──── 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝟎:𝟓𝟒 ˊˎ - ⊹₊ masterlist / rules ꒰ pairing: Maedhros x Reader ꒱ ꒰ word count: 3.7k ꒱ ꒰ c.w: MDNI, NSFW content, hurt/comfort, semi-public ꒱ ᯓ✩ 𝒑.𝒔: a commission from the lovely @teddynoir who is always such a delight to work with. i did make myself cry a little while writing this one when i had sad songs playing hehe
When Fingon returned with Maedhros from Angband, you were certain you felt emotion in such a profound capacity that you had never experienced anything like it before and have not done ever since.
You were so overwhelmed that the world seemed to both freeze and fall away, nothing else existing but your feet rooted to the ground and the two cousins landing upon the back of that great eagle. Though your heart cracked like glass threatening to shatter at the state your childhood best friend was in: hardly recognisable if not for his towering height and fiery hair. He was home and he was safe, but it was already glaringly clear to you that he was an ellon changed by trauma, no longer the dear friend you knew who vowed to honour his father’s legacy with naive passion in those once bright eyes.
It took him a while to accept visitors while he was recovering, ashamed at his state, humiliated by the torment he had suffered at the hands of the supreme dark lord Morgoth. When he did eventually allow you to see him, your heart broke even further. His body had once resembled the pristine statues chiselled by his mother – so skillfully sculpted that she’d made stone look soft to the touch – but he was now covered in as many scars as freckles he was born with. A particularly nasty one follows the curvature of his cheekbone and splices his lips in a deep indent. His long hair is unkempt and matted, the medics having been unable to care for it in such a poor state despite all the attention he’d received for his injuries. A human might have decided to simply cut it all off and give it a fresh start, but this wasn’t the way of elves.
Your first act of tenderness for your darling Maedhros was to tend to the auburn tresses that had been his mother’s first gift to him. You’d come with a basin and all manner of concoctions to soften and detangle the long locks, ever so gently brushing them out with a comb that had stuck with you even across the sea on your journey east. He was quiet all the while, only a few words exchanged between the pair of you as you quietly hummed songs composed by his younger brother which had featured in both your close upbringings. You were careful to not snag the knots on the teeth of the comb, handling him like a fledgling fallen from its nest – he had endured enough pain over the last few decades and you didn’t want him to suffer even the slightest of tugs to the hair.
As you had hoped, it was successful in lifting his mood somewhat. He was still quiet and would spend much of his time staring off in the distance with a vacant look in his eyes, but he was more willing to see yourself, Fingon and his brothers now. Once his injuries were fully healed, scars now haunting his body with memories, he began to train. Hard.
You couldn’t help but pity him as you could see the frustration that would cross his otherwise stoic face, the tight clench of his jaw that would threaten to crack teeth, the crease of his brow. He had spent the last few decades feeling weak, feeling vulnerable to sadistic torment and it was clear to you that the driving force behind all this training was a desperate attempt to make sure he would never be put in that position ever again. He’s got back up to a healthy weight now, and it’s lifted a sort of weight from your shoulders – it was so difficult for you to look at the ellon you’ve grown up alongside and to see his entire ribcage even while wrapped in bandages.
You accompany him in his training just to make sure he’s pacing himself healthily as you don’t want him to hurt himself or push himself too hard. It’s incredible that he managed to endure all he did and a part of you aches that he doesn’t see that in the way you do, he only sees the part of him that was helpless to resist a power far greater than he.
A particular challenge he’s having to overcome is learning to wield a blade again. Maedhros’ has always been adept with weapons but he’s no longer able to use the heavy-set ones that once complemented his fearsomely large stature, inspiring fear into his enemies before they could even get within his range. They’re now too weighty to heft with just one hand and so he’s focused much of his training onto re-learning how to use a longsword. He once twirled it around between two hands but he’s now having to learn how to do so with just one. The blade is especially crafted for him and is able to cover a large distance, keeping his enemies as far as he pleases until he wishes to get close. He’s always been skilled with a longsword but it’s taking a lot of adjustments to unlearn old techniques that had become second nature to him and to instead replace them with these new one-handed maneuvers.
He’s sparring with a soldier but fails to strengthen his defence and his opponent lands what would have otherwise been a disarming blow if this had been a real battle, the third time this has happened in the last twenty minutes. He throws his sword down to the ground, kicking up dust.
“Five minutes!” He barks out and pivots on his heel to head into the nearby tent. The soldier turns his head to where you’ve been perched on a crate of weapons as if to ask you what’s up with him, knowing the two of you have a close relationship. You hold up your hand to the dark-haired ellon to signal for him to wait and you follow Maedhros into the tent, letting the flap fall closed behind you.
“Hey…” You begin tentatively, finding him pacing the short distance of the room, “Do you… are you okay?” His hair, tied back at his nape and accompanied by a few smaller braids and flowing from his helmet, tosses when he snaps around towards you, face concealed behind the grate.
“Does it look like-” He cuts himself off and lets out a frustrated grunt. He’s angry, irritated, wants to break something, but he doesn’t want to hurt you, even if it’s hard to face you right now. “No.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself, Maitimo.” You speak softly and take another measured step towards him, “You’ve made so much progress already, but adapting something that was already so ingrained in you is going to take some time.” He swallows down the burning that’s building in the back of his throat when you call him that. He doesn’t feel like Maitimo anymore, the young elfling who’d be called that name by his mother when it was time for the two of you to stop playing outside under the light of the trees and come indoors for dinner. Maitimo was left lagging behind when he raised up his sword to swear his father’s oath, and he was killed when that cuff was fixed around his wrist atop the mountain. So how could you look at him, broken, scarred, weak, and still see that fair ellon who would pick you up on his shoulder so you could reach the ripest fruits from the branches back in Valinor?
“That’s not my name anymore…” He mutters, hand clenched into a fist at his side only reminding him that the stub of his other wrist cannot do the same. It makes his heart ache to see the soft sincerity in your eyes, to see how unchanged you are while he’s been utterly ruined, broken beyond repair. That name… the embrace of his mother, joining his father in the workshop, the teasing of his brothers about your friendship with him. Such simple, beautiful, excruciatingly carefree times.
You approach closer and your smaller hands wrap around his wrists, metal vambraces warm from how hard he’s been exerting himself. “You’re still my Maitimo, you’re still you.” You say adamantly. It hasn’t been lost on you how much of his self-esteem he’s lost, how he’s now blind to his strength and instead sees himself as the elf who couldn’t defend himself for decades at a time, and every time you can see this damaged mindset of his taking over, you feel your heartstrings tie into tense knots that threaten to snap.
He gives a soft shake of his head, ego so demolished that he can’t find the truth in your words. “I don’t know how you can even stand to look at me these days.”
“With love.” You reply fiercely, unable to bear seeing him devalue himself like this when he’s the most precious thing in the world to you. You can hear how his breath catches from within his helmet and his head tips down so he’s now looking directly at you from behind the shadow cast by the grate that’s pushed down to protect his face. Steadily, you reach up and beckon with two fingers for him to lean down into your reach. You unfasten the strap at the chin and lift it from his head, the sight beneath burning your throat all the way down to your chest. Tears are budding in his grey eyes and his scarred bottom lip is quivering with emotion. It breaks your heart to see him like this, the contrast of your towering, strong ellon covered in battle armour and yet so delicate beneath it all, like you’re both children still.
“You’re my Maitimo, mine. And I’ll be damned before I let any oath or bloodshed or dark lord take you away from me.” You cup his handsome face in your hands, your thumb gently tracing the indent of the scar that cuts along his cheekbone like the bowed branch of a tree. He leans into your touch, eyes now half-lidded.
“Why are you still so gentle with me? After all I’ve done, all I’ve failed to do-”
“You know why.” Is all you need to say in reply. Your thumb continues to follow that scar until you’re gently tugging down his lip, feeling how plush it is beneath the pad of your skin. “How about we call it a day for training? You’ve worked hard and need to eat.” You say as tension begins to thicken the air between you. He offers a small nod of assent and your hands glide instead to his arm where you begin to carefully unfasten his vambrace. Out of habit, he goes to set his other hand on the dip of your waist but he has nothing to hold onto you with, only the absence that reminds him of his shame. His arm begins to fall back to his side but you instead insistently grab it and bring it back to his waist, letting his wrist press against you as you offer him a soft smile and a glance through your lashes.
You intentionally take your time to unfasten the vambrace when the stump of what was once his hand begins to gently rub up and down against your side. You then switch arms and remove the other vambrace setting it aside; only, this time, you don’t let his arm fall back to his side, you instead bring it up to your lips where you press a gentle kiss to the scarred stub, a gentle, barely-there press that’s followed by another more certain kiss. He uses it to lift your chin so that you’re now looking at him again, his intact arm wrapping around your middle so that his large hand can span against the small of your back.
Maedhros leans down to press his mouth to yours in a tender kiss, soft with the firm indent of his scar. You stretch up onto your toes to meet him halfway, hands looping around his neck to tangle into the long coppery strands that you’d helped him braid back that morning. The kisses are slow and firm, lingering and sensual as he pulls you close to his body, wanting to feel your smaller frame flush against his. You taste salt and realise that his tears have finally spilled and have been caught in the embrace of your lips. You begin to pepper kisses upwards, following the wet tracks along his handsome cheeks to kiss his sadness away. His breathing becomes shaky and he holds you as though he’s afraid he’ll lose you forever if he lets go, gentle as to not break you, convicted enough as to not let you get far.
Your mouth meets his again and he returns your kisses with a passion that he had long thought had been smothered out of him. Between his tongue tentatively swiping at yours and the press of lips, he breaks the kiss for a fraction of a second every few moments to draw in sharp, shaky breaths. Love, care, tenderness, things faded to obscure memory after the last near-forty years, the sensations so cold and monochrome until now. He almost lets out a sob when he yanks you closer to him by your waist and walks you back against the storage crates for him to hoist you up onto so that you no longer have to lean up or down so much just to accommodate your height difference.
He nuzzles your jaw gently before his nose traces the thrum of the pulse in your neck before he’s pressing kisses to your sensitive flesh, a part of him almost unable to believe that you’d let his marred self touch your beautiful skin, still finding it difficult to see anything beyond ugliness in his new reflection, so far removed in his mind’s eye from the handsome ellon his mother had called her first true masterpiece.
“Will you let me have you?” He pleads, voice breaking and barely more than a whisper as he cages you in between his arms and the crates you’re sitting atop. “Please?” He hides his face into the junction of your neck and shoulder, terrified that you’ll reject him, that you’ll want a better husband than him. After all, his plea is no small ask like it may be for humans: you are elves, creatures whose hearts bond forever, unsevered from one another even after death.
Your hands find his cheeks again and you use your hold to make him pull back just enough to look into those steely eyes of his, nose softly nudging against his. “Yes, Maitimo.” You whisper back, “Yes.” His hand reaches for the ties on your collar and he pulls each small bow loose until your decolletage is exposed for his mouth to explore. He treats you reverently, like you’re the most precious thing on earth, even the little nips of his teeth careful to cause you no true pain.
Your hands fumble with all the straps of his armour, letting it fall to the ground and cringing a little when it clatters – you only have the canvas walls of the tent to provide you with privacy, after all. You tug gently at the hem of his shirt, a silent request. “Will you let me take this off?” He hesitates for a moment, uneasy at the thought of you seeing the scars that criss-cross his body. “Please? Don’t hide from me.” Your request is punctuated with another kiss to his lips, a display that you’re not bothered in the slightest about the cruel marks left on his figure.
“Alright…” He concedes and you lift his shirt to pull it over his head. As you’ve noted before, he’s returned to a healthy weight since being rescued by his cousin, and you note the returning contours of muscle too. He still has some way to go before more closely resembling his old self but his body is merely the vessel that houses the man you love – his scars could double and he could lose another limb and yet you know in your heart that you’d love him no less than you do in this moment, your heart so full of the ellon before you, of all the memories that make him who he is, broken and rebuilt and all.
You feel the way he tenses when you begin to trace the lines of the scars that cut through him like streams along a mountainface. To ease his self-consciousness, you then lean in and begin to follow them with your lips instead, pausing to gently nip at him every now and then, wanting to cover him in your own marks, marks of love and longing to overshadow those of malice and hate.
He lets out a shaky breath and feels how your fingertips drag down towards the reforming v-line of his hips before they withdraw entirely from his freckled skin in favour of undoing your pants, boots already kicked off and joining his pile of armour upon the ground. His throat feels dry despite the way he salivates the moment he catches sight of your slit. He falls to his knees before you can even register his intentions and his arms encircle your hips to drag you towards the edge of the crate. Lips graze against your thigh as he looks up at you through thick copper lashes.
“Will you allow me to taste you, meleth nîn?” He asks softly, not wanting his lewd request to be overheard by anyone who may be passing by. With a bite of your lip, you lean back on your hands for support as you spread your thighs further apart, nodding your consent. His scarred lips drag up the plush flesh of your thigh until he can press kisses to your cunt that convey just how honoured he feels to be granted this privilege. He begins to lap at your slit, rolling his tongue firmly against your clit with a quiet groan.
You find yourself reaching down to cradle the back of his head, insistently nudging him closer to your sticky slit, biting on your lip to muffle yourself, careful to not be too loud. His tongue dips in and out of your wet entrance, desperate to taste as much of you as you’re willing to offer – so his brow pinches in confusion when you push him away by his shoulder, smouldering grey eyes looking up at you from beneath the canopy of his thick lashes.
“I want you,” you voice, wanton and full of desire, tugging softly at him to get him to rise to his feet where he’s kneeling between your legs. He nods wordlessly, some of his long hair slipping from his braid to fall down the sides of his temples. He leans in once again, smearing your slick into the kiss as his hand palms at his stiff length, struggling against the confines of his pants. He pushes them down just enough to free his impressive cock: as large as you’d have expected for a man of his staggeringly tall stature, the tip flushed a desperate shade of red and leaking profusely.
He swipes the swallowed head through your slippery slit, breath hitching when he nudges insistently against your clit, wanting you to feel just as good as he is in this moment. He begins to nudge against your weeping opening, catching his teeth between his bottom lip when he feels the slight resistance of your cunt.
“I can just… put it in?” He asks breathlessly, still in disbelief that someone as beautiful, as incredible as you has let him take things even this far. Your legs wrapping around his hips encourages him though and he begins to sink into you slowly, steadily; primarily, he wants to give you time to adjust, to make sure you feel no pain during this first incredible union of you both, but he’s also now panting at the tight grip your walls have on his sensitive cock.
Inch by careful inch, he pushes in, his chest puffing with a little pride when you let out a pretty moan, your face then tucking against his shoulder to muffle yourself – the last thing either of you want is to be disrupted right now.
“We’ll need to be quick.” He whispers out, despite how the clench of your walls feels like a protest against his words, “I’ll take you back to mine later and we can do this properly right after.” His promise is punctuated with him drawing you even closer against his broad, scarred chest.
He’s set a deep but forceful pace now that you’re adjusted to him, both of you chasing a quick release to prelude the real thing later. His hand cradles the back of your head, holding you to him in an embrace that wouldn’t have been so lovingly lewd if not for his cock reaching the deepest parts of your pussy. When his pace starts to falter, you suspect he’s getting close and some greed shines in you when you take his wrist and guide it between your bodies.
He almost pulls away, like this ugly, marred part of him doesn’t deserve to touch such a precious part of you. But you’re determined to make him realise that you don’t see him through his lens of self-loathing. You tilt your hips to make yourself easier for him to access and encourage him to rub the stump of his wrist against your throbbing clit, applying enough pressure that has your orgasm tensing in your abdomen.
At feeling the way your walls desperately milk him for orgasm, Maedhros buries his face against your hair as he does his utmost to make sure his bliss won’t be overhead when he spills his load into you. His peak, in turn, triggers yours and you’re left clawing at his biceps as you writhe in his arms.
Panting and spent, the two of you remain a tangle of limbs and panted breaths for a while more until he reluctantly withdraws, grey eyes full of awe as he watches his cum leak from your pretty pussy. Only… the lewd view seems to spark his second wind, and his mind returns to his promise to properly sate you in a more private location.
“We’ll move as soon as you’re able, meleth nîn…” He murmurs, lips pressing to your forehead in a tenderness that he thought had been lost to his being.
⊹₊ liked it? why not: ∘ buy me a coffee? ∘ comms. ∘ taglist ∘ follow/reblog
