiful. Beautiful and a little terrifying, humbling, to be in the presence of godlike power, healing his rash. Sören gasped when he saw the rash completely gone from his left leg, and Mark working on his right leg. When both his legs were rash-free, Sören grabbed Mark and hugged him.
"Oh my god," Sören said, laughing and crying.
"You're welcome." Mark kissed Sören's cheek, and smiled tenderly, petting him.
"That's..." Sören's breath caught. "That's incredible. You can do that?"
"I can heal some things," Mark said, nodding. "Not others." Mark closed his eyes, wincing, and Sören could see it in his mind's eye - mortal partners, friends, found family, injured, sick, dying, nothing Mark could do, feeling helpless. Hating himself for it. Digging a grave, burying a partner, kneeling in the dirt, kissing the memorial cross, weeping. Mark opened his eyes and their eyes met again. "If you have a minor ailment - a rash, a cut or a scrape... a sprain, maybe... I can fix that. More serious things... not so much."
"It must have been hell for you last night, wanting to do this..."
Mark nodded. Then he gave a guilty grin. "Well, playing doctor was fun."
Sören grinned too. "It was."
"But yes. It's... it's a relief that you know, now." Mark hugged him.
Sören was glad that it gave Mark some relief. But he wasn't relieved at all. After finding love and happiness, he felt so close to losing it again. Being even more alone and hurt than he was before.
_
While there was still more that needed to be discussed, it could wait. Everything that had come out already was more than enough, Sören's mind reeling. They needed to put the rest of it on the shelf for awhile and revisit it later.
Now that Sören's poison oak rash was cleared up, he felt like going out. Mark took him out to dinner - they went for Indian food. Then a drive to Point Reyes, where they'd gone before. Mark brought his harp along in the car, and he carried it out to the beach when they got to Point Reyes. After doing scales, Mark looked at Sören and asked, "Any requests?"
"What you were playing last night," Sören said.
"The Noldolantë."
"That. Yes."
Mark played it. As last night, Sören didn't understand a word of it, but he could feel it. And now, he could see it. The death of Mark's family, picked off one by one. The exile. Blood on his hands, death on his soul. The shaming of other elves. Not at home with his own kind ever again... not completely at home in the world of men. Wandering forever, keeping himself alive even with the despair strangling him because it was how he kept the memory of his loved ones alive, kept their Song playing. Especially the Song of his father Fëanor, who Maglor had outright worshiped. For all that his kind had tried to make him repent of who and what he was, Maglor would not renounce his heritage. His Oath had been terrible, he had done terrible things, he had lost so much... and he would take the Oath again, for the love of his father.
It broke Sören's heart, again wanting to scream I'm right here. You're not alone anymore. Followed by the crushing weight of You can't be Fëanor. Look at you. You're pathetic.
Back at the beach house they went to bed early, but they didn't make love that night - they just held each other. They both needed to be held. And as Sören lay there in Mark's arms, their legs entwined, he screamed at himself: Why don't you tell him? You demanded the truth from him... how is it fair for you to not tell him the truth, in turn?
But nothing about this situation was fair. The way Sören saw it, one of three things was possible.
The first was that he was deluded, a delusion of grandeur. He had been correct in his perceptions of other things, but not necessarily this. Fëanor seemed too great for his little life. A life that others had seen as worthless - Einar, Seth. You just want to be important, for once. Sören didn't, really - it seemed that any degree of "importance" in the world came with great responsibility... a great burden to bear. Nobody truly wanted the kind of weight that something like having once been the King of the Noldor carried, what with the Doom upon it. It would be easier, better, for Sören to just be a mortal, just a regular guy, just nobody. He didn't want the can of worms that being Fëanor reborn would open, the necessity of dealing once more with the Valar... dealing with them once and for all. Sören's jaw set.
He could see himself coming out about being Fëanor, and Mark laughing in his face. Mark being insulted, offended, that Sören would claim to be Fëanor reborn. "How dare you. Who do you think you are?"
And if Sören came out to Mark about being Fëanor, and he was right about being Fëanor, but wrong about the incest... Sören could see it now, that rage unleashed. "You sick FUCK, get out of my sight." As it was, Sören could barely deal with the perception that Fëanor had been lovers with his own brother and adult son...
...barely. He had a better appreciation for mythology now, why gods were so often intimate with their siblings, their offspring. The Noldor had been on their way to godhood. Some of them, indeed, felt closer to gods than others - Maglor, as the Song. Fingolfin, star-bright, glorious in his last stand against Morgoth. Ai, my brother. Sören could see them in his mind's eye now, so powerful, so magnificent. He couldn't help but want them, then, and they him. They had been made for each other, three parts of a greater whole, a divine trinity.
But that was just Sören's perception of things. Which could very well be a flawed perception, shipping Fëanor and Fingolfin like some horny fanboy, with an extra dose of delusions of grandeur, narcissism. For all that it might be true that he was Fëanor reborn, and Fëanor had been intimate with Fingolfin and Maglor both, Sören didn't want to take the risk that his perception was off and it hadn't been a thing at all, and have things crash and burn with Mark, rejecting him in disgust. Sören couldn't handle that heartbreak. Seth hadn't destroyed him, Einar hadn't destroyed him... but that would. Mark could destroy him so easily.
The last possibility, to Sören's way of thinking, was that he would come out about being Fëanor and Mark would see that he was, and the incest part of it was true... but Mark would be so, so disappointed. Like expecting filet mignon and getting Hamburger Helper instead. Here I am... Discount Fëanor. There were ways the old self burned through, but Fëanor had been magnificent in his pride, his certainty... and Sören thought of himself as a mess. It made too much sense that the Valar would punish him this way, they'd finally broken that pride they despised, bumped him down several notches from godhood. But that didn't mean Mark would want to see it. Rather than it being a relief to be reunited with his father, his lover, once more, Sören would serve as a constant reminder of the Doom.
Mark loved him, Mark desired him... Mark had been living among mortal men longer than he'd ever been with his own kind. Sören couldn't help but think it was similar to how men in prison engaged in situational homosexuality because that was what was available, but they weren't really gay, going back to female partners once they were released. He was convenient. Maglor wanted Fëanor because he was Fëanor. There was no way Sören could compare with that. If truly given a choice, Sören couldn't help but think Maglor would choose elves over humans. Ugh, people. And attracted though Mark claimed to be now, Sören could only think that Mark would eventually be repulsed, knowing what Fëanor had been, and here he was in this mortal body that wasn't anything special - not to mention all of Sören's problems. He wasn't able to measure up. Mark would recoil, and need to move on - not just not wanting to see his father die again, but not able to tolerate his father in this form. This pathetic, miserable life, the glory forever lost.
Sören wept. And it felt like his reaction - weeping, doubting - was further proof that he couldn't possibly be Fëanor, so brilliant in his defiance. I'm a pathetic fucking crybaby.
No, he couldn't say anything about it at all.
Sören tried to contain himself, but Mark of course heard him crying, and pet him, making soothing noises.
"Love, what's wrong?"
Sören couldn't make words. He made a strangled noise, and cried harder.
"Shhhh, baby." Mark pressed his lips to Sören's forehead. "Get some rest, my love."
Mark took a deep breath, and then he breathed onto Sören's forehead and Sören, through closed eyes, could see the silver light. He felt it wrap around him, like ribbons of light, like being sprinkled with stardust. He felt himself melting, slipping away into a tide, into the forest, into an aurora, bands of color and chiming bells, distant voices, the Song.