Disclaimers—
Eggos: Don't own the characters. I'm only borrowing them.
Boromir (edges onto scene): Psst! Don't listen to her! We're being unlawfully imprisoned!
Faramir: Call the Tower Guard! Or the Swan Knights! Or the police! Or the PPC! Or PETA! Or someone!
Eggos: Er… ignore them, they're still recovering from exposure to sibcest fanfic...
A/N: In excuse for the two-week delay, I can only offer this quote by Douglas Adams: "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by."
"Hey, Dwarfish personage!"
Gimli started awake with a snort, immediately jumping to his feet (not that it made a great deal of difference either way) and clutching his axe aggressively. Peering around with glinting dark eyes, his gaze lighted on Legolas, who was standing with his hands on his hips and a pout printed on his delicate features. Gimli's unruly brows lowered as he narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
"Did you just call me a 'Dwarfish personage'?"
"Yes. It seemed more politically correct."
"As compared to what?" grunted Gimli, settling his stout bulk onto the rock where he had previously been dozing.
"'Diminutive hairy hog-man.'"
"Did you wake me up for a reason, or did you just want to borrow my axe to use as a mirror?" snapped the Dwarf irritably.
Legolas made a noise somewhere between a "tsk" and a sigh that is most commonly found on the lips of irate teenaged girls who have just been told that their curfew has been truncated. "I wanted to ask if you knew what was the matter with Estel."
"Estel?" repeated Gimli, bewildered.
Legolas's response came in the form of a sound somewhere in the vicinity of a sigh, a growl, and a guttural exhale usually employed by irate mothers who are in the process of informing their teenaged daughter that, no, the new curfew is not up for negotiation. "Aragorn." He gestured gracefully in the direction of the Dúnadan, who was crouched in a trancelike state at Boromir's side, eyes glassy and unseeing.
"Aulë's hammer, how many names does that man have?" said Gimli incredulously.
"I don't know, I've never bothered to count," the Elf replied tetchily.
"He must have fallen asleep. Some healer, eh?" Gimli rose to his feet once more and plodded over to Aragorn's side. "I never knew that he slept with his eyes open. Good thing, too—Gandalf was bad enough. You could never tell whether he was looking at you or not… Rise and shine!" This last comment was directed toward the Ranger, coupled with a sharp poke in the shoulder. When this failed to elicit any result, he aimed a kick at Aragorn's flank with a tubby booted foot.
"Urgh!" groaned Aragorn abruptly, clutching at his side. "Dammit…"
"What now?" Boromir wanted to know.
Aragorn winced as he straightened. "I think someone just kicked me."
"Perhaps our corporeal selves are under ambush?" suggested Boromir, torn between remote anxiety for his already much-damaged body and smug satisfaction at his incorporation of the word "corporeal" into casual conversation.
"Perhaps. If not… I am going to kill those two!"
"He's not waking up."
"Maybe you didn't kick him hard enough."
"Hmph!" Gimli booted Aragorn again, this time with the force of his entire, not insubstantial weight.
"Aaaargh!" Aragorn staggered, half-vanishing into a cloud of dense otherworldly fog.
"What now?" inquired Boromir crossly when his unwelcome companion stumbled back into view.
"I think we must be under attack… I've been kicked again!" he gasped.
"Please understand if I'm having difficulty sympathizing—I happen to be mortally wounded in three places, if you haven't forgotten already."
"Thanks for the support. Hurry up, we're almost out," grumbled Aragorn.
"I wasn't the one lagging behind!"
"You're the reason we're here in the first place, lunkhead!"
"What? Because I got myself shot into a pincushion while single-handedly defending two Halflings from two hundred Uruk-Hai because my supposed comrades weren't quick enough in moseying on over to aid me?"
"… Shut up!"
"Your kicking appears to be ineffectual."
Gimli scowled. "Well, why don't you try, then?"
"Maybe I will," Legolas retorted, and took aim.
Aragorn paused bemusedly. "That was odd…"
Boromir rolled his eyes and snorted. "I take it you've been kicked again?"
"No… but I just had the most peculiar sensation… almost as if a butterfly had just collided with my right knee…"
"Bloody hell, I'm hemorrhaging to death, man! Buy yourself a spine!" snarled the Captain-General of Gondor disgustedly. "Which door do we want, anyway?" he added, peering around at the stunning array of portals that loomed out of the mist.
"Third one on the left," replied Aragorn resentfully, scratching his knee.
"Are you sure…?" asked Boromir, pausing to stare curiously at a crumbling stone arch from which hung a gently swaying dark veil.
"Stop mixing fandoms! It's this one!" barked Aragorn, steering Boromir toward the appropriate door.
"I think I've broken my toe…" moaned Legolas pitifully, cradling his soft-booted foot gently in his lap.
"Pansy," affirmed Gimli derisively.
"He has a very hard kneecap!" cried the Elf defensively.
No sooner had he spoken then there was a simultaneous intake of breath, similar to that of a person emerging into daylight after a long period underwater, from behind them. Wheeling around with his axe held out protectively once more, Gimli saw that both Aragorn and (to his dismay) Boromir were conscious once more, as abruptly as if a switch had been turned on. Aragorn rose to his feet somewhat groggily, but Boromir remained slumped against the tree. "I don't see any enemies in this vicinity," he remarked through gritted teeth.
Aragorn's eyes narrowed. "It was you!" he growled.
"What d'you mean?" Gimli chuckled apprehensively. Aragorn's expression had taken something of a feral turn and his hand was straying toward his sword hilt, but, fortunately for the Dwarf, Boromir chose that moment to rise to his feet, grunt, and fall over again, effectively distracting the heir of Isildur from his impending vengeance. Gimli used the opportunity to slink away from the danger unseen.
"(Censored)!" muttered Boromir, righting himself into a kneeling position. "I feel like I've been mauled by a Warg…!"
Aragorn used the dismantled remains of Boromir's reddened undershirts to make slapdash bandages for Boromir's various wounds, as well as a sling for his left arm, in which he claimed there was no sensation whatsoever.
"Well, then, you're all set!" he said cheerily to his glum patient.
"Er… do I get to put my tunic back on, or what?"
There was a noise not unlike that of ten thousand fangirls groaning in dismay. However, Legolas was still bemoaning his inability to rotate his left big toe even a thirteenth of an inch counterclockwise, so the cause remained ambiguous.
The end result was that Aragorn had to remove Boromir's sling, throw his tunic over his head, work his arms through the sleeves (a complicated process, as one of Boromir's arms was completely limp, and the other wracked violently when touched), and then put the sling back on again. Boromir braced himself against the tree and rose shakily.
As Aragorn cleaned up shop, his eyes fell on the blood-clotted dagger he had used it in the operation. He picked it up thoughtfully; then, seeing his tinderbox lying a few feet away, he snatched it up as well. A Notion was forming in his mind. "Boromir, are you sure you don't need anything cauterized? I've never cauterized anything before and I was thinking I might want…"
"Get away from me, you quack!" Boromir leapt back, panting.
Meanwhile, the Dwarf was having a Revelation.
"Crikey!" he cried, sounding very much the way Steve Irwin might, if Steve Irwin were a red-nosed hairy midget with a thick Scottish accent. "We've forgotten about the two hairy-footed Plot Points!"
The other three froze abruptly. Even Legolas ceased the wailing lament for his foot.
"Sweet Eru, you're right!" gasped Aragorn.
"Merry and Pippin! They were captured by Uruks! What are we going to do? This saga can't get anywhere without our Diminutive Instruments of Comic Relief™!" cried Legolas agitatedly.
"Haven't I rather taken up that office?" remarked Gimli.
"Yes, but if we don't rescue Pippin," panted Boromir, "who's going to save Faramir when Father tries to burn him alive!"
There was a long pause.
"Can we make a mandatory rule not to have any more random plot inconsistencies and Flashes-of-Foresight, here? They weird me out," remarked Aragorn. Boromir glared at him. Aragorn glared back. "At all events… we must not leave Merry and Pippin to torment and death. What are we going to do?"
"Go after them, naturally," said Boromir.
"Yes, but you're not strong enough to run. And we can't just leave you here," explained Aragorn (as much as we might like, he thought privately). "One of us will have to stay with you until you recover." He sighed. "I guess it'll have to be me."
"No, it can't be; we'll need you for tracking. And it can't be me, because you'll need my sooper kewl elfan eysite," countered Legolas.
Everyone turned to stare pointedly at Gimli.
"I'm not staying with the hair-brained human!" protested the Dwarf. Boromir made a strangled noise of indignation, and Aragorn shook his head.
"Well, there's nobody else," he argued. "And every moment we waste is another moment of Merry and Pippin's time."
"I refuse to stay here and play nursemaid to that lummox," stated Gimli adamantly.
"Well, none of us can leave until this gets sorted out."
"Then we are at an impasse."
"I suppose we are."
"Wait a minute," said Legolas suddenly. "Gimli, would you agree to stay here if we agree to take Boromir with us?"
"What?"
"I said: if Boromir comes with us, would you have any objection to staying here?"
"I wouldn't have to do any Man-sitting?"
"No Man-sitting."
"Well…" Gimli thought it slowly, lips pursed. "I suppose that's doable…"
"Promise!"
"What?"
"Promise," said the Elf exasperatedly, "that you will stay here."
"Fine, but only if you promise to take the Man with you."
"Agreed."
"Agreed."
Gimli spat on his nut-brown palm and extended his hand, while Legolas proffered his little finger to the Dwarf. There were a few seconds of cultural confusion.
"Do you really expect me to shake hands with you after you've snorted saliva all over it?" queried Legolas with revulsion, wrinkling his pointed nose.
"Well, what's that supposed to mean?" objected Gimli, nodding toward Legolas's hand gesture.
"Haven't you ever heard of a pinky promise?" cried Legolas, scandalized.
"Sounds liked a damned wussy practice to me," muttered Gimli, but in the end he conceded to this method of pact-sealing, since Legolas flatly refused to shake hands with him. He then settled down comfortably against the base of the tree, which was still stained becomingly with Boromir's blood.
"Let's go hunt Orc!" cried Legolas, sashaying off into the forest with his dove-gray cloak billowing out behind him. Aragorn and Boromir exchanged glances.
"What just happened?" asked Boromir.
"I have no idea," replied Aragorn.
"Hurry up, guys!" whined Legolas, stamping his foot petulantly.
Aragorn shrugged. "Come on, then," he said, grabbing Boromir by his unbandaged arm and hauling him off behind him.
"But I'm mortally wounded!" griped Boromir as he staggered along painfully in order to keep pace with his future King.
"Well, isn't that news to us all?" snarled Aragorn. "Get over it already!"
And so it was that Boromir, who, in the course of a single afternoon, had died twice, had passed out four times, had been wounded in three places, had been butchered by a quack doctor, had been nearly sent over the brink of the Rauros, and had been forced to discover several traumatizing things concerning his dead mother and his sadistic quasi-healer King, ended up running full-tilt across the plains of Rohan in search of two kidnapped Hobbits and wishing he'd just given the God-damned quest to Faramir after all.
A/N: Eh. Right, so that was completely off-the-wall. Sorry. I promise to do better next time ;)
I was thinking Faramir wasn't going to show up for a long while yet, but I believe I've just thought of a way to drag him in earlier on. Stay tuned, Faramir fans!
Faramir Fans: Yessss!
Faramir: (censored)!