Chapter Text
Come dinnertime, Boromir is starving, but not for anything laid out upon the table in front of him.
At least there's the excuse of murder shrinking his appetite, even if his stomach does growl from time to time. Gimli the dwarf is also fasting, and so Boromir is spared most of the strange looks he would have otherwise received.
The silence would not be so bad, Boromir guesses, had Strider not come to dinner with a wine stain down the front of his shirt, and teeth glistening red the same way Boromir imagines his own teeth had looked on that fateful first night.
Strider seems to not notice, or is pretending he does not notice in the hopes that this dinner will end and he can fix his appearance.
Still, this sort of fashion statement could not have come at a worse time.
Glances are tossed, throats cleared. Elrond and Gandalf do their best to talk about quite literally anything else, from the ever-perfect weather in Imladris, to what's new in the gardens, to the trades being done.
They're low on certain herbs, Elrond tells the table with a weak smile on his face. He's sent a patrol to head South for some more, but they shall do without for at least a fortnight.
Boromir grimaces the longer the dinner goes on. When he's finally allowed to excuse himself, food not even glanced at, he nearly crashes into Strider in his haste to get out the door.
He hears the older hobbit, Bilbo, murmur, "Poor dear, utterly distraught," and he tries not to think about how that could not be further from the truth.
Distraught? Not nearly as much as he should be.
Panicked? That seems more appropriate.
He composes himself just as he reaches his room, and finds another Elven attendant or what have you standing just outside, stone-still. The attendant stops Boromir in his tracks.
"I've been instructed to deliver this to you," they say, handing Boromir a small card.
Inside is a poem or song of some sort, flowery language, some Elvish nonsense, with clear penmanship in Common written below it and what looks like Jasmine pressed into the fold.
And... oh. Well. This is rather sweet.
Boromir takes it into his room and locks the door behind him, only later remembering that he forgot to thank the attendant.
The attendant vanishes without a trace.
Dearest Captain Boromir, the card starts. Boromir sinks into a chair and examines his appearance in the mirror opposite him, noting that his teeth, while not itching as much, have not returned to normal.
Come to the East gardens, outside of the apothecary, tomorrow. I'll teach you how to play the game I showed you earlier — Strider.
Boromir goes to sleep feeling much less panicked, and wakes in a pool of his own sweat.
Frozen to his sheets, he sees the moon still outside, high in the sky, and the breeze blowing through his balcony is the coldest thing he's yet to feel in his life. His blood is alive.
Shadows, cool and sharp, form on walls, form on him, form on the room he's in, and nothing else has ever been as terrible as now. Boromir has known war his entire life, survived countless battles, hundreds of fights.
He's lost friends, family, lovers.
He's never lost himself before.
A sudden frantic knock comes pounding at his door, and Boromir sits upright in bed, sheets pooled at his feet, chest numb from the cold sweat that doesn't stop pouring. He hurries into a robe lying nearby, and doesn't bother with his boots as he stumbles on foreign legs to the door.
"Hello?" he calls out, but the knocking only continues, growing louder, now accompanied by kicking.
When at last he thinks he's going to be consumed by the sound, he throws the door open and finds nothing.
He does not get much sleep that night.
**
It's a bittersweet morning as Aragorn pulls his cloak tighter around his shoulders and settles back on the loveseat. He'd dragged it from some random parlor, some room not in use, and had set it up outside for a quick nap in the garden before Boromir was supposed to arrive.
But it had proven to be too cold for a nap, and he wonders if the apothecary will mind the use of her shop for their little lesson.
Aragorn's little trap.
He'd seen the mark on Boromir's shoulder, the way he adjusted it ever so slightly to make sure no one would see the source of the pain he fakes. There had been a massive wound, and yet Boromir doesn't so much as wince when Aragorn watches him move.
An internal wound, that's easy enough to fake, provided the ones you're faking it for have never felt the pain of whatever it is you're faking. A migraine is only good when your doctor has never had one.
But an external wound?
Aragorn tries to adjust the loveseat so that it might capture the sun's rays a little better, a little more. He wonders, briefly, if this is how the elves feel all the time— working each day to catch the sun's rays.
Or, maybe not the elves, but the hobbits at least. The hobbits love the sun, and all it has to offer. Aragorn is glad for the heat, but he prefers the cover of darkness.
He recalls, suddenly, a poet, or a philosopher, or some such person he'd read while on the road. He doesn't remember where he'd found these texts, but he does remember what they'd said. The person, poet, whoever it had been, had argued that "the moon is more important than the sun".
He had claimed that without the moon, we would not see at night, and that, because it's already light during the day, there's no use for the sun.
Aragorn tugs the loveseat across the stone bricks, splintering the wooden feet. He's never liked furniture much. Too heavy.
After a moment, he decides to smoke. Bilbo's secret tobacco garden has proven to be quite useful, even if Elrond finds the habit somewhat repulsive. Perhaps that's why it's a secret.
Though, in these times, it's a wonder Bilbo shows anyone anything; the hobbit seems to always be on the verge of snapping.
"Now, we've established the importance of the moon, so..." he murmurs aloud as he stuffs leaf into his pipe and searches for something to light it with. When he sees a lantern lit inside the apothecary, he abandons the loveseat. Damn that blasted chair, he thinks as he steps through the apothecary's embossed doorway. "Which is more important? The man—"
"— Or the beast?"
Aragorn whips away from his position in the doorway as Samwise Gamgee comes bumbling from the nook in the corner of the room, the one with the seats and the freshly cut flowers, and settles a few paces from the door.
"Good morning, Mr. Strider!" Sam says, if only because hobbits are polite, and it's the polite thing to do.
Aragorn thinks he'd been arranging them, the flowers, but it'd be odd for someone who isn't one of Elrond's personal gardeners to be touching the blossoms. Still, Aragorn won't tell about Sam's plant habits if the latter does the same.
"Good day, Master Gamgee. Sleep well?" Aragorn tucks his pipe into his sleeve, ignoring the tickle of longbottom leaf against bare skin.
"Oh, sure," Sam says heartily, "Softest sheets I've ever felt. Still, hard to sleep after, well, everything."
Aragorn nods.
Of course.
Everything.
He'd almost forgotten about the tragedy that had taken place… what, several days? A week? He's honestly not too sure how long it's been. He'd been entirely too focused on the man from Gondor, on Captain Boromir and his fake-real-fake injury.
Not that he's thought about it too long, but when one is moving a piece of furniture from one parlor to one patio, one does have a lot of time to think in between grunting and groaning and moving and moaning and trying not to cry.
At length, when it seems that Sam may start to leave and do some other thing, Aragorn remembers to ask, "what was that you were saying? About beasts?"
Sam aborts any movement he may have been starting, and instead gestures toward the nook with his head.
"Oh," Sam starts, grabbing the lantern as he passes. Many of the herbs stored in the apothecary are averse to sunlight, and it's just morning enough that the dreary room doesn't receive any of the sun yet, so Aragorn counts himself lucky that Elrond still bothers with lanterns. "It's just something my old Gaffer used to say,"
"... He spoke about beasts often?"
This gets a small, full laugh out of Sam. "Sometimes! Of course, a gardener's gotta know about all the beasts in the land. Let's see—" he counts off on his fingers, "— you've got the rabbits, and the mice, and those are year round 'cept the rabbits hide most of the winter, and there's all sorts of birds, and if you're lucky you might see a lizard… and the wolves, too, the wolves…"
He trails off. Aragorn gets the feeling that the wolves are not something he likes to discuss.
Maybe it brings back memories from home. Maybe it brings back memories from several nights prior. Aragorn studies the borders of the shadows on the patio outside, where the sun just barely passes over the high rooves of the building and kisses the loveseat. Boromir should be here soon.
He turns his attention back on Sam.
"What exactly did your… Gaffer, was it? What exactly did he say?"
Sam lights up at the offer to switch topics, or to at least talk about something other than wolves. "Well, Mr. Strider, he liked to say what you said about any old thing. Still says it now, I reckon." Then, in a deeper voice, he continues. "Samwise, which is more important, the lettuce or the tomatoes? Which is more important, the lilacs or the daffodils? Which is more important, the market or the fishing pond? That kind of thing."
Aragorn offers the hobbit his most genuine smile, and then he pulls his pipe out, and lights up.
After a few minutes of puffing and blowing, and waiting for Sam to say his excuses and get out of his hair, Aragorn is alone with his thoughts again.
Which is more important?
Boromir stands in the sliver of sunlight between the gardens and the apothecary, nearest the abandoned loveseat, shading his hand from the creeping daylight to see if Aragorn's coming.
Man?
He's poorly dressed, as though he came in a hurry. There's no cloak, no boots. He wears a dusty blue tunic over another shirt to preserve the last of the night's warmth before the sun decides to come back, and thick socks tucked into loose maroon pants. His combed dark hair is the only normal thing about him, but the usual shining damp example of modern grooming is instead bone dry, and hangs limply by the base of his throat.
He can see the wound from here. Boromir made no effort to hide it.
Beast?
His mind urges him not to simplify something he thinks he knows, not to focus on one, choose one just because it's his instinct to. But he takes another drag of his pipe, and decides that perhaps he'll choose the one that talks first.
Man is infomed of Aragorn's presence in the apothecary. Beast is left at the door, but perhaps Aragorn will show it some mercy later, if it turns out the beast is just some imagined thing.
Sometimes people have wounds for no reason.
Aragorn himself has plenty of battle scars.
But when Boromir is seated opposite him in the nook, fresh irises between them, Aragorn remembers how long Boromir had been in the woods. A wound from his journey to Imladris would be fresh, but how likely is it that the man found a healer for such a wound? Aragorn can only imagine the kinds of animals it would attract.
"Good morning."
Suddenly, Aragorn remembers why exactly the hobbits are so afraid of wolves.
Boromir makes no real effort to hide them this morning.
There they are at last—
The teeth of the beast.
**
It's really a very simple game.
Boromir doesn't know why he'd believed it to be intricate when he'd first seen it.
Maybe it's been too long since he's played real games, and not just the "spot" games he plays with his men on the parapets to keep them in high spirits.
The apothecary table, the "nook" as Strider calls it, is just big enough if they put the vase on the floor, and the lighting is ideal. In no time at all, he's a pro.
Boromir doesn't think he's forgetting to be careful with himself, but this morning, when he'd been abruptly awoken a second time by sweat and night terrors and all things horrid, he'd seen his brother's face, and he'd tried not to cry.
It had been harder not to cry when, in the middle of the night, his nails had become so much longer than before. He'd tried to whittle them down in front of the vanity, but to no avail— they may as well have been made of mithril.
He keeps them tucked into his palms, the pain no longer registering.
Strider tells him that each color piece represents a group— off-white for the elves, dark brown for the dwarves, beige for the Men, gray for the hobbits, and so on and so forth.
Boromir thinks that he's making it up, because the game is hardly centered around politics or social dynamics. All one has to do to win is select a house and move all of their designated pieces from one portion of the board to another portion of the board.
It's so simple it almost makes Boromir want to laugh out loud, but he's not sure where he's at with Strider yet. If his laughter would be terrifying, or unseemly.
Then again, they have reached a stage where Strider is sending him messages late in the evening.
It could very well be that Strider is taking the advice of some wise person and remaining in his quarters after dark so as not to be eaten next. Sending an attendant, while not so noble, is the safer option.
Not that Boromir thinks he would eat Strider.
He hasn't eaten anyone. Not Gloin, he didn't eat Gloin.
Not on purpose, at least.
No, no, he didn't do it.
He did not eat Gloin—
"— I've been meaning to ask, but I can imagine it's still difficult to talk about so stop me if that's the case."
Boromir looks away from the game board, drawn in by Strider's voice. He shakes his head lightly, clearing his thoughts as best as he can, and offers Strider a weak smile. "Sorry, what?"
"… Your shoulder."
Oh. Oh, right.
Boromir instinctively reaches up to clutch at it, to hide away the wound there. Had Strider seen it?
Does he know?
Does he think Boromir's just a monster?
Strider's a ranger, a hunter.
He should've been more careful.
Then another line of thinking worms its way into his head, and Boromir's previously frozen skin warms as he lets it overtake him. Did Strider gain his trust because someone else told him to?
Is none of this real?
Are they not friendly through real connection? And to think, Boromir almost… no, but it doesn't matter anyway. He clams up, digging his nails into the fabric of his tunic, eyeing Strider with his guard back up tenfold.
"It's…" he starts, unsure of a fitting lie. "… an old war wound. Acts up sometimes." Boromir offers a close-lipped smile, one that barely reaches his eyes, and Strider scrunches up his face in an attempt at mirroring it. "Painful, but nothing I can't handle."
Strider gestured to the surrounding shop. "I'm sure we can find you something in here to ease the pain,"
"Like I said, nothing I can't handle,"
"Your humility will be less noble when you're the next one to go."
Boromir clenches his jaw. He wants to scream 'do you have anything to cure whatever curse I've been put under?!' but obviously that would only send him further down the wrong path.
"Your worrying about me is comforting—" he stands, abruptly. He's not sure this isn't the first time he's left a meeting with Strider too early. "— but, again, I am fine. It doesn't hurt now, nothing more than a memory. Now, if you'll excuse me—"
"Wait, captain."
Boromir stops leaving, and Strider stands too, reaching out to take one of Boromir's clenched hands.
His heart leaps into his throat as Strider pulls it closer to him, attempting to open his fist like there might be sweets inside.
"It seems," Strider starts, his calm, earnest, nothing like the polite tone he uses with the others, or the guarded one he's used with Boromir in the past, "Yes, it seems I've offended you somehow,"
"You make me out to be a fraud," Boromir states simply. It is hard to keep emotion out of his voice, but he's done harder things before, and it's nothing he can't bear.
"I do not mean to, only… I was not entirely honest with you in my message. I couldn't risk a middleman's wandering eyes, if you catch my meaning,"
"Oh?" Boromir sinks back into his seat, and in doing so, relaxes enough to let Strider uncurl his clenched fingers.
Strider's calloused fingertips don't catch on Boromir's nails— claws, he thinks, and hates— like they should. Maybe Strider is being careful. Maybe Strider knows more than he says.
Regardless, Boromir doesn't get the feeling that Strider is going to kill him where he stands. Not yet, anyway.
"No, the game was one thing, but I wanted to see if there were other... symptoms."
A hard pad of a thumb presses into the tip of Boromir's claw, pushing until it draws blood. When Strider pulls away to lick his bleeding thumb, Boromir wants to follow, and finds himself leaning forward, eyes locked with Strider's.
Then, wordlessly, Strider returns to examining Boromir's hand as carefully as he would a wound, teeth digging into his bottom lip not enough to draw blood, but enough to attract whatever primal beast lays dormant in Boromir, as his eyes simply refuse to leave Strider's mouth.
He can't look at their hands together.
If Strider finds something he doesn't like, Boromir needs to see the furrowing of his brows, or the release of dull-colored lip from their teeth prison, and… and he can't look away.
At long last, Strider pushes Boromir's hand away and shifts in his seat.
"You killed Master Gloin," he says, simply. Not an accusation. Not a question. A statement of a fact. No heat lies hidden beneath his words, no malice.
Strider's hair is pushed back by the same hand that had been touching Boromir's only moments earlier, and a sigh escapes his lips.
When he looks up, Boromir isn't sure that Strider believes his own words.
Suddenly, Strider stands. "I think it would be best if I let you get on with your day… and I have some research I must get started on." He gives Boromir a smile, a real smile, though something, someone, Boromir is troubling him still.
He stands too, as a formality, and offers a weak, "I didn't kill anyone," to which Strider only nods.
As if to say right.
As if to say I believe you.
As if to say I absolve you, Captain. Their blood is not on your hands. You may indulge yourself now.
As if to say none of those things at all.
**
Boromir doesn't think he can do much of this anymore. The secrecy, and the bloodlust. The transformation. The teeth.
He returns to his room, not trusting himself to keep the others safe, and tries to lie down, but his skin is frozen, and his room is frozen. He closes his eyes, like that will do anything. He may be barely conscious, but that's hardly the same as asleep.
Still, a voice trickles in.
Smooth as the water from the pools, and just as clear. It sounds of the sand beneath the waves, too, the rocks, the mud and the reeds. It reminds him of the river from back home, and the voice seems to notice this too.
It latches on. It doesn't say anything just yet, but it's still speaking. Not words, but a language. Perhaps some kind of Elvish.
The next time it speaks, it sounds rough, of marble halls and stone barracks, sweet of mead and like laughter lined with a bitter mourning.
It has Boromir's full attention.
Next, it finds its voice.
It tells him, "Your life has been ruined." He agrees, to some extent. He is still kicking. His sheets are still soft, and the water is still clean.
It tells him, "You are becoming a monster."
It tells him, "You are going to hurt people."
It tells him, "Your brother will be next, you know. Your father too. The ranger. Everyone you care about." Boromir hadn't realized that Strider fell into that category. He figures it doesn't matter anymore.
He panicks about his brother, and bolts upright in bed, thinking that maybe that had been Faramir's attempt at communicating with him, or something— prophetic dreams come with a side of dream telepathy, perhaps?— but the voice simply keeps going.
It tells him, "Your brother will die slowly. It will be painful, and you will hurt him."
"No!" Boromir yelps, slamming his head back into the mattress. The voice doesn't stop.
It tells him, "It is in your blood now, to cause pain. You will never be the same. You will be consumed. Tough luck, but the world continues to move on around you."
It tells him, "… except, maybe there is a way out."
It tells him, "Maybe you can be yourself again."
It tells him, "I can help you, Boromir, Captain of the Guard."
It tells him, "All you have to do is put me on your finger—"
It tells him, "— and you will be like new."