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Title: A Day Without Sunshine (1/2)
Fandom: Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Pairing: Boromir/ Faramir
Rating: NC-17
Words: 10400 (21500 total)
Summary: “Let Faramir have the shop,” Boromir argues. “He knows flowers. He knows the business. And he loves what he does, something you stopped doing since mom died.”
A/N: Flower Shop AU. Inspiration for the flower shop and the floor above it drawn from Natsuyuki Rendezvous, seen here and here. Title from Alan Jackson’s That’s What I’d Be Like Without You.
~
Sunlight.
Faramir remembers it, golden, spilling through their round pothole of a window. Recalls the way it lights the dust motes floating in the air, when his mother sits him and Boromir down in the kitchen, to give them their first budding plants each. Both pots of soil house a plant too young to have flowered fully yet, much like themselves.
“What are these, mama?” Faramir asks, fascinated by the bright golden petals arranged around broad, intricate centers. He touches his fingers to one of the petals, gentle.
To his and his mother’s horror, Boromir tries to flick the head of his flower off, murmuring the common children’s chant, “Mama had a baby and its head popped off.”
“Boromir,” their mother says, sounding scandalized. “That is not a dandelion.” When Boromir springs back a safe distance, properly reprimanded, she laughs and pulls him in close again. “These are sunflowers, from my own garden out back. And now they’re yours.”
She shows them how to water their flowering plants. How to check the soil to see that they haven’t drowned their flowers.
Boromir drowns his anyway, by accident; his theory is that overzealous watering will lead to overzealous growing, which proves otherwise at the test. Faramir’s, on the other hand, flourishes wonderfully, from his careful watering and love.
He talks to it quietly, like it’s a person, the way he’s seen his mother do. Sings to it when he’s sure Boromir isn’t looking, and hums at it when Boromir is. As a result, the sunflower unfurls into a bright, climbing thing, arcing toward the sun from its pot on the windowsill. Shoots up and up until it seems the very paragon of a sunflower, its leaves lush and green, like the ones emblazoned on their parents’ flower shop aprons.
Faramir’s always loved those aprons, home-crafted from soft, forest green cloth, each with a smiling sunflower embroidered across the front. Loves pressing his little fingers into each of the seven stars clustered around the sunflowers, before tracing the words beneath, the name of their parents’ shop: Starlight, Starbright.
Eventually, Faramir’s sunflower grows so tall that he has to lash it to a small pole to keep it upright.
“Oh, Faramir,” his mother says, surprised. “You’ve grown your own special jewel.”
“What about you, mama? Are yours the ones in the garden?” Faramir asks, as he climbs into her lap.
She holds out her other arm, to beckon Boromir over. Boromir hesitates, before setting down his red fire truck and wiggling into her lap beside Faramir, and she closes her arm around him, as if to let them both know they’ll always have a place with her. “I have them right here,” she says, smiling. “You are both my little jewels.” She ruffles their hair, fond. “Shining together.” After a thoughtful pause, she adds, “Do you know what else jewels do?”
“Get stolen?” Boromir quips. Faramir giggles, soft; he knows Boromir’s gotten that from all the superhero cartoons they’ve been watching.
“When jewels of different kinds are set beside each other, they work together to shine all the brighter.”
“Oh,” says Boromir, very quiet. He takes Faramir’s small hands in his, thoughtful. “I see.”
Faramir nods as if he understands this perfect pearl of wisdom, because Boromir will explain anything he doesn’t understand later—and Boromir does, like always, as they sway to and fro on their tree swing outside. The seat’s too small to fit them both side-by-side, so Boromir folds Faramir into his arms and lap, snug. Keeps him from falling off, as he shares the meaning of their mother’s words.
That afternoon is the last, brightest, memory he has of their mother.
What follows is a series of white-lit hospital halls, dim examination rooms and the sharp smell of antiseptic. A sense of otherness that’s all wrong. He hears about how his mother misses something called the Seaside. How her health withers in the City, as the doctors say. There are fancier words and more elaborate explanations, but all Faramir knows is that she’s slipping further and further away each day.
“Faramir,” he remembers his mother whispering one evening, after she’s spoken to Boromir and their father. She cradles his cheek, her palm dry and cool. “You have a real green thumb, just like me. Don’t waste your talent.” Her smile is bright, made all the lovelier still from the autumn light spilling in through the window. They’re at her new room at the hospice—her last room. She must be tired, because she sleeps for a long time after that.
“Boromir?” Faramir asks later, when they’re on their way home. He doesn’t dare talk to their father, whose expression is dull and ashen. “What's a green thumb?”
Boromir turns a watery smile upon him. “It’s what you have when you’re good at growing things.”
“Oh,” says Faramir. He holds his hands at eye level and inspects them carefully. “Mama says I have one, but my thumbs haven’t turned green yet.”
Boromir manages a choked laugh, even as tears stream down his face. “Oh, Faramir.” He hugs Faramir, hard. Holds his hand, too tight. They stay like that for the rest of the drive home, Boromir’s fingers clenched around his, trembling.
It’s only later, far from the presence of their father, that Boromir explains what’s happened to their mother, because Faramir won’t stop pestering him with When will mama come home? And When will mama wake up? That, and there’s no one else to ask.
“Remember how you tried to rescue my sunflower?” Boromir says, after some thought. “The one I couldn’t make grow like yours did?”
Faramir frowns; he had carefully watered Boromir’s too, talked to it for longer, and sung happy songs at it, to make it grow like his own had. Had placed them beside each other in the end, their terracotta pots squeezed together on the windowsill, hoping the influence of the healthy sunflower would rub off on the other. It had remained a wilted, droopy thing, a testament to Boromir’s lack of expertise with growing plants. “Yes.”
“Well, the doctors tried to help mama like you tried to help the flower, but no matter what they tried, it didn’t quite work.”
“Oh,” says Faramir, before his lip starts to tremble, because this analogy, more than anything, has just driven home what has happened to his mother, faster than the grown-up words their father flung at him, or the fancy phrases the doctors used. “Does that…does that mean mama isn’t waking up?”
When Boromir finally nods, Faramir flings himself into Boromir’s arms and sobs, because he’s finally realized that the hope he’s held to have their days of sunlight again is gone.
That the darkness is here to stay.
~
“Do you know where the name of our flower shop comes from?” Boromir had asked once, before their family was sundered by loss. They’re lying on a red-checkered picnic blanket on a small, sloping hill outside their house, arms folded over bellies and legs crossed as they gaze into the night sky.
Faramir purses his lips in thought, and wiggles his toes in the soft grass. “From the poem!” he says. “The one that goes Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight—”
Boromir huffs in the way he does when he’s trying to sound grown-up. “Yes, yes. But mama also told me that she and papa named the shop for the stars they used to watch at night. On this very hill.”
“Oh.” Faramir shuffles closer to Boromir, cuddling into his side against the chill of the night air. Giggles as Boromir throws an arm over him, lazy, to stop him from squirming. “I wish we could take the stars with us, when we go inside,” he says with a sigh.
Boromir says nothing, only hums and draws Faramir closer.
Later, after their mother passes, when it seems like their whole world has dimmed, and even the grandeur of the night sky is not enough to brighten it again, Boromir brings the sky into their room. Cannibalizes parts from a Glo-In-The-Dark Space Kit he received for Christmas in years past, adhering sticky-tacked stars to what parts of the ceiling he can by jumping on the bed and slapping them on.
Boromir manages a moon and several clusters of stars before the bed pops a spring and he slams into the bed face-first.
Instead of crying, though, Boromir looks up and grins through his split lip and bloody nose. “Now we can have the stars with us, even when we’re inside!” he announces.
Faramir plasters a Scooby-Doo band-aid to the scrape on Boromir’s cheek. Touches his lips to the band-aid to kiss the hurt away, like Boromir’s done for his skinned knees, and throws his arms around his brother’s waist, squeezing hard to show his thanks.
In time, he’ll remember it as the first instance Boromir would hang the moon and the stars for him.
It won’t be the last.
~
Boromir becomes a permanent fixture in Faramir’s life after their mother’s passing, especially when their father starts spending longer and longer hours at Starlight, Starbright.
Even when he is home, he slinks away to his study, emerging only to take the occasional meal. He has little to say to Faramir besides words of reprimand, like Boromir would’ve remembered to be quiet, coupled with judging stares that say Your brother could have done better, more and faster.
So Boromir takes it upon himself to make breakfast and dinner for them. Packs them grape-jelly and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, cutting them into triangles the way Faramir likes. Walks Faramir to and from school, and makes sure to hug Faramir when he cries for mama in his sleep, staying to let Faramir curl into him in bed even after his tears have dried.
He still humors Faramir when he checks each morning to see if his thumbs have turned green; Faramir believes that if their mother said he had green thumbs, surely he must develop them sometime.
“They’ll come,” Boromir reassures him, when Faramir looks up at him, expression watery and forlorn at the sight of his small, pale hands. “In time.”
It’s on the one night, when Boromir finds his brother whimpering in his sleep and trembling beneath the covers, that he takes a bright green Mr. Sketch marker and colors Faramir’s thumbs green. Then he pushes into the space behind Faramir and envelopes his brother in his arms. Faramir’s body moves of its own accord to make room for him, used to the long-familiar and comforting motion.
When Faramir wakes up, he’s excited beyond belief, smearing his inky hands all over his brother. “Look, Boromir! I have real green thumbs now!” he exclaims, holding out his hands and showing off his thumbs like a badge of honor. They smell suspiciously like mint, but Faramir decides that maybe that’s how new green thumbs are supposed to smell—minty fresh.
And while most brothers five years the elder might say, “That’s stupid”, or “Get off me, squirt”, Boromir beams and kisses him on the brow. Lets Faramir snuggle into him. “That’s great,” Boromir says softly, proud. “It means you’re officially real good at growing things now.”
This discovery isn’t enough to dull the knife edge of pain from their mother’s loss, but Boromir’s pride in him because of it stirs something in Faramir’s heart. He’s never known life without Boromir, and maybe—just maybe—this flushing of his cheeks, this rapid hammer of his heart against his ribcage, is an extension of the nameless feeling he’s harbored for his brother.
He figures out Boromir’s deception much later, but by then it’s too late; Faramir’s already realized what that nameless feeling is. That he’s stupidly, hopelessly in love with his brother, and the trick with the felt marker only makes him more so.
As stupidly in love as he is, though, Faramir’s no fool, and he buries this new feeling deep and dark within himself. He can’t bear for Boromir to stop his hugs and kisses and cuddles. Can’t bear for Boromir to look at him with horror dawning in his eyes, as he says, I love you too, Faramir.
But not like that.
~
Everything changes in Faramir’s world one afternoon; tilts it completely on its axis, on a day that’s grey and overcast but otherwise unremarkable.
Faramir’s waiting alone at the bus stop to go home, since Boromir has some library project today and has to catch up with him later. He’s holding a little planter of flowers from his teacher, proud of the irises in it that he’s raised from seeds. He plans to give them to Boromir when he gets home, as a surprise, because if anyone is the embodiment of hope, valor, and wisdom, it’s his brother.
“Friggin’ pansy,” one of the kids waiting at the stop spits at Faramir, jostling him by the shoulder on his way past. The boy and his ragtag cluster of friends are in the ninth grade, and Faramir’s heard they’re the toughest kids in the school, running a small racketeering operation and filching kids’ money at lunchtime.
It’s clear that their reputation precedes them, because Faramir spots the other kids cringing away, with no one rising to his defense.
The bullies surround Faramir, kicking dirt at his shoes even as he backpedals and tries to hide behind a tree. Laugh, cruel, as Faramir stumbles over its roots instead, barely managing to save the planter.
“Bet you he plays with dolls and wears girls’ clothes at home,” another of the bullies snickers. “Should we check if he’s wearing them now?”
“He doesn’t,” says a new voice. “And he isn’t. But even if he was, it wouldn’t matter.”
Faramir could cry in relief, because when he looks up, he sees his brother, taller and stronger than him in every way—then he remembers to be afraid, because Boromir is still a year younger and a head shorter than these bullies, and there are three of them.
The tallest of them, with a mop of red hair and a blaze of freckles across his face, steps forward, cracking his knuckles. “Yeah? Who’s this little wimpling to you?”
“He’s my brother,” Boromir growls in warning, herding Faramir behind him. Faramir can feel his brother bristling with anger from the fingers pressed into his shoulder, protective. “Don’t call him names.”
“Or what?” Freckle-Face asks. His friends laugh with him, like some kind of twisted, synchronized choir. “You gonna throw little purple flowers at me?” He reaches around Boromir, to smash the planter from Faramir’s hands. It spills across the school’s perfectly manicured lawn, an explosion of soil and purple petals and upturned roots. “Oops.”
For this, Faramir does start to cry.
Boromir spares a moment to press a crumpled tissue to Faramir’s face and dry his tears, before whirling suddenly and socking Freckle-Face in the jaw. The shocking crack of teeth and bone startles Faramir right out of his misery, and even as the other two goons jump his brother, Boromir holds his own, giving as good as he gets, until the three bullies run away with their clothes torn, their faces and jeans stained with grass and dirt the same.
“You okay?” asks Boromir, kneeling and folding Faramir into his arms. When Faramir nods, Boromir presses a kiss to his brow, soft and warm and soothing. Faramir has no visible hurts, but his brother’s kiss goes a long way toward healing the hurt in his heart.
They’ve missed the bus by now, and have to walk a longer distance home, but Faramir first gathers what’s left of the irises from the ground, and presses the twisted stems into Boromir’s hand. “These were for you,” he says. “My teacher said they’re for valour. Bravery,” he explains, when Boromir blinks at him.
Boromir laughs, and takes Faramir’s hand as they start the trek home by foot. “Never change, Faramir,” he says. “Never change.”
Faramir fishes out the crumpled tissue Boromir gave him and tugs his brother’s hand to pull him closer, to wipe away the blood from Boromir’s nose and mouth. Thinks to press a kiss to Boromir’s cheek, but Boromir turns just then, to say something, and his lips end up brushing against Boromir’s.
“Oh,” says Boromir, quiet. “Faramir, is this…? I mean, are you sure.” There’s no oscillation between This isn’t right or Brothers don’t do this, as if Boromir’s just accepted this for what it is. Like maybe he’s been waiting for this moment too.
Faramir springs back, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. No, it was an accident, forget it, he means to say. “Of course I’m sure, don’t tell me I don’t know what’s in my heart,” he snaps instead, before realizing he’s reversed what he thought and meant to say.
“Oh,” Boromir says again. There’s the longest pause, in which Faramir is terrified he’ll say some iteration of That’s gross or You’re too young to know what you want, but Boromir just smiles and draws Faramir into his arms again. “All right, then.”
And when he kisses back, soft, hesitant, tasting of peppermint gum and copper, Faramir thinks that maybe his love isn’t so hopeless after all.
~
“Tell me a bedtime story about something besides Paddington Bear,” Faramir huffs that night, crossing his arms. “Or Huggly the Monster. You’ve read each book like ten times over.”
“All right, all right,” Boromir laughs. He nudges Faramir aside in the bed, and Faramir wiggles to the edge to make room for him. They’re starting to grow too big to fit in the same bed, and while he’d sit in Boromir’s lap instead, they couldn’t look at the pictures together as comfortably. “I’ve got one tonight from the library.”
He thumbs open a book on pirates, and Faramir listens raptly, living the life of a swashbuckling treasure hunter with a peg leg, then a lowly deck scrubber with big dreams, each of the stories brighter, richer, more vivid in Boromir’s telling. And each night after that, they live even wilder, different lives, of vengeful ghosts and daring knights, of gods who wield the power of a storm and their wayward brothers.
It’s only a matter of time before Boromir gets his hands on a copy of the fantasy series their parents named them from.
“Look!” Boromir says one night, with a conspiratorial gleam in his eye, as he holds up a thick volume, its pages crinkled and yellowed with age. “I finally found it!” The book releases a plume of dust, giving off a musty, old-book smell as Boromir leafs through the first few pages.
Faramir squints at the title and frowns. “The Lord of the Rings?” He’s not sure how good it can be, considering how huge the book is. It looks like a grown-up book—dry and difficult to read.
But Boromir makes it sound amazing, sharing stories of the great battles, and snippets of the main characters’ journeys. Faramir loves the details Boromir adds as he goes, and the sound effects he makes: through Boromir’s re-telling, Legolas the Elf shoots exploding arrows while surfing on the shields of his fallen enemies, Aragorn the Ranger wields a set of dual pistols that go piu piu before scores of Orcs drop dead at his feet, and Gimli the Dwarf splits skulls with his katana-style battle axe.
“Can Gandalf have laser-beam eyes?” Faramir asks, once. Sometimes it seems like the wizard of their company has no special powers at all, having just been ousted by his former friend in spell incantations over a mountain pass. Clearly, this wizard is no wizard of words.
Boromir hums thoughtfully. “He can have laser-beam eyes. Or if you want, he can have a laser-beam staff.”
“Ooh, yes,” says Faramir, his eyes growing wide, delighted at how Gandalf goes on to best an ancient Balrog by aiming his laser-beam staff at its eyes; he blinds it enough to make it lose its balance and fall off a bridge to its death.
Faramir thinks Gandalf must level up quite nicely after defeating the Balrog, as he gets more spells in his repertoire and a new set of armour, though he’ll probably need more kills before he can upgrade his staff. Or before Boromir will upgrade it in his stories, anyway.
Boromir does the best Dwarf voices (they sound like Scottish people) and the funniest Elf voices (where he pitches his voice high like a girl), even if Faramir thinks his Hobbit voices sound too much like himself. Voices aside, however, he reads Faramir the most awesome battle scenes, like how some evil wizard attacks a fortress where all these people were hiding. Or how a bunch of Orcs attacked a city and Gandalf, the totally badass wizard, helps the whole city survive.
“With his laser-beam staff, of course,” says Boromir, with a sanctimonious little nod. Trolls are especially susceptible to the staff, turning into stone when Gandalf aims his all-powerful light at them.
He almost never reads the stories about their namesakes though, which Faramir finds immensely curious. “What happened to Boromir?” Faramir asks. “Wasn’t he part of that Fellowship group?”
Boromir closes the book he’s reading to Faramir, which is suspicious enough in itself. “He wasn’t—he didn’t—” Boromir tries, before he sighs. “He returned to his city,” Boromir says finally, “and reunited with his brother. They both became the king’s closest advisors. Forever and ever. The end.”
“Oh,” says Faramir, yawning as he shuffles deeper into their blanket. “That’s good. I always thought he should see his brother again.” He smiles in the dark when Boromir switches off the lamp and curls in behind him.
“Yes,” Boromir agrees, though his voice is inexplicably sad. “I always thought he should, too.”
And though Faramir doesn’t understand why Boromir’s sad, he knows he can chase the sad away, simply by winding his fingers through Boromir’s beneath the blanket and throwing their joined hands over his belly.
So he does.
~
When Faramir finally gets his own library card, he checks the series out of the library, excited that he can finally read it on his own. Checks for discrepancies between the Boromir-version and the real one, disappointed to find in fact, that Gimli’s logically impractical katana-axe doesn’t exist. That Aragorn doesn’t actually wield a set of dual pistols.
He likes Boromir’s version better; Boromir makes everything better, in the way that big brothers do, whether it’s healing hurts, embellishing stories, or making grape jelly sandwiches.
Faramir trudges his way through the rest of the story, to read about their namesakes; with names like his and his brother’s, they must be heroes in the book, or their parents would’ve named them something normal.
Like Jason and Jacob. Or if they had to have stuffy names, maybe Stanton and Winston.
He already knows the Boromir and Faramir of the book were brothers too, but he’s surprised by the similarities between their lives and his. Of how their mother had died when they were young. How the Boromir of the books had raised Faramir after that, not unlike his own brother, and how their father seemingly had little left but contempt for his youngest son.
Faramir allows himself a chuckle at the description of the two brothers, with their dark hair, so unlike the honeyed hue of his and Boromir’s own, and grey eyes, instead of blue. Regardless, much of their story rings true for Faramir’s own life, and he finds himself empathizing deeply with the brothers of the book.
Finds himself drawn into their story, each tantalizing thread pulling him further into the tapestry of their adventure.
He reads avidly of how the brothers had spent most of their lives fighting a hopeless battle against a dark force. Of how the book-Faramir had had a dream, a hope of something that might save Gondor. And of how Boromir, deeming the journey too perilous for his brother, had left for a hidden valley of the Elves, to puzzle out the riddle they’d been given in their dreams. Tried to bring back the weapon that’d been found, that might finally help them win the war against the enemy.
Boromir had left, and never come back. He’d died on his quest—died a hero, Faramir thinks—and all his younger brother had gotten in recompense was a dream-like vision of his body, his only keepsake of Boromir his cloven horn.
Faramir stops reading after that, swallowing hard against the lump that’s built up in his throat.
He turns off the light and pads over quietly to his brother’s bed. Slips under the covers and slides his arms around Boromir’s waist. Buries his face into his brother’s neck.
“Took you long enough—ugh, your nose is cold,” Boromir gripes, but he turns over and lets Faramir burrow into his arms. “What’s wrong?”
“I read some of the books in that series mom and dad liked so much.” His body language is explanation enough on its own.
Boromir doesn’t say anything for a while. Then, “I guess you found out about the guys we were named after, huh.”
Faramir just nods into Boromir’s chest and tucks his toes under Boromir’s legs.
“Don’t worry,” says Boromir. “I’m not going to go anywhere.” He ruffles Faramir’s hair, fond. “I won’t leave you behind.” Then, more solemnly, “I won’t leave you, ever.” There’s a weight behind his words, one that makes it seem more than a childish promise whispered under the covers.
“Good,” says Faramir in a small voice. He curls his arms under Boromir’s shoulders, his legs twining further around Boromir’s. Like he’s a sea barnacle Boromir won’t ever be rid of.
He doesn’t think he could bear it if his Boromir left and never came back.
Faramir would go with him, to whatever end. Wouldn’t leave him to die alone on some ill-fated journey.
He finds out later that the Faramir of the books turned out to be a hero of this War of the Ring, but without Boromir, he wonders if his namesake only felt like half a hero.
If he’d ever felt like a hero at all.
~
By the time they’re both old enough to leave college, their father’s all but run Starlight, Starbright into the ground. He hasn’t had the heart for it after their mother died, and customers are less inclined to buy flowers from a surly, sour-faced man.
Boromir’s not expected to take up the mantle for it; he’s supposed to be an economics major now, having graduated from the local college, but because of the same ‘economy’, he’s had to take a job at one of the construction companies in town for the past few years. Having dabbled in environmental science and horticulture for a year himself, Faramir’s decided it wasn’t for him. What he has decided on, is that he wants to take over the flower shop instead. To breathe the same magic and life and wonder into the shop that he’s sure their mother had brought to it once.
No, their father had said, when Faramir first pitched him the idea. Why can’t you be like Boromir, and do something useful with your life?
And Boromir had fought for him then: Let Faramir have the shop. He knows flowers. He knows the business. And he loves what he does, something you stopped doing since mom died.
Their father never rose to the bait, only countered Boromir at every turn. And if the shop fails? What then? Will you carry both Faramir and the shop?
Yes, said Boromir. Because Faramir’s dream is mine.
And their old man had called them foolish, had hemmed and hawed and stiffed them with a huge startup bill, but in the end, before he died, he’d handed it over.
The shop was in their name.
“How are we going to pay for all this stuff?” Faramir asks now, gesturing to the pile of bills for seeds, planters, a new display cooler, and ad placements.
The only good thing about all this is that their parents had bought the place where the shop was located so they didn’t have to pay for a lease. Faramir wishes they’d bought the flat upstairs too, so he and Boromir wouldn’t have to make the three-block trek everyday from the rental basement suite they’ve had to move to, but it’s been stuck in construction limbo for the past two years. Waiting for some restaurant to open.
“Let me worry about that,” says Boromir, with what he thinks is a reassuring smile. He kisses the corner of Faramir’s mouth, gentle. “We’ll be all right.”
The shadows of doubt and worry don’t leave his eyes though, so Faramir tugs him into the back room, onto their soft black couch with the broken spring. Lets Boromir press him into the cushions and kiss him, again and again, before they’re fumbling at belts and buttons and zippers, scrabbling for a vial of oil for the pleasure they’ve come to enjoy. Boromir eases Faramir open with steady fingers, before pushing into him, slow. Works his way up to sharp, brutal thrusts, just the way Faramir likes, until Faramir’s hands are clawed tight into the fabric of the couch. Until he’s biting the cushions to muffle his cries.
“I wish you could stay,” Faramir whispers, when they’ve finished. He tucks a strand of sweat-slick hair behind Boromir’s ear. Presses the fingers of his other hand into Boromir’s shoulders, as if by pressing hard enough, Faramir can keep him here, bolt him down, shackle Boromir to him so he can’t leave.
“I wish I could too,” says Boromir. He lays his head on Faramir’s shoulder as he catches his breath. Winds his arms around Faramir’s waist, gentle. But the bills won’t pay themselves and food won’t magically appear on their table, and they both know it. So they don’t have long at all before he has to kiss Faramir once, hard, and toss his shirt over his head. “Don’t wait up for me tonight,” he says.
Sometimes he doesn’t come back from the work sites until after dark, when the dinner Faramir’s made has gone cold.
“Mmh,” says Faramir, non-committal, straightening Boromir’s shirt and stealing a ghost of a kiss before he leaves.
They both know Faramir will wait up for him anyway.
~
It takes another two years before the shop starts making a steady stream of revenue, enough that Faramir can funnel part of it back into the business, in hardier display coolers, a wider variety of gifts and cards, and his crowning masterpiece, the little greenhouse out back. He grows a supply of their own flowers there, so that they can rely less on the wholesale florist—even sectioned it off into different areas, to simulate various climates, letting him grow some of the more difficult flowers to use for arrangements.
Word of mouth’s gotten the shop farther than most of their flyers and bench ads, and they’ve built up a decent clientele, many of them repeat customers.
Some are their parents’ old friends, elderly couples who drop by for cards, stuffed animals, knickknacks, and bouquet orders to “support Finny and Denny’s kids”. In truth, it’s probably because of them that Faramir and Boromir managed to keep the shop afloat when they first took it over, and it’s a fact Faramir never forgets, throwing in little extras for them when the shop’s been doing well.
There’s also a young woman with long blonde hair, who comes in to buy a bouquet of white lilies every other week. An older gentleman, who looks wise beyond his years with his graying beard and cane, often coming in just to enjoy the sight of flowers and sunshine; he frequently leaves with a set of lilacs, accompanied by handmade prints of butterflies and horses. And countless others who stop by for a chat, and leave with miniature cacti or bonsai plants, or, if Faramir can swing it, whole arrangements that he’s just finished.
The only annoying thing about their location is the amount of noise coming from upstairs at all hours, a cacophony of hammering, drilling, and heavy clomping footsteps. Faramir puts up with it anyway, because the shop’s located at a place with lots of foot traffic, with a bus stop just out front.
He’s heard from Boromir that the place upstairs finally got bought out. That it’s slated to become a Greek restaurant when it’s done, and wonders if he can barter for food with their flowers. Adornments for souvlaki, or even spanakopita. Unless the owners decide to cheap out and use those garish plastic flowers that other places resort to.
“Hey, I was thinking—” Faramir tries, after Boromir returns to their little basement suite and finishes scarfing down dinner. He figures he’ll ask Boromir about what else he’s heard on the restaurant. When it might be open.
But when Boromir gives him a sleepy half-smile, the bags under his eyes too dark and the lines at his forehead too sharp from long hours at the job, Faramir can’t bring himself to say anything else. Just guides him to the bed, opening his arms to hold Boromir and kiss him, nosing Thank you’s and I love you’s into his neck only after Boromir falls asleep.
~
Faramir manages not to bring up the whole staying thing for another while, before Boromir blows that plan out of the water. Not with a huge, moving gesture, but with small, heartfelt tokens, the same as he’s always done.
It’s when Faramir’s absently humming to himself, clipping thorns from a set of roses that he plans to set in a glass bud vase—a last-minute anniversary order—that the wind chime he’s wound over the door sounds. Like a light jingle of bells and laughter.
“Faramir.”
The voice snaps him out of his dazed reverie, because this is better than thinking about Boromir, it’s him in the flesh. “Mmhn,” Faramir nods, shifting the rose thorns to one side. It’s so Boromir doesn’t hurt himself when he leans over the counter, into Faramir’s space, for a one-armed hug or a kiss, like he usually does.
Boromir slips two packets across the counter, seeds for stargazer lilies and lavender. “Got you some of these from the hardware store,” he says with a smile. “They had a greenhouse out back.” He’s grown into the habit of dropping off seeds for flowers he finds new or interesting.
“Thanks,” Faramir grins, setting down his scissors. He could use some of these for the arrangements he’s had in mind.
“And this,” Boromir says, producing a potted maroon geranium from behind his back with a flourish, “is for you.” It’s beautiful, with its wide, flat petals, the edges tinged with an ivory-white softness. Faramir hasn’t said so aloud, but he’s always preferred potted plants to cut ones because of how much longer they last. The way they’re more alive. And for Boromir to have figured this out…
Faramir swallows hard, around the knot building in his throat.
“I can grow that myself,” Faramir laughs, a little forced, but he drops a peck of a thank-you kiss on Boromir’s cheek, since there’s no one around. “Can you stay?” he asks, before mentally kicking himself. “Just for lunch, I mean.”
It isn’t what he means, but he can’t help asking, on the off chance that maybe this time, Boromir won’t have to leave him so soon. Won’t have to leave at all.
“Can’t,” Boromir says, shaking his head. “I’ve got to get back to the site.” He’s working on building a school out in one of the new communities today. Probably snuck by the shop while making a supply run. He covers Faramir’s hand with his and squeezes, his palm warm, with just the right amount of roughness and weight. “One day, though,” he says. Leans over the counter and kisses Faramir on the mouth, softer, sweeter, before he goes. “One day soon.”
“Sure,” Faramir nods, the upturn of his lips frozen somewhere between grimace and smile. “Soon.”
Like maybe in the next decade.
Or the one after that.
~
“I’m sorry,” Boromir says, when he’s late swinging by the shop to pick Faramir up for dinner for the umpteenth time. He loops his arms around Faramir, squeezes his waist in apology.
Faramir shrugs. It wouldn’t mean anything, except that today—today was his birthday, and he’d been hoping Boromir would remember. That maybe he’d make his excuses from work, and even come home early to spend it with Faramir.
And now this, after a bad day of the movers upstairs being especially loud and clunky, lugging boxes and tarp-wrapped furniture into the floor above.
“It’s fine,” Faramir mumbles. He should’ve expected as much anyway.
“It’s not,” Boromir insists. “I wanted to take you out for your birthday tonight. For dinner. For that movie you wanted to see so much.”
“Oh. Rain cheque, maybe?” Faramir murmurs against Boromir’s mouth. Winds arms around his neck, loose, in forgiveness. So Boromir did remember, but everything’s closed now anyway, and they’ve just missed the last round of movie showings at the theatre.
Boromir laughs, a deep, genuine rumble. “Absolutely. I did get you a gift, though.”
When Faramir blinks, Boromir takes advantage of his momentary daze to buss him on the cheek. “A gift? What is it?”
Boromir reaches into his pocket for a small box, square and velvet and black, like the kind people use for jewelry. But there’s no way this is—this couldn’t be—
It’s a key.
Not ornate, like those brass keys he’s seen for Victorian-era mansions, or even engraved. Just a simple key lying in a felt-lined box that Boromir scrounged from god knows where. It’s possibly the smallest thing Boromir has ever given him; other years, he’s gotten Faramir a water gun, baseball cards, a book he’s wanted forever. And in more recent years, a new trowel, even mini greenhouses for his plants. So Faramir’s not sure what to make of this.
“Oh. A key!” says Faramir, trying to sound enthusiastic. He wonders if he should tell Boromir he’s not a kid anymore. That he doesn’t need a plastic treasure chest full of books and toys unlocked by a mysterious key. But Boromir’s beaming at him so brightly that Faramir can’t bring himself to say the words. “What does it open?” he asks instead.
“It’s a surprise,” Boromir says, pulling out a necktie from his jacket pocket. He ties it around Faramir’s eyes, snug. Hums as he takes Faramir’s hand and guides him outside.
Faramir’s got the feeling that Boromir’s just leading him around the building to throw him off; even with his eyes covered, he can tell they’ve walked a lopsided figure-eight outside. At some point he’ll have to tell Boromir that his subterfuge needs work, but Faramir suspects that now is not the time.
“Where are we going?” Faramir says, still genuinely curious. A scavenger hunt in the night, perhaps? Is the key a clue to another in a series?
“Mmhn, careful now,” Boromir says. He’s being evasive as hell, but sounds positively giddy as he leads Faramir up a set of stairs. Guides his hand to a keyhole, and after the creak of a door opening, leads him over the threshold, one arm settling cozily above Faramir’s hip. “All right, you can take the blindfold off now,” Boromir says, fumbling at the wall for a switch, before light floods the room, warm and bright and inviting.
Faramir tugs the necktie from around his eyes, eager. Finds that they’ve walked into a fully furnished little flat, with a kitchen, a cozy couch in front of a television, and a small dining table. There’s a hall too, one that probably leads to a bedroom.
It’s a moment more before Faramir realizes that it’s their television. Their couch. Their table. Along with the collection of hideous potted shrubs that he’s rescued over the years, sitting on the mantel. The old oil painting of roses their mother did, with the words ♥ home is where the heart is ♥ emblazoned along the edges of the canvas, hanging above the kitchen sink.
“Boromir?” he says in wonder. “Is this what I think it is?” It’s the flat above the flower shop, if he’s got this right. For all of Boromir’s attempts at subterfuge, it isn’t hard to guess where they are; he can even see the bus stop in front of the flower shop when he turns around.
“I bought it, yeah. Fixed the flat up a little,” Boromir says proudly, in the way he means I fixed it up a lot. “Got some friends to do the wiring and plumbing. And they helped move all our stuff here.” Most of their belongings had been left in boxes since their last move, anyway.
“Oh,” says Faramir, quiet. And suddenly, all those missed dinners and movie nights start to make sense, because Boromir’s been here, doing all this for him. For them.
“I know it’s not much,” Boromir says, seeming to take Faramir’s silence as disappointment, “but it’s ours.” His hand at Faramir’s waist twitches, maybe from nervousness.
“It’s everything,” Faramir insists, and he’s so happy it hurts, his chest tight with all the love and affection he can’t contain. “It’s amazing, it’s…” He buries his face into Boromir’s shirt, because there’s too much he wants to say but doesn’t know how to.
Boromir chuckles and leans in, his breath warm in Faramir’s ear. “Now you won’t have to keep your voice down when we— ”
“Boromir!” Faramir splutters, heat rushing to his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
“There’s something else,” Boromir says, quiet, when he’s stopped laughing and Faramir’s stopped blushing. “I wanted to tell you that I—well.”
“What is it?” Faramir asks. He takes Boromir’s hands in his, warming them in the cool night air.
“I’ve quit the construction company. To work with you. We’ve got enough set aside, and—” Boromir takes a shaky breath. “I can manage our expenses and the day-to-day things. Like run the till and clean, and tidy the shop so you can focus on making the arrangements and growing the flowers. That is, if…if you’ll have me. Will you?” he asks, with a twitch of a smile, hopeful.
Boromir’s confession makes Faramir ache a little inside, like he’s got to list all the ways he can be useful before Faramir will accept him, because he doesn’t have to; Faramir would want him there even if he didn’t do a thing, because it means Boromir can stay. He won’t have to dash off after a secret visit now. Won’t have to leave at all.
“Of course I’ll have you,” laughs Faramir, but even as Boromir grins wide and genuine, he can’t help the niggling feeling that Boromir’s asking something else, beneath all that.
“Well?” Boromir says, after Faramir’s finished pressing short, happy kisses to his cheeks and mouth. He herds Faramir inside, closes the door, and waggles his eyebrows. “That table and couch and bed aren’t going to christen themselves.” He nuzzles into Faramir’s neck and purrs, “Or the shower.”
Faramir laughs, so happy that he could kiss Boromir again and again, so he does just that, and in the privacy of their first real home together, more.
~
“Did you get the flowers I left for you by your breakfast?” Faramir asks, as he empties out a bucket of petal clippings he’s saved from the shop. He watches them fall, thoughtful, wondering if he can do something with them. Perhaps preserve them in water, and lay them beneath water gems as a base.
“The daisies?” Boromir nods, beaming. “Yeah, they were pretty.”
Faramir frowns. “Those were windflowers.” He’d left a small cluster of white ones by Boromir’s breakfast, meant to be a symbol of love, because he thought red roses were too overt. Clearly though, overt is what Boromir needs.
“Sorry, windflowers,” Boromir says, sheepish. He winds his arms around Faramir’s waist from behind, letting his head rest against Faramir’s shoulder in apology.
With a sigh, Faramir turns into his embrace. Smiles in spite of himself, at the way the roughness of Boromir’s stubble tickles his shoulder. As long as Boromir likes the flowers, he doesn’t have to know the meaning of them, Faramir supposes.
When Boromir goes downstairs to get the shop ready, Faramir heads to the greenhouse, inspecting the flowers in the corner he’s been cultivating for a special arrangement. There are the few petite red roses he’s been saving for the centerpiece, a cluster of white primrose flowers as the border, and two pots of salvia that he plans to use to crown the arrangement as a whole.
He can’t match Boromir’s birthday gift to him from a month ago, but this is his way of saying Thank you and I love you in the way Faramir knows how.
He starts the arrangement off by dropping a collection of dark blue water gems, the color of Boromir’s eyes, into the bottom of a crystal vase. A quick glance through the glass door tells him that his brother’s got being the front face of the shop down pat, leaving Faramir more time to focus on his greenhouse plants. Faramir hums, content to continue styling and shaping the flowers for the arrangement, making sure to complement the pattern of leaves and vines on the vase’s frosted surface.
We’ll go through the flowers together, Faramir decides, smiling to himself. He’ll explain the meaning of each one present in the arrangement when he presents it to Boromir. There’s the added bonus that it’ll familiarize Boromir with the flowers they sell, because his brother still occasionally tries to sell carnations to customers asking for roses, by accident.
He sets the finished arrangement at the back of their floral display cooler when Boromir’s back is turned, hiding it behind some tall, fluted rose vases.
“Faramir? Everything all right?”
Faramir startles, closing the door to the display a little too loudly, rattling the front-most vases. “More than all right,” he says, turning, trying to smile disarmingly.
“Oh, good,” says Boromir. He brushes a wisp of a kiss against Faramir’s cheek. Faramir nudges Boromir’s hip in retaliation, fond.
“Well,” Boromir grins, “if you have that much energy to be physical, give me a hand with arranging the front of the shop.” They need to fill the spaces where bouquets and arrangements have been bought with new ones. To Faramir’s relief, Boromir doesn’t turn to the cooler display to the side; nor does he see the arrangement Faramir has just set in there.
“If I help, will there be time to get more physical later?” Faramir asks, innocent.
Boromir huffs a laugh this time, and ruffles Faramir’s hair. “Maybe.”
~
“So?” Faramir asks, as they get ready to close the shop that evening. “Where do you want to go for your birthday?”
It’s been a good day, the two of them having sold several major arrangements and a couple of the smaller rosebuds in fishbowl vases.
Boromir shrugs, like he’s about to say Anywhere’s fine, so Faramir squeezes him around the waist and adds, “It’s your birthday, you have to choose.”
“Fine,” Boromir laughs, giving in. “How about the local burger joint?”
Faramir thinks of the juicy, greasy burgers at Sam’s Burger House, and their thick ice cream-based shakes. The food’s good, but it’s not exactly birthday fare. “It’s all right if you want to eat something else, you know,” he says. “We…we can afford it, can’t we?”
Boromir gestures with his hands in the air in front of him. “It’s not about the money. It’s…”
Oh, Faramir realizes. He curls gentle fingers around Boromir’s. “It’s the memories, isn’t it?”
Sam’s isn’t fancy, and doesn’t have a themed décor; it doesn’t even have the trappings of a proper diner, with its tangerine-red walls, vintage ceiling lamps and milk-white chairs arranged around yellow tables in little honeycomb clusters. In fact, the whole place looks like it’s been furnished with mismatched pieces and paint swiped from someone’s garage sale.
But it’s comfort and warmth and good food, a place they used to go for celebratory dinners, when their parents were still alive. Back when there were still things to celebrate as a family.
Boromir’s fingers close around Faramir’s as he nods. “The memories.”
They end up filling up on strawberry-peach milkshakes and the House Special burgers, buns stuffed with onions, beef patties, cheddar cheese, and a fried egg each. Faramir lets his toes nudge against Boromir’s under the table as they eat, playful. Boromir leans in and knocks their knees together from across the cramped table, grinning as he does so, his mouth full of burger.
“Ugh, I didn’t want to see your food,” Faramir says, lip curling as he tries to shield his eyes.
“That’s too bad. I guess if you wanted gourmet seafood, you should’ve gotten me the salmon burger,” Boromir replies, without missing a beat.
Faramir groans at the pun, but laughs anyway. Stays in this giddy mood the whole way home.
There’s a full moon overhead, and its lovely, rippling reflection on the river they’re driving along, but Faramir just looks at Boromir while he drives. Watches the way the moonlight makes Boromir’s hair glow like the fireflies they’d used to chase on summer nights. It makes Boromir look so much younger than he is, before he had to shoulder the burden of looking after his kid brother, holding a job, and making sure they had enough to make ends meet even when the shop wasn’t doing well in their early years.
“Boromir,” he says, quiet. Lays his hand, gentle, on top of his brother’s on the stick shift.
“What is it?” asks Boromir. They’ve stopped now, Boromir finished with easing the truck into its space behind the shop. Faramir can’t remember life without this old Chevy, solid and dependable with its sturdy, sky-blue frame. Comforting, with its soft, worn-out seats.
“I,” Faramir tries. He doesn’t think ‘butterflies in the stomach’ is enough to describe this feeling, this weird nervousness; it’s more akin to butterflies struggling to free themselves from their cocoons, a useless beat of wings against an ironclad barrier. The feeling fills the whole of his chest, an aching kind of fullness that’s close to overflowing, and he needs to say it, needs to tell Boromir how much he—
Boromir nods encouragingly, but when no words are forthcoming, he cups the back of Faramir’s neck with his palm. Leans in to press a soft, off-center kiss to his mouth.
Faramir kisses back harder, hungrier, grateful for this out that Boromir’s given him, because it’s easier to show how he feels this way, this raw, physical manner. It’s easier not to have to say the words, to find the ways to tell Boromir how much he means to Faramir, right now. Even if he knows it’s going to come back and bite him in the ass later. That easier isn’t the way to do things.
He’s too preoccupied with slipping his hands under Boromir’s shirt, to trace the muscles of his stomach, his chest. To rake nails along Boromir’s back, searching for warmth and skin and heat. His fingers slide down to the waist of Boromir’s pants, fumbling at the belt buckle, tugging at the zipper—
“Faramir,” Boromir gasps between bruisingly hard kisses, “get—get inside the flat. We are not doing this in the back of the truck again.”
Faramir’s fingers give pause in their frantic work, a vague part of him recalling how his backside had ached for days when Boromir last took him in the back of the truck. It’s not an experiment he wants to repeat. “Inside,” he nods. “Hurry.”
Boromir leads him up the stairs, fumbling the key into the lock as Faramir kisses his neck, his jaw, his mouth, hot and filthy kisses that leave Boromir breathless, even as he tries to return them with those of his own. “Faramir,” he groans, as the door falls inward.
They shed their clothes in a wild trail of shoes, socks, jeans and shirts that leads to the bedroom, and Boromir presses him into the sheets, kissing Faramir as if he’s trying to reach every part of him at once, hard and hot and hungry.
“More,” begs Faramir, looping his arms around Boromir’s neck. He grinds his half-hard cock against the front of Boromir’s boxers, pleased to find Boromir’s answering hardness against his own.
Boromir leans in for another bruising kiss, tasting like the sweet tartness of strawberries, his hands clawed tight around Faramir’s shoulders. Bullies Faramir’s knees apart with his own, to settle more firmly against him, and presses his burgeoning erection hard against Faramir’s. The friction from his grinding slide is so good, but there’s too much in the way, too much fabric between him and Boromir.
“Off—too much—just you—” Faramir manages, and somehow Boromir deciphers his broken panting correctly, or he’s had the same thought, because he shucks his own boxers off. Mouths teasingly at Faramir’s cock through the thin cotton of his before urging his hips up and out to slide them off.
The moment he’s tugged Faramir’s boxers off and flung them to the floor, Boromir’s on him again, hands hooked over the jut of his hips as he presses kisses to Faramir’s thighs and knees. He hikes himself higher just for a moment to nose at Faramir’s navel, before leaning in and blowing a noisy raspberry, teasing, like he did when Faramir was little.
“Boromir,” Faramir groans through a restrained giggle. “I’m not—I’m not a kid anymore, cut that out. That’s for babies.”
“I’ll stop doing it when you stop giggling like a schoolgirl,” Boromir laughs, and Faramir barely manages to bite down on a moan, when Boromir kisses the tip of his cock.
“More, like that,” Faramir says, shifting his hips upward, hopeful.
Boromir obliges, with feather-light touches of lips to the head, the side of Faramir’s cock, then broad, pleasurable licks, laving his tongue from base to tip. He touches his tongue to the slit, grinning at Faramir’s low moan. Considers it permission to take Faramir’s cock between his lips, and close his mouth over it entirely, his hands pinning Faramir to the bed by the hips and keeping him steady, even as Faramir bucks and arches against the bed.
“Good, like that—yes,” Faramir says, panting, and he mashes a hand into his brother’s hair, relishing the softness that slides through the spaces between his fingers.
Then Boromir hums with his mouth around Faramir, and Faramir nearly hurts himself arching off the bed, but for Boromir’s hands pinning him down. He still manages to bring one hip up, but it’s because Boromir’s let go of one hip, to—to—
“Ah,” is all Faramir can say, even though he means, That hurts, and Did you even use lube, because Boromir’s pressed a finger, no, two inside him, stroking, searching for his prostate. “Boro—Boromir, please, ah—”
“Easy, Faramir,” Boromir says. He’s let his mouth slip off Faramir’s cock, to lay a trail of small, comforting kisses to his belly. Strokes Faramir’s prick with his other hand to distract him from the pain. “Better now?”
It is, and Faramir nods. He’s just gotten comfortable with the fingers pressed deep inside him, when Boromir crooks them suddenly, and oh, he’s found it, that spot that makes Faramir see white, and Faramir pants through the burn of it, the pleasure, bucking his hips into Boromir’s hand to get him to press there again.
He whines in protest, when instead of more and again, Boromir withdraws his fingers and swirls them in the precome that’s gathered on Faramir’s stomach. Frowns, as if it’s not enough to ease the way, and reaches for the bottle of lube they keep in Boromir’s night table, uncapping it to pour it into his palm.
“Inside, want you—more,” begs Faramir. He wonders if he’d be embarrassed if he could see himself, rutting against Boromir’s hip like this, but right now, all he wants is Boromir on him, in him, filling the very space around him.
What he wants, Boromir gives, because there’s suddenly the press of heated flesh against the pucker of his hole. And thank goodness Boromir thought to add lube, because when he slides in, Faramir doesn’t have to tell him wait or stop because the pressure is slow and easy, giving him time to adjust.
“Faramir?” Boromir asks, when their hips are flush. He cradles Faramir’s cheek with a roughened palm. “Are you all right?’
Faramir closes his hand over Boromir’s. “All right,” he assures. Breathes in once, then twice, before breaking off into pleasured gasps as Boromir moves inside him, pressing upward and in. He twines his legs over Boromir’s back, urging him on with his ankles. Begs for harder and more, rewarding each of his brother’s pleasing thrusts with a breathy gasp, a strangled cry.
As if heartened by Faramir’s cries, Boromir hikes one of Faramir’s legs over his shoulder, pinning the other to the bed with his own leg, and presses in deep again.
The new angle has Faramir sinking teeth into the pillow, trying to muffle his cries, because Boromir’s hitting him right bloody there and Faramir’s caught between gasping in pleasure and whimpering at the sharp, near-painful impact. Boromir must notice something, in the furrow in his brow, or the quality of the sounds Faramir’s making, because he eases the power of his thrusts back just a touch, but then it’s not enough anymore, and Faramir scowls, digging his nails into Boromir’s forearms, harsh.
“Harder,” Faramir pleads. “Deeper.” He’d take the near-painful digs to not-enough any day.
In response, Boromir shoves a pillow under Faramir’s hips. Hitches Faramir’s other leg over his shoulder, until Faramir’s bent nearly in half, knees pressed to shoulders as he clutches the sheets hard, crying out between rough, greedy kisses at the depth of each thrust.
“Please, Boromir—” Faramir whimpers, as Boromir pounds him into the mattress, his fingers trailing intermittently over Faramir’s cock, teasing. He’s unsure of whether he wants more or harder or neither, because it’s too much and just right at once; it’s Boromir occupying every part of him like he’s wanted, with tongue and fingers and prick, and Faramir can’t think, can’t breathe, just knows to moan at every frisson of pleasure sparking through his body.
When his legs threaten to slip from Boromir’s shoulders, Boromir locks them in place, gripping Faramir’s ankles, hard. Surges forward for a perfect, brutal thrust that has Faramir howling, helpless.
“Boromir, I—I’m—” Faramir gasps. He’s close, he can feel it, the familiar burn building in the base of his spine, like a wave, ready to crest.
“Not yet,” Boromir growls. “Not yet, we’re almost—we’re almost there.” He lets Faramir’s legs slide down to his waist. Wraps his palm around Faramir’s cock just in time for a long, steady stroke, before Faramir spills, shaking and panting, onto his own belly. Pushes in deep, then deeper, filling Faramir a heartbeat later.
They still haven’t managed to come together in all this time, but Faramir supposes it’s one of those things he can deal with, before the thought of how good birthday sex can be overwhelms every other thought in his mind.
Faramir lets Boromir rest his head on his shoulder for a few breaths, and ends up counting his respirations for a full minute. Slides fingers through Boromir’s hair, gentle, for another. After three whole minutes pass this way, he nudges his hips into Boromir’s, and says, “Again?”
“You greedy little…” Boromir laughs, fond, before pressing Faramir into the sheets again, sinking teeth into his neck to leave a livid, cherry-bright bruise.
They go a second round, a third, then finally a fourth, each time slower than the last, until it’s less like raw, physical fucking and more the easy lovemaking they’ve grown used to in the mornings. Until Faramir can’t move anymore, can’t come anymore, his cock twitching helplessly against his belly.
“Boromir, I can’t—no more, please,” Faramir begs. He’s not sure how he ever thought he could outlast Boromir in a match of stamina or endurance, since every time they manage a minor marathon like this, he never has. Not that he’s complaining. “Boromir—”
“Finally,” Boromir says, huffing a laugh. And with one brutal, aimed thrust, he pushes into Faramir and spends, hot and deep and wet, pressing his tongue deep inside Faramir’s mouth and wringing the air from his lungs with a hard and hungry kiss.
Holds Faramir through his trembling and presses kisses to his brow, his cheeks, and mouth as they lie together, catching their breath.
“We should shower,” Boromir says at last, into the dark of their room. He turns and finds Faramir’s mouth, touching his tongue to Faramir’s lips until he yields and lets Boromir in. “Or at least change the sheets.” Their sheets are damp, and will be cold later; there’s definitely logic to this suggestion.
“Mmhn,” Faramir mumbles. “I don’t want to do either.” He rolls over and peels the innermost blanket off, kicking it to the floor. “There, problem solved.” Nudges his way back into Boromir’s arms.
“That's the laziest solution I’ve ever seen,” Boromir says. He squeezes Faramir’s shoulder, reproachful. “Even lazier than the time you wanted to do it in the shower just so we wouldn’t have to clean.”
Faramir shrugs, and curls deeper into his brother’s embrace, where it’s warm and snug and the scent of their vanilla-almond soap still lingers.
Sensing that their conversation’s over, Boromir winds his arms lower, around Faramir’s waist. Slots his hips and knees perfectly in place behind Faramir. “I love you,” he says softly, kissing the space beneath Faramir’s ear.
Faramir only responds with a soft, snuffling sound, pretending he’s already asleep. Boromir always makes it sound so easy to say, that it makes Faramir wonder why he’s holding back. Why he hasn’t said the words aloud since he realized he wanted Boromir in every way. In every capacity there was to want.
He wishes he could say it the way Boromir does, affectionate and all-encompassing, because each time Boromir whispers the words, Faramir hears, I love you, brother, lover, other half of my soul.
He’s debating saying it for so long that he nearly falls asleep, but when Boromir nuzzles into his neck, his jaw rough but warm, Faramir thinks very hard at Boromir, I love you too.
~
The bed is empty when Faramir wakes up.
(tbc - Chapter 2)
Fandom: Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Pairing: Boromir/ Faramir
Rating: NC-17
Words: 10400 (21500 total)
Summary: “Let Faramir have the shop,” Boromir argues. “He knows flowers. He knows the business. And he loves what he does, something you stopped doing since mom died.”
A/N: Flower Shop AU. Inspiration for the flower shop and the floor above it drawn from Natsuyuki Rendezvous, seen here and here. Title from Alan Jackson’s That’s What I’d Be Like Without You.
Sunlight.
Faramir remembers it, golden, spilling through their round pothole of a window. Recalls the way it lights the dust motes floating in the air, when his mother sits him and Boromir down in the kitchen, to give them their first budding plants each. Both pots of soil house a plant too young to have flowered fully yet, much like themselves.
“What are these, mama?” Faramir asks, fascinated by the bright golden petals arranged around broad, intricate centers. He touches his fingers to one of the petals, gentle.
To his and his mother’s horror, Boromir tries to flick the head of his flower off, murmuring the common children’s chant, “Mama had a baby and its head popped off.”
“Boromir,” their mother says, sounding scandalized. “That is not a dandelion.” When Boromir springs back a safe distance, properly reprimanded, she laughs and pulls him in close again. “These are sunflowers, from my own garden out back. And now they’re yours.”
She shows them how to water their flowering plants. How to check the soil to see that they haven’t drowned their flowers.
Boromir drowns his anyway, by accident; his theory is that overzealous watering will lead to overzealous growing, which proves otherwise at the test. Faramir’s, on the other hand, flourishes wonderfully, from his careful watering and love.
He talks to it quietly, like it’s a person, the way he’s seen his mother do. Sings to it when he’s sure Boromir isn’t looking, and hums at it when Boromir is. As a result, the sunflower unfurls into a bright, climbing thing, arcing toward the sun from its pot on the windowsill. Shoots up and up until it seems the very paragon of a sunflower, its leaves lush and green, like the ones emblazoned on their parents’ flower shop aprons.
Faramir’s always loved those aprons, home-crafted from soft, forest green cloth, each with a smiling sunflower embroidered across the front. Loves pressing his little fingers into each of the seven stars clustered around the sunflowers, before tracing the words beneath, the name of their parents’ shop: Starlight, Starbright.
Eventually, Faramir’s sunflower grows so tall that he has to lash it to a small pole to keep it upright.
“Oh, Faramir,” his mother says, surprised. “You’ve grown your own special jewel.”
“What about you, mama? Are yours the ones in the garden?” Faramir asks, as he climbs into her lap.
She holds out her other arm, to beckon Boromir over. Boromir hesitates, before setting down his red fire truck and wiggling into her lap beside Faramir, and she closes her arm around him, as if to let them both know they’ll always have a place with her. “I have them right here,” she says, smiling. “You are both my little jewels.” She ruffles their hair, fond. “Shining together.” After a thoughtful pause, she adds, “Do you know what else jewels do?”
“Get stolen?” Boromir quips. Faramir giggles, soft; he knows Boromir’s gotten that from all the superhero cartoons they’ve been watching.
“When jewels of different kinds are set beside each other, they work together to shine all the brighter.”
“Oh,” says Boromir, very quiet. He takes Faramir’s small hands in his, thoughtful. “I see.”
Faramir nods as if he understands this perfect pearl of wisdom, because Boromir will explain anything he doesn’t understand later—and Boromir does, like always, as they sway to and fro on their tree swing outside. The seat’s too small to fit them both side-by-side, so Boromir folds Faramir into his arms and lap, snug. Keeps him from falling off, as he shares the meaning of their mother’s words.
That afternoon is the last, brightest, memory he has of their mother.
What follows is a series of white-lit hospital halls, dim examination rooms and the sharp smell of antiseptic. A sense of otherness that’s all wrong. He hears about how his mother misses something called the Seaside. How her health withers in the City, as the doctors say. There are fancier words and more elaborate explanations, but all Faramir knows is that she’s slipping further and further away each day.
“Faramir,” he remembers his mother whispering one evening, after she’s spoken to Boromir and their father. She cradles his cheek, her palm dry and cool. “You have a real green thumb, just like me. Don’t waste your talent.” Her smile is bright, made all the lovelier still from the autumn light spilling in through the window. They’re at her new room at the hospice—her last room. She must be tired, because she sleeps for a long time after that.
“Boromir?” Faramir asks later, when they’re on their way home. He doesn’t dare talk to their father, whose expression is dull and ashen. “What's a green thumb?”
Boromir turns a watery smile upon him. “It’s what you have when you’re good at growing things.”
“Oh,” says Faramir. He holds his hands at eye level and inspects them carefully. “Mama says I have one, but my thumbs haven’t turned green yet.”
Boromir manages a choked laugh, even as tears stream down his face. “Oh, Faramir.” He hugs Faramir, hard. Holds his hand, too tight. They stay like that for the rest of the drive home, Boromir’s fingers clenched around his, trembling.
It’s only later, far from the presence of their father, that Boromir explains what’s happened to their mother, because Faramir won’t stop pestering him with When will mama come home? And When will mama wake up? That, and there’s no one else to ask.
“Remember how you tried to rescue my sunflower?” Boromir says, after some thought. “The one I couldn’t make grow like yours did?”
Faramir frowns; he had carefully watered Boromir’s too, talked to it for longer, and sung happy songs at it, to make it grow like his own had. Had placed them beside each other in the end, their terracotta pots squeezed together on the windowsill, hoping the influence of the healthy sunflower would rub off on the other. It had remained a wilted, droopy thing, a testament to Boromir’s lack of expertise with growing plants. “Yes.”
“Well, the doctors tried to help mama like you tried to help the flower, but no matter what they tried, it didn’t quite work.”
“Oh,” says Faramir, before his lip starts to tremble, because this analogy, more than anything, has just driven home what has happened to his mother, faster than the grown-up words their father flung at him, or the fancy phrases the doctors used. “Does that…does that mean mama isn’t waking up?”
When Boromir finally nods, Faramir flings himself into Boromir’s arms and sobs, because he’s finally realized that the hope he’s held to have their days of sunlight again is gone.
That the darkness is here to stay.
“Do you know where the name of our flower shop comes from?” Boromir had asked once, before their family was sundered by loss. They’re lying on a red-checkered picnic blanket on a small, sloping hill outside their house, arms folded over bellies and legs crossed as they gaze into the night sky.
Faramir purses his lips in thought, and wiggles his toes in the soft grass. “From the poem!” he says. “The one that goes Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight—”
Boromir huffs in the way he does when he’s trying to sound grown-up. “Yes, yes. But mama also told me that she and papa named the shop for the stars they used to watch at night. On this very hill.”
“Oh.” Faramir shuffles closer to Boromir, cuddling into his side against the chill of the night air. Giggles as Boromir throws an arm over him, lazy, to stop him from squirming. “I wish we could take the stars with us, when we go inside,” he says with a sigh.
Boromir says nothing, only hums and draws Faramir closer.
Later, after their mother passes, when it seems like their whole world has dimmed, and even the grandeur of the night sky is not enough to brighten it again, Boromir brings the sky into their room. Cannibalizes parts from a Glo-In-The-Dark Space Kit he received for Christmas in years past, adhering sticky-tacked stars to what parts of the ceiling he can by jumping on the bed and slapping them on.
Boromir manages a moon and several clusters of stars before the bed pops a spring and he slams into the bed face-first.
Instead of crying, though, Boromir looks up and grins through his split lip and bloody nose. “Now we can have the stars with us, even when we’re inside!” he announces.
Faramir plasters a Scooby-Doo band-aid to the scrape on Boromir’s cheek. Touches his lips to the band-aid to kiss the hurt away, like Boromir’s done for his skinned knees, and throws his arms around his brother’s waist, squeezing hard to show his thanks.
In time, he’ll remember it as the first instance Boromir would hang the moon and the stars for him.
It won’t be the last.
Boromir becomes a permanent fixture in Faramir’s life after their mother’s passing, especially when their father starts spending longer and longer hours at Starlight, Starbright.
Even when he is home, he slinks away to his study, emerging only to take the occasional meal. He has little to say to Faramir besides words of reprimand, like Boromir would’ve remembered to be quiet, coupled with judging stares that say Your brother could have done better, more and faster.
So Boromir takes it upon himself to make breakfast and dinner for them. Packs them grape-jelly and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, cutting them into triangles the way Faramir likes. Walks Faramir to and from school, and makes sure to hug Faramir when he cries for mama in his sleep, staying to let Faramir curl into him in bed even after his tears have dried.
He still humors Faramir when he checks each morning to see if his thumbs have turned green; Faramir believes that if their mother said he had green thumbs, surely he must develop them sometime.
“They’ll come,” Boromir reassures him, when Faramir looks up at him, expression watery and forlorn at the sight of his small, pale hands. “In time.”
It’s on the one night, when Boromir finds his brother whimpering in his sleep and trembling beneath the covers, that he takes a bright green Mr. Sketch marker and colors Faramir’s thumbs green. Then he pushes into the space behind Faramir and envelopes his brother in his arms. Faramir’s body moves of its own accord to make room for him, used to the long-familiar and comforting motion.
When Faramir wakes up, he’s excited beyond belief, smearing his inky hands all over his brother. “Look, Boromir! I have real green thumbs now!” he exclaims, holding out his hands and showing off his thumbs like a badge of honor. They smell suspiciously like mint, but Faramir decides that maybe that’s how new green thumbs are supposed to smell—minty fresh.
And while most brothers five years the elder might say, “That’s stupid”, or “Get off me, squirt”, Boromir beams and kisses him on the brow. Lets Faramir snuggle into him. “That’s great,” Boromir says softly, proud. “It means you’re officially real good at growing things now.”
This discovery isn’t enough to dull the knife edge of pain from their mother’s loss, but Boromir’s pride in him because of it stirs something in Faramir’s heart. He’s never known life without Boromir, and maybe—just maybe—this flushing of his cheeks, this rapid hammer of his heart against his ribcage, is an extension of the nameless feeling he’s harbored for his brother.
He figures out Boromir’s deception much later, but by then it’s too late; Faramir’s already realized what that nameless feeling is. That he’s stupidly, hopelessly in love with his brother, and the trick with the felt marker only makes him more so.
As stupidly in love as he is, though, Faramir’s no fool, and he buries this new feeling deep and dark within himself. He can’t bear for Boromir to stop his hugs and kisses and cuddles. Can’t bear for Boromir to look at him with horror dawning in his eyes, as he says, I love you too, Faramir.
But not like that.
Everything changes in Faramir’s world one afternoon; tilts it completely on its axis, on a day that’s grey and overcast but otherwise unremarkable.
Faramir’s waiting alone at the bus stop to go home, since Boromir has some library project today and has to catch up with him later. He’s holding a little planter of flowers from his teacher, proud of the irises in it that he’s raised from seeds. He plans to give them to Boromir when he gets home, as a surprise, because if anyone is the embodiment of hope, valor, and wisdom, it’s his brother.
“Friggin’ pansy,” one of the kids waiting at the stop spits at Faramir, jostling him by the shoulder on his way past. The boy and his ragtag cluster of friends are in the ninth grade, and Faramir’s heard they’re the toughest kids in the school, running a small racketeering operation and filching kids’ money at lunchtime.
It’s clear that their reputation precedes them, because Faramir spots the other kids cringing away, with no one rising to his defense.
The bullies surround Faramir, kicking dirt at his shoes even as he backpedals and tries to hide behind a tree. Laugh, cruel, as Faramir stumbles over its roots instead, barely managing to save the planter.
“Bet you he plays with dolls and wears girls’ clothes at home,” another of the bullies snickers. “Should we check if he’s wearing them now?”
“He doesn’t,” says a new voice. “And he isn’t. But even if he was, it wouldn’t matter.”
Faramir could cry in relief, because when he looks up, he sees his brother, taller and stronger than him in every way—then he remembers to be afraid, because Boromir is still a year younger and a head shorter than these bullies, and there are three of them.
The tallest of them, with a mop of red hair and a blaze of freckles across his face, steps forward, cracking his knuckles. “Yeah? Who’s this little wimpling to you?”
“He’s my brother,” Boromir growls in warning, herding Faramir behind him. Faramir can feel his brother bristling with anger from the fingers pressed into his shoulder, protective. “Don’t call him names.”
“Or what?” Freckle-Face asks. His friends laugh with him, like some kind of twisted, synchronized choir. “You gonna throw little purple flowers at me?” He reaches around Boromir, to smash the planter from Faramir’s hands. It spills across the school’s perfectly manicured lawn, an explosion of soil and purple petals and upturned roots. “Oops.”
For this, Faramir does start to cry.
Boromir spares a moment to press a crumpled tissue to Faramir’s face and dry his tears, before whirling suddenly and socking Freckle-Face in the jaw. The shocking crack of teeth and bone startles Faramir right out of his misery, and even as the other two goons jump his brother, Boromir holds his own, giving as good as he gets, until the three bullies run away with their clothes torn, their faces and jeans stained with grass and dirt the same.
“You okay?” asks Boromir, kneeling and folding Faramir into his arms. When Faramir nods, Boromir presses a kiss to his brow, soft and warm and soothing. Faramir has no visible hurts, but his brother’s kiss goes a long way toward healing the hurt in his heart.
They’ve missed the bus by now, and have to walk a longer distance home, but Faramir first gathers what’s left of the irises from the ground, and presses the twisted stems into Boromir’s hand. “These were for you,” he says. “My teacher said they’re for valour. Bravery,” he explains, when Boromir blinks at him.
Boromir laughs, and takes Faramir’s hand as they start the trek home by foot. “Never change, Faramir,” he says. “Never change.”
Faramir fishes out the crumpled tissue Boromir gave him and tugs his brother’s hand to pull him closer, to wipe away the blood from Boromir’s nose and mouth. Thinks to press a kiss to Boromir’s cheek, but Boromir turns just then, to say something, and his lips end up brushing against Boromir’s.
“Oh,” says Boromir, quiet. “Faramir, is this…? I mean, are you sure.” There’s no oscillation between This isn’t right or Brothers don’t do this, as if Boromir’s just accepted this for what it is. Like maybe he’s been waiting for this moment too.
Faramir springs back, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. No, it was an accident, forget it, he means to say. “Of course I’m sure, don’t tell me I don’t know what’s in my heart,” he snaps instead, before realizing he’s reversed what he thought and meant to say.
“Oh,” Boromir says again. There’s the longest pause, in which Faramir is terrified he’ll say some iteration of That’s gross or You’re too young to know what you want, but Boromir just smiles and draws Faramir into his arms again. “All right, then.”
And when he kisses back, soft, hesitant, tasting of peppermint gum and copper, Faramir thinks that maybe his love isn’t so hopeless after all.
“Tell me a bedtime story about something besides Paddington Bear,” Faramir huffs that night, crossing his arms. “Or Huggly the Monster. You’ve read each book like ten times over.”
“All right, all right,” Boromir laughs. He nudges Faramir aside in the bed, and Faramir wiggles to the edge to make room for him. They’re starting to grow too big to fit in the same bed, and while he’d sit in Boromir’s lap instead, they couldn’t look at the pictures together as comfortably. “I’ve got one tonight from the library.”
He thumbs open a book on pirates, and Faramir listens raptly, living the life of a swashbuckling treasure hunter with a peg leg, then a lowly deck scrubber with big dreams, each of the stories brighter, richer, more vivid in Boromir’s telling. And each night after that, they live even wilder, different lives, of vengeful ghosts and daring knights, of gods who wield the power of a storm and their wayward brothers.
It’s only a matter of time before Boromir gets his hands on a copy of the fantasy series their parents named them from.
“Look!” Boromir says one night, with a conspiratorial gleam in his eye, as he holds up a thick volume, its pages crinkled and yellowed with age. “I finally found it!” The book releases a plume of dust, giving off a musty, old-book smell as Boromir leafs through the first few pages.
Faramir squints at the title and frowns. “The Lord of the Rings?” He’s not sure how good it can be, considering how huge the book is. It looks like a grown-up book—dry and difficult to read.
But Boromir makes it sound amazing, sharing stories of the great battles, and snippets of the main characters’ journeys. Faramir loves the details Boromir adds as he goes, and the sound effects he makes: through Boromir’s re-telling, Legolas the Elf shoots exploding arrows while surfing on the shields of his fallen enemies, Aragorn the Ranger wields a set of dual pistols that go piu piu before scores of Orcs drop dead at his feet, and Gimli the Dwarf splits skulls with his katana-style battle axe.
“Can Gandalf have laser-beam eyes?” Faramir asks, once. Sometimes it seems like the wizard of their company has no special powers at all, having just been ousted by his former friend in spell incantations over a mountain pass. Clearly, this wizard is no wizard of words.
Boromir hums thoughtfully. “He can have laser-beam eyes. Or if you want, he can have a laser-beam staff.”
“Ooh, yes,” says Faramir, his eyes growing wide, delighted at how Gandalf goes on to best an ancient Balrog by aiming his laser-beam staff at its eyes; he blinds it enough to make it lose its balance and fall off a bridge to its death.
Faramir thinks Gandalf must level up quite nicely after defeating the Balrog, as he gets more spells in his repertoire and a new set of armour, though he’ll probably need more kills before he can upgrade his staff. Or before Boromir will upgrade it in his stories, anyway.
Boromir does the best Dwarf voices (they sound like Scottish people) and the funniest Elf voices (where he pitches his voice high like a girl), even if Faramir thinks his Hobbit voices sound too much like himself. Voices aside, however, he reads Faramir the most awesome battle scenes, like how some evil wizard attacks a fortress where all these people were hiding. Or how a bunch of Orcs attacked a city and Gandalf, the totally badass wizard, helps the whole city survive.
“With his laser-beam staff, of course,” says Boromir, with a sanctimonious little nod. Trolls are especially susceptible to the staff, turning into stone when Gandalf aims his all-powerful light at them.
He almost never reads the stories about their namesakes though, which Faramir finds immensely curious. “What happened to Boromir?” Faramir asks. “Wasn’t he part of that Fellowship group?”
Boromir closes the book he’s reading to Faramir, which is suspicious enough in itself. “He wasn’t—he didn’t—” Boromir tries, before he sighs. “He returned to his city,” Boromir says finally, “and reunited with his brother. They both became the king’s closest advisors. Forever and ever. The end.”
“Oh,” says Faramir, yawning as he shuffles deeper into their blanket. “That’s good. I always thought he should see his brother again.” He smiles in the dark when Boromir switches off the lamp and curls in behind him.
“Yes,” Boromir agrees, though his voice is inexplicably sad. “I always thought he should, too.”
And though Faramir doesn’t understand why Boromir’s sad, he knows he can chase the sad away, simply by winding his fingers through Boromir’s beneath the blanket and throwing their joined hands over his belly.
So he does.
When Faramir finally gets his own library card, he checks the series out of the library, excited that he can finally read it on his own. Checks for discrepancies between the Boromir-version and the real one, disappointed to find in fact, that Gimli’s logically impractical katana-axe doesn’t exist. That Aragorn doesn’t actually wield a set of dual pistols.
He likes Boromir’s version better; Boromir makes everything better, in the way that big brothers do, whether it’s healing hurts, embellishing stories, or making grape jelly sandwiches.
Faramir trudges his way through the rest of the story, to read about their namesakes; with names like his and his brother’s, they must be heroes in the book, or their parents would’ve named them something normal.
Like Jason and Jacob. Or if they had to have stuffy names, maybe Stanton and Winston.
He already knows the Boromir and Faramir of the book were brothers too, but he’s surprised by the similarities between their lives and his. Of how their mother had died when they were young. How the Boromir of the books had raised Faramir after that, not unlike his own brother, and how their father seemingly had little left but contempt for his youngest son.
Faramir allows himself a chuckle at the description of the two brothers, with their dark hair, so unlike the honeyed hue of his and Boromir’s own, and grey eyes, instead of blue. Regardless, much of their story rings true for Faramir’s own life, and he finds himself empathizing deeply with the brothers of the book.
Finds himself drawn into their story, each tantalizing thread pulling him further into the tapestry of their adventure.
He reads avidly of how the brothers had spent most of their lives fighting a hopeless battle against a dark force. Of how the book-Faramir had had a dream, a hope of something that might save Gondor. And of how Boromir, deeming the journey too perilous for his brother, had left for a hidden valley of the Elves, to puzzle out the riddle they’d been given in their dreams. Tried to bring back the weapon that’d been found, that might finally help them win the war against the enemy.
Boromir had left, and never come back. He’d died on his quest—died a hero, Faramir thinks—and all his younger brother had gotten in recompense was a dream-like vision of his body, his only keepsake of Boromir his cloven horn.
Faramir stops reading after that, swallowing hard against the lump that’s built up in his throat.
He turns off the light and pads over quietly to his brother’s bed. Slips under the covers and slides his arms around Boromir’s waist. Buries his face into his brother’s neck.
“Took you long enough—ugh, your nose is cold,” Boromir gripes, but he turns over and lets Faramir burrow into his arms. “What’s wrong?”
“I read some of the books in that series mom and dad liked so much.” His body language is explanation enough on its own.
Boromir doesn’t say anything for a while. Then, “I guess you found out about the guys we were named after, huh.”
Faramir just nods into Boromir’s chest and tucks his toes under Boromir’s legs.
“Don’t worry,” says Boromir. “I’m not going to go anywhere.” He ruffles Faramir’s hair, fond. “I won’t leave you behind.” Then, more solemnly, “I won’t leave you, ever.” There’s a weight behind his words, one that makes it seem more than a childish promise whispered under the covers.
“Good,” says Faramir in a small voice. He curls his arms under Boromir’s shoulders, his legs twining further around Boromir’s. Like he’s a sea barnacle Boromir won’t ever be rid of.
He doesn’t think he could bear it if his Boromir left and never came back.
Faramir would go with him, to whatever end. Wouldn’t leave him to die alone on some ill-fated journey.
He finds out later that the Faramir of the books turned out to be a hero of this War of the Ring, but without Boromir, he wonders if his namesake only felt like half a hero.
If he’d ever felt like a hero at all.
By the time they’re both old enough to leave college, their father’s all but run Starlight, Starbright into the ground. He hasn’t had the heart for it after their mother died, and customers are less inclined to buy flowers from a surly, sour-faced man.
Boromir’s not expected to take up the mantle for it; he’s supposed to be an economics major now, having graduated from the local college, but because of the same ‘economy’, he’s had to take a job at one of the construction companies in town for the past few years. Having dabbled in environmental science and horticulture for a year himself, Faramir’s decided it wasn’t for him. What he has decided on, is that he wants to take over the flower shop instead. To breathe the same magic and life and wonder into the shop that he’s sure their mother had brought to it once.
No, their father had said, when Faramir first pitched him the idea. Why can’t you be like Boromir, and do something useful with your life?
And Boromir had fought for him then: Let Faramir have the shop. He knows flowers. He knows the business. And he loves what he does, something you stopped doing since mom died.
Their father never rose to the bait, only countered Boromir at every turn. And if the shop fails? What then? Will you carry both Faramir and the shop?
Yes, said Boromir. Because Faramir’s dream is mine.
And their old man had called them foolish, had hemmed and hawed and stiffed them with a huge startup bill, but in the end, before he died, he’d handed it over.
The shop was in their name.
“How are we going to pay for all this stuff?” Faramir asks now, gesturing to the pile of bills for seeds, planters, a new display cooler, and ad placements.
The only good thing about all this is that their parents had bought the place where the shop was located so they didn’t have to pay for a lease. Faramir wishes they’d bought the flat upstairs too, so he and Boromir wouldn’t have to make the three-block trek everyday from the rental basement suite they’ve had to move to, but it’s been stuck in construction limbo for the past two years. Waiting for some restaurant to open.
“Let me worry about that,” says Boromir, with what he thinks is a reassuring smile. He kisses the corner of Faramir’s mouth, gentle. “We’ll be all right.”
The shadows of doubt and worry don’t leave his eyes though, so Faramir tugs him into the back room, onto their soft black couch with the broken spring. Lets Boromir press him into the cushions and kiss him, again and again, before they’re fumbling at belts and buttons and zippers, scrabbling for a vial of oil for the pleasure they’ve come to enjoy. Boromir eases Faramir open with steady fingers, before pushing into him, slow. Works his way up to sharp, brutal thrusts, just the way Faramir likes, until Faramir’s hands are clawed tight into the fabric of the couch. Until he’s biting the cushions to muffle his cries.
“I wish you could stay,” Faramir whispers, when they’ve finished. He tucks a strand of sweat-slick hair behind Boromir’s ear. Presses the fingers of his other hand into Boromir’s shoulders, as if by pressing hard enough, Faramir can keep him here, bolt him down, shackle Boromir to him so he can’t leave.
“I wish I could too,” says Boromir. He lays his head on Faramir’s shoulder as he catches his breath. Winds his arms around Faramir’s waist, gentle. But the bills won’t pay themselves and food won’t magically appear on their table, and they both know it. So they don’t have long at all before he has to kiss Faramir once, hard, and toss his shirt over his head. “Don’t wait up for me tonight,” he says.
Sometimes he doesn’t come back from the work sites until after dark, when the dinner Faramir’s made has gone cold.
“Mmh,” says Faramir, non-committal, straightening Boromir’s shirt and stealing a ghost of a kiss before he leaves.
They both know Faramir will wait up for him anyway.
It takes another two years before the shop starts making a steady stream of revenue, enough that Faramir can funnel part of it back into the business, in hardier display coolers, a wider variety of gifts and cards, and his crowning masterpiece, the little greenhouse out back. He grows a supply of their own flowers there, so that they can rely less on the wholesale florist—even sectioned it off into different areas, to simulate various climates, letting him grow some of the more difficult flowers to use for arrangements.
Word of mouth’s gotten the shop farther than most of their flyers and bench ads, and they’ve built up a decent clientele, many of them repeat customers.
Some are their parents’ old friends, elderly couples who drop by for cards, stuffed animals, knickknacks, and bouquet orders to “support Finny and Denny’s kids”. In truth, it’s probably because of them that Faramir and Boromir managed to keep the shop afloat when they first took it over, and it’s a fact Faramir never forgets, throwing in little extras for them when the shop’s been doing well.
There’s also a young woman with long blonde hair, who comes in to buy a bouquet of white lilies every other week. An older gentleman, who looks wise beyond his years with his graying beard and cane, often coming in just to enjoy the sight of flowers and sunshine; he frequently leaves with a set of lilacs, accompanied by handmade prints of butterflies and horses. And countless others who stop by for a chat, and leave with miniature cacti or bonsai plants, or, if Faramir can swing it, whole arrangements that he’s just finished.
The only annoying thing about their location is the amount of noise coming from upstairs at all hours, a cacophony of hammering, drilling, and heavy clomping footsteps. Faramir puts up with it anyway, because the shop’s located at a place with lots of foot traffic, with a bus stop just out front.
He’s heard from Boromir that the place upstairs finally got bought out. That it’s slated to become a Greek restaurant when it’s done, and wonders if he can barter for food with their flowers. Adornments for souvlaki, or even spanakopita. Unless the owners decide to cheap out and use those garish plastic flowers that other places resort to.
“Hey, I was thinking—” Faramir tries, after Boromir returns to their little basement suite and finishes scarfing down dinner. He figures he’ll ask Boromir about what else he’s heard on the restaurant. When it might be open.
But when Boromir gives him a sleepy half-smile, the bags under his eyes too dark and the lines at his forehead too sharp from long hours at the job, Faramir can’t bring himself to say anything else. Just guides him to the bed, opening his arms to hold Boromir and kiss him, nosing Thank you’s and I love you’s into his neck only after Boromir falls asleep.
Faramir manages not to bring up the whole staying thing for another while, before Boromir blows that plan out of the water. Not with a huge, moving gesture, but with small, heartfelt tokens, the same as he’s always done.
It’s when Faramir’s absently humming to himself, clipping thorns from a set of roses that he plans to set in a glass bud vase—a last-minute anniversary order—that the wind chime he’s wound over the door sounds. Like a light jingle of bells and laughter.
“Faramir.”
The voice snaps him out of his dazed reverie, because this is better than thinking about Boromir, it’s him in the flesh. “Mmhn,” Faramir nods, shifting the rose thorns to one side. It’s so Boromir doesn’t hurt himself when he leans over the counter, into Faramir’s space, for a one-armed hug or a kiss, like he usually does.
Boromir slips two packets across the counter, seeds for stargazer lilies and lavender. “Got you some of these from the hardware store,” he says with a smile. “They had a greenhouse out back.” He’s grown into the habit of dropping off seeds for flowers he finds new or interesting.
“Thanks,” Faramir grins, setting down his scissors. He could use some of these for the arrangements he’s had in mind.
“And this,” Boromir says, producing a potted maroon geranium from behind his back with a flourish, “is for you.” It’s beautiful, with its wide, flat petals, the edges tinged with an ivory-white softness. Faramir hasn’t said so aloud, but he’s always preferred potted plants to cut ones because of how much longer they last. The way they’re more alive. And for Boromir to have figured this out…
Faramir swallows hard, around the knot building in his throat.
“I can grow that myself,” Faramir laughs, a little forced, but he drops a peck of a thank-you kiss on Boromir’s cheek, since there’s no one around. “Can you stay?” he asks, before mentally kicking himself. “Just for lunch, I mean.”
It isn’t what he means, but he can’t help asking, on the off chance that maybe this time, Boromir won’t have to leave him so soon. Won’t have to leave at all.
“Can’t,” Boromir says, shaking his head. “I’ve got to get back to the site.” He’s working on building a school out in one of the new communities today. Probably snuck by the shop while making a supply run. He covers Faramir’s hand with his and squeezes, his palm warm, with just the right amount of roughness and weight. “One day, though,” he says. Leans over the counter and kisses Faramir on the mouth, softer, sweeter, before he goes. “One day soon.”
“Sure,” Faramir nods, the upturn of his lips frozen somewhere between grimace and smile. “Soon.”
Like maybe in the next decade.
Or the one after that.
“I’m sorry,” Boromir says, when he’s late swinging by the shop to pick Faramir up for dinner for the umpteenth time. He loops his arms around Faramir, squeezes his waist in apology.
Faramir shrugs. It wouldn’t mean anything, except that today—today was his birthday, and he’d been hoping Boromir would remember. That maybe he’d make his excuses from work, and even come home early to spend it with Faramir.
And now this, after a bad day of the movers upstairs being especially loud and clunky, lugging boxes and tarp-wrapped furniture into the floor above.
“It’s fine,” Faramir mumbles. He should’ve expected as much anyway.
“It’s not,” Boromir insists. “I wanted to take you out for your birthday tonight. For dinner. For that movie you wanted to see so much.”
“Oh. Rain cheque, maybe?” Faramir murmurs against Boromir’s mouth. Winds arms around his neck, loose, in forgiveness. So Boromir did remember, but everything’s closed now anyway, and they’ve just missed the last round of movie showings at the theatre.
Boromir laughs, a deep, genuine rumble. “Absolutely. I did get you a gift, though.”
When Faramir blinks, Boromir takes advantage of his momentary daze to buss him on the cheek. “A gift? What is it?”
Boromir reaches into his pocket for a small box, square and velvet and black, like the kind people use for jewelry. But there’s no way this is—this couldn’t be—
It’s a key.
Not ornate, like those brass keys he’s seen for Victorian-era mansions, or even engraved. Just a simple key lying in a felt-lined box that Boromir scrounged from god knows where. It’s possibly the smallest thing Boromir has ever given him; other years, he’s gotten Faramir a water gun, baseball cards, a book he’s wanted forever. And in more recent years, a new trowel, even mini greenhouses for his plants. So Faramir’s not sure what to make of this.
“Oh. A key!” says Faramir, trying to sound enthusiastic. He wonders if he should tell Boromir he’s not a kid anymore. That he doesn’t need a plastic treasure chest full of books and toys unlocked by a mysterious key. But Boromir’s beaming at him so brightly that Faramir can’t bring himself to say the words. “What does it open?” he asks instead.
“It’s a surprise,” Boromir says, pulling out a necktie from his jacket pocket. He ties it around Faramir’s eyes, snug. Hums as he takes Faramir’s hand and guides him outside.
Faramir’s got the feeling that Boromir’s just leading him around the building to throw him off; even with his eyes covered, he can tell they’ve walked a lopsided figure-eight outside. At some point he’ll have to tell Boromir that his subterfuge needs work, but Faramir suspects that now is not the time.
“Where are we going?” Faramir says, still genuinely curious. A scavenger hunt in the night, perhaps? Is the key a clue to another in a series?
“Mmhn, careful now,” Boromir says. He’s being evasive as hell, but sounds positively giddy as he leads Faramir up a set of stairs. Guides his hand to a keyhole, and after the creak of a door opening, leads him over the threshold, one arm settling cozily above Faramir’s hip. “All right, you can take the blindfold off now,” Boromir says, fumbling at the wall for a switch, before light floods the room, warm and bright and inviting.
Faramir tugs the necktie from around his eyes, eager. Finds that they’ve walked into a fully furnished little flat, with a kitchen, a cozy couch in front of a television, and a small dining table. There’s a hall too, one that probably leads to a bedroom.
It’s a moment more before Faramir realizes that it’s their television. Their couch. Their table. Along with the collection of hideous potted shrubs that he’s rescued over the years, sitting on the mantel. The old oil painting of roses their mother did, with the words ♥ home is where the heart is ♥ emblazoned along the edges of the canvas, hanging above the kitchen sink.
“Boromir?” he says in wonder. “Is this what I think it is?” It’s the flat above the flower shop, if he’s got this right. For all of Boromir’s attempts at subterfuge, it isn’t hard to guess where they are; he can even see the bus stop in front of the flower shop when he turns around.
“I bought it, yeah. Fixed the flat up a little,” Boromir says proudly, in the way he means I fixed it up a lot. “Got some friends to do the wiring and plumbing. And they helped move all our stuff here.” Most of their belongings had been left in boxes since their last move, anyway.
“Oh,” says Faramir, quiet. And suddenly, all those missed dinners and movie nights start to make sense, because Boromir’s been here, doing all this for him. For them.
“I know it’s not much,” Boromir says, seeming to take Faramir’s silence as disappointment, “but it’s ours.” His hand at Faramir’s waist twitches, maybe from nervousness.
“It’s everything,” Faramir insists, and he’s so happy it hurts, his chest tight with all the love and affection he can’t contain. “It’s amazing, it’s…” He buries his face into Boromir’s shirt, because there’s too much he wants to say but doesn’t know how to.
Boromir chuckles and leans in, his breath warm in Faramir’s ear. “Now you won’t have to keep your voice down when we— ”
“Boromir!” Faramir splutters, heat rushing to his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
“There’s something else,” Boromir says, quiet, when he’s stopped laughing and Faramir’s stopped blushing. “I wanted to tell you that I—well.”
“What is it?” Faramir asks. He takes Boromir’s hands in his, warming them in the cool night air.
“I’ve quit the construction company. To work with you. We’ve got enough set aside, and—” Boromir takes a shaky breath. “I can manage our expenses and the day-to-day things. Like run the till and clean, and tidy the shop so you can focus on making the arrangements and growing the flowers. That is, if…if you’ll have me. Will you?” he asks, with a twitch of a smile, hopeful.
Boromir’s confession makes Faramir ache a little inside, like he’s got to list all the ways he can be useful before Faramir will accept him, because he doesn’t have to; Faramir would want him there even if he didn’t do a thing, because it means Boromir can stay. He won’t have to dash off after a secret visit now. Won’t have to leave at all.
“Of course I’ll have you,” laughs Faramir, but even as Boromir grins wide and genuine, he can’t help the niggling feeling that Boromir’s asking something else, beneath all that.
“Well?” Boromir says, after Faramir’s finished pressing short, happy kisses to his cheeks and mouth. He herds Faramir inside, closes the door, and waggles his eyebrows. “That table and couch and bed aren’t going to christen themselves.” He nuzzles into Faramir’s neck and purrs, “Or the shower.”
Faramir laughs, so happy that he could kiss Boromir again and again, so he does just that, and in the privacy of their first real home together, more.
“Did you get the flowers I left for you by your breakfast?” Faramir asks, as he empties out a bucket of petal clippings he’s saved from the shop. He watches them fall, thoughtful, wondering if he can do something with them. Perhaps preserve them in water, and lay them beneath water gems as a base.
“The daisies?” Boromir nods, beaming. “Yeah, they were pretty.”
Faramir frowns. “Those were windflowers.” He’d left a small cluster of white ones by Boromir’s breakfast, meant to be a symbol of love, because he thought red roses were too overt. Clearly though, overt is what Boromir needs.
“Sorry, windflowers,” Boromir says, sheepish. He winds his arms around Faramir’s waist from behind, letting his head rest against Faramir’s shoulder in apology.
With a sigh, Faramir turns into his embrace. Smiles in spite of himself, at the way the roughness of Boromir’s stubble tickles his shoulder. As long as Boromir likes the flowers, he doesn’t have to know the meaning of them, Faramir supposes.
When Boromir goes downstairs to get the shop ready, Faramir heads to the greenhouse, inspecting the flowers in the corner he’s been cultivating for a special arrangement. There are the few petite red roses he’s been saving for the centerpiece, a cluster of white primrose flowers as the border, and two pots of salvia that he plans to use to crown the arrangement as a whole.
He can’t match Boromir’s birthday gift to him from a month ago, but this is his way of saying Thank you and I love you in the way Faramir knows how.
He starts the arrangement off by dropping a collection of dark blue water gems, the color of Boromir’s eyes, into the bottom of a crystal vase. A quick glance through the glass door tells him that his brother’s got being the front face of the shop down pat, leaving Faramir more time to focus on his greenhouse plants. Faramir hums, content to continue styling and shaping the flowers for the arrangement, making sure to complement the pattern of leaves and vines on the vase’s frosted surface.
We’ll go through the flowers together, Faramir decides, smiling to himself. He’ll explain the meaning of each one present in the arrangement when he presents it to Boromir. There’s the added bonus that it’ll familiarize Boromir with the flowers they sell, because his brother still occasionally tries to sell carnations to customers asking for roses, by accident.
He sets the finished arrangement at the back of their floral display cooler when Boromir’s back is turned, hiding it behind some tall, fluted rose vases.
“Faramir? Everything all right?”
Faramir startles, closing the door to the display a little too loudly, rattling the front-most vases. “More than all right,” he says, turning, trying to smile disarmingly.
“Oh, good,” says Boromir. He brushes a wisp of a kiss against Faramir’s cheek. Faramir nudges Boromir’s hip in retaliation, fond.
“Well,” Boromir grins, “if you have that much energy to be physical, give me a hand with arranging the front of the shop.” They need to fill the spaces where bouquets and arrangements have been bought with new ones. To Faramir’s relief, Boromir doesn’t turn to the cooler display to the side; nor does he see the arrangement Faramir has just set in there.
“If I help, will there be time to get more physical later?” Faramir asks, innocent.
Boromir huffs a laugh this time, and ruffles Faramir’s hair. “Maybe.”
“So?” Faramir asks, as they get ready to close the shop that evening. “Where do you want to go for your birthday?”
It’s been a good day, the two of them having sold several major arrangements and a couple of the smaller rosebuds in fishbowl vases.
Boromir shrugs, like he’s about to say Anywhere’s fine, so Faramir squeezes him around the waist and adds, “It’s your birthday, you have to choose.”
“Fine,” Boromir laughs, giving in. “How about the local burger joint?”
Faramir thinks of the juicy, greasy burgers at Sam’s Burger House, and their thick ice cream-based shakes. The food’s good, but it’s not exactly birthday fare. “It’s all right if you want to eat something else, you know,” he says. “We…we can afford it, can’t we?”
Boromir gestures with his hands in the air in front of him. “It’s not about the money. It’s…”
Oh, Faramir realizes. He curls gentle fingers around Boromir’s. “It’s the memories, isn’t it?”
Sam’s isn’t fancy, and doesn’t have a themed décor; it doesn’t even have the trappings of a proper diner, with its tangerine-red walls, vintage ceiling lamps and milk-white chairs arranged around yellow tables in little honeycomb clusters. In fact, the whole place looks like it’s been furnished with mismatched pieces and paint swiped from someone’s garage sale.
But it’s comfort and warmth and good food, a place they used to go for celebratory dinners, when their parents were still alive. Back when there were still things to celebrate as a family.
Boromir’s fingers close around Faramir’s as he nods. “The memories.”
They end up filling up on strawberry-peach milkshakes and the House Special burgers, buns stuffed with onions, beef patties, cheddar cheese, and a fried egg each. Faramir lets his toes nudge against Boromir’s under the table as they eat, playful. Boromir leans in and knocks their knees together from across the cramped table, grinning as he does so, his mouth full of burger.
“Ugh, I didn’t want to see your food,” Faramir says, lip curling as he tries to shield his eyes.
“That’s too bad. I guess if you wanted gourmet seafood, you should’ve gotten me the salmon burger,” Boromir replies, without missing a beat.
Faramir groans at the pun, but laughs anyway. Stays in this giddy mood the whole way home.
There’s a full moon overhead, and its lovely, rippling reflection on the river they’re driving along, but Faramir just looks at Boromir while he drives. Watches the way the moonlight makes Boromir’s hair glow like the fireflies they’d used to chase on summer nights. It makes Boromir look so much younger than he is, before he had to shoulder the burden of looking after his kid brother, holding a job, and making sure they had enough to make ends meet even when the shop wasn’t doing well in their early years.
“Boromir,” he says, quiet. Lays his hand, gentle, on top of his brother’s on the stick shift.
“What is it?” asks Boromir. They’ve stopped now, Boromir finished with easing the truck into its space behind the shop. Faramir can’t remember life without this old Chevy, solid and dependable with its sturdy, sky-blue frame. Comforting, with its soft, worn-out seats.
“I,” Faramir tries. He doesn’t think ‘butterflies in the stomach’ is enough to describe this feeling, this weird nervousness; it’s more akin to butterflies struggling to free themselves from their cocoons, a useless beat of wings against an ironclad barrier. The feeling fills the whole of his chest, an aching kind of fullness that’s close to overflowing, and he needs to say it, needs to tell Boromir how much he—
Boromir nods encouragingly, but when no words are forthcoming, he cups the back of Faramir’s neck with his palm. Leans in to press a soft, off-center kiss to his mouth.
Faramir kisses back harder, hungrier, grateful for this out that Boromir’s given him, because it’s easier to show how he feels this way, this raw, physical manner. It’s easier not to have to say the words, to find the ways to tell Boromir how much he means to Faramir, right now. Even if he knows it’s going to come back and bite him in the ass later. That easier isn’t the way to do things.
He’s too preoccupied with slipping his hands under Boromir’s shirt, to trace the muscles of his stomach, his chest. To rake nails along Boromir’s back, searching for warmth and skin and heat. His fingers slide down to the waist of Boromir’s pants, fumbling at the belt buckle, tugging at the zipper—
“Faramir,” Boromir gasps between bruisingly hard kisses, “get—get inside the flat. We are not doing this in the back of the truck again.”
Faramir’s fingers give pause in their frantic work, a vague part of him recalling how his backside had ached for days when Boromir last took him in the back of the truck. It’s not an experiment he wants to repeat. “Inside,” he nods. “Hurry.”
Boromir leads him up the stairs, fumbling the key into the lock as Faramir kisses his neck, his jaw, his mouth, hot and filthy kisses that leave Boromir breathless, even as he tries to return them with those of his own. “Faramir,” he groans, as the door falls inward.
They shed their clothes in a wild trail of shoes, socks, jeans and shirts that leads to the bedroom, and Boromir presses him into the sheets, kissing Faramir as if he’s trying to reach every part of him at once, hard and hot and hungry.
“More,” begs Faramir, looping his arms around Boromir’s neck. He grinds his half-hard cock against the front of Boromir’s boxers, pleased to find Boromir’s answering hardness against his own.
Boromir leans in for another bruising kiss, tasting like the sweet tartness of strawberries, his hands clawed tight around Faramir’s shoulders. Bullies Faramir’s knees apart with his own, to settle more firmly against him, and presses his burgeoning erection hard against Faramir’s. The friction from his grinding slide is so good, but there’s too much in the way, too much fabric between him and Boromir.
“Off—too much—just you—” Faramir manages, and somehow Boromir deciphers his broken panting correctly, or he’s had the same thought, because he shucks his own boxers off. Mouths teasingly at Faramir’s cock through the thin cotton of his before urging his hips up and out to slide them off.
The moment he’s tugged Faramir’s boxers off and flung them to the floor, Boromir’s on him again, hands hooked over the jut of his hips as he presses kisses to Faramir’s thighs and knees. He hikes himself higher just for a moment to nose at Faramir’s navel, before leaning in and blowing a noisy raspberry, teasing, like he did when Faramir was little.
“Boromir,” Faramir groans through a restrained giggle. “I’m not—I’m not a kid anymore, cut that out. That’s for babies.”
“I’ll stop doing it when you stop giggling like a schoolgirl,” Boromir laughs, and Faramir barely manages to bite down on a moan, when Boromir kisses the tip of his cock.
“More, like that,” Faramir says, shifting his hips upward, hopeful.
Boromir obliges, with feather-light touches of lips to the head, the side of Faramir’s cock, then broad, pleasurable licks, laving his tongue from base to tip. He touches his tongue to the slit, grinning at Faramir’s low moan. Considers it permission to take Faramir’s cock between his lips, and close his mouth over it entirely, his hands pinning Faramir to the bed by the hips and keeping him steady, even as Faramir bucks and arches against the bed.
“Good, like that—yes,” Faramir says, panting, and he mashes a hand into his brother’s hair, relishing the softness that slides through the spaces between his fingers.
Then Boromir hums with his mouth around Faramir, and Faramir nearly hurts himself arching off the bed, but for Boromir’s hands pinning him down. He still manages to bring one hip up, but it’s because Boromir’s let go of one hip, to—to—
“Ah,” is all Faramir can say, even though he means, That hurts, and Did you even use lube, because Boromir’s pressed a finger, no, two inside him, stroking, searching for his prostate. “Boro—Boromir, please, ah—”
“Easy, Faramir,” Boromir says. He’s let his mouth slip off Faramir’s cock, to lay a trail of small, comforting kisses to his belly. Strokes Faramir’s prick with his other hand to distract him from the pain. “Better now?”
It is, and Faramir nods. He’s just gotten comfortable with the fingers pressed deep inside him, when Boromir crooks them suddenly, and oh, he’s found it, that spot that makes Faramir see white, and Faramir pants through the burn of it, the pleasure, bucking his hips into Boromir’s hand to get him to press there again.
He whines in protest, when instead of more and again, Boromir withdraws his fingers and swirls them in the precome that’s gathered on Faramir’s stomach. Frowns, as if it’s not enough to ease the way, and reaches for the bottle of lube they keep in Boromir’s night table, uncapping it to pour it into his palm.
“Inside, want you—more,” begs Faramir. He wonders if he’d be embarrassed if he could see himself, rutting against Boromir’s hip like this, but right now, all he wants is Boromir on him, in him, filling the very space around him.
What he wants, Boromir gives, because there’s suddenly the press of heated flesh against the pucker of his hole. And thank goodness Boromir thought to add lube, because when he slides in, Faramir doesn’t have to tell him wait or stop because the pressure is slow and easy, giving him time to adjust.
“Faramir?” Boromir asks, when their hips are flush. He cradles Faramir’s cheek with a roughened palm. “Are you all right?’
Faramir closes his hand over Boromir’s. “All right,” he assures. Breathes in once, then twice, before breaking off into pleasured gasps as Boromir moves inside him, pressing upward and in. He twines his legs over Boromir’s back, urging him on with his ankles. Begs for harder and more, rewarding each of his brother’s pleasing thrusts with a breathy gasp, a strangled cry.
As if heartened by Faramir’s cries, Boromir hikes one of Faramir’s legs over his shoulder, pinning the other to the bed with his own leg, and presses in deep again.
The new angle has Faramir sinking teeth into the pillow, trying to muffle his cries, because Boromir’s hitting him right bloody there and Faramir’s caught between gasping in pleasure and whimpering at the sharp, near-painful impact. Boromir must notice something, in the furrow in his brow, or the quality of the sounds Faramir’s making, because he eases the power of his thrusts back just a touch, but then it’s not enough anymore, and Faramir scowls, digging his nails into Boromir’s forearms, harsh.
“Harder,” Faramir pleads. “Deeper.” He’d take the near-painful digs to not-enough any day.
In response, Boromir shoves a pillow under Faramir’s hips. Hitches Faramir’s other leg over his shoulder, until Faramir’s bent nearly in half, knees pressed to shoulders as he clutches the sheets hard, crying out between rough, greedy kisses at the depth of each thrust.
“Please, Boromir—” Faramir whimpers, as Boromir pounds him into the mattress, his fingers trailing intermittently over Faramir’s cock, teasing. He’s unsure of whether he wants more or harder or neither, because it’s too much and just right at once; it’s Boromir occupying every part of him like he’s wanted, with tongue and fingers and prick, and Faramir can’t think, can’t breathe, just knows to moan at every frisson of pleasure sparking through his body.
When his legs threaten to slip from Boromir’s shoulders, Boromir locks them in place, gripping Faramir’s ankles, hard. Surges forward for a perfect, brutal thrust that has Faramir howling, helpless.
“Boromir, I—I’m—” Faramir gasps. He’s close, he can feel it, the familiar burn building in the base of his spine, like a wave, ready to crest.
“Not yet,” Boromir growls. “Not yet, we’re almost—we’re almost there.” He lets Faramir’s legs slide down to his waist. Wraps his palm around Faramir’s cock just in time for a long, steady stroke, before Faramir spills, shaking and panting, onto his own belly. Pushes in deep, then deeper, filling Faramir a heartbeat later.
They still haven’t managed to come together in all this time, but Faramir supposes it’s one of those things he can deal with, before the thought of how good birthday sex can be overwhelms every other thought in his mind.
Faramir lets Boromir rest his head on his shoulder for a few breaths, and ends up counting his respirations for a full minute. Slides fingers through Boromir’s hair, gentle, for another. After three whole minutes pass this way, he nudges his hips into Boromir’s, and says, “Again?”
“You greedy little…” Boromir laughs, fond, before pressing Faramir into the sheets again, sinking teeth into his neck to leave a livid, cherry-bright bruise.
They go a second round, a third, then finally a fourth, each time slower than the last, until it’s less like raw, physical fucking and more the easy lovemaking they’ve grown used to in the mornings. Until Faramir can’t move anymore, can’t come anymore, his cock twitching helplessly against his belly.
“Boromir, I can’t—no more, please,” Faramir begs. He’s not sure how he ever thought he could outlast Boromir in a match of stamina or endurance, since every time they manage a minor marathon like this, he never has. Not that he’s complaining. “Boromir—”
“Finally,” Boromir says, huffing a laugh. And with one brutal, aimed thrust, he pushes into Faramir and spends, hot and deep and wet, pressing his tongue deep inside Faramir’s mouth and wringing the air from his lungs with a hard and hungry kiss.
Holds Faramir through his trembling and presses kisses to his brow, his cheeks, and mouth as they lie together, catching their breath.
“We should shower,” Boromir says at last, into the dark of their room. He turns and finds Faramir’s mouth, touching his tongue to Faramir’s lips until he yields and lets Boromir in. “Or at least change the sheets.” Their sheets are damp, and will be cold later; there’s definitely logic to this suggestion.
“Mmhn,” Faramir mumbles. “I don’t want to do either.” He rolls over and peels the innermost blanket off, kicking it to the floor. “There, problem solved.” Nudges his way back into Boromir’s arms.
“That's the laziest solution I’ve ever seen,” Boromir says. He squeezes Faramir’s shoulder, reproachful. “Even lazier than the time you wanted to do it in the shower just so we wouldn’t have to clean.”
Faramir shrugs, and curls deeper into his brother’s embrace, where it’s warm and snug and the scent of their vanilla-almond soap still lingers.
Sensing that their conversation’s over, Boromir winds his arms lower, around Faramir’s waist. Slots his hips and knees perfectly in place behind Faramir. “I love you,” he says softly, kissing the space beneath Faramir’s ear.
Faramir only responds with a soft, snuffling sound, pretending he’s already asleep. Boromir always makes it sound so easy to say, that it makes Faramir wonder why he’s holding back. Why he hasn’t said the words aloud since he realized he wanted Boromir in every way. In every capacity there was to want.
He wishes he could say it the way Boromir does, affectionate and all-encompassing, because each time Boromir whispers the words, Faramir hears, I love you, brother, lover, other half of my soul.
He’s debating saying it for so long that he nearly falls asleep, but when Boromir nuzzles into his neck, his jaw rough but warm, Faramir thinks very hard at Boromir, I love you too.
The bed is empty when Faramir wakes up.
(tbc - Chapter 2)
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Date: 2014-07-09 06:51 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2014-07-14 04:29 am (UTC)From: