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He looked at his fingers splayed across Vereyar's chest.
“Please,” he said, as ineffectual as his weak hands, which did not even know how to properly grip a sword.
Vereyar tilted his head to the side, studying him as a cat might study a mouse that had suddenly decided to rise up in defense, instead of racing back to its hiding hole.
Stupid little mouse, Fimlas thought, his heart racing in his chest, stupid mouse, doesn't know when to run, when to hide, doesn't know a cat when the cat is standing right in front of it, talking to it, pretending to be its friend.
“Please!” he said again, forcing himself to meet Vereyar's eyes which looked at him with detached bewilderment. “Please, just let me explain! You do not understand! He is not-!”
“He has killed,” Vereyar said calmly, and Fimlas shook his head in despair.
“He is a good man! You do not understand, he made a mistake once, yes, but he has suffered for it, and...”
“I am not interested in suffering. His deeds shall be judged in the Halls.”
“Then you won't hurt him?” Fimlas asked, frightened as he looked up at Vereyar who had never been as much of a stranger to him as he was now.
“I won't hurt him,” Vereyar agreed. “It is not for me to judge him. That is the prerogative of Mandos.”
“You – you will leave him alone then? You will just let us leave? I promise, we will just go, we will make no trouble for you or anyone...”
Vereyar shook his head, as emotionless and impossible to move as stone.
“You can leave. But he... he has committed a great wrong. He will find his peace in the Halls, I promise that to you.”
Fimlas squeezed his eyes shut, trembling harder. “Don't... don't take him from me,” he begged, terrified at what he thought Vereyar's words might mean. “He is all I have left. The Valar themselves sent him to me, to save me when I thought I was lost forever! Without him – I don't know what I would do without him!”
Vereyar hesitated for a long moment. “Maybe,” he suggested, not ungently, “Maybe this time, the Valar give you the chance to save yourself.”
“Save myself? From what?” Fimlas demanded, then fell silent with hurt when he realized what Vereyar was saying.
“You do not know him at all,” he finally murmured, hesitating before he looked up, meeting Vereyar's eyes with steely resolve as he gave up the last, most terrible secret. “What sort of man would marry a whore?”
Vereyar gave him a bemused look, but Fimlas did not relent. “Answer me that – what sort of man would marry a whore, yet never demand anything, never hurt or ridicule, dismiss or look down on that whore? What sort of man would do that, would marry someone who had known the greedy, selfish touches of so many, yet never be anything but gentle and loving and good...?” Fimlas broke off, hating himself for the tears in his voice.
“He is that man,” he continued quietly, ignoring Vereyar's sudden intake of breath at the realization. “He married me, he gave me a ring even though he knew from the beginning just what I had done. What sort of man can love a whore? A good man, Vereyar. A man who knows forgiveness, gentleness, love. A man who knows what it is to make a mistake and regret it.”
“And you are...”
“The whore,” Fimlas said tonelessly, hurting at the way Vereyar's eyes lost what little warmth they had always held for him.
Or maybe that, too, he had only seen because he had wanted to see it...
“It was just one mistake – one mistake he made long ago,” he pleaded. “A mistake he has regretted for all of his life. Oh please, I know he'd give his own life if it would give her back hers, but what does it change now? And I need him, I–”
“Hers?” Vereyar asked slowly, and Fimlas gave him a beseeching look.
“He did not want to... He was just trying to save his father, his mother was dying! S-she was aiming at his father and he was so young, too...” His voice trailed off at the look in Vereyar's eyes, a tension that had not been there before, something sharp and raw and – and almost confused, so that Vereyar looked at once younger and more dangerous, not the calm, collected warrior he had known but a cornered animal, a wounded wolf.
He continued to talk, stumbling over words when he kept trying to explain, knowing that if only he could find the right words Vereyar would see, Vereyar would understand, because Gaurchoth, his Gaurchoth, was a good man, so gentle and kind and good...
He was weeping by the time they made it to their rooms, Vereyar's hand gripping his arm so that he truly felt like the mouse dragged home by a cat now. He stopped talking then, for what did it help? Vereyar did not listen. Vereyar did not know the Gaurchoth he had come to know, and something he had said, something he had done had turned Vereyar's terrifying, dispassionate condemnation into something raw, a festering wound that seeped the heat of hatred and vengeance and made him feel fear at last as he was pushed towards the bed.
~~~
How had it come to this, he asked himself in despair. He was still weeping – yet when had tears ever helped him? Vereyar was immovable, a mountain of cold, black rage, of hot, searing hate, as alien to him all of a sudden as any of the Easterling sorcerers who had terrified him so.
Vereyar needed no sorcery to hold him down. Vereyar was a warrior, as the Easterlings had been, and he did not feel so different to them, all hard muscle coiled with rage, heavy on top of him so all he could do was to squirm in his grasp, helplessly trying to escape while at the same time, a part of him thought that maybe, maybe, Vereyar would forget about Gaurchoth somehow, would spend all of his rage on him...
A soft groan escaped him, and he turned his face into the pillow, even now fighting the instinct that made him want to arch his back and don the mask he had worn for so long. Anything to make this easier, anything to end this nightmare. Anything to give him back the friend he had once had, that silent, strong man he had looked up to.
Always a whore, he told himself, loathing himself for being weak, for allowing this to happen, for the way Vereyar's sweaty skin felt against him, not so unlike Gaurchoth at all...
That was what made it so terrifying. The strong, smooth body, the silky hair that brushed against his back, the scent of sweat and clean skin and steel – all that was Gaurchoth too, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend that this was Gaurchoth, could pretend that he delighted in the strength of the body that held him down, the force of his thrusts, the ache that could have been so good if only...
He sobbed once, shuddering at how similar this was and yet how wrong, pushing back against Vereyar on instinct, the urge to please too powerful to ignore, learned during those harsh weeks in Beggar's Alley, during those days – weeks? - with the Easterlings to whom he had been but a toy in truth.
Anything was better than to be hurt. Anything was better than death...
His sob turned into a low moan, and he arched, pressing his back to Vereyar's sweaty chest as he panted for breath. “Please,” he gasped as Vereyar filled him with harsh, untutored thrusts – not like his Gaurchoth at all who had always only wanted to make certain that it was good for him, no. But not like these greedy, selfish men from Bree either, and that difference was enough to make it easy to make himself want this, to pretend that this was good until almost, it was good and he moaned again with need, wanting to be touched, needing the hot torment of his body's responses to drown out the grief that now, here, would do him no good at all.
He does not want me, he realized with a sob of despair when Vereyar's arm wrapped around his throat to hold him in place as he slid back into him – just the right angle this time, agonizingly slow almost like Gaurchoth, so that for a moment he trembled helplessly with terrified need.
Not me... it's not me, no matter how prettily I beg. He wants my Gaurchoth, wants him to hurt...
“Please,” he begged again in a low, aching moan, please don't kill him, please don't take him away, though he did not dare to voice that prayer, tilting his head instead to moan his approval against Vereyar's hair, praying to any Vala who would listen that somehow, some way, he would distract this man of cold, coiled anger enough to save the one he loved.
Once, he had wanted to please men like him to save his own life. Needed to please them so that he would not starve. Now, as Vereyar pulled back, then roughly forced him around so that they were face to face, he did not flinch but pressed closer, wrapping one leg around Vereyar's hip in enticement.
“You really are...” Vereyar began coldly, then groaned with impotent rage and something that in any other man, Fimlas would have called desire. Yet if this was desire, it was not desire for him, but only the desire to take and destroy the thing the man he hated loved.
He closed his eyes, exhaling with shocked almost-desire when Vereyar slid right back into him – not Gaurchoth, never that, but similar enough that almost, it was good, and maybe, just maybe, if he managed to make it good enough for him...
“A whore,” he finished breathlessly for Vereyar, biting his lips as he squirmed, then moaned when Vereyar moved with him so that this time, it really did feel like Gaurchoth.
“And he bought you.”
There was certainty in Vereyar's voice, as if this was all there could possibly be between them, and it hurt precisely because he knew that Vereyar was right, that someone like him did not deserve to find love after the things he had done, and yet, and yet...
“He bought me,” he breathed, reaching up to wrap his arms around Vereyar, trying to pull him closer, to make him see somehow, to make him understand, “he wanted me, paid for me... Paid me with a penny and his kindness.”
His kindness... He wanted to weep as he thought of him. Gaurchoth, who did not deserve a beloved who had known the embrace of orcs, of Easterlings, of all the men of Bree.
But I am what he got, he thought miserably, and I'm all he has left after I cost him Bree, Rivendell, his cats, his flowers... I'll not cost him his life too.
“I've known men like him all my life,” Vereyar said hoarsely, holding still for a moment to grasp Fimlas' chin to force him to meet his eyes. How strange to see him like this, so close, so intimate, and yet to not know this man at all, a man he had once called friend. How strange to see not even greed or base lust while he could not keep his treacherous body from writhing beneath him, aching for something, even if that something was just Vereyar's hate. “Men like him don't change. Men like him...” He grimaced as he looked down at Fimlas, who knew exactly what he was thinking.
“Men... bought me, used me, hurt me, yes,” he breathed, reaching up helplessly, hoping beyond hope that Vereyar would understand. “He just... loved me.”
There was no understanding in Vereyar's eyes, just the utter, unfathomable coldness of a sky without stars. How could that be, he wondered desperately, when they were connected so intimately, when he could feel every breath Vereyar took, when every movement made him shiver, when Vereyar's heart raced against his chest, when his own skin smelled of his sweat? How could there be such intimacy, and yet Vereyar was as much a stranger to him as any of the men of Bree who had seen nothing but a thing to buy and discard in him? Had Vereyar not been his friend once?
The thought brought tears to his eyes, and he reached up to bury his hands in his hair, pulling him into a kiss of helpless despair. He licked at Vereyar's lips until they parted, more from surprise than desire, then slid his tongue inside, not quite certain himself what he was hoping for, but was seduction not truly all he knew, all anyone had ever wanted from him?
This, at least, he knew, the strong, hard body moving atop him, inside him, almost what he loved, the heat and wetness of his mouth with that faint hint of sweetness that was so unlike any of those men in Bree...
“Please,” he breathed into the kiss, panting and clinging to Vereyar as he made himself relax, made himself appreciate the heat, the friction of those powerful thrusts. “I'll do whatever you want, tell you anything, everything – I'll show you what he enjoys, what he likes me to do.”
Vereyar's eyes were so cold, and Fimlas knew what he thought. What was there to think after all of a man who made such an offer?
Always a whore, he told himself, too weary to even feel disgust at the shiver of need when Vereyar allowed himself to be pushed onto his back so that he could move on top of him, a soft moan breaking free at the terrible, delicious feeling of Vereyar sliding back inside him, hot and hard.
~~~
Maybe it was hours, maybe mere minutes. In the end, it did not even matter how much time had passed. The ache in his muscles was so familiar, and so was the weight of a languid, exhausted body on top of him. Yet Vereyar would not sleep, would not nuzzle sleepily, affectionately, as Gaurchoth would, or share smiles and tender words. Vereyar just wanted to break his enemy's favorite toy, though Fimlas wondered dizzily how it could be that he could not see that the toy Gaurchoth had picked up from the street had been discarded and broken long ago.
Did Vereyar truly think Gaurchoth the sort of man who would think him tainted after this?
Tentatively, he raised a hand to Vereyar's hair, trailing his fingers through it with what to his surprise felt like a certain, tired tenderness. They had been friends once, had they not? And it had felt so good then to believe that a man like Vereyar liked his company, as if he still were the innocent child he had once been instead of a broken, soiled plaything.
“He'll love me still,” he whispered, wondering faintly if maybe now, with Vereyar's seed drying in flaky spots on his thighs, he would believe him at last. Vereyar's hand wrapped around his throat, and he looked up, unafraid now as he met that starless void of rage and terror in his eyes, aching with compassion at his pain. Vereyar's fingers tightened a little, and he felt regret then, for he knew that Gaurchoth could not follow him west. I will wait for him, he told himself. My sins are as bad as his. My wait in the Halls will be long, too. I will wait for him, and he will come to me.
The pad of Vereyar's thumb rested against his pulse, stroking slowly so that Fimlas swallowed at the exquisite tenderness of the threat, his heart speeding up in either fear or some other emotion he was too weary to name. Vereyar pressed down ever so slowly as his fingers tightened more, as if he were tasting the thought of doing to Gaurchoth what had once been done to him.
A part of Fimlas was afraid, but that part was buried deep inside a well of weariness, of all the old regrets and the fear and the guilt and the loathing, that insidious, seductive thought that this should have happened to him that very first time the orcs took what had not been theirs to take.
He relaxed wearily, closing his eyes as Vereyar's hands tightened, making it hard to breathe. “I'm sorry,” he said softly, not quite certain if he was speaking to Vereyar or Gaurchoth or Mandos, by whom his fëa would soon be judged.
For a long moment, nothing happened, but then, suddenly, Vereyar's weight was gone from his chest, and he could breathe again. When he opened his eyes in wonder, he found him standing next to the bed, head bowed so that his face was hidden. Fimlas did not move. He did not feel fear now. If Vereyar wanted to kill him, he would do that. Vereyar was as strong as he was weak. There was nothing he could do to stop him, and maybe, this was the end he deserved.
He flinched when something hit him. It was a small coin of gold, glistening in the light as it slid down his sweaty chest to rest heavily on the soiled sheets. Another coin followed, then an entire handful, such wealth as he had never seen when he worked the streets of Bree for a crust of bread and a bed for the night.
When the door closed, he knew that he lived only because he, too had been turned into a weapon for Vereyar to wield. He turned his face away from the door, curling up like a lost child as he sobbed without hope, for even now a part of him ached with helpless compassion at the pain no touch could ever soothe.