The Clash
Aragorn was sitting in a chair beside the bed, his expression for the most part terribly blank. Legolas didn't like that blankness since he knew that Aragorn was silently berating himself for not being as strong as he imagined that he had to be. No one blamed him for falling apart, but he felt that he had failed Boromir badly and that no matter what others said, he had thoroughly let his boyfriend down.
And to make matters worse, Legolas strongly suspected that Boromir was feeling the exact same way towards Aragorn. Even though there was absolutely no logical reason for either of them to think that, they were. And it looked like it would be almost impossible to convince them of it otherwise.
Boromir hadn't said a word, but Legolas could see those exact thoughts going through the cool green depths of Boromir's eyes before they had been covered by the opaque shields that he would erect when he had to face the cruel world.
The elf sighed and shook his head. He didn't want to think about that. Nor did he want to think about the events that had led to Boromir thinking that. But they kept whirring in a loop in his mind, mixed up with the false hope that things could still be fixed between all four of them no matter what.
Legolas brushed the back of his hand over his eyes, which were now swollen and blood-shot over all the crying that he had done after the whole incident with Faramir. He had sobbed like a little kid . First in Aragorn's arms, then in Boromir's arms. Sobbed like he had never done before in his entire life and the pain was still as sharp and bitter as ever. It was almost too much for him, since he truly felt that it was the end between him and Faramir.
He sighed before walking over to Boromir's bed. Looking down at the sleeping human, he then smiled sadly as he then carefully sat down. Feeling a bit like a little kid in need of assurance, Legolas then lay beside Boromir and snuggled up close to him and wrapped his arms around him.
Strangely enough, Aragorn didn't react to him being so intimate with his boyfriend. All he did was look up briefly before sinking into his misery once again, making Legolas flinch in pain for his brother.
"Where did it all go wrong?" he whispered before he buried his face into his friend's chest and began to cry yet again as the day's events played through his mind again.
He had been, Legolas recalled, gone for about an hour. In that span of time, Aragorn and Faramir had arrived, interrupting the nice sleep he was having in the lounge and the hushed conversation Galadriel was having with Celeborn.
"Where is he?" Aragorn had asked Legolas once Faramir had shaken him awake and engulfed him in a tight hug.
"Tests." Legolas had managed to wheeze out as his boyfriend and then his brother had taken turns squeezing him breathless.
"When will we get to see him?" Aragorn asked anxiously, making Legolas hope and pray that the morning's episode wouldn't spill over the hospital visit. Even though Boromir was tough, he still was very fragile and unable to take on anyone else's burdens in his state.
"Soon. They will call us when the tests are done. But there is something that I have to tell you before you see him."
Three heads swiveled to meet the shaky gaze of Galadriel, who had cut her conversation short and was standing uncertainly in the door-way of the visitor's lounge.
No one spoke for several moments, since they could sense the worry that was lying heavily on the elven woman's shoulders.
"What is it?" Faramir asked, his hand clasping Legolas' tightly as he tried to steel himself for the news he knew were going to be bad. Aragorn's face was blank, but his fingers were gripping the couch so tightly that they were leaving marks in the upholstery.
"The doctor told me that they just ran the tests on Boromir. He doesn't have any brain damage, luckily, but there are other things that are a problem."
Aragorn's right eye twitched at the word "problem." Legolas bit his lip and looked at Faramir, who was looking down at the scarred table in front of them.
"There's a break in his spine that they are going to fix as soon as possible. Probably in the next day or so. The problem is that his spinal cord is still swollen badly. They have been giving him medicine to make the swelling go down, but so far, it hasn't had much effect."
"So what does that mean?" Aragorn asked gruffly. Galadriel sighed heavily.
"He may be paralysed permanently if the swelling doesn't go down."
"Is that a sure thing?" Legolas asked as Faramir covered his hand with his mouth in shock.
"We don't know." Galadriel replied tiredly, rubbing her forehead in a gesture of exasperation.
"What do you mean that you don't know?" Aragorn asked quietly, his voice seemingly calm, yet failing to hide the dark swirl of emotions that he was unable to suppress over the news.
"Just that. We won't know until the swelling goes down. And that could take either weeks or months. Hopefully it will only take weeks. The longer it takes, the higher the chances of him being permanently paralysed. But right now, the doctors simply can't be sure of what will happen. Right now, it's a matter of chance."
Aragorn bit his lip as he then clenched his fists as a hot rage flooded over him. It wasn't fair. It simply wasn't fair. Why the hell did it have to be Boromir that had gotten hit by the car? Why? It just wasn't fair! It wasn't fair that he was now going to be condemned to a wheel-chair for the rest of his life because of some stupid loser who shouldn't have been driving in the first place!
First his mother was taken away from him, then Boromir was crippled then Legolas fell ill. He looked at Faramir and wondered caustically whether the poor boy would also be the victim of some horrible event soon. The way things were turning out, it seemed that he was just nothing but bad-luck all around. And it seemed that his mother and Boromir had suffered the brunt of it.
He really wanted to stand up and shout and scream and tear his hair and maybe go as mad as he had done at his mother's funeral and this morning. But he knew that it wouldn't fix anything. In fact, it probably would make everything worse. All that yelling would do would be to make him go hoarse and make Boromir worry even more, something that he didn't want to subject him to no matter what.
So he remained icily quiet while tearing holes in the cheap upholstery of the waiting room couch until it would be time to see Boromir again.
"Shit." Faramir's said, his voice flat as he took of his ubiquitous baseball cap and ran his fingers through the messy blonde silk that was his hair. He sighed before he replaced the green cap on his head and looked at his mother. "Does he know?"
Galadriel shook her head before closing her eyes and pressing her fingers against her eyelids.
"I haven't spoken to him at all since he awoke. Dr. Tyler told me after they wheeled him off for all the tests that they had to run on him." Galadriel replied.
Faramir nodded and was about to say something else when the doctor himself walked into the room.
Casting a look at them, he suspected that they knew about Boromir's condition due to the distressed and depressed looks on the faces of the three boys. Sighing, he then sat down on an unoccupied chair before he began to talk.
"I don't think I need to give you the back-ground, since your mother, I assume, has just given it to you."
"How is he?" Legolas whispered as he rubbed his forehead. There was a pressure building up behind his eyes that signaled he was going to cry soon, but he didn't give in to the urge just yet. He had to be strong for his friend right now and crying wasn't going to achieve anything except to make Boromir more upset when he finally saw him again.
"Pissed. Your friend really doesn't like needles." The doctor replied as he arranged all of the papers on Boromir's medical file.
The small joke, no matter how stupid it was, helped to ease the tension in the room enough to make them all relax a bit.
"But apart from that he is fine. I don't know how exactly he is going to be afterwards though."
He sighed and flipped a couple more pages in the manila file. This was one of the parts of the job that he really hated from his other wise fulfilling career. The telling of bad news.
"Are you going to tell him?" Legolas suddenly spoke up, his voice a hushed whisper.
"Yes. Boromir is my patient after all." The doctor replied wryly. Legolas nodded slowly.
"I understand that. But Boromir is my best friend. I think that with news like those, he should have someone he knows and trusts telling them to him rather than a total stranger."
"Are you sure, Legolas?" Galadriel asked, her voice strained as she spoke.
Legolas nodded without hesitation. "I am probably the best choice in telling him"
He then cast a look of apology to Aragorn and Faramir, who scarcely noticed it since they were so wrapped up in their thoughts and barely paying attention to anything around them.
He was the only one to do it. Boromir was, in a way, his other half. He loved him deeply and would do anything for him. This love, as well as a mild feeling of possessiveness over him that had stemmed from the fact that Boromir had woken up only after he had called to him made Legolas' decision to be the one to deliver the bad news to him.
"I understand that, but you have to take care of yourself now." Galadriel admonished him quietly.
Legolas bristled slightly as he then put a hand protectively over his belly.
"I'm sure it will be fine, Galadriel. I don't think that the news will have such an impact on my baby!" Legolas told her frostily, so indignant at being treated like what he perceived to be as an invalid that he didn't notice his blunder until he heard Faramir's squeak of shock layered over Aragorn's squawk of surprise.
Realizing what he had just said, Legolas cringed when he then turned to look at a white-faced Faramir and an open-mouthed Aragorn.
"Eh...Surprise?"
Legolas only winced at this. That was probably the dumbest thing that could have ever come out of his mouth at such a critical time. Boromir had been right that time when they got busted for painting graffiti on the walls of St. Kilda. He really didn't do well under pressure. He usually caved in to it fairly quickly.
Faramir only looked at him. "Surprise?"
Legolas nodded, his mouth having gone too dry for him to be able to say anything else for the time being. Faramir just looked at him and shook his head, his eyes glinting brightly in what Legolas knew was the beginning of deep anger.
"When were you planning to let me know?" Faramir asked, his voice cold as he spoke.
Legolas flushed and looked down at his ragged fingernails.
"Soon." The elf replied quietly. "At a better time than this."
Faramir shook his head. "How could there be a better time? You're knocked up for Christ's sake! When would it have been a good time? When the kid was born?"
Legolas bit his lip, but didn't give into the urge to cry that had risen at Faramir's words.
"Maybe after your brother was told about his health." Legolas responded sharply.
"This is a small issue compared to what Boromir is facing right now, Faramir."
"And letting me know I'm going to be a father isn't?" Faramir asked as he angrily stood up from his chair. Aragorn perceived his movements as a threat and put his hand on the younger boy's arm in a warning.
"It is important. But not when we have to let Boromir know what is wrong with him! We have to help him cope and this issue isn't going to help matters any!"
"You should have thought of that before hand!" Faramir countered angrily. "Just like you should have thought of using birth control if you knew this could happen!"
He shook his head before looking at the elf with slitted green eyes.
"Or is it even mine at all?" He asked, his words calculated to be cruel and hurt the elf.
"Faramir!" Galadriel spoke his name sharply, her eyes dark with anger as she rebuked her son.
"This isn't the time or place to have this argument. Nor is it right for you to say that." Galadriel spoke quietly.
But Faramir was too angry and too afraid to take heed of the warning note in her voice. He was scared. Scared for his brother, scared for himself and Legolas. The idea of him being a father at seventeen was just too fucked for him to actually contemplate. He knew that he was hurting his lover, but his fear was the one in charge of things at that moment and the repercussions of his words weren't the foremost thing on his mind at that point.
Legolas turned his head away and let his hair brush over his face. He wasn't going to cry! He wasn't going to cry!
"It is yours and I didn't know it could happen to me!" Legolas replied, his words flat.
"Whatever." Faramir said before he shook of Aragorn's hand.
"Talk to him. Tell him the news like the good friend that you supposedly are. I don't care. I'm leaving."
Legolas was stunned at the harsh words that were pouring out of his sweet lover's mouth. How could he say such things? Or leave like that? Especially when his brother needed him!
"You can't leave your brother!" Legolas exclaimed as he watched Faramir walk out the door.
Faramir paused in his movements though, when he heard those words.
He wanted to say that Boromir would understand, but he couldn't say that since he knew that he would be lying if he did. He knew his brother. No matter whether he was all the family he had, running out on him would constitute the worst kind of betrayal. A betrayal that would never be forgiven for as long as either of them lived.
So even though he wished that he were somewhere else, he forced himself to turn around and head back into the room and sit down in his chair again.
Galadriel frowned at him and looked at Legolas, who was still hiding behind his hair. Aragorn had moved next to the elf and was now rubbing his back to comfort him. But that stopped quickly when Legolas raised his hand and made Aragorn stop before he raised his head and looked at Dr. Tyler who had diplomatically immersed himself in his files as the argument had raged on before him.
"May we seen him now?" Legolas asked, his voice steady as he spoke, as if the whole scene hadn't taken place at all.
The doctor looked up at him with a critical eye. Despite all that had happened, Legolas was still fairly composed. And fairly determined to be the one to support his friend whether anyone wanted him to or not.
There was really no point in delaying it any further. He might as well let him go and see Boromir rather than keep him here and keep the stalemate going that may or may not erupt into yet another fight between the edgy young men and older elf.
Standing up, Dr. Tyler gathered up his files and nodded at Legolas.
"Yes. There is no point in delaying the inevitable. Just let me go check whether he has returned to his room yet."
Legolas nodded and watched him leave. He didn't dare look at Faramir or at a sympathetic Aragorn lest he burst into tears and break the false calmness that he was cultivating for his best friend's sake.
But he let Aragorn put a hand on his shoulder, since he knew that by the way that Aragorn's fingers were twitching that he needed to give the tactile comfort even though he suspected that Legolas didn't want to receive it. Aragorn was still pretty dazed, he reasoned, so it would only be unfair to push him away just because he was feeling insecure and edgy.
Faramir noticed Aragorn's actions but he didn't react. He didn't grudge him the comfort he sought. Nor did he grudge him touching Legolas in such a way. He hated to admit it, but as he had sat stewing in his own rancor, he had realized that he had irrevocably fucked up.
What he had said in heated anger, as he played it back in his head, showed him that he had been one thoughtless prick. He could justify it by telling himself he had been striking blindly. But it was a hollow lie that he could break by calling up the image of brown eyes shattering into a million pieces. He had broken Legolas' heart. That look was all the proof he required to know that he had just thrown away the most precious thing in his life. And he knew that there was no way that they would be able to be in love again. He had broken the bond with his carelessness and cruelty. Cruelty that could maybe even spell the end of the elf's days.
He closed his eyes. It was becoming painful to think about it. He wanted to say he was sorry, to make things like they used to be, but it was useless to even try. It was gone. There was no hope. Legolas wasn't his anymore.
Galadriel's hands clenched into fists as she watched them. The pain that was emanating from all three of them was so strong that it was close to knocking her down on her knees. And the worst thing was that there was precious little that she could do at this stage. She had to wait for them to come to her rather than for her to reach out and help them.
She held back because she knew as if she had seen it so clearly in her bowl of water, if she touched any of that fabric, it would more than likely cause more damage than help. The pain that they were living through was in a way, a necessary evil for them to endure. She couldn't see how far and how beneficial it would be for them, but she knew in a far way that it had to be borne.
And so she watched and waited as they gathered the pieces that had broken out of the glass pattern of their lives. Watched and waited even though the maternal part of her wanted so much to take them and ease the hurt from them. A part of her that she ruthlessly pushed down until it was needed.
Sighing slightly, she then looked into the purse she held. The crumpled piece of paper containing Celebrian's phone number sitting on the top of her wallet reminded her that she still had to call Celebrethil and Celeborn. She sighed when she looked at the paper. Yet another task. A task that she really didn't want to undertake at this particular time. But it had to be done.
Closing her purse, she was about to move towards the payphone when Dr. Tyler came back into the waiting room.
Noticing him, Legolas stood up before any of the other guys, who followed suit immediately after.
"You can go see him now." The doctor looked like he wanted to say more, but the look on Legolas' face stopped him from doing that. He figured that the poor boy had gone through too many things in that particular day to want to be reminded of limits that really didn't matter in the end anyway.
Legolas dipped his head in thanks and went down to Boromir's room with Faramir on his left and Aragorn on his right. Neither of them spoke as they stopped in front of the room.
"Do you want me to go alone?" Legolas asked softly, looking straight ahead inside the room, his gaze fixed on Boromir, who was lying with his eyes closed.
"No." Faramir replied flatly. "It isn't fair for you to shoulder our burdens by yourself."
"He's right." Aragorn agreed, his voice hardly anything more than a slight whisper.
Legolas nodded, too tired to argue any more and entered the room as Faramir and Aragorn followed closely behind him as if they were afraid that they might lose him if they didn't.
They moved as one to the bed, in fluid, calculated movements as they got closer to the person that they felt was keeping them tied together at that particular time.
"I don't want to wake him." Faramir thought as he looked down at his brother.
He hadn't really looked at Boromir in a long time, he realized as he took in the small details of the face. The golden toned skin, now a little pale from being ill. The soft and generous mouth. The delicate lidded eyes and long, long brown lashes resting like half-moons on his cheekbones.
Seeing the small details triggered memories of running beside his brother on a football pitch, with his hair whipping wildly back and forth, fighting to escape the low ponytail that he kept it in like his favourite football player, Emmanuel Petit. The way he would laugh as he ran, lightly and free without any of the cynical undertone that his laughter had ever since he could remember.
Fate had been vicious. Faramir decided. To have taken one of the only things that let him forget all that he had faced, all the burdens that he carried was terribly unjust and truly cruel. There was no other way for him to see it. As far as he was concerned, his brother's life was over.
"I want him to stay asleep. To keep on dreaming rather than have to face this bitter reality."
He thought as he reached out and ran his thumb lightly over Boromir's eyelids.
It was futile gesture though and he knew it. He was as useless as he had been as a child, watching his brother take the blows meant for him, watching as Boromir tried to make their lives better even though things were looking bleaker and bleaker as the days passed.
"I'm sorry." He finally said, just as his brother opened his eyes and looked at them.
"I'm sorry." He repeated before he bounded out of the room, tears streaming down his face as he ran.
"Faramir!" He heard his brother call for him. Then Legolas and Aragorn, but he couldn't go back. Not yet anyways. He just couldn't go back.
Boromir watched his brother leave the room before he turned his gaze on Aragorn and Legolas, who were looking at him, their expressions unhappy as they shifted their weight from foot to foot.
"I take it that you are here to deliver the bad news." He said in a calm voice as he turned his head towards them.
Legolas and Aragorn looked at each other and swallowed thickly before turning back to look at Boromir, who was regarding them calmly.
"How bad is it?" He asked as he massaged his sore neck.
There was silence for a few moments, since neither Legolas nor Aragorn were willing to take the opening that Boromir was handing them. Even though it was a nice gesture, neither was willing to open their hands and grasp it, since in their own way, it seemed that if they did, they would be driving the knife deep into Boromir's soul. And neither wanted to be responsible for killing that light in his soul by uttering the unspoken truth that hung in the air.
The silence stretched out before them, endless, taut like a violin string ready to break under the pressure. Legolas saw this and realized that for every moment that they stayed in this bitter stalemate, the harsher and nastier the aftermath would be once the words were spoken. He looked at Aragorn and saw that the same knowledge was stored in the deep blue eyes. The same knowledge, but a different pain was there in his eyes. The pain of knowing that he wasn't strong enough to do it himself.
The pain of knowing that he was too weak to raise the knife and kill his lover. Legolas saw all of this in a flash before the blue eyes went blank and he understood. He didn't blame him for feeling that way. He knew that Estel still blamed himself for his mother's death and always felt that he had forced her to kill herself.
He saw all of this and understood why he wouldn't speak. Why the burden would be his to carry. He was the one that had to take care of them right now. He was the one that was going to take the knife and sink it deep into Boromir. He had known it all along that he would be the executioner.
It was his role and he didn't really embrace it, it had fallen upon him to carry it out.
"They don't know if you're going to walk again." Legolas told him, his voice its normal cool tone.
Boromir nodded as he buried his hand in his hair and dragged his fingers through the long greasy mess it had become.
"I sort of figured." He replied before he let his hand fall back onto the bed. He turned his head and looked out the window, which was letting the sun stream into the room, a touch that he felt was terribly ironic at this time.
He closed his eyes to shut out the cheery sunlight. He didn't want to face that right now. He wanted to fall apart and cry and cry until there weren't any tears left in his body. He wanted to rage and to scream at the fate that had bound him to a life of helplessness and dependence. He wanted to curse everything and everyone and make them feel as hateful and wasted as he did.
He wanted for everything to weep and bleed alongside him. He wanted them all to feel as shitty as he did right about then. Just like he wanted for the sky to turn the darkest grey imaginable and start to pour a typhoon all over Edmonton.
He grabbed the blankets on his bed and bunched them under his hands to ease the anger and pain that he was feeling. But that was the extent of him giving in to his emotions. He knew, in that rational part of his mind, that his emotions were utterly childish. There would be no point in him bawling and crying out to an uncaring universe. He had learned that lesson earlier when he had found himself and Faramir on the streets when he was nine and his brother seven
No one cared that they had nowhere to go. No one gave a damn that they were homeless and lost. Nor did the world stop for them. They just had to pick themselves up and move on whether they had wanted to or not. Crying, even though it had been a release of sorts, had done fuck all for him before.
So he didn't indulge in it. Not then. Not when that fucker Casey was tearing him apart while laughing in his face, not when Legolas was torn away from him that first time. And certainly not now.
Even if it killed him, he wasn't going to give in and cry. He wasn't. He wouldn't.
So he opened his eyes and looked at them. Steadily. Calmly.
"It'll be okay." He tells them, his eyes boring into theirs, daring them to say otherwise, willing them to believe that it will be. It has to be.
Aragorn is the first to break his gaze. But he doesn't leave like Boromir expected him to. Instead, he just comes closer to the bed and fall down on his knees. He clutches Boromir's hand and begins to cry at the words. He knows that they aren't true. Nor does he believe them.
Legolas nods, but he doesn't believe him either. He knows that. Just like Boromir knows that something has happened between him and his brother.
"It'll be okay." Legolas whispers before he falls beside his brother and holds him as they cry together into each other's shoulders.
This is the first time that they have ever lied to each other. But none of them will admit that they have.
"It'll be allright." Galadriel says as she rocks him back and forth as she tried to comfort his troubled mind.
"I didn't mean it...I didn't mean it.." Faramir tells her as he clutches at her arms, which are holding him securely while she rocks him.
"I know. I know." She tells him as she lays her cheek upon his head. "He knows."
"Will it get better though?" Faramir asks, his voice clogged with tears and despair. "Will it?"
Galadriel sighed. She couldn't tell him that it would be because she didn't know. Her bowl of water had been murky at this point. All she could tell him for sure was that she hoped they would be, but she could be wrong.
"What answer would you like to hear?" She asked him quietly.
"That things won't hurt like this anymore."
by Jim Morrison
Chapter XII
Acrobat
"And I must be an Acrobat,
to talk like this, and act like that
You know that tide is coming round.
So don't let the bastards grind you down."
—U2
egolas leaned against the window of Boromir's room as they all waited for Faramir to show up. He had taken off shortly after the different news had been given and he honestly didn't know when he would be composed enough to come back. Boromir himself was taking a nap, the tests and the emotional turmoil having tired him out more than he had cared to admit.
