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i-did-not-mean-to · 1 month

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Chapter 3: Caranthir x Finrod

And we go on :) Another rare-ish pair I like quite a bit...(They're also the April YOTP, so stay tuned)

Pairing: Caranthir x Finrod

Prompt: Annoyances to lovers

Words: 2775

Warnings: It's a crime story, there's a dead person...insecurity, flirting, fear of death, threats...the usual :D

It was a new and exhilarating experience for Gothmog to get to use his brains rather than his brawl, and so he was uncharacteristically shy and skittish about his research, purposefully avoiding his friends and cronies the whole afternoon to go over their lawyer’s notes once more in peace.

As far as he could tell, the women had not lied.

Even though Fëanor’s holdings were extensive, all the documentation anyone had been able to unearth was meticulously and flawlessly tabulated. No doubt, this was due to the mysterious son he’d have the pleasure to meet soon.

More than once, though, Gothmog had to forcefully draw his attention back to the endless sheets of paper stacked haphazardly on his bed as his thoughts tended to drift off to circle aimlessly around the golden sheen of Eönwë’s hair or the alluring curve of his sweet smile instead.

“Pull yourself together!” It was not like him to lose his head over a pretty stranger, and so Gothmog was considerably worried by the pervasive weakness that made his heart race and his skin feel too tight to contain the feelings bubbling wildly under the forcibly calm and collected surface.

He had a mission! Mairon had tasked him with clearing their boss’s name, and he could not be side-tracked by the laughably irrelevant fact that Eönwë—in all his naïve diligence—was the single most seductive and endearing creature he had ever met.

“How are you progressing?” Manwë tapped his fingers against the polished surface of the desk impatiently. “Have you found any proof that Melkor has offed that other idiot?”

Frowning, Eönwë shook his head. “This all seems much more complicated than anticipated.”

In an entirely unprecedented flight of petulant secrecy, he decided not to tell his boss about his confidential informant who had effectively grown into a fully-fledged partner in this doomed investigation.

“I’ll interrogate one of Fëanor’s sons today to see if there might have been a financial angle to consider…”

“Nonsense,” Manwë thundered. “Melkor brutally slaughtered the man for his own amusement.”

Eönwë could not even fathom how anyone would perpetrate such a vicious crime for fun, but he knew better than to contradict his superior when he was in one of his dark, obsessive moods.

“I’ll report back to you as soon as I get the slightest inkling of Melkor’s potential involvement,” he promised. “I appreciate that you are sure of yourself, but we need solid proof to convict anyone.”

The sneer marring Manwë’s placid face told Eönwë that his boss was nearing the point where he’d no longer care about proper, legal prosecution, devolving instead into a fanatical vigilante and risking the good name of the precinct as well as his own illustrious career in the maniacal persecution of his reviled sibling.

A part of the young detective wanted to ask about the grievous implications Gothmog’s off-hand comment had uncovered, but he didn’t dare.

“I’m on it,” he said as reassuringly as he could and fled the office.

Caranthir, it turned out, lived in the city centre, and so Gothmog and Eönwë decided to walk to the apartment complex in comfortable togetherness that almost felt like intimacy.

The air was cool and crisp, and the birds sang in the trees. All in all, their excursion might have been a pleasant one, but both were tense and miserable after their respective woefully unsuccessful quests for knowledge.

“Manwë is not telling me everything,” Eönwë sighed, at once mortified to have uttered so treacherous and disloyal a complaint out loud.

To his astonishment, Gothmog merely shrugged nonchalantly. “They never do—that’s why they’re the bosses and we’re doing the legwork. We simply got to trust that they’ll eventually share what we need to know in good time.”

“I am afraid they play with loaded dice—it feels to me as if we were led to find exactly what we’re meant to unearth and…”

“Don’t worry,” Gothmog said softly. “Even if that is true—and I am not saying that it’s not—you have done your duty, and there’s not much more you can achieve without their support. This is above our pay grade anyway!” He waved his hand expressively.

Miserable, Eönwë, whose best had never been quite good enough, nodded and stepped hesitantly into the cool, shadowy foyer of a large apartment complex. “The office is on the 10th floor.”

Jamming his palm against the whole panel of small chrome buttons, Gothmog winked. He was not sure that he could cheer Eönwë up, but he’d at least try to annoy him enough to distract him from his feelings of doubt and inadequacy.

A cacophony of greetings—interlaced with babies crying and dogs barking—resounded, and Eönwë was forced to almost yell “Police” like a sorry excuse of a rooster until only one deep, slightly scratchy voice remained.

“I have expected you,” Caranthir said in a clipped tone. “Come up!”

“I wonder whether that one will be alone now,” Eönwë mused aloud and almost missed the next step of the smooth, marble stairs.

Usually, he kept his ungenerous and unjust thoughts to himself unconditionally, and he was aghast to realise that this was the second time in the course of a single morning that he had let slip his most intimate reflections.

“Nobody should be alone in times like these,” Gothmog replied calmly.

“Of course, of course…” Maybe, Eönwë thought, it was that understated, seemingly self-evident generosity of mind and soul which made it so easy for him to let Gothmog in.

Due to his own checkered past and questionable morality, the intimidatingly winning crook didn’t instinctively judge and condemn others harshly before having fully understood the situation.

And Gothmog apparently liked to take his sweet time with coming to any kind of conclusion.

Unfortunately, his near-negligent “innocent until proven guilty”- mentality—from which he had benefited himself more than once, no doubt—was in stark contradiction to Manwë’s philosophy pertaining to this case.

Before Eönwë could whip himself into a frenzy of mental torment over these opposing philosophies, though, they reached the top of the stairs to find a slender man of medium height with cold eyes waiting for them.

“You are Caranthir,” Eönwë exclaimed softly.

“Evidently, as you’ve rung my doorbell. Who else did you expect?” the man inquired with biting sarcasm.

“Moryo, don’t turn them against you before they’ve even entered.” Together with the sweet, melodious voice coaxing their suspect into amending his hostile mien appeared another man, gracile and radiant.

“I’m Finrod,” he introduced himself. “Please, come in. Dear Moryo is, as is understandable, not in a bright mood.”

He waved Eönwë and Gothmog into the flat with the easy charm of an accomplished host.

“He often isn’t,” Finrod prattled joyfully. “Don’t let it fool you, though. He’s a gem of a man!”

Gothmog raised his eyebrows tellingly at the lead investigator of the case, making Eönwë suppress a long-drawn, shivering sigh of frustration.

Of course, Caranthir could not simply have been alone. At this point, such luck would have been a statistical impossibility, and they’d simply have to work through another tangle of implications and ambiguous relationships.

“Do you live here?” Eönwë asked in a friendly tone, trying to get a read on the only person who seemed willing to talk to him as they entered a clinically sterile, fashionably minimalistic living room.

“No,” Caranthir grunted cuttingly. “He has a nasty habit of slipping in when one is not paying attention and then refusing to leave again, like a particularly clingy stray cat.”

Unlike the previous unexpected additional suspects they’d had the honour or displeasure to stumble upon, Finrod seemed utterly unfazed by their presence and slung his arm around the moody financier with exuberant, ostentatious enthusiasm and affection.

“Ah, Moryo loves it when I get on his nerves,” he crooned and pressed a resounding kiss on the quickly, treacherously reddening cheek of the stone-faced legal resident of the scarily clean apartment.

Lifting one finger as if to protest, Eönwë caught the amused twinkle in Gothmog’s eyes and decided that this was not a hill he wanted to die on.

Just because he didn’t enjoy being mocked and annoyed, it didn’t mean that nobody could.

“We’ve come to ask about the deceased’s finances,” he said instead after clearing his throat nervously. “Is there anyone who’d benefit from your father’s death?”

The expression on Caranthir’s face left no doubt as to how stupid he found that question.

“The man had seven sons,” he replied in a tone usually reserved for imbeciles and small children. “We are his sole heirs, besides a small sum set aside for our mother, and—before you ask—nobody of us needed money badly enough to kill our father for it.”

When neither Gothmog nor Eönwë reacted, he rolled his eyes in unrepressed exasperation.

“It was quite a lump sum,” Gothmog interjected probingly.

“He was a genius,” Caranthir scoffed.

“And quite generous to boot,” Finrod commented lightly. “If any of his sons had needed financial aid, Fëanor would gladly have provided it. He always seemed more preoccupied with the status inherent to making money than with the hoarding of wealth per se.”

“What I meant,” Caranthir grunted, giving his insistent houseguest a sharp side glance that was answered by a radiant, joyous grin, “is that, had my father lived, he would inevitably have made more money.”

A minute frown rippled across Eönwë’s fair brow at that—he’d almost forgotten that this specific son had distinguished himself by being eminently fiscally responsible. It was only logical that he’d consider his father a secure and lucrative investment which he’d rather maintain than liquidate precociously.

“So…nobody loved him, but no one had any reason to want him dead either?” Eönwë scoffed dejectedly.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Finrod mused in a deceivingly light, playful voice.

“Please, elucidate that thought,” Eönwë encouraged, and Gothmog nodded hearteningly.

“Well, I only…you won’t find a good reason for killing Fëanor—not money, not power, not disappointed love—for he was too good by far at keeping people hooked by dangling what they desired most just out of reach.”

Finrod took a deep breath and looked over at Caranthir, evidently afraid that he had revealed too much already about a man who was protected from being badmouthed by social convention and filial piety.

Waving a slender, pale hand nonchalantly, Caranthir cocked his head in quiet curiosity.

“The person who killed him,” Finrod sighed, “did so out of helpless hatred and unbearable envy. They probably didn’t gain anything from it other than having bested Fëanor once and for all.”

“Just to see him dead?” Gothmog gasped. Despite all his years of morally questionable service, he was nevertheless shocked by the idea of so callous and gratuitously vicious a crime.

“Yes,” Finrod sighed. “He was a difficult man, disliked by many, loathed by quite a few, and profoundly, madly hated by at least one.”

As two pairs of eyes—sky blue and flaming darkness—came to rest on him inquisitively, he threw up his hands with a small scream of dismay.

“Not I,” he asseverated passionately. “I love dear Moryo too much to break his brittle heart so. I knew Fëanor but very little and appreciated him even less, but—for the sake of my friends and my sweet love—I would have gladly borne him as often as necessary.”

Turning ostentatiously towards Eönwë, Gothmog stared at his partner pleadingly, his hands shaking with the need to grab the cocky, overconfident youngster by the collar and shake him viciously until he revealed all he knew.

In a commendable display of faith, Eönwë nodded. “Is there anyone who comes to mind?” he asked, opening his innocent eyes as wide as possible to convey the impression of candid curiosity, even though every wheel and cog in his mind was turning ceaselessly.

“No,” Finrod replied a little too quickly, averting his gaze from the insidious image of inoffensive, innocuous interest to escape the magnetic pull of Eönwë’s secret might. “I can’t say that I do—as I’ve already said, I had no reason to want him dead.”

“But someone you know might?” Eönwë reiterated stubbornly.

“Not that I’d know.” The harried, golden-haired youth chuckled nervously. “People don’t go around confessing their murderous intention to just anyone.”

This drew a short, barking guffaw from Gothmog—he got to hear a long list of potential homicide victims from his friends and colleagues on the daily, and he wondered what it would feel like to hate someone enough to kill them without having anyone to talk to about it.

More than once, members of his crew had talked one another off the ledge, and a good many annoying but ultimately harmless people were alive and well thanks to the brave and unyielding intervention of another, more clear-headed person.

“You talk too much,” Caranthir cut in, his tone forbidding and his face stern. “I surmise they’ve mainly come to gain insight into my father’s accounts.”

His look grew shrewd and calculating. “Of course, they have no right to do so lest a judge has signed off on this, right?”

With easy grace, Eönwë waved his evident hostility aside. “Not at all, we’ve only come to ask you—very amicably, I assure you—whether there was anything in those ledgers that would shed some light on the matter.”

“There wasn’t,” Caranthir declared decisively. “There isn’t. If there’s nothing else you’d want to know from me, I bid you a good day.”

“You’re not telling us all you know,” Eönwë grunted accusingly.

Cocking his head, Caranthir scoffed. “Self-explanatory,” he drawled. “The things I know are innumerable, and most of them are for sale.”

“And some are not,” Gothmog remarked under his breath. “Like your loyalty and affection?”

“Oh, you can’t buy, steal, or coerce that one out of him, take my word,” Finrod cackled, seemingly recovering seamlessly and with enviable verve from his previous slip.

“You are very much your mother’s son.”

“Is that a compliment or an insult?” Caranthir asked sharply, his cheeks heating up rapidly once more.

“I am not sure,” Gothmog confessed. “She’s also made it very clear that she has her suspicions, and—as much as she regrets her ex-husband’s tragic demise—she’d rather not help us find the killer.”

For a long moment, nobody said anything as they all sized each other up, mentally tabulating the pros and cons of the very improbable success of his cursed investigation.

“Blood only begets more blood,” Finrod finally said with a minute shrug. “Maybe, it will all end with Fëanor’s death…”

“Unlikely,” Eönwë grumbled. “Someone who’s killed once might well try to do it again…to the next person in their way. It’s a very slippery slope.”

“We’re watchful,” Caranthir hissed while looking Gothmog straight in the eye challengingly. “We know who our enemies are.”

“I am afraid that you’re mistaken,” Eönwë contradicted softly, remembering the fey light of zealous, blind, obsessive hatred in Manwë’s eyes. “I am very afraid indeed.”

Suddenly, he felt like a dangerous intruder in this translucent bubble of strenuously maintained solace.

“Here’s my card—if you can think of anything else…you or any other member of your family and entourage. Please, give me a call!”

Before he’d finished his sentence, he knew for a fact that they wouldn’t contact him and that it was for the best.

“Let’s go, Gothmog, we…”

“We put them in more danger, I know,” the huge henchman whispered and swept out of the flat behind Eönwë without taking his leave.

They walked back to the precinct in silence.

Before Gothmog could melt into the shadows of a narrow, dirty alleyway, Eönwë looked up sharply.

“Tomorrow,” he said in a low, thrumming voice, “I will come to the pub.”

“Don’t,” Gothmog interrupted, pulling him behind a very malodorous dumpster. “Walk down this cobbled street until you reach the abandoned meat packing plant. I will wait for you there.”

“If it’s one of us.” All colour had left Eönwë’s face and his lips trembled ever so slightly.

“If it’s one of us,” Gothmog confirmed with a grim nod. “We must discuss this where nobody can see or hear.”

It was only when Eönwë sat down at his desk and found a note from Manwë—demanding that he update him as soon as he came back from his interrogation—that he understood that Gothmog was afraid for his safety.

Taking a deep breath, he got up again and turned his steps toward the closed door of his boss’s office.

How would he explain that he knew less now than when he’d started investigating? How could he hide that he’d begun questioning everything?

So, that was the last official chapter of this...there will be an epilogue...but this concludes the rare pair Bingo :D

Lots of love from me!

-> Masterlist