Two days after encountering Saruman's crebain, the Fellowship had strayed from their route around the Misty Mountains to head into the Pass of Caradhras, and Boromir had strayed from his vow to keep his distance from Isildur's heir. Aragorn cleared brush with him, built fires with him, strung bridges of vine with him, hid with him in dank ruins, and defended them all from beasts of the land that only an elf's sensitive ears could hear as they approached. While their trials went on, Boromir was forced to admit that he enjoyed the Ranger's company. It was a particularly thorny confession because he did not want to like Aragorn -- not only for what he represented to Gondor, but for the alluring power of the man himself.
Boromir recalled his first encounter with the one called Strider, standing before Isildur's mural in Rivendell. Blood drawn by Isildur's father's sword burned down his own finger. For a split second, he had felt as though he were being watched by Isildur himself -- the great hero and great failure, the man seduced by the Ring. Was Isildur's image there to serve as model or warning to Boromir?
He knew not; he knew only the great shock of feeling that surged through him. It continued to do so whenever Isildur's heir smiled at him, with curiosity flickering behind his shadowed eyes. Boromir found it hard not to bask in that gaze, to return it, to begin to burn with it. Already he burned with thoughts of the Ring, a constant murmur throbbing in his head. Sauron's Ring of Power gleamed like the Tower of Ecthelion, as alluring as the descendant of the man who had brought the Ring from Mount Doom into their world.
Tempers among the Fellowship began to fray as they climbed into the Pass, for the temperature dropped steadily and their muscles protested the increasingly hostile terrain. Following Gandalf's lead, Aragorn pressed forward without relent. It fell to Boromir to look after the small ones, particularly Merry and Pippin who made no secret of their trouble keeping up. Elrond had resisted allowing these halflings to accompany Frodo and Sam on the journey, but Boromir found their easy humor a pleasant diversion from the grimness of their task. He wondered whether hobbits might be incorruptible by the evil in the Ring, despite their long proximity to it.
To relieve his own tension, he taught the little ones fencing and archery whenever they stopped to rest. Aragorn watched bemusedly, a half-smile turning up his mouth. It reflected his unvoiced awareness that the skills were necessary, but also seemed to contain a winking recognition that Boromir did not offer the lessons for entirely selfless reasons. Boromir wanted to show off for the others -- for Gandalf because the wizard had ignored him in the council, for Legolas because the elf suggested that he owed Aragorn his allegiance, and for Aragorn to impress with his talents as a warrior. And because Boromir savored the feel of the other man's eyes on his body as he moved, showing off his muscles, demonstrating his flexibility.
Boromir's turmoil was all the more disturbing because these impulses were not new to him. In the past he had felt similar urges to impress men with his strength and prowess -- shield-brothers of Gondor, usually men under his own command, not the ones over-eager to serve the Steward's son but those who had to be convinced that he had earned his captaincy through deeds rather than birthright. The best warriors and most noble guards did not simply accept him as a peer, but had to be won over with daring and dexterity. Once they were, they often became his most ardent supporters. In truth his most pleasurable memories lay not within the silks and lace of Gondor, but the sweat and exigency of martial campaigns, where the polite expectations of society fell away.
This long journey into the hills often had the routine of a military march. The halflings would fall asleep right after supper, exhausted by the long days of marching and running from menace. Frodo, in particular, needed the escape of sleep, though his dreams were troubled by the Ring and he often cried out in the night. Gandalf, Aragorn and the others often spent the evening discussing the next day's route or supplies they needed to acquire, and sometimes they reminisced about past campaigns or crises -- Gimli never passed an opportunity to brag about the skills of the dwarves, and Legolas had much of the elves' long history committed to memory. Sometimes they sang as well.
But Aragorn rarely spoke of his own upbringing, and Boromir felt that the others were judging them both, holding them as reflections of their fathers rather than their own men. Sometimes he grew sullen, even angry -- he, who had more right to bear the Ring than any of them, for the good of the race of men who guarded the hidden realms of the elves and dwarves. Then he would retire early and seethe, hunched under a cloak that increasingly could not protect him from the elements, despite its fine fur lining and the leather of his collar.
At such times, Boromir thought he could feel Aragorn's eyes upon his back, but the concern implied condescension that only frustrated him more. Curled within himself against the cold, he heard the Ring calling to him, making promises for the safety and stewardship of Minas Tirith that he craved like a hunger in his body.
On the night before they would traverse the Pass, they lay in a camp dug beneath rocks to avoid the snow, circling a weak fire that could not drive out the chill. Boromir lay within his cloak in the most exposed spot, on the far side of the flames from where the others slept. He could not sleep in such conditions, tossing about in a futile effort to warm his limbs. Long after the others had fallen silent -- the hobbits in a huddle between Gimli and Legolas, obscured under all the blankets -- Aragorn moved around the fire to sit beside him.
"You seem close to freezing," he observed.
No point in denying what his shivering lips already confessed. Yet it was unlike Aragorn to make idle conversation, unless he wished to ridicule Boromir for succumbing to the cold. "Have you a way to warm the mountain?"
"No, but we can warm one another. Come share my blankets."
Boromir felt a surge of feeling in his chest, quickly dismissed as irritation. Aragorn's "blankets" consisted of his cloak and the heavy lining of his tunic. Rangers were in the habit of sleeping on the icy ground, in caves, in mud, wherever they happened to be. But Aragorn's expression held no mockery, and Boromir realized that the other man might envy his own thick cloak. By joining the heat of their bodies, they would both be warmer and stronger on the morrow. He grunted assent, avoiding Aragorn's eyes.
As if to confirm Boromir's suspicions, Aragorn spread his cloak on the ground and lay atop it, waiting for the warrior to share the fine velvet and fur of Minas Tirith that lined his clothing. Though tempted to taunt Aragorn for his deviousness, Boromir restrained the impulse. Aragorn might withdraw his offer in the face of ridicule, and Boromir was very cold. And eager to lie near Aragorn before that overprotective elf or one of the halflings inserted himself under the prodigal prince's wing. Again Boromir felt a surge of emotion in his chest, harder to repress, as he lay down beside his rival for Gondor.
Aragorn shifted close, pressing shoulder to shoulder under the heavy cloak. The man's strong, familiar scent engulfed Boromir at the same moment their bodies made contact, and he could not withhold a tremor of reaction to the proximity. At that, the Ranger turned, putting an arm over Boromir's chest to hold him closer in shielding warmth. Without his bracers or mail, piled at his side with his sword and horn so that he might sleep unrestrained, Boromir felt naked and tensed against his body's unwitting betrayal.
"I am making you uncomfortable," his companion observed quietly.
Boromir barked a laugh, too loud for the hush of the others sleeping nearby. "Perhaps you think I have been spoiled in a comfortable bed at Gondor." Thinking of his bed only made him more ill at ease, as his mind brought forth embarrassed memories of girls he had tumbled there, contrasted with more cherished memories of other shared blankets under the skies. Since he had been a teenager, women had offered themselves to the son of the Steward -- some in hope of eventual marriage, some out of curiosity and a desire for second-hand power. He had no aversion to bedding a willing lady, especially one who lacked inhibition and liked to experiment, but none of those affairs had ever equaled the urgency of men facing their doom in battle.
As if he could read minds, Aragorn murmured, "I know of your feats as a warrior. When you lead men into battle, do you deny yourself the comfort of a shared blanket on a night such as this?"
Boromir's head jerked sharply to the side to see whether his companion derided him, but again, Aragorn's expression bore no malice, only curiosity. Their faces were close enough for the steam of one's breath to curl the other's hair. The quick, panting breaths that lifted his chest under Aragorn's arm revealed more than words, yet Boromir dared not speak at first. "This quest is different," he said finally. "And you are not a soldier under my command, but..."
"...Isildur's heir," Aragorn finished for him with a wry smile. "Which makes you uncomfortable, Captain of the White Tower -- do you fear that I covet the throne of Gondor, or resent that I have shunned it?"
"I do not fear you, Ranger," scoffed Boromir with such force that he winced inwardly at his own defensiveness. In a more subdued tone he continued, "Many matters of this fellowship remain uncertain. The dwarf does not trust the elf, who does not trust me, though he trusts you. The Ringbearer may like you, but he does not trust any of us near the Ring. And you...you do not trust me either."
Without removing the arm warming Boromir's chest, Aragorn raised himself up on an elbow to gaze down. "I trust you to fight bravely. I trust you to defend Gondor with your life." The hand on his chest moved up to Boromir's face, turning his chin up to meet Aragorn's eyes. "I trust you as you trust me."
The artery in Boromir's throat pulsed against the faint pressure of Aragorn's scalding fingers. The bright eyes hovering above him revealed so much yet at the same time too little; Boromir did not know how to interpret the promise there. For an instant, emotion overwhelmed him so that he could not breathe -- the same sentiments he had felt since he first laid eyes on Aragorn, secretly nurtured, now laid bare.
This was no mere fascination, but a passionate allegiance he would give to none but a king. Yet Gondor acknowledged no King, and the son of the Steward wanted to despise this unthroned claimant. It pained him to feel his own weakness -- that he could not despise Aragorn, that he felt drawn to the man, that he wanted to impress him, that he yearned to call him friend, that his loins stirred as he lay captive beneath Aragorn's hand.
With a grunt, Boromir disengaged his eyes and rolled away onto his side, letting the cold ground absorb the flush of his skin. He knew his companion would find him unconscionably rude, yet the risks of continued familiarity were greater still. Aragorn stiffened in surprise, but after a moment he settled back and squeezed Boromir's shoulder as if in sympathy.
"If you feel no fear, you need feel no shame."
"I do not understand. What shame?" Still Boromir's heart pounded so forcefully that his belly fluttered, as if he were a very young man going to war for the first time.
"You sense the connection between us just as I do. But I have spent more of my life among elves than men; the immortals do not share the same constraints." Soft whiskers tickled Boromir's neck, then he felt Aragorn's lips beneath his ear -- a brief kiss that might have conveyed mere solidarity, yet offered so much more.
How weak Aragorn must think him, lying trembling with his back turned. Boromir managed to ask, "Would you unman me, Ranger?", hoping the other would interpret his words and the tremor in his voice as annoyance rather than the longing that shook him throughout. Yet he felt relief and even joy when Aragorn's arm slipped around Boromir once more, cupping his hip, brushing his thigh and finding the evidence of desire his leggings could not hide.
Hotly whispered words filled his ear: "You feel quite like a man to me."
It was too much. In a moment he would fall under Aragorn's spell, and become his to command. With a choked gasp, Boromir sought the protection of obstacles. "What of the Lady Arwen?"
"I love the Lady Arwen with all my soul," came the hushed reply. "But she is an immortal, who has lived much longer than I have, in realms ethereal and pure. I am only a man, and I find myself drawn to those like myself, who struggle with the legacies of our fathers and would die to undo the damage to our realms."
Boromir rolled and for the first time beheld Aragorn in full, vulnerable arousal, with glittering eyes and breath that came too fast. "If you believe it is wrong for us to take comfort where we can, then I apologize," the earnest face beseeched Boromir's forgiveness. "We travel in the presence of a great evil whose power is felt by all. I know that you have felt it -- I know that the Ring calls to you to take it to Minas Tirith."
"If you find me so weak, Ranger, that I can be seduced by the Ring, what victory would it be to seduce me yourself?" Boromir's voice was harsh and grating. Aragorn's reply sounded pained.
"This is not a battleground between us, and I do not seek your surrender to any touch you would not welcome. We march together against a common foe. I truly believe that any happiness we find on this journey may empower us to withstand the temptations of the Ring, and give us the strength we need to fulfill the journey to Mordor. Will you share it with me?"
For long moments, the two men lay silent, listening to one another's uneven breathing, contrasted with Gimli's burbling snore and Merry's wheeze on the far side of the crackling fire. Then Boromir took Aragorn's face between his hands and crushed his lips to those of Gondor's rightful king.
He knew in his heart that it was indeed a battleground, and that he had already surrendered. But as Aragorn's hands and mouth summoned feeling back into his frozen flesh and freed him, for a few moments, from the siren song of the Ring, he knew too that he would have no regrets. And when he allowed his body to offer the devotion he would not allow to pass his lips, when he heard Aragorn's choked cry and long shudder of gratitude, he understood that within this surrender lay a glorious victory.
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Story notes: Many thanks to Carla Jane (http://disanddatbycj.com/ficish/homepage.htm) for story suggestions. Also thanks to the Elvish to English Dictionary (http://www.dragons-inn.org/Ifreann/elf_eng.html) for translations, and the Middle-earth Encyclopedia (http://www.barrowdowns.com/encyclopedia.php) for assorted details about elves, dwarves and men.
