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Title: Heartbound.
Chapter Seven
Author: dark
Email: dark.malignity@gmail.com
Pairing: Boromir/ Elrohir.
Rating: PG
Summary: Boromir's appearance in Imladris complicates the twins'
lives, especially when he cannot tell the identical twins apart. AU,
pre-fellowship.
Warning: Slash (male/ male pairings)

Disclaimer: All Elfies and places (and the one Man) belong to Tolkien.
I am merely borrowing them for my own (and others') amusement. = D
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"Why do you turn from me?" Boromir sighed. It was night now, and
Elrohir had been uncharacteristically silent all evening. He reached
out to stroke his lover's smooth cheek, then winced when he felt
Elrohir flinch and draw back. "I apologize," he said softly. "I did
not mean to behave so badly at the council," he continued. "Roh?
Please, talk to me."

Elrohir sighed and threw open his bedroom window, hoping to loose
himself in the night sounds, but Boromir was persistent. When the elf
felt strong arms encircle him, he shuddered, then relaxed into his
lover's embrace. "Talk to me..." Boromir urged. "Tell me what is on
your mind..."

"I fear for my own well-being," the Elf replied. "I wonder what I have
gotten myself into by taking you into my bed."

"You shrink from me because I am different," Boromir's voice was a
monotone. "Because I am no Elf."

"No, I shrink from you because you scare me. No Elf would let their
passions overcome them like that," he replied, turning to face the Man
for the first time since Boromir's wild outburst at the council that
afternoon. "It was as if something had possessed you; you were not the
person I knew you to be. I saw how human you were, how brash, how
impulsive, how fallible. How easily swayed you are by your feelings.
And I sense you are capable of worse.... much worse."

"You fear I might harm you?" Boromir asked.

"You... *are* a violent man," Elrohir murmured against Boromir's lips.
"But ai, your heart is pure," he sighed. Closing his eyes, he
surrendered to the kiss. "And yet... and yet your race is weak." He
paused, and gazed deeply into the Man's eyes as if seeking answer to
the questions he did not know how to ask.

At length he turned his face away and curled up against Boromir's
chest. "Still I would love you" he whispered. "Still I would spend my
life with you. Ai, Boromir, why do you have to go with them? Leave
them be," he said pleadingly. "Let them go. Stay here with me, my
love. Please..?"

Boromir sighed and stroked Elrohir's dark hair adoringly. "Even if I
were not one of the Company, I would still need to make my way home,
dear one. I am the son of the steward, and my city needs me. Already I
have been away for too long." He crooned, then bit his lip at
Elrohir's repressed sighy. "I swear to you, once the fighting is over,
I *will* return."

"Once the fighting..." Elrohir let out a deep sigh. Gondor was
constantly at war with the enemy. It would be forever before he saw
his Man-lover again. "Promise?" he asked tentatively. It might not be
the best solution to cling on to, but some hope was still better than
none at all.

"I promise," he smiled in return. "You have my word."

--------------------


The moon made her way across the starry night sky, her bright beams
blessing the realm while all of Imladris slept. It's gentle light
permeated down to the land below, filtering through the open window to
caress Elrohir's sleeping form. Yet peace did not touch this Elf
tonight. Sweat drenched the Noldo's bedsheets; fresh sweat which
poured down his face in tiny rivulets and clung to his matted hair. An
ugly frown cleaved his smooth brow, and every now and then, he would
whimper in his sleep. His breathing grew shallow, more frenzied, and
his head thrashed against his pillow as if to deny the reality of his
nightmare. "No..." he mumbled, and swung his arm as if to bat
something aside.

The sudden movement awoke Boromir. "Roh?" he grunted sleepily as he
flopped onto his side. "Roh," he urged, shaking the Elf's arm. "Wake
up. Roh, you're dreaming. Wake up," he whispered, more loudly this
time, but still the Elf refused to wake. Instead, Elrohir continued to
toss and turn in his sleep until with a final anguished yell, he
jerked awake and sat bolt upright.

"Roh?" Boromir had hoped to make things better by waking him, but even
after the dream had passed, Elrohir sat as if in a trance, his eyes
fixed, unseeing, on a spot somewhere in front of him. "Roh, stop
that," he tried again. "Roh!"

There was a soft tapping at the door, followed by Elladan's firm "I'm
coming in," and the sound of a key rattling in the lock. Boromir
reached down and pulled the covers over his nude form just in time to
shield himself as the door swung open. Elrohir's cry must have awoken
the other Elf. Hopefully Elladan would know what to do.

Completely ignoring the Man, Elladan perched himself on the bed so
that he sat directly in his twin's line of sight and waited patiently
for the other's response. After awhile, Elrohir let his eyes fall, and
only then did Boromir realize that a conversation was taking place
beyond the power of his duller human senses to hear. Helpless to do
anything, he watched as his lover shuddered into tears.

Seeing his brother's distress, Elladan quickly moved to hug his twin,
cradling him comfortingly and holding him tightly as the other wept.
Whispering words of reassurance, he smoothened his brother's wayward
hair and tucked it neatly behind his delicately pointed ear. Once or
twice, Boromir saw him kiss his twin and stroke his upturned cheek in
mute devotion.

"You loved your brother," Boromir said quietly. Elladan froze, shocked
and horrified at what he saw to be the Man's unerring perceptiveness.
He glanced tensely up, then relaxed when he saw the tender smile
playing upon the visiting lord's lips. "I too have a brother, Dan," he
continued, reaching out to stroke Elrohir's damp hair lovingly. "I
know how it is to have someone to protect. I adore him. One day, I
would have the both of you meet him. I would introduce him to you. I
would have him take Elrohir by the hand and call him 'brother'."

Elladan winced at the double irony in Boromir's words, and although he
breathed a sigh of relief that Boromir was not privy to his dark
secret, the very thought of his wrongs against his twin shamed him and
rocked him to the core.

"He had a true dream," Elladan said quietly, quickly changing the
subject as he rocked an exhausted Elrohir back to sleep. "Every now
and again my brother glimpses the future through his dreams. I do not
have this ability. Sometimes I envy him his gift. And sometimes I
think it a curse, and I thank the Valar I was spared that fate. My
heart aches for him. He is convinced he dreamt true tonight, and I
believe him if he says so."

"What did he see?" Boromir asked.

"It is not my place to tell you that," he replied sorrowfully. There
was an odd, rather unnerving look in Elladan's eyes as he spoke. It
was almost as if he knew something about the Man that Boromir himself
did not.

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"Ada, you have to do something."

"No."

"Ada! I saw it happen."

"Hush, penneth, perhaps it was just a nightmare."

"No, I'm telling you it's true, it's going to happen! Ada!"

Elrond sighed and massaged his temples. It was far too early in the
morning for this. Besides, he had not had his morning coffee, and part
of his brain was still comatose. There was also this other small issue
of him really needing to sleep at the moment; for weeks now, Elrond
had been staying up for most nights because of the council
preparations. That and the fact that the post-mortem with Mithrandir
and his advisors had gone on all evening and had stretched on well
into the night as they discussed the possible outcomes of the quest.

"Ai, penneth, I cannot stop Lord Boromir from traveling with the
Company, especially since I have publicly endorsed his decision."

"Then speak with him!"

"I will do no such thing."

"Ada--"

"Roh, listen to me. If indeed it were a true dream, then it would take
place regardless of what we do to prevent it. And if it were not a
true dream then there is no need for us to worry at all," he said
gently. "That is the way of the world, my son, that every step we take
to alter the inevitable only lays open the path to its fulfillment
instead. You cannot fight it," he said, stroking Elrohir's cheek.
"Remember Nana, penneth?" he said quietly, sadly. "Do you remember how
every precaution we took against the vision turned against us?"

Elrohir nodded miserably. "But if I do nothing..."

"Penneth, every soul that walks the earth has a purpose to fulfill,
and my sense is that Lord Boromir's time is yet to come," Elrond said
gravely, bracketing his son's face with both his hands. "You will not
keep him from it," he continued. "To do so is to deny him his reason
for being. My child, if you care for him, you will not deprive him of
his purpose. To do so would be to invalidate his soul's very
existence."

Elrohir staggered back as the full force of what his father said hit
him. He sat down heavily and hugged himself. "I cannot simply sit
around and do nothing," he said dully. "I cannot. Ada, you know how I
feel. You fought for Nana's life."

"And failed trying."

"But I cannot just let him die!"

"The Man is not like us, Roh. And much as it pains me to have to point
this out, you knew that he would have to die one day." Here again, the
elder Elf lord paused as he remembered the twin he had lost to
mortality so long ago. When he next spoke, his voice was bitter with
repressed grief. "He is mortal, penneh. Lord Boromir is a mere Man.
His entire life would pass as a single heartbeat to one like us... and
then... and then... he will die. And you will be alone. What does it
matter *when* it happens? It will happen eventually. And it will sting
just the same."

For the second time in three hours, Elrohir shuddered into tears. "I
cannot loose him, Ada," he whispered, "I cannot know what will happen
to me if I do. How did you do it, Ada? How did you carry on?"

"I had to," Elrond replied, the briefness of his speech hiding the
tremor in his voice and the unnatural brightness in his eye. "I had a
duty to perform. And later, my king entrusted me with Vilya. I cannot
abandon my duty. Not even for Elros." A wayward tear slid down his
cheek. "Not even for--" he hesitated, his voice cracking,
"for...Elros."

"And Nana? You did love her, didn't you, Ada?"

For the first time that morning, Elrond's face broke into a genuine
albeit watery smile. A light shone in his eyes as he knelt down before
his child. "You were still young," he breathed, smoothing Elrohir's
hair back and tucking it behind his ear as if his son were still the
elfling he was all those long years ago. "I had my family."

"Oh, I know you were all grown up even then, but one day you will have
children of your own. One day you too will know what it is to love as
a father. I thought I had lost everything when... he..." Elrond
trailed off unable to form his tongue around those painful words, "...
and then I met your Naneth, and she brought love and comfort back into
my life. And then she birthed you. The day she put you and your
brother in my arms, I knew my life was complete, and that no matter
what happened, so long as I have my babies here with me, nothing can
ever hurt me again. You saved me. *You*," he said, taking Elrohir into
his arms and kissing him gently on the forehead. "and Elladan," he
continued, "and my little Arwen too. Ever since Nana left us you three
have been my guiding strength. You three have been all I am living
for."

"But Arwen is young and foolish," Elrond said, sighing deeply. "And
she does not know better. One day her Estel will die. Eternity is a
long time to be cursed with immortality when the one you love is torn
from you and the sweet elixir of hope is dashed from your lips... Ai!
What does one so young know of eternity? She has yet to taste the
bitter fruit of life."

"It seems to be the curse of our House," he continued, softly now,
truly feeling the weight of his years," to have those you love
snatched from you. By Elbereth, through me, my parents' legacy has
been passed on to my children. I had hoped you would be spared this
fate, penneth. I had hoped all of you would be spared it. I would
sooner die a thousand painful deaths every day of my life than wish
such a curse upon any of my kin."