This is my contribution to the Tolkien secret art exchange ! @shiannedoesconceptart had a very original wish list, and I chose to draw them Thuringwethil ❤ ! I hope you’ll enjoy it dear and of course, merry Christmas ❤ !
Summary: Feanor fires the first shot, but it may not have been a great move. Thuringwethil and Mairon have a long-overdue conversation, and Mairon finally takes some advice (hint: there may be flirting involved). Some things may not be as out of reach as he once thought. [read on a03]
The newspaper slammed down on the desk between them with a juddering
smack, and both Gothmog and Melkor winced at the brutal intrusion into
their half-whispered conversation.
“What the fuck, Thuringwethil?” Melkor groaned, squeezing his head in
his hands as he tried unsuccessfully to rid himself of the sharp stabs
of pain that bled out from the center of his skull.
“Loud,” was all Gothmog said as he braced his hands on the edge of
the reception desk and lowered his head between his arms, squeezing his
eyes shut tight.
“You want loud?” Thuringwethil demanded, her eyes flashing angrily. “I’ll give you loud. I—”
“Thil,” Melkor said, an imploring whine in his voice as he held out a
hand to stop her. “Honey. Babe. For the love of God, shut the fuck up—”
“Excuse me?” Thuringwethil’s words were quiet, but there was a challenge lurking below the treacherous surface of calm.
In spite of—or, perhaps, because of—his state of sloppy, hungover
disarray, Melkor found himself irresistibly drawn to the challenge. He
narrowed his bloodshot eyes, trying to focus on her, and attempted to
arrange his face into a frown. “You heard me,” he said, wincing at the
volume of his own words. Ears buried between his shoulders, Gothmog
managed a groan.
Thuringwethil narrowed her eyes at him. Then she slammed her palm
against the desk, sending Gothmog and Melkor reeling away from her.
“Jesus,” Melkor complained loudly, smashing his hands over his ears and glaring at her.
“Hrngf,” said Gothmog, letting his face fall hard against the surface of the desk.
“Why do I even bother?” Thuringwethil demanded icily. “Here I am,
driving myself nuts trying to figure out how to clean up this mess, and
you’re too busy nursing a goddamn hangover to even notice anything is
wrong.”
“Oh my God,” Melkor complained dramatically. “What are you even talking about?”
“See for yourself,” she said, snatching up the newspaper from the desk and brandishing it roughly under his nose.
Summary: Feanor fires the first shot, but it may not have been a great move. Thuringwethil and Mairon have a long-overdue conversation, and Mairon finally takes some advice (hint: there may be flirting involved). Some things may not be as out of reach as he once thought. [read on a03]
The newspaper slammed down on the desk between them with a juddering
smack, and both Gothmog and Melkor winced at the brutal intrusion into
their half-whispered conversation.
“What the fuck, Thuringwethil?” Melkor groaned, squeezing his head in
his hands as he tried unsuccessfully to rid himself of the sharp stabs
of pain that bled out from the center of his skull.
“Loud,” was all Gothmog said as he braced his hands on the edge of
the reception desk and lowered his head between his arms, squeezing his
eyes shut tight.
“You want loud?” Thuringwethil demanded, her eyes flashing angrily. “I’ll give you loud. I—”
“Thil,” Melkor said, an imploring whine in his voice as he held out a
hand to stop her. “Honey. Babe. For the love of God, shut the fuck up—”
“Excuse me?” Thuringwethil’s words were quiet, but there was a challenge lurking below the treacherous surface of calm.
In spite of—or, perhaps, because of—his state of sloppy, hungover
disarray, Melkor found himself irresistibly drawn to the challenge. He
narrowed his bloodshot eyes, trying to focus on her, and attempted to
arrange his face into a frown. “You heard me,” he said, wincing at the
volume of his own words. Ears buried between his shoulders, Gothmog
managed a groan.
Thuringwethil narrowed her eyes at him. Then she slammed her palm
against the desk, sending Gothmog and Melkor reeling away from her.
“Jesus,” Melkor complained loudly, smashing his hands over his ears and glaring at her.
“Hrngf,” said Gothmog, letting his face fall hard against the surface of the desk.
“Why do I even bother?” Thuringwethil demanded icily. “Here I am,
driving myself nuts trying to figure out how to clean up this mess, and
you’re too busy nursing a goddamn hangover to even notice anything is
wrong.”
“Oh my God,” Melkor complained dramatically. “What are you even talking about?”
“See for yourself,” she said, snatching up the newspaper from the desk and brandishing it roughly under his nose.
Melkor leaned his head back as he tried to force his eyes to find the
source of her ire. After a moment, a grin spread across his face as he
concentrated long enough to recognize the figures in the picture
splashed across the page. “What’s that?” he asked hazily. “Life and Style?”
With an impressive display of lightning-fast dexterity, Thuringwethil
wound the newspaper into a tight roll and slapped it across the top of
Melkor’s head. “Fuck,” Melkor said irritably, swiping belatedly at her
as she withdrew. “What the—”
“Will you be serious?” she demanded. “That’s a half-page picture of you idiots on the fucking front page of the Ëa Times.”
“Come on, Thil,” he said, feigning sympathy as he rubbed the top of
his head. “It’s ok. Someday you’ll be important enough to get a spot on
the front page too.”
She made to thwack him again with the newspaper, but he deflected her
hand, and so she reached out with her foot, hooking him behind the knee
and sending him sprawling sideways into Gothmog, who whimpered. The
desk groaned under their combined weight, and Thuringwethil slapped the
newspaper down on the wood in front of them, eliciting another string of
curses from them as they tried to straighten themselves out. “This is
not a joke,” she growled, bringing her face down close to his and
scowling formidably. “We have a real problem, and as usual, it was
created by you.”
“Oh no,” Melkor said, still leaning gently against Gothmog and
glaring back at her. “Not this time. Whatever it is, I know I didn’t do
it. I may have been out all night, but we didn’t even get into any
trouble. I can prove it. I have witnesses.” He nudged Gothmog, who
simply turned his head and grunted.
“Idiots,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s not what you did. It’s what they’ve turned it into.”
Melkor rubbed at his eyes. “Look, maybe it’s the hangover, but I don’t have a clue what you’re—”
She tapped the pad of her hand roughly against the newspaper three
times in quick succession. “I told you this Formenos stuff was going to
come back to us,” she said darkly.
Melkor’s brows furrowed suspiciously, and he lunged forward
unsteadily to snatch the paper away from her. He held it close to his
face, narrowing his eyes and trying to block out the spinning of the
room as he scanned the lines of text. Thuringwethil watched the anger
bloom across his face with very little satisfaction. “Motherfucker,” he
breathed.
“Doubt it,” Thuringwethil said coldly. “She’s dead.”
Melkor ignored her. “Do you see what he’s saying?”
“Yes,” she said pointedly. “I can read.”
“This has got to be illegal,” he complained.
“Right,” she muttered. “Now you care about the law.”
“I do when some asshole is printing lies about me in the damn paper,” he said angrily.
“Technically,” she said, “he’s only speculating.”
“Speculating?” he repeated angrily. “Are you serious? Listen to
this!” He cleared his throat and began to read. “Surprising, perhaps,
only to those who have been living under a rock, Melkor Bauglir has once
again managed to make the news for less-than-exemplary reasons. The
ex-convict CEO of Angband Enterprises was spotted out at the
newly-opened Ard-Galen bar last night in the company of two business
subordinates (Angband COO Mairon Smith and Head of Security Gothmog
Valaraukar; all three pictured above), and in many ways, his night was
no different than that of the other patrons of the bar. There was
copious drinking, loud laughter, and some truly reprehensible
karaoke—but one must wonder if, for these patrons in particular, a night
of carousing was really appropriate, given the circumstances.
“Devastating news that rocked the international engineering and
defense communities yesterday, as Finwë Noldorán passed away
unexpectedly from a heart attack in his office at Formenos. Though
funerary arrangements are still pending, many prominent figures of an
industry which both respected and revered him gathered for a night of
remembrance, paying homage to a well-loved colleague as they sought to
understand his untimely passing. Despite tensions on the commercial
front, several of Formenos’ competitors came to pay their respects,
including Elu Thingol of Doriath (brother to Finwë), Azaghâl of
Belegost, and even a delegation from Valinor which included Aulë and
Yavanna Mahal, Námo and Vairë Mandos, and even Melkor’s own brother,
Manwë Ilmaren. Representatives from Angband Enterprises were
conspicuously absent—no shock to those who noted their failure to
release a statement in the initial wake of Finwë’s passing.
“There are some who may dismiss these actions as mere social
ineptitude—there is, of course, no rule that requires words of sympathy
or shows of solidarity, though readers may note that etiquette would
seem to recommend it. Yet those who follow the news might see this as
less a one-time misstep, and more a symptom of a larger, growing
problem. Playing nicely in business has not historically been a strength
for Angband’s leader, if his three-year stint in Mandos County
Correctional Facility gives any basis by which to judge (for those who
may not know, Bauglir served three years of a ten year sentence for
insider trading and was released just six weeks ago). One might expect
most men to come out of such an experience chastened, but then, of
course, Melkor Bauglir is not most men. Which is why it comes as little
surprise to learn that Bauglir has once again managed to find himself on
the wrong side of the law.
“Several sources confirm that Bauglir and Angband Enterprises are
currently being investigated, though sources were unable to reveal the
nature of the current case against the troublesome company. A tip from a
source inside Formenos, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that a
program was stolen late last week from company property, and that
employees are cooperating with law enforcement as the investigation
begins. It had been speculated that the theft could be linked to a
Formenos competitor, perhaps one which might benefit from the technology
they were close to completing. In an interesting turn of events,
eyewitnesses reported seeing federal investigators entering Angband
property on Wednesday morning, later leaving with several cars filled
with evidence boxes—though law enforcement declined to comment on
whether this seizure was related to the ongoing investigation at
Formenos.
“Whether or not the current investigation has ties to the Formenos
case, it is certainly troubling to see Bauglir and Angband back under
legal scrutiny so soon after leaving federal custody. Even taken alone,
these events are troubling, but coupled with the flippancy and even
disrespect with which he treats this business community, they seem less
like isolated incidents, and more like symptoms—symptoms of a larger
disease, one which has the potential to touch all those in the industry
with whom Angband comes in contact. For now, it remains to be seen just
how far this cancer has spread.”
He threw the paper down on the desk and glared at Thuringwethil. “This is fucking ridiculous,” he growled.
“I know,” she said.
“Tell me you have a plan.”
She sighed. “The only thing we really have a shot at is libel,” she said.
“Fine,” Melkor said. “Do that.”
“But,” she continued, ignoring his outburst, “libel is hard to prove.
Whatever was printed had to have damaged your reputation or livelihood
in some appreciable way, and to get sufficient evidence for that could
take months.”
“But—”
“Morning!” said a voice from behind them as the front doors opened
and ushered in the icy wind that blew snow relentlessly along the
sidewalks outside. The three of them turned to see Mairon coming toward
them, balancing a cardboard drink carrier in one hand and his phone in
the other. He grinned at Melkor and Gothmog, brushing snow from his
coat. “My guess wasn’t far off, then.”
“For what?” Melkor said irritably.
“For when you two would finally roll in here,” Mairon said lightly,
setting down everything in his hands and taking off his gloves. He
carefully pulled two cups out of the carrier and set them down in front
of Melkor and Gothmog.
“This better not be one of those sugary monstrosities you like,”
Melkor grumbled, gingerly picking up the cup and peeling back the tab to
sniff at the contents.
“It’s black coffee,” Mairon told him. “You know, I read only psychopaths take their coffee black.”
“Just what I need,” Melkor muttered, taking a sip of the scalding
coffee and giving a satisfied sigh as the heat flooded his mouth. “More
accusations.”
Mairon peeled back the tab on his own coffee. “Wow,” he said. “You’re even more pleasant than I expected. Any particular reason?
“See for yourself,” Melkor said darkly, shoving the newspaper across to him and nursing his coffee.
Mairon picked the paper up with his free hand and began to read, his
brow furrowing as his eyes descended down the column. He slowly placed
his coffee on the desk and grasped the other side of the newspaper,
shaking it gently to straighten it. His face darkened as he read, his
lips turning down into an angry glower as he consumed the piece before
him. He finished reading and stared for a moment at the picture,
grinding his teeth absently as his fingers curled into the pliant paper.
“We were just discussing,” Thuringwethil said gently, “how hard it is to sue for libel. Thoughts?”
Mairon glanced up at her, a dangerous look in his eyes. Then, with a
sharp snap, he folded the paper and tucked it under his arm. Turning on
his heel, he made for the stairs, disappearing through the door without a
word.
“What’s that all about?” Melkor wondered.
“I don’t know,” Thuringwethil said, “but I’m not sure I liked that look.”
“Whatever,” Melkor said irritably. “Give him a few hours to fume—he
was too chipper anyway. In the meantime, let’s consider our options.”
From the vicinity of the desk, Gothmog gave a tremendous groan. “How
about I do that,” said Thuringwethil, shaking her head, “and you two
focus on becoming functional human beings?”
“Good idea,” Melkor said. He pushed gently against Gothmog’s
shoulder. “Come on, lightweight. Let’s go upstairs and order some
lunch.”
Swearing loudly, Gothmog pushed himself up off the desk and attempted
to stand up straight. “You alright?” Thuringwethil asked, eyeing him
doubtfully. He had begun to look rather pale.
“Yeah,” said Gothmog gruffly. “But I think I’m gonna—”He stopped,
eyes going slightly unfocused, and turned to the side just as a truly
impressive stream of vomit erupted from his mouth.
“Right,” said Thuringwethil smartly, picking up her coffee and
stepping away from the desk. “I’ve got a lot of work to do, so I’ll let
you handle this one.” She patted Melkor gently on the shoulder as she
headed for the stairs.
“Perfect,” he muttered mutinously, stepping back and raising his cup
to his lips as Gothmog continued to heave. “Just fucking brilliant.”
***
“Morning,” said Mairon brightly, not bothering to knock as he strode through Melkor’s open office door.
Melkor made a face at him. “I’m going to make it company policy that you can’t be this energetic before noon,” he groused.
“Yeah, well, you might want to hold off on that one,” said Mairon,
failing to hold back a grin as he tossed a newspaper onto Melkor’s desk.
“What’s this?” Melkor asked, barely glancing at it.
“Just read it,” Mairon insisted.
Melkor sighed but did as he was asked, smoothing the front page of the Times with his hand as he settled into his chair.
It is never easy, began the piece, to begin to deal with
the loss of a parent, particularly when death comes as unexpectedly as
it did for Finwë Noldorán just two days ago. The industrial community of
which he was both patron and member is still reeling from the news,
struggling to understand the such an enormous loss. None, of course, are
so highly affected as the family this beloved father and grandfather
leaves behind.
It is never easy to contend with grief. Too often it manifests
itself as something else, something easier to understand and manage.
Perhaps this is the case for eldest son and likely Formenos heir Fëanor
Finwion, who seems to have let anger take the place of what can only be
assumed to be a grief too hard to bear. This publication ran an essay
penned by Finwion yesterday in which he scathingly dismissed competitor
and Angband CEO Melkor Bauglir. Finwion was quick to produce
speculation—perhaps some might even call it accusation—regarding his
competitor, particularly in regards to what we’ve learned is now an
ongoing investigation into a theft that occurred at Formenos shortly
before his father’s death. The vitriol, the incredible paranoia, the
lashing out—perhaps all can be explained and even forgiven in the
context of what we can only assume must be tremendous grief and shock.
Yet it must be noted as well that while appalling, this style of angry,
unwarranted attack is not altogether unfamiliar to Finwë’s eldest son.
Fëanor Finwion is no stranger to sweeping accusations. It is no
secret that a Formenos board meeting disintegrated late last year when
it was even suggested that second Finwion son Fingolfin might begin to
share administrative responsibilities of the burgeoning company. The
elder Finwion was heard, according to sources, to accuse his brother of
“currying favor”, “trying to better his own position”, and “disrupting
the rightful family hierarchy.” Sources close to the family say such
outbursts are to be expected when working with Fëanor.
“He’s not easy to work with,” said one source, who wished to
remain anonymous. “It’s hard, you know, because he’s smart, and he’s got
these ideas, but he won’t let anyone help him. He can be closed
off—secretive, you know? Even with family. All that stuff with Fingolfin
was a rehash of things that have been said before behind closed doors,
but of course it wasn’t something the family wanted out there for public
consumption. It’s a shame, really, because it seems that the more
success Formenos has had, the more unstable he’s become. Shouting at
people, making accusations, firing employees on the spot for the
littlest things…these are daily occurrences. It really makes for a tense
situation within the company, especially after the whole board room
incident. No one feels safe around him anymore, to tell you the truth.
And with this whole investigation thing, we’re all a little afraid of
what he might do next.”
It’s hard to say what any of the Finwions might do next. The
succession of power at Formenos was not finalized prior to Finwë’s
passing, leaving the company’s fate in legal limbo. Experts speculate
that it could come down to a division of assets between the brothers, if
they cannot agree on a direction for the company. Despite Fingolfin’s
very vocal, public insistence that he will not seek control of the
company, sources close to Formenos worry it will not be enough. “It’s
really tense right now,” said a company spokesman, who did not want his
identity to be revealed. “It’s not just waiting to see what’s going to
happen as far as administrative changes go. Honestly, we’re all a little
worried about what might happen in the interim. I mean, one
near-stabbing with a letter opening is more than enough, you know?”
Another Formenos insider summed up the thoughts of all who are
watching this drama unfold. “We just really want to move forward with as
little mayhem as possible.” Only time will tell how realistic this goal
may be.
Melkor slowly lowered the paper back to the desk. “What is this?” he breathed, a grin splitting his face with glee.
“Hey,” said Thuringwethil, poking her head into the office. “Did either of you happen to pick up the Times this morning?”
“We were just talking about it,” said Melkor, smoothing the paper affectionately under his fingers.
“This is brilliant,” said Thuringwethil, shaking out her own copy.
“Who did this?” demanded Melkor. “They’re getting a raise.” His eyes
scanned up to the top of the page, and he frowned at the unfamiliar
name. “Thomas Mirin,” he read, shaking his head. “Should I know him?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Mairon could see Thuringwethil working
it out, counting under her breath. She looked up at him, a glimmer of
appreciation in her eyes. “You sneaky bastard,” she said appreciatively.
Melkor looked up at them. “What?”
“Thomas Mirin,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s an anagram for Mairon’s name.”
“Wait,” said Melkor. “This was you?”
“Maybe,” said Mairon slyly, but he couldn’t stop a satisfied grin from crawling across his face.
“You are fucking brilliant,” Melkor said, still grinning happily.
“Man, I wish I could see Finwion’s face when he picks this up. Jesus,
where’d you find these sources?”
“Right here,” said Mairon, tapping the side of his head.
Melkor cackled. “Perfect,” he said. “That asshole is going to spend
weeks trying to figure out who talked. Oh, man, I wish I could see his
head exploding right now.”
“Vindication aside,” said Thuringwethil, “this is really, really
good. This isn’t overt aggression, like Fëanor’s was. This is subtle,
suggestive. And it looks like it’s coming from a third party, which
makes it look less like an ad hominem attack and more like a declaration of fact.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with a good, old-fashioned ad hominem attack,” said Melkor, grinning.
“I’m serious,” said Thuringwethil. “Believe it or not, it matters
what people think. This article is exactly what we needed to get public
opinion—well, alright, if not exactly in our favor, at least not in
Finwion’s either.”
Melkor punched the air excitedly. “Finally, something goes our way,” he said.
“Let’s not get too excited,” said Mairon. “It doesn’t change the fact
that we just had half our stuff seized by federal agents. And if this
goes to court—”
“We’ll deal with that when and if we have to,” said Melkor. “Right
now the only court I’m worried about is the court of public opinion, and
you just tipped the scales way in our favor.”
“That he did,” Thuringwethil agreed.
“Someone had to shut him up,” said Mairon, shrugging.
“I doubt it’ll be for long,” said Thuringwethil, folding the
newspaper neatly. “But it’s satisfying nonetheless. God, he must be pissed.”
“With any luck he’ll stroke out and we can deal with the younger brother,” said Melkor callously. “You know, the wimp.”
“Come on,” said Thuringwethil lightly. “They’re still dealing with one dead family member. Have a little respect.”
“I’ll get right on that,” Melkor said dryly. “But seriously, Mairon, you are a lifesaver—again.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Mairon, grinning.
“Has Gothmog heard yet?” Melkor asked.
“I didn’t tell him,” said Mairon, shrugging.
“Neither did I,” said Thuringwethil.
“Perfect,” said Melkor, pushing back his chair and standing up. He
scooped up the paper and walking around the edge of the desk. He paused
as he drew level with Mairon, putting a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“Thanks,” he said with uncharacteristic sincerity, smiling down at
Mairon. “You couldn’t have done any better.”
“My pleasure,” said Mairon. “Really.”
Melkor patted him gently on the shoulder and headed for the door.
“Gothmog’s gonna love this,” he said excitedly, scanning the paper again
as he turned the corner into the hall. Mairon watched him go, smiling
faintly until Thuringwethil cleared her throat. He jumped, startled, and
looked over at her, frowning as she fixed him with a knowing grin.
Before she could say a word, he turned and strode out into the hall,
trying to summon as much dignity as he could muster. It didn’t help that
he could still hear her snickering two doors down.
***
Mairon barely glanced up at the knock on his office door. “Busy?” Thuringwethil inquired, leaning into his office.
“Yes, actually,” said Mairon, the flow of typing unmoved by her
interruption. Thuringwethil sauntered into his office, and Mairon leaned
back in his chair, grinning. “Man, this office needs to work on social
cues,” he said. Thuringwethil shut the door and strode purposefully
toward his desk. “Uh oh,” he said, watching her sink into a chair
opposite him. “I don’t like that look.”
“We need to talk,” she said.
“About what?”
“About you,” she said firmly. “Mairon, I’m tired of watching you torture yourself.”
He blinked. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
He shook his head stubbornly. “No, really, I—”
“You like Melkor.”
His face went white, and he looked frantically around the office as
though expecting to be overheard. “Keep your voice down,” he hissed.
“That’s not a response,” she said coolly.
He glared at her. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to say it.”
“What? Why?”
“Because,” she said, unable to stifle her grin, “admitting you have a problem is the first step.”
“To what?”
“To overcoming it, obviously.”
“I don’t have a problem,” he said firmly, frowning at her. “Certainly not the one you’re suggesting.”
“Be serious,” she said evenly. “You like Melkor, but you won’t do
anything about it. I’m guessing it’s a combination of fear of rejection
and anxiety about how it might affect us at work. Although I suspect
it’s mostly the fear.”
“I’m not afraid,” he snapped.
“Oh, really? Then why don’t you tell him?” He glared at her and said
nothing. “Look,” she said, her tone gentling at last. “I get it. It’s
hard to take a leap like this, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do
it.”
“There are a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t do it,” Mairon said irritably.
“And one very good reason why you should.”
“Yeah?” he said doubtfully. “And what’s that?”
“Happiness,” she said simply. “Look, whether you’ll admit or not, I
know what you want. Why waste a shot like this when you have it?”
“Because,” he said stubbornly, “it has just as good a shot of making me very, very unhappy.”
“Oh, Mairon,” she said quietly, shaking her head. “I think we both know that isn’t true.”
He leaned forward, searching her face intently. “What makes you say that?” he asked softly.
“Because I know you—both of you—and I think I have the perspective to see a few things you either can’t or won’t.”
He scrutinized her carefully for a moment. “Really?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding slowly. “Really.” She smiled, and he leaned
back once more, sighing. “At least promise me you’ll think about it,”
she said, standing up at last.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, watching her walk toward the door.
“Finally,” she said, reverting at last to her usual, biting tone. “Progress.”
“Goodbye, Thuringwethil,” he said firmly. He turned his eyes back to
his computer as she left, but he found it was now impossible to
concentrate. He sighed resignedly and laid down his head, muttering
mutinously into the desk and trying to squash the glimmer of hope she
had created.
***
Mairon started violently as one earbud was unceremoniously tugged
from his ear, and he turned furiously toward the source of his
displeasure, his anger dissipating at the grin on Melkor’s face. “You
know,” Melkor said, “besides the fact that listening to music that loud
cannot be good for your hearing, I’m not sure it’s really safe. I feel
like someone could sneak in here and kill you before you even noticed
they were here.”
“Probably,” Mairon said absently, turning back to his computer. “And
with how often any of you are down here, it would be weeks until you
found me.”
“Not true,” Melkor protested. “I’d come looking for you before then.”
“Oh, really?”
“Sure,” said Melkor, grinning. “I’d get bored with bothering Gothmog
in three days—four, tops.” Mairon rolled his eyes. “It’s the truth,”
Melkor insisted with mock sincerity. “As much as I love to mess with
Gothmog, he’s not the best target.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” said Melkor, shaking his head. “He pretty much just takes everything in stride.”
“And that’s bad?”
“It is,” said Melkor, grinning, “when you’re looking for a reaction. That’s why I mess with you.”
“I’m so glad you think it’s funny to get under my skin.”
Melkor snorted. “What are friends for?” he asked magnanimously.
“Hopefully something more than that,” Mairon muttered. “Anyway,” he
said, taking a deep breath and shaking himself slightly. “You seem back
to normal today.”
“Ugh,” Melkor groaned. “Talk about hangover—or better yet, don’t.
Although I wasn’t nearly as bad as Gothmog. I swear I can still smell
the puke.”
Mairon couldn’t hold in a laugh. “I heard,” he said. “Please tell me we’ll never let him live that down.”
Melkor looked affronted. “I’m offended you even need to ask. But
seriously, though, how the hell were you so functional? Thil said you
were here before her.”
“I told you,” Mairon said, shooting him a look that dripped superiority. “No shots.”
“Fuckin’ Fireball, man,” Melkor muttered darkly. “But unholy amounts
of alcohol aside, you still took the two of us back to Gothmog’s before
you went home. What time was that—three?”
“Four, by the time I got home.”
“Jesus,” Melkor said. “And you still came in at ten?”
Mairon snorted. “What time do you think regular people come to work? I was here at eight.”
“You know those studies where they deprive people of sleep and try to
see how long they can go before they crack? Yeah, those are meant as a
warning, not a challenge.”
“Don’t complain,” said Mairon. “It’s just more hours I’m here doing my job.”
“Right,” said Melkor. “Thing is, I’d really like you to keep doing
this job for a long time. I’ll be pissed if the reason you drop dead one
day out of the blue is lack of sleep.”
Mairon laid his hand over his heart and tipped his head to the side,
fixing Melkor with a scowl. “A touching sentiment,” he said.
“Oh, come on,” Melkor said. “I was trying to be nice.”
“Oh,” said Mairon sarcastically. “That’s why I didn’t recognize it.”
“Shut up,” Melkor said airily. They lapsed, for a moment, into
amicable silence, and Mairon nodded his head absently to the music in
his ear. “What are you listening to, anyway?” asked Melkor, leaning over
Mairon to pick up the iPod on the bench. Mairon stayed very still, his
eyes focused on the screen as Melkor’s arm brushed over his. Melkor
seemed not to notice, snorting as he laid the device back down on the
bench. “Are you serious right now?” he asked, leaning back against the
bench and crossing his arms.
“What?” asked Mairon defensively.
“You and the fucking eighties, man,” he said. “The whole decade, and you can’t pick anything good?”
“Have you ever even listened to Elvis Costello?”
“That would be a no,” Melkor said dismissively.
“Right,” said Mairon, “because you’ve had yourself boxed into the
‘hey, look how scary I am, I wear all black and only listen to punk’
thing since like, ’93.”
“It’s not a thing,” Melkor said, affronted. “It’s my aesthetic.”
Mairon couldn’t hold in a laugh. “Aesthetic,” he repeated. “Right. Is that what they call it?”
“Everyone has to have a look,” Melkor insisted. “Yours just happens
to be ‘idiot who wears ties in an office with no dress code, and might
have possibly slept in that shirt’.”
“It’s called professionalism,” Mairon sniffed, raising his chin.
“Fuck professionalism,” Melkor said. “It’s style that people respect.”
“Are you saying I have no style?”
“You have a style,” Melkor said. “I’m just saying people might not respect it.”
“You know,” said Mairon thoughtfully, “I’m not sure I’d like to live up to your standards of respectability.”
Melkor laughed. “You know, you hit a couple whether you mean to or
not. I mean, the hair is the obvious one, but there’s also this.” He
reached out and traced a finger gently over the line of studs that ran
from cartilage to lobe in Mairon’s ear. “It’s a nice offset to the whole
stupid business professional thing you’ve got going.”
Mairon barely held in a shiver and raised a hand to his ear, running
his thumb self-consciously along the backs of his earrings. He kept his
eyes focused on the computer screen and desperately hoped that the flush
he could feel on his neck wasn’t spreading to his cheeks. “Might I
remind you,” he said carefully, “that we are, in fact, professionals,
and we do run a business?”
“Damn right we do,” said Melkor. “But that’s no reason to dress like the man.”
“Do you have, like, a book of clichés that you just pick from for all
your conversations?” Melkor reached out and flicked him hard in the
ear, sending the ends of several studs stabbing into Mairon’s skin.
“Ouch!” he said, swatting Melkor’s hand away. “What is your problem?”
“I’m defending my honor.”
“What honor?” He ducked as Melkor tried to flick him again. “Come
on,” he said, grinning. “I think that one was warranted—”He ducked
again, barely avoiding Melkor’s fingers as they came toward his head.
“Hey,” he said, trying to be as stern as he could with a grin plastered
across his face. “Not the hair. That’s where I draw the line.”
“Oh, right,” Melkor said, laughing as he watched Mairon carefully run
his hands over his hair, smoothing it in place. “God forbid anyone see
you with your hair down for more than two seconds.”
Mairon shrugged. “It’s how I like it.”
“Yeah, well, it’s dumb.”
“Ever heard the phrase ‘to each his own’?”
“Now who’s pulling out the clichés?”
“I must be spending too much time with you.”
Melkor snorted. “Is there such a thing?”
“We’ll know for sure when I start wearing grungy Sex Pistols hoodies to work.”
“Come on,” said Melkor, holding out his sweatshirt for inspection. “Don’t you want to look this cool?”
“Pass,” said Mairon, reaching out to push him away. Faster than he
expected, Melkor grabbed him by the wrist and leaned toward him, holding
Mairon’s hand away.
“Watch it,” said Melkor, a slow grin spreading across his lips. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”
Mairon licked his lips nervously. “I’d like to think,” he said carefully, “that I know what I can handle.”
Melkor gently lowered Mairon’s hand to the bench, keeping his fingers
fixed around Mairon’s wrist. “Is that so?” he asked softly, stepping
closer. Mairon looked up into Melkor’s grinning face and hoped he
couldn’t feel the racing of his pulse through his skin.
Melkor’s phone suddenly chimed, breaking the tension between them.
Melkor released Mairon’s hand and stepped back, digging in his pocket
for his phone. Mairon leaned into the bench and tried to remember how to
breathe.
Melkor pulled out his phone and sniggered as he looked at the screen. “Shit. I have to go.”
“Let me guess,” said Mairon. “Gothmog finally sat down at the chair in his office.”
“In one,” said Melkor, grinning widely. “I can’t wait to see the look on his face when I tell him it was your idea.”
“Come on,” Mairon complained. “Leave me out of this.”
“Not a chance,” Melkor said happily. “Want to come?”
Mairon shook his head. “I better keep working,” he said.
Melkor gave him a lopsided grin. “You sure?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding slowly. “I have a lot to do today.”
“Suit yourself,” said Melkor, shrugging. He took a step back toward
the door. “Hey,” he said, grinning. “Maybe I’ll come down to check on
you later. Y’know, make sure you’re not dead.”
“Whatever,” Mairon called after him, rolling his eyes.
Melkor reached the door and threw an offhand wave toward Mairon
before stepping out into the hall. Mairon watched him until he
disappeared from view. Then, he let his head fall down onto the bench,
resting his flushed cheek against the cool, dark surface. Feeling his
heart still pounding in his chest, he wondered if Melkor’s suggestion
might not be such a bad idea after all.
***
For perhaps the first time in recorded history, all activity had
ceased in the hangar that held the Angband aircraft. The cacophony of
engines and power tools, the harried shouts of busy employees had all
dwindled to a nervous hush. A solitary voice filled the silence that
remained, and all eyes were fixed on the source of their unease. He did
not shout; in fact, he was almost frighteningly calm, his words flowing
unhurried and smooth even as they electrified the crowd around him with
worried fear.
Mairon, in turn, gloried in the rapt attention of the people gathered
around him. There was, he had to admit, something incredibly satisfying
in the act of eviscerating a subordinate’s failure. He relished the
stammered apologies, the terrified widening of the eyes that accompanied
his tirades, made all the more chilling by the softness of his voice.
He stalked slowly toward his prey, savoring the delicate shifting of
weight away from him as he approached. Yet something was not quite
right. He had grown accustomed to undivided attention, and the subtle
shifting of eyes away from him only fueled his irritation.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, now very close to the engineer who had
drawn his ire. “Is there something you find more interesting than our
current conversation?”
There was a snort from behind him. “Sorry,” said an unrepentant voice that echoed around the silent hangar. “That would be me.”
Mairon turned slowly and scowled at Melkor. “Can I help you?”
“Not right now. I was just enjoying the show.”
Mairon’s glare would have felled a lesser man. “This isn’t a show,” he said carefully. “This is discipline.”
“Really?” Melkor leaned around Mairon and looked at the engineer. “What did you do?”
“I—I forgot to program the landing sequence for the flight test,” she stammered, eyes now fixed on the floor.
“Oh yeah? Well, you’re fired.” There was a tense moment of silence in
which all eyes swiveled to the CEO. “Did I stutter?” he demanded,
staring her down.
“No, sir,” she muttered, shaking her head quickly.
“Then give your keys to Gothmog and get the hell out.” She nodded
fervently and half-ran from the hangar. Melkor turned his attention to
the gathered crowd. “Am I paying you to stand around?” he demanded.
The crowd dissipated so quickly it may as well never have been,
leaving Melkor and Mairon standing alone in the middle of the hangar.
“And you say I’m no fun,” Mairon muttered.
“You call that fun? Jesus, you’re such a sadist.”
“No, go on,” said Mairon irritably. “I don’t have feelings or anything.”
“Oh come on,” Melkor said, grinning. “It was a compliment.”
“In what universe?”
“Hey,” said Melkor, “don’t be so offended. It’s one of the things that makes you so good at your job.”
“Really?” Mairon said dryly. “It’s not, you know, my expertise in the field?”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Melkor, waving a hand unconcernedly. “Sure. You’re
fucking brilliant, your ideas are innovative, and you have a work ethic
I’m pretty sure shouldn’t be humanly possible. But there are lots of
smart people who couldn’t make this place run as smoothly as you do, and
do you know why?” He grinned. “It’s that fear. It keeps people in
line.”
“And you were so close to just saying something nice,” said Mairon, shaking his head.
Melkor rolled his eyes. “If it makes you feel better, I like it.”
“Right,” said Marion, forcing words from a mouth that was suddenly
very dry. “Because your approval is all that matters.” He managed a
grin.
Melkor laughed. “Glad you’ve finally seen the light.”
Mairon shook his head. “Why do I even bother?”
“I honestly don’t know,” said Melkor. “I mean, you know I’m always going to win.”
Mairon opened his mouth to protest but thought better of it. “You
know what?” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not even going to start.”
“Good plan,” said Melkor, grinning.
They lapsed into silence, and Mairon glanced at his watch. “Hey,” he
said suddenly, bouncing up on the balls of his feet. “You want to go
grab dinner?”
Melkor considered him for a moment. “You want me to see if Thil and Gothmog are free?”
Mairon shrugged. “Only if you want to.”
Melkor grinned. “I think,” he said, nodding toward the door and starting to walk, “they can manage without us tonight.”
Summary: There’s bad news out of Formenos, though the Angband crew is less than sympathetic. Mostly, they try to figure out how it will affect them. There will be bickering about how to proceed in the aftermath of the
search warrant. Melkor might make a helpful suggestion, and he might be
annoyed by how it’s received. Mairon has several conversations,
ranging from pleasant to surprising to annoying, and almost has a
heart-attack at a poor choice of words. Watch for mentions of (canonical) minor character death, referred to in a typically selfish and flippant manner.
Thuringwethil was waiting for them in Gothmog’s office, leaning close to the television screen with a forbidding frown. She gave them only a cursory glance as they came through the doorway, standing up from the chair and dragging the screen to the side. “Sit,” she said tersely. Melkor crossed the room and dropped into her vacated seat. Mairon trailed behind him, as did Gothmog, who paused only to close the door to the office as they passed through. Thuringwethil leaned over them and picked up the remote, increasing the volume until the reporter’s voice washed over them accusingly.
“…earlier reports that emergency crews had rushed to the scene, and that someone was indeed transported by ambulance to the hospital. Now, it is still unclear at this point whether Mr. Noldóran passed away here, at Formenos, or whether indeed he was taken for treatment and later died. What is clear at this time it that Finwë Noldóran, founder of Formenos Ltd., has died today. There has been, as yet, no word regarding succession in the company—of course, as we know, there was recently a rather public scuffle involving two of Noldóran’s sons, Fëanor and Fingolfin, that seemed to involve exactly this matter. I think it will remain to be seen—”
The screen went blank as Thuringwethil jabbed the power button, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring down at Melkor. Mairon leaned back against the edge of the desk and gently buried his face into his palm. “Oh no,” he said softly.
“Yes,” said Thuringwethil grimly.
“This is not good,” Mairon said.
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
“Tell me about it,” said Melkor. “I haven’t worn a tie in three years, and that is definitely the kind of funeral you’d have to dress up for.”
Summary: There’s bad news out of Formenos, though the Angband crew is less than sympathetic. Mostly, they try to figure out how it will affect them. There will be bickering about how to proceed in the aftermath of the
search warrant. Melkor might make a helpful suggestion, and he might be
annoyed by how it’s received. Mairon has several conversations,
ranging from pleasant to surprising to annoying, and almost has a
heart-attack at a poor choice of words. Watch for mentions of (canonical) minor character death, referred to in a typically selfish and flippant manner.
Thuringwethil was waiting for them in Gothmog’s office, leaning close to the television screen with a forbidding frown. She gave them only a cursory glance as they came through the doorway, standing up from the chair and dragging the screen to the side. “Sit,” she said tersely. Melkor crossed the room and dropped into her vacated seat. Mairon trailed behind him, as did Gothmog, who paused only to close the door to the office as they passed through. Thuringwethil leaned over them and picked up the remote, increasing the volume until the reporter’s voice washed over them accusingly.
“…earlier reports that emergency crews had rushed to the scene, and that someone was indeed transported by ambulance to the hospital. Now, it is still unclear at this point whether Mr. Noldóran passed away here, at Formenos, or whether indeed he was taken for treatment and later died. What is clear at this time it that Finwë Noldóran, founder of Formenos Ltd., has died today. There has been, as yet, no word regarding succession in the company—of course, as we know, there was recently a rather public scuffle involving two of Noldóran’s sons, Fëanor and Fingolfin, that seemed to involve exactly this matter. I think it will remain to be seen—”
The screen went blank as Thuringwethil jabbed the power button, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring down at Melkor. Mairon leaned back against the edge of the desk and gently buried his face into his palm. “Oh no,” he said softly.
“Yes,” said Thuringwethil grimly.
“This is not good,” Mairon said.
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
“Tell me about it,” said Melkor. “I haven’t worn a tie in three years, and that is definitely the kind of funeral you’d have to dress up for.”
Thuringwethil scowled at him. “The man is dead, Melkor,” she said coldly.
“So?” He shrugged. “I didn’t know him, and I’m not going to waste time pretending to care. I’ll let you do that for the both of us.”
“You better care,” she threatened. “This whole Formenos situation is about to get a whole hell of a lot worse. Do you have any idea—”
“Relax, Thuringwethil,” he said irritably. “I get the implication here. Believe it or not, I’m not half the idiot you make me out to be.”
“Then why do you insist on acting like you are?”
He snorted. “Someone has to raise your blood pressure once in a while.”
“Look,” Gothmog said, coming up behind Melkor and leaning heavily on the back of his chair. “I’m sure we’re all sorry the old man is dead, but I can’t help but think that this is going to end up being a real pain in the ass for us.”
“Any chance someone other than Fëanor might take over?” Melkor asked.
“No such luck,” said Mairon. “The youngest brother isn’t really involved, and the middle brother’s way too noble. After the whole boardroom incident he made a big show of solidarity and unity and all that crap—made sure everyone knew he wasn’t interested in taking power from Fëanor or anything like that. He made some ridiculous statement about how competition belongs outside the company and family is more important than authority, blah blah blah. I remember reading it in the paper.”
“God, I hate self-sacrifice,” Melkor muttered.
“I have a feeling you’re going to hate it a lot more,” Gothmog said. “There is no scenario where Fëanor in charge of that company plays out well for us. He’s a lunatic, and he hates us. I mean, at least the old man had some restraint.”
“He could not have picked a worse time to kick it,” Melkor complained.
“Maybe you can mention that to him,” Thuringwethil said testily. “You know, when you see him.”
“Come on,” Melkor said defensively. “It’s not like it’s my fault the guy croaked.”
“No,” Thuringwethil said sourly, “but you haven’t exactly put us ahead in this already shitty situation.”
“Will you relax?” Melkor said irritably. “What’s done is done.”
“You might think that, but I promise you that the consequences of what you did are very much still in the present.”
“Can you just move on already?” Melkor grumbled. “Look, Mairon’s already over it, and he was way more pissed at me than you were.”
“Oh, no,” said Mairon, holding his hands up defensively. “Don’t drag me into this.”
“Oh, so you two are talking now?” Thuringwethil said, ignoring him.
“So what if we are?” Melkor retorted.
“That’s all well and good, but I think you’ll find I’m not the pushover that Mairon is. I can’t be won with half-assed apologies and heavy-handed flattery.”
“Hey,” Mairon said reproachfully. “Flag on the play, man. Need I remind you that I’m not the current subject of your ire? Jesus. Besides, what you said isn’t even true.”
“Oh, please,” she said. “You couldn’t be mad at this moron if you tried.”
“Shows what you know,” Mairon said, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning at her. “Despite your unwarranted insults, it just so happens I’m still mad at him right now.”
“Aw, come on!” Melkor complained.
“But unlike the two of you,” said Mairon, ignoring him, “I realize that we have more to gain from presenting a united front than by squabbling like a bunch of Finwion children.”
“Ha,” Melkor said. “Nice.”
“Fair point,” Thuringwethil conceded.
Gothmog removed himself from the back of Melkor’s chair and easily shouldered Mairon out of the way, taking his place against the desk. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Kid’s right; what else is new? You three can go back to picking at each other just as soon as we figure out what to do about Formenos.”
Melkor tipped his head back to look up at Thuringwethil. “Truce?” he offered. He could read her answer in the narrowing of her eyes. “We need to consider our next move,” she said, turning her face away from him. “Is our best strategy offensive or defensive?”
“I don’t think it’s either one,” said Melkor.
“I’m looking for real, actual suggestions,” she said irritably, looking between Gothmog and Mairon accusingly.
“I’m serious,” Melkor insisted. He turned in his chair, looking up into Thuringwethil’s dagger gaze with uncharacteristic equanimity. “We have the advantage here, Thil, regardless of this bullshit investigation they’re trying to launch. They can take all the shit they want out of our labs, but honestly? I don’t think it’ll do them much good. Mairon said he cleaned everything up and worked the program into our systems, and if he said it’s done, then I highly doubt some moron working for the feds is going to be able to pick out anything different.”
“Suck up,” Thuringwethil muttered.
“Formenos is going to be in turmoil for a while,” Melkor continued, ignoring her. “Even if Fëanor takes over, and even if he is a lunatic, isn’t it better to wait and see what he does? Once he makes a move, we can know how to proceed, but until then, guessing has as good a chance of hurting us as it does them.”
All three heads of those listening swiveled to face him. Gothmog seemed to be weighing the suggestion, while Mairon looked rather suspicious. Thuringwethil looked downright incredulous, and she turned on her heel and went to the window, drawing up the blinds and peering out into the haze of snow the fell outside the glass.
“What are you doing?” Melkor asked impatiently.
“Checking to see if fire is raining down from the heavens,” she said flatly, still gazing out the window. “Or maybe the ground ought to be opening up? Forgive me; I’m not really up on the book of Revelations.”
Melkor glared at her and spared a withering look for Gothmog as well, who was sniggering. “Would you two stop predicting the apocalypse every time I make a valid suggestion? I have good ideas, you know.”
“Theoretically,” she said, drawing the blinds once more and turning around. “But it’s so rare that when it does happen, I get the urge to call the number for that doomsday cult I see plastered on billboards by the highway. You know—‘repent, the end is near’—”
“Alright,” said Mairon loudly, drowning out Melkor’s irate response and shooting a sidelong, disapproving glance at Thuringwethil’s vindictive glee. The two of them fell silent and looked over at him. “Look, Thil, as much as I hate to admit it right now, Melkor is right.”
“Yes!” he said triumphantly, pumping his fist in the air and dodging a kick aimed at him by Thuringwethil.
“There’s a benefit to prudence,” Mairon said, shaking his head at the two of them. “But there’s also a benefit to preparation. We need to be ready for whatever they’re going to throw at us.”
“Exactly,” said Melkor. “But first,” he said, heaving himself out of the chair with an exaggerated groan, “lunch. I’m starving.”
“Pass,” said Thuringwethil.
“Aw, come on,” he whined.
“You can go,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. She nodded at Mairon. “Take your new best friend with you.”
“What do you mean, new?” asked Mairon, affronted, at the precise moment those same words left Melkor’s lips. Melkor looked at him and grinned; Mairon, discomfited, looked away, scowling over at Thuringwethil, who was grinning like a skull. Gothmog was laughing so hard he was bent over with both hands gripping his knees for support, wheezing with the effort.
“You’re a child,” Melkor said, glaring at him. Gothmog merely wiped at his eyes and continued to chuckle. Melkor turned away from Gothmog and looked at Mairon. “How about it?” he asked.
“Lunch?” Mairon shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Someone has to do some work around here.”
“Come on,” Melkor said. “You have to eat.”
“I think Mairon is attempting to disprove that theory,” Thuringwethil interjected.
“No one asked you,” Mairon said smoothly. “Look,” he said, turning his attention back to Melkor. “They just destroyed my lab, so I really need to go and get that cleaned up. Plus someone ought to check on the server site to see that they haven’t wrecked it, and then I need to bring all of our files back from—”
“Please,” Melkor said, holding up his hand. “You’re giving me a headache just listening.”
“Sorry,” he said, shrugging. “Maybe next time.”
Melkor pointed menacingly at him. “I’m holding you to that.”
“Whatever,” said Mairon, unconcerned.
Melkor grinned before reaching past him to land a not-so-gentle punch on Gothmog’s shoulder. “Let’s go, asshole,” he said, dancing out of arm’s reach as Gothmog lunged at him. “You’re up!” he called, already halfway to the door. “You better run!” Gothmog called after him, grabbing his coat roughly from the rack as he sprinted from the room and skidded out into the hall, disappearing from view. The teetering coat rack crashed to the ground in his wake. Mairon shook his head at the sound of their retreating footsteps and receding curses.
“Idiots,” he muttered. He glanced up at Thuringwethil. “Don’t you look at me like that,” he warned, scowling at her knowing smirk.
“Like what?” she asked innocently.
He glanced at the open door behind him and closed the distance between them, looking up into Thuringwethil’s face with a menacing glare. “Like you think you know that something’s going on, when there isn’t,” he hissed at her. She snorted. “You got that from one look? My God, you’re paranoid. It’s almost as if…”She trailed off, tapping a finger thoughtfully on her chin.
He waited a moment, grinding his teeth as the silence stretched between them. “As if what?” he demanded irritably.
“As if there was something going on,” she concluded triumphantly, resuming her infuriating smirk.
He summoned his most intimidating glare, giving a mild huff of annoyance when Thuringwethil merely blinked. “Don’t start with me,” he said warningly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he said. “I thought you let all this garbage go three years ago, and to tell you the truth, I haven’t missed it. Let’s not start it again.”
“Oh, honey,” she said. “I don’t let anything go. I was just waiting for the right time.” A slow, predatory grin spread across her narrow face. “Which, I might add, seems to be the strategy of a certain someone who—”
“Ah,” he said sharply, holding up one finger and shaking his head firmly. “We’re not even going there.”
“Fine,” she said, moving from her place by the window and beginning to stalk a close circle around him. “But I’ll tell you something I tell all the assholes I run across in court: denying something doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” She had come back to rest just in front of him, smirking as she crossed her arms before her. Mairon was unimpressed. “You know,” he said coolly, “denial also works when there’s nothing to be acknowledged.”
“And it’s the job of a good lawyer,” she said smoothly, “to know the difference.” He glared at her. “How about you keep your party tricks in the courtroom, huh?”
She grinned. “Where’s the fun in that?”
He scowled and stepped away from her, starting toward the door. “Stay out of my life, Thuringwethil,” he called over his shoulder.
“Do we need to talk about realism?” she retorted. He waved a hand dismissively at her as he rounded the corner and started down the hall. She shook her head. “Idiots,” she murmured into the silence that remained.
***
“You know,” said Mairon, gently righting a chair with his foot, “you would think that with the amount of money these people have to throw around they could at least get someone competent on the job.”
“Hey,” said Gothmog,” don’t complain about idiocy that works in our favor.” “I’m not complaining,” Mairon said. “I’m just amazed. It’s like they don’t even want a case.”
“You get what you get with federal investigators,” Gothmog said, grinning. “Somehow, I doubt we’ll be as lucky if this goes to trial.”
“Yeah, well,” said Mairon, crossing the room and opening the door on the far wall. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” He peeked into the room beyond, letting his gaze sweep critically from side to side for a moment before retreating back to where Gothmog stood. “Besides,” he said, “that’s why we have Thuringwethil.”
“Thank God for that,” Gothmog said. “I don’t know what the hell we’d do without her.”
Mairon snorted. “I have a feeling none of us would be here if not for Thil.”
“I won’t argue with that.”
“Although as much as I love her,” Mairon said thoughtfully, “I can’t help but hope this doesn’t go to trial. She is miserable during proceedings.”
Gothmog winced. “Can’t argue with that either,” he said, shuddering. “Do you remember the last time?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Mairon said. “She put a lot of effort into prepping you two to testify. Who do you think she vented all her frustration to afterward?”
“You have always been a good sounding board,” Gothmog said, grinning.
“Glad to help,” Mairon said dryly.
They stood in silence for a moment, listening to the quiet, background hum of machinery whirring around them.
“How do you think this is going to go down?” Gothmog asked after a moment, leaning back against the wall.
Mairon shook his head. “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “But I’ll tell you one thing for sure: we haven’t seen the last of Fëanor Finwion.”
***
Thuringwethil heard the approach of the car and pushed herself back from the table, standing up and heading for the door. She pulled the curtain to the side and watched as Mairon started down her driveway, a cab disappearing down the road behind him. She stepped away from the window and went to the door, pulling back the chain and the bolt before turning the deadbolt and opening the door. “Hurry up,” she said as Mairon climbed the stairs to the porch. “You’re letting all the cold air in.”
“Good morning to you, too,” he muttered, hurrying over the threshold and stepping to the side as she shut and locked the door behind him. “Never mind the fact that I’m frozen half to death here. God, you’d think it was extra to get them turn on the heat in their cars.”
She slid the chain home and ambled off toward the kitchen. “Coffee?” she called over her shoulder.
“Yes, please,” he called back, unwinding his scarf from around his neck and hanging it on a hook by the door. He shrugged out of his coat and slipped out of his wet shoes before wandering through the front room and into the living room. He dropped his bag on the floor and sank onto the couch, leaning back for a moment and letting out a contented sigh. He listened to the sound of Thuringwethil moving around the kitchen and smiled softly, letting the warmth of her house seep into the chill of his extremities. “What have you been up to this morning?” he called, leaning forward and craning his neck to peer through the doorway into the kitchen.
Thuringwethil appeared briefly in his line of sight, a carafe of water in her hand. “Not much,” she said. “Mostly caught up on some work while I waited for you.” He heard the water pour into the reservoir and listened to her footsteps move across the kitchen as she went to the cupboard to retrieve cups.
Mairon leaned down and reached for his bag, pausing as the clutter on the coffee table caught his attention. A large black binder was peeking out of the assorted paperwork, and he reached for its glossy edge, gingerly shifting the pages on top out of the way and settling its bulk onto his lap. There was a tiny label on the otherwise pristine cover, a little white sticker inscribed in Thuringwethil’s impeccable handwriting that simply said ‘University/Valinor, 08’. He lifted the cover and began to peruse the contents, a feeling of uneasy bemusement settling over him as he pored through the collected pages within.
It was, he supposed, a scrapbook of sorts, though as he turned the pages, he thought that it seemed more a painstaking chronicle than a mere collection of memories. There was an assortment of documents within, from press releases to published papers, pictures and newspaper clippings and even printed copies of emails. Each one bore a careful caption in Thuringwethil’s hand. As he read, Mairon could detect the thread of a narrative forming, as though Thuringwethil had created for herself a detailed account of the year, marking down seemingly random events and meticulously recording her thoughts for each one.
Unsurprisingly, many of the notes were about Mairon, but it was odd to read through her analysis of things that had happened to him before they had known each other. He could recognize her voice in the writing—the way she thought was familiar to him now, and he could distinguish it even in something so old—and yet the clinical tone with which she described him was altogether unfamiliar, and even a bit harsh. He ran his fingers over the laminating film that covered a picture of his former lab group, letting his fingertips trace the blurred edges of his own face, as he scanned Thuringwethil’s notes for the image.
“Did you want peppermint or gingerbread?” Thuringwethil asked, holding a bottle of coffee creamer in each hand as she wandered into the living room. Her gaze fell on Mairon. “Oh,” she said, frowning slightly.
“You know,” he said, craning his neck to give her a reproachful look, “you could just take a picture with me instead of trawling through the newspaper for them.”
“I don’t take pictures with people who are prettier than I am,” she said decisively.
“Thil what is this?” he asked, ignoring the deflection.
She sighed and headed for the couch, depositing the bottles on the coffee table before sitting carefully beside him, tucking one long leg up under herself and drawing the other close to her chest. “These are my records,” she said nodding at the binder in his hands.
“Records,” he repeated slowly, turning the page and running his fingertips over an article in which he had featured as a young, up-and-coming student at the university. He shook his head. “What is this a record of, exactly?”
“Of our dealings at the time,” she said. “I wanted to have everything we might need, just in case. I do it with everything we face, if you must know.”
“Right,” he said skeptically. “All these weird clippings of announcements and copies of old websites look like business dealings, not a starter kit for a serial killer.”
“Look,” she said, resting her chin on her knee and tilting her head to the side. “Back then, I’d known Melkor a lot longer than you had, and I knew him well enough to know that this particular mess wasn’t going away. I knew it was going to turn into to something, and I was right.”
“Right?” mused Mairon, turning another few pages and skimming the contents. “About what? The only mess I remember back then was Valinor, so why am I the focus of all your notes?”
“I have always made a point of keeping an eye on the things that Melkor is interested in,” Thuringwethil said delicately. She reached out and brushed her index finger lightly along the edge of a newspaper clipping depicting a much younger Mairon standing beside a poster at an engineering conference. “As much as Valinor consumed him back then, I had a feeling retaliation wasn’t his only incentive for hanging around the university.”
“I think you’ve always looked for motives where they just don’t exist,” said Mairon dismissively, but Thuringwethil could see a flush beginning to creep up from under the hood of his sweatshirt.
She shrugged, pulling her hand back from the book. “I’m a lawyer,” she said. “It’s what I do.”
He sighed, half-wanting to throw the book across the room but finding himself instead turning another page. “It’s insane to me that all this Valinor crap is still coming up all these years later,” Mairon said quietly, squinting at a note in which Thurinwethil described his third-year grades.
“Rotten things always find their way to the surface,” she said darkly. “And there was nothing more putrid than this.”
“Tell me about it,” he said. “One day I’m fielding offers from one of the most prestigious post-doc programs in the country, not to mention one of the biggest names in the industry, and the next they’re telling me I might not even graduate. It was beyond insane. It was surreal.”
“It was dirty,” she added.
He shook his head. “I don’t know what I would have done without you guys,” he said softly. “If you hadn’t threatened the dean of the college, I don’t think they would’ve given me the stupid diploma.”
“Are you kidding? Utumno would’ve been finished if you hadn’t helped us out. We owed you big time.”
He snorted. “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t. They were itching for a way to get back at Melkor, and they almost had it before you shut them down. The least we could do was return the favor.”
“Turns out they don’t much like being stymied,” he said thoughtfully.
They sat in silence for a moment, mulling over their memories. “Well,” said Thuringwethil, unfolding her legs, “it worked out well for all of us.”
“You can say that again.”
“I won’t, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
He laughed and nudged her gently with his shoulder. “Where’s my coffee?” he demanded playfully.
Thuringwethil stood up and stretched her long arms toward the ceiling. “I suppose we should get to work,” she said, ambling back into the kitchen. “What did you bring me, anyway?” she called from the next room. “You sounded excited on the phone.”
“Something I need your help with,” he called back, tossing the binder back on the coffee table and retrieving his bag. He rifled through his papers as she brought back two mugs and a full carafe of coffee, setting everything before them on the table.
“Alright,” she said, settling herself once more on the couch and reaching for the peppermint creamer. “What’s so important that it can’t wait for Monday?”
Mairon pulled a stack of pages out of his bag and shuffled them gently. “You want us to keep Silmaril?”
“After all the trouble you went through to get it?” She rolled her eyes. “That thing’s not going anywhere, if I can help it.”
“Good,” he said, grinning. “Then help me file a patent.”
***
…sudden passing has sent waves of shock rippling through the usually cutthroat community.
“It’s an absolute tragedy,” noted a spokeswoman from Doriath. “Finwë was a great patron to the field long before he had a business himself, and his contributions will be sorely missed. Our thoughts are with the family at this difficult time.”
Similar sentiments have been shared from other competitors, including Alqualondë and Belegost. Conspicuous by their silence are Valinor and Anband Enterprises, both of whom are rumored to have been in talks with Formenos regarding an upcoming project, though the source of these rumors remains unknown, as does the validity of such claims.
What is known is that the engineering and defense communities have lost a great man, a titan of industry who…
“What are you reading?”
Mairon shook his head and glanced up at Melkor, who was leaning on the doorway to his office. “Just the latest smear against us,” he said, clicking to open a new tab and typing a search into the bar.
“Who’s slandering us now?” Melkor asked, pushing off the doorway and ambling into the office.
Mairon scanned the search results, groping along his desk for a pen. “The Eä Times,” he said absently, jotting down a number from his screen on a piece of paper. “And it’s technically libel.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Slander is spoken. Libel is written.”
Melkor slouched into a chair. “How do you know stuff like that?”
Mairon shrugged. “How does anyone know anything?”
Melkor snorted. “Fine, but you have an unrivaled collection of useless knowledge.”
“Useless? I’m telling Thuringwethil you said that.”
“That’s the kind of shit Thil needs to know. You, on the other hand—”
“You know, I never hear you complaining when my allegedly useless knowledge is bailing you out of whatever—”
“Hey,” he said, feigning affront, “I resent the implication that I’m ever in the kind of situation where I need bailing out.”
“Do you need a refresher on the difference between an implication and a declaration?”
Melkor snorted. “Maybe,” he conceded. He reached forward and plucked a sorely neglected stress ball bearing the logo for the Society for Computer Engineers from Mairon’s desk and began to pass it back and forth between his hands.
Mairon watched him fidget for a moment. “What’s bugging you?” he asked. “Why would something be bugging me?” asked Melkor, squashing the ball in one hand before gently tossing it to the other.
“Because you’re sitting in my office instead of doing whatever it is you normally do at ten in the morning. Shouldn’t you be coming up with something to get back at Gothmog? I saw the cardboard castle he built over your desk; it was actually pretty good.”
“It’s in the works,” Melkor said darkly.
“Which means you have nothing.” Melkor made a face at him and resumed squashing the ball first in one hand, then the other. Mairon watched him for another minute and then sighed. “Come on,” he said briskly. “What’s up?” “Nothing’s up,” Melkor said, a note of irritation creeping into his voice. “Can’t I just sit here for a few minutes? I don’t know why you’re being weird about it. I do it all the time.”
“Sure,” Mairon said carefully. “But you’re usually complaining, or asking me to fix something.”
“I’d like to argue,” Melkor said, “but you have a point.”
“I know,” said Mairon evenly. “So what’s up?”
Melkor bounced the stress ball on the flattened palm of one hand. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Never a good sign.”
Melkor curled his fingers into a fist around the little ball and glared at Mairon. “You’ve been spending too much time with Thuringwethil,” he accused sourly.
Mairon snorted. “I acquired the art of making fun of you all on my own, thanks. Now stop with the avoidance tactics already.”
“What avoidance tactics?”
“That,” said Mairon tapping his index finger on the desk. “That right there. Whenever there’s anything you don’t want to talk about, you dodge it. You bring up all kinds of inane garbage, you make jokes, you ask questions you already know the answer to—you do anything you can to try and avoid what’s really bothering you.”
“I’ve had it up to here,” said Melkor irritably, tossing the stress ball up to head height, “with you people and your bullshit psychoanalysis. I’m banning you all from watching any more Dr. Phil.”
“What a blow to my afternoon schedule,” Mairon said, rolling his eyes. “Now come on. Spit it out.”
Melkor groaned loudly and sunk down in his chair, letting his head tip back so he could avoid Mairon’s gaze. “I just met with Thuringwethil to go over a few preliminary things about the Silmaril acquisition.”
“That definitely needs a new name,” Mairon muttered, frowning.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Melkor, waving a hand dismissively. “Anyway, she was just briefing me on where we stand. I don’t know if Formenos is going to get enough evidence to make a case here, but if they do, she wants us to be ready.”
“As we should be.”
“I know,” said Melkor, blinking up at the ceiling. “But it’s been making me think about all the shit that’s been going down and all the scrambling we’ve been doing to keep it under control.” He sighed. “There’s just something that needs to be said, alright?”
Despite himself, Mairon tensed, but his voice betrayed nothing of his disquiet when he spoke. “Then say it,” he said evenly.
Melkor put both hands on the arms of the chair and levered himself upright, finally looking at Mairon. “All the running and the planning and just the work that you’ve done in the last few weeks—I want you know that I see it.”
Mairon stared at him, nonplussed. “I—what?”
“Look, when you’re down in your lab at three in the morning stressing about program integration, I think you sometimes wonder if I have any idea that you’re doing all this work. I just want you to know that I do, and I don’t forget it.”
Mairon frowned, perplexed. “Why are you telling me this right now?”
“Because it isn’t always clear, but it’s something you should know.”
Mairon nodded slowly. “Thanks,” he said softly.
“Don’t thank me,” Melkor said, shrugging. “It’s just the truth.”
“Still,” said Mairon. “I appreciate it.”
Melkor grinned. “Keep that in mind next time you’re pissed at me.”
Mairon rolled his eyes. “Shouldn’t take long.”
“That’s probably true, knowing you.”
“Excuse me? You’re the one who does all the dumb stuff I end up having to clean up.”
Melkor snorted. “Whine, whine, whine. Besides, methinks thou dost protest too much. I think you like it.”
“No,” said Mairon, the words leaving his lips before he had really thought them through. “I like you. There’s a difference.” He froze, feeling his pulse quicken against his skin as he tried to keep his face neutral.
To his relief, Melkor snorted and laughed. “Who doesn’t?”
Mairon glanced at his watch. “How much time do you have?”
“Watch it,” Melkor said affably. Mairon grinned, trying to will the beating of his heart into something resembling a normal pace. “I guess you do have a point, though.”
“Since when have you ever cared what anyone else thought?” Mairon said dismissively. “So some people don’t like you. Why worry about it now?”
“I don’t,” Melkor said. “Not usually. But I have a feeling the animosity from the Formenos crowd is about to get a little more intense than the usual dislike I seem to attract.”
“Let’s hope their hostility stays in the social spheres and out of the legal ones,” Mairon said.
“From your lips to—”Melkor waved a hand vaguely in the air. “I don’t know. Whoever might be listening. Anyway, at least we’ll be prepared if it doesn’t.” He reached forward and put the stress ball back in its place before sitting back and running a hand through his hair. “What were you saying about the Times?”
“Right,” Mairon said wearily. “They mentioned us in an article about Finwë’s passing.”
“Nothing good, I assume,” Melkor said gloomily.
“I’ll take care of it,” said Mairon, picking up his pen and tapping it pensively on the notepad in front of him.
“You always do,” said Melkor. He heaved a sigh and stood up from the chair at last. “You busy tonight?”
Mairon shrugged. “Just work,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
“Gothmog and I are going to that new place over on Anfauglith—dollar shots ‘til ten. You want to come?”
Mairon glanced at his watch again, then at the incomprehensible number of emails waiting in the inbox he had emptied earlier that day and considered, for a moment, his growing list of things to do. “Alright,” he said reluctantly, narrowing his eyes as Melkor punched the air triumphantly. “But I’m not doing any shots, dollar or otherwise.”
Melkor rolled his eyes. “And we were so close to an appearance of fun Mairon,” he said, grinning.
“Hey,” Mairon offered with a shrug, “someone’s going to have to corral the two of you at the end of the night.”
“Always thinking, this one,” Melkor said, tapping the side of his head and pointing at Mairon. “We’ll come get you before we leave.”
“Not before five,” Mairon warned as Melkor walked toward the door. “Actually, make that six.”
“Good one,” Melkor said.
“An air horn!” Mairon called, just as Melkor passed the threshold.
Melkor stopped and turned on the spot, looking back at Mairon with a look of mild confusion and alarm. “Is this a sign of your inevitable breakdown that I should be noting?”
“No, sorry,” said Mairon, tapping his pen on his desk. “It just popped into my head—an idea for your prank. Put it right under the seat of Gothmog’s chair so that when he goes to sit down, the chair hits the trigger, and the thing goes off. He’ll never see it coming.”
Melkor stared at him for a moment before a slow grin blossomed over his lips. “Remember what I said a minute ago about fun Mairon? I think I spoke too soon.”
“Yeah, well, regular boring Mairon needs to get back to work if I’m going to supervise you two children all night.”
“And what a night it will be,” said Melkor, sighing theatrically and clapping a hand to his chest. “More debauchery than ought to be legal on a Tuesday, and all the better because Thuringwethil refuses to come.”
Mairon grimaced. “Wait, Thil’s not coming? Is it too late to back out?”
“Absolutely,” Melkor said cheerfully. “It’s going to be great. Hell, we might even get you to unclench for an hour or two—”
“Get out,” Mairon said firmly, standing up and stalking toward the door.
Melkor took a few steps back, grinning as he started off down the hall. “See you tonight!” he called back cheerfully as he headed toward the elevator.
Mairon closed the door and went back to his desk, drawing the notepad closer to him as he picked up the receiver and began to dial the number. Shaking his head, he forced himself to swallow his grin as he listened to the dial tone and began to compose his thoughts.
Happy Thanksgiving, American friends! Happy Thursday, friends of all other nationalities. Have an update (much delayed, and finally completed).
Follow You Down Chapter Ten: Enjoy the Silence Summary: Mairon has perfected the art of holding a grudge. Melkor doesn’t like to be ignored.
The knock on the glass startled Mairon out a deep, dreamless sleep
and into a flailing consciousness that nearly carried him off the edge
of the stool on which he had been sitting. He righted himself with an
iron grip on the edge of the cluttered bench and looked up through the
window before him with a glare of irritation, searching for the source
of his unceremonious awakening. His gaze found Thuringwethil, who was
holding a large paper cup in one hand and a white paper bag in the
other, watching him with an air of skepticism. As his gaze focused on
her, she raised her hands slightly, arching an eyebrow at him. Mairon
turned and threw a glance over his shoulder at the chaotic spread of
computers he had abandoned unwillingly just a few hours earlier,
wondering if he ought not get back to work. Just then, his stomach
growled, and he realized he hadn’t eaten in at least a day. He looked
back at Thuringwethil as his stomach gave another gurgle and then stood
up, reluctantly heading out of the lab and into the hall.
Thuringwethil
walked down the hall to meet him as he emerged through the door. She
put the extra-large coffee into his hand, and he raised it automatically
to his lips, shuddering as the warmth flooded through him. He watched
as she extracted a foil-wrapped sandwich from the bag in her hand and
peeled back a few layers of the wrapping before handing it to him.
Mairon accepted it gratefully, biting reverently through layers of
bagel, egg, cheese, and bacon as though they were ambrosia. “Thil,” he
said decisively, still chewing. “You are a lifesaver.”
“Sometimes I worry that statement is going to be literal,” she muttered, brushing past him.
He
rolled his eyes. “I’m not quite that bad,” he said. He watched her
approach the door to the lab. “What are you doing?” he asked as she
pulled her key card from her pocket and ran it through the slider. The
reader flashed green once before turning red. Mairon’s brown furrowed in
concern. “What did you do?”
“I locked the lab,” she said calmly, returning her card to her pocket and reaching for the door handle.
“You
did what?” He hurried over to join her, watching in horror as she tried
the door handles, which remained stubbornly locked in placed. “You
can’t do that!” he protested.
“I just did,” she said, unconcerned, checking the handles once more.
“Thil—”
“Eat,” she admonished him.
He
grudgingly took another bite of the sandwich in his hand, glancing
nervously through the glass. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
“I had Gothmog change the security clearances,” she said calmly. “You’re locked out.”
“What? Why?”
“Mairon, you’ve been in that lab for two straight days. I’m not doing the Glaurung thing again. You’re going to eat something—”
“Almost done,” he insisted around as much sandwich as he could fit in his mouth.
“And,”
she continued, ignoring him, “you’re going to go home and take a
shower. I’d prefer if you’d take a nap, possibly in an actual bed, but
one, I know you, and two, I have a grasp on reality, so—”
“Thuringwethil,” he complained, trying not to choke as he tried to eat and talk. “Do you know how much work I still need to do?”
“I’ll bet it’s not as much as you’ve already done.”
“But I still have to—”
“Ah,” she said sharply, holding up her index finger accusatorily. “Tell the truth. How close are you to being done?”
He chewed for a moment, considering her. “It’s basically finished,” he conceded grudgingly. “But I still need to check—”
“That’s what I thought,” she said decisively. “Whatever you need to check will still be here when you get back.”
“But—”
“That door isn’t opening until you at least go home, shower, and change your clothes.”
“I did change my clothes,” he said defensively.
“To something that hasn’t been sitting in your desk drawer for God knows how long,” she amended.
He scowled at her. “You know that if I don’t finish this we could all go to jail, right?”
“The sooner you go home, the sooner you can come back.”
He rolled his eyes. “Can I at least get my bag?”
“No.”
“But I need—”
“No.”
“Thil—”
“No.”
He
took another, more reasonable bite, still scowling at her as he chewed.
“You know,” he said, swallowing, “sometimes you’re the worst.”
She snorted. “Is that the best you can do?”
He
shook his head resignedly and turned toward the elevator, Thuringwethil
trailing him. “You know I love you, right Thil?” he asked as they
stepped through the doors.
She rolled her eyes. “Then go home,”
she said. Her tone was exasperated, but he could see a smile tugging at
her lips. He nudged her gently with his shoulder, grinning as the
elevator opened on the sixth floor. Thuringwethil departed toward her
office; Mairon lingered only long enough to retrieve his coat from his
own office before returning to the elevator and heading to the lobby.
Mairon
trudged toward the front desk and deposited the remains of his
breakfast in the garbage, pausing to take a long drink of the coffee in
his hand. “Hey,” said a voice from behind him. “I wondered if I’d find
you here.” Mairon turned slowly and regarded Melkor with a look of pure
detachment. “Did you just get in?” Melkor asked, glancing at his watch.
“It’s kind of early, isn’t it?” Mairon simply tapped one finger gently
on the bottom of his coffee cup. “Right,” said Melkor slowly, trying to
gauge the silence between them. “So, are you going out somewhere?” he
asked, nodding at Mairon’s coat. “If you’re going out for more coffee,
there’s a new place on third I heard is really good. I was going to—”
“I’m going home, actually,” Mairon said, speaking at last.
Melkor glanced at his watch once more. “It’s eight in the morning,” he said, nonplussed.
The tip of Mairon’s little finger continued its steady tattoo on the bottom of the cup. “And?” he inquired, arching an eyebrow.
“And nothing, I guess,” Melkor said, shrugging. “It’s just not your usual thing, is it?”
“And what is my usual thing?” Mairon asked, face and voice utterly devoid of emotion.
Melkor
stared at him for a moment before deciding that whatever was happening
in the conversation was well beyond his grasp. “Never mind,” he said,
shrugging. He considered broaching a new topic, but Mairon did not seem
particularly amenable. Still, he tried a friendly grin. “Maybe I’ll see
you later?”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Mairon icily. He turned
and strode through the front door, leaving Melkor alone in the lobby.
Melkor watched through the front window until he disappeared from view.
Then, he turned and made for the elevator, stabbing the top arrow with
misplaced irritation. He stepped through the doors as they opened and
hoped that Gothmog had already arrived.
***
“How long,” Melkor demanded loudly, sprawling into the chair opposite Gothmog’s desk, “do we have to let him sulk?”
“Oh
boy,” said Gothmog wearily, snatching his coffee out of the way of
Melkor’s feet as they landed unceremoniously on his desk. “I don’t even
know where to start.” He set the cup carefully out of Melkor’s reach and
leaned back in his chair. “First of all, do you know what time it is? I
haven’t seen you show up for work before ten o’clock in at least six
years. Second, I’m not even technically on the clock yet, so—”
“Hey,”
Melkor interrupted, leaning forward and taking the coffee away from
him. “If you’re in the building, you’re on the clock. And for the
record, that’s my policy on friendship, too, except you don’t get to
clock out on that honor until you die.”
“You oughtta write greeting cards,” Gothmog muttered incredulously, glaring at him as Melkor sipped his coffee.
“Damn that’s good,” Melkor said, shifting in his seat and settling the cup on the arm of the chair.
“I know,” said Gothmog ruefully. He shook his head. “Anyway, why are you bothering Mairon?”
“I’d
love to bother Mairon,” Melkor said, “but I can’t pin him down long
enough to try. I think he’s avoiding me, Gothmog, and even when I do
manage to track him down for two minutes, he won’t talk to me.”
“You know, there is a reason for that,” Gothmog reminded him.
Melkor
felt Gothmog seemed rather too amused by the situation. “The rest of us
are over it,” he said sourly. “So what’s his problem?”
“If by
‘the rest of us’, you mean me and Thil, then no we are most certainly
not over it,” Gothmog said. “She and I just aren’t fighting you about
it.”
“Well, why didn’t you give Mairon that memo?” he asked sulkily.
Gothmog snorted. “You know why you don’t fight with me and Thil like this?”
“Because you two have some sense?”
“Because
the three of us fight the same way,” Gothmog corrected him. “You, me,
and Thil—we all get mad, we blow up, and we’re over it. Mairon is a
different beast. He holds a grudge—and I don’t mean the sulky, childish
kinds of grudges you hold. When Mairon is pissed, he’s cold, and he
freezes you out. That’s why you two don’t fight well. He wants to drag
it out until he’s ready to deal with it, and you want to have it done
and over with right this minute.”
“Did I ask for a psychoanalysis?” Melkor demanded sullenly.
“You’re just pissed because you know I’m right,” Gothmog said smugly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Yeah, well, I’m not particularly interested in waiting for Mairon to decide he’s done being mad.”
“You never are.”
“Why should I be?” Melkor demanded. “He should just quit sulking and talk to me about it like a normal—”
“Whoa,”
said Gothmog, kneading his temples with his fingertips. “It is eight
o’clock in the morning, and I’m telling you right now, I have not had
nearly enough caffeine to listen to that kind of crazy talk.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You
just suggested that you wanted to talk to someone,” Gothmog said.
“About your problems, no less. I feel like I should be on the lookout
for—what’s all that end times shit? Fire from the sky or something?”
“Shut
up,” Melkor said irritably. “You know damn well that this Formenos
thing is coming back to us sooner rather than later. I just need to know
that Mairon has his shit together before that happens.”
“Do me a favor,” Gothmog said wearily. “Don’t say that to him, alright?”
“I’m not stupid,” Melkor said reproachfully.
“No, you’re not, but you have no tact.”
“I resent that implication.”
“It wasn’t an implication.”
“Whatever. Look, Gothmog, I think I know how to handle a hissy fits.”
“Really?” Gothmog asked skeptically. “And how’s that been going for you?”
“Fine,” Melkor said stubbornly.
“Right,”
said Gothmog. “By which you mean that you badger him every time you
manage to track him down, and he completely ignores you.”
“Well,” said Melkor mutinously, “you’re half right.”
“Oh, please,” said Gothmog. “I know the two of you, and I know you’re too impatient to deal with Mairon when he’s mad.”
“Well if you’re so damn smart, then what the hell am I supposed to do? I’m tired of walking on eggshells around him.”
“What did I say? Impatient.” Gothmog was so smug that Melkor could have throttled him.
“Gothmog, you might be the least helpful friend I have.”
“By default,” said Gothmog, trying and failing to swallow his grin. “I mean, right now I’m the only friend you—”
“Gothmog, I swear to God…”
“You
want to know what you’re supposed to do?” Gothmog asked, sitting
forward in his chair and resting both forearms on his desk. He peered
intently at Melkor. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing,” Gothmog said firmly.
“What kind of advice is that?”
“That’s
not advice, my friend. That is a strategy. Look, I know you want this
fight to be over with, but it’s going to have to be on Mairon’s terms.
If you try to push it, you’ll only make it worse.”
Melkor slid low in his chair, tilting his head back and groaning theatrically. “Why is everyone around me difficult?” he whined.
“Is
this a bad time to remind you that this is a mess that you made?”
Melkor lifted his head and glowered at Gothmog. “I’ll take that as a
yes,” he said, stifling a grin. “Look, please just listen to me on this
one. I know it feels like it’s been a million years to you, but Mai
still needs some time to cool down. Don’t push him.”
“Fine,”
Melkor sighed, setting the half-empty coffee cup on the desk as he stood
up at last from the chair. “I’ll do it, but I won’t like it.”
“That’s your attitude toward most reasonable things.”
Melkor
turned his back and walked to the door, raising each hand to shoulder
height in a one-finger salute before disappearing into the hall. Gothmog
rolled his eyes and reached for the newspaper on his desk, muttering as
he began to read about the level of maturity in the office.
***
Melkor
stuck his head out the doorway of his office and looked first up, then
down the hall. There was no one in sight, and no sound but the quiet hum
of technology from the closed office doors that lined the walls on
either side of him. Walking as quickly and quietly as he could manage,
he left his office and made for the far end of the hall. The building
seemed almost abandoned, with no sound to be heard but the soft swish of
his shoes against the carpet as he crept down the hall. He approached
the door at the far end and tried to see into the frosted windows on
either side, but he could make out nothing inside the office. He raised
his hand and prepared to knock.
“What are you doing?”
Melkor
nearly jumped out of his skin. He whirled about, his wrath dissipating
into mere annoyance as he turned to find Thuringwethil leaning against a
closed door, watching him. He could have sworn she was not there just a
moment before. “Jesus, Thuringwethil,” he complained. “Are you trying
to give me a heart attack?”
“What are you doing?” she repeated, unmoved. She crossed her arms over her chest.
Melkor glanced guiltily at the door behind him. “I…nothing. I was just going to—”
“See if you can annoy him until he breaks down?” she finished for him, arching an eyebrow at him.
“Ha, ha,” he said dryly. “I just want to talk to him, Thil.”
She scowled suspiciously at him. “You, talk? We really need to rethink that trip to the emergency room,” she said.
“Would
you lay off me?” he said irritably. “You’re as bad as Gothmog. I just
want to talk about what happened. This has gone on long enough.”
Thuringwethil
shook her head. “I know it’s torturing you, but here’s the thing: you
don’t get to decide when someone is done being mad at you.”
“But—”
“Nope.”
“Thil—”
“Ah,”
she said sharply, holding up a hand in warning. “Drop it. You’re going
to suffer through this one if it kills you. Do you hear me? It’s the
least you can do.”
Melkor squared his shoulders and stared back
into her unyielding scowl, shoring up his impressive store of
belligerence. He opened his mouth, a retort ready on his lips, but he
was interrupted by Gothmog, who barreled through the elevator doors and
down the hall toward them, panting as he ran. “Whoa,” he said, pulling
up short in front of them. “Hate to interrupt whatever delightful talk
you two seem to be having, but I need you both downstairs.”
“Why?” Melkor snapped.
Thuringwethil
had taken one look at Gothmog’s face and grown stern. “Where is he?”
she called, already running down the hall toward her office.
“Main coding lab!” Gothmog called back.
“Who?” Melkor demanded. “What’s going on?”
Gothmog
put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him toward the elevator.
“Remember how you said this thing was coming back to us sooner rather
than later?” he asked, hitting the down arrow and tapping his foot
impatiently. “Well, you were right.”
***
“You
might want to be careful with those,” said Mairon lazily, watching as
federal agents crawled through every inch of his lab, rifling through
notebooks and papers and gathering his equipment into boxes. He leaned
back against the far wall, arms crossed, watching with apparent
nonchalance as they none-too-gently packed his work into cardboard
boxes.
“Worried about your stolen goods?” asked Oromë, picking up a notebook from the bench and rifling through it.
“My
perfectly legal and above-board work will be just fine, thanks,” said
Mairon unconcernedly. “But if you break anything from my lab, you will
have to pay for it.” He smirked. “Laws can be so pesky sometimes, can’t
they?”
“You would know,” Oromë muttered.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Mairon.
“Look,
kid,” said Oromë, tossing the notebook haphazardly into a box and
frowning at Mairon. “You can cut the crap. We’re onto your bullshit.
You’re looking at a lot of heavy charges right about now, and with your
record—”
“My record?” Mairon inquired, his smile overtly sweet but
sharp around the edges, belying the danger just below the surface.
“Forgive me, but do you know something I don’t? You threw a lot of
accusations at me three years ago, but last time I checked, nothing
stuck.”
“They sure as hell stuck to your boss,” Oromë said smugly.
“No
one’s arguing that,” Mairon said indifferently. “But my God, the way
you talk about it, you’d think it was the only conviction you’d ever
gotten. I hate to tell you that sniffing around the same place doesn’t
mean you’ll get lucky twice.”
“You won’t be so cocky when your ass is sitting behind bars for the next fifty years.”
“Ah,
ambition,” said Mairon, laying a hand over his heart and tipping his
head up theatrically. He looked back at Oromë, sneering. “It is nice to
see you have some goals, ridiculous though they may be. I hate to be a
killjoy, but aren’t you a little ahead of yourself? Right now you don’t
even have a case.”
“Look around you, asshole,” said Oromë, gesturing at the flurry of activity behind them. “What do you think we’re doing here?”
Mairon
glanced skeptically around the lab. “If I had to guess, I’d say it
looks like you’re trying to execute a search warrant, although to return
to my earlier point—”
“You listen to me, ginger,” said Oromë,
leaving his place by the bench and advancing on Mairon. “You talk a big
game, nice and safe in your little basement here, but I’m telling you
right now that you’re finished.” His eyes narrowed dangerously as Mairon
snorted. “Is something funny?”
“I’m sorry,” said Mairon, smirking. “I just can’t take you seriously when you get all film noir on me like this.”
“Maybe
you’ll take it seriously when you land in court,” Oromë growled.
“Because that’s where you’re heading, you little weasel. With all the
crap we’re cleaning out of your lab and everything that’s coming out of
Formenos—”
“Which is all hearsay, of course,” Mairon interjected.
“Which
I’m sure will be corroborated,” Oromë retorted. “And let’s be honest
here, twerp. When we get down to it, what’s going to look better in
court? Something coming from Finwë and his lot, who are pillars of the
community, or a bunch of crap coming from your convict boss?”
“And
that’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it? Bias and prejudice? I’ve got
news for you, Oromë: you can’t incarcerate people you don’t like, and
trying to is not just vindictive, it’s illegal.”
“You know what?
You’re right. I don’t like you assholes. And say whatever you like, but
I’m not going to pretend this investigation isn’t just a little
schadenfreude, watching that dick get exactly what’s coming to him.”
“Why
you don’t look into the camera next time?” Mairon suggested, nodding at
the security camera mounted in the corner. “It’ll make it easier when
we move to get you removed from the case.”
Oromë was livid, and he
advanced until he was within mere inches of Mairon, towering over him.
“People like you and Melkor,” he growled, “think you can just go through
life gaming the system. You are the dregs of society, and you just drag
the rest of us down. You honestly think you’re better than someone like
Finwion?” He scoffed. “You want to be him. You want what he
has. And you can chase it all you want, but you’ll never have it. You
are garbage human beings, and the best you’ll ever do is this shitty,
cheap imitation.”
“You can come in my lab,” said Mairon quietly,
“and destroy my equipment and my notes and my work. You can harass me
and insult me all you like. But don’t you dare think that you can come
in here and say those kinds of things about Melkor when you’re on
Angband property. You think Melkor ought to be in awe of the likes of
Finwë and Fëanor?” He snorted. “Utumno was a company before Formenos was
even a thought in their minds, and Angband will be around long after
Formenos crashes. Do you know why? Because Melkor has the brains and the
originality and the acumen to actually run a successful company. All
the Finwions have are old money and bourgeois connections that help them
push through a flimsy investigation any time things don’t go their way.
That might impress you, but I think it’s weak, and I’m certainly not
losing any sleep about which of us will make it, in the end.”
Oromë
shook his head, trying to maintain an air of nonchalance that was
belied by the grit of his jaw. “What the hell happened to you, kid?” he
asked. “I’ve seen your records. You’re wicked smart. You could be
anywhere in the world, so why are you holed up in this dump defending
that dickhole?”
Mairon snorted. “Did you skip the day they covered interrogation techniques at whatever cut-rate police academy you attended?”
Oromë
shrugged, unmoved. “I figure there’s gotta be something wrong with you.
I mean, we scoured that sad little hole you call an apartment three
years ago, and I have never seen anyone live in anything so depressing. I
mean honestly, kid, I wondered if it was even your real place. Nothing
on the walls, no pictures…it didn’t even look lived in. If you want to
know the truth, I figured it must belong to the loneliest bastard I’d
ever met.”
Mairon’s face was impassive. “You know,” he said
carefully, as though remarking on the weather. “That’s an interesting
observation, coming from you. I heard your wife travels ten months out
of the year and, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t she retire three or
four years back? You know what they say about people who live in glass
houses—”
“You piece of shit,” Oromë barked, reaching out and grabbing fistfuls of Mairon’s shirt, lifting him bodily from the floor.
“Oh, please,” said a voice from the vicinity of the door. “Give me a reason to sue you for assault.”
Oromë
turned to find Thuringwethil, Gothmog, and Melkor standing in the
doorway, watching them. He lowered Mairon slowly to the ground and
smoothed the cuffs of his sleeves. “No need to get worked up,” he said.
“Mairon and I were just talking.”
“Oh, I heard plenty of your
lovely conversation,” Thuringwethil said. “Probably enough to get
started on a motion to have you removed from the case.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“You’ll get your chance,” she said sweetly.
Oromë
looked slowly from Thuringwethil to Gothmog to Melkor, a frown
deepening on his face. He turned away abruptly and surveyed his agents,
who were mostly finished with their work. “Let’s go,” he barked,
watching as they packed up the last few things and began to file out of
the lab. When the last of the agents had passed through the doors, Oromë
turned back to face the Angband executives, narrowing his eyes
menacingly at them. “This isn’t over,” he said.
Thuringwethil snorted. “Oh, honey,” she said scathingly. “Threats work best when you can back them up.”
Oromë
glared at her and followed his men out the door. Gothmog immediately
crossed to where Mairon was standing, his chin tucked into his chest as
he tried to look down at himself. “Are you alright?” he asked, laying a
hand on Mairon’s shoulder.
“This was a nice shirt,” Mairon said ruefully, trying to smooth the wrinkles left by Oromë’s hands.
“I’m
going to follow them out,” Thuringwethil said, eyeing the group as they
filed past the window. “I don’t trust those assholes to leave.”
“Yeah,
well I don’t trust those assholes with you,” Gothmog said sharply.
“Hey!” he called, but she had already disappeared out the lab door.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “You alright?” he called at Mairon over his
shoulder, already at the door.
“Go,” Mairon said, waving him away.
He watched Gothmog hurry past the window and disappear from view. As
though he was alone now in the lab, he turned and walked to his ruined
bench. Melkor watched him work for a few moments, sorting out abandoned
pieces of equipment and bits of scrap that had been indiscriminately
scattered along the surface. “Man,” said Melkor at last, treading
carefully toward the bench where Mairon worked. “This place looks
bizarre without computers.” Mairon picked up a crumpled sheet of paper,
carefully pulled the edges apart, and began to study the contents.
Melkor reached the bench and stood a few feet from Mairon, watching him
scan the battered paper in his hands before setting it carefully aside.
“Good thing we have backups,” Melkor said, leaning against the edge of the bench and grinning.
“They’re not quite that stupid,” said Mairon. “They’re heading for our servers now.”
Melkor
straightened abruptly. “So what?” he demanded, a bit harsher than he
intended. “We’re just supposed to sit on our asses while they take their
time with this ridiculous investigation? They can’t take all of our
work!”
“Relax,” Mairon said. “I have everything we own backed up
in five places, and that’s not counting our official company servers.
I’ll bring everything back online when they get out.”
“Jesus,”
said Melkor dramatically, clapping a hand to his chest as he circled the
bench and came to rest opposite Mairon. “Don’t scare me like that.”
Mairon
selected a torn scrap of paper from the detritus before him and studied
it carefully. “Maybe you wouldn’t be so scared,” he said coldly,
tilting his head to read a note written in the margin, “if you had an
ounce of faith in me.”
“Come on,” Melkor cajoled, leaning on the bench and grinning ingratiatingly at him. “You know I have every confidence in you.”
“Could’ve
fooled me,” Mairon said absently, setting the scrap atop the growing
pile and reaching for a broken motherboard that Oromë had left behind.
Melkor’s hand came down hard on the bench, and Mairon pulled back to
avoid having his fingers crushed. “What is your problem?” he demanded,
scowling.
“We need to talk,” Melkor said firmly.
“I’m not interested,” Mairon said.
“Oh,
so you’ll talk about me, but not to me?” Mairon pointedly picked up
another scrap of paper and began to study it, the slight flush creeping
up his neck the only sign that he had heard. “Come on,” said Melkor
mildly. “You had that asshole Oromë so riled up it was about to get
ugly.”
“That was business,” Mairon said irritably.
“How do you figure?”
“I work for this company,” Mairon said. “If he insults Angband, he insults me.”
“But he wasn’t insulting Angband.”
“I’m
angry with you, Melkor,” Mairon said wearily. “But I’m still your
friend. I’m not going to let anyone talk about you like that—not here,
and especially not him.”
Melkor noddd slowly. “So you’re still mad at me?”
Mairon sighed. “I’m not exactly thrilled with you,” he said.
“Any idea how long I can expect this to last?”
Mairon
shook his head incredulously. “Oddly enough, there’s no hard and fast
rule for how long you ought to be mad at someone in any given situation,
and even if there were, I wouldn’t even know where to start with this
one.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Are you serious?”
“I just don’t get what you’re so mad about.”
Mairon
gaped at him for a moment. “Melkor, you dangled Silmaril over my head
for weeks when you knew how stressed I was about Glaurung. You
practically made it out to be the replacement for a system I’ve been
working on for three years, and you wanted me to help you get it, even
when you knew I was practically killing myself trying to rectify our
problems with Glaurung to meet the deadline.”
“Did you really think I’d replace your work with theirs?” Melkor seemed amused.
Mairon was decidedly not. “You said as much, the first time you brought it up,” Mairon reminded him.
“I
only meant it might have the capability,” Melkor said. “You were
freaking out about the deadline. I just thought it might help you to
have a fallback.”
“A fallback is a deadline extension,” Mairons said shortly. “This was competition.”
“But you’re the one that came up with the plan to get it,” Melkor said.
“Yes,”
said Mairon, exasperated. “Because I knew you weren’t going to let it
go, and honestly, I was worried what you might do to get it.”
“Come on,” Melkor said. “Once you found out about Valinor, you couldn’t wait to get started on a plan.”
Mairon glared at him. “That’s another thing,” he said sourly. “You should have told me about that from the beginning.”
“Maybe I didn’t want to distract you from Glaurung,” Melkor said defensively.
“I’d
rather be distracted a thousand times than end up in a mess like this.
This all could have been avoided if you’d just told me what was going
on.”
“I’m not going to apologize.”
“You never do.”
“And
why should I? What’s the point in being sorry for things you’ve done?
They’re in the past. You might as well take respoinsibility for your
actions and move on.”
“I would be thrilled,” Mairon said icily,
“if you would do that. But you can’t even admit that you completely
screwed us on the whole Ungoliant thing.”
“Look,” Melkor said, “I’ll admit that the other night may have gotten away from me a bit—”
“A
bit?” Mairon demanded. “Melkor, I had to go in and wipe out everything
she had touched on Formenos property. Then, I had to run around their
labs and destroy any notes I could find on the project. When I finally
got out of Formenos, I had to break into their off-site storage and get
everything eliminated from there. It took hours.”
“Yeah, I know. You were gone—”
“I
wasn’t finished,” Mairon said. “This was all notwithstanding the fact
that I had placed a bid on the godforsaken Silmaril program from
Gothmog’s laptop.”
“You did what?”
“So I had to set up a meeting in a neutral location.”
“You met her?” Melkor said, alarmed. “In public?”
“No,
you idiot.” Mairon reached around him and picked up the motherboard,
fiddling with it as he spoke. “She went to meet me, thinking I would buy
Silmaril. I tracked down her apartment while she was gone, took
Silmaril from her, and destroyed every shred of evidence that she had
ever met you.”
“But I thought she was meeting you to—”
“She
wasn’t going to sell it to me,” Mairon said flatly. “She was going to
scam me out of a million dollars and then bolt. It’s what she does, you
moron. I told you: I know Unogoliant.”
“Jesus,” Melkor said softly.
“And
then, to top it all off,” Mairon continued, “I’ve had to sit down here
for the last three days working the program into our systems and
wondering when Oromë and his thugs were going to show up. I have to say
it’s been a real treat.”
“Mairon, I—”
“And do you know what
the worst part is?” Mairon looked up, meeting Melkor’s eyes across the
bench. “I don’t mind the work. I don’t mind being up for thirty-six
hours, or sleeping on a bench in the lab. I wouldn’t even mind running
around breaking into other people’s companies. What gets me is that I
was doing it to clean up a mess that could have been avoided if you had
just trusted me.”
“You think I don’t trust you?”
“I know you don’t trust me.”
“Mairon,
I give you more responsibility than I give anyone else here. You run
three departments, not to mention the fact that you’re my COO, and you
still do half the experimental grunt work yourself—which, to tell you
the truth, I prefer, because I trust your work more than anyone else’s.
Hell, if you want proof that I trust you, look at the last three years. I
gave you my company to run, for fuck’s sake.”
Mairon held
opposite corners of the motherboard in his index fingers and gently spun
it. “Three years ago you trusted me to run this company. Last week, you
didn’t even trust me to execute a plan that I made for you.”
Melkor
sighed. “Look, Mairon, none of this has anything to do with trust. I
have more confidence in you than in anyone else here, and if we get past
all the anger and resentment and whatever else is going on right now, I
think you know that. Don’t get me wrong—Gothmog and Thuringwethil are
great at what they do, and I need them here. But I depend on you. You
have talent and expertise and a seriously weird intuition that is
honestly invaluable. That’s the truth.”
“And yet…”Mairon let the implication hang in the air between them.
“You want to know why I didn’t include you?” Melkor asked. “Why I found that heinous bitch Ungoliant instead?”
“I’m sure it’s an excellent reason.”
“Look, I—I felt bad, okay?”
Mairon blinked once, nonplussed. “You’re going to have to elaborate.”
“I
found out about Silmaril, and I thought it was an interesting project,
right? But when I heard Valinor was sniffing around…”He shook his head.
“I had to have it. I had to take something from those bastards.”
“So you’ve said.”
“I
didn’t tell you about Valinor at first because you were working on
Glaurung—that was the truth. I didn’t want to distract you. And then
when I did tell you—I don’t know, man, you were so angry.”
“Of course I was angry. You should have told me.”
“I don’t care that you were angry with me. I can handle that.”
“Current trends beg to differ,” Mairon muttered.
“I just kept thinking about all the shit they did,” Melkor said, ignoring him. “How they got away with it.”
Mairon
narrowed his eyes. “I know that look,” he said. “Even if I don’t ever
see it on you. That’s guilt. And you can knock it off right now.”
“It is not,” Melkor said defensively. “But even if it was, it wouldn’t be entirely misplaced.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Valinor
was my fight,” he said, shrugging. “I pulled you into it, and I really
shouldn’t have. I mean, look what they did to you. I shouldn’t have let
you—”
“Jesus,” said Mairon, grinding the heels of his hands into
his eyes and sighing. “God help me, but I’m about to take a line from
your playbook.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“You didn’t let me do anything. Whatever I did was under my own power.”
“Come on,” said Melkor dubiously. “I was going after them, and you followed me.”
“Yes,”
said Mairon. “I did, but that was a choice that I made. I would really
appreciate if you would give me some credit for being able to think for
myself.”
For a moment, they simply stood in silence. “Sometimes I
wonder if I limited you,” Melkor said quietly. “After everything that
went down, this was your only realistic option. I hate to think that you
wasted your potential.”
Mairon snorted. “I’m not sure who you
just insulted more,” he said. “Me or yourself.” He ran his hands lightly
over his hair and sighed. “Look, I hadn’t accepted with Valinor when
you offered me this job. I still had options. This is the one that I
picked, and I did it because this is where I wanted to be. The fact that
they tried to destroy my career is beside the point. If none of that
insanity had ever happened, I still would’ve ended up at Utumno—and I’m
happy I did. Please tell me you know that.”
“I do now.”
Mairon shook his head. “I can’t believe you ever doubted it,” he said quietly.
“Can you blame me? There were a lot of people who said it was me, not Valinor, that ruined your career.”
“Does
my career look ruined to you? You let me run half of this place and
design literally whatever I want. I have complete creative freedom, not
to mention the power to fire anyone who screws anything up. I couldn’t
get a better deal anywhere else if I tried. I have everything I could
want.”
Melkor grinned. “Everything?”
Mairon ignored the drop
of his heart and rolled his eyes. “I mean, I wish you would stop
thinking you need to keep things like this from me, and I wish you would
stop being such an uncommunicative twat, but other than that—”
“Hey,” Melkor growled. “Watch it.”
“You asked,” Mairon said, shrugging.
“I could fire you, you know,” Melkor said, glaring at him unconvincingly.
Mairon snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
A slow grin broke over Melkor’s face. “Does this mean we’re cool?”
Mairon
rolled his eyes. “I’ll think about it,” he said. “But—”He turned as the
door to the lab opened. Gothmog leaned in through the open doorway, his
face grave.
“There you are,” he said, panting slightly. “Have you seen—oh.” His gaze fell on Melkor. “Does this mean you two talking again?”
Mairon looked back at Melkor. “Provisionally,” said Mairon.
“Good,” Gothmog said. “Better to face this with a united front, at least.”
“What’s the matter?” Melkor asked, pushing himself up from the bench and starting for the door.
Gothmog
shook his head. “Brace yourselves,” he said darkly. “I have a feeling
the shit we’re already in is about to get a whole lot deeper.”
Summary: The immediate aftermath of the ill-conceived raid of Formenos. Mairon
isn’t exactly pleased to have been left out of the heist, let alone have
to try to figure out a way to fix it. Shockingly, Melkor fails to
grasp the concept of an apology. (find it on ao3!)
(watch for some mentions of blood)
At the knock on the door, Melkor sunk so low in his seat that his
knees knocked against Thuringwethil’s shins. Thuringwethil reached over
and tugged on his hair, the only part of him still visible over the
back of the chair, and clucked her tongue disapprovingly at him. “Grow
up,” she hissed, giving his ponytail another yank for good measure. He
sullenly pushed himself upright once more.
“Easy for you to say,”
he hissed back, eyes shifting nervously toward the door as Gothmog
pulled back the deadbolt and unlatched the chain. He barely had a chance
to turn the handle before Mairon burst into the apartment, his eyes
finding Melkor almost immediately and fixing him with an angry glare as
he advanced through the living room like the very embodiment of vengeful
rage. “What did you do?” he demanded, spitting out each word like
venom. He paused for only the briefest of seconds beside the table where
Melkor sat, pinned under Thuringwethil’s brutal grip, and glowered
malevolently at him before continuing.
“What do you mean—hey,
where are you going?” Mairon had already disappeared down the hallway,
leaving a chilly silence in his wake. “So that’s how it’s going to be,
huh?” Melkor muttered sulkily.
Thuringwethil inspected the skin of
his cheek, touching it lightly with her fingertips. “Remember the
incident with the staff scientist Mairon hired a few years ago in
programming? The guy who tried to bring him a coffee to get on his good
side?”
The faintest inkling of memory stirred in Melkor’s mind as Thuringwethil reached for the butterfly strips on the table.
“The
one who spilled said coffee all over the prototype Mairon had stayed up
the entire night finishing for the northeast regional tech conference,”
Gothmog added.
“Ah,” said Melkor said, a sinking feeling
accompanying the memory in his mind. “Right. We had to find the kid a
job overseas somewhere because Mairon was so hellbent on insisting he
would never work again.”
“That’s the one,” Gothmog said grimly.
Melkor grimaced. “Are we approaching that level of meltdown?”
Thuringwethil
clucked her tongue. “Oh, you poor thing,” she said patronizingly. “That
was about a six on the Mairon meltdown scale.”
Melkor swallowed nervously. “And what are we at now?”
Thuringwethil
and Gothmog exchanged a look as, from down the hall, they heard a door
slam. “Honestly?” said Thuringwethil, leaning in very close to Melkor’s
face. “I’m not sure the scale goes this high.”
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