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When they first ride into the gates of Nargothrond, the two of them— Curufin the image of his father and Celegorm with his silver hair hidden beneath a hunter’s hood— smile, proud and glorious, outshining the shafts of sunlight that sink into the yawning glittering caves of Finrod’s home.
Celegorm removes his hood shortly after, and the light of him is angelic, shining and heavy as a stream in the dawn, and Finrod remembers the way his father’s mother smiled in her sorrow, telling him in his youth of Miriel’s silver hair and otherworldly pallor and of how deeply Finwe had loved her, how deeply Indis herself had felt— such sisterly love, such admiration, and mourned her departure inconsolably.
It had not much soothed the sting of Feanor’s scorn, when he looked down at his nephew and turned away; and it did not now diminish the sense of doom, of fell misgiving, that touched at Finrod’s heart.
And yet when Celegorm sat beside him in the quiet of their chambers, still leaf-smelling from the hunt and laughing bright-heartedly at his brother’s stickling uprightness (for Curufin rarely took his meals with his brother and cousin, preferring solitude in the crafting-halls as had been his father’s habit), Finrod remembered less how high and sacred Miriel’s memory had become, and remembered more how his grandmother’s face had softened, how her eyes stared into the middle distance as she spoke Miriel’s name. If she had been as beautiful as Celegorm, he could understand how Indis might speak of her sainted rival with such longing and tenderness.
And when Celegorm reached out his hand and took up a curl of Finrod’s golden hair, commenting on how truly he took after his grandmother— then Finrod heard himself groan, the smallest tremor of his throat, and was ashamed. Celegorm raised an eyebrow; Finrod knit his brow and looked fiercely into the hearth; and Celegorm leaned further across the table and set his palm to Finrod’s cheek, almost tenderly.
“Greater men than you have fallen prey to my charms,” he smirked, and then gave Finrod’s hair a tug, sharp enough to hurt; and Finrod was thrown from his abashment into full ferocity and hurled himself at Celegorm as if they were both youths, Celegorm laughing in delight and Finrod only half jesting, snarling at him like a hound.
Over they tumbled, pulling at each other’s clothing; when Finrod found himself pressed beneath his cousin and felt the shape of him stiff and hot between them, he betrayed himself again with a gasp, and Celegorm laughed at him again and pulled his hair, fingers twining in the gold as if he could not bring himself to release it. Far beyond caring, Finrod pulled back, twisting silver silk between his fingers until Celegorm’s mouth was close enough to kiss; and Celegorm’s laugh was not entirely mocking, not completely cruel, as he kissed back and let Finrod bite at his lips.
They stripped themselves nearly naked before they both gave up on even getting to the bed, and in the discarded ruin of their clothing they rutted, each seeking supremacy, each rolling and kicking out with elbows and knees to be on top as they thrust against each other. Celegorm laughed as he fought, sneered as he ground himself against his cousin, inheritor of splendor whose confidence abounded so freely he seemed to feel no guilt at their closeness; and Finrod, who had built cities and established thrones, who had felt the insecurity of the second son through generations, surged with guilt and longing, pulling at Celegorm’s hair as if trying to draw the soul out of him, as if hungry for the easy fury of his cousin’s answering snarl.
And when Celegorm came at last, shouting like a hunter who has speared a boar, Finrod rode him viciously, taking advantage of his lassitude to stroke out his completion upon his cousin’s belly; and when the two of them had caught their breath and washed and dressed themselves, Celegorm with a smug smile and satiated eyes and Finrod with terrible misgiving in his belly, they took the rest of their meal upon the same bench, leaning together like warriors fatigued in battle, their hair falling mingled silver and gold.