Aragorn wanted to reach down and wake him. To touch his shoulder or his face and see those eyes open again, sharp and clear and ever ready for battle. But Boromir would not wake; not then, nor ever again, except perhaps in some distant, unearthly realm where his ancestors waited for him on thrones of white stone, and where he might take his seat beside them far too soon.
This feeling of unreality, this desperate belief that Boromir could not be dead, he must only be sleeping, had persisted in Aragorn from the moment he watched the last breath leave Boromir's lips, to now, as he knelt by the water's edge and looked down on Boromir's motionless form, arranged with his arms crossing his chest in one of the boats they were given in Lothlorien. It was Aragorn who had placed him there, Aragorn who carried him here from where he fell in the forest, Legolas and Gimli following several paces behind in a small and mournful procession.
They were short on time; if they were to catch up to Merry and Pippin and their captors then the three of them should leave in haste. But first Aragorn had to release Boromir into the water's embrace, and to do so would be the final acknowledgment that Boromir was not going to awaken. Aragorn would put that moment off forever if he could, but he did not have forever, as the brush of Legolas's hand on his shoulder reminded him. In the next moment Gimli's hand came to rest on Aragorn's other shoulder, firm and strong, a grasp that said, as did Legolas's, Your grief is my grief, and I will stand by you through it no matter the pain. He did not have to look behind to know that Legolas and Gimli were saying their own final, silent farewells. Then they stepped back, still close but far enough away to give Aragorn those last moments alone with Boromir. All of the Fellowship had grown to care for Boromir, despite any initial ill impressions, but Aragorn suspected Legolas and Gimli knew there had been something more between himself and Boromir.
Memories tugged at Aragorn's mind, tempting him to lose himself in reminiscing. The time he spent with Boromir was cruelly brief, and though he was too numb with the shock of it all to feel it then, the sharp sting of regret would soon haunt his days and nights. Every minute between their meeting and the day they acknowledged their feelings towards each other seemed wasted in retrospect, though of course it could not be helped, for not every love begins at first sight.
Aragorn remembered his first encounter with Boromir in Rivendell. Instead of a bond there had been a rift between them, an enmity born out of Aragorn's right to the throne of Gondor and Boromir's reluctance to accept any challenge to the rule of his fathers and grandfathers, the stewards of Gondor. When Boromir snarled "Gondor has no king; Gondor needs no king," during the Council, Aragorn certainly felt none of the love for the man that he felt now.
But as the Fellowship's journey went on, things changed. The bitter and uncomfortable tension between them did not so much ease as it transformed into tension of a different sort. Aragorn would catch Boromir giving him long looks that Aragorn was quick to catch onto the nature of, for as anyone who knew him would tell you, being subtle with his emotions was not a strength of Boromir's. After that it was not long before a routine hunting trip led to them finding themselves with their mouths pressed together and their hands fumbling to touch one another while their companions waited at the campsite for them to bring back dinner. These so-called "hunting trips" became an almost daily event from then on. The rest of the Fellowship reacted with varying degrees of obliviousness, ranging from Legolas's knowing smirks to Pippin completely believing Aragorn when he told Pippin that he could not join them because he walked too loudly and would scare the animals away (which was in fact true, but was certainly not the main reason Aragorn and Boromir wanted to hunt alone).
Boromir was as eager a lover as he was a fighter; he was rough and impatient in a way that made Aragorn's heart race, but what truly sent Aragorn falling hard was the tenderness Boromir displayed, which was so often hidden from the world. Boromir was known to most as a forceful man, not selfish but still accustomed to getting his own way, but he was meticulous about making sure that he never pushed Aragorn into doing anything he did not want to. Even when he was nipping roughly at Aragorn's neck or practically tearing his clothes from his body, there was always a softness to him, a deep sense of caring and wanting and loving that Aragorn felt himself returning in equal measure.
"It will be a glorious day indeed when we ride side-by-side into the White City," Boromir would say, running his fingers through Aragorn's hair in one of their coveted moments of privacy. "The people will rejoice, and the heralds will announce that the lords of Gondor have returned!" As he spoke Boromir would gaze off into the distance with a look of rapture on his face, as if he could see across hundreds of leagues to the gleaming walls of Minas Tirith. There was such conviction in his voice that it stirred a hope Aragorn did not know still existed within him. For the first time in many years, he was starting to let himself believe that perhaps he could be more than a wandering ranger, perhaps his destiny was not too heavy for his shoulders to bear after all. Perhaps he could bear it with another pair of shoulders to help him in the task: the broad, strong shoulders of his lover. But now Boromir could not help Aragorn bear anything. The weight had fallen to Aragorn alone.
They had to leave; the marching feet of orcs do not slow to accommodate for grief, and every minute took Merry and Pippin further away. Yes, it was time. Aragorn moved his hand from where it rested on top of Boromir's to brush a last imaginary stand of hair out of Boromir's face. He leaned forward and kissed his forehead one final time, and, recollecting every promise he had made minutes before, when Boromir was still breathing, Aragorn whispered "I will not fail you," against his skin. He began to rise, then something occurred to him. He reached down and tenderly removed the leather vambraces, emblazoned with the White Tree of Gondor, from Boromir's arms.
These would not so much be a token for Aragorn to remember Boromir by, for Aragorn knew he would not need help to remember Boromir for the rest of his days, but they were something more solid than a memory, something Aragorn could touch. These vambraces would follow him everywhere Boromir should have been able to, had the stars smiled brighter upon them and fate not snatched Boromir away.
As he watched the boat that bore his former lover disappear into the mists of Rauros, Aragorn felt a strange mixture of aching sadness and hopeful conviction. He knew now what he had to do. Boromir had needed Aragorn's help as he stood against the onslaught of attacking orcs, and Aragorn had been too late to do anything but ease Boromir's passing. Now it was the people of Gondor, nay, the people of all Middle Earth, who needed Aragorn, and he did not intend to be too late again