There is a thickness in the air ever since Thorin has returned home, a thickness that cannot be pierced by soft word or kind touch. And so Blog has taken to hiding Fili in their apartments when Azog returns from court, and Thorin's patients have fallen flat as he paces the walls of his rooms.
“You owe him your life, Thorin!” Azog screams, well aware that their argument is growing too close to a drop neither is prepared to face. “And now you spit in Blog's face! You have grown cruel since your days with the Dwarves!”
“How dare you!” Thorin spits, and there is a gleam in his eyes that sends both fear and arousal along Azog's spin. It is a look he has never seen on his lover's face. It is a look of danger and of death. And if Azog cared for his health, he would care to step away.
But he is far too angry by now to rein his temper. “I dare!” he roars, rising to his full height to tower over his lover. "Silence me if you can? Or have they taken both your heart and your strength!"
He knows he has gone too far as soon as he spoke, that to insult his lover's strength is keen to insulting their children, so he expects the blow when it comes. Still, he notes bitterly, it is not like Thorin to be tricked so easily. Where has his cunning könül gone. He dodges the blow, twists the other’s arm behind his back and slams him into the wall easily. A cut above Thorin's eye begins to bleed, but otherwise he gives no inch.
“You’re getting slow, my light,” he hisses into Thorin’s ear as he pins his body against the flat surface with his own weight.
Thorin growls something unintelligible and Azog suddenly feels like he is holding a beast, not a love. He buries his face in the long dark hair, feels the strength of the muscular body that is pressed against his own and the inevitable desire coursing through his veins, and tries not to let his heart break anymore than it already has.
“This is wrong,” he thinks to himself in despair. Out loud he growls, “I don’t know you anymore.”
“When have you ever known me as more than a cap-tive?” Thorin taunts, but by the break in his voice Azog can tell that Thorin has gone too far.
In the ensuing silence the words unspoken and unapologized for ring loud and clear.
Suddenly something snaps within. Something as cold and as cruel as the legends of Orcs have always whispered to be true. He is seething with anger, feels the darkness rising within his own soul. His grip tightens until Thorin is squirming in his grasp, landing a bruising kick on his shin. He wants to make Thorin scream. For once in his life, in this anger and madness, as his kingdom falls apart around him, as the dwarves pound against his doorstep, as his husband turns on him despite willingly coming home...He wants to make his Könül break.
For a moment, Azog freezes as he comes to terms with the depths of his cruelty and considers leaving, going away, hiding with Blodog and drinking until he forgets. And then Thorin snarls an unspeakable curse in Khuzdul, and Azog shoves him harder against the cold stone and bites his neck to draw blood and they are lost.