March 1994
Rome, Italy
Maglor felt him in the Song before he saw him.
They passed upon the stair; Maglor was going up one escalator, and he was going down the other. Kurt Cobain looked like hell. There was his usual grunge rock appearance, and then there was this - he looked like he hadn't slept or bathed in days. His eyes were red and glassy. He was coughing. Maglor could scent illness; he guessed bronchitis.
He's dying.
It wasn't that the bronchitis would kill him... it wasn't his lungs, it was his heart. Not a heart condition, but the human condition. The despair, eating him from the inside.
Maglor had time before his layover. When he reached the top of the escalator, he immediately stepped onto the down escalator, not caring about the strange looks that elicited, especially when at close to seven feet tall, with raven hair hanging to his waist, he knew he was already pretty conspicuous looking.
Kurt had already gotten off the escalator and was shambling through the airport - his illness made him slow enough that it didn't take long for Maglor to catch up with him. He still kept something of a distance, not wanting to alarm the man, not wanting to come off as a creepy, obsessed stalker fan.
Kurt finally had to sit down on one of the benches, winded. He had a coughing fit. The bench was near a waterfall fountain, and Maglor decided to take the opportunity that presented itself. He threw a coin in the fountain - bitterly he thought of the last time he'd thrown a shiny object into moving water - and when Kurt coughed harder, Maglor slowly, carefully approached. "Are you all right, sir?"
Kurt gave a small, ironic smile. "I'm not a sir."
"Pardon me." Maglor had lived long enough around mortals that he knew when there was a time and place for formality, but this was a way of breaking the ice... a performance, of sorts. "Your cough sounds very bad. You should see a doctor -"
Kurt snorted. Then he started coughing again.
Maglor sat on the bench across from him and gave Kurt a stern look.
Kurt rolled his eyes, and when he finished coughing he snarled, "Look, man, I don't need your fucking pity, all right?" He sneered. "Or for you to go running to the press, telling the world 'Kurt Cobain's sick -'"
"I neither pity you, nor do I have any intention of going to the press. The media circus surrounding celebrities is one of the problems with this present age." Maglor sighed. Then he looked Kurt in the eye. "But I am concerned, yes, even though you don't know me, but I know you... here." He put his hand on his heart.
"Nobody knows me," Kurt muttered and looked down. He started coughing again.
"Some fresh air would do you some good, if you don't intend on going to a physician immediately."
"Yeah, so I can go out there and be mobbed by fans and the press." Kurt shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I flew here for medical treatment after the gig last night, but my appointment isn't for a few hours yet. I'm meeting my wife here... I really don't want to fucking deal with her right now."
"So don't." Maglor shook his head. "I can take you on a minitour." Maglor gestured to the fountain nearby. "You chose to take a rest on this bench because the fountain is peaceful, yes? There are many lovely fountains in this city."
"And you expect me to just go with some random dude..."
Maglor shrugged. "Up to you."
Kurt chuckled. "I've done crazier shit in my life. 'Kay, whoever you are, take me to see one of Rome's famous fountains."
_
Maglor went with the Fontana delle Tartarughe in the Sant'Angelo district. Kurt seemed amused, studying the bronze turtles on the upper basin, the young men sensuously posed on the dolphins, holding up the basin like they were holding up the world.
"Turtles, eh?"
"A reminder to slow down." Maglor folded his arms and their eyes met again.
"Oh, so turtles and an afterschool special. So what, now's the time you're gonna tell me 'drugs are bad, mkay?'"
"No... now's the time that I'm going to tell you the drugs are a symptom, not a cause." Maglor gently put a hand on Kurt's shoulder.
Kurt gave him an incredulous look.
Maglor exhaled. He closed his eyes for a moment, reaching into the Song. He had one shot to get this right; it was like defusing a bomb. When Maglor opened his eyes again, he said, "You're self-medicating."
"No shit, Sherlock."
"The pain is palpable in your songs. That's why they resonate with so many people, you know, myself included. We feel that pain. We relate."
Kurt scowled. "No, you fucking don't."
Maglor knew he'd struck the nerve, and now he waited.
Kurt went on, "That's the thing. We get up on stage and I'm sure some of those people cheering for us are the freaks who feel like I gave them a voice, or whatever. But a lot of those people are just the dumb jocks who got into us because we're popular, we replaced hair metal, grunge is the new thing. Fuck those people."
Maglor continued to hold his peace, letting Kurt vent - that was exactly what he needed.
"And I hate it. I don't thrive in the spotlight the way Freddie Fucking Mercury does, or David Fucking Bowie did. I feel like a little piece of me dies inside every time I go out there, like this big fraud, pretending I love baring my fucking soul to an audience where at least half of them don't fucking get it. You know?"
"I do know," Maglor said softly. I know more than you think I do.
"I keep doing it for the kids who do get it. I love people too much. I know my music probably saves their lives the same way it saved mine. Past tense, saved."
There was that small admission that Kurt felt he was running out of time, out of hope. Maglor winced, feeling the Song darken, dissonant.
"I'm too sensitive. I just wanted to express myself, I never wanted to become a celebrity, I didn't want this. And I'm dragging everyone else down. My band, my wife, my kid." Kurt let out a shuddery sigh, close to tears. "A lot of the time I feel my kid would be better off without me -"
"No."
Kurt took a step back. Maglor had inadvertently used the Voice, ringing out as many voices at once. He tried to conceal the ways in which he was not human, to avoid detection and a repeat of various unpleasant scenarios when others had discovered what he was. Kurt's eyes widened as if in terror, as if he knew he'd just encountered power... but he didn't run. He blinked, and then he looked at the running water of the fountain, as if his mind were drawing some sort of connection between Maglor and flowing water that he couldn't quite parse.
Maglor spoke normally. "Don't say that your child would be better off without you. My father..." Maglor's heart broke all over again, remembering Fëanor's impossible last stand against the Balrogs, outnumbered, outpowered, mortally wounded. "Committed suicide." Though Gothmog had delivered the death blow, that was what it had been just the same, suicide by Balrog. "My father was like you. He was a sensitive artist. He was misunderstood. He... made some mistakes. And I was never the same after he died." He'd lost everyone since then, and it had been tempting to fade and join them, but he made himself stay alive to keep their memory, and perhaps, reclaim the Silmaril that he'd foolishly thrown away in a meltdown. "I'm sensitive too. Like father, like son. I know what it's like to go from place to place, never feeling at home, always feeling like you have to keep part of yourself locked away."
"Yeah." Kurt looked down at his shoes.
"Don't do it. I know you want to die. But your child needs you here. And..." Their eyes met. "Each time someone like you - a musician who's touched other people with their music - goes before their time, it's like another light snuffs out. We live in dark times. They will grow darker." Maglor shuddered, looking up at the sky, remembering the dreams he had, that Sauron and Melkor would rise again.
"I just make music, man. I'm not any kind of... world leader, person in power -"
"That is where you are wrong. Music heals and transforms the soul. People need music, need art, the way they need air to breathe. It's not a luxury in life. It's a necessity." Maglor gestured to the fountain. "This was something they understood, in the Renaissance. The world needs another Renaissance, Kurt Cobain."
"You tell me my lifestyle is killing me, but you want me to keep going out there and fake -"
"I didn't say that. There is a new technology called the Internet. Eventually, you could put out music entirely over the computer, never have to perform in public again unless you wanted to. Your songs would still be heard, still be shared, without you having to interact the way you're doing now. You could make a statement explaining your anxiety. Your true fans would understand. It's promising."
"I feel like every promise gets broken."
Not every promise. Maglor's scarred hand twinged. Someday, he would find that Silmaril. "Think about it. I would hate to see you take your own life... or overdose." Their eyes met again. "When you see the doctor for your lungs... you should think about rehab, too."
Kurt shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I've been to rehab. I keep fucking up."
"Keep trying." And then, Maglor offered him a hug, not able to help himself. He wasn't just hugging Kurt, but the ghost of his father, his brothers - especially Maedhros. He wasn't just hugging Kurt, but he was enfolding him in the Song, hoping to spark that dying flame back to life, push him to where he needed to go. It had been too late for Janis, for Jimi, for others, but he had not been too late here, he hoped. Kurt Cobain closed his eyes, and Maglor breathed light. "Carry the fire, and you will find your way."
_
March 1999
Cambridge, England
Maglor was cuddling on the couch with his younger lover, Anthony, a nineteen-year-old university student. They were listening to Nirvana; Anthony had a bad day and Maglor had an extensive vinyl collection, so Anthony had requested that.
"I hate to see you so sad," Maglor said, petting him, tousling his short black hair.
Anthony shrugged. "I need a fucking vacation. Thank god spring break is coming up soon."
Maglor thought for a moment, and then he knew just the thing. "I'm overdue for seeing an old friend, if you want to come with me."
"Where to?"
Maglor smiled. "The States. Seattle."
Anthony sat up, his green eyes wide. "Wait. Don't tell me..."
"Yes, you can meet Kurt Cobain. And his daughter." Courtney was long gone. "Actually, your spring break will coincide with his five-year anniversary of sobriety."
Anthony threw his arms around Maglor and Maglor squeezed him, amused by the exuberance. "We can make him a cake," Anthony said.
Maglor kissed his cheek. "With candles." The kind that don't go out when you blow on them, that just keep burning.