Orc in Ithilien

Chapter 21: Lover Came Back

A skim of high misty clouds was blurring the face of the moon, and after the fug inside the ballroom it was refreshingly cold outside. Immediately around the building the grounds were a mosaic of smooth-mown lawns interspersed with dense banks of shrubbery, and with their footsteps crunching over fresh raked gravel, they walked side-by-side in companionable enough silence for a while. There were however still matters outstanding between them that had to be discussed, and eventually Faramir brought them to a stop. Discreetely he tried to step away, whereupon Shagrat, who had been holding his hand, just clutched at it more tightly.

After a moment he let go and moved a step or two back, watching Faramir closely all the while. “Spit it out, then,” he said quietly. “I’m ready to hear your piece.” The Orc looked as if he was braced for and awaiting bad news.

“Shagrat, you must know that I searched high and low for you,” Faramir began, earnestly. “Such was my one aim – my only intention!” As he spoke he was astonished to see Shagrat’s pointed ears actually begin to prick themselves up till their tips held their usual alert, if not-quite-sprightly pose. Apparently this was not at all what he’d been expecting from him.

“I tried to set out to find you as soon as I knew you’d gone,” the Prince ploughed on, “but I was distraught that night you left Ithilien – practically crazed with grief. To the extent that my wife and her advisor assumed that I really was beginning to lose my mind - or so they claim. Whatever the case they then took it upon themselves to dose me with that preparation you uncovered - saying they believed themselves to be acting ‘in my own best interests,’ as I’ve been reminded repeatedly. It does seem - rather too convenient to me, but I suppose it might make a sort of sense.”

“You? A mental case?” Shagrat exclaimed. “Never. You’re not the sort.”

Faramir acknowledged that it was all quite in keeping with his family history. “My father, my brother, even to some extent my mother, all in their own way, to a greater or lesser extent at some point – found themselves similarly afflicted.”

Some of this was news to Shagrat. “Your Mum as well?” he whistled through his teeth. “What was up with her, then?”

“It is said of my mother that she died heartsick with longing for the home of her girlhood, which was in the seaward town of Dol Amroth.”

“I don’t suppose the view from the White City did much for her spirits either,” the Uruk observed, considering this for a moment. “Since they used to say that on a clear day, you could see all the way into Mordor from there.”

Faramir thought about the dark banks of fog and the great pall of bitter smoke that had permanently enshrouded the borders of the Land of Shadow. “But in those days it was seldom very clear, Shagrat,” he said mildly.

The Uruk rolled his eye. “That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t know it was still there, though, would you? It’s not the same for folk like you and me, who’d their whole lifetimes to get used to the idea.”

The Prince frowned. “You mean that we were both brought up in - or over-looking –Mordor.”

“’Brought up’ in Mordor?” Shagrat’s mouth twisted, and his nostrils flared with disgust. “Mired in the thick of it, more like.”

Faramir considered his next words carefully. “I’ve heard it said that Orcs,” he began, “are inured to the worst imaginable excesses of squalour and debasement. That your kind cannot be affected as others would be in like surroundings – that they revel in their degraded condition, in fact. That – it’s not exactly true, is it?”

Shagrat gave him a long, unreadable look. “You know, Goldilocks, they also say we started off like everyone else,” he said. “Maybe even a little – higher – than most, if that’s the way you like to try and think about these things. Then look at how we ended up. And if that doesn’t show you how people can be broken-in to – brought down to - just about anything, well. Then I don’t know what.”

Faramir laid his hand on his companion’s arm. “It’s not so surprising, is it? When it comes to Orcs, people are liable to exaggerate. Isn’t that what you always said?”

“What a load of old rubbish, though,” Shagrat sighed, shaking his great shaggy head. “As if anyone would go on that way if they’d really any say in it. Makes about as much sense as someone thinking of your Mum pining away out of grief and longing for the sea. Now I might never’ve seen it close to, but I don’t believe it could ever be so wonderful as all that. There must’ve been more to it.”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Faramir replied. “All this took place when I was very young, you know.”

The Orc paused for a moment, as if in thought. “Sometimes, after they’ve had a sprog the ladies go a bit doo-lally though, don’t they?” he said. “Cryin’ all over the place. Proper waterworks. Happen quite often, from what I heard. I don’t think it’s all that odd.”

Faramir stared at him. “What?”

“What I’m saying is maybe your Mum came down with a touch of that. And then if she was feeling homesick already -”

“No. I mean: where on earth did you hear that?”

“Oh,” Shagrat replied. “Well you know how much those old baggages like to talk. On market days, I’d hear them yakking on and on. Gossiping away for hours right in front of me, and - ”

“Market days?”

“- a lot of the time I think they must’ve forgot I was even there. Or maybe just weren’t bothered to begin with. It was when I was with that Barker,” the Orc explained, obligingly filling in Faramir’s mental blanks for him. “He used to set me up on the green, or the village square or wherever. Wherever there’d be lots of folk about. Like – you know. A public announcement. So word would get out he’d come back on his rounds.”

Faramir gave him a quizzical look, as both Prince and Uruk recalled the unfortunate circumstances surrounding their first reunion. On that occasion, the angry villagers to whom Shagrat had been introduced had not taken kindly to the unexpected intrusion of an Orc into the very bosom of their community. This made Faramir wonder how typical of Shagrat’s experiences in acting as a public notice for his Barker that had been in general, and there was an uncomfortable silence.

“Bugger this for a game of soldiers,” Shagrat suddenly said. “Let’s not think about all that.” He moved much closer till he was leaning against Faramir, and resting his chin on his shoulder began huffing hot gusts of damp breath pleasantly into his ear. It was a bit, Faramir thought, feeling overwhelmed generally, like being accosted by a friendly pet horse.

The Uruk’s arms went up round Faramir’s waist, in the most familiar of moves. “So, your Highness,” he growled. “Where d’you reckon we should go from here?”

Faramir withdrew tactfully. “Well, Shagrat,” he said. “I think we’re at a stage where I’d have to say I’m - completely open to suggestions.”

“Now then, Goldilocks,” the Uruk told him, when his companion made no further attempt to offer anything. “I know very well you’ll only ever want me for one thing. But it’s all right, because even that’s a lot more than I ever had any hope of expecting, if I’m being honest. So there’s no need to be standing on ceremony, since that’s what you brought me out here for. It is, isn’t it?”

“It isn’t, Faramir insisted, stubbornly. “I don’t even know why we’re still arguing about this.”

“It’s because I’m an Orc, Goldilocks,” Shagrat explained patiently. “You shouldn’t worry on that score. I’ve known since you and me, well, since we got together that very first time that this was going to be the way of it.”

“Shagrat, back then I was barely nineteen – and practically a virgin, if you didn’t already know it. It’s little enough excuse, I know, but I was completely ignorant of any matters relating to – well, to gentlemanly conduct in and around the act of sexual congress! I didn’t think and I’m heartily sorry for it.”

Interrupting him abruptly, Shagrat muttered that he should forget about all that.

“I didn’t realise how what I was doing was affecting you,” Faramir persevered. “If you’d any idea! The one time I did try to – to start something, before you went rushing away afterwards, that is, I nearly emasculated myself on that dreadful iron cod-piece you used to wear.”

The Orc seemed quite mystified by this.

“You don’t remember?” Faramir asked ruefully. “I tried – well, to rub encouragingly against you and ended up catching myself on that awful contraption. With acutely painful results, as I recall.”

Shagrat grinned. “Is that what you were about? I thought you were having a fit, or something. I’d forgotten about that protective. It was a good one – hung just right and didn’t chafe or anything. Perfect fit. I won’t see another like that again.”

“Personally I was glad to see the back of it,” Faramir said. “Though of course those early experiences I enjoyed with you very much warped my sense of perspective - and I have to say, later expectations,” he continued. “Really, you did rather spoil me for anyone else.”

“Spoil you?” the Orc said, immediately on his guard. “What d’you mean, ‘spoil’?”

“I meant ‘spoil’ as in ‘indulge’,” Faramir replied, soothingly. “And Shagrat, you indulged me so very often, you know. I think it’s high time that I – well. Made an attempt to recompense you for some of that. ”

The Prince took both of the Orc’s hands in his. “As I said, I’m completely open to suggestions,” he repeated, then told Shagrat to name his terms, adding the hasty afterthought that he should in no way interpret what he was saying as a special request on his part for any more of what the Orc called ‘rough treatment’. “It’s just that I want you to know I’m quite willing to have you lead the way for a change, Shagrat,” he explained. “Tell me what you want from me, for once. It seems to be the very least that I can do.”

The Orc considered this for a time and then he said:

“What I want, what I’d really like is –“

Faramir waited - steeling himself, quite prepared to surrender to the utmost depths of an Orc’s depravity, if that was what Shagrat required of him.

The Uruk eyed him warily and began again: “I’d like –“

Shagrat broke off, looking doubtfully around what was, technically, a rose-garden. But the lawn was churned to mud, the flower beds had withered in the frost, and the trellised arbour that they were lingering in, far from being a fragrant, shady nook was damp and draughty, thorn-spiked, and smelled as if it had been recently used by a urinal by any number of cats. But after all Goldilocks had asked him what he wanted, and the Uruk supposed that this was as good a time as any. And so he named his heart’s desire:

“Maybe we could do – what we’re going to do, inside, instead. If I’m going to be sucking you off, down on my knees - ”

The Prince stared at him, amazed that after everything that had been said, he still assumed he would be on the giving, rather than the receiving end of such treatment.

“When I’m on my knees for any length of time and it’s cold and wet like this it plays havoc with my joints,” Shagrat said. “I’m not as young as I used to be. These days I get twinges of – the thing is I think I’m getting a bit….rheumaticky, as time goes on.”

On hearing this minor petition for a slight change of scene Faramir spluttered out a short, relieved snort of laughter. He’d been braced for the worst, for some sort of bloody and painful interaction involving whips or chains perhaps, from what he thought he knew of general Orcish preferences, but even in his relief he realised that he had misjudged Shagrat yet again. Faramir had been expecting at the very least that his companion would to exact some kind of retribution for his past behaviour towards him.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” the Orc added touchily, as he watched Faramir’s amused reaction. “It’s no laughing matter either. You’d know better, if it was you.”

“I do know better,” Faramir spluttered, trying to assure Shagrat that he was not laughing at him, “because in fact I sometimes suffer from a similar affliction myself. I just had no idea that you did, too.”

“At your age!”

“Years and years spent sleeping behind a waterfall and on the ground in Ithilien have left me a shadow of the man I might otherwise have been,” Faramir explained. “As it happens I do have some embrocation that I’ve found to be quite effective,” he continued, adding that the ointment produced a good illusion of warmth and heat which could often provide some level of relief.

“Firey Jack!” Shagrat exclaimed. “That wasn’t the stuff you wanted me to put on my knob the other night, was it? It’d near enough have burned the bloody thing off me!”

Faramir shook his head vehemently. “I intended nothing of the sort!”

The Orc was nodding. “All right, Goldilocks,” he replied, “because I suppose I ought to tell you that pain and sex really isn’t my thing. In Mordor,” he added with an ominous growl, “I had enough of that blasted nonsense to last me a lifetime.”

“It isn’t mine either!” Faramir protested. “I don’t know what made you think that.”

“And – while we’re getting all this out in the open,” Shagarat continued resolutely, “I’m not too keen on giving, or taking it up the arse. So if you’re expecting to bum me, or have me do you again, well, I – I’m not ruling it out, but I just wouldn’t count on it, either.”

“I’m far from being married to the idea of that myself! But what was the other night all about in that case?” Faramir demanded, mortified.

“I thought it’s what you wanted,” Shagrat replied. “That’s what we do, isn’t it? What you want to.”

“Not if you don’t!” Faramir yelled. “How many times do I have to say it to convince you!” The Orc looked distinctly unnerved by his vehement response and Faramir struggled to calm himself. “What do you like, Shagrat?”

He didn’t think it was a difficult question, but the Uruk only gave him a helpless look.

Faramir kept on. “How about what you suggested before, then. But for once – I could be the one doing it for you. As I’ve said – quite a few times before, I’d be glad to.”

Shagrat glanced at him warily. “I don’t think so, Goldilocks,” he muttered. “My cock’s been in your mouth exactly twice, and you’ve tried to kill me afterwards both times.”

Looking pained, Faramir tried to convince him that on each occasion, the events before and after had been quite unrelated. “It was just an unforuntate – an extremely unfortunate combination of recurring bad circumstances. The odds have always been stacked against us, Shagrat,” he said. “You know that.”

But still the Orc seemed unconvinced.

TBC


Many thanks for the reviews, Moniquill and Rhody! If only more people would indeed take up writing orc!slash - oh, it would be like some craven dream come true....

Incidentally, for anyone who might be interested in this sort of thing, the ever excellent Grond has recently written a short sort of orc-slash / 'Primeval' crossover story (with Ugluk in it!) which is posted on her livejournal Grondfic. I think it's fair to say for anyone not already familiar with the concept, that 'Primeval' is an, um, pretty atrocious UK TV series, that features a variety of moderately annoying prehistoric creatures (all depicted in astonishingly bad CGI)arriving in modern-day London through a series of time-rifts. The show is not however without its own particular blend of kitschy charm: in the episode I watched (for research purposes) the regularly-appearing cast of intrepid heroes dispersed giant flesh-eating worms from the Palaeozoic using nothing but hand-held garden leaf-blowers (it appears to be a rather low budget, atrocious UK TV series). Sadly the character from Grond's story is, however, long gone, having been eaten at the end of series 2 by a sabre-toothed tiger or something (off screen; amazingly, the really very gory plotlines are aimed at school-age kids! Well, I suppose if it keeps them off texting one another for 45 minutes at a stretch it can only be all well and good....)