Boromir/Faramir.

This is: The first part of a many-sectioned, multiple-part fic.

Fandom: Lord of the Rings/Movie-and-book!verse
Pairing: Boromir/Faramir
Title: Faramir Is
Author: ladyjaida. Or, you know. :D Me!
Fic is:

Faramir Is
Part One


ONE.

Faramir is born but his mother's arms are too slim and too slight to hold him. His father is at his mother's side, and so he is placed, warm and whimpering, into his brother's arms. Boromir, Denethor's firstborn son, holds his brother, wondering at how small his face is, his hands, and at how he does not cry.

"There is nothing to cry about," Boromir agrees, soft whispers, rocking him slow. "This is the most beautiful city in all of Middle Earth. Mother says it is our luck to be born here."

Still, as Faramir reaches for his brother's face, Boromir wonders at the shadows just outside his mother's window, and vows they will not ever touch the babe he holds in his arms.


TWO.

Faramir is six when Finduilas dies, and there will come a time when she is nothing more than mist in his mind. Even in the night that follows her death he tries to remember her and finds that remembering a buried mother is the hardest task he has ever set himself to. Before dreams come, he realizes has lost her. And though he searches for her he instead finds in his mind too much has happened posthumously, leaving no room for her, at all. He remembers more the crags deepened in his father's face, the darkness in his father's eyes, the lost scowl upon his lips. He remembers more that now is a time to wear black, to listen to the women weeping, to watch white flowers grow and feel sad. He remembers more that his brother cries only in private and so he must, too, and that his brother is strong and so he must be, too, and that his brother says nothing and so he must also keep silent.

Though he wonders at the nature of her death, the shadow which presses now all the harder upon the walls of Minas Tirith, he sees in his brother's eyes a sadness which makes him forget to be sad, himself. With six year old hands he holds his brother's own, and together they cry the long first night.


THREE.

Faramir is seven when first he learns his father loves him very little, and likes him less. It is by accident, a song sung which he does not remember from his mother's lips but rather from a rhythm within his own heart. He is too young to deny some memories, and hide the rest. When he sings his brother stills and listens, and the pale flesh of Denethor's face mottles in color, the line of his jaw hardened as if it is made of steel and stone. When Faramir comes to the second word of the second verse he looks up too late. It is Boromir who sees, and understands, and moves the more quickly of the two. It is Boromir who throws himself between Faramir and the platter from his father's table, and Boromir who bears the brunt of the blow.

And thus Faramir is marked a coward, while his brother scolded for the impulse to be a shield.

"You cannot always protect him," Denethor's cold words bite, clutch as claws. "He must learn to protect himself, and will not, if he is coddled as a child."

"But father," Boromir protests, "he is a child."

And later, to Faramir, Boromir explains, "You cannot sing such songs, little brother. Not when father might hear them."

So Faramir sings only for Boromir, and it is only Boromir whom he truly trusts.


FOUR.

Faramir is fourteen when for the first time Boromir returns to him injured. Ambushed by orcs, the rumors would have it, and Faramir feels his heart still in his chest at the first muted whispers of news, stolen away by the ice cold fingers of a waking nightmare. As he runs to be by his brother's side in the House of Healing, he remembers promises made, assurances given. He remembers reading to his brother stories of the greatest battles ever fought on Middle Earth, and the light in his brother's eyes that such wondrous deeds could be done by men.

"I would be remembered in such tales," Boromir says in Faramir's memory.

Nineteen is too young, Faramir thinks, breaths coming fast, heart pounding hard. There has not been enough time for his brother to prove himself as he wished then, in battle.

Nineteen is too young to die, and fourteen too young to lose a brother.

Denethor is by Boromir's side, and the worry in his face is more true an emotion than any Faramir has ever seen -- or ever remembers seeing -- on his father's fierce features. Scorn and hate and other biting passions are more familiar to Denethor, and more often grace his expressions. Faramir searches the Steward's eyes for any sign of hope, but there is only the dark stain of misery and a deeper chill of unnatural premonition within them. Faramir knows from his father's eyes that war comes soon to Gondor, sooner than he is old enough to be ready for, but not all the shadows that curse their house come from beyond the Black Gate, birthed by the secret evils of Mordor.

"How fares he?" Faramir asks without thinking. Still he lingers away from the bed, afraid of his father, but more afraid of what lies there.

"Ask him for yourself," Denethor replies. His voice is the sharper edge of a knife, seeking to stick within Faramir's ribs and ruin his relief, but the relief is too great, and denies Denthor's poison.

"Boromir," Faramir cries, and takes up his brother's hand in his own.

Soon enough Denethor leaves, though like a sickness he lingers, and Faramir freely brushes hair from Boromir's face. A long time passes and they do not speak, for Boromir has seen much Faramir cannot bear to imagine, and would not yet even be able to were he to try. But Boromir is ever a man now, a soldier and a well-praised one, well-deserving of such praise. Faramir is the younger and has some years yet left to him of true childhood. He would soothe Boromir's troubled and pained brow could he but know what concerns plague him now. Fear there is in Boromir's eyes, and unchecked worry. Never before have there been silences between the brothers thus.

"You have promised always to return to me safely," Faramir reminds him. He speaks to break the long silence, to ease his brother's dark mood. He hopes his voice sounds less brittle on the air than it feels within him. Though he knows he cannot make light of what has passed, he hopes only to relieve some of his brother's burden.

Boromir holds tight to Faramir's hand, knowing it would better serve the younger's spirits if he spoke, and yet he is long unable to.

"So I promised, once," Boromir replies at last. He feels the true weight of manhood upon him, dark as a shadow, an inevitable truth. "The time seems very long ago."

"But three years." Faramir touches his brother's cheek and finds it both cold and hot at once. "Tell me of the battle you fought," he whispers, on impulse, "and I will turn it to a song for you."

"Until I sleep?"

"Until you sleep soundly," Faramir amends.

So Boromir tells him the tale without embellishment. He has a captain's eye for details and geographies, for the strategies employed during a battle and the counter-strategies, be they defensive or offensive. Faramir tries to make real the words on his brother's lips as images in his own mind.

The song, when Faramir sings it, is not a sad one, and he has a fair, clear voice, yet untouched by an oncoming manhood. Boromir listens and watches Faramir's face.

"You are lovely, brother; when you sing, lovelier still."

As Faramir knows not else of battles, save for what he has read of them, and what he knows of Boromir's stories, he knows only of the soldiers and those who wait by the window for their return. There would be jokes, he thinks, among Boromir's men, if they knew his little brother so fervently welcomed his return with song. Still, Boromir welcomes it, and knowing this, Faramir is glad.

The blush for the compliment does not color Faramir's face until after Boromir sleeps. Then, he sits and holds Boromir's callused sword hand in both his own throughout the night, and oft his mind returns, dwelling on the praise, and his own pleasure at it. Only when Boromir is home and there is time to spend with him freely does Faramir remember the honest of Boromir's compliments. When Boromir is gone, they fade into echoes and mockeries, withering under his father's scowls.

The morning wakes them both early, the older with a less ashen color in his cheeks. At the most welcome sight Faramir does that which he has not for many years: he climbs into his older brother's bed, and into the embrace of his arms. In this manner they comfort one another, until the fond light of morning has passed, and such affection becomes self-conscious and wary.

"I promise you again," Boromir insists, "that whatever state I am in I will ever return home to you."

Faramir touches Boromir's face in idle, graceful hands.

"I hold you to it, brother," he says.