Chapter Text
One evening on the cusp of autumn, Boromir decides to make a visit to the lower rings of the city.
He does not come to the decision all at once; rather, it builds over the course of the day. As he goes about his duties, he finds himself snapping at other guardsmen, his skin feels too tight, and every little thing seems an annoyance. By the time the sun has begun to dip towards the horizon, he knows what he must do.
He sups with his men that night, as he often does. The food is better in the citadel than in the barracks, but fine eastern spices do little to warm the chill of his father’s icy table. Boromir is at ease in the mess hall, sharing good-natured japes with his men as he ladles himself a bowl of hearty stew. He picks up a hunk of good brown bread to go with the stew, and if the crust is tougher than boot leather at least here Boromir is among friends that he can share his griping with.
But of course, there are things he cannot share with them.
As the men finish their stew and admit defeat against their bread crusts, Boromir’s eyes begin to drift towards the door. There’s a restless jitter in his foot, and a queasiness in his stomach—but then it’s always thus, before a visit. Best go, then, get it over with.
As his second in command begins to make noises about a game of dice, Boromir drains the last of the ale from his tankard and sets it down on the table decisively. “Don’t lose all your pay at once, Padrion,” he orders.
Padrion snorts. “I certainly shan’t if you play, commander.”
Boromir rolls his eyes; Padrion had won a week’s pay off him the last time they’d diced. “I would, but I’m to the lower rings tonight.” And with that he rises from the table, not bothering to feign disappointment at missing the game.
Padrion whistles low as Hador makes a jape, and Alag and Alrveldir titter in the background. They all think he has a sweetheart hidden away that he goes to visit, some lowborn girl his father would never approve of. It’s a harmless enough offense for a man of his age and position; he has no wife or office to honor with fidelity. No one would fault him a sweet-faced lowborn mistress. Not like they would fault him if they knew the truth.
Boromir pauses at the door and takes a moment to look back over his shoulder at his men before he leaves. Arveldir is grinning at him, Hador has a lascivious smirk, Padrion is already busy clearing the table of platters and setting out his dice. What would they think, if they knew the truth?
He pulls the hood of his cloak down over his face before throwing the door open and stepping out into the night. May they never find out.
***
The tavern has no name, or at least if it does, Boromir has never heard it spoken aloud. Other taverns in the lower rings of the city proudly display their names on carved signposts that hang over the entryways, the weathered wood painted with festive colors and rough pictures for those who cannot read. But that would not serve the purpose of this place.
He knows it solely as the place he goes to give in to the urges he should not have. It’s the place that he skulks off to after nights of sleeplessness and sweat-soaked sheets. It’s the place he goes to drown the voices in his head, calm his body enough that he can affect a smile, and go about his duties during the following day. It is a place no steward’s son should ever go.
And yet, as of late Boromir has made a habit of it.
It pains him to admit even that much. There was still a time, not long ago, when after every visit he would pretend that it had been a one-off thing, that the present visit was his last. But it has been years now, years of clandestine visits every few months, and the longings in his heart and his gut have not disappeared.
The building is wedged between two others that dwarf it, set back a few steps from the street so that the entryway is perpetually cast in darkness. The windows that flank the door show nothing but heavy black curtains, a thick film of dust, and the faintest glimmer of flickering candlelight. It is altogether a place of grimy shadows, partly by the poverty of the establishment and partly, of course, by design.
He opens the door and steps inside.
The tavern is a single room, long and narrow. The bar runs the length of one wall, whereas the other is cluttered with an array of battered and rickety tables and chairs. In the far back of the room is a staircase swathed in darkness, leading up to rooms for rent by the night or the candle mark, whichever best suits the needs of the patron in question.
Boromir has a routine he follows when he comes here: In through the door, a swift glance to make sure no one he knows is here, then a seat at the bar, where he buys a tankard of ale, which he does not drink. Then he waits for one of the other men to meet his eyes, and they leave together, either upstairs to a private room or off to his companion’s residence.
Aesthetics do not factor into it. This is not about finding a man that is pleasing to him. No man should be pleasing to him. This is about scratching a damnable itch, sucking poison from a wound so that he can go about his business the next day.
Boromir expects this visit will be much the same. And so he is struck flatfooted when he sees the man seated at the table across from the bar.
Even seated, Boromir can tell that the man is tall. He lounges like a king on his throne as he smokes; the light of the embers in his pipe flares in time with his breathing. The embers burn a cherry red that illuminates the lower planes of the man’s face and above, the gleam of eyes.
Boromir can see little enough of the man beyond that, but what he can see makes his throat dry and his stomach twist with want. Every measure of skin exposed, every hint of the figure beneath the road-stained leathers speaks to a warrior well-built and battle-hardened. The sword and hunting knife at his hip look well used; what must they look like in the grip of those broad, sure hands? What would those hands feel like coursing over skin?
Want hits Boromir like a sword-thrust, and he is powerless to do anything but feel the weight of his own lust. It is a helpless feeling, like he has just entered a battle armorless, exposed.
And even worse, the man is watching him.
“Well met,” the man murmurs, and oh, his voice is deep and rich as a goblet of dark wine. “Have a drink with me.”
It is a forward, far too forward even in such a place, and some part of Boromir wants to take offense, to yell at this stranger to be even a breath more careful, to censure him for wearing his desire so lewdly and openly on his sleeve. But only a part of him. The rest wants… something else entirely.
Well. It’s why he’s here, after all. Drawing a breath for courage, he steps away from the bar and moves over to the fellow’s table, taking in the man’s patched green cloak and worn boots as he does. A traveler, then, perhaps a ranger from a north. It’s the best he could hope for in a tryst: the stranger will be away tomorrow, never to be seen again. There’s no risk of running into him in the market, or skies forbid, in his father’s halls.
But tomorrow is tomorrow, and tonight the stranger’s eyes on him are heavy, and his smile warm. Swallowing, Boromir seats himself. Their feet knock beneath the table, and even through two layers of boot leather the contact makes Boromir’s stomach flip.
The man tilts his head, considering. “What’s your name?”
“Boromir,” he says, and immediately wants to curse himself for a fool. In all the times he has come here he has always given a false name, or given none at all.
He braces himself for widened eyes, the jerk of recognition, and wonders with a dull horror whether there will be rumors whispered of the steward’s son in the markets by morning.
But there is no recognition in the man’s eyes, at least not that he can see. “Thorongil,” the man says after a moment’s pause, and Boromir is caught between relief that his secret is safe and disappointment that he has not merited the same measure of trust from the man, for Thorongil has the flavor about it of a pseudonym if ever there was one. “Well met,” he says at last.
“I’ve not been in the city for some time,” Thorongil says, as if this were an innocent chance meeting. “Tell me: what news is there to speak of?”
“I did not come here to talk,” Boromir says through gritted teeth. “Do you have lodging nearby, or shall I pay for a room?”
Thorongil’s eyes narrow. Boromir resists the urge to fidget; he feels as if he’s being studied, layers of himself peeled back like the skins of an onion, until the ranger can read the inner parts of him, the soft and shameful pieces he takes care to hide away. “I have a room above,” Thorongil says at last.
It scares him, the sudden excitement that floods his body. The man is naught but a stranger. Boromir should not feel so strongly or want so deeply as he does. He coughs, gestures towards the stairs. “Then shall we?”
He’s rewarded with that same maddening gaze, and then Thorongil ducks his head in a courtly gesture that feels somehow mocking. “After you.”
***
Boromir mounts the stairs of the inn with the same mix of dread and anticipation that comes in the moments before battle. He clenches and unclenches his hands, wipes the sweat of his palms off on the fabric of his breeches.
Thorongil is a steady presence behind him, silent but for the low cadence of his breathing. His steps are preternaturally quiet compared to the thumping of Boromir’s own boots.
At the top of the stairs he stands for a moment in growing panic; in his haste to go upstairs he’d neglected to ask which room the ranger was staying in.
“Last on the left,” Thorongil murmurs, close enough that his breath heats the shell of Boromir’s ear and tickles the hair on the nape of his neck. Boromir shivers, and makes for the door.
He undoes the rusted hasp and pushes the wood open; it swings inward with a creak. The noise makes him wince, eyes darting back and forth down the narrow hallway to see if anyone is around to notice. But they are alone. Still, he wastes no time stepping over the threshold into the spare bedroom beyond.
No one would stay here for the comfort of the furnishings or the charm of the decor. The room is narrow and dark, a sloping roof of undressed wood low enough on one end of the room that one would have to stoop to reach the small table huddled under the eaves. The bed is on the other end of the room, the headboard abutting the bare stone that makes up the fourth wall. The slats of the floor are uneven, and in the absence of any windows the only light comes from a guttering tallow candle resting on a stool beside the bed.
Boromir stares at the bed for a moment. Here he is again, back where he’s sworn he would not return. The sheets, at least, will be clean, if rough. He knows that from previous visits, his face shoved against the mattress as he trembled on his knees and elbows.
Behind him, the quiet sound of the door creaking closed, and the click of the inner hasp locking. A step on the floor, loud enough that Boromir suspects Thorongil is telegraphing his movements to avoid spooking him, the way one might approach a spooked horse.
Taking a deep breath, Boromir braces himself for the familiar fumblings of bodies long denied: thighs thrust between legs, savage thrusts of hips, curses as teeth clack together.
But there is none of that. Instead Thorongil brings his hand, so slowly, so gently, to rest on his shoulder, turning him about so that they face each other. With a gentle smile, he lifts his other hand to caress Boromir’s head, as if he were something precious. Boromir’s breath catches as those rough fingers trace the line of his brow with a reverence utterly at odds with their situation. The gentleness undoes him, like a punch to the gut. “Hurry up,” he bites out. “I’ve not all night.”
Thorongil chuckles. “Never fear, I’ll leave you time to trudge back to the upper circles before the guardsmen begin their rounds.”
The hairs on the back of his neck jolt to attention. Is this a trap? Has he been set up? “How…”
“Your boots,” Thorongil says patiently.
Boromir blinks. “My—my boots?” He looks down at them, but sees nothing to illuminate him.
“Commoners’ boots are not edged in velvet,” Thorongil says, smiling. “I imagine you’re a scion of some noble house forced to range further afoot for that which you desire. But be at ease, I’ve seen no more behind your mask than that.”
Boromir swallows. “Oh,” he says.
“Now, where was I?” Thorongil’s hand trails down to press against the side of Boromir’s jaw, rough fingerpads smoothing over his beard. Thorongil leans in, as if to kiss him. And Boromir should protest—his is not some romance between them, they are not a love match from one of the old tales—but he is helpless under the fierce pinning of those dark eyes, and so he stands frozen as Thorongil leans in and brushes their lips together
Oh! But it is perfect enough to make him weep. The scrape of stubble against his cheek, the roughness of masculine lips… Boromir lets his mouth fall open, allows Thorongil to cradle the back of his head, twist his sword-hand into Boromir’s hair, slot their mouths together.
He has been kissed in lust; he has been kissed in want, he has been kissed in frantic need, but he has never been kissed like this. Slow and gentle, all deft touches of tongue and soft nuzzling of lips. Thorongil kisses like he has all night, like he has a lifetime to explore Boromir’s mouth. Like he would want to spend a lifetime kissing Boromir.
And Boromir should protest, but it is somehow very hard to think of should or ought in the face of Thorongil’s single minded implacability. He admits defeat, lets himself be kissed, too overwhelmed by the revelation of Thorongil’s lips on his own to do anything else. Before long he is made an accomplice, bringing his hands up to cling at the front of Thorongil’s cloak as his eyes fall shut and his head falls back.
Each touch of Thorongil’s lips sends heat to pool in his belly. The warmth of his arousal grows steadily, until he is afire with it, his hands trembling and his cock hard in his breeches.
He reaches down to palm himself, but quick as a wink, Thorongil grabs his wrist and pulls his hand away.
“Not so fast, man of Gondor,” Thorongil whispers against his ear, breathing ragged. “I wish to touch you myself.”
The bolt of want that hits Boromir is as sudden as it is unexpected. The ownership in his voice, and the weight of the command… it sets him afire, and he cannot help but moan into Thorongil’s kiss.
Thorongil growls at that, slotting a leg between Boromir’s thighs and bucking their bodies together as he draws Boromir into another open mouthed kiss.
Boromir gasps at the sudden friction against his hardening length, absurdly grateful to feel a twin hardness jutting against his own hip. His head falling forward against Thorongil’s chest, he ruts against the other man’s leg again. It’s not enough, more than anything he wants to feel skin against skin, wants to feel Thorongil’s hands on him.
He reaches for Thorongil’s clothing this time, fumbling at the clasps of the other man’s tunic, and this time Thorongil lets him, pausing his kissing to help Boromir with the ties of his bracers and the clasp of his belt.
Thorongil’s eyes are dark in the candlelight. “Do you like what you see?” he asks with a gentle smile, and Boromir should rebuke him for the presumption, but he finds he cannot form the words.
Because he does like what he sees. Thorongil is a sight enough to make him weep, in truth: his skin is gold-tempered in the light of the fire, his frame is wrapped in ropey muscle with a light dusting of hair. His fingers itch; he aches to touch, to taste.
And then Thorongil is offering him a wicked smile as his hands drop to the ties of his breeches. Boromir holds his breath as Thorongil pulls the knot apart and slips his breeches down, exposing his cock to the air.
Boromir’s heart speeds up and his own length twitches in his breeches. Thorongil’s cock is long, thick, and already half-hard. He wants to touch it. He wants…
Thorongil’s boots fall to the floor with a series of thunks, and then there’s nothing more to remove: Thorongil is bare before him, from the pale arches of his feet to the broad expanse of his chest to his glorious, glorious cock. And how is it that Thorongil is naked and Boromir is fully clothed, but Boromir feels he is the one exposed, stripped bare in front of Thorongil’s too knowing eyes?
It is all too much; on the last two visits to the tavern his partners had kept their clothing on, doing little more than shoving their breeches down to their knees. To see Thorongil so unashamed, so completely, gloriously naked, laid out before him like a feast—!
Thorongil steps towards him and draws him into another kiss, this one hungry and wet. “How do you like to take your pleasure?” he asks as he pulls back, desire dark in his eyes.
The question hits Boromir like a bucket of ice water; he goes rigid in Thorongil’s arms. “I am no woman.”
Thorongil seems almost… puzzled? “Clearly you are not,” he says after a moment’s pause, “and I am glad of it. But what does that have to do with bedsport?”
Curses, must he spell this out? “I’ll not play a woman’s part,” he grits. Nor should you, he wants to say—Thorongil is clearly a red-blooded fighter, a proud warrior, a man’s man. Boromir should abhor the thought of Thorongil abasing himself so. But the thought makes his blood race and so he holds his tongue, and hates himself for it. If he would not sin himself, but eagerly leads another into sin, is he any better?
Thorongil must see all this on his face, for he lets his hands fall away and steps back, his face a mask. “No matter, I’m happy enough to ride you.”
Boromir’s cock twitches at the mere thought. What a hypocrite he is. “A man should not be happy to do such a thing,” he whispers despite himself.
“Then I suppose you’ve never heard of what the men of the north do on cold nights.” There’s a wry smile on Thorongil’s tongue, and something like sadness in his eyes. He looks knowing. Too knowing.
Boromir swallows roughly. “Very—very well,” he says, looking away. “Do as you wish.”
“Oh, but I will,” Thorongil murmurs, and then he is moving into Boromir’s space once more, pushing him back against the wall and attacking the clasps of his tunic with a single minded intensity. Boromir lets his head fall back against the wall as he feels Thorongil’s clever fingers strip him bare. The other man’s hard length presses against his thigh, so close to his own cock, only a single layer of fabric between the two.
As if reading his mind, Thorongil rolls his hips so that their cocks grind together, and Boromir cannot help but cry out.
“You’re ripe for this, unless I miss my mark,” Thorongil murmurs, and then he’s undoing Boromir’s breeches and shoving them to the floor.
Boromir collects his wits enough to pull off his boots with clumsy hands before stepping out of his breeches. He has no time to feel abashed by his nakedness, for as soon as he drops his breeches Thorongil is manhandling him over to the bed and pushing him down upon it. “Lie back,” he says as he clambers into Boromir’s lap to offer him another filthy kiss.
Boromir does as he’s bid and watches with wide eyes as Thorongil shifts his thighs to bracket Boromir’s own, lining himself up with Boromir’s aching length. He blinks, trying to focus. To be sure, he has done this only a few times: most visits to the tavern feature only hands or mouths but… “Don’t you need to… ah, that is to say, I do not wish to hurt you.”
Thorongil throws back his head and laughs. “Ah, you are sweet to be concerned, but there is no need. I prepared myself before I came downstairs.”
Lust hits Boromir like a spear shaft. The image blindsides him: Thorongil, laying on this very bed, legs spread as he fingered himself open. Had he been loud and shameless as he worked, or quiet? Had he lingered and enjoyed the act, or prepared himself briskly, too eager for the night ahead to tarry?
That Thorongil had readied himself before going out hunting, that Thorongil had caught him—!
So overwhelmed is he by the thought that he misses the wicked gleam in Thorongil’s eye, and is blindsided when his cock is suddenly enveloped in tight wet heat.
He cries out; he cannot help it. His head falls back on the mattress and his eyes fall shut as Thorongil sinks down upon him, inch by implacable inch. There is nothing he can do but lie there and take whatever Thorongil sees fit to give him.
When he regains enough of his senses to open his eyes and look up, he is greeted by a sight he knows will stay with him for the rest of his life. Thorongil, mouth thrown open and eyes clenched shut, breathing in reedy little gasps, his thighs trembling with the strain as he impales himself on Boromir’s cock. His face is that of a man overwhelmed, but not by pain. And his cock, hard and aching against the taut planes of his stomach, evinces nothing but pleasure.
Boromir is seized with a need to touch him, and so he does, his hands stuttering over the sweet-sheened muscles of Thorongil’s thighs and the swell of his ass. He wants to touch every part of him, map his body with his hands until he can discover whatever witchery has undone Boromir so completely.
Thorongil, meanwhile, finally seats himself fully on Boromir’s cock. He pauses there for a moment, smiling down at Boromir with something akin to tenderness. And then, with a filthy grin, he begins to move.
Oh—! It is enough to ruin a man, and Boromir lets himself be ruined. The pleasure is all encompassing; Boromir can do naught but claw at the sheets and toss his hed to and fro against the pillows as Thorongil fucks himself on his cock. Boromir brings a hand to his mouth to quiet his cries, but Thorongil yanks it away. “No, man of Gondor,” he says breathlessly. “I want to hear you.”
And so Boromir screams out his pleasure; his hoarse yells and his high, whimpering moans, as Thorongil wrings him dry, plays him like an instrument, well and truly fucks him.
Through it all, Thorongil is implacable. He commits to a slow and sensual pace, as if he wishes to savor his debauchery of Boromir like one might a fine wine. He brooks no argument, no matter how much Boromir twists and pleads and threatens beneath him. Boromir, who has only ever done this is rough and hard, with quick fumblings and a just as quick withdrawal, is trapped by the overwhelming pleasure of their coupling, a slave to the lassitude, breathless at each thrust of Thorongil’s hips.
And even though he is the one fucking into Thorongil, there is still a thrilling measure of passivity in it. It shames him how much he likes it, to be beneath Thorongil in this way. What would it be like to submit completely, to be breached and fucked by him? To be at his mercy, to be taken—?
The mere thought is enough to undo him. As Boromir’s orgasm hits him, Thorongil fucks him through it with hard snaps of his hips, digging his fingers into the flesh of Boromir’s waist so that he is helpless to do anything but revel in the sensations as Thorongil’s own peak hits a moment later, jerking and pulsing, branding him from the inside out.
Thorongil is loud where Boromir had muffled his pleasure; he comes with a shout, bucking hard against Boromir’s back before collapsing onto the bed beside him. They spend a moment like that, side by side, panting heavily in the shadowed confines of the bed.
Boromir shivers. As the deliciousness of his orgasm fades away and the sweat cools on his skin, the shame sets in, as it always does. He feels not only debased, but oddly fragile too, as if he were an eggshell in the shape of a man, hollow and in danger of cracking apart.
Thorongil seems to harbor no such shame. He sits up to wipe the sweat from his brow with a spare cloth and then collapses on the bed next to Boromir, laughing softly. He flings a hand out, idly twirling a strand of Boromir’s hair around his finger. It is an innocent enough gesture, but Boromir cannot help but tense.
Thorongil stills and turns to peer at him. “Why so sad, man of Gondor? Did you not enjoy yourself?”
His face is marred by a look of such concern that something twists in Boromir’s chest, and he has to look away. He settles for focusing on the guttering candle on the sideboard, and picks his words carefully before he speaks. “I despair that I did. It is a vile thing.”
Out of the corner of Boromir’s vision he can see Thorongil open his mouth as if to reply, and then close it. “It was not always considered thus,” Thorongil says at last, a hint of sadness in his voice. “And it will not be so forever.”
An easy thing for a ranger to say. “You should not speak of things you know nothing about,” Boromir snaps, with more heat in his voice than he intended. It is no fault of Thorongil’s that he doesn’t understand. Out on the northern wastes tradition is not a vise that chokes the living for generations. Only a foreigner could imagine that things might one day be different, changed as easily as a man changes his tunic.
The silence that comes after his rebuke feels suffocating. Boromir has tarried too long already. Refusing to look in Thorongil’s direction, he rolls from the bed, pulls his clothing back on, and makes for the exit. He thinks he hears a soft sigh as he lets the door swing shut behind him, but perhaps he’s only imagining it.
The walk back to the upper city is unpleasant. Hidden beneath his clothing, sweat and semen stain his skin. The deeper stains do not show, but he can feel them all the same.
He marvels, as he always does, that no one, not passersby nor his comrades nor friends nor family, will notice the taint. But he knows it’s there all the same, and knows that for days afterwards, every word, no matter how innocuous, will feel like a lie as he speaks it.
***
Thrice more he goes to the tavern that month. Each time he looks for Thorongil; each time he is disappointed. He leaves by himself the first two times, but on his third visit he trysts with another man to quell the roiling in his stomach, a merchant with shifty eyes and onions on his breath.
Their coupling is a quick moment in the alley behind the tavern, all fumbled hands and awkward angles. Release, when it comes, is unsatisfying. Mercifully, the merchant does not remark upon the name Boromir cries out as he spends.
He gives up on the tavern then, although he knows he will be back eventually. Even the brief release it brings him is not worth the gnawing shame in his stomach, the ashen taste in his mouth. He wills himself to forget the tavern and Thorongil both. But in the depths of the night he lies in his lonely bed and succumbs to the memories despite his best efforts. He takes himself in hand, strokes, and remembers.
In this, at least, he is afforded the smallest of mercies: the cold stone of the citadel offers no censure as he spends with the name of a man on his breath.