"Probably I do want to have the context, then. I will request that Vanyel come in a moment and ask you under Truth Spell if you have fudged anything, but - is there anything else that you wish to speak of first? Since we are likely not to see each other again until after the war, and - one or both of us will no longer be the person we are now. Depending on who wins." 

(Damn it his brain is being stupid it should not be at all romantic imagining the version where Sauron wins and Maitimo - has him - and does what he wants with him - oaths don't work on humans and he's not sure what the space of possibilities is and he should stop thinking about the topic RIGHT NOW–)

"If I win," he says, "I won't change who you are. There's a very important sense in which Sauron can't capture you alive, right, at least not once you've noticed he has you, and so I only can if you believe me that remaining who you are leaves the world better than destroying yourself. But - that's a concession I'm happy to make, for having you. A little less torture, a little less death, a little less horror, a little more hope that someday the forces of good get another chance, in exchange for your company - I'd do it. We'll have to hash out the details later, of course, but you should know now that it's on the table."

Telumë nods. Allows himself one small, brief, careful smile. The world is certainly more interesting for having both of them in it, he thinks, distantly. 

(He still doesn't intend to let himself be captured alive, but...in the worst case...well, it seems important that he can think about the worst case, that it not be a yawning pit of horror he flinches away from.) 

"I am going to miss you," he says, without any particular expression, just a statement of fact. 

"You could visit. We couldn't talk but you could blindfold me and do whatever you wanted and then leave and I can't imagine how that'd leak anything."

"I am definitely not going to do that." He smiles a little as he says it, though. Stands up. "I will ask Vanyel to come in now." 

"If you think about it you have a moral duty to do that if the alternative is being distracted by wanting me all the time." But he turns away and waits patiently for Vanyel.

He sticks his head out. :Vanyel? I need a Truth Spell. I promise it is not for anything that is very messed up or a bad idea: 

"You know," he says conversationally, returning to his chair, "there is an argument that you have a moral obligation to decide to stop loving me, if it causes you to wish to take actions such as 'reducing the amount of torture in the world if you win, so that you can still have me.'" He's unsure what Maitimo will do with this line of reasoning but he's quite curious. 

"So the offer makes the world worse by my values if I end up in the position of having to follow through on it, but better by my values from my current position. And it's useful to be the kind of person who can credibly offer that kind of thing, even if this means sometimes you end up doing things that are worse than not doing them.

And it's obviously in your interests to stop loving me and you haven't done it."

"Yet," Telumë says dryly. 

Vanyel comes in, his face impassive, and stands near the door. He doesn't move; it's maybe slightly visible in his expression that he's concentrating. The blue halo of the first-level Truth Spell appears over Maitimo's hair. 

"Have you altered or fudged or otherwise made strategic-for-you moves with the memories you intend to give me, over the time you have known that you would make that offer and I might accept?" Telumë asks. 

"No."

"Did you do anything like that in advance of knowing that you might be captured and this situation could occur?" 

"No. I thought about it but I wanted - the most accurate picture I could possibly have. And I didn't think you were at all likely to take me alive."

"Are you offering this with the thought that it will make me weaker in some way I am unlikely to notice now?" 

Pain. "Might make you care more about me, in the way that - most communication among us about who we are as people does because we're very compatible people - and as we were just discussing it's in your interests not to care about me. But this is filtered for being the memories where there's more content about you and less content about our relationship.

Also I'm very sure you'll notice."

"Well. We are very compatible people except for the part where you are currently trying to maximize torture in the multiverse, anyway." Telumë ducks his head. "I accept. Though I wish to have a Mindhealer here to watch my mind and make sure you are not affecting it in any way other than that." 

"That makes sense."

"Vanyel, you can go. Ask Nayoki to come here, please." He waits. 

Nayoki arrives, meets Maitimo's eyes for a moment, then stands by the wall and watches Telumë closely. 

"You can start. How long will this take?" 

"Maybe a couple of hours for everything, but I can do the first ten minutes and then you can consider whether you want the rest compressed somehow..."

And Maitimo sends - his very first impression of Leareth, on the day Fëanáro threatened his half-brother in front of all of Tirion, already one of the busiest and most stressful days of his life - Leareth offering to help them with their strife, Leareth casually demonstrating that he could block osanwë (Maitimo'd been terrified, hidden it), Leareth's immediate diagnosis of the problem - evil god - so obvious in retrospect but in a thousand years they'd never seen the pattern from afar in the right way - Leareth even more casually mentioning that he could be, and in fact was, reading Maitimo's mind - offering to stop - I have seen enough to know that you are someone I wish to have as an ally -

Maitimo misses him, desperately, he's not trying to send that as well but he can't not do it.

What a stupid, pointless, frustrating situation they're in, that Maitimo misses him and he hasn't even left. It's a very good thing he thought to pre-commit via deliberate compulsions to being sensible here. 

"I will take the rest now, at least as much as can fit before your father arrives," he says, turning his chair so his face isn't visible to Maitimo. "Thank you." 

So he sends him the whole of their interactions as they prepared for departing Valinor - Leareth guessed his secret, took him aside to say that he didn't care at all - and Maitimo should've been relieved, was mostly relieved, but there was definitely a part of him that thought this was the second-best outcome, that the best outcome would've been for Leareth to guess his secret and take him aside to -

- no, no, on to the next interaction, the departure from Valinor, the surprise attack, the war, the desperate planning to go get Vanyel - Leareth worrying about Vanyel's unhealthy inclination towards suicide - Leareth offering Maitimo a thoughts-protective necklace, asking for hair-braiding advice - Maitimo will skip the rest of that memory, actually, it's probably not strategically important for rebuilding oneself - 

- and then the surprise attack. He stops there. He's crying. 

“It was not your fault,” Telumë says, quietly, neutrally, still facing the wall. “I...ought to go now, I think. Thank you.”