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It’s the start of June, and summer is nearly here, and in Faramir’s front yard the hydrangeas are starting to bloom, white flowers the size of his hand. Faramir isn’t at home, though; he’s in the waiting room of the psych ward at Minas Tirith hospital, scuffing his Converse against the tile, listening to some politician on the news promise to protect local jobs from the immigrants coming in to steal them.
His ass is starting to hurt. He’s got another appointment with the pure oxygen machine soon. Dad obviously doesn’t want to see him. He wants to go - he doesn’t know where he wants to go, but he wants to leave this hospital. He’s only been here a day and a half, but even that feels like too much. He’s just started to get up when a family rushes past and he has to sit back down again. A girl with her arm in a sling and her brother, also Desi, arguing in tense, quiet voices. They’re speaking Punjabi, which he’s notoriously bad at, so he only understands one word out of three. The girl is unhappy, though. She’s in a hospital gown and a green hoodie a few sizes too big and is holding it tight around herself as she talks, like a source of comfort. She’s about a head shorter than Faramir, hair pulled back into a frizzing ponytail, built like she does soccer or track. Faramir notices, almost embarrassed at himself for thinking of something like that in a time like this, that despite the nasty bruise on her face, she is very beautiful.
“Just - three more days, while you heal and I get the house ready for you and Mamma,” the brother says in English, pronouncing ‘Mamma’ the way that means ‘mother’s brother.’ “Then you can come home, I promise.”
The girl draws her shoulders back and sets her jaw. “Fine. Not like anyone listens to me anyways.”
The brother gives her a look Faramir can’t read, then kisses her on the forehead and leaves. The girl sits down in a waiting room chair, two away from Faramir, and says flatly, without looking at him, “I’m guessing you understood all of that?”
“No,” Faramir says. “We speak Urdu at home. All I got was when you called him a kutta.”
The girl ignores his joke and says, “They won’t let me leave. I want to go home.”
“They won’t let me leave, either,” Faramir says, not mentioning that his home is the worst place he can think of going right now.
She looks at him for the first time. Her eyes are very dark. “Why are you here?”
“Carbon monoxide poisoning,” he says. Considers asking why she is, and then realizes if she’s coming out of the psych ward, there aren’t many reasons she could be. “I’m Faramir.”
“Éowyn.”
“Hi, Éowyn. I have three dollars in change, want to go to the vending machine?”
“No, I want to leave and never come back to this place again. They keep telling me to lie in bed, and I want to be with my brother,” she says. And then, like a girl much younger: “The window in my room faces a wall.”
“I can’t help you bring him back here,” Faramir says. “But I know a better window, if you want me to take you.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Éowyn snaps. She lifts her eyebrows, face full of scorn. “Are you seriously hitting on me right now?”
Damn. He had been wanting, but he hadn’t been planning! He’s not a dick! “Honestly?”
“Obviously.”
“I do think you’re very beautiful,” he says, his face so hot he’s sure she can see it through the brown of his skin. “But mostly I’m lonely, and I’ve had a really shit week, and you’re the only person I’ve met my own age. Mostly, I just want a friend.”
“I don’t want a friend,” Éowyn says, and gets up, and walks down the hall to what must be her room. Faramir goes and gets his oxygen treatment, then goes to his favourite window (in his mind, his window), in a hallway near the back of the hospital, so quiet he’s often the only one there. It looks east over the highway exit to the hospital, so there aren’t any buildings crowding it. This time at night, he can see the horizon turn orange, then pink, then navy.
Faramir spends most of the next day at his window, too, sitting on the bench watching the cars rush past below. Around mid-afternoon, he’s joined by a short, round-faced, East Asian kid named Merry, also wearing a sling, also looking pretty banged up. He finds out pretty quickly that isn’t a coincidence - yesterday, he, Éowyn, and Éowyn’s uncle were all attacked together.
“Yeah, some guy with a gun who said he was going to kill Mr. Théoden,” Merry explains enthusiastically, not seeming to realize this is kind of personal stuff to be telling a stranger. “Mr. Théoden had this meeting thing and me and Éowyn tagged along, and he shot Mr. Théoden and tried to kill us too. Me and Éowyn totally kicked his ass, though. Well, mostly Éowyn - she does, like, martial arts or something.”
All of a sudden, Merry gets very somber. “Actually, I wish I hadn’t made that sound like it was a funny story. It was really scary and I’m kind of fucked up over it. Mr. Théoden got really, really hurt. Like, bad enough that for a while we thought he wouldn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry,” Faramir says, and puts a hand carefully on Merry’s left shoulder (the one that hadn’t formerly been dislocated).
“I’m trying to be chill about it - my little cousin is coming to visit me soon and I’d feel so bad if he were worried,” Merry says. “But, uh. I’m going to remember that gun pointing at my face until the day I die.”
“I know what you mean,” says Faramir, who still hasn’t called Boromir to tell him what happened, who woke up yesterday with his heart thudding, convinced all over again that he was in his bedroom unable to breathe. “Is he in jail?”
“I don’t know where he is,” Merry says. “Éowyn shot him - maybe he’s at a hospital somewhere. I know it’s not this one, though. Éomer made sure of that.”
“Are you talking about me?” someone says behind them, annoyed. Éowyn is there, looking worn, still in that oversized green hoodie over her hospital gown. The front of it says Edoras Stallions - a high school team, probably. Faramir scoots over on the bench, and Merry pats the seat between them. Éowyn comes near, hesitates, and sits on Merry’s far side. Faramir isn’t offended. He does notice how the sky casts blue patches of light onto her black hair, though.
“They’re letting me go tonight,” Merry says happily to Éowyn, hooking an arm around her waist.
“Are you still staying with us?” she asks, letting him lean into her side (he’s about a head shorter than her). They seem like good friends. He supposes surviving a near-death experience together bonds you.
“I don’t live here, I’m just in town for the next month or so,” he quickly explains to Faramir. “I’m from the Shire - that’s like 6 hours away driving. It’s okay, my friend Aragorn is getting an apartment here and he said I could crash at his place. That’s where my little cousin Pippin is taking me.”
“I don’t suppose you mean Peregrin Took?” Faramir asks, and at Merry’s nod, says, “I know him! He saved my life!”
“Really? Shit, small world! You should come over tonight then, we’ll have a party,” Merry says. “Éowyn, you should come too - Aragorn will be there!”
He says Aragorn with a peculiar emphasis - Éowyn obviously likes this guy. Faramir is a little disappointed.
“I’m still stuck here,” Faramir admits. “Doctor said two more days, at least.”
“Me too,” Éowyn says, hunching further into her hoodie.
“What? But you just got beat up like I did. Why aren’t they letting you go home?” Merry says.
“Because I was an idiot and told the truth to the psychiatrist they brought in to talk to me and now they think I’m going to kill myself,” Éowyn snaps. “Which I’m not.”
A beat of silence, before Faramir says, carefully, “You’re not?”
“I want to, but I’m not going to do that to Éomer,” she says. Then, when Merry hugs her tighter, protests: “It’s not like I had a plan to slit my wrists or whatever! I just mentioned that if a car came speeding towards me I probably wouldn’t dodge out of the way, and now I’m scheduled for a depression screening! And now my whole family knows I’m screwed up in the head, and everyone is going to be so ashamed.”
“I think the important people in your family, like your brother, love you too much to ever be ashamed of you,” Faramir says, a little aware he’s saying what he wishes he could say to his own father, and that this isn’t about Éowyn at all. “And everyone else would much rather be ashamed of you than be grieving your death, even if they don’t admit it.”
Éowyn looks at him over Merry’s head, jaw loose. Faramir can’t read the subtleties of her expressions yet, can’t connect those to her train of thought. He’s realizing that he wants to learn, though. She shakes her head, says, “You’re so fucking weird,” disentangles herself from Merry, and leaves.
Pippin arrives to take Merry home, and Faramir spends another day alternating between waiting to see if Dad will talk to him, breathing in pure oxygen, scrolling through political analysis that promises Sauron (the guy trying to kick out immigrants) will win, and sitting at his window. He feels kind of nebulously shitty, and doesn’t know how to fix it. He’s leaving the hospital today, to take the bus to his house and try to figure out what happens next. He’s dreading it. He’s so afraid he’s going to step in his childhood home and remember suffocating on the floor where he and Boromir used to play with Legos.
Strangely enough, Éowyn comes to his window again. He suspects that, despite all her insistence that she wants to be left alone, some part of her knows she needs company.
She sits beside Faramir, leaving a bit of distance between them, and starts to silently watch the cars on the exit ramp. Today she’s in real clothes. Track pants and a white T-shirt, her hoodie tied around her waist. Her hair is a mess - in a clumsy ponytail, frizzy and greasy, strands falling into her eyes. With her cast, though, it’s impressive she even did that much. Surprised at himself for saying it, Faramir says, “Do you want me to fix your hair for you?”
“What, really?” she says, looking skeptically at his fade.
“Yeah,” he says. “My cousin Lothloriel’s brothers have no patience, so whenever her mom is busy and she needs nice hair she makes me do it. Look.”
He scrolls through his phone and finds a picture of the back of Lothloriel’s head, when she made him braid it for some school dance - boxer braids, even and symmetrical and so tight there aren’t any flyaways at all.
“You took a picture of that?” Éowyn says, laughing a little.
“I was proud of it!” Faramir says defensively. “I did a really good job, look at how tight that weave is!”
Éowyn shrugs. “If you’re sure, but I haven’t washed it in like five days, it’s greasy and tangled,” she warns.
Faramir gets up to stand behind her on the bench. The grease isn’t too bad, but it is pretty tangled. She sits up very straight as Faramir combs his fingers through. They get caught a bit at the ends. Her hair is ridiculously long, reaching past her hips. “Let me know if I hurt you,” he says.
“It’s fine,” she says, but she is sitting up very straight and very stiff. He remembers what Merry said about the man who attacked them, and realizes how frightening it must be to have a stranger behind her only a couple days after.
“I can tie it back quickly if you don’t want me to braid it,” he offers.
“It’s driving me insane, I need it out of the way,” she says. “Just do a good job.”
“What school do you go to?” he asks, parting her hair all the way back and not thinking at all about sindoor.
“I’m starting at Ithilien in the fall,” she says.
“That’s my school!” Faramir says, before freezing halfway through tying the left section out of the way and feeling gross. “Wait, how old are you?”
“Nineteen,” she says, and he breathes easy - it’s fine to have a crush on a nineteen-year-old at twenty, but having one on a seventeen-year-old isn’t. “I took a gap year to save enough money to study away from home, but then I had to use most of it for something else. What are you studying?”
“I’m going into my third year for English literature,” Faramir says, pulling the very start of the braid tight. “Tell me if I hurt you.”
“How did your parents feel about that?” Éowyn asks with morbid curiosity.
“Oh, Dad was furious,” Faramir says. “I’m wasting four years of my life reading books! He kept trying to make me switch to engineering, like my brother.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I hate engineering,” Faramir says, and pushes lightly on her head so she’ll look at the ground and Faramir can finish the bottom of the braid. “I could be a really bad engineer and be miserable my entire life, or a really succesful English student and enjoy myself. And at the end of the day, it’s me studying, not him. I should get to decide what I study.”
She shakes her head in disbelief, leaving Faramir to move his hands with the motion of her head so as to not wreck the braid. “I’ve never met someone who cares less about lok kya kehenge than you. And that worked on him?”
“No, he spent like three weeks not speaking to me until my brother convinced him that a son with a B.A. is better than a son with no degree at all. I hope I’m not hurting you,” he says, tying the end of it with the hairtie and starting on the other side. “What are you studying?”
“You aren’t. And accounting.”
“You don’t sound that enthusiastic about it,” Faramir says, carefully working through a stubborn tangle.
“It’s what my uncle wants - he runs a trucking company and wants me to keep the books for him.” Faramir breaks through the tangle and she hisses in pain. “That did hurt!”
“I’m so sorry!” Faramir says, his hands stilling.
“You can keep going,” she says. While he does, she continues, “It’s not like I have anything better I can do.”
“What would you have done if you studied away from home?”
She shrugs. “Didn’t know, didn’t care. I just don’t want to be here anymore.”
Since she only has one hairtie, he combines the tails of braids into one. “Done,” he says.
She reaches her hand up to feel and says, surprised, “You actually did a decent job.”
“I told you,” he says. Unthinkingly, he traces his fingers along the ridges of her braids and says, “Look, it makes a heart shape.”
Éowyn tilts her head back to look at him. Her eyelashes are ridiculously long. The worst week of Faramir’s entire life, and he’s spending half his waking hours thinking about this girl. It’s absurd.
His phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out to check and gives a shocked little inhale.
“What is it?” Éowyn asks, her brow furrowing.
Faramir shakes his head - half to stop her worry, half out of disbelief. “My uncle is here.”
Imrahil Uncle, when he sees Faramir, puts a hand on the back of his neck and pulls him in for a hug so quickly that Faramir barely has time to register human contact before it’s gone again. The first thing he says is, “Why didn’t you call me sooner? Have you even called your brother yet?”
Faramir shrugs. “How did you find us?”
“Your neighbours,” Imrahil Uncle says. Faramir assumes that means Boromir’s friend Beregond, who carried Dad and Faramir out of the house while Pippin called 911, then tried to find some relatives to look after them, and Ioreth Aunty, who knows every Pakistani in the country, contacted him. “So you haven’t told Boromir? Why not?”
“Are you taking me home?” Faramir says.
“Faramir!” Imrahil Uncle barks. Faramir flinches, and looks at him for the first time. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Faramir looks around them, sees that they’re alone, and says, in Urdu, “It wasn’t an accident.”
“What?”
“I saw the stove before I got out - all the burners were on full. Dad put them like that on purpose. He tried to kill himself. Or maybe he tried to kill us both. I’m not sure if he knew I was home.”
The colour drains from Imrahil Uncle’s face, leaving him the same ashy shade as a paper bag. “So he’s in the psychology ward.”
“Psychiatric care,” Faramir corrects, so that Imrahil Uncle isn’t embarrassed later in front of the doctors. “I couldn’t tell anyone - if he knew anyone knew -”
“He wouldn’t be able to survive the shame,” Imrahil Uncle finishes, knowing his brother-in-law and knowing what his own reaction would be.
“I know it’s stupid,” Faramir admits. “But I was hoping the doctors would fix him, and we could go home, and we’d never have to talk about it and no one would ever find out.”
“We’ll try to keep it quiet,” Imrahil Uncle says. “But I don’t think it will be that easy.”
Imrahil Uncle has taken the week off work, to figure out what needs to be done with them. He drives Faramir home. When he pulls into the driveway, Faramir is surprised; the front door looks intact, when Faramir hazily remembers Mr. Gandalf breaking the window so he could open it from the inside. And when he steps inside, the whole house smells stubbornly like lavender air freshener.
“Your brothers and sister were here and cleaned up,” Imrahil Uncle says, meaning his children, Faramir’s cousins. “I sent them home already.”
Overall, this is probably good - Faramir’s cousins are loud, and nosy, and Faramir doesn’t particularly want to interact with anyone right now. On the other hand, he really wants a hug. He scrubs his face so he doesn’t get the urge to cry.
Imrahil Uncle, misinterpreting, says, “You should go rest. I’ll find something to eat and decide what we’re going to do about your father.”
Faramir doesn’t have enough fight left in him to protest, so he goes upstairs. He takes one step into his room - the rug that he vomited on has been removed, his laptop resting neatly on the bed instead of knocked onto the floor where he left it. The smell of lavender is even stronger here. He’d been able to go through the rest of the house, but in his bedroom it all comes back - crawling on his stomach to his door, convinced he was dying.
“Fuck,” he mutters, and steps back out of his room and crosses the hall to Boromir’s, unused since September. He crawls under his brother’s blue duvet and falls asleep with his jeans and hoodie still on.
Life doesn’t go back to normal in the next few weeks, but it does its best to pretend it does. Faramir starts his summer job assembling falafel and shawarma for an uncle who goes to his mosque. It’s not a bad job - his shift partner is nice and has decent music taste, and lets him check the small TV set on the news station for updates on the election. He texts Boromir, who’s having a fantastic summer in Rivendell, making good money and spending time with his friends. Boromir doesn’t suspect anything, still - Dad doesn’t use FaceTime and mostly only calls from over Faramir’s shoulder, and Faramir keeps their calls short enough that Boromir can never ask for Dad. Imrahil Uncle regularly hints that he should tell his brother, but Faramir keeps pushing it off.
Imrahil Uncle makes the hour-long commute every day from his job to the hospital to check on Dad (who still won’t see Faramir). Dad has been moved to a medium-term care facility. He tells Imrahil Uncle the bare minimum, and Imrahil Uncle tells Faramir even less. Faramir chafes under it, feeling fifteen again and furious that he had no control over his own life. He hates the person he was at fifteen, who picked every opportunity to fight with Dad and turned poor Boromir into their peacemaker. So as not to become that little shit, he picks up as many shifts as he can and spends most of his spare time reading on various benches at the park beside his work, avoiding his problems.
He’s on one such bench on a Thursday afternoon during his half-hour, splitting his attention between Parable of the Sower and the song on his earbuds: aaja, oh mere jaan-e-jaan, aaja.
Someone taps him on the shoulder. He flinches, loses his page in the book, and looks up to see Éowyn, mere dil hai pyasa still playing in his ears.
“What are you doing here?” she says, a little combative about it.
“I work at Shawarma Max,” he says, pulling out his earbuds. He’d genuinely believed he’d never see Éowyn again, and he’s delighted.
“Oh,” Éowyn says, deflating. “My therapist is here. I don’t think I need one, but my brother makes me.”
“I’m glad you’re getting help,” Faramir says, which seems to freak her out, because she grabs his phone from where it’s lying on the bench and turns it on to investigate his song choice.
“Swet Shop Boys?” she says. “You idolize Riz Ahmed, don’t you.”
“He’s a genius!” Faramir protests. “That verse on Half Moghul Half Mowgli -”
“Now if only he could write a song that was actually music instead of political commentary about his immigrant crisis,” Eowyn says, sitting down beside him.
“Oh, well, we can’t all be Badshah,” he says. “How does that one song go - body teri -”
“Okay his Bollywood is crap but some of his independent work is-” Éowyn starts, before stopping to watch Faramir laugh harder than he has in weeks.
“I can’t believe you listen to Badshah and you’re laughing about my music taste,” Faramir says, clutching his stomach.
Éowyn scowls and starts looking through her phone. She pulls Faramir’s earbuds out of his own phone, plugs it into hers, and holds it out to him. “I do not have shit taste,” she insists.
“You’re so competitive about everything,” Faramir complains, looking through his own downloads for a song he wants to make her listen to and landing on Arooj Aftab.
He’s expecting hip-hop, or rock, but instead he gets dreamy R&B, a girl singing lyrics that wander like trains of thought. Better day than yesterday, like a prayer, and he thinks he understands a little more about Éowyn. Which makes him realize just how much of him she’ll understand if she takes the time to listen properly to his own song.
When the song is over, he lingers until her own is done - Mohabbat, the one he’d chosen to show her, isn’t short - and then holds out her phone to her, saying, “My half-hour is up - I do have to go.”
“I haven’t proved my taste is better yet,” Éowyn protests. Faramir gathers his courage, navigates to the phone app, and calls his own cell, hanging up once the call goes through.
“Text me about it after my shift?” he asks, and gives the phone to her. “My WhatsApp uses the same number.”
“Maybe I will,” Éowyn says. “I might not, though.”
“I’m sure your social life is packed,” Faramir teases.
“Between the broken arm, the injured uncle, the therapy, and the trauma? Yeah, I’m having my hot girl summer,” she says. “It’s a miracle I managed to fit this conversation in.”
But she does text him that night, a playlist of rap (both Western and Desi), bhangra, and R&B called the long goodbye was shit. He works for three hours refining and sends her one full of melancholic indie, Coke Studio sessions, and a lot of Swet Shop Boys. He calls it still better than badshah.
Boromir is starting to get suspicious - it’s been almost three weeks since he talked to Dad, which is too long for Faramir to still act like they just keep missing each other. So Faramir accompanies Imrahil Uncle to the care facility that Saturday and pushes his way into Dad’s room, because this has gone on for long enough.
He stops in his tracks, seeing Dad lying in his bed. Faramir’s whole life, his father has worn slacks, collared shirts, and a tie as his daily uniform. Even instilled it in the two of them - all the pictures of himself and Boromir as kids have them in khakis and polos. Now, though, Dad is wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, neither with drawstrings. He looks strange and weak.
“I don’t want you here,” Dad says, turning to face the wall.
“Bhaiya’s getting suspicious,” he says (he calls his brother his real name when they’re alone, but Dad gets annoyed when he thinks Faramir isn’t showing proper respect). “You need to call him right now.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“I thought you’d want to tell him yourself.”
“Fine,” Dad says, and gets out of bed and goes over to a chair against the wall, where the camera can be angled so that it’s not visible he’s in a hospital.
Faramir dials, and Boromir answers, sitting on the couch of his apartment with the TV playing a sports game in the background. “Hey, Faramir!” he says, and then calls, “Théodred, say ‘hi’ to my family.”
Boromir’s ‘roommate’ (Faramir is one of the only people in the world who knows they’re dating) pokes his head into the frame, waves, and leaves.
“Dad’s home from work for once, come talk to him,” Faramir says, and hands the phone over. He watches his father’s face change - soften just a little bit from quiet, hard misery into something more tender. Dad’s always liked Boromir better, always listened to him more. Boromir says it’s because Dad and Faramir are too alike, while Boromir takes after their mom. Faramir thinks it’s because he and Dad are too different, Faramir’s assimilation and Dad’s tradition creating an insurmountable gulf between them.
Faramir stands in the doorway to give them a little bit of privacy. The local news channel is analyzing the advance polling for the election. Sauron is almost ten points ahead. Faramir is pretty sure that life is about to get a lot harder for brown and Black people in this city.
He listens to his family make small talk - Boromir’s job, news from home. They’re both lying to each other’s faces, Faramir knows. Boromir claims his life is working, studying, and sleeping, when Faramir knows he’s out with his secret live-in boyfriend at some party almost every night. Dad says work is normal and life is normal when he’s spent the last three weeks in a facility recovering from a mental breakdown. Still, they both seem happier for doing it, once they hang up ten minutes later.
“You didn’t tell him, either,” Faramir says.
“He’s busy,” Dad says. “When I’m better and he comes home to visit, I can tell him then that I was sick for a short while.”
A few breaths of miserable silence.
“I know you don’t want me here,” Faramir says. “I’ll go.”
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” Dad says.
“I know,” Faramir says, and then loses the battle he’s been having and asks, desperately, “Did you know I was home?”
He and Dad had gotten into the worst fight they’d ever had the night before, Faramir storming out while Dad yelled at him not to bother coming back. Faramir had snuck back into his room in the small hours of the night, fallen asleep until mid-morning, and woken to the worst headache of his life, a pounding heart, and no breath in his lungs.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Dad says, looking at his hands clenched in his lap.
“Dad! Did you try to kill me?” Faramir shouts, too loud in the small space.
Dad looks up at him bleakly. It's the same face he used after Ammi died: like he's gone past all grief into the numbness beyond. “I would never want to hurt you now. I’m sorry.”
Faramir sucks in a breath. Absurdly, the first thought he has is that his father has never apologized to him before.
“Okay,” Faramir says. “Bye.”
He blows right past Imrahil Uncle, saying that he can stay for longer and Faramir will take the bus home, and ignores Imrahil Uncle calling after him. He takes a seat at the back and puts on his hoodie despite the heat, pulling it up so no one can see his face.
Dad apologized to him.
Faramir wants to forgive him. He knows it’s ridiculous to forgive someone who could have killed you because they apologized, but Dad is sick. Faramir believes he didn’t know what he was doing. His worry, though, is what else he forgives. He’s spent so long resenting Dad for beating him, and trying to force him into engineering, and all the little cruel things he’s told Faramir his whole life. Can he forgive Dad for nearly killing him but still resent Dad for calling him useless? He thinks Boromir would tell him to forgive it all. He thinks all his white friends would tell him not to forgive any of it.
Some white lady keeps sneaking glances at him. Nothing to see here, just a twenty-year-old brown guy crying on public transit, he thinks, and decides he should probably switch buses before the lady offers to help him escape his oppressive religion or whatever.
He sees Éowyn next the following Thursday, near the end of June, Faramir sweating through his T-shirt and wishing he was allowed to wear shorts. She comes into the Shawarma Max, orders him to wait an hour to take his break, and asks what his bubble tea order is. “Milk tea with pearls, half sugar and half ice,” he says helplessly, to which she screws up her face in disgust.
“It’s supposed to be a fun drink, not your old man chai,” she says, but an hour later when she comes back to the shop she’s carrying it in her hand, along with some bright orange slush thing for herself. She watches the latest news on the election while he makes them both wraps - Mr. Shah complains about him eating the merchandise on the job, but never says he can’t - and calls out to his shift partner that he’s taking his break, and they go.
She sits on the top of the park bench they were at last time, feet on the seat. Faramir sits the normal way, looking up at her. She’s sillhouetted against the bright sky.
“This is pretty good,” she says, mouth full, as they open up their shawarmas. “Properly spicy.”
Faramir had put an excessive amount of hot sauce on hers, mostly just to see if she’d muscle her way through it or give in, but she seems to be genuinely enjoying it. It makes him laugh. “How was your week?”
“Really shit,” Éowyn says. “The guy who attacked me is being tried, and I had to go to court and talk about it. Had my brother and uncle staring at me the whole time. You know my uncle cried on the way home? Kept apologizing for not noticing anything. Worst thing I’d ever seen.”
“Merry told me a little bit, but I don’t know the full story,” Faramir prompts.
They’re silent for a few moments. Faramir chases a black pearl around the bottom of his cup with his straw. He’s about to backtrack when Éowyn says, “He used to work for my uncle.”
“We run a long-distance trucking company,” she says. “When I was sixteen he got hired to manage the books. My uncle wanted me to take them over when I was old enough, so I spent a lot of time with him. I hated it. He never did anything, just looked, and I didn’t know how to explain that I didn’t like the way he looked at me. My uncle was drinking a lot at the time, so it was pretty much this guy and my cousin running the company. And then my cousin went to university, so it was just me and my brother, but Éomer is only a year older than me so he couldn’t do much about it. He wouldn’t do anything when Éomer was here, but whenever Éomer was gone he’d be touchy, you know? Nothing where I could call him out on it, just standing too close or grabbing my arm or touching my back or something.”
“I’m so sorry,” Faramir says quietly. “That must have been such a frightening way to grow up.”
She shakes her head. “A few months ago, some friends convinced my uncle to cut out the drinking, and then he realized this guy was actually stealing a lot of money from us, and fired him. All my savings to leave went into keeping the company afloat. And I thought I’d never see him again, but I still had all this guilt and fear and rage inside of me. And after he attacked us a few weeks ago, and hurt my uncle, I just kept thinking that maybe I was better, and safer, dead.”
“Are they going to lock him up?” Faramir asks.
“I don’t know,” Éowyn says. “I really hope they do. Because if they don’t, I think Éomer will kill him.”
“And you won’t?”
“I already faced him down, and it was the hardest, scariest thing I’ve ever done. Now, I just don’t ever want to see him again.”
“My dad tried to kill himself with our gas stove,” Faramir says, halfway amazed at the words coming out of his mouth. “He still won’t answer if he knew I was in danger while he was doing it. My older brother doesn’t know.”
“Why not?” Eowyn says. She moves a little closer. The side of her leg brushes his arm.
“My mom died when I was pretty young,” Faramir says. “He’s only a few years older, but he stepped up, acted like my protector - hell, like my parent. And I let him do it, way after I was old enough to know better. Our whole childhood, he was so perfect and so miserable. When he went away to university, he was happy for the first time in his life. It - it’s kind of terrible, to know that the person you love most hurts around you.”
“Shit,” Éowyn says quietly. “That’s probably how my own brother feels.”
“I know that if I tell him, he’ll move back to town, and he’ll never leave. He’ll work a job that he hates and he’ll look after Dad and stop me from fighting him all day, and never do a single thing for himself. I can’t do that to him. This way, either Dad gets better and doesn’t need it, or he can remember this summer as a good one before everything went bad.”
And while Faramir would never out his brother, this is entirely because Boromir is gay. His brother still insists that he’s going to stop dating and go back in the closet once he starts living at home again. Dad, of course, would never accept his sons being queer - and to have it be Boromir, who is perfect, would break his heart. University was Boromir’s only chance to be out, to be in love. Faramir wants to give him as long as he can.
“He’ll be furious at you,” Éowyn says. “I’d never forgive Éomer for that.”
“I know,” Faramir says defeatedly. “I can’t turn back now, though.”
June melts into July, and the election comes closer as the world gets so hot Faramir feels like he’ll die just stepping out the door. Merry somehow found him online the first day they met, and for the past week he’s been bugging Faramir to come over to his friend Aragorn’s house. Faramir finally caves the Wednesday night before election day, because sitting in his empty house and watching campaign promises that threaten his family feels like torture.
He makes his way to a run-down apartment complex and buzzes in. Merry’s voice encourages him to come up, while Pippin Took appears on one of the balconies above (crowded with a few bicycles, a clothesline, workout gear, and several overgrown houseplants) and waves at him like a madman. Faramir makes his way up, and a good-looking guy, lightskinned Desi, answers. He’s got startlingly light eyes, and Faramir has to mentally add another item to the ‘signs you might be bisexual’ list he keeps in the back of his mind.
“Hey,” he says. “I’m Aragorn. Come on in.”
Shit! This guy is Aragorn? Faramir can’t compete at all!
He comes in and sits on the couch while Aragorn disappears to the kitchen, feeling weird and awkward. It’s busy in here - Aragorn has two other people staying with him, some quiet twink named Legolas and a friendly guy with cornrows named Gimli. Merry and Pippin keep talking about some mutual friends over the advanced polling analysis on the TV. He recognizes who they’re talking about - Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee, who he briefly met last year. When he mentions this, he’s bombarded with questions - apparently they got roped up with this sketchy company on the other side of town and no one has heard from them in ages.
“It’s Sauron’s company,” Pippin says. “Frodo’s trying to take it down from the inside!”
“Actually, we’re all trying to help make sure he loses the election,” Merry says. “Aragorn organized it all - we’ve spent a ton of time registering people to vote, and tomorrow we’re spending all day giving people rides to the polls and acting as translators.”
“Cool!” Faramir says. “I only have a shift in the afternoon tomorrow, can I help?”
“I’d love that,” Aragorn says, coming back in with a bowl of chips. “Everyone else is crashing here so we can leave early in the morning - you can, too.”
“I don’t know, I haven’t brought anything,” says Faramir, who wants to, but feels like Aragorn is just being polite.
There’s another knock at the door, and in comes the boy he saw a few weeks ago in the hospital, Éowyn’s brother Éomer. And after that - Éowyn herself.
Faramir stands up, then sits down, feeling like an idiot. As her brother enthusiastically greets everyone else in the room, Éowyn smiles at him.
“Sure you don’t want to stay?” Merry asks, amused. No one is at home to realize he’s gone.
“I’ll stay,” Faramir says.
They go to bed pretty early, all sleeping on the floor of Aragorn’s sitting room. There aren’t enough blankets or pillows for them, so they’re all shivering a little. Éowyn takes a spot against the wall, her brother between her and everyone else. Faramir, whose sleep schedule is terrible, is up way after everyone else, staring up at the ceiling in the dark and worrying about tomorrow. He’s debating if it’s rude to go poking around Aragorn’s kitchen. Finally, he’s too hungry to resist it, and goes. The fridge is bare, pretty much - between the five people currently living here, the political action being organized, and the impromptu sleepover tonight, they’ve eaten all the food. He resigns himself to waiting it out - not like he didn’t do it at Ramadan a couple months ago, he’s pretty used to hunger - and heads back to his spot on the floor.
“Are you awake?” Éowyn’s voice suddenly says when he’s settling in again. Faramir sits up cross-legged to see her. She’s still lying down, arms in her sweater to hold her body heat better.
“Yeah,” he says. “Hungry.”
“Me, too,” she admits. “And fucking freezing.”
“You guys drove?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Want to go get food?”
She sits up. “At two in the morning?”
He shrugs.
She shrugs, too. “Fuck it.”
She leaves a text for her brother so he doesn’t worry, steals the keys to their pickup truck from his jacket pocket, and they end up at a 24-hour Taco Bell in his neighbourhood after driving for ages trying to find halal and non-beef options open at this time. They buy enough tacos for breakfast tomorrow and split a bargain veggie meal for two in the parking lot, sitting on the bed of the truck in silence. Faramir can barely keep his eyes open, and Éowyn isn’t doing much better.
“We should go before we’re too tired to drive,” he says. Éowyn yawns, stretches, and nods, making her way to the driver’s seat - Faramir had tried to drive at first, because she’s still in a cast, but she’d argued him down. He has no idea how to drive a pickup truck, anyways.
“Back to Aragorn’s apartment, where he’s too cheap to pay for another few degrees of heating,” she complains, still shivering.
They’re only five minutes away. “Hold on - I know where we can get blankets,” he says, and directs her to his house. She idles in the driveway, while he runs inside to the linen closet, piling his arms full of blankets. When Ammi was alive, they always had some cousin’s family staying with them, so they still have enough bedding to host a small army. On impulse, he makes a trip to Ammi’s closet before he leaves.
“Holy shit,” she says, leaning all the way across the seat to open the door for him. “So many blankets.”
“This is for you, if you want to borrow it,” he says, handing her the dark blue shawl on top of the pile. “I remember it being pretty warm.”
“Thanks,” she says, wrapping it around herself. “My mom used to have something like this, I think.”
“It was my mom’s,” he says. She turns to him, her dark hair melding into the dark fabric of the shawl. “She used to let me and Boromir use it to play tug-of-war when we were little - I used to think it was magic, because it never ripped.”
“Probably you two were just weak,” she says, but she tucks it tight around herself.
They go back before anyone realises they’re gone and spend a few minutes draping blankets over their friends while trying not to laugh and wake them. When they finally lie down, wrapped up in blankets, they keep stealing glances at each other until she finally falls asleep. Faramir is still so worried about tomorrow, but having her here lessens it into something more manageable.
They wake up at dawn on an overcast, windy day, eat cold tacos while piling into Aragorn and Éomer’s cars, and make their way to the polling station, where Mr. Gandalf is waiting to organize them all. Turns out Faramir knows a ridiculous number of the people they know - and what’s more, most of them go to Imladris University, where Boromir is, and are friends with him, as well. It keeps making Faramir think things about fate - the world keeps entangling him with this group of people. Maybe it’ll let him stay with them. Faramir had always been a lonely kid, his best friend being his three-years-older brother. But he likes these people - even Aragorn, who is so kind to him that Faramir can’t even grudge him for being the guy Éowyn likes.
The day passes in a busy haze of directing strangers on the street and getting urgent calls to run to another entrance, when some aunty or uncle needs someone who speaks Urdu to help. Faramir doesn’t stop running around and talking for nearly six hours, until he has to go to work.
When his shift is over, Éowyn is waiting outside the door to the Shawarma Max, his bubble tea order in her hand. It’s sunset, though the day is still so overcast you can’t tell. They have to walk to the bus stop in a particular order because otherwise the wind whips Éowyn’s hair right into his face. Faramir tunes into the radio on his phone, where the polls are being counted. They’re about two hours into it right now, which means they have a long way to go still. Éowyn leans against his shoulder with the stop and start of the bus. The sides of their hands keep brushing.
While they’re still on the bus, the radio announces the first district has been called. They both push the earbuds further into their ears so they don’t miss it. It stays green. They both exhale as one, slumping back into their seats. Faramir realizes they’re holding hands, though he can’t say which of them started it. He doesn’t let go.
But by the time they get off the bus and have to part ways at the station - Imrahil Uncle is visiting today, so Faramir can’t go to Aragorn’s place again - two more districts have been called for Sauron. They linger in the middle of the bus depot, hands still linked discreetly between them.
“What the fuck are we going to do if he wins?” she asks. She’s turned windward, so that her hair blows away from her face.
“I don’t know,” Faramir says. “My dad would say we keep our heads down and survive it as best we can.”
“Éomer would probably say we fight, that they can’t deport us all,” Éowyn says.
“I don’t know who’s right,” Faramir says. “But I do know one thing - this isn’t going to last forever. If he wins, we vote him out next term. If he comes after our communities, we band together and keep each other safe, whatever that looks like. I don’t think that things just get worse forever, and no matter what we do it doesn’t help. I think -”
“What, that the sun keeps rising? That it’s always darkest before the dawn? That we just have to hope?” she says, raising sarcastic eyebrows.
“Yeah, to all of that!” Faramir exclaims. “On the worst week of my entire life, I met you. Bad things happen, and the world is shit - but good things happen, too. Éowyn, I know it sounds naive, but I genuinely believe that the world gets better.”
There is a confession somewhere in there, if she chooses to hear it. Éowyn is still looking up at him, the wind blowing her hair straight out behind her like a banner, and this summer he’s learned her anger and her laughter and her heartbreak, but he’s never seen this expression. He kisses the crown of her head, because he can’t help himself. She lets him.
“Log kya kehenge?” Éowyn says afterwards, as he steps back, squeezes her hand, and lets it go. They’re still in public. Anyone could see and tell their parents.
“You know I don’t care about log kya kehenge,” Faramir says, and goes before he can say something as stupid as ‘I care about you.’
Sauron loses the election. Faramir stays up at home until the results are called in the small hours of the morning, on a video call with Boromir and Théodred from their apartment. They’re tied until the final district, green and orange filling in the map of the region, until the final district goes green. On the other side of the phone call, Boromir and Théodred collapse onto their couch like puppets with their strings cut, but Faramir jumps to his feet and lets out a wild yell.
“Shit, Faramir!” Théodred says. “Quiet, you’ll wake your dad!”
“Wait,” Boromir says. He leans closer to the screen, as if it’ll help him peer into corners of the room. “Dad’s obsessed with politics. He should be watching this, too. Where is he?”
“He’s out,” Faramir says, stomach churning. “Decided to watch it with friends.”
“Dad doesn’t have friends,” Boromir says. Worry starts coming into his voice. “Faramir, where is he? Is he alright?”
“Of course he’s alright,” Faramir says. “He’s just out.”
“Say wallahi.”
Shit. “Why are you making me say wallahi?” Faramir says, careful with his words to avoid lying. “I just told you he’s out with friends.”
“You’re dodging,” Boromir says. Théodred gets up, kisses the top of Boromir’s head, and quietly leaves. Faramir waits until he’s out of earshot.
“Fine,” Faramir says. “Things aren’t okay. Dad is really, really sick.”
An hour later, Boromir (his eyes red, his mouth folded in fury) gets on the highway to start the long drive back home. Faramir, at his insistence, goes to bed, feeling so guilty and so relieved. Some childish part of him hears that his brother is coming home and is convinced that Boromir is going to solve all his problems.
He’s there by dawn. He still looks pretty angry when he climbs out of his car, Faramir barefoot on the driveway to meet him. Faramir remembers what Éowyn said - that she’d never forgive her own brother for it. But Boromir sees him, sighs, and pulls him into the longest hug he’s had since September.
And Faramir starts to sob.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says into Boromir’s shoulder, not sure if he’s apologizing for the lying or the freakout. “I thought Dad was going to die. I thought I was going to die. Bhaiya, he won’t see me, I don’t think he’s ever going to be okay again.”
“It’s alright,” Boromir says, and now he’s strong and certain. “I’m here now. I’ll fix it.”
They’re at the facility before visiting hours start, killing time in the parking lot. They talk about their jobs and the weather. They don’t talk about Dad. When there’s only five minutes before they’ll be allowed to see Dad, they fall silent, watching their feet in the parking lot: Boromir’s Air Jordans, Faramir’s Converse.
“I think I’m in love,” Faramir says, toeing at a pebble.
“Me too,” Boromir admits. Faramir looks up to grin at him. He shakes his head. “I don’t know what to do. If I tell Dad it’ll kill him.”
“Shit,” Faramir says.
“Shit,” Boromir agrees.
But when Boromir and Faramir go into the room to see Dad, there’s no dread, no betrayal. Boromir walks in and hugs him tightly. When they pull away, Dad puts his hand on Boromir’s face. “Beta,” he says, and nothing else for a minute, just watching his eldest finally home. “I don’t like your new beard.”
Boromir laughs wetly. “I’m here to bring you home, Dad. I’m going to take care of you.”
Dad’s face shutters. He lets go of Boromir and sits further up in bed. “No, no. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“You’re sick, Dad,” Faramir says, sitting down on the other side of the bed. “You need someone to take care of you. We aren’t going to leave you in this place.”
“I’m going to move home,” Boromir promises. “I got my B. Eng, I don’t need a master’s. Once you’re feeling better, maybe I can go back to school then.”
“That’s stupid,” Faramir says, who spent the entire summer lying so that Boromir could have one last month of freedom. Who, now seeing the end of that freedom for his brother, can’t accept it, no matter what the cost to Faramir himself. “You’re employable, I’m getting a degree in literature. Go back to Imladris, finish your studies. I’m going to drop out and take care of Dad.”
“You and Dad? You’ll kill each other in three weeks!” Boromir says, before remembering, and all three of them flinch. Faramir bows his head to inspect the hospital blanket. They sit in the wreckage of their family.
“Neither of you are going to take care of me,” Dad says. When they both start to protest, he barks, “Chup kar!” and sounds so close to his old self that their spines straighten and mouths shut automatically. “I’ve been talking to your Bhuas in Pakistan. I’m going to go stay with them until I’m well.”
Faramir has only met Dad’s sisters a couple times, and remembers them just as stern and capable as Dad himself. He has no doubt that they could take care of Dad, but he gapes anyway. A man of Dad’s generation, a patriarch, going to live with his sister, asking them and their husbands for help - it’s unheard of.
“We’re your sons,” Boromir says. “It’s our job to take care of you. To pay you back.”
“That’s your job when you are grown, and when I am old - but you are not grown, and I am not old.” Dad puts one hand on each of their wrists. Faramir, automatically, covers Dad’s hand with his own.
With all the gravity and solemnity that words this rare require, looking at each of them in turn, Dad says, “I love you both very much, my sons.”
Boromir starts to cry. Dad pulls his head into his shoulder, like Boromir did with Faramir only this morning. He makes eye contact with Faramir, and squeezes his hand. None of them are small men. Dad must be squished under their weight, and Boromir and Faramir are awkwardly balancing to keep all their limbs on. Still, they stay like that for nearly an hour until Boromir cries himself out.
Two weeks later, Dad boards a flight to Pakistan, promising to call when he lands so they know he’s safe. Boromir and Faramir considered going with him to help on the flight, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it - the risk of going through airport security while brown is bigger than the risk of Dad needing help that the flight attendants couldn’t provide.
Boromir’s summer job was not happy that one of their most promising interns ended up taking off most of August, as his family emergency time turns into the pre-established end of his contract, but Boromir had hated that company anyways (which he admits to Faramir after weeks of telling him that he was really enjoying his job) so he doesn’t mind burning those bridges. Apparently he knows all of Faramir’s new friends, because nearly every night finds them playing cards or video games at Aragorn’s apartment. Éowyn is there, too, and though they’ve been texting they haven’t been alone since before the election. They’ve been busy - Faramir with getting plane tickets (thankfully Dad has dual citizenship so they don’t need to worry about visas) and the trip planned, Éowyn with wrapping up the court case. Her attacker has been sentenced to fifteen years. Faramir was there when Éomer found out, and had to look awkwardly at a wall as Éomer started to cry.
Funnily enough, they find out when Boromir’s boyfriend and Éowyn’s cousin come home that they’re the same person. Éowyn has known Boromir for almost three years - they’re friends close enough that when they meet in person for the first time they hug! Éowyn only hugs her brother, cousin, and Merry! Faramir is full of delight that his two favourite people are getting along so well, and jealousy that Boromir has hugged Éowyn when he never has.
Near the end of August, everyone gathers at Aragorn's place for one final party - halfway to celebrate Frodo and Sam having finished their contracts, halfway to say goodbye before they all go back to their respective universities, to start setting up for the new school year. It's on the same day as Rakhi; Éowyn, recruits him, Boromir, and Gimli into ambushing Éomer, Theodred, and Merry in turn, calling each of them to the balcony and attacking them once the door closes. Boromir grabs them around the shoulders to stop them from running, Gimli holds their wrists steady so that Éowyn can tie red thread on, and Faramir pinches their noses shut so that when they open their mouths Éowyn can throw an M&M in. Then, smugly, she holds out her hand for money.
Gimli had been confused the first time. “It’s a tradition between brothers and sisters,” Éowyn explains. “I make a wish for their safety and give them a blessing - that’s the thread and the sweets - and then they promise to protect me forever.”
“Sounds kind of sexist,” Gimli says.
“Completely,” Éowyn agrees. “But these days protection takes the form of cash, and I want a new pair of sneakers.”
Theodred gives her a twenty and a gruff hug, Éomer (who was prepared) takes great pleasure in counting out five dollars’ worth of change exclusively in nickels and dimes, and Merry gets very emotional over the idea of being considered Éowyn’s brother and gives her a ten.
They go back inside. Aragorn, hearing what they did, laughs so hard he doubles over, then high-fives Éowyn, eyes crinkled in delight. Aragorn’s twenty-three, but that won’t stay a big age gap for long. Once he realizes how fantastic she is, he’ll be hers - how could anyone Éowyn wanted not be hers?
He goes back onto the balcony and watches the sunset turn everything gold. Someone else comes out after him - Éowyn, still and silent.
“Éowyn!” Éomer calls from inside. “Theodred and I are playing cards and I need you to tell me if he’s bluffing.”
She doesn’t go.
“Your brother’s calling you,” Faramir says. “Why aren’t you going?”
“Why do you think?” Éowyn says, something in her voice that reminds him of the way she said log kya kehenge on election night.
He turns to face her, and has to stop himself from saying ‘mash’Allah’ like a character in a film. The sun has turned her into gold - her white T-shirt, the brown of her skin and eyes. Even highlights in her hair.
“I think either the person you want to call you hasn’t called you yet - or maybe the person you want is here,” he says, the last bit rushing out. “Or maybe you aren’t sure yet, yourself. Do you still want him?”
“I thought I was in love with him,” Éowyn says. She comes to stand beside him, facing the sunset. “He helped kick that guy out, did you know that? He saved me when no one else could. But he feels sorry for me, and I can’t fucking stand it. I don’t want anyone to ever see me as a victim again.”
“Éowyn - look at me, please?”
She does. Dark eyes, a steady gaze - he thinks that’s the first thing he ever noticed about her, all those months ago, when she’d been so beautiful she’d pulled him away from his own panic and grief.
“I felt sorry for you, when I first saw you. I thought you were so sad, and I wanted to make you feel better,” Faramir admits. “I don’t feel sorry for you now. I think you’re strong, and clever, and I think you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. And I love you. Not because I feel sorry for you, not because you’re a victim. We met during the worst time in our lives, but if Boromir and Theodred had introduced us, or if Merry and Pippin had, if you were never attacked and my father had never gotten sick, I’d still love you. Éowyn - do you love me?”
And she looks at him, and she smiles. He’s made her smile before - when he told a funny joke, or when she won a competition. This is a different sort of smile. It’s joy, he realizes, as she takes his hands. “Shit, you did something to me,” she says, looking at their hands, but gradually she raises her eyes to his. ”I used to feel so hopeless. I don’t feel hopeless anymore. For the first time in my life, I can actually see a future. Faramir, I think I want to be a doctor. And I want to go to Ithilien in the fall - with you.”
Faramir is smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. Little fireworks of delight are going off in his stomach. He can’t even say anything - he raises their hands and kisses her knuckles.
She pulls her hands back and covers her face. “God, this is going to be a shitshow, my family hates Muslims and they really hate Pakistanis.”
She takes her hands away from her face and grabs onto his again, like she can’t stop herself. He shrugs - he doesn’t even have room in him to care about that right now. “That’s fine - my family hates anyone who isn’t Pakistani Muslim.”
“We’ll figure it out,” she says, and he takes her face in his hands and kisses her. She flings her arms around his neck and kisses him back, even though anyone walking on the street could see and tell their parents, even though their friends are in the other room and will come searching for them soon. She kisses him and kisses him until their necks hurt from bending and their mouths are sore, and then when they come off of the balcony into Aragorn’s sitting room, she doesn’t let go of his hand.