Fic: Strawberries A/B (R)

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

Fic: Strawberries

Author:alex_quine

Pairing: A/B

Rating: R

Warning: Cold Pressing AU

Summary: Boromir has only his memories to keep him warm.

Archive: Rugbytackling, my LJ

Words: 4,004

Disclaimer: These characters belong to their copyright holders. I borrow them for entertainment, not profit.

Feedback: Received with thanks.

AN: This was begun in the worst of the recent heat wave.

 

 

The days were so short now that dusk began to fall long before he was ready for it, walking slowly along the edge of the wood that had already turned into a solid black wall, a smoky-blue gloaming seeping in around him and the last of the sun going down splashing blood on the skyline.

 

The chill was seeping through his jerkin and he flexed his fingers, which even in their leather gauntlets were beginning to stiffen. His breath was smoking away from him, but he would not take his gloves off to blow on his hands. If he got the skin damp and his hands froze overnight - he’d not risk losing fingers. The way underfoot was becoming more treacherous, deep ruts with a thin covering of ice over them waited to trap any unwary foot. Boromir stepped carefully on, his boots crunching on the frosted ground.

 

It had been a simple ride out to look at a rebuilt guard tower. The King’s Steward liked to make the occasional visit, without escort and unannounced, to outlying posts. It kept them sharp, he thought, and truth to tell it also allowed him out from behind the mountain of documents, petitions and reports that threatened to overwhelm him.

 

It was becoming harder to remember when he had been a soldier for Gondor and although Boromir was not so foolish as to rose tint a time of hardship and doubt, there had been a simplicity to battle that he’d relished as allowing what he had felt was the best of him to come to the fore. However, he had no lover nor child to care for then and soldiering was a young man’s occupation. Now Boromir dedicated his warrior’s body with its scars and its morning aches to his King’s service from a desk. But sometimes he allowed himself these lone expeditions and now he was well served, half a day’s ride from shelter in bitter weather and with the dark closing in.

 

The young horse had slipped on black ice, concealed beneath the hoar frost, and gone down on its side so quick that he’d no time to roll clear and was pinned underneath it, stunned where his head had hit the frozen ground and the breath knocked out of him. Struggling, frightened, to its feet the beast had stepped on the prone man for good measure as it shied away from him. He would have fine horseshoe-shaped bruises to show when he got back.

 

As he lay gasping, clutching his ribs, trying to force the air back into his lungs, Boromir cursed himself for not riding a safe old-stager that could have been relied upon to stay with its fallen rider. As it was, the youngster had jerked the reins out of his hands and taken off down the track, its hooves skittering and slipping on the ice and his warm cloak rolled in front of its saddle. Boromir had no great faith in it finding its way safely home.   After a few moments to regain his wits and before the bone-chilling cold of the ground could seep into him, Boromir struggled first to his knees and then to his feet. A wave of nausea had swept over him and he’d sunk back to his knees, to heave up a few mouthfuls of phlegm that burned his throat with its sour fire. When his head had stopped spinning, he’d scraped a handful of frost from the grass and rinsed his mouth of the taste, before trying again to rise. 

 

He was too far from the outpost to turn back, so must needs go forward. Boromir looked around for any stout stick that might help his walking and saw nothing except a broken stirrup leather with its stirrup still dangling. He’d not leave harness lying, so he slowly collected it and began to stumble down the track. A few hundred paces further on he found a downed tree limb and was able to break off a length to use as a staff. And so he had walked for some hours, his feet becoming progressively colder. When a snow flurry had sprung up he’d retreated into the tree-line and sheltered until it blew over, hugging his arms around himself and stamping his boots on the ground.

 

He must stop soon to try to construct a camp for the night before the darkness overtook him. Up ahead another stand of trees beckoned and he trudged toward it. It was a small group of pines, bare twiggy branches and rough trunks, but there was no better prospect in sight, so Boromir wove his way between them towards a downed tree. In the copse the dark was coming in quicker now.

 

The fallen tree was at an angle, its upper branches wedged against another upright trunk and there was a beginning of a sheltered spot near the base. Searching around he found more thick branches on the ground and dragged several across to make a rough lean-to, hoping fervently that the wind would not change direction in the night. The effort needed to build his shelter had warmed him some, but his head ached still and he searched around for a pocket of thick frost to take more handfuls of moisture. It would not do to fail through thirst.

 

Much of the wood felt damp to the touch but he desperately needed to build a fire and old wood would burn well enough if he could just get one started. Boromir began to gather firewood, short twigs for kindling and larger dryer sticks, dragged out from underneath other wood or dug from the soft carpet of pine needles. He also found one pine that had shed cones, sticky with resin, and gathered a good double handful. Back at his shelter, he cleared a space before it and began to build a small tower of twigs laid in squares one atop the other. At the centre of the framework he set one or two of the cones, with the thinnest twigs and a scrap of silk he’d torn from the hem of his shirt and teased apart at the frayed edge, so that it had a fur of single threads poking up. Now was the time to see if Aragorn’s birthday gift would come good.

 

Aragorn had given him the short dagger that hung at his belt. It was a true Ranger’s dagger and where most armourers would have placed a jewel or polished metal device in the pommel, there was set a dull pebble, almost the colour of the plain steel blade. Boromir carefully unscrewed the hilt and the flint fell from its leather-lined cradle. 

 

Taking a moment to catch his breath and still his shaking hands, Boromir knelt before the fire, took up flint and steel and struck them together. A spark fell and then another and were whisked away from the kindling by a treacherous little breeze. Cursing, Boromir unclasped his jerkin and shrugged it off, gasping at the cold that grabbed at his chest. Propping a couple of sticks together, he draped the jerkin over them as a windbreak. He took in breath and bent over the pile of twigs again. 

 

This time the third or fourth spark landed on a silk thread and glowed, whereupon Boromir bent his head to the twig-pile and blew as gently as he was able through chattering teeth. The glow grew and the resin on a cone caught light. His kindling nursed a little flame that grew with feeding and his breath at its base. One side of the twig tower began to crackle with flame and when all four sides were burning and he had added some larger sticks, Boromir allowed himself to take his jerkin down from its frame. The sudden breeze from that direction blew the flame towards him, but the fire was well alight now. Boromir went to put on the jerkin again and revelled in the faint warmth from the leather that wrapped around his back.

 

Eagerly he added fuel to the little fire and when it had begun to lay down a bed of glowing ash, Boromir put on the biggest sticks he’d been able to scavenge and allowed himself to lean back exhausted against the fallen tree. He pulled off his gloves and rubbed the chilled fingers. The heat crept into his feet with a dull ache, so that he worked his toes back and forth to ease them, but the pain was welcome.

 

By this time, the darkness had enveloped his camp and although he could not hear much beyond the crackling of the fire, Boromir knew that the night creatures were beginning to move in the woods and fields around. He was in no position to hunt, so it would be a hollow, hungry night but at least, he thought, settling himself as best he could, he had the fire. Thankfully, Arin was away, visiting with school-friends, and would be untroubled by his absence. 

 

Boromir yawned. Someone would raise the alarm when he did not return and several knew his destination. He had only to endure an uncomfortable night and the teasing that he would doubtless get from friends at having to be ‘rescued.’ Perhaps, he thought gloomily, he should give in to the prompting of those who’d not allow the King’s Steward to stir beyond the city gates without an escort. He set his jaw determinedly. No, he’d not surrender his independence so easily. Aragorn had never asked that of him and Boromir knew that he never would.

 

His head still ached and the combination of weary limbs with the renewed warmth of the fire was making him sleepy. He’d best try to stay awake, but there was no reason why he should not pass the time in pleasant thoughts. As he replaced the precious flint in its bed and fitted the parts of the dagger back together again, Boromir tried to bring to mind occasions when he had been surrounded by warmth and his remembrance inevitably lighted on the giver of the gift.

 

His own gift to Aragorn of the four gold Harad bracelets had changed the pattern of their loving. The pieces sat wrapped in silk in a box in the King’s chambers and sometimes lay there untouched for weeks, but either man could ask for them to come to the house and there the manner of their wearing set boundaries for the way each held the other.

 

The first time Boromir had clasped the smooth gold around his naked lover’s wrists and ankles both had, unbidden, thought of the craftsman and the ancient code moulded into their strong, sweeping curves. Aragorn had stood before him, quietly accepting of the metal. Boromir, by his handling of him, sought to convey something of his respect, one warrior to another, for the ideal of the keen blade, quick to the defence of the weak, resolute in battle, the leader who gave of himself, true in all things. And Aragorn, through no pretence, nor artifice, loved him that night with some tenderness, but also adventure and bold command, asking of him things he had never essayed, which demanded Boromir’s unswerving trust in return.  

 

Outwith the safe confines of their rooms, as the months passed Boromir saw the task of the King weigh heavy on Aragorn’s shoulders, saw him struggle with decisions which left one party the loser, saw him pulled this way and that, his kind heart oft-times rebelling against the politic choice, his impatience that sometimes he could not make all better immediately. And so, when one night Aragorn had taken only two of the bracelets from Boromir’s hands, placed them around his own ankles and knelt before his lover, Boromir had understood that at this moment the flesh-and-blood man before him craved giving up the burden. Boromir would command, would demand of him and because they loved, Aragorn could yield unfettered by compromise, make the choice to give all to Boromir and gladly.

 

On those nights they barely spoke. Boromir made plain his desires for their pleasure and the kneeling figure made plain his consent, each content to read their love’s humour in the play of muscle under skin, the ragged patterns of breath, involuntary cries of passion and sometimes of pain too.

 

But for now, Boromir was laid naked, stretched out on the bed on his stomach, his head resting on one folded arm, watching the play of the flames in the fireplace. He had looked into his lover’s eyes and seen there laughter and mischief and desire in equal measure. And intent – this night Aragorn had chosen all, from the brocades that caressed his skin, to the logs in the grate.

 

Aragorn had chosen applewood and the sweet scent from the fire hung over the chamber, mingling with the heady fragrance of wild plums, rising from his heated flesh. His King was adorning his body with soft berries that dripped a liquor syrup. He could feel the cool liquid pooling at the backs of his knees, at the swell of his buttocks, where Aragorn told him he had the most enticing dimples and Boromir had reddened and growled at the thought that his warrior’s body, honed through manly toil and bearing the honourable scars of a soldier’s life, should mock him with hidden dimples.

 

More fruits were ranged up the length of his spine, the heavy juice slow, like fluttering fingertips, as it trickled along his ribs and down his sides, so that he almost shivered, but remembered Aragorn’s injunction in time and breathed low and quick to lie motionless beneath his hands.   Aragorn dragged a strawberry across Boromir’s lips, before biting into the flesh and stooping to feed him the other half of the fruit, letting Boromir suck eagerly at his fingers that tasted of salt and leather beneath the sweetness. Boromir had bitten softly to hold them in his mouth when Aragorn would have withdrawn, working his tongue around and between them, moaning as he felt himself harden again, thoughtlessly grinding down against the slippery stuff of the coverlet. That earned him a stern reprimand and, his choice, a sharp nip of teeth at the base of his spine for moving unbidden. But Aragorn had laved the pain away with a hot, wet mouth and then begun to work his way along Boromir’s back, licking and biting, sometimes stretching to share a kiss of bruised fruit and rich syrup that filled their nostrils with the scent of sloes and strawberries. And all the while he ached.

 

Aragorn bent over him and Boromir could feel the scratch of his beard across his shoulder blades. Hot breath drifted up his neck and gentle lips caught at the lobe of his ear, nuzzled into the curve of his jaw, even as a strong hand lifted one leg to bend it at the knee, opening him to the cool drip of the syrup running down his cleft. He could hear need in the moans issuing from his throat and Aragorn’s mouth stilled on his nape to murmur love and mercy, with kisses between the words – he could move, if he really wished to move. Then the kisses turned to licks and nips about his throat. Boromir arched his neck to offer up more to his King even as long fingers drifted down and teased at the puckered flesh.

 

But suddenly a heavy sickness began to pool in his stomach, a sense of dread that prickled on his spine and it seemed that his raised face met with dropping tears that spotted his cheeks. He went to speak but could make no sound. As he struggled to turn under his love, to meet his eyes in the flickering firelight, frightened at what he might see, Boromir awoke with a start to a grey dawn and light snow falling all around. He lay there gasping for a moment, still trembling from the memory of the warm body wrenched from him.  He hurt all over, the bruises from being kicked by the frightened horse, the way he must have lain awkwardly in sleep that twisted his back and most of all, the ache in his chest at seeing Aragorn unhappy – even in his dreams. He knew it was a dream and yet he could have wept at his powerlessness to go back and make all better. A snow flurry stinging against his face brought his attention back to his present plight. The lean-to had given him some shelter through the night, but his boots were covered white, the cold beginning to seep through them and the skeleton of the fire was dusted with a light powdering. 

 

Boromir shivered and clenched his fists together, banging them against his thigh muscles to bring some life into them again. If he could dig down into the ashes and put some more fuel on, he might be able to resurrect the fire, but there was nothing left of the pile of wood he’d gathered the night before. He needed to warm himself if he could, before setting out again, so needs must gather more fuel. 

 

As he raised himself above the line of the tree trunk, the wolf was barely a stone’s throw away and yellow eyes met his and held his gaze. Lips drawn back in a snarl, Boromir threw his arms up, shouting, his voice hoarse, and the animal turned tail, but it did not go far, a few yards at best and the man saw with grim realisation that it was not alone. Other grey shapes encircled his snowbound camp. Lean shadows drifting amongst the trees, gaining courage one from the other, driven on by hunger, they would not run from simple noise. Boromir’s inner eye conjured the wolf-pack snarling and quarrelling over his limp and bloodied form; the sound and smell of the warg as they clawed at his flesh, flooded back into his mind. 

 

He would not go quietly. He would not leave the dark-haired man and their boy. Slowly he bent down, keeping eye contact with yellow-eye, and grasped the first thing that came to hand, the broken stirrup leather and its iron. Only fire would have driven them back. His other hand crept to his belt to take out the short dagger and he let the stirrup iron slide down the leather strap to the buckled end, so that he had a weighted whip of hide with a heavy cosh part way down. It was not enough. It would never be enough. Still he faced the big male, but knew that others moved behind him, ready to attack. A loan howl lifted into the air, and then others joined in, singing their joyous anticipation of a meal at last – but yellow-eye did not shift his gaze.

 

The main trunk of his lean-to was solid between him and the wolf. If he could scramble out of their reach up the sloping tree, perhaps he could hold them off? Wolves could climb the steepest, rockiest paths but this was a bare, smooth trunk. All at once Boromir roared aloud and whirled the iron above his head. The beasts fell silent, yellow-eye backed up a few steps and Boromir grabbed at the chance and scrambled up onto the sloping trunk, swaying perilously for a moment, his calf muscles aching as he fought for his balance. He begged the wood-elf for a moment’s loan of his grace and ran up the trunk as far as he could go before he felt the bark slippery beneath his feet. Then the trunk shuddered and Boromir dropped astride it, bent over clutching around the wood to steady himself. He looked over his shoulder and the wolf was at the base of the tree, clambering over the roots, beginning to creep towards him. Boromir let it come on a few paces and then he bounced on the trunk, riding it like a bucking horse, so that the wolf fell with a snarl and a thump to the ground, but picked itself up and returned to the end of the trunk again.

 

In the time that it took for the wolf to recover, Boromir had turned himself to face it, backed up along the trunk as far as he dared, and the rest of the pack had begun to gather below him. A sudden snap of teeth close to his boot warned him that a lucky jump could catch him. If they should drag him down, he was lost. He dared not go higher on the tree, nor set it to shake again. There were ominous creaks coming from the wood and as another wolf jumped up to him and Boromir lashed out with the iron, catching it across the nose, so that it fell back amongst the snapping, snarling pack, one of the higher branches that supported the trunk cracked and the tree shuddered, throwing the climbing wolf off again and almost unseating the sweating man.

 

Then they began to jump up at him from all sides and as Boromir roared defiance at them and whipped the leather back and forth, a leaping wolf caught it and swung in mid-air, almost wrenching the man from his perch. He could not hold on to the strap and let it go. Wolf and leather crashed to the ground, where the pack fell on the hide, snarling as they fought for the prize. Most of the wolves might be occupied but a few still strained upwards and now yellow-eye was dropped to his belly, crawling up the tree trunk towards the man with his short dagger, that would hardly stop one beast.

 

There was the sound of breaking timber, the trunk shook again and dropped a hand’s breadth, which was enough to send the wolf pack scurrying from beneath it, but it also made the way more level for yellow-eye, whose lips curled back in a malevolent snarl as he came on. Below him, a returning beast leapt for Boromir’s feet and forced him to kick out at it. The pack was howling and snarling and the man was shouting and cursing them when, from the direction of the trackway, he heard the belling bark of a great mastiff. Boromir roared for him, called him on and ahead of riders weaving through the trees carrying lighted torches, Rullo came bounding.

 

There was no fight, no bloody tangle of snarling beasts, for the wolves, with guile and good sense, simply melted away. Boromir had looked away for a moment, and as he glanced back yellow-eye slid from the trunk and sloped off, so that when Aragorn rode up a few moments later he found his Steward in mid-air, astride a fallen tree that groaned under his weight, leaning forward on his elbows talking fondly to the dog which was sitting, head on one side, looking up at him with a slightly puzzled air.

 

Whilst the rest of the party scoured the little wood for remnants of the wolf-pack, Aragorn sat, easy in his saddle, watching his lover stroke Rullo with the low, rough, warm, golden tones that could raise gooseflesh on his skin.   “Are you coming down?” he asked gently, once Boromir’s caressing voice had reduced the big dog to rolling on his back, thumping his tail, his tongue hanging out. He would have said more but Boromir looked at him then with such naked love in his eyes that the words stuck in Aragorn’s throat. He manoeuvred his horse next to the tree and Boromir slid himself off, stiffly, and landed behind him, wrapping his arms tightly around his waist, where Aragorn laid one hand gently over his chilled hands. “What do you need, love?” he asked finally, as the horse wove its way between the trees towards the road.

 

“A hot bath and then bed and then, I think, breakfast in bed…and then I need you.”

They were still alone and Aragorn leant his head back to rest it against Boromir’s cheek.

“You have me - for ever and aye.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[ribby.livejournal.com]

I love your storytelling abilities, and here they're in perfect form! Boromir, lost and alone in the dark, yet still every inch a warrior. His warming flashiback is incredibly sensual, and says so much about their relationship and the delicate balances of power that kingship calls from both of them. And yet, he still worries about Aragorn, even at his most dire moments.

Lovely and eloquent, thank you!

~Kris

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad that you enjoyed it. Many thanks for reading and for feeding back. After a couple of longer stories with big casts of characters, I wanted to do something that was just about the two of them and their dependence each on the other.

[mooms.livejournal.com]

I was so thrilled to see another story from you in my friends list and as usual, you did not disappoint. Your rich, detailed prose again paints an entirely convincing picture of this world and its inhabitants. I particularly loved the sensuousness of Boromir's memories and dreams of Aragorn. Thank you.

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

And thank you for reading it and for your kind feedback. I'm glad that you liked the 'dream' sequence - I wanted to be able to move between it and reality as seamlessly as possible, so that, like Boromir, the reader wasn't wholly sure when the conciousness had shifted.

[shalom]

This is another fine story and I'm so glad to see the arc continued. You have a talent for making the scene come alive, with just the right amount of description.

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad that you liked it. Many thanks for feeding back. I'm caught up with this AU and want to explore other areas of it when I can and when RL permits.
p.s Haven't forgotten LoM.

[govi20.livejournal.com]

Another one of your beautiful stories. Marvelous and breath taking.

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

You're very kind. Many thanks for reading it and feeding back. I'm really glad that you liked it. Nice icon - he looks suitably chilled.

[lab-jazz.livejournal.com]

Another wonderful story from a wonderful writer...it's a joy to read everything that you write.

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

You're very kind. Many thanks for reading it and liking it.

[rifleman-s.livejournal.com]

This is the first Boromir/Aragorn story I've read . . . and I was not disappointed!

What a marvellous way of storytelling - it was almost like reading an old fashioned folk tale and the descriptions of the woodland and the weather were just remarkable. Despite the heat we're having at the moment, I could feel the frozen, unforgiving wood surrounding Boromir.

The dream sequence was wonderful and this, in particular, was just delightful:

"...and Boromir had reddened and growled at the thought that his warrior’s body, honed through manly toil and bearing the honourable scars of a soldier’s life, should mock him with hidden dimples." I can just imagine Boromir chafing at this!!

The terror of the scene with the wolves was palpable and how very comforting it felt when Aragorn appeared - just the feeling of 'everything wil be alright now' and so it will as " 'You have me - for ever and aye'."

An excellent tale, and you fitted in the Strawberry reference wonderfully well!!!

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

Many thanks for reading it and for feeding back so kindly. I'm so glad you enjoyed it. Boromir/Aragorn are my OTP, in fact the only pairing I've written so far, but I'm still fairly new to this - so I may branch out eventually and I have added OCs to a couple of the longer multi-chapter stories.

I smiled at the thought of Boromir blushing - how can one be a 'hard man' with dimples!

[rotpunkt.livejournal.com]

Beautiful. The contrast between his loving memories/dreams and the bitter reality with the wolves; the contrats between the skilful description of the cold and the note that you've written this in terrible heat :); their different ways of lovemaking an mutual surrender... just beautiful.
(And I'm into bivouacs...:)

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it! I was hoping that I'd got enough of the basic survival details right (memories of Ray Mears' programmes) that I wouldn't risk him going down with hypothermia before Aragorn got to him...

[brigantine.livejournal.com]

Yay, Rullo to the rescue! Good boy! Grrrr! Sorry, dog-lover getting a little carried away. ;)

Nice double duty with Boromir's dream of Aragorn, as people tend to start hallucinating when they sink toward hypothermia. Good thing Boromir woke up before he happily dreamed himself into a cold death!

*chuckle* And him all horrified to find that he's got sweet dimples in strategic places. Hee.

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

Many thanks for the feedback. Happy it worked for you. I wanted to convey the idea that snowflakes landing on his face were the tears in his dreams. I know that sometimes it has to become slightly warmer for snow to fall, but the combination of possible slight concussion and the cold could have been too much for him, so it was lucky that they had a sensible dog on hand to save the day!

Awesome

[earthtomom.livejournal.com]

This is an awesome story! I could quickly become addicted to your writing. :)
Big hugs
Sarah

Re: Awesome

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

Thankyou so much for reading it and for feeding back so kindly. I enjoyed writing it - trying to keep cool - and I'm glad that you liked it.

[halszka.livejournal.com]

Wonderful story.Boromir as a lover and as warrior who must fight for dear life. I'm addicted to your world. It's a pleasure to read it, thank you.

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it. Many thanks for reading and feeding back.