Predictably, after Nicholas explained that Mark had told him he knew Gitta had burnt her thumb on the stone and had requested to see it - the request more like a demand - Sören lost his temper.
"Hvað er þetta skítkast? Fokk nei, heldur hann að við séum fokking heimsk? Hljómar eins og gildra fyrir mig. Mér er misboðið OG móðgað. Hann heldur greinilega að við séum fokking helvítis hálfvitar, að við ætlum bara að afhenda steinana til skoðunar, svo hann geti flúið með þeim. Hann hlýtur að halda að við fæddum fokking í gær -"
"Sören." Nicholas put his hands up. "Sören. He speaks Icelandic, and if he could hear you and Gitta talking about it whilst trying to keep your voices down, he might be overhearing this down the hall."
Sören glared. "How the fuck is his hearing so sensitive anyway? Can he hear dogwhistles and shit?"
Anthony remembered the night he went winter camping with Mark and Mark could hear him shivering and Anthony didn't think it was particularly loud. Then Anthony, feeling a surge of panic, felt himself pushing with his mind, in Mark's general direction. You're not hearing this. Nothing is going on. It felt insane, and yet there it was, pushing so hard with his mind that he started to get a little headache.
Nicholas exhaled. He and Anthony exchanged glances, then both looked at Sören.
"The fuck," Sören growled. He stopped pacing and flomped down on the edge of the bed. Seumas made a concerned "prrp?" and hopped up next to Sören, trying to give him headbutts to calm him down. Sören began to skritch the cat, but he was still scowling.
"Sören," Anthony said softly, "it doesn't do any good to get angry over his request to see them. It's over and done. We have to decide what we're doing about it."
"He wants to see the Silmarils?" Sören snarled. "I've got these jewels for him, right here." Sören grabbed his crotch. He got up from the bed and began pacing around again. Seumas walked over to Anthony for attention, and Anthony pet the grey tabby as he watched Sören pace around in circles, like a living storm. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't go down the hall and make it abundantly fucking clear who the stone belongs to -"
Anthony put up a hand. "Because, unless we want to effectively ruin my mother's and your aunt's Christmas, we have to maintain some modicum of diplomacy."
Nicholas frowned and nodded. "He's right."
Sören folded his arms and sat back down. "I don't fucking like it."
Anthony sighed. He loved Sören and he sympathized, and he hated being "the bad guy" here. "Nobody's asking you to like it. But we have to do what we have to do."
"I would suggest waiting at least twenty-four hours before we give him an answer either way," Nicholas said. "In his defense, he said he burned his hand on a stone years ago, and he wants to see if it's similar. That seems innocuous enough."
"That sounds like some trick motherfucking Morgoth would use to try to steal it again," Sören said.
"Do you really think we have Morgoth right under our noses?" Nicholas said, cocking his head to one side.
Not Morgoth. Something was setting off alarm bells in Anthony's head, but it wasn't those kinds of alarm bells.
"I think," Sören said, his accent heavy, his eyes wild, "that we need to have a little chat with our friend Mark."
"We will... when you calm down. Again, I strongly suggest that we sleep on it." Nicholas put a hand on Sören's arm.
"Like I can fucking sleep tonight knowing someone knows about the stone and is very insistent on seeing it." Sören huffed, his nostrils flaring.
Nicholas gave Anthony a pleading look, and then pinched the bridge of his nose. Anthony thought for a moment, really grinding the gears in his head, and then he decided to take an opportunity presenting itself. "Nicholas, why don't you take Sören for a little drive? Even though it's still raining, I'm sure he would appreciate getting out for a bit and seeing scenery."
"And you're... not coming along?" Nicholas asked, lifting his eyebrows.
"I need to look something up," Anthony said honestly. "It would be better if I didn't have distractions, like you two being sexy." He did find them sexy, but also he was hoping the flirtation would lift Sören's mood a bit.
It was telling that Sören couldn't even manage a smile at it. "I feel like a child being told to go play," Sören said, as Nicholas dragged him to his feet.
Nicholas slapped Sören's ass, continuing the theme of trying to cheer Sören up with flirting. "You want to be a good boy for Daddy, don't you?"
Sören muttered under his breath in Icelandic, but he finally gave a butt wiggle before he put his coat on. Anthony breathed a small sigh of relief; if Sören could wiggle his ass at them, the apocalypse was probably averted for now.
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.
"Bloody hell. Shit. Bugger. Fuck."
Anthony pushed his laptop off to the side and buried his face in his hands, feeling like an idiot for not seeing it sooner.
Macalaurë. Mark Lauer.
Anthony's mind replayed little clues from when he and Mark had been together in 1999.
"It's an old wound."
"Burn scar?"
"Yeah."
"How did you get it?"
"Something my father invented." Mark lowered his head. "Mistakes were made."
And even though Anthony was sure Mark didn't consciously know who and what he was dealing with, on a subconscious level he did know.
Mark crying out in his sleep, clinging harder. "No, don't go," Mark called.
"I'm right here." Anthony's arms tightened around him. He opened bleary eyes and saw it was a little past four AM. He turned his attention back to Mark, petting his hair, rubbing his back. "I'm here. It's OK."
"Don't go," Mark cried, voice thick from sleep. "Don't leave, Ara."
Anthony rained little kisses over Mark's face. "Shhhh. It's just a bad dream. You're here."
"Ara... Ara, don't go to Gondo-"
And later:
"Mark, who's Ara?"
Mark froze, with a "deer trapped in headlights" look on his face. He quickly composed himself, sipped his tea, and then he said, matter-of-factly, "The man I lost my virginity to."
The most damning moment of all had been when Anthony brushed Mark's hair and for a brief instant, saw one of Mark's ears was pointy. Then it changed to a regular human ear. Anthony had wondered then if he had been hallucinating. He had a feeling now he wasn't hallucinating at all, that Mark had done some sort of magic to disguise his ears.
Pointy ears that Anthony had dreamt of having himself, in a body with blond hair.
Some of Finarfin's memories diverged from canon - he was not still alive walking "under the trees" of Valinor, he had gone to Gondolin. He had fought alongside Ecthelion - Geir; they had been involved briefly - trying to avenge Fëanor's death, killed by the same Balrogs that had killed Fëanor. The dates of the War of Wrath and Gondolin had gotten mixed up; Anthony wondered if there was an unreliable narrator at work, perhaps one whose sense of time had been affected by trauma.
Mark had kept telling Anthony he reminded him of his uncle. Anthony realized Mark - Maglor - had lost his virginity to his uncle Arafinwë, when he was of age, after years of pining. Eons later, Anthony lost his virginity to Mark, a strange sort of symmetry.
When Anthony had been with Mark, he'd had recurring strange dreams - riding on a swan boat into golden light. He knew now he was dreaming Finarfin's memories, even back then.
Anthony shivered, even though the room was not cold at all. He took some deep breaths, trying to pull himself together, but he was shaken, and shaking. He was still shaking when Nicholas and Sören got back from their excursion.
It was close enough to dinner time that Anthony didn't have time to tell them what he'd found in his research while they were out. It didn't help that for the first time since they arrived, Mark joined them at the dinner table, as if he were playing some sort of psychological strategy to subtly send the message of I'm not going away and this isn't going away. Seeing Mark right across from him at the dinner table tied Anthony up in knots, barely able to string two coherent thoughts together, let alone try to have "The Talk" about who and what Mark was after dinner.
It especially didn't help that thinking about the little hints Mark had dropped when they were together made Anthony think about other moments when they were together. Cuddling, making love. Anthony's first time bottoming, his first time sucking cock, his first time topping. His first time tying Mark up and teasing him, unlocking a kinky side that he would explore during his break from school, touring Europe. That week they'd stayed in Mark's vacation home in Nice, France, making passionate love for hours, climax after climax. All of that a mirror of Maglor and Finarfin together, feasting on each other's bodies, taking each other, never too much, never enough.
If Anthony was being truly honest with himself, a part of him never stopped loving Mark, similarly to how he'd never stopped loving Sören while they were apart. He was still angry and hurt from the rejection in 1999 - if anything, he was even angrier now.
One thing was for certain. If they showed Mark one of the Silmarils, Mark would want to take it for himself because of his Oath. Explaining that the Silmaril was in fact in the possession of Fëanor, reborn as mortal, was going to be a hard sell, since it didn't seem Mark recognized them in their human forms. This had the potential to go even worse than Anthony had first thought when Nicholas delivered the news...
...starting with having to break the news of who Mark was, to Sören and Nicholas. He didn't feel ready for that, especially after the way dinner with Mark disarmed him, shook him up even more.
A couple of hours after dinner, Elaine and Gitta invited Anthony, Sören and Nicholas out to have hot chocolate by the fire. Inevitably, Elaine and Gitta rolled a joint and passed it around. The nice buzz of the marijuana was a much-welcome, much-needed relief from the tension of earlier, taking Anthony's mind away from the matter of Maglor and the Silmarils. He only recalled it again as they turned down the covers and climbed into bed, and he was high enough to decide they needed some sleep and the discussion could happen tomorrow.
By morning, the marijuana had worn off and Anthony had enough leftover adrenaline that he woke up before the alarm. He hobbled on his cane to the bathroom just in time to see Mark leaving the bathroom, fresh from the shower, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist and droplets of water all over his body...
...a body that was still toned, lean but muscular, well-defined biceps and pecs and abs, the veins in his forearms visible. Anthony had licked those arms before, tongue trailing down the veins.
Anthony's cock stirred uncomfortably in his pajama bottoms, face burning, not wanting to look at Mark like this. Not wanting to remember those nights they'd shared in 1999...
...or in the Years of the Trees, the First Age.
"Pardon me," Mark said. Anthony noticed the faintest hint of a smile on Mark's lips and in his eyes, like he'd noticed Anthony checking him out and was amused by it. Anthony tried to not watch Mark's ass on the way out, and he could have sworn Mark wiggled that ass just before stepping in his bedroom.
Like father, like son. Anthony's eyes narrowed, thinking of Sören's sass, so very like when he was Fëanor.
The bathroom was steamy from Mark's shower, and in addition to the nice clean soap smell, there was a lingering note of musky petrichor and sea salt, Mark's own scent. Anthony swore under his breath as he took his cock out to do his business, and the piss hard-on wouldn't go away. His mind's eye kept replaying Mark in that towel. What Anthony knew Mark looked like under that towel.
But, he was going to have to tell Sören and Nicholas about Mark today, and the dread of that conversation was enough to pacify his arousal. The noise of his cane clacking the floor made Sören and Nicholas stir, with Sören grumbling - Anthony couldn't help smiling a little, he found Sören's not-a-morning-person grump endearing, and comforting, one thing that hadn't changed with time. The cats decided the humans weren't allowed to go back to bed, with Tobias walking on Nicholas to give headbutts, and Miss Balls gently nipped Sören's face before grooming his beard. Sören gave a throaty, sleepy chuckle and skritched the old brown tabby. "Good morning to you too," he said, before giving the cat's whiskered cheek a kiss. Miss Balls nuzzled him before grooming some more.
Nicholas looked at the clock. "Well, we would have had to get up in roughly fifteen minutes anyway." He yawned, stretched, and sat up. "Hello."
"Hi." Anthony pulled out the desk chair and sat down; Seumas hopped onto Anthony and climbed up on his shoulder, aggressively headbutting Anthony's face, purring loudly. "And hi to you too."
"Brrr," Seumas said, and headbutted him again.
Anthony stroked the cat, putting one arm around him. He waited as Nicholas and Sören took turns in the bathroom; Nicholas came back with a tray of coffee. He put Seumas down on the floor to start getting changed, and Seumas repeatedly jumped up from the floor onto Anthony, wanting his shoulder. Anthony was amused by that, but also, Seumas latched on with his claws, and that hurt. Anthony already had tiny scars on the back of his neck and upper shoulders from Seumas, and he knew he was going to get some more. "Dammit, cat..."
Then Tobias ran to the window, and Seumas followed, and Anthony glanced over, thinking they had seen an interesting bird, but it was just Mark going for a morning walk, presumably having grabbed breakfast on the go. When they came out of the bedroom and went down to the dining room, Gitta confirmed it. "Mark went to get some air, but when he comes back, Elaine and I are taking him down to Talisker Beach to jump his car, so you don't wonder where we are."
Anthony and Sören's eyes met across the table. There was room for four people in that car, which meant someone else could go along with the ride... and have a talk with Mark at the beach. Sören opened his mouth, and Anthony kicked him under the table. Wait, he spoke into Sören's mind. I have something to tell you after breakfast.
Sören ate quickly, like Anthony's announcement couldn't come fast enough. Nicholas ate more slowly, giving Sören pointed looks as if to say I know what you're doing and we need to proceed with caution. Sören glared at him.
Once breakfast was done, they returned to the bedroom. Anthony closed the door and gestured for Sören and Nicholas to sit down. They took their seats on the edge of the bed, and Tobias and Miss Balls came over for love, while Seumas watched the window.
"All right." Anthony took a deep breath. "I didn't want to say this because it sounds completely mad, but Mark hasn't aged a day since 1999 when last I saw him."
Nicholas's mouth opened, then he closed it.
"When Mark and I were together back then, he claimed to be in his thirties - he didn't give an exact age, just thirtysomething - and he was at St. Edmund's as a mature student. Presuming he was thirty exactly when we got involved, the youngest he could be right now is forty-seven going on forty-eight, and as you can see, he doesn't look that at all, even if he'd gotten some work done and dyed his hair it doesn't account for why he doesn't look a day over thirty. So." Anthony exhaled. "When you two were out yesterday afternoon, evening... I poked The Silmarillion again. Mark is someone else we knew, too. Maglor. Not reborn as mortal, but he's still himself. It's why he doesn't age. I saw a pointy ear once, when we were together, and thought I was hallucinating. It wasn't."
Sören's jaw dropped. Nicholas's eyebrows went up.
"I feel like a fool for not seeing it when he told me he burnt his hand on a stone," Nicholas said.
"I feel like an idiot for suspecting it might be Morgoth in disguise. Especially with..." Sören's voice trailed off and he covered his mouth, like he said something he shouldn't have.
Oh boy, the plot thickens. Anthony raised an eyebrow. "Especially with?" he prompted.
"Oh god." Sören rubbed his face like an annoyed wet cat. He looked up and bit his lip, cheeks pink, like he was about to reveal something deeply embarrassing. "I... I've dreamt about him. Just like I used to dream about both of you, in Elven bodies, and you were blond, Anthony. And when I say 'just like', I mean that... I fucked him. He fucked me. I..." Sören facepalmed. "He was an adult, he was the one who initiated it, but -"
"But you had sex with your own son," Anthony said.
Sören nodded.
Anthony hadn't wanted to talk about this himself, but he decided to lay all the cards on the table now. "When we had our fling with Craig, I had dreams about back then, and that Craig was my youngest son - he too was an adult - and he was comforting me after I'd lost almost everyone. So if I judge you, I have to judge myself. Besides... I was intimate with Maglor too, back when I was Arafinwë."
Nicholas said nothing, but the flush in Nicholas's cheeks said it all for him. Anthony got the sense Nicholas was also remembering having sex with Maglor, back then. The corner of Anthony's mind's eye glimmered with the vision of a foursome - the three of them with Maglor, sweating, panting, licking and caressing each other's bodies, making each other spill, hours and hours of bliss.
Jesus Christ. Anthony's cock stirred again. Then the thought came, unbidden, of the three of them as they were now, inviting Mark to their bed. Anthony didn't like the way his body was responding to that thought. His pride hated it most of all. Family or not, Mark had broken his heart when he was nineteen, and the wounds had festered for a long time and had caused problems in future relationships. He didn't want to want Mark back. Not at all.
"God." Sören flopped back on the bed, covered his face with his hands, and made a strangled noise. "What a clusterfuck."
"You know now why he wants to see the stone," Anthony said.
"The Oath," Sören said through his hands, and took them away from his face. "He's not going to stop at seeing it. He's going to take it." Sören sat up again and folded his arms. "We have to tell him who -"
"We do," Anthony agreed, putting up his hands, "but this is like defusing a bomb. There's a right way and a wrong way to go about it. I don't know how he's going to take us claiming to be the reincarnation of his uncles and father, especially in the age of Tumblr when plenty of people are claiming to be elves and faeries and whatnot in human bodies."
"The Oath means he's not going to just forget about the Silmaril," Sören said, "and if we show him - or he searches our room and finds the two Silmarils - without us telling him, shit's going to hit the fan."
"I agree, but again, shit can also hit the fan if we are not very careful about how we tell him." Anthony stroked his chin, thinking for a moment. "I think maybe the icebreaker would be for us to first acknowledge we know who he is and that we know the stone is a Silmaril."
"I'll go on the trip to jump his car and tell him," Sören said.
"No," Anthony and Nicholas both said in unison.
Sören narrowed his eyes and scowled. He unfolded his arms and put his hands on his hips. It would have been comical if the situation were not so fraught; Anthony could practically see steam rising from Sören's head.
"We need someone who... can handle this diplomatically," Anthony said, not wanting to be rude, but it was the truth.
Nicholas nodded and put a hand on Sören's shoulder. "As you know, Fëanáro, you're a dick."
Anthony tried not to laugh. Sören blew a raspberry at Nicholas. "Aw come on, I'm not that bad, am I?"
"Fëanáro, your idea of 'diplomatic negotiation' involves matches, gasoline, and a flamethrower," Nicholas said.
Anthony put it slightly more tactfully. "When Nicholas told us yesterday that Mark wanted to see the Silmaril, you went off like a rocket. I know he's your son, and I know the part of you that is Fëanor loves him. But we really need someone for this job who has... less of a temper." Anthony took a deep breath. He couldn't believe this was happening, but here it was. "I volunteer for the job."
"I concur," Nicholas said. "As a barrister you seem best-suited for the job."
I sure fucking don't feel like it. Already, Anthony's stomach was churning. "I'll do my best. We'll have to go in baby steps - I probably won't tell him about the reincarnation bit while we're at the beach, that'll be later, with all three of us present. Where we can tell him together about the dreams, and things. But this will be the first step in that direction."
Seumas started to meow frantically, and all three men looked at the window. Mark was coming back from his walk. That meant he would be leaving for the beach in a matter of minutes.
Anthony leaned on his cane and rose, heart beating faster, mouth dry. Showtime.
The entire way out to Talisker Beach, Anthony felt like he was going to jump out of his skin. It didn't help that he had to sit in the back seat and the car felt cramped with four people in it, two of whom were men over six feet tall.
It was Christmas Eve, and Gitta opted to listen to Christmas music on the ride out. Mark sang along with the music, which made it even more difficult; Anthony could fall in love with him all over again just from that melting velvet voice. And of course, one particular song hit a raw nerve with Mark singing it.
Last Christmas I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away (you gave it away)
This year, to save me from tears
I'll give it to someone special (special)
Once bitten and twice shy
I keep my distance, but you still catch my eye
Tell me baby, do you recognize me?
Well, it's been a year, it doesn't surprise me
Mark's voice was even sexier than George Michael's... and the lyrics felt like they were aimed at him, the irony being that Mark had been the one to break Anthony's heart. Anthony wondered once again what was going through Mark's head when he initiated the breakup. It seemed almost as if Mark had been hurting too, in their years apart.
Fucker.
The most agonizing part of the trip was when Mark's car battery was charging. Anthony tried to do his daily Duolingo lesson on his phone but he kept getting distracted, looking out the window at Mark pacing.
So much like the way Sören paced when he was anxious. If that apple was any closer to the tree it would still be in the bark. Anthony could start to see now all the ways his relationship with Mark had paved the way for him to fall in love with Sören. They weren't exactly alike, but Anthony could see now he had a type.
Relatives. Anthony facepalmed. He had already run the gauntlet of the incest taboo when he and Sören discussed dreams as brothers - and they still enjoyed calling each other "brother" during sex - but incest among humans wasn't something Anthony condoned. He'd had too many clients who'd been abused by their own family, sexually and otherwise. And yet... this hadn't been abuse. They weren't human, they didn't have the same culture, it was very different. It had been loving. It had been glorious.
Anthony still felt awkward about it, most of all because a part of him still wanted. He hated that once again, his mind was racing with memories of the ways he and Mark had each other, close to twenty years ago. His first love. His first passion.
When Mark's car was ready, before Gitta could start her car to head back, Anthony made the "wait" gesture, climbed out of the car, and called out to Mark before Mark could get in his vehicle. "Mark... a word, please?"
Anthony and Mark walked out to the beach, with Mark walking more slowly to accommodate Anthony limping along on his cane. Gitta and Elaine hung back at the car, and thankfully, the beach was empty on an overcast, bitterly cold day like this. The silver sea was choppy, almost angry.
"I assume you know why I wanted to speak to you privately," Anthony said.
"There's a saying that 'assume makes an ass of u and me', so no, I try not to assume," Mark said.
"Fair. Well, Nicholas told us that you... want to see the stone. That you heard the conversation Gitta and Sören had about her burning her thumb, and you think it's similar to what burnt your hand a long time ago."
"Correct."
Anthony leaned on his cane and put his free hand on his hip. "I recall you mentioning you burnt your hand on one of your father's inventions."
Mark did not react to that, but Anthony noticed the draw of breath and the way Mark's eyes looked out to sea.
Anthony was careful to only mention one stone, not that they had two of the three in their possession. "You and I both know what that stone is. You and I both know it's one of the Silmarils, Mark Lauer. Or should I say... Macalaurë? Kanafinwë?"
Mark froze, and that same "deer trapped in headlights" look that he'd had when Anthony asked him who Ara was, years ago, was back. Mark slowly turned towards Anthony, mouth slightly open, an eyebrow raised.
Anthony rocked back and cocked his head to one side, waiting.
Mark laughed, and for a moment Anthony thought he was going to try to deny it, but then Mark said, "OK, you got me. Nice work."
"I'm a barrister now. It is literally my job to dig and examine the details others might overlook, in case they're useful."
"I bet." Mark exhaled and folded his arms. "Well. If you know it's a Silmaril, you know about my Oath."
"I do." Anthony recited it from memory, having paid special attention to that part of Tolkien's text.
Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean,
brood of Morgoth or bright Vala,
Elda or Maia or Aftercomer,
Man yet unborn upon Middle-earth,
neither law, nor love, nor league of swords,
dread nor danger, not Doom itself,
shall defend him from Fëanor, and Fëanor's kin,
whoso hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh,
finding keepeth or afar casteth
a Silmaril. This swear we all:
death we will deal him ere Day's ending,
woe unto world's end! Our word hear thou,
Eru Allfather! To the everlasting
Darkness doom us if our deed faileth.
On the holy mountain hear in witness
and our vow remember, Manwë and Varda!
Then Anthony realized by speaking the words aloud, as one of Fëanor's kin, he'd now finally taken the Oath himself - that was in fact exactly what he'd argue in court if someone in the same position was on trial. Oh, SHIT. He reflexively took a step back, all gooseflesh under his layers.
Mark nodded. Their eyes met. "Anthony... I hate doing this, but I don't really have a choice. You have three days to give me the Silmaril, or I'm going to take it by force. If you think you can get away by leaving Scotland and going back to London... I'll hunt you down. It won't be hard to find you. C. Anthony Hewlett-Johnson, of Lincoln's Inn. I even know that the C stands for Cornelius."
A shiver went through Anthony. If this had been anyone else, Anthony would take it as a threat on his life and go to the authorities. But what could he do in this case? Tell the police please protect me from Maglor, he wants to take our Silmarils. And Maglor was still family. Kinslayer, murderer that he might be, perfectly capable of making good on a threat to take them by force... there was still good in him. Anthony had seen it. He had spent his entire life defending criminals and knew there was still good in many people who had done bad things. In hindsight, that drive seemed to come from the Finarfin part of him most of all, with his kin being what it was. Anthony swallowed hard.
"The only reason why I'm allowing you three days is because of our history, and it's Christmas," Mark said, fire in his eyes. "But make no mistake - my Oath is my Oath."
Anthony just gave Mark his courtroom smile, and a little salute, before he walked away, heart pounding. Three days to convince Mark of who they were, or risk a scenario that might make the ship-burning look tame.
This is fine. This is totally fine.
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