Faramir Fiction Archive

Faramir's Dilemma (R)

Written by RubyElf

05 March 2011 | 19031 words

Title: Faramir’s Dilemma (Part 2)
Author: RubyElf
Characters: Faramir, Éomer, Legolas, Boromir, Aragorn… and probably just about everyone else at some point.
Rating: PG13 (no guarantees it’ll stay that way…)
Warnings: AU (ruby-verse)
Summary: Elves do not appreciate forced immobility. Hobbits do not know when to shut up. Faramir wishes he was a little less virtuous. Several individuals are willing to assist him with that.
Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me. They are just here to play.

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Part 2

Faramir woke up from a pleasant but very distracting dream about someone running their hands over him, although he couldn’t quite be sure whether they were the delicate hands of the pretty elf maiden or the rough, calloused hands of the rider of Rohan. Upon opening his eyes, though, he realized that it was not either one; it was Aragorn methodically checking him over with a healer’s businesslike focus.

“Ah. Hello, Faramir. Your head looks quite good. The healer stitched it well.”

“Boromir would’ve killed him if he didn’t,” Faramir said, and Aragorn laughed.

“I don’t doubt it. I wouldn’t want to be the healer treating you with your brother glowering over my shoulder, ready to throttle me if you so much as squeaked.”

“Where is Boromir?”

“Where do you think? Out with half the army of Gondor, killing every orc within thirty miles of this city.”

“That sounds about right. When my brother’s worried about someone, it seems his natural response is to go out and kill things.”

Aragorn shrugs. “He does it whenever he’s annoyed with me, too. I’m starting to be concerned that one day we’ll run out of orcs, and then I don’t know what he’ll do with himself. Are you hungry? Éomer and I are going to have some wine before we retire, if you’d like to join us… no wine for you, though. You’re unsteady enough as it is.”

“No thank you,” Faramir said, shivering. “I believe I’ll go back to sleep.”

He did not, however, go back to sleep. After laying in bed for a while, trying to chase trails of thoughts as they drifted through his head, he got up, pulled on the pair of Aragorn’s house shoes that Arwen had left for him, and padded out into the hall. The nap after his last excursion seemed to have done him some good, as this time when he knocked the answer from within was definitely Legolas.

“What do you want?”

“Thought I’d come in and say hello,” Faramir said, to the closed door.

“Fine. Come in.”

He pushed the door open and found the elf stretched out just as he had been in the Houses of Healing, his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling, his injured leg outstretched and propped on several pillows.

“I thought Boromir would forbid you to visit me, since all I ever do is get you in trouble.”

“He didn’t mean that,” Faramir said. “He becomes… rather irrational when it comes to me.”

“As opposed to how perfectly rational he is the rest of the time?”

Faramir chuckled. “You know my brother well.”

“I know he doesn’t think much of me.”

Faramir, surprised by the strong hint of bitterness in the elf’s usually light voice, stepped closer and sat down in the chair next to the bed. Legolas scowled and closed his eyes, but could not hide the dark shadows underneath them or the sweat over his forehead.

“Did the healers give you something for the pain?”

Legolas snorted. “It doesn’t hurt that badly. I don’t need anything.”

“You’re usually an extraordinarily good liar, elf, but you’re not fooling anyone at the moment.”

“What difference does it make?”

“What’s in the bottle on the table here?”

The elf glanced at it. “Something Aragorn left.”

Faramir raised his eyebrows. “And you won’t take it.”

“No, thank you.”

“I certainly would,” Faramir said. “Would you think badly of me if I did, if I were lying here?”

“No.”

“There’s no shame in it. Injuries heal faster when you rest easier. No one but Aragorn and I have to know anything about it.”

“That little red-headed slut that was here earlier would say something.”

“She’s not a slut,” Faramir argued; if nothing else, Arwen wouldn’t tolerate such behavior from one of her handmaidens.

“You’re right. She’s a tease, and that’s much worse. At least sluts are fun.”

“She doesn’t have to come in here,” Faramir said. “I’m back on my feet, but I’m off duty regardless. I’ll tell Arwen that when she and Aragorn aren’t here I’ll keep an eye on you. Make sure you’re not in here practicing your dancing skills or anything like that.”

Legolas looked thoughtful. “I suppose even your deplorable company would be preferable to that little wench of Arwen’s.”

“She is quite pretty,” Faramir observed.

Legolas rolled his eyes. “The world is full of pretty things, Faramir. If you live two or three thousand years, you won’t be terribly impressed by them either.”

“If you don’t take that medicine Aragorn left for you, I’m not going to stay here and talk to you, because at the moment your company is worse than deplorable.”

Legolas smiled slightly. “That may be. But I can’t guarantee you Aragorn has anything in his healer’s arsenal to improve my personality.”

“If he did, he’d probably have used it a long time ago,” Faramir said, handing him the small bottle.

Legolas sighed, resigned, and pulled the cork out of the bottle, raising it to Faramir. “Cheers, Captain… ugh. Tastes just as bad as all Aragorn’s other medicines.”

“I wouldn’t think an elf would have many causes to take medicine,” Faramir said. “You don’t get sick, after all.”

“No, we don’t. But there are things that can harm us… poison, injury, bleeding…”

“How many of those have you run into in your long life?”

“More than my father would have liked. Mirkwood had become a wild and dangerous place under the shadow of Mordor, and when my father would have preferred me safe at home, I was out killing giant spiders and orcs and other beasts. That’s what most of the elves of Mirkwood were doing, while those of Rivendell and Lórien were hidden away in their peaceful lands. If we hadn’t kept after them, they would have overrun us sooner or later. I was bitten by one of the spiders when I was much younger… the worst feeling imaginable… paralyzes you from head to toe, you can’t breathe…medicine they gave me for that tasted terrible…”

Faramir glanced over at the elf and saw that his eyes were an expanse of blue with tiny pinpoints for pupils; his voice was fading into a mumble. The man smiled, set the empty bottle back on the table, and slipped back to his own room.

A now-familiar voice woke him the next morning; he’d been hearing it off and on all night in his dreams, accompanied by various other intriguing noises.

“Good morning, Captain.”

“Good morning, Miriel.”

She smiled. “You remembered my name, I see.”

“It would have been difficult to forget it,” he said. The elf lowered her eyes and her cheeks flushed slightly; Faramir hadn’t been aware that elves could blush, but then again, the only elf he’d spent much time with was Legolas, and after some of the things that elf had told him, he wasn’t sure there was anything vulgar enough to make him blush.

“Your company is requested by my Lady Arwen for breakfast. She asked me to go and fetch you some clothes from your rooms. I hope these are satisfactory.”

Faramir winced, trying to remember what state he might have left his room in when he departed it early yesterday morning, but most of that part of the day seemed to be a complete blank. He stood up and took the clothes she held out, noticing that her outstretched arms gave her tightly laced bodice an intriguing snugness in certain key places.

“Do you need assistance with dressing, Captain?” she asked demurely, studying him from beneath long eyelashes. “My Lady wouldn’t want you to become dizzy and fall, lest you might injure yourself.”

“I’ll manage, thank you,” he replied, even though part of his brain was shouting quite loudly that this was not the correct answer and another part had rendered itself completely dysfunctional by imagining the slender fingers smoothly tugging his breeches over his legs.

She turned her bright smile on him again. “I’ll be just outside in the hall, sir, in case you find yourself in need of assistance.”

Faramir found the breakfast table already occupied by Aragorn, Arwen, and their guest, the King of Rohan, who at the moment looked less like a king than like a child who’d just been woken from sleep and pulled on whatever clothes were close at hand, his blond hair tangled, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

“They woke you up too, did they?” he said, seeing Faramir. “I was hoping that after all the wine that was consumed last night, our host and hostess here might sleep in.”

Aragorn grinned. “Most of that wine was consumed by you, friend.”

“That’s not the point,” Éomer muttered, motioning for Faramir to sit down next to him. “Come join me, Faramir. Your brain’s been rattled by orcs and mine’s been pickled in alcohol. We’ll make a fine pair. Neither of us will be able to remember a damn thing all day.”

Faramir sat down, glancing at Arwen and remembering that he was supposed to discuss something with her, but he had no recollection of what that might be. He remembered a moment later when a high-pitched cry of alarm and the loud crash of something breaking against a stone wall echoed from the hall. Miriel came racing into the room, hand on her chest and eyes wide.

“Lady Arwen! I refuse to have anything else to do with that mean-spirited elf! I don’t care who he is!”

Arwen raised her eyebrows and set down the hard-boiled egg she’d been peeling. “Why is that, Miriel?”

“I had heard Mirkwood elves had no manners and no decency, but this is ridiculous! He called me a… well, lots of things! And then he threw a water pitcher at me!”

Faramir had some idea what Legolas had probably called her, and for some reason he found it more amusing than he should have. Éomer glanced at him and grinned, speaking to him in a low voice.

“It seems the lady doesn’t have much experience with warriors, does she.”

Arwen sighed. “Miriel…”

Faramir caught a pleading look from the wide sea-green eyes and abruptly recalled the discussion he’d had with Legolas. He turned to Arwen.

“My Lady, perhaps I can help. I’m off duty for a while… whatever the healers said and then my brother’s excessive caution on top of that… perhaps while you and Aragorn are out, I could deal with our friend and spare your handmaiden the distress.”

Arwen smiled. “If you wish, Faramir. I suspect he would probably prefer the company of a fellow warrior anyway.”

“And if he throws something at Faramir, Faramir can throw it back,” Aragorn noted.

Éomer grinned. “And what if he takes it upon himself to insult your virtue as he seems to have done to this young lady?”

Faramir shrugged. “I would much prefer that there be something to insult about my virtue, but at the moment there isn’t.”

Aragorn gave him an odd look, and Éomer’s grin widened. “Are you growing weary of your virtue, young Faramir?”

Faramir’s complete and total failure to think of an appropriate response to this was relieved by a sudden knock at the door. The knockers did not wait for anyone to answer, though, but flung the door open and burst in, both talking excitedly at the same time, while the guard outside smiled apologetically at Aragorn. The King chuckled.

“No worries. A thousand guards wouldn’t hold off an assault by hungry hobbits.”

“Quite right,” Merry agreed, climbing into the chair next to Aragorn, while Pippin scrambled up next to him and reached for the bread and butter.

“We haven’t had anything to eat since supper yesterday,” the younger hobbit said, as if this were a terrible hardship.

“I beg your pardon,” Aragorn interrupted, “but you could start by saying hello. And after that, you could continue by asking permission to eat all of our food.”

“We weren’t going to eat it all,” Pippin said.

“Where did you two creatures come from?” Aragorn asked.

Merry grinned and pointed to Éomer. “We came with him and his advisors. After our last visit here we decided to pay a visit to Edoras, and when we heard the honorable King of Rohan was coming this way, we decided to come along.”

“They make very fine ale in Rohan,” Pippin added.

“We always get a hero’s welcome when we’re there, too,” Merry said.

Faramir, finding himself without much of an appetite, didn’t protest when the older hobbit grabbed the cinnamon bread off his plate and took a large bite out of it.

“Everyone’s always glad to see us,” Pippin agreed. “Not like here. When Boromir saw us this morning he growled at us and said his peace and quiet for the rest of the week were completely ruined.”

“Can’t imagine why he’d say that,” Aragorn mused.

“Because he’s got no sense of humor at all,” Merry said.

“And no sense of adventure, either,” Pippin added.

“Just because he wouldn’t let you two…” Aragorn began, but was interrupted.

“The folks in Edoras are much more welcoming,” Merry said, beaming smugly as if dispensing wisdom to uneducated fools.

Pippin grinned broadly. “The Lady Éowyn’s welcome is always particularly warm, isn’t it?”

Merry choked on his bread and kicked Pippin hard under the table. Arwen’s voice rang out sharply in a tone that made everyone at the table cringe like scolded children.

“Peregrine Took!”

Pippin looked puzzled for a moment, then saw Faramir and Éomer staring at him and suddenly turned very red. Faramir sat for a moment, his still-dazed mind attempting to conjure up a more reasonable way to process what the hobbit had just said. Aragorn looked past him and nodded his head toward the hall, and Faramir felt Éomer’s large hand descend on his shoulder, steering him out of his chair and back into the hall and into Éomer’s room before closing the door behind them.

“Bloody hobbits,” the Horse Lord muttered. “Faramir?”

“Yes?”

“Sit down.”

Faramir obediently sat down in the chair Éomer was pointing to. “Please tell me he didn’t mean what I think he meant.”

Éomer shifted uneasily. “Even if he didn’t… you do know about…”

Faramir chuckled without humor. “Her dedication to her shieldmaidens? Some more than others, perhaps?”

“Someone less kind would have found a harsher way than that to say it, but… you know there are… others.”

Faramir nodded. “I’d figured there probably were.”

Éomer glanced at the door and then back at Faramir. “Aragorn and I have a long day of meetings, and we’re probably already late. Come find me this evening, friend… there’s quite a few things we should discuss.”

Faramir vaguely heard the words, but his mind snapped back to attention when the reassuring pat on the shoulder became a deliberate motion of fingers trailing across his cheek and down the line of his jaw as the older man turned away. He sat with his head cocked, skin tingling where it had been touched, until Arwen finished shouting at Pippin and came to find him and order him back to bed.

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