Faramir Fiction Archive

Under Pressure (NC-17)

Written by RubyElf

20 October 2011 | 40533 words

Title: Under Pressure
Author: RubyElf
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Faramir
Warnings: violence, hurt/comfort

With Boromir and the hobbits missing, an attempt on Arwen’s life that endangers Legolas instead, and an army gathering at Gondor’s southern borders, Faramir’s unique abilities are called upon to help defend Gondor even while those he loves most are in grave danger.

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Aragorn found Faramir walking out of his meeting with the ten men he was sending south toward Pelargir. The men had departed, walking past their King, each of them with arms full of oddly shaped bags and containers, all eyeing Faramir as if he might possibly have lost his mind. Faramir stopped in the doorway when he saw Aragorn, but waited to speak until the men were gone down the hall.

“They’re leaving now, so they’ll have most of the night to travel in darkness. They’ll be on horseback, as least as long as they’re in friendly territory, so they’ll cover ground very quickly.”

“Good. You still think all that stuff will work?”

Faramir grinned wearily. “Do I think so? Yes. Am I sure? Not really.”

The two men stood quietly for a moment, looking up at the stars strewn across the dark sky overhead. Aragorn opened his mouth to ask Faramir a question, but fell silent when he saw the distant look in the young man’s eyes.

“Faramir?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Yes?”

“What do you see?”

He closed his eyes, and a peaceful smile drifted across his face.

“My brother.”

Aragorn’s heart jumped in his chest. “He’s alive?”

“He and the hobbits… I see them walking together. They’re with the Mirkwood elves. The sky… they’re traveling south.”

“South?” Aragorn exclaimed.

Faramir jerked back to full consciousness, rubbing his forehead.

“Ugh… the more tired I get, the faster that seems to come on… what did you say?”

“South? Why aren’t they returning to Minas Tirith?”

“Who?” Faramir asked, frowning.

“Boromir.”

“What about Boromir?”

Aragorn quickly repeated what Faramir had just told him, but his mind was racing. The young man must have worn himself dangerously close to the edge of exhaustion if his visions, which normally came to him only in sleep or in certain quiet moments, were pulling him away so abruptly and leaving him with no memory of what he’d seen. He was even more determined now that Arwen would not attempt her dangerous plan; besides the many unknowns involved in the process and its consequences, Aragorn now feared that the attempt would take more of Faramir’s strength than the man had to offer at the moment. And Boromir might be safe at the moment, but he was traveling into danger, and Aragorn was quite certain Boromir knew it.

“I’m going back to my rooms,” Faramir said, interrupting Aragorn’s thoughts. “Not sure whether I’m hoping that there’s still time, or whether I’m hoping it’s just over…”

Aragorn frowned. “Maybe you should take a few minutes to collect yourself first.”

And give me a moment to speak to Arwen, he thought to himself.

Faramir shook his head.

“I don’t think I’m going to get any more collected than I am right now, Aragorn. Are you coming with me?”

“Of course.”

Arwen was sitting by the hearth in Faramir’s room when the two men walked in. Aragorn shot her a stern and slightly desperate look, hoping she would understand it. She caught his gaze and returned it with a sharp-edged stare that Aragorn knew well; he had been on the receiving end of that look from Elrond many times as a child.

“Faramir,” she said, ignoring her husband and taking the young man’s hands.

“My Lady,” he said, lowering his head. “Any change?”

She shook her head. “Much the same.”

He nodded. “I should at least go look in on him…”

“Wait,” she said, pulling him back gently.

He cocked his head and studied her, puzzled. “What is it?”

“Arwen,” Aragorn protested.

“Estel, be quiet,” she said, her voice offering no room for argument. “Faramir, I need you to tell me, honestly, how you feel about Legolas.”

He closed his eyes, weary. “Must we discuss this now, my Lady? I can’t…”

“You can, and it’s important. Please.”

Faramir glanced at Aragorn, who was shifting his feet and clearly struggling to stay silent. Arwen released Faramir’s hands and walked to her husband, placing a hand on his chest.

“Estel, you need to leave.”

He scowled. “I’m not leaving…”

“You are leaving,” she said evenly. “I’m not giving you a choice. This is between Faramir and I now, and between Faramir and Legolas.”

“But…”

He did not realize that she had been backing him toward the door until it closed abruptly in his face, leaving him standing blankly in the hall. He grabbed for the handle, but found it locked. For a brief moment he considered calling the guards to come and open it, but that would certainly not improve the situation, so he leaned back against the wall and let himself slump to sit on the cold stone floor, elbows on his knees, and waited.

“Did you just throw your husband out?” Faramir asked, amused.

“I did,” she said. “Answer my question, please. It’s just you and I now.”

“You want to know what I feel for Legolas?”

“I need to know.”

“I… he’s…” he began, but lowered his head. “Please, Arwen.”

“Do you love him?”

“Does it matter now?”

“It matters very much. Answer me. Do you love him? When you think of your future, do you see him in it, or do you expect that one day there will be someone else?”

“Are you trying to torment me?”

Her eyes fixed intently on his. “Faramir.”

The young man sighed. “All right. Yes, I love him. Yes, I would like him to stay with me, for as long as that’s possible… I’m mortal, and I’ll leave him one day no matter what, but… of course I love him. How could I not love him?”

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “I love him too, Faramir, and I think there may be a way for us to give him a last chance.”

Faramir’s eyes snapped to alertness. “How?”

“It would be dangerous for you, Faramir. And I don’t know what will happen to either of you if it succeeds…”

“But he might live.”

“He might. If we don’t try, he will certainly die, but you will certainly live. If we do… he may die in spite of it, and there’s a distinct possibility he might take you with him.”

Faramir was wide awake now, the slump gone from his shoulders. “Tell me what I have to do.”

“Do you want time to think about this?” she asked.

“No,” he said impatiently. “If it’s a matter of giving him a chance or just sitting back and watching him die, there’s nothing to think about.”

She nodded, reaching up to touch his cheek affectionately. “I suspected that would be your answer. Come with me, Faramir.”

“Aragorn was going to try to stop you from doing this, wasn’t he?”

She glanced over her shoulder as she walked toward the bedroom. “Probably.”

With dawn beginning to touch the horizon, Berendir ordered his elves to halt. Merry and Pippin, grateful for the moment of rest, flopped down on the ground immediately, but Boromir growled in protest.

“We can’t stop now. We need to keep moving.”

“We will,” Berendir said.

Boromir scowled. “You’re as bad as…”

He stopped abruptly; he and the elf both knew what he had been about to say.

“As bad as my brother?” Berendir said, quietly but without anger. “I doubt that. Legolas was always the most infuriating. You could know him a thousand years and never get a straight answer from him.”

Boromir chuckled. “That’s the Legolas I know.”

Berendir studied him for a moment. “You will feel his loss.”

“We fought side by side many times. He’s a warrior, and this is a death no warrior deserves.”

Berendir nodded. “I understand.”

“Why have we stopped, then? You want to go and inflict some harm on these brutes as much as I do!”

“Maybe not quite as much,” the elf said, chuckling. “I ordered a halt because, first of all, your little friends are quite exhausted, and second, because you and I need to decide our path from here. You know these lands, and I would like to know what we’re facing.”

Boromir nodded; while he still didn’t want to be wasting time, at least there was a reason for it.

“All right. If any of your elves are carrying paper, I’ll draw you a map of the area. If troops are moving toward Pelargir from Harad, they will be making for the Crossing of Poros, but they will likely have already made the crossing before we can reach them. To reach Pelargir, though, they will have no choice but to cross the Anduin, and I can almost guarantee they’ll actually have to go north of the city to make that crossing. Pelargir sits at the junction of the Anduin and the river Sirith, and the Sirith is a vast river in its own right. Its flow adds considerable speed and depth to the Anduin, and crossing above that junction would be far easier than below it.”

Berendir thought for a moment, his green eyes absent and turned inward. “So if we proceed directly down the Anduin, there’s a possibility we could stumble directly upon the full force of their troops before we even reach Pelargir.”

“That’s right. If they make the crossing to the north, they’ll be between us and the city.”

“What do you suggest?”

Boromir sighed, wondering how it was possible that he was about to make such a statement. “How quickly can your elves build us a few boats?”

Berendir laughed. “We are not the elves of Lórien, friend, but in Mirkwood we travel the Forest River in boats quite often. Surely you’re not thinking of trying to take small, roughly made boats down the Anduin? Its flow is much too strong…”

“Not the Anduin,” Boromir said. “Its tributary, the Sirith. If we could get onto that river in boats, we would arrive directly at Pelargir from its southern side, and we could move very quickly.”

Merry, who had come strolling over during the conversation, grinned up at the man. “I thought you said after Lórien that you’d never get into a bloody elf boat again if your life depended on it.”

Boromir shot him a sharp look. “I didn’t say…”

Pippin sauntered up behind Merry. “ Was that before or after he said that elves were a lot of prissy, arrogant creatures who spent more time on their hair than…”

“Peregrin Took!” Boromir growled, glancing uneasily at Berendir.

The Mirkwood elf raised an eyebrow. “If you did say such a thing, Captain Boromir, after your time in Lórien…”

Boromir glared at the hobbits.

“I must say,” Berendir continued, “that I would have to agree with you most whole-heartedly.”

“What?” Pippin exclaimed.

“Ridiculous creatures, the Lórien elves,” Berendir said, grinning. “You’d think they were the only creatures in all of Arda who can make pretty braids or wander through the forest looking solemn and elegant and wise. We often say in Mirkwood that they would be much improved by a few centuries of battling giant spiders… might set their priorities in order.”

Boromir laughed and clapped Berendir on the shoulder. “You know, I think I’ve realized where I went wrong. When I said I didn’t like elves, I had apparently not met enough of them from Mirkwood.”

“Well,” Merry said, realizing that Boromir had entirely forgotten about them in his glee at sharing mockery of the elves of Lórien and Imaldris.

“Hmph,” Pippin huffed.

“Come on, Pip. We’ll go have a nap in the shade while Boromir chats with his new friend.”

Pippin giggled. “Perhaps they’ll sneak off in the woods together for a ‘private chat’, hmm?”

Merry laughed, but shook his head. “You know Boromir’s got eyes only for Aragorn. But I’m not at all sure that our elf friend knows this.”

“Boromir’s not terribly observant about such things, is he?”

“He is possibly slightly less observant than a brick,” Merry said. “Do you remember how long it took us to get him and Aragorn together?”

Pippin rolled his eyes. “They’d been wanting into each other’s pants since two days out of Rivendell, and it took us almost till Lórien to get it through to them.”

Merry glanced back at the elf and the man; the fair-haired elf’s stance, leaning in to listen, face animated, eyes fixed on Boromir, was all too obvious to a hobbit who knew what he was looking at.
“You don’t think Boromir will…”

“No, Pip. You know he wouldn’t. He won’t even play with us, and you know he loves us as much as he loves anyone in the world except his brother and Aragorn. Besides, his mind’s on battle… that’s what’s got him all fired up.”

“Mmm-hmm. But I think Berendir may think it’s a rather different sort of fire.”

“Hmm. That may be problematic, Meriadoc.”

“True.”

“Perhaps we should attempt to interfere before things go too far in the wrong direction.”

“Pip, when does your interfering EVER improve a situation?

Pippin scowled indignantly. “I am quite certain that if you give me a few minutes, I’ll think of lots of times.”

Arwen busied herself with lighting the lamps in the bedroom, giving Faramir a moment to sit down on the bed and look at Legolas. Against the white sheets the elf’s skin was dull gray, his limbs slack and his face still.

“He looks dead,” the man muttered.

Arwen nodded, hanging up the last lantern, filling the small room with a warm glow to chase away the chill of hopelessness that hung in the air. “I know he does, but you must remember… elves are stronger creatures than mortals, and they can linger on the very edge of death when a mortal body would have surrendered.”

“How close to that edge is he?”

She laid a hand on Faramir’s shoulder. “Probably as close as it’s possible to be. You understand that there’s a good chance nothing we do will be able to bring him back from that edge.”

“I understand.”

“You understand what you’re offering him, Faramir?”

“Maybe. I think so.”

She took a small, sharp knife in a jeweled sheath from her dress and pulled it out, studying the blade in the lamp light. “You’re offering to have your spirit bound to his, and his to yours. This can’t be undone. He’ll be part of you for as long as you live, and you’ll share a bond that will make it difficult and painful for you to be apart.”

“I understand.”

“That’s not all of it, Faramir. Binding you to him will allow you to share your strength with him, which is the only chance he has, since he has none left of his own. He may be too far away to reach. But if you do reach him, and open yourself to him across that distance… too much may be taken from you, and you may not survive it.”

He nodded. “I’m not afraid. I have strength to give him.”

She reached down and took his left hand, and before he could ask what she was doing, she had drawn the blade swiftly across his palm. He winced, and blood welled up in the gash and began to spread over his palm. He watched as she lifted the elf’s left hand and sliced smoothly across the palm. She frowned as the blood, instead of flowing briskly like Faramir’s, only oozed from the gash.

“Are you sure he’s alive?” Faramir asked.

She nodded. “Yes… but his heart is beating very, very slowly.”

She wondered briefly if she should have listened to Aragorn’s concerns; the elf’s body could be too damaged to survive despite their efforts, and she succeeded in binding the two and Legolas died anyway, Faramir would suffer.

Faramir held out his bleeding hand to her. “I’m ready.”

She swallowed hard. “Faramir…”

“I know. I don’t care. I’m ready.”

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