River Water

River Water

Posted: August 2004
Title: River Water
Author: Liz (Elisabeth)
Type: FCS
Characters: Boromir/???
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: This story was inspired by Tolkien, and the characters are his.
Timeline: After ring war
Warnings: Death fic

Summary: Boromir is back, and everything has changed

*****

It is like a cold hard ball twisting inside of his gut; the feeling of his hands moving in his hair like weeds from the river. Nights and days the sensations would differ from the scent of earth and water filling a room, to water dripping onto his face. These had no explanation yet he was certain of what it was. He had returned, not completely but in some way he was here. His wife knows that something had happened, was happening, or was going to happen. A change that was so subtle that it was almost undetectable but there it was. A veil had settled over the sun for him and now nothing seemed so bright or colourful as it did before. Because he can feel the one he had lost returning.

Everyday it grew stronger, and now as he sleeps he dreams he could feel being held in arms that are cold and wet from the falls of Rauros. Last week he had opened his eyes and for that first brief moment between awake and asleep, saw him there by the doorway; a silhouette that became nothing as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. Just shadows from the hallway, yet as he sat there in the coolness of his bed chamber he could not remember opening the door. Shadows now have taken on a different meaning to him; in a place in the back of his mind he is sure that they follow him throughout the house.

He is unsure what this will mean, though he is certain that everything will change. His wife told him last night that she wishes to go to visit her kin, and with a guilty relief he has agreed to it. But she will go without him, and this he knows she is guilty over; he is not the only one who is relieved she is leaving. The presence in their house is driving her out, for she is unwelcome in her husband's bed. Not because of him, but because the shadows that caress him also follow her throughout the house; and those shadows cast dark foreboding shapes upon her dress. Shapes that remind them of things that are better left unsaid between them.

Night falls now, another of the countless he has seen fall and he prepares for bed. He does not know what will happen tonight and he wishes that there will be nothing, will never be anything ever again. He knows that this will not happen, but it is the not knowing precisely what that frightens him most of all. Lying down on the damp sheets he closes his eyes, listening to the sound of the river that is hundreds of leagues away.

Hands, wet and cold that are caressing him in a way that he had almost forgotten. Even now in his dream he can feel the grief giving weight to Boromir, making him feel heavy and real. Unsure of whether to try and wake or to let this happen and to remember it as it once was he remains unmoving. Or tries to be as a mouth, or the sensation of a mouth brushes against his lips and the pain of losing Boromir once again makes open his eyes. The sight upon opening them chills his blood to the same coolness as river water. The same water which is now dripping down onto his face. Breathing is no longer an option as the dark form on top of him moves lower down on his body. Opening his mouth, a small sound comes from his throat but he cannot decide what he would have said. With tears blurring his sight, he turns his face away as his body slowly cools with the lower temperature of his lover. This is only a dream, he reminds himself, yet as he finds release he knows now with a cold hard ball of certainty in his stomach that it is not a dream. Boromir has come back.

And everything has changed.

*****

THE END

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to: Liz (Elisabeth)