49 with Celegorm, Aredhel, and Maeglin?
49. Platonic Coparenting
“Look, if you’re going to be—” Lómion scowled, ineffectually hiding his blush with his dark hair falling into his face. “What I mean is—if you and Ammë are...hooking up—”
Tyelkormo choked on his drink. Lómion stared moodily into his. It was weird, Tyelkormo thought distantly, that he was—parenting? at all, but especially a full-grown kid. That was an oxymoron, he knew, but...Lómion was an adult, technically, for all he needed guidance from other more-adult figures in his life. He still felt like a kid to Tyelkormo. Which made him feel old, way old, because he was famously the least responsible of his brothers. Why was he the one looking after someone else?
But this was Írissë’s kid, that was why, and Írissë needed help putting the pieces of her family back together. It was hard without...a co-parent. Eöl certainly wasn’t welcome in her home, if he ever got kicked out of Mandos (and wasn’t it strange that dreadful, Kinslaying Tyelkormo had been judged kindlier than him!), and while Tyelkormo didn’t feel exactly worthy of the title, he could never turn Írissë down when she asked for help. It was a rarity: he knew how much it took for her to swallow her pride and reach out.
Anyway, this whole situation was bizarre, but perhaps the most bizarre part was that he could take Lómion out for drinks and have the kid be the one asking intrusive questions about his love life, instead of the other way around. Tyelkormo was pretty sure this wasn’t how parenting was supposed to go—Curvo certainly hadn’t had this experience. But even Curvo and Tyelpë were having their own strangeness now, and it wasn’t like Tyelkormo’s other brothers had anything resembling normal experiences with parenting.
All told, if he was gonna have a kid, it made sense that it would be with Írissë. But he hadn’t imagined anything like this.
“No,” he said firmly once he’d stopped coughing. “That is—we’re not—that is not what’s happening, Lómion.”
(It might have been, once, a lifetime ago. But Írissë was different now, changed and closed off and not interested in any shameless fun they’d once indulged in, and frankly Tyelkormo didn’t want that either, now.)
Lómion raised an eyebrow. “You sure? Because—I know you used to.” He rubbed his nose. “I of all people am not going to judge for being in love with your cousin...”
“Okay, so maybe when we were—” your age, he almost said, but caught himself at the last minute— “younger, that might’ve happened. Maybe.”
“Definitely,” Lómion muttered.
Tyelkormo ignored him. “But that was then. This is now. I can assure you that now, your mother and I are strictly platonic co-parents.”
“Co-parents?” Lómion demanded, jerking his head up in outrage.
Tyelkormo winced. Oops. He’d never actually said that before—not even to Írissë; she’d been much vaguer about what she wanted his help with—and he now realized that might be overstepping his bounds.
“Uh...” Tyelkormo didn’t know what to say. He settled for taking another drink. “Yeah? I mean, that’s what’s going on, don’t you think?”
“I don’t need another father,” Lómion said bitterly. “The first one was shitty enough.”
“I don’t want to be your father,” Tyelkormo assured. “Just...someone you can trust. Who isn’t your mother. Who’s a little removed from the whole situation.”
Lómion sucked in a breath. “Fine. Whatever.” His piercing gaze met Tyelkormo’s for the first time that evening. “You’re sure you and Ammë...?”
“She doesn’t want that,” Tyelkormo said softly. “She was never...in love with me, even when I was with her. But things are different now, Lómion; she’s got you, and we’ve both got a swanship’s-load of trauma from our first lives.”
“You’ve got me, too,” Lómion says, surprising them both, and Tyelkormo smiled.
He reached over to ruffle his kid’s hair. “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “I suppose I do.”
