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They were fighting again.
“Until you learn to argue with logic and not emotion, Faramir, you will never be respected or taken—“
“I would rather never be taken seriously than be like you!” the boy countered, his voice raw and high in contrast with the Steward’s firm, steady baritone. “Have you ever felt anything in your life? Did you even care when Nán died or—“
Barely in earshot, Boromir drew a sharp breath. His brother had gone too far and he knew it.
“Get out of my sight.” Their father’s voice would have sounded neutral to anyone but his sons—their familiarity, however, detected a tremor of rage.
“Ada…” Faramir would never apologize. He was too adolescent, too proud—but in his voice, there was a plea.
“Out.” A long silence, then the slam of swordsman-strong palm against a table. “Now!”
”I hate you!”
”Faramir, out!”
Seconds later, the boy stumbled through the door, angrily wiping his eyes, and collided with his brother. He looked up, hurt and anger and guilt all mixed in his flushed face, and opened his mouth, but the young man shook his head.
“That was low.”
“But—“
“You’re better than that.”
“But I—you didn’t hear what he said!”
“I care not what he said. That was too far. You can’t let him get to you like that.”
“He hates me!”
“He doesn’t hate you, he—“
Anger that he had never before seen in the younger boy’s face twisted it, and his voice cracked when he started to shout again. “Easy for you to—everything’s easy for you, he likes you, he treats you like a person, you’re perfect Boromir —you don’t understand what it’s like to just—mess everything up and, and nothing I do—“ His voice cracked again, wobbled, and broke, and he turned away with his face in his hands. “You’ve never done anything wrong in your life. How would you know anything about—about anything ?”
With a sharp sob, he bolted for the refuge of his bedroom, leaving the elder son standing, a little exasperated and a little pitying, in the hall.
Boromir sighed, rubbed a small knot at the back of his jaw, and walked into his father’s study. “What was that about?”
“With your brother, Eru only knows. He gets more erratic by the day.”
“He’s thirteen.”
“Nearly of age.”
“Years feel long when you’ve seen so few. He’ll mature.”
“We are at war, Boromir. You know that, you have seen battle. He is naïve and delicate and irrational, and if he does not stabilize and soon he will not survive in the field. None of us can afford the childish outbursts of which he is making habit.”
“He just wants—“
“What he wants is immaterial, especially if it is coddling. He has enough of that from Mithrandir as it is.”
Boromir sighed and mirrored his father’s stance, leaning on his elbows against the high table. “He’s a boy.”
“In a few weeks he will be fourteen, and a year from then he will be not only a man but a soldier. Can you imagine that on the front lines? If he loses what little self-control he has at being corrected, he will be unpredictable in battle. A danger both to himself and to his men. If a heavy hand is what is needed to eliminate this… weakness, this volatility—then better it be mine than Sauron’s. It is not as though he has had to be strong for much. He will learn. And, he cannot speak to me as he does. I am his father second, his commander first, and the three of us must be a united front regardless of his feelings or my reactions thereto.”
As though seeing the man clearly for the first time, Boromir stood back, head tilting slightly to the side and grey-green eyes narrowed. “He’s right. You don’t like him.”
Denethor raised one eyebrow. “Is that relevant?”
“He’s your son! You like me .”
“ You do not defy me at every turn in some ill-planned bid for notice. You have always put Gondor’s needs above your—”
“Because you rewarded me when I did! Faramir loves this country as much as you or I do, the only difference is that he… he… I think he feels that Gondor does not love him back.”
“Then that is selfish and conditional, and no love at all.”
“ Father ,” he groaned. “Listen to me, alright? All his life he has begged for your affection, and now he is willing to settle for attention. Just… Once in a while, tell him he’s done well at something. He responds to praise, why do you think he listens so closely to me and to Uncle Imrahil?”
“I will praise him when— if —he does aught worthy of it. Lately, he has acted like a child and an idiot, and we both know that he is neither of those. Self-pity makes a pathetic man—in a leader it is worse.”
“He’s having a hard time. He’s thirteen .”
“And when you were thirteen and having a hard time , with your mother not three years dead, you were leagues beyond—“
“He isn’t me!”
The man gave a sardonic smile that did not reach his eyes. “Of that, unfortunately, I am well aware. You say the boy listens to you? Go and talk some sense into him, if you can.”
He knocked more as a formality than a request. Faramir was getting to the age where it would need to more often be the latter, but in his current state odds were slim of encountering anything more untoward than tears. Indeed, the boy was sprawled facedown on his bed, sobbing into his pillow as though he had been mortally wounded. His brother sighed and sat down on the mattress next to him.
“Talk to me, little one.”
The shuddering gasps and whimpers continued a short while longer, and Boromir rested a hand on one of his brother’s skinny, quivering shoulderblades. The onset of puberty had filled out the eldest son in gradual proportion with his height, more slowly but less awkwardly than the younger. It seemed that Faramir’s breeches could not be tailored fast enough to cover a perpetual inch of ankle, but his muscle mass could not keep up no matter how much he ate or how relentlessly he exercised. And he really was still just a boy.
“I know I shouldn’t have said that,” he mumbled finally into the pillow.
“No, you shouldn’t have. But we all say regrettable things in the heat of the moment.”
“He just talks to me like… no matter what I do, I… I’m sorry I said things are easy for you. I know you work hard.”
“Forgiven. As I said—heat of the moment. I know you didn’t mean it.” He sighed. “Our father… Is perhaps unfair. But it does not mean you are lacking in strengths.”
A soft, hoarse, bitter laugh came from the pillow. “Such as? Name one and I’ll…”
“Your emotions, your depth—tis not a bad thing. You just need to learn how to control how you express yourself.”
“How is that not a flaw? I’m never going to be what Ada wants. I’ll never be as good as you.”
He sighed. “You remind me of our mother.”
Rising to his elbows and surreptitiously wiping tears off his blotchy, swollen face, he asked, “Why?”
That always got the boy’s attention. Boromir let his hand guide his brother to a seat at his side, and Faramir complied, one foot anxiously twitching to some inaudible rhythm, head bowed. Arm around him, he began, “She was kind, and subtle, like you. And you have her intelligence, and our father’s, and his intuition as well. Certainly more of it than I do.”
“Boromir?”
“Hm?”
The next few breaths were uneven and shallow, and he could tell that the boy was doing his best not to start crying again. “Does Ada think it’s my fault? That she died? Since she got so much sicker after I—“
“Fara—“
“Because I wish—I just wish he knew—if I could take it back, I would. If she could be here and not me—“
“Faramir—“
“I think it would be better if I never existed,” he stammered out, and his voice splintered. “I think if I just had never been born, everything would be better, and I wish I could change it and I can tell he does too, but I didn’t ask—I didn’t want—“
“Shh, little one. Oh, Faramir, no one wishes that.”
“I do.”
“I don’t. I would rather have you in your imperfection than the heir of Isildur himself.”
“But all I do is embarrass you and Ada, and make you two look incompetent when I—“
“I have never been ashamed of you. Not once.”
“You’re only saying that out of pity. Sometimes I think the best thing I could do would—would be to go up to the beacon, and just… jump off.”
Boromir tightened his arms around the boy, closed his eyes, rocked him the same way he had as a small child, and Faramir began to shiver helplessly in his embrace, though this time he did not make a sound.
“Why does he hate me?” he finally whispered.
“He doesn’t hate you. No one hates you. He’s wrapped up in his own problems, and he has plenty of those. You haven’t done anything wrong, little one, and it breaks my heart that you’re… that you’re thinking such things.”
“Boromir? What’s wrong with me?”
He almost laughed. “That I can answer. You’re a thirteen-year-old boy. I remember being your age, and I felt… Not the same as you, but I felt out of place and inadequate and—“
“I don’t believe that. You’ve never been inadequate in your life.”
“You think that because I’m older. You’ve only ever seen me as your big brother, as the one who did everything first. Trust me, Faramir, it’s not an easy age. And you don’t have an easy—“
“I’m the son of the Steward. What right do I have to complain about any —“
“Materially, yes. But it’s isolating. It’s hard to make friends when their fathers answer to yours. And I have a smoother relationship with him than you do, but I still know he can be… demanding. Rigid. That’s why I say you can’t let him get to you. It’s just how he is.”
“Not to you.”
For that Boromir had no answer. He sighed. “I never said it was fair.”
“I don’t care if he likes me, or loves me, or—“
“He’s your father. Of course you do.”
“I don’t!” He jerked back from the embrace. “I don’t care! Don’t tell me what I think. I just want—I don’t care.”
“Alright, alright, you don’t care.” Boromir sighed. “But whether you do or not, I do. I love both of you, and I wish you could… Understand each other.”
“ I understand him enough. He just doesn’t want to—“
“If you think that our mother’s death did anything less than destroy him, you do not understand. And perhaps he does not understand you, but it is not because he thinks… He worries, Faramir. He worries about that big heart of yours, and what it will do to you to kill, and how you will manage as an adult.”
“Just because I don’t want to kill anyone hardly means that I’m a child,” he murmured.
“It isn’t pleasant. I would not lie to you. But it is… You’ll learn, little one, though I wish you wouldn’t have to. It stops bothering you after a while.”
“I feel sick just thinking about it. How many times do you have to do it first? Before it stops bothering you, I mean?”
Boromir sighed. How to tell the boy that he didn’t know, that it changed people, that it grew easier but never easy? “Orcs are different than Men,” he said finally. “And we see more of those.”
“And Men?”
“Don’t think about it.”
“I can’t help—“
“I mean, when you’re out there. Don’t think of it as killing. You’re protecting.”
“Is that not what they too think, though?” He sniffed. “I’m sorry. I just… the other boys act like none of this means—means anything. And you’ve been in the field, you’ve… done things. And our father…”
“This is what I mean about the isolation of being… who we are. Our father sees only the meaning—the numbers, the politics. Our people’s fear, and grief, and tension. He commands, but has not fought in years. And your peers are the opposite. They repeat the soldiers’ talk, and the talk is only of the best of it, for if you dwell on the worst you will never again be able to lift your sword.”
“Then why—“ When Faramir looked up, his voice faltered mid-sentence at his brother’s expression. He had never seen the young man look so tired . “Boromir? Are you alright?”
He leaned back and sighed, gazing at the dark ceiling as though looking for stars there. “I worry about you too,” he said finally.
“I—“
“You have so many damned questions . About everything . In your mind you are like a sailor who goes further and further to sea and—would it not be better to stay where you can return to land in a coming storm? Faramir, there are things I’ve seen, and learned, that I… I wish I had not, and I never even sought them out. This is war. There are horrors outside Gondor’s borders—there are horrors within them! And what good will it do to torture yourself with—“
“Do you ever think about how small we are?”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Do you think that either of us will ever make a difference? Not only me in your life or you in mine, but in history and literature—as anything more than title and name?”
“Do you see how this is exactly what I’m talking about?”
Faramir looked up with a small, ironic smile. “Yes.”
“Well, that’s small progress at least.”
“Are you angry with me?”
“No.”
“Disappointed?”
“No, little one.”
“Are—“
“I want to shake some sense into you much of the time. Especially when you get like this. But you are my brother, and even when you confuse me, or frustrate me, I want to know what you are thinking, and I care deeply for you. Those thoughts can coexist.”
The boy closed his eyes and nodded, slumped a little on the bed, worn out by emotion. “I suppose you want me to apologize to Ada.”
“Yes.”
“Even though he never apologizes to me when—“
“You have his mind and his pride. For the sake of my sanity, do not inherit his stubbornness.” He tousled his brother’s hair, grinning when he squirmed away and tried to shake it back into some semblance of order. “Try not to think so much, and question so much, alright? Your instincts are good. Trust them.”
“And if my instincts are to think and to question?” he teased.
The elder brother kissed the top of the younger’s head. “You’re impossible.”
The welcome laughter faded from the boy’s face after a few moments, and he stood, wiping his eyes again. “I’ll talk to him now, then. Get it over with.”
“Good.”
“Thank you for… tolerating me.”
“It isn’t difficult. You make good company when you’re not driving yourself, or our father, to distraction.”
“Well—thank you regardless.“ He gave another forced smile under his swollen eyes, and closed the door behind him.