The Clash
"Uuh," was the only reply she got as Aragorn wiped his mouth.
"Gowk," she muttered as she flushed the toilet and pulled Aragorn's
head out.
"I swear I'm never doing that again," Aragorn moaned as Celebrian
scrubbed his face and hands with a wet washcloth.
If he hadn't been so miserable, he would have been terribly
embarrassed. But he was too sick and too beat up to care, and he let
Celebrian clean him up like he was one of the hobbits. Besides, she
probably knew that he wasn't able to do it himself.
On another level, it felt good to have someone take care of him like
his mother had, before she divorced herself completely from reality.
"Okay. You're somewhat decent. But you need to take a shower before I
can clean up the cuts," Celebrian told him, effortlessly setting him
on his feet and unbuckling his belt.
"Hey!" Aragorn yelped, batting Celebrian's hands away. "Stop that!"
Celebrian only smirked at him as she pulled off his shirt and his
baggy trousers along with his boxers in a fluid, practised set of
movements.
"Oh please, Aragorn. Believe me, I have seen naked guys before! I'm
in university, remember? The hot bed of premarital sex and all that.
Also, I used to bathe Boromir and Faramir when they were younger. I'm
no stranger to this. So shut up and get into the tub. And try not to
drown."
Aragorn had no time to say anything in return, since he was in too
much shock at being both stripped and told that his boyfriend had
also been treated in a similar manner when younger. So he got into
the tub and closed the curtain before reaching out to turn on the
water.
"I'm coming back in fifteen minutes, so you'd better be clean!"
"Yes mummy!" Aragorn called out, feeling like he had just regressed
to age twelve again.
"Brat!"
After his shower and first-aid, Aragorn walked stiffly to the bedroom
that had become his and Legolas', since the hobbits had made it a
habit to sleep with Faramir and Boromir.
"Fuck," he muttered as he flicked on the light of the room.
He was in agony! It was true he felt much better after taking a
shower, getting his cuts and bruises dressed and puking up all the
alcohol he had drunk; but he was now feeling all the blows and
scratches he had taken in the fight.
It was worth it though, Aragorn thought as he pulled on the navy blue
t-shirt and boxers he slept in. Sure, he was going to be all colours
of the freaking rainbow for weeks afterwards, and chances were that
he was going to have scars from Casey's claws, but he had managed to
pay the bastard back for what he had done to both Boromir and Lee.
"Fucken bastard," Aragorn muttered as he flicked off the light and
crawled gratefully into the bed, where he lay still, looking up at
the ceiling while trying his best not to cry.
He hadn't seen Lee since they had wheeled him past on a stretcher as
the cops held him down.
He had gotten only a few cryptic messages from Galadriel after he,
Yohji and Duo had been dropped off at the Lothlórien's. She had
done precious little to ease his worries.
He had also been determined to go himself to the hospital and see his
brother, but the alcohol he had consumed had decided to make its
presence known, which had led to him paying his respects to Martin of
Tours via the porcelain telephone.
So now it was two in the morning and there was no fucken way he'd be
able to go and see if Lee was okay. Considering he had no car and he
was so stiff he could hardly move, it wasn't going to happen.
Just like he wasn't going to be able to sleep, since he was more than
likely going to be worrying over his brother the whole damned night.
Tomorrow would constitute his third absence from school; six more and
he would have to find another school to graduate from. His father
would give him hell from across the ocean just like he did when he
was thrown out of Mackenzie Academy.
"Hell." He sat up slowly in bed, and kept still, not wanting to
aggravate the bruises on his body. He wished that he had something to
help him sleep and kill both the thoughts and the bone-deep aches he
was being tormented with.
He thought he should go downstairs and get some pain-killers, but he
couldn't force himself to get out of the bed and make the journey.
He was just so...empty. So dead tired. His body just wanted to
leave the world of consciousness and spend some time re-charging.
But his mind was still running around playing with the frayed ends of
unfinished thoughts and not giving him any rest. It was going to be
one hell of a night.
Groaning, he rubbed his face, wincing when his fingers came in
contact with his swollen-shut eye and grabbed a book from his night-
table. He was about to flick the lamp on when his room was suddenly
flooded by light.
"ARGH! Christ!" he yelled, throwing an arm up to protect what little
was left of his sight.
"Shit," a voice whispered before the room was plunged back into
darkness.
"Who's there?" Aragorn asked as he lowered his arm.
"It's me. Faramir," a soft voice floated through the darkness before
a body settled down on the bed.
"Faramir?" Aragorn squeaked out in shock. What the hell was he doing
here?
"I...ah...well... My ribs hurt. And I'm worried about Lee," he paused
and took a shallow breath.
"I couldn't sleep and I was just...wondering if you wanted to talk."
There was a long pause and during it, Faramir privately wondered
whether it was a good idea to come to Aragorn for comfort after
everything that had happened in the bar.
He wouldn't have come to Aragorn for comfort, but he was the closest
thing he had to safety at that moment. Unless he wanted to hotwire
the car and sneak into Boromir's room at the rehab centre. Which
was as possible right now as watching Celeborn do a rendition
of "CHE—The Musical" on the dining room table.
He was thinking it was a bad idea, that Aragorn was really mad at him
even though things had worked out okay for all of them (Yohji, Duo
and Aragorn had gotten off with warnings and Casey had gotten nailed
with two counts of aggravated assault causing bodily harm) and that
maybe he was expecting too much from the other man. He was about to
get up and find some comfort in his cold bed when he heard Aragorn
turn the blankets back and turn the lamp on to the dimmest setting
possible, bathing the room in a faint light that was enough for them
to see by.
"Sure man. Just watch your ribs, okay?"
"Uh. Yeah. Thanks," Faramir replied as he crawled into the warm
space.
Once he had settled himself down in a comfortable position, he pulled
the blankets up.
"How are you feeling?" he asked Aragorn after several minutes of
silence.
"Stiff and sore. I'll give Casey this much: he sure knows how to hit."
Faramir laughed at this, but his laughter turned to a gasp of pain
due to his cracked ribs.
"Shit! I'm sorry man! I shouldn't have made you laugh. You okay
mate?" Aragorn exclaimed as he sat up and without thinking, put his
hand on Faramir's shoulder. He didn't know why he did it. Later,
when he thought about it, he realized that maybe there were other
ways to have given him comfort. After all, they were some what on
strange ground, since they hadn't really resolved the issues that had
been brought up in the bar, so maybe touching him wasn't the best
idea he'd had in a while.
He didn't plan for what happened next. He was just wanting to give a
close friend comfort.
"Yeah. Yeah. It just caught me unawares. Yeah..." Faramir's voice
trailed off as he realized Aragorn had his hand on his shoulder. That
realization made him forget what he was going to say and he just sat
still as he tried to figure out what he was supposed to do in this
situation.
He wasn't upset that Aragorn had taken the liberty. He rather wanted
it. Despite what had happened earlier, he needed a bit of physical
comfort. The past day had been a total nightmare and his head was
swimming from both grief and pain. He honestly felt that he was
drowning and Aragorn's touch was like an anchor to keep him from
drifting away from everything and everyone.
"Uh...Faramir..." Aragorn was slowly moving his hand away from the
younger
man's shoulder, but was stopped by Faramir himself putting his hand
on top
of his and pressing it down in place.
"Don't," the younger man hissed.
"I...I...I just thought...that..." Aragorn stuttered, unsure of what
the hell
was going on.
"I know what happened between us, Estel." Faramir interrupted his
stilted words.
"I am not that much of a fool. I still stand by what I said earlier,
but..." he sighed heavily. "I am afraid, Estel. Terribly afraid."
Aragorn swallowed hard at this admission. He too, was awash in his
own inner
turmoil and having Faramir admit that he was scared wasn't doing
anything to calm the storm that raged inside of himself.
"Why are you afraid?" he asked, his voice low.
Faramir laughed bitterly, a sound made more terrible than it already
was by the incongruence of it's source. It wouldn't have been so odd
coming from Boromir or Lee. But from Faramir, it was just awful.
Awful and terrible and sad. Almost as if the last bit of the
carefully guarded innocence had been violently torn away.
"I'm afraid of losing Lee. Afraid of losing the child. Afraid of
losing my brother and you." He laughed again, but the harsh sound
ended in a choked sob.
"It's all my fault, that Lee got hurt. All of it. None of this shit
would have happened if it hadn't been for me being an asshole and
wishing the baby would be gone."
"No!" Aragorn cried, shaking his head at the despair in Faramir's
words. "No! That's not true! Lee was hurt by Casey! You had nothing
to do with that! Believe me! You can't blame yourself over something
that you couldn't have prevented!"
"But I could have done something! I could have prevented everything!"
Faramir
cried out passionately.
"How? How could you have done it? Can you tell me that?"
Faramir sighed. "If I hadn't been a prick in the first place, he
wouldn't have been in the bar looking for us!"
"Faramir, maybe it's cause I'm really tired, but for some reason,
your logic is escaping me here. So I'm going to tell you this.
Nothing you could have done would have prevented what happened okay?
Nothing," Aragorn told Faramir harshly, his grip tightening on his
shoulder as he spoke.
"I'm not trying to be an asshole or make you feel better by giving
you some
kind of absolution. I am only telling you the truth as I see it, and
what I see is this: you're tired and you're worried about Lee. And
that worry is twisting itself like a fine-bladed knife and tearing
your guts."
Aragorn's voice got lower as he spoke, recalling his own misery when
Boromir had first been injured and when he had heard him say all
those things to Celebrian earlier that day.
"The point is that you can't just keep on letting the guilt get the
better of you. Especially not when there was nothing that could have
been done to prevent it. Believe me, I know that all too well"
Faramir sighed. He knew that he wasn't being fair in dumping that on
Aragorn. Considering that the other man was still struggling to
reconcile his own emotions at having had helplessly stood by and
watched his beloved dealt a horrible blow by fate, and then have that
loved one push him away as callously as fate had punished him. But
he needed to tell someone of his fears and his darkest worries. One
of which was that he had been the catalyst in Legolas' being injured.
"I know that, Estel. I know. And I wish that you didn't have to
suffer like that. But I was the one that hurt Legolas because of my
bad behaviour. If I hadn't been so vocal about my own fears. If I
only had put away my selfish emotions before I had spoken, Lee would
have remained safe. I am the only to blame. Even though Casey was
the one that did the damage, I was the one that set the whole
incident in motion with my selfishness."
Aragorn turned away and rolled his eyes in frustration. God! Could
the Denethorsons be anymore stubborn? It seemed that once they got
something
stuck in their head, nothing short of a brick would remove it.
Especially when it had to do with them blaming themselves over things
that
everyone could see weren't their fault by a long shot. He did like
Faramir. He loved Boromir. But dealing with Boromir, Casey and
Faramir all in one day had quite simply worn him down and he was more
than tempted to search out the brick and put it to good use. First on
Faramir's head, then on his brother's.
Maybe then he would be able to get them to see some sense. He didn't
want to hurt Faramir, but he wanted the poor little twit to see that
he was wrongly blaming himself. So he would do the next best thing.
"You know what, Faramir? Okay. You win. You're bloody well right.
You and your brother started all of this. You both are to blame for
everything that has happened in our lives for the past four months.
And if Lee loses the baby, it's going to be your fault namely because
you have this power to cause things to happen only by wishing it.
There now. Happy?"
Aragorn fell silent after his outburst. It wasn't a brick, but he
figured that it would probably do the trick. Now to wait and see
what the results would be. Silence fell and settled over them like a
thick blanket that lay undisturbed for several minutes until it was
broken by Faramir's quiet voice.
"You know, that really wasn't very comforting, Estel."
Aragorn looked at him, his dark blue eye blinking furiously as he
tried to figure out exactly how to reply. Where in the living hell
had he gone wrong? Just exactly where?
Faramir returned the stare. He was just terribly sad and confused and
Aragorn's sarcastic comments hadn't done anything but to give him a
mental "huh?" So they kept on staring at each other until Faramir
couldn't take it anymore and did the only thing that a sane person
would have done in that situation. He began to laugh.
He laughed until his ribs felt like they were on fire. The whole
thing was so ludicrous that he just had to either give into his
laughter or just slice his own throat. So he decided to give in to
the former and laugh until he couldn't see straight from the pain.
"Well," Aragorn said after the worst of the maniacal laughter had
passed.
"It did take your mind off of things though, didn't it?"
Faramir burst into tears before flinging himself into Aragorn's arms.
"Oh shit." Maybe his plan had worked too well.
"Faramir...ehm...look...ah...shit." Aragorn finally gave up the ghost.
Maybe
he should practice keeping his big mouth shut. Starting now, he
promised himself as he held the crying Faramir, who clung to him as
if Aragorn was the last pillar of strength he was positive wouldn't
break underneath him.
Biting his lip to stem the useless apologies that came to mind,
Aragorn just held Faramir and rubbed his back in small circles until
the tempest, as violent as the laughter, passed over him.
Aragorn was nearly dozing when the quiet voice woke him.
The tempest had passed ages ago, leaving Faramir spent, but still
sobbing quietly to himself. The sobs had become so low and soft,
almost non-existent, that Aragorn was tempted to dislodge Faramir and
tuck him into bed to sleep. But every time he had tried to move an
inch, Faramir's grip had become stronger. Rather than fight it,
Aragorn came to the conclusion that he had two options: One, he could
risk pulling Faramir away and damaging what little they had remaining
of their friendship or Two, he could just fall asleep holding Faramir
and be as stiff as hell tomorrow.
Having opted on the latter, he was just drifting off when Faramir's
voice woke him.
"Did Boromir tell you about our father?" Faramir asked, startling him
slightly.
"Ehm...no. He just said you guys didn't know about him," Aragorn
replied.
"Yeah. We don't," he laughed bitterly. "And no one ever let us
forget it. Whenever we would go out with mere, grandmere, people
would remind us of it."
He laughed again, but this time, the laugh ended up in a choking
sob. "Petit bastardes, they would call us when we would go through
the city. Little bastards. Other kids wouldn't play with us. The
older ones would make fun of us and call mother a whore. A slut."
He took as much of a deep breath as the bandages around his torso
would allow before continuing his sad tale. "Boromir...he tried to
fight them. To protect me and mother. But there's only so much that a
little kid can do. No matter where we were, people would find out and
we would have to deal with it over and over again."
He sniffed and rubbed his aching and swollen eyes to ease the sting
that he
felt creeping on them. "I promised myself that I would never subject
any child of mine to what my brother and I went through. That if I
ever had a child, I would be a father not just in name, but in
actions as well."
He sighed and finally pulled away from Aragorn. He turned away from
his comfort. He didn't want to see the pity or the pain in his eyes
when he spoke the truth that he had just recently seen with such
startling clarity.
"When Legolas told me about the child, I said all those things
because... well...because I knew that we just weren't really meant to
stay together."
Aragorn's breath hitched in his throat when he heard those stark
words. He
wasn't hearing them. It was some kind of joke. He wasn't hearing
those words. Faramir couldn't mean that. Faramir just couldn't mean
them. No. Faramir and Legolas were in love. Faramir couldn't mean
them.
"Don't say anything, Aragorn. Don't tell me that I am wrong. I know,
dammit!
I know that we just couldn't have stayed together. Not when he
belongs with
Boromir."
Aragorn made a noise like a wounded animal.
"Don't say it, Aragorn. Please. Just...don't voice it yet. I know
that I am the one that is saying this, but it is also killing me
inside to admit it."
He turned around and looked at Aragorn, who had just turned a sickly
shade
of white that was visible even in the dim glow of the lamp. "We...we
love them. We would die for them. But when it comes down to it, we
aren't the ones for them. We were never in the same current as they
were. And I guess that even though I always adored Lee, I just
seemed to know deep down that I wouldn't be the one to stay with him.
To reach him. Just like you knew that Boromir would always be
unreachable no matter what you tried to do."
Aragorn raised his hand to his mouth and bit his already bruised
knuckles.
Even though it hurt like a bitch, the pain was better than the
tearing he was feeling in his chest. A dull, hard pain that made him
wonder whether his heart was being torn out. It was just so painful!
He could feel tears start in his good eye and he was sure that he was
just going to let them spill over. He couldn't stop them. Wouldn't
stop them.
"If they love each other, then what do we have left then?" Aragorn
asked,
his voice raw.
Faramir lowered his head and looked at Aragorn through his eyelashes.
He hadn't meant to hurt him. He hadn't meant to make him feel like
there was
no hope for either of them. He just wanted to let him know why he had
acted
the way that he had.
He also just wanted to let him know that...well...things had now
completely
changed between them. "Each other, Estel. That's what we have. Each
other."
Aragorn looked away. "Will that be enough?"
Faramir reached over and took a hold of Aragorn's face and forced him
to look at him. "We can make it be."
Celebrian walked into the kitchen and was surprised to find her
mother and
father, along with the hobbits, eating what looked like breakfast.
At two in
the morning.
"Did I just step into the twilight zone or something here?"
Celebrian asked as she sat down and poured herself some Orange Pekoe
and grabbed some toast.
"They were hungry." Galadriel replied calmly as she spread Nutella on
a slice of rye bread and gave it to Pippin, who devoured it without
wasting a moment.
Celebrian raised an eyebrow at her mother's calm statement, but said
nothing
after she caught her father's warning gaze.
"I guess. I wouldn't know. I haven't met many hobbits at McGill," she
replied as she, too, ate.
"Faramir's sleeping?" Celeborn asked as he poured honey in his tea.
"Yeah. He's pretty worn out after everything. Estel is taking a
shower right now. I don't think he'll want to eat anything after
that," Celebrian replied as she polished off the piece of toast she
had in her hand and reached out for another one.
"Any news on Lee yet?" she asked, her mouth full, not noticing the
way that the boys pricked their ears up at her question.
"Nothing has changed." Galadriel replied cryptically, making Pippin
and Merry's ears droop in disappointment.
They only knew that Legolas was in the hospital after being involved
in the
same fight as Faramir and Aragorn. All the adults around them had
done their
best to keep any information hidden from them and they had resigned
themselves to being kept in the dark until they could glean more
information
from a careless remark or overheard conversation.
But so far, they hadn't gotten anything that would tell them the news
that
they wanted to hear. All the secrecy was really getting to them
though.
It was true that Celeborn and Galadriel were being super nice,
letting them
stay up late and eat their favourite food and all that, but it didn't
make up for the fact that they were deliberately hiding the truth
about Lee's condition from them.
"Hmmph," Celebrian replied as she ate her toast and looked at the
hobbits,
who looked back with worried expressions on their sticky faces. "Are
they going to bed soon then?"
Galadriel turned and gave the hobbits a cool stare. "Yes. After they
finish their food."
Merry and Pippin nodded as they then drank their milk and ate the
remnants
of their early breakfast. It was true that they were enjoying the
novelty of
being allowed to stay up and eat, but they were getting weary and
needed to
crawl into bed, be tucked in and assured that tomorrow was going to
be better.
"You want me to tuck you in?" Celebrian asked them. Pippin's eyes
were already drooping shut and Merry was about to reply when he was
cut off.
"I'll do it." Celeborn put in before he stood up and put his cup in
the sink.
"I haven't done it in a while. And I want to talk to the boys."
Galadriel nodded. Celebrian shrugged.
"Okay. Are you taking them to bed now then?" she asked her father.
"Yes. Pippin's going to fall asleep in his plate if he doesn't go to
bed now."
Sure enough, Pippin was swaying precariously in his chair while Merry
only
watched him with heavy-lidded eyes, suddenly too tired to do anything
else.
"Come on, Chibis," Celeborn said as he picked up the two hobbits, who
immediately wrapped their arms around his neck and clung on to him
like
limpets.
"They stopped the bleeding," Galadriel suddenly spoke up in the
silence that
had fallen between herself and her daughter after the males had left.
"So he's not going to lose the baby?" Celebrian asked as she poured
herself
more tea.
"No. He won't. He's going to be alright." Galadriel replied, but her
voice was weary.
"So that's good right? He's going to be fine?" Celebrian asked.
Galadriel didn't answer that time though, making Celebrian wonder
what else
was going to be thrown at them now that this particular crisis was
over.
by Jim Morrison
Chapter XV
Let it Go
"It's not like you didn't know that
I said I love you and I swear I still do
And it must have been so bad
Cause livin' with me must have damn near killed you"
—Nickelback
ou swear you aren't ever doing that again?" Celebrian asked Aragorn
as he knelt in front of the toilet puking his guts out.
