Ran To The Devil (Sauron/F!Reader)
...he was waiting
When all things must end, what does your heart tell you? And will you listen?
Sequel to Shelter In The Storm; finale in the series // AO3 Link incoming
Soundtrack: Through Glass by Stone Sour (I love an encore. We've used it before and I'll use it again!!), Die With A Smile by Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga, When It's All Over by RAIGN, Sinnerman (Nina Simone's version is the best but also Iyeoka does a banging cover; this is where our title comes from), Kiss Me Harder by Jordan Fiction, Ain't No Grave (Epic Trailer Version) by Hidden Citizens
A/N: please enjoy the final chapter of Sauron and our reader!! It won't be the last I write of them, but it is their final story chronologically.
idek guys, apparently when the world is ending, these two fuck.
for real, all your support has meant so much to me, this fic has been a labour of love, ngl, and all your feedback and ideas and likes and reblogs have contributed so much, you have no idea. Thank you so much, I appreciate all of you 💜
Warnings: 18+ only!! Smut, angst, tiny wee bit of fluff?? Canon ending, kinda, gratuitous smut, like why are they tearing each other's clothes off now?? Come on guys. P in V sex, bitey!Sauron (man's vampire side kinda comes out in this lmao), blood, mark_me_down_as_scared_and_horny.meme, subterfuge, we moving in the shadows, canon death lmao listen I warned you (but it's okay!!)
Word Count: 5k!!
"I have to go, Mithrandir, my fate is his, remember?"
"It does not have to be so," the old wizard says sagely, knowing your mind is made up. "You have suffered enough, they will not have you share in his punishment too."
You nod, but your heart wants what it wants, and it wants him. It aches for him as it always has.
"Deep down, I think I always knew, regardless of any good I have done to outdo him, I knew it would be the two of us at the end." You won't cry, your tears are long spent, but something in the wizard's sympathy pricks your tear ducts, and you have to turn away.
"Don't tell the others. At least not until I am far enough away. They won't understand."
He grasps your hands, one over the other, and gives you one final approving nod.
"I will do what I can for you, Amarië."
You share one last sombre look, before you take off at a gallop, through the broken gates of Minas Tirith to your doom.
~
The tower is deserted. The entirety of Barad-Dûr seems to have emptied onto the ashen fields before the Black Gate, not a single orc in sight as you stroll right in.
You can feel him now, stronger than ever in the back of your mind.
Úthaessel... you hear your name as if on the wind, a breath in your ear, and you shiver. Long has it been since he has called you his temptation.
"I'm coming for you, husband, are you ready for me?" You cannot help but challenge him, now in the final hours of these dark days. They have to be, or all your suffering would have been for naught.
A large iron-wrought door falls ajar to your left and you pull it open with all your might. The corridor behind it is dark, but as if he heard you wish for light, the torches on the walls set ablaze all at once.
"Thank you, love," you mutter under your breath; the flame nearest you seems to flicker in response.
Now that you know he is here, a power still to be reckoned with, you are more nervous than you ever thought you would be. You grip your sword pommel, more out of habit than any thought of using it. After all, what use has a sword ever been against his sorcery?
The door at the end is grander than the rest, polished with refined edges that the other metalwork in the tower lacks. It more closely resembled something you'd have seen in Eregion, all those centuries ago. This is the one, you realise. He is behind it, and you have no idea what you will find.
Is he confined to twisted black armour, or perhaps something more wraith-like will greet you? You had vowed to him once that you would always want him, unconditionally love him however he came to you, and your heart aches in remembrance for those golden days when you could make such promises without any thought as to how you might be tested later.
Even as you stand outside, holding your breath like you clutch your sword in your hand, he plucks the notes of your soul as effortlessly as when you first met, unseen but perceived in the melody of your enjoined fëar.
You hold the smooth, curving handle for a moment, take a deep breath, and swing it open.
The walls are lined with bookshelves beyond count, and there is a tiny, softly-lit reading nook by the window. It is undisturbed, just as you left it when you undertook your journey with the Fellowship. You ache to sit down, to take a book and just forget. However-
"That is not the page I left it on," you smile, rolling your eyes. "You're getting sloppy, husband of mine."
His attention to detail is actually superb, but you can't resist teasing him for the tiny clues that immediately stand out.
"This cushion is more worn at home. I sit more on its left than the right, this one is practically new. I might have to take it with me when I leave." You cannot help but mock him, hoping for him to reveal himself.
"Somewhere a little more familiar then..." His dulcet tones startle you, as you feel hot breath on your neck; you turn around, blade at the ready, but hear only distant laughter in response.
As you get your bearings once again, golden sunlight streams in through large windows, cushions and blankets strewn everywhere as you once liked in your apartments in Eregion.
"I always liked that bed. Never did find one more comfortable, except perhaps in Imladris. I suppose you wouldn't know." You recall how he had always remarked on the softness of your bed, delighted in laying there for hours with you; twisting the knife about these lost centuries has the desired effect.
"So what surroundings would my darling wife prefer? Perhaps... ah-"
You blink and the room has opened up into a forest glade, rays of sunlight brushing your temples through the trees, rushing water at your back.
"Is this better?"
A tall figure wreathed in golden light emerges from the brush, and your heart wrenches, skipping a beat as it did when you first laid eyes on him.
He looks just as he did on that warm lazy evening, when the world was young and you were innocent.
"This is cruel, even for you."
He cocks his head and looks down at you, having closed the gap between you so swiftly you swear you had no time to escape him; that is what you tell yourself anyway, as his hand wraps around yours so sweetly, so delicious in his gentle touch, that you cannot break away.
"Never, never to you." Gods, he is so tender, he almost makes you forget why you are here, what is taking place right outside.
"Your cruelest torments were reserved for me, or have you forgotten?"
A shiver runs down your spine as he reaches out and tucks your loose hair behind your ear.
"We do not recall these past centuries the same way."
"We never did. What with you being a power-hungry megalomaniac."
His nostrils flare but his smile intensifies, chilling you in the most conflictingly delicious way.
"I promised I would never leave you, and I kept that promise. Even when you did not reciprocate." He almost seems to scold you, the smile never leaving his face but not quite reaching his eyes either.
"I ran across Middle Earth to be rid of you, but perhaps I was too subtle."
"I gave you everything, and you abandoned me!" He raises his voice in indignation, the first sign of a crack in his facade.
"I abandoned you because you gave me everything! The moment you made the rings, what little hope I had in us vanished. You gave me everything I never wanted, and once you put that ring on my finger, you robbed me of a life free of you."
His face hardens into an ugly grimace, an expression not entirely at home on the face he has chosen; never an unkind word was spoken between the two of you before you knew who he was. Perhaps that was always the problem.
"Everything I have done was for you. They are a pair, our Rings, you were meant to join me!"
"I wasn't talking about the two, but of the rest. You'll never learn! That by needing to control Middle Earth, it slipped through your fingers as if it were sand."
"The battle is not decided yet." His smug expression churns an anger in your stomach that spreads through your entire being, limb by limb, until you want to rail and scream and curse.
Instead you collect yourself.
"I thought you perceived all from up here. Do you truly not know what awaits you?" Now it is your turn to be smug.
That delicious tic in his jaw jumps again.
"The plot to destroy my Ring? How could I not, you've hardly been subtle, my love. And you forget a crucial detail." He says, taking your hand on which your gifted ring shines in the illusory sunlight.
"Subtlety was never my strong suit." You shrug. "And you're right. Though perhaps, my love," your tone becoming cutting, "you should take a closer look."
His smirk turns sour, becomes a glare of wrath, betrayal writing itself across his handsome features.
"When?" He asks, looking down at you, holding your hand so tightly it hurts. "When did you swap them out?"
"So you don't perceive everything then." You can't help but smile.
The final detail in your plans had worked. With Elrond's help and the gifts of his finest blacksmiths, you had managed to forge an exact replica of your Ring, smuggling the real one to Frodo before he split from the company.
"Keep it secret. Keep it safe." You had said to the hobbit all those months ago; it was imperative that no-one knew yours too was headed to Mount Doom.
You realise with a tinge of sadness that you would never get to thank Frodo for all of his trials in getting it to the mountain.
"You really didn't notice, every time we spoke. I was sure you would, was terrified in fact. That's why-"
"You weren't sleeping." His jaw is set and his eyes are hard; his anger is palpable now, you could cut through it with a knife.
"I was sure you would realise. After all, you did always have such attention to detail. I guess being trapped in a tower for millennia might drive one to distraction, though." You should stop mocking him, but all of your plans coming to fruition was too delicious a victory.
All the scenic trappings he has conjured disappear, and are replaced with a terribly familiar sight.
Dust and smoke fill the air, seige horns bellow outside, and the ground shakes violently. The razing of Eregion, the event that broke your relationship.
"Sauron, enough!"
His face twists. "I never liked the way that name sounded on your lips."
"I never liked the way it tasted."
Thousands of years have passed since this day, but you would never forget the ice cold fear in your veins, and the white hot shame of knowing it was your beloved who had brought your city to ruin.
Visions come unbidden to your mind's eye, memories of him rutting into you like a wild animal, uncaring of the battle outside, of who might see or hear. You remember telling him no, as your body screamed yes, as he delved into your mind, soul, cunt, and claimed you again and again as the battle raged on, until you were a shaking, whimpering mess, begging him to just take you one more time.
"They told me I had atoned enough for your sins; that I could be free of you. But I knew there was no freedom in Valinor that would taste as sweet as bringing about your doom myself."
"Glad to hear you still think of me, even as you avoided my attentions." His charming smile does nothing but infuriate you.
Well. Not quite nothing.
You cross the space between you, reaching up for him, his face already lowering to yours as you dance to the same beat you always have endured.
His lips on yours feel like a blessing and a curse, your hearts finally beating as one after an age apart. Your soul soars, entwined with his, your fëar revitalised simply by your proximity, by enjoining yourself with him again.
He groans, low in his throat, reaching for you, entangling himself in you, refusing to be parted from you once more.
Questing fingers slip under your waistband, one hand working to remove your belt as the other delves for the hot wet prize he has been denied for so long.
In the back of your mind, a tiny voice reminds why you're here, why you haven't been here for an age, why you shouldn't let him ruin you again-
"I've missed you." His voice, low in your ear, sends arousal pooling in your core, a throbbing in your clit that you can no longer ignore, and you can't help but arch into him, pressing against him to kiss him harder.
He picks you up effortlessly, coaxing your legs to wrap around his hips, before slamming you against some solid surface that feels most likely like a wall, not that it matters now.
You're already stripped below the waist, you don't even recall how he did it, the urgent need coursing through the pair of you like nothing you've felt in thousands of years.
His fingers at your clit anchor you to reality, so in danger of floating away and letting him finally claim you as his Queen.
His eyes are black, dark veins in the sockets like the tendrils of his power that wrap around your heart and pull you to his will.
"You want this as much as I do." He murmurs, his teeth worrying the sensitive pointed tip of your ear.
It feels like worship, it feels like having the world in the palm of your hand, it feels like home.
Your eyes fall closed as he gathers your wetness, smearing it on his length, stroking it firmly as he takes you in.
"Look at me." His hand on your chin tilts your head to face him as you force your eyes open, fixing your gaze on his mouth as he licks his fingers clean.
"You've missed me." His self-satisfied smirk and heavily lidded eyes should irritate you, but it only drives you further into his arms, heat pooling in your core as you roll your hips against his.
"Of course I have. I love you, I miss you, I want you-" your desperate ramblings are cut off as he claims you, burying himself to the hilt, his teeth on your neck.
"Please... please, love." You don't know what you're begging for, your mind clinging to any semblance of logic and reason, but he knows what you want, has always known your deepest darkest desires, and loved you all the more for them.
His teeth on your neck sink into tender flesh, sharp pain giving way to bliss, rivulets of blood running red down your collarbone, his tongue chasing every drop.
The dull bite of his fingernails in your back mixed with the sharpness of his teeth penetrating your skin, the burn of his cock inside you, seemingly growing larger, harder with every thrust, as Sauron gives into his more bestial nature; after denying yourself for so long, one last time with your husband feels like paradise.
An age apart can only be satisfied by fucking you senseless; he needs to feel all of you, needs to you to feel all of him, needs to consume and be consumed.
Ever the wordsmith, but he isn't sure he could ever say it aloud, just how much he needs you, how much he's missed you; but you know because you feel it too, as your souls sing the harmony only the two of you can hear.
You can feel the tower shake, but perhaps it's only your husband's desperate thrusts inside you.
He's so focused on your pleasure, on taking what he needs from you, that for a moment, just a moment, his mask slips.
Your skin crawls, your limbs shake, and you can't help the gasp that escapes you.
It isn't that he isn't beautiful. He is, terribly so.
You were the first and only being to set eyes on his true form after the fall of Númenor, and it comes as no surprise now, but somehow you had forgotten, or blocked out, the striking nature of his appearance.
To look upon him is to know the sublime. Beauty and terror in one visage, dreadful to behold but captivating.
It is only for a moment, but it shakes you to your core, and he pulls away, leaving you breathless, your blood running cold in your veins.
"Love-" you begin to call after him but he turns on you, hand at your throat so quickly, so close to dragging you up the wall by the neck, your hearts racing.
"How can you call me that? After that- after what you just saw?" He growls into your neck, burying his face in your hair, nose at your jaw, anything but precious eye contact.
"Do you think me so fickle, so shallow, that I would be daunted by your darkness? I see you. After all this time, I see you, for what you truly are. No more deception, no pretty disguise. I promised you once I would never care what form you took. I keep my promises, love."
He kisses you hard, running his hand down your back, as the other grips your hair and pulls your head back, baring your throat.
"Show me."
His teeth falter on your neck, as your whisper reaches his ear. He regards you with as much softness as he can muster, letting his deception melt like iron in the forge, remade anew.
No pretty face, no gorgeous facade to hide behind.
You feel like your heart might beat out of your chest to join his, cold terror washed away by the heat in your core and the yearning in your heart.
He lets you drink him in, your fingers gingerly tracing old scars on his deathly pale skin.
"Is this what you wanted, wife of mine?" For the first time in an age, he sounds uncertain, a tiny tremor in his voice.
Anyone else might have missed it. But you know him too well.
You can only nod, melting into his embrace once more, drawing out the inevitable as he rolls his hips into yours once more.
A piercing shriek overhead, coming from somewhere close to the tower, distracts you long enough to gather your senses, even as he is wrapped around you, blood and fire and ash just outside.
"Surely you must know it is all in vain." You manage to choke out, his cock leaving little room for the air in your lungs.
"What do you mean, darling wife?" He draws back to regard you, still convinced of his triumph. "I see no victorious party yet. Half a day and your beloved free peoples will be under my rule. There is no will mighty enough to challenge me."
He angles his hips just right to make you see stars on every thrust, and before long, you're clenching around him, his own peak following yours in quick succession.
You're starved of breath but you lean your forehead against his and whisper, "Except mine. Even now, you are blind to what is happening on your doorstep."
His power was often difficult for you to use, to control, but you had centuries to learn how to wield it like a sword and shield. And a door opens both ways. With him inside your mind, you could step inside his, and use his Eye to watch for Frodo undetected.
His eyes widen as he realises far too late. He sends out his ringwraiths but it is for naught. The Ring falls into the fiery chasm from which it was made, and just like that, it is over.
He reaches for you, and without any thought of doing otherwise, you let him embrace you one final time as you both go to meet your fates.
~
When you wake, there is nothing. No up, no down, no light, no dark. It is, to say the least, disorienting. After a while in your own head, you begin to sense movement, glimpse shadows out of the corner of your eye, and some sweet song echoes far off, the like of which you have never heard.
A warmth begins to flow in your fingers, as you regain your sensation, sitting up slowly to take in your surroundings.
A hand on your shoulder warns you to take it slowly, and you look around, unflinching but curious. Whoever it is, they mean you no harm; somehow, this place feels familiar.
It takes you a moment, a century, you can't be sure, but your surroundings come into focus, and the being beside you helps you to your feet.
She is beautiful, like nothing you've ever seen. A sheer veil adorned with tiny shimmering crystals falls across her perfect face, making her appear as if-
"She who weeps." You exhale slowly, in disbelief.
Her smile is so radiant, you can hardly believe she is known for her tears.
"You would know me best of all. It's why I was chosen to greet you, to take you where you need to go." Her voice passes straight through you, soothing your aching bones, washing away your grief.
Nienna stands and takes your hand, helping you to your feet. Guardian of grief and pity, it is only right for her to meet you at the end.
"So these are the Halls we are promised after death. Shame." She looks at you questioningly and you shrug. "After all this time, I was hoping to see-"
You cannot finish that sentence. You have arrived in Valinor, you have been granted entrance to these sacred Halls, against all odds, and yet your heart still clings to him.
It is as if she reads your mind. She probably does, now you stop to think.
"You wonder of his fate." She smiles, a sweet mixture of understanding and sorrow.
"He is the other half of me. I cannot help but be pulled along in his current." Surely she must understand, cannot possibly judge you for your soul's basest desire.
"You can see him. If that is what you wish."
You stop in your tracks, your surroundings and present company all but forgotten, as you realise all may not be lost.
"He is here? But I thought-"
"He was destroyed. But it is impossible to annihilate such a spirit as Sauron wholly. Especially as he has an anchor." She looks pointedly at you, and a shiver runs down your spine; even after millennia of fighting him, he wasn't gone, because of you. "There is a shred of him left, and he has been asking of you."
Your heart sings; perhaps all is not lost, the other half of your soul anchored in purgatory waiting for you, holding on for you to join him.
"Where is he? I do not feel him?" The emptiness in your soul had plagued you since waking, but you had assumed it was because half of it had simply ceased being.
"Somewhere safe. Somewhere he cannot exert his will. And if you choose to be with him, you cannot return here. It would be your fate as well, until the ending of days."
"Is it what he wants?" Ever the dutiful wife, if Sauron wishes to be left alone for all eternity, you cannot deny him.
"He needs clarity. You are his clarity."
You nod, weighing up in your mind whether he would truly want to be bound to you with no other company for the rest of his days.
"And what about my rest? Do I not deserve peace?"
"Would it be peace without him?"
It is not a difficult decision.
"Take me to him."
~
The wonders of this new land stun you as you pass through them, never to see them again. But there is no doubt in your mind that this is the right course.
Slowly all fades until there is nothing again, only soft song that ebbs and flows to a crescendo, that breaks upon your arrival in your new purgatory.
You look around and tears spring to your eyes, though you try to deny them. Golden sunlight, soft petalled carpet, endless forest greets you.
"We're back." A breathless whisper that none can hear now, for you are truly alone in this endless wonderland.
It doesn't take you long to find him, the familiar melody of his fëa calling out to you as it always has.
A large iron wrought throne sits in the middle of your glade where you'd first met, the sight jarring. Upon it he sits, almost deliberately lounging as if enjoying the rotten fruits of his labours. But you know different, and the second your gaze falls on his, the facade begins to crumble.
"They told me you were coming." Beneath his cracking exterior, he sounds utterly defeated, and despite yourself you feel pity for your beloved in such a sorry state; after all his evils and malice, he is trapped here in paradise, unable to weave his songs and spells.
"I had to see you for myself. I didn't believe it."
"Now you have. Take heart and rejoice, your king is overthrown." He tries for condescending disdain, but all you hear is a broken man.
You should not pity him, you know it is all for naught, that he deserves this fate.
But to be cut off from the Song is punishment enough. He does not need your wrath too.
"How can I rejoice? The only thing I can take heart in is knowing I have you to myself, for all the ages of this world." To you that sounds like bliss, after endless wars and malice, but you imagine that for him, it is probably torture.
A cruel final trick of the Valar, sublime in its judgement, equal in its share of heaven and hell.
"They said you did not have to stay. That you could leave me if that is what you choose." His golden eyes drop to the floor again, refusing to witness your rejection for the umpteenth time.
"I suppose I don't. But I did wonder what eternity would look like without you."
"This is hardly the paradise you deserve," he scoffs, casting his gaze anywhere but on you.
"It could be. If we are together, it will be." You kneel down, looking up at him, begging him to listen.
"You could choose any other fate, why would you stay here with only your broken husband for company forever? Eternity is a long time."
"That is exactly what I thought. Forever is too long a time to be without you. We've spent so long starved of one another, I can suffer that fate no longer. I choose you." The words tumble from your lips before you realise you had in fact made up your mind, as if your body already knows your decision and grew tired of waiting for the pair of you.
He refuses to look up at you, fingernails digging into the armrests, head hung low. He is sure this is yet another trick of the Valar, perhaps to taunt him with the promise of one good thing in his everlasting purgatory. The promise of breaking his master's curse in defeat, to have and to hold you until the end of days, sounds far too good to be true. Sauron, defeated, is not the man you married. Thankfully.
"I ruined you." He mutters, almost too quiet to hear.
You kneel before him, taking his hand in yours.
"You remade me."
"Not in the way you deserve." He looks up then, and his face is red, eyes wet and puffy; your heart aches, wrenches in two at the sight.
"But in the way I needed."
He gives a derisive snort and turns away.
"No, look at me." You turn his face back to you, forcing him to meet your gaze. "I would not be the person I am without you. You did that. For good or evil, I am yours, and you are mine. All we have is each other. If you'll have me now."
His face twitches, but he doesn't reply, fixing an impassive expression that gets under your skin immediately. After everything that he has put you through, he can listen to you now.
You grip his face urgently, softly, all at once, pulling him to really look at you, imploring him to listen.
"You swore to me once that you are my home. Do you remember?"
He sighs, a long exhale, before finally looking up at you of his own accord.
"Of course I remember. I remember it all."
"And I am your home? We swore, a long time ago, but it still holds, does it not?"
His face twitches, and his fingers flex as if to release themselves from their claw-like grip around the twisted armrests of his throne.
"Do you regret it? Any of it?" The moment the question escapes your lips, you wish to take it back.
At that, he looks up at you, carefully regarding you as if you'd asked him to reveal the secrets of the universe.
After what feels like eternity, he answers you.
"I regret losing you." His tongue forms the words as if through cotton wool, unused to expressing anything but surety, his will to dominate all but spent.
"I regret that too." You whisper, taking his hand in yours.
"Mairon... my love..." You can't help the tears that well from the depths of your heart, as you use his true name for the first time in centuries.
His breath hitches and he reaches out for you, tracing your cheek, marvelling at the glittering tear tracks on your skin, his illusion of neutrality finally broken.
"We have fought too long and too hard for this to be our ending." You pour all your energy, all your love and devotion into the bond the two of you share, hoping maybe he remembers the feeling.
"So let us find another one." Tears blind you as you speak, but to wipe them away would mean letting him go, and you refuse to do so; instead he does the job for you, cupping your face gently, wiping each tear away as they fall.
"I choose you," you whisper, emphasising every word, your heart swelling as his tearstained face breaks into the first genuine smile you've seen in centuries.
"I choose you. I always have." Your voice cracks as he pulls you to him, claiming your lips with such tender passion that you melt into his embrace, his kiss an answer in itself.
Finally you feel whole. For the first time in millennia, you are home.
