Faramir Fiction Archive

Until the End (NC-17)

23 March 2011 | 1568 words

Summary: There are some battles we are not meant to win…
Pairing: Faramir & Elladan
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Lots of angst, slash and a bit of blood. As for the sex, consensual but complicated, as I like to call it! AU-ish
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: My muses have been enjoying a holiday somewhere far, far away for the longest time. I’m not sure we should regard this as their return, however. More like a postcard. But nevertheless, I am so grateful!

I’ve never quite mastered that art of knowing when to label a story AU when it involves characters who are fictional to begin with, but I suppose this one might belong to that category. Faramir and Osgiliath never happened but Denethor did set himself on fire. The rest of the details are a bit unclear ;)

Finally, Nae, gerich naergon nín is Sindarin for ‘Alas, you have my expression of deep regret’.

Until the End

He cannot close his eyes.

Faramir of Gondor, brother of the late Boromir, son of the late Steward, loses his balance as his feet slide apart. Slipping, sliding in the mud and the blood that covers the ground, fear stabs him. He is the youngest child, never meant to be more than a simple Captain. His thoughts are tumbling over themselves: survival, breath, one more step, one more thrust of his blade… One more thrust…

Ah, but he is challenged! Orcs and Uruks, the Wild Men of the south; beasts and monsters well in over the Pelennor. There are the Oliphaunts, and they roar like Morgoth himself, lost in the folds of history and yet painfully present. Aye, there is pain like Faramir has never known before.

He staggers backwards, bile rising in his throat as he stumbles over a body sprawled in the mud. Before the Oliphaunt Faramir stands shaking. The rhythmic beating of the drums, the pounding, the heavy heartbeat of the land writhing in agony beneath him. How to slay? How to live?

He crumbles in the face of this assault. There is nothing to hold on to. The reek from Orodruin fills the field. The ire… the ire of the Eye. Faramir is one with the land, with the dark sky that lowers itself over the last hope of the free souls of Middle-earth. No warning will his chapped lips form, but a scream so horrid it rips apart his throat and tear his lungs to shreds echoes in the void.

Please.

He thrashes on the ground to the wild pounding upon deerskin. The blood of the fallen soaks his shirt and wets his skin. He aches. Aches so much for forgiveness and redemption. Something wraps around him, ties him down. He fights all the way to the end, to the slaughter that will come. He sees the hand that reaches for him, oddly pale and slender in this distorted version of his last moments in Arda.

He wants to scream again but cannot. Cold air rushes over him. Then time runs out.

Please!

He is pushed into the ground, deeper and deeper, until the mud has claimed all of him. He twists his head to the side but there is no air left for him to breathe. The burning pain twines around his legs and spreads through his bones. He wants the Pelennor to fall away underneath him so that he will see no more.

The calloused hand fights for dominance over his terror. It roughly caresses his hip and thigh. The drumming is so loud now that Faramir’s whimpers are completely lost in it. He tries to move, to raise himself up, but is pushed back down, sinking downwards until he lies at the very roots of his bloodline, now doomed to end with him. But in the core of the earth something else wakens, and he knows such longing and hunger that his vision darkens until he sees only the pools and puddles of blood, and can feel only the scorching fire that laps at him.

“Please…”

He knows two things then: there is relief as his body is breached, and there is horror as hideous creatures sweep in from the east, riding on the stench flooding out of Mordor and blocking out the eastern sky. He shrinks from them even as he is pinned to the ground. He means to look away but their piercing eyes and their inhuman shrieks of delight at the sight of easy prey are like magnets, drawing his gaze until he has looked upon them long enough to know what they are.

“Nazgûl…”

The hand he has lost track of suddenly grabs hold of him and rolls him partially on to his side. Now he hears the hisses of arrows slicing through the air and the meeting of steel on steel. He cannot move his legs but he bucks into the hand that cups his aching length. It hurts when he is stroked but he has always been marked for a painful end. He tastes blood on his own tongue as the hard cock that is shoved into him time and time again forces him into a new darkness. The white stone of Minas Tirith fades before his eyes and his attempts to hold on to it are futile. Wave after wave of mind-numbing heat crashes through him and the fingers wrapped firmly around his pounding flesh coax him to choke on a raspy groan.

Then comes the rain. The world grows blissfully still and there is silence. It is as though softness and gentleness are remembered again, if only for a second. In this precious moment, Faramir thinks that once, in a time long lost, he knew love.

Tricked by this illusion, his body gives in just as the Nazgûl bear down upon the City; and no sun will rise again.

“Brother, I must…”

“No. I heard everything.”

Elladan drops his gaze to the withered grass, unable to look Aragorn in the eye. His breeches he laced up hastily and he is soiled. He swallows hard.

“We must consider this carefully, and see what we can make of it,” says Aragorn in that flat voice Elladan has come to loathe.

“Have you grown so coldhearted,” cries Elladan, his voice shaking now, “that you think only of the tactics of war?” He gestures, and not without shame, at the slim figure now asleep under a couple of blankets not ten feet away.

Aragorn’s handsome face is drawn. He is weary, Elladan knows that. They all are. But no one bears the burden of Faramir.

It is a while before Aragorn speaks. His eyes shone last, Elladan thinks, when he looked upon their sister in Imladris. Before the Fellowship set out, when there was still time.

Eventually, Aragorn sighs and his shoulders drop. “Nay, brother, think not that I am so cruel. But now we know what the enemy is planning and this is information we must make use of if we can…” He takes a step closer and it is impossible in this moment to think that this man was once a carefree child, playing in the sunlight flooding the blessed Valley.

“I shall go to the others,” he continues. “Stay here, where you are most needed.”

His hand on Elladan’s shoulder is heavy. Together, they look upon Faramir’s still form. Elladan feels empty and he is not sure that he has a right to feel anything else.

“Your tears soothe him…” says Aragorn softly.

“He does not know me…”

“Not while he dreams.”

Elladan shakes his head. “They are not dreams, Aragorn. They are the cruelest of visions; they tear his soul apart.”

“You heal him.”

“His wounds run deep and this you know, too.” He has no patience for kindness this night. “Tell me honestly, is there hope for him?”

He knows that he is beseeching his brother who knows more of Men than he does, but there are truths that he does not want Aragorn to acknowledge, even when asked.

Aragorn’s eyes overflow with pity. He opens his mouth but hesitates. Then he speaks, slowly and quietly. “I shall seek out the others. Dawn is still far away.” He pulls his cloak tighter around himself. “Nae, gerich naergon nín…”

He turns from Elladan and makes for the cluster of tents behind the trees. The darkness is challenged only by the glow of embers, the last remnants of a few cooking-fires, but the men are settling in for the night.

Faramir has curled up on his bedroll. The sweat has dried on his brow and he is breathing evenly once more. Elladan sinks down beside him.

More and more often now, Faramir strays into lands and times beyond Elladan’s reach. When morning comes, the evidence of Faramir’s release, and his own, will be plain for them both to see, but Faramir will not curse him for the brutal way in which he was taken. There is another, greater, pain than that of muscles and flesh forming just ahead of them, and if this is the only way to hold on to Faramir…

He lifts aside the blankets and curls around the young man. Elladan laced up his breeches, too, while Aragorn waited in the shadows.

When morning comes, Elladan will again lose his courage. He buries his face in Faramir’s damp curls and closes his eyes.

“I love you.”

But Faramir hears him not.

End

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