A/N: One of my original favorite brother dynamics, which I am FINALLY getting around to writing for! I love both these brothers so much, and it was heartwrenching to write them...oh TOLKIEN. Always with the tragedy.
look for his coming
They have been hunting. Pheasants, plumage bright and ruffled, slung over Boromir's shoulder with a careless grace. It looks like the ruff of a majestic cloak, Faramir thinks, and he smiles to himself. No matter where they are, his brother always finds a way to look grand.
Father is waiting in the dining hall, and Boromir crosses the great tiled expanse in so few strides. Faramir must puff to keep up. He is thin and pale, too often with his books (Father says).
"Well done," Denethor murmurs, fondling the feathers of the pheasants, and his smile is like sunshine, rare and welcome, as he gazes at his eldest son.
"Faramir shot one," Boromir offers, tumbling them onto the broad table, and Faramir stiffens up to his best posture, fingers clenching and unclenching.
Their father nods. "I am glad to hear it."
Faramir waits for a smile, too, but it does not come.
Afterwards, in their own chambers, while Faramir loses himself in a book, and Boromir paces the floor pretending to study history, the smile comes. On his brother's face, not his father's, but it is enough.
"You did well," Boromir says, pressing a hand on his shoulder, and Faramir feels happiness fill the emptiness inside him.
It is a day in summer when they wander on the king's terrace, and though the tree is withered, Faramir feels the wonder of it, and he dares not meet the eyes of the guards.
Their faces are carefully still behind the winged helmets. Faramir does not know if one can speak to them or not, if they are like gods, quiet and ageless.
But Boromir strides ahead, greets them with a nod and a hand pressed to his breast, and Faramir follows suit, a little shyly.
"Are they waiting?" he asks, as they near the edge of the wall, and Boromir's brows lift in question.
"Waiting?"
"For the king."
Boromir laughs softly. "They will wait a long time. Gondor has no king, not anymore."
Perhaps that is why Father frowns. His chair is below the empty throne, and Father is like Boromir—they want to be first. Faramir knows this, even if he does not understand.
"You would make a good king," he ventures, and Boromir claps him on the shoulder.
"I am too much a warrior. Kings these days—they are all gone soft. That is why we no longer have one."
Faramir might doubt, looking towards the shadows behind the eastern mountains, but Boromir is so sure, and he has never doubted his brother.
He is the Captain of Rangers, skilled with bow and sword—and would not his child-self look with eyes wide in wonder, astonished to think that one day, he would put aside his books?
He is skilled, and he has led many skirmishes, many more now that the Shadow grows. And yet he waits (always) for his brother to return with white knuckles and tightened jaw.
It all seems like foolishness when they ride through the gates—for Boromir is ten times his better in battle as he is in everything else, and surely it will always be so…the glad cries of the city, the broadsword in his hand is so bright Faramir thinks he can still hear it ringing with the clash of battle, the triumph and glory, ever-new.
(Yet so they say Elendil stood, and Isildur, and both are now are but graven images in silent stone). Faramir feels a tremor of a chill, like summer too soon turned to autumn, but it passes again, because his brother is here—and his embrace is warm and strong and a little hard, since he has not yet taken off his mail.
"You were worried," Boromir teases, with a searching gaze, and he laughs. "Have I not told you a hundred times? There is no need to fear."
"I know," Faramir says. Autumn has not yet come.
I will go. I will go.
Denethor does not understand. Faramir wants to go because he is the lesser, not the greater…because if the journey goes ill, it is he who falls, not Boromir.
Never Boromir.
But their father cares little for his opinion, less for his pleas, and so it is Boromir who is tall and stern on his horse, with his gaze lifted towards the banner of the White Tree.
Boromir is the warrior. And a warrior longs for home, lives and breathes it.
Protects it.
He should not have to leave it. Not like this.
But there is nothing they can do, or will do, but this. Boromir says, "Remember today, little brother."
Faramir watches, and listens. The sound of hooves over the stones lingers in his ears long after his brother is gone.
It is only given to him to wait.
The horn.
His.
Faramir cradles it in his hands, half, as he now is, without his brother. He remembers. How those strong fingers curled round its smooth shaft. How its silver tips bore emblems of the House of Kings, before the line was broken. How their father's voice shook with pride when he made the gift. Oldest son to oldest son.
No more. But he remembers, how it sang with gladness, heralding the coming of Boromir the Fair.
Faramir forms his lips around the name, and he would shout it from the parapets, if he thought it would do any good.
But he knows. He knew, even as he dreamed, and he knows now, forever.
Boromir will not return.