Unclean
by Lullennye-mail: gutter2stars @ yahoo.com
Story notes: A request from Teasel: "Aragorn/Boromir. Hot sweaty sex under a bush. Both parties annoyed and frustrated. How about a fic in which they CAN'T find a stream to bathe in. Just to change the fanon convention of a pool of water everywhere. Title: Unclean. And the fic must involve a salami. The Beef Jerky of the Elves."
The grit of Holland crept under Boromir's clothes and galled his skin just as frustration chafed his heart. The Fellowship kept watch or rested uneasily by turns, scattered around the top of a small hill crowned with thorny trees while wolves howled in the distance. He stared at the backs of his grubby hands in the firelight and brooded on the last time they had passed a stream deep and clear and safe enough for bathing. That had been a week ago -- no, more. He touched the knuckles of one hand with the finger of the other, silently counting. When the sun rose and brought dawn with her, if he yet lived, it would be nine days since he last stripped and washed.
The sun had shone that day, nine days before, peering through iron clouds in the morning.
The elf, Legolas, had shed his clothes despite the chill air and immersed himself, emerging little cleaner than before but in high spirits. The hobbits washed only their faces and necks, and then hands and feet in the stream, Pippin making as much bluster at the chill water as Sam did. Gandalf drew wet hands over his brow while the end of his beard trailed in the water, and Gimli resolutely ignored the entire spectacle, standing aloof and keeping guard. Aragorn had stripped elf-fashion but only briefly, and he returned from the water, his skin mantled pink from the chill and the ends of his hair dripping, and he joked with the younger Halflings after, teasing them in his refreshed mood.
So encouraged, Boromir followed suit. The water was bitterly cold. He had felt new after the water's touch, his skin smooth and warming quickly.
Now he waited on a thorny hill for wargs and wolves to come at him in the night, on a path not of his choosing. Caradhras the Cruel had beaten the Fellowship off its sides like a troll brushing away flies, but the black pits of Moria would be far worse. Boromir looked through the flames of the fire to Aragorn where he sat on the other side. When the Fellowship discussed their path, it was plain that Aragorn cared little for that way. Boromir considered the plan to cross under the mountains a great folly, but with the vote weighing against using the Gap of Rohan, he would enter, and most likely die along with the entire Fellowship in that evil place. If so, he would die fighting, as he expected to do one day -- perhaps this very night -- unless by this slender, foolish hope the Enemy was at last defeated. He rose from his place by the fire and circled the camp.
"You are restless," Aragorn said quietly. He held food in his hand: a cold sausage that Sam had cooked some time before they had tried the mountain. Boromir had observed it was Aragorn's wont to spend his energy without reserve when needed, and indeed, none of them but the Halflings had slept at all in days. Resentment at Aragorn's ability to rest and eat now struck Boromir sharply, for he knew the harsh realities of soldiering that demanded such necessities be catered to at the smallest opportunity. As a Captain of Gondor waging battle against Mordor all his life, he knew them better than any now living. Yet he could not rest, not when his fate was so bound with these others determined to pursue such foolish paths.
"Bring them on, I say," replied Boromir. "Better a fight --"
Aragorn drew his fingers across his mouth and nodded to the Halflings. They rested close round the fire: Frodo sitting upright but his head bowed to his chest, eyes closed; Sam curled at his knee, softly snoring; the younger ones wound in their cloaks, slumped together, dozing. All four were worn to their limits by the mountain and hard travel.
Boromir nodded, and when he spoke, he spoke softly. "This is too hard for them."
"This is hard for all of us," said Aragorn. His mouth turned in a small, twisted smile. "I could sleep."
"Battle first, and then sleep," countered Boromir. He looked out into the night, turning his head to hear the distant howls. "I am sick of toiling over rocks and trackless hills when there are enemies to fight."
From where he stood on a boulder, watching the night with his ax planted in front of him, Gimli agreed. "I fear no long road, but give me foes to cleave instead of this endless waiting."
"There will be fighting," said Aragorn. "Enemies, and not drifts of snow or unseen spirits in the mountains, and that will be sooner rather -- "
A howl scudded suddenly in their midst, drowning out his last words. Pippin cried out, woken suddenly, and all the Halflings started, eyes wide, while Boromir and Aragorn leapt to their feet, swords ringing from their sheaths. A shadowy wolf loomed at the edge of the firelight, surrounded by gleaming yellow eyes in the darkness behind it, and it howled again.
Gandalf stood and advanced on the beast, his staff kindling bright. "Listen, Hound of Sauron!" he cried. "Gandalf is here. Fly, if you value your foul skin! I will shrivel you from tail to snout, if you come within this ring."
The wolf sprang, but it fell with an arrow in its throat, dead before it hit the ground. The glowing eyes behind it winked out, and the howling ceased.
"Are they gone?" asked Merry. He clung to his sword, and it trembled as much as his voice. Boromir trembled as well, but with suppressed battle-fury, not fear, and he stalked back and forth along the edge of the camp, hoping for something to strike.
"For now, I think," said Gandalf. "But do not hold much hope for a peaceful night."
He nodded to Aragorn, who then flashed a glance at Boromir, and together the Men scouted all around the hill while the others remained with the Halflings.
"They are gone for now, but they will attack again," said Aragorn as he strode through clinging bushes, "and they will come before the dawn."
"This is madness," muttered Boromir. "Waiting yet again. We should hunt them out and kill them now."
"No. We stay close to camp." Aragorn gripped his arm, halting them both. "This is needful, no matter if the waiting burns your heart; there is nothing more important than guarding the hobbits."
"Guarding a fool's hope, you mean."
"A fool's hope is still hope. Hold steady, Boromir. We yet have need of your warrior strength; do not let weariness dull your wits."
Boromir struck Aragorn's hand away. "Then do not insult me. Weariness! My wits should not be questioned -- I do not seek to lead us to death in a dark place."
There was little light from the fire at the top of the hill and none from the clouded sky. Aragorn's face was a pale smudge in the dark, unreadable. Boromir expected a heated defense of Gandalf.
"I do not wish to go there," Aragorn said softly. "I fear most for Gandalf himself. Better a host of orcs and wargs than what we might face in Moria, and orcs and wargs may well be our fate in the cold light before dawn. None of our choices are good."
"Just give me an enemy I can fight," Boromir demanded. He could hear desperation in his own voice, and he despised it.
Aragorn's strong hand gripped Boromir's shoulder. As it lingered there, Boromir could feel the heat of it through the layers of his coat and mail. "You are the stoutest son of Gondor I have ever met. We will battle together, you and I, and the Enemy will be daunted."
Boromir shivered hard under Aragorn's hand. He wanted something tangible to push, not this continued skulking and waiting for shadows to advance, and Aragorn was no shadow. Boromir clapped his hand on Aragorn's shoulder, boxing them together, and he pushed a little, feeling the solid resistance, and was comforted by it.
"Come," said Aragorn, and he pulled Boromir with him down the hill, his hand never leaving Boromir's upper arm.
"Where do you lead me?"
"To rest would only dull our fighting edge, yet to stand, waiting and starting at nothing will not help us come the dawn," said Aragorn. He stopped next to a great holly bush that bulked large in the darkness by them and gripped Boromir by his arms. Boromir struggled, a reflex, but Aragorn held him fast. Boromir pushed harder, but he could not break the hold, not even when he struggled in earnest.
"There," said Aragorn, and then murmured, "yes."
Boromir found comfort in Aragorn's surety. The pitch of his frustrations and suppressed rage heated, suddenly mutable, and he shivered again, with dark lust this time.
Aragorn pulled him forward so he stumbled, yet Aragorn held him steady, and his mouth came down hard on Boromir's. Boromir gasped, opening the way for further invasion, and his blood boiled so for a fight, any fight, that he grinned, his lips curving with feral glee against Aragorn's. He licked Aragorn's mouth, feeling the scarred lips under his tongue and tasting the bitter stubble.
"There," Aragorn said once more. He let go Boromir's arms, and his fingers were pulling at Boromir's belt, and then digging under the belt, shaping the hardness that pounded there and giving Boromir something solid to push against at last.
Aragorn urged him down and they lay together on dry winter grass. Boromir accepted Aragorn on him, the weight of him in his mail pushing down even as Boromir ground his hips up into the steady hand. The earth held him, gave him strength at his back, and he pushed hard into Aragorn and turned him over, both of them rolling under the holly bush, where Boromir pinned his arms for long moments as he forced Aragorn's mouth open to take his tongue deep.
Aragorn made noises, low in his throat, and it was as if each sound struck each bone up Boromir's back like stone on steel, prickling him with heat all over. Boromir raised his head and sawed his groin against Aragorn's, feeling the answering hardness.
"Ah, yes," Aragorn said. Even this close, his eyes were nothing but dark shadows in this clouded blank night. His breath was hot on Boromir's face. And then he heaved, bucking up and knocking Boromir over and bearing him down under once more.
The hard heel of his palm covered Boromir again, brutally good, yet Boromir wanted more. He tore at the fastenings to his breeches until he felt the chill of exposure like a shock and did not wait but ripped hard at the thongs at Aragorn's loins, pushing aside the layers of mail and leather and snapping one of the ties in his haste with a popping sound, humorous among the groan of stressed cloth, the faint ring of mail, and the rustle of grass in the ever-present wind.
Aragorn laughed low. "There's the proper use for such nerves."
"Aye?"
"Oh, aye," he said, breathless, and Boromir felt a long-fingered hand curl round his hard length and pull. The grip slackened; cool air touched his skin heated by friction and blood, and then the hand returned, coupling Boromir's cock against another and squeezing them tightly.
Boromir swore. His shoulders scoured the grass under him as he shoved effortfully between stony earth and hard muscle. Aragorn held him down even as he stroked their cocks together, while Boromir set his teeth to his gauntlet and pulled until his hand came free. He doggedly worked his hand between them until his fingers interlaced with Aragorn's, feeling the heated tackiness slick more with every stroke.
Aragorn panted harshly into Boromir's face. "Feel your blood burn, soldier of Gondor." He twisted their joined fists as he stroked up. "Feel it spill in my hand now!"
Boromir's breath hasped in his throat, and he bit Aragorn's neck, and he came, an arrow of hot pleasure. More urgent pulls stripped shudders from him and another plash of wet heat thrown in skeins over their joined hands.
For long, thudding heartbeats, Boromir felt at peace.
*
The wolves attacked in the pale gleam before dawn, just as Aragorn said they would. In the firelight, Boromir sought Aragorn's gaze. The ranger smiled tightly, and they met the enemy together.
Boromir fought with furious joy, his sword as deft as a finger on his hand and as much a part of it. Gimli's rough battle cries were music in perfect counterpoint to the singing of Legolas' bow. Aragorn's sword flickered, red as flame as it skewered a wolf by its throat. Boromir leapt over the twitching body and struck the head off another beast before it could reach the little ones standing back-to-back near the fire.
Even as Gandalf set alight the trees with a dreadful fire, the stark fear in the young Halflings' faces roused fierce tenderness in Boromir. From the scouring fire, embers and ash rained down on him, and silently he swore he would protect them all, or die trying.