Part Three:
Faramir was tired. Too many nights with too little sleep had finally caught up with him and this night sleep would not be held at bay. He was grateful for this, thankful for the ease and grace with which sleep would come to him tonight. For many hours he slept the deep and dreamless slumber of the thoroughly exhausted. Too many silent battles had needed to be fought and too much time had passed without slumber or counsel for a wearied mind.
Slowly his sleep changed, the impenetrable blackness of his subconscious fading, dissolving until a small spark of light appeared, growing ever larger. He soon realized that this was the moon; round and almost full tonight in a midnight sky bedecked with jewel-like stars.
As the light grew brighter, Faramir began to be able to make out some of his surroundings. A large dark wardrobe stood next to him, taller than he by a generous amount, its broad frame easily dwarfing the man who stood strong and silent in its shadow.
Faramir remembered childhood days spent in this room, remembered a wardrobe much like this one only not so tall. Different in that it had housed not solely clothing waiting to be worn, but two young boys, laughter muffled by the wood and the other’s hand if need be, as they awaited discovery. So many times had they hidden in its depths, sure in childish minds that discovery would evade them today. Sometimes it had, the generous wardrobe concealing them from careless view, allowing precious time for childish games, saving them from the horror of bath time.
Inevitably they would be discovered, and two squirming boys would be dragged down the hall, unclothed and set unceremoniously into a gleaming white bath filled with steaming water. They grown-ups did not understand. Gruff stokes would quickly cleanse both muddied countenances, not realizing that these were not mere boys in the bath. They were warriors, valiant and true. Their mud covered skin a proud badge of honor. Always were they unconcerned with the disturbing fact that they were stripping two warriors of their hard won honor. Honor that must be reclaimed at the earliest possible opportunity.
The room swam slowly into focus. The ceiling stood high above him, yet not so high as it had once seemed to his childish mind. The far wall was occupied by a broad window frame sectioned off into neat squares that allowed flashing cubes of moonlight into the room, flooding it with its cool glow.
In the center of the room, set snugly against the wall was a wide bed. The moonlight fell easily across the foot, a gently folded blanket simply waiting for warm hands to pluck it from its resting spot. Elegant folds of cloth tumbled from the border of the bed frame. Yet it was not this that captured Faramir’s attention.
In the bed lay the still form of his brother, silently sleeping. Faramir crouched low in the shadows, wanting to go to his brother but something stopped him. Something he could not understand. All he knew was that this was not a night for action, but one in which his role would simply be to watch.
Presently there came a soft sound from behind him. He watched as his brother stirred, Faramir’s attention drawn effortlessly from the disturbance back to Boromir. He realized that his brother had never really been sleeping at all. He’d been waiting.
A figure stole silently across the room though Faramir watched his brother and not this intruder. He noted how Boromir never moved and how his attention remained so wholly focused on this man moving towards him. The man stepped into the wash of moonlight. He was tall, almost the same height as Boromir, with softly curling hair. He had a proud nose that brought to mind Boromir’s own. His eyes were a clear gray-blue, a color that brought to mind the sky on a midwinter day. Faramir was looking at himself. It gave him an odd sensation in the pit of his stomach to watch as this figure, himself but so foreign at the same time, moved across the room.
Any thought in his mind about this was obliterated as he watched himself slide between the covers, his brother’s arms wrapping easily around him. How well he remembered that sensation, in his mind he painted in the details until he could almost feel those arms around him now. This would’ve been the moment he waited for all day. Every other matter would fade in his mind when the moment finally arrived that he should find himself in those arms.
He watched as Boromir pulled the man, himself and yet somehow not, closer, watched as strong fingers twined through golden brown hair. It was beautiful. There was something so natural in the way they fell into each other, as though together they truly made sense. Faramir watched as his hands came up to frame his brother’s face. He could almost feel the warmth of skin beneath his fingers now, so many times had he done that. He’d always loved the way Boromir’s face had fit into his hands so easily, the way it had looked as though he could hold his brother’s beauty in his grasp. For a few moments, a few silent seconds it was solely his. For these few stolen moments it belonged only to him and how he had loved that, how it had thrilled him.
Boromir moved then, one hand coming up to settle over his brother’s hand. Faramir liked that even better, as though the simple touch anchored this moment, made it real in a way that it had not been until now. A light touch that made it not simply his moment but theirs. He could almost feel the soft puff of his brother’s breath across his skin, breathing in the same air until it made his head spin.
Boromir’s hand moved then, leaving Faramir’s and reaching up to come in contact with his brother’s face. Strong fingers would trace a path so familiar they seemed to move of their own accord, calloused skin moving over smooth so softly the touch was almost hesitant. But there was no hesitance. Not here, not now. Not ever. There was no room for hesitating, there was just this. Boromir’s fingers settling, finding a temporary home against his brother’s throat. It did not matter where they stopped just so long as they were against Faramir’s skin, just so long as he had this. That was home enough for them.
Faramir watched as the moved towards each other, so close together and yet they seemed to be moving in slow motion as they closed that last gap. As though this final touch was something to be revered, a delicious sense of anticipation that would not be rushed but must be abided in its torturously slow way. Their lips met then and Faramir released the breath that he had not know he had been holding. They moved slowly together, a familiar dance that no matter how many times it was repeated it lost none of its fluidity, but found acquaintance made it all the more entrancing. He could so easily recall how every time he felt his brother’s mouth on his the way his pulse had pounded in his ears, blocking out every thought, every noise but for any small sound of pleasure that may slip past Boromir’s lips.
Faramir swallowed hard as he watched the scene unfold before him, wandering hands moving surely until skin was exposed to their eager caresses. He could hear the echoed sighs at the feel of skin pressing against skin. It had been too long. It had always been too long, each moment of the endless day an excruciating build up to these moments. Boromir shifted, his body settling easily over his younger brother’s, mouth moving over moonlit skin, worshipping every inch of Faramir’s body that he could reach, too entranced by the taste of the skin beneath his lips to wish to venture further yet.
Faramir watched avidly as his own head fell back onto the pillows, arching up into the mouth that moved relentlessly over him, giving himself over to his brother’s ministrations completely. His eyes never left the figures in the bed as the two bodies moved together, each undulation, each breath so intuitive that he couldn’t tell who ended where any longer. He could feel the desperate need to be closer, never close enough. He watched himself now, feeling the answering play of muscles in his back as he imitated his own movements, pressing up into his brother, eyes now drawn to the play of muscles in Boromir’s own back, broad and strong. Watched the way muscles worked beneath skin marred by scars from battle as he moved inside of his brother, long, slow, teasing thrusts.
Faramir was shocked by the raw beauty of the moment, of the movements. The splendor of his brother in these moments struck him the hardest. The masculine strength of his frame leaving Faramir breathless, the moonlight casting his body in an unearthly glow that illuminated his skin and highlighted every muscle, made him exquisite. Beauty meant to be remembered.
He’d always been too caught up in the pleasure of his brother’s body against and in his own, had never learned the vision Boromir presented at these moments. Faramir caught his lip between his teeth as he heard the breathless sound of his own voice, for a moment he knew not whether it came from himself or the version of himself across the room. Boromir’s pleasure followed only moments later, a jagged moan that Faramir knew would be felt deep in his chest, one that he could feel reverberating into his own body as though his brother wished to pour himself into him. Too long had it been since he had heard that, felt it. No sound could be more welcome to his ears, he craved it.
Boromir now dropped down, his body fully against his brother’s, a welcome weight. Faramir’s hands moved sluggishly up to trace over his skin lightly slicked with sweat. Boromir rolled to his side then, still holding his brother so close there was barely room for them to move. How Faramir had loved that, being held so closely to the body of the one dearest to him, feeling his heartbeat echo his brother’s. He watched as his own arms tightened around Boromir, limbs tangled together as sleep claimed them.
Faramir stood then, ignoring the heat that had pooled in his own groin as he moved closer until he stood at the side of the bed, studying the two figures in it. He hesitantly reached out a hand, brushing away a stray lock of hair from his brother’s forehead. Boromir stirred slightly in his sleep, pressing his face into the hollow of Faramir’s neck and settling there.
Pressing his fingertips to his lips, he then reached down, barely touching the smooth skin of Boromir’s cheek. Boromir did not stir this time, but remained soundly asleep in his brother’s, in Faramir’s own arms. He stood there for another moment, unable to move away, could not break this contact.
* * *
Faramir opened his eyes to the soft light of the early morning that filtered into his chambers. Raising his hand to his face, he imagined that he could still detect the scent of Boromir’s skin lingering on his own. He turned from his side, rolling onto his back, painfully aware of the pressure in his groin. One hand reached slowly down, taking himself in hand. Images of his brother still vivid in his mind, the familiar sounds of his pleasure echoing softly urged Faramir’s hand on. He closed his eyes, biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted the bitterness of his own blood upon his tongue, but not a noise did he make as the wave of pleasure washed over him, his muscles tightening at the intensity of the release.
Faramir rolled to his side once more then, curling tightly up. He fell into a dreamless sleep, not waking until the sun had risen into the leaden sky, the dawn of a new day that looked to be as bleak as the one before it.