ataraxionlogs | I Know You Know [closed]

Entry tags:

fili,
kili

I Know You Know [closed]

CHARACTERS: Fili & Kili
LOCATION: Kili's room
WARNINGS: Angst?
SUMMARY: Thorin's arrival brings the reality of Fili and Kili's situation crashing down on them. Time for them to finally confront the fact that they are never going to see their home again.
NOTES: Backdated to just after Thorin's arrival

Fili felt tired. More so than he had felt in this place--even after Kili's injury. Thorin's arrival, and the secrets he must now keep from his Uncle, weighed heavily on his shoulders. It was not only their fates, but their friendship with Thranduil...lies that did not come easy to him.

That was not all of it, of course. Somehow, having Thorin here? Made it seem that much more final. That they truly were...gone. That here? This crazy place, was all they had.

So with a heavy heart, Fili had headed towards Kili's room, needing to know how his brother fared.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Usually, Kili finds Fili in the showers right after the jump and the brothers take time washing the blue off their skin and untangling their hair. With the unstable situation they've found themselves in and the second life they've been given here, it's something of a comfort and a reassurance. Braids have long held meaning to their people, but it's more the act of them, the familiarity and ties they've lost that can be kept alive just between two young dwarrows with nothing else to lose but each other. He'd come to grips with it, with their deaths, with the situation, even with the people they've met aboard.

This jump just served to yank that rug right out from underneath his feet.

In truth, Kili's not necessarily unhappy Thorin's here, because seeing his uncle was something he'd missed after the few months they'd been aboard the Tranquility. But the secrets it forces him to keep, the lies Kili feels weighing down his tongue twist him up inside. Defying Thorin, lying to his face about their fates, their new found friends--it settles deep in the marrow of his bones and doesn't leave.

So when he returns from the gardens, vaguely cheered up by Thranduil and helping take care of his fledglings, Kili knows Fili will be by soon enough. Surely he couldn't have missed Thorin (Really, who could?) and that must have been the reason he hadn't spotted him originally. He settles on his bed then, unattached arrowhead in hand so he can fiddle with something as he thinks.

But Mahal this was more than he'd expected when he woke up this jump.

"Kili." Fili had opened the room, having long been keyed into it, having spent many a night here, when the unfamiliar ship and distance became too much for a dwarf accustom to having his brother close by at all times.

Seeing his brother playing with the arrowhead, seeing the look on his face, he did not have to guess that the man had met with Thorin. The look on his face had to be like his own, if truth be told. Moving over to the bed, he sits next to his brother, giving a weak smile.

"I met Thorin in the showers. I did not have a chance to see to my braids...I went to speak to Thranduil, afterwards." He spoke to the wall in front of them, not needing to look at Kili, just yet. It made it easier to speak to the air, to let the words hang, for now.

"I am sorry if my decision to lie has pledged you to that, as well." It should be his burden, alone, but it can not be so.

"Fili?" He'd looked up as soon as the door opened, not quite stopping his fiddling though he was more careful of the edge of the arrowhead in his grasp. Fili would be right in thinking their expressions must be similar, and something in Kili's gaze softens a bit at the disheveled mane of gold about his brother's face. There's distress written into the cast of his features though, and Kili's instantly moving to set the arrowhead aside and gesturing for Fili to join him.

"Come here, I'll take care of them for you." There's the barest hint of a smile, even as Kili shifts back to make room for his brother to settle in front of him. Kili might not be the best at reading the atmosphere, but he knows Fili, and so he doesn't speak just yet, offers silent support as he rakes his fingers through Fili's hair. But in the end, it's easy to confess in a quiet little pause, fingers warm against scalp and neck as he untaggles hair.

"I saw him too, at the lockers." There's a gentle tug at Fili's hair here, and in a move that echoes that first shower after their first jump, Kili rests his chin on the slumped shoulder in front of him. "But you needn't apologize, I chose the same knowing full well what it meant."

And a pause here, uncertain and soft, before: "I went to visit Thranduil too, after I saw Thorin." Not surprising they had the same path, given how alike the brothers can be. "You had already told him, I think."

"I'd be in a sad state, if I had to take care of them, myself." Fili shifted to turn his head slightly so that Kili could work on his hair, the clasps sitting in his lap. His fingers thumb at the one that matches the sole clasp in Kili's hair--given to them by their mother. Who now stood alone. Was ever a life so cursed, to lose brothers, husband, sons? They had been foolish to leave her both, to give her only ghosts to keep her company in the halls of Erebor.

The fingers feel good, though; comfort that only his brother could provide, the touch that he can't ever remember not having. It gave them both an ease of heart, Fili hoped. When Kili leaned forward, Fili leaned back slightly, patting knee.

"...I went to him quickly. He carries a wisdom that I never would have had." Fili let out a breath. He did not need to say that their Uncle would not be happy over this. That he might see it as a betrayal. Fili keenly remembered times as a child when Thorin had lost his temper. He had never harmed them, but the fear he had felt, the sense of shame in disappointing him--he remembered that. He never wished to cause that.

"Mahal...when did things become so complicated?"

"Then you are lucky I take such care of you, brother." He doesn't laugh, the moment is too serious for that, but there's a lilt of it in his voice. A hint of jest he can't quite rid himself of completely. So Kili's fingers sink into the rich waves of his brother's hair and carefully untangle the length of it, taking longer than need be to run fingers through his hair and soothe scalp because he knows just how much Fili needs the reassurance.

Eventually though, he partitions Fili's hair, quick fingers braiding in the thick braids that frame Fili's face and pausing only to hold a palm out for one clasp after the other. No, it doesn't need to be said for Kili to understand the fear of disappointment and worry that lingers beneath Fili's breast. He feels much the same now, remembering easily the way Thorin's rage could shake him to his bones and make Kili as mute as a mouse from the shame of it all.

"One would think death would make things less complicated, hm?" The former laugh to his voice flees now, weighted under the worry and barely concealed distress. Thinking about Thorin finding out about them and Thranduil (and Kili and Legolas, too) sets a heavy weight at his shoulders. Betrayal, yes, it would possibly be seen as a betrayal and Kili still remembers the last time that word had fallen from Thorin's lips. He shudders, resting his forehead against the back of Fili's head before he reaches for the clasp that matches his and settles it quickly in Fili's hair. He handles it as if it were more precious than the Arkenstone, because it is. Dis' face floats in his vision, of warm eyes and her smile, hands rough with callouses brought on by a life of hard work, though she carried on regardless. This is one of the only mementos they have of their mother, and grief anew steals his breath away.

"I am. Together or not at all..." Fili remembered making that promise to Kili once, as children, and again before they set out on the journey. For others, it might be strange to see brothers so close, especially when not twins...but they may as well have been, the small distance between their ages. And Fili could not remember much from any time before Kili's existence. With their nature, children of the diaspora, they simply had always been all each other had. And Fili would never had it be any other way.

As much as he wished his brother had survived their fate, Fili wondered what sort of life it would have been; a struggle, half-whole, in any case. At least that is how it would have been for him, most likely.

But ideas of 'what ifs' that no longer mattered. What was, is. There was no changing it.

Closing his eyes, he just focused on Kili's fingers through his hair, the reality that they were still alive, now, and hopefully would remain so, for some time.

At the other words, though, Fili shifted to turn once Kili had finished with the clasps. He slipped an arm around Kili's waist as he might have when they were much younger, and someone had made a cruel jest, cutting deeper than could be shown in public.

And really, what greater jest was there to die at the height of their triumph? Sighing, he nudged his head against the side of Kili's. "I am sorry for it..."

Sorry for 'what', he does not say.

He has a great deal of apologizes, for things that were both his fault, and not.

That he could apologize for fate, he would. Or the cruel randomness of it, if it were not moved by Mahal's hand.

It often takes a lot to make Kili shut up, he's just perpetually chattering on about one thing or another, but that simple sentence is so familiar to him that he can't help t. He remembers that first promise like it was yesterday, blurred by tears and fear and the sight of Fili so sick and hurting, so young and still he trying to reassure Kili. And Fili held to that promise, they both did. Even now he can remember the bloodied battlefield they'd fought and fell on, the agony of death curling in his limbs and how the look on Fili's face had been even more painful than that. If he could breathe, Kili would have lost his breath all over again. As it is, he presses fingers to the cool silver clasp holding back his brother's hair and thinks.

It hardly matters now, because while they had died, here they are alive and healthy with each other here as a reassurance. So Fili turns in his hold and wraps an arm around his waist and the sheer familiarity behind the simple move has Kili blinking his eyes and leaning into his brother, arms tucking around him. There's a nod, face pressing against shoulder as he echoes Fili's words, softly. "Together or not at all."

It might have been odd to others, such words and the way they so easily gravitate to each other and touch. They're certainly closer than most brothers are, but it is not so odd when one considers their situation. Besides, it's not like they particularly care about what others have to say! (Okay, maybe they do.)

"You don't have to apologize to me." One hand clutches at Fili's tunic as he used to do when he was young, though thankfully he no longer nibbles at braids like he had when he was a toddler. Kili's free hand scrubs at his face, brow furrowing. "It's not your fault, Fili."

"...are you so sure?" Fili gripped at Kili a bit tighter when his brother turned into him, as if he needed to reassure him that there was still a living breathing person under the clothing, that they were not back on that battlefield, struggling to reach out to one another, to not die alone in those last moments.

The guilt he had spoken of with Thranduil started to spring anew, causing his chest to tighten, his heart to beat painfully against his ribs. Tears sprung to his eyes unbidden, but he made no move to wipe them away, not wanting to let go of his brother in this moment.

"I was supposed to protect you." Fili shifted his head, speaking into the mass of Kili's hair, pressing his lips against the wild mass. "Mother made me promise, before we left--that if you were allowed to come, that I would protect you. I..." He swallowed, his voice thick with emotion. "I failed you."

There's desperation in Fili's touch, in the way he presses close and breathes into the dark mass of Kili's hair. But Kili clings to him just as tightly, hands gripping at shoulder blade and the back of his neck, warm under the fall of his hair. When Fili hides and doesn't pull away to dash at the tears gathering at his eyes, Kili can't help the little hiccuping breath he takes, nor can he hide the way his voice warbles with sorrow.

"Think you that I would have wished to live without you?" He'd always been one to empathize, and knowing that Fili is (barely) fight against tears brings his own about. There's a soft little sound, furious and terrified at the very thought. "You protected me Fili, to the very end and I failed you."

There's something of a bitter laugh here, broken under the tears thick in his voice.

"I let you die! You and Thorin both and then I was selfish enough to follow--" Kili breaks off here, presses his face into the warmth of Fili's skin as he pants for breath. "I let you die."

"No." Fili grips at Kili tighter for a moment, before pulling back his head slightly, not caring for how the tears slipped from his eyes, so that he could press his forehead to Kili's, pale eyes meeting dark.

"You did not. You--" Fili choked on the words, struggling to maintain some semblance of control, a watery smile slipping onto his lips. "--you tried. We both did." He knows, he knows that it was neither their fault, but still the guilt, the sorrow at the loss clings too near, and makes it difficult to believe it. To blame himself, as Kili does, allows for some sort of control. To lay blame gives the idea that if a piece had shifted, it could be changed.

Though it couldn't.

Pulling back, he pressed a quick kiss to his brother's forehead, before moving to wipe tears from Kili's face. "I...I do not think you would have wished to live without me. I just wish to see you happy." It is all he ever wanted, in the end.

Edited 2013-05-10 15:27 (UTC)

Kili can't bring himself to look away, can't do anything but cling to his brother and press their foreheads together. His unbound hair falls forward about Fili's face, mingles with the gold of his own. Bright and dark as midnight, like the day and the night and something in him wonders if they could have been separated anyway. That thought sends ice through his veins, more painful than the Orc blades that slayed him and the feeling of bleeding out mere inches from his brother and not close enough.

Sometimes he wonders if they'll be sent back before the battle remembering nothing, if they'll fight and fall again with nothing to be done about it. Or if in some dim way they'll remember the months spent aboard this ship and in an attempt to change things might make it worse overall.

He doesn't like thinking about it, not any more.

"I am happy, Fili." There's a soft sob, new tears wetting Fili's thumbs as he brushes them away. And again he reaches up, sinks fingers in already mused braids and holds Fili close as if he might disappear if Kili let go. "I'm happy, truly."

Because they're here and alive, in some sense of the word, and they've got each other. The only thing he regrets is seeing the pain on Fili's face, knowing that while he's not solely the cause of it it's in part because of him.

(Some nights he wakes up thinking he's choking on blood again, Fili's name a broken scream ripping from him. Those nights he doesn't get any more sleep, stays there warmed by his brother's side pressed against his and hopes he didn't induce nightmares with his own.)

Fili holds no such delusions. Even if they remember everything...in his mind he can remember their injuries; there was no surviving them. And even if they could have...Thranduil, Frodo--there were people from past their timepoint.

They were dead. There was no removing that. To change that would be perhaps ruining things for others.

And Fili both feared and found solace in the idea that it had been fate.

Cruel and unwarranted fate, perhaps, but one none the less.

When Fili sees Kili start crying anew, he let out a soft 'shh', despite his own eyes starting to spring tears to match his brother's. He hated seeing him cry; as a child he had been willing to fight anyone, even the men three times their size to find revenge for making his brother upset. But there was no one to fight, now. Death could not be rallied against--not like this.

Sliding up hands to grip at the wrists attached to the hands currently in his hair, Fili squeezed. "I would do whatever I could to make you happy, you know. For as long as you are happy...as am I."

Fili knew those nights when Kili had nightmares; but he pretended to sleep, trying to give comfort in simply existing. To comfort in a moment like that--he did not want to coddle, he wanted to allow Kili his own time to grieve. Fili had his own nightmares, usually filled with the idea of him surviving without Kili, of haunting the halls of Erebor as a ghost, where no one could see him, and Kili simply ceased to exist.

Those left him chilled and frozen when he awoke...but happened less if he slept in close proximity to Kili.

THey would both have to learn how to live here, to be happy, to build lives...to cling to a strange life where they were prisoners, and yet not, and could still die very true deaths, once more.

His pulse beats quick as a rabbit beneath Fili's fingers, breath hiccuping as Kili leans down that small space between them and nudges their foreheads together. Part of him wants to cling to his brother like he had when he was a dwarfling and people picked on him, but Kili can't let himself go enough for that. He can play at childishness, can play at the freespirited life he lived before---but he's dead now. And with that death, even if it sometimes feels as if he hadn't died at all in the first place, comes a shock of maturity, a shock of age he hadn't had before. He just doesn't know how to reconcile that, all the time. But still, Kili hates losing control of himself like this, and there's a soft struggle as he tries to stop the tears. He can't.

"Fili, Fili--" There's a gasp for breath, a wavering sound, and Kili pulls back to scrub a hand over his eyes, one still tangled in Fili's hair. Somehow the situation they were in had never seemed quite as real before. He'd woken up that first time knowing deep down in his bones that he was dead, but seeing nary a scar nor wound had made it seem as if a dream.

(Though his dreams these days were more often than not memories, twisted and dark and heavy with loss and fear.)

"It really happened, didn't it?" A rhetorical question of course, but still. Kili's teary-eyed gaze rests heavily upon the hollow of Fili's throat, where months before he'd pressed a hand to try in vain to stop the bleeding and couldn't help but feel the severed muscle and the bone beneath his hand. Some days Kili remembers that more than he remembers his own fate, and others fill with the quiet ache of phantom arrows lodging in his body and the bubble of blood in his lungs with every breath he took. These days, Kili finds himself relieved when he wakes up with vision in both eyes and a steady hand as he practices his shooting in the range. With a soft shudder he presses fingers to Fili's pulse, tracing the line where in his mind's eye he can still see that gaping wound and it's with a serious look in his gaze looks up. There's still an unhappy twist to his mouth, tears still brimming over and clumping lashes together, but he looks stronger somehow. More sure, maybe.

"This is all we've got now. Just us--an' Thorin." Kili doesn't exactly smile then, but there's a cautious warmth to his gaze regardless. His thumb brushes against Fili's throat, reassuring himself that it's not slit. He's quiet, somber almost, "It's not all bad, is it? We've been in worse situations before, we can make do. Just like I told you when we woke up here."

Fili never wanted this for Kili--not the death of course (who would ever want that), but the shove into maturity so soon. Fili had been forced into it by his birth order, by the loss of their father...by a great many factors that he had never wanted for Kili. Perhaps he and their mother had coddled him, at times--but he had turned into someone so light of frame, and care...and it had been a good thing. To see that fading into something harder made Fili feel they had lost something more than just their lives, on that battlefield, and it made him sad.

When Kili spoke, Fili did his best to keep himself together, but could not find the words. He simply nodded, knowing there Kili's eyes lay, what he was remembering, at that moment. He should have been more careful, he should have watched his flank more carefully. But he hadn't, and even now he remembers the hot bite of metal tearing into flesh, and the stark realization that there was no coming back from this, blood weeping down his chest as his body went cold.

In some days, Kili had saved him from a grosser fate...he hoped one day that his brother could realize that. When the hand went to his throat, brushing against sensitive skin, Fili sighed, moving to cover that hand with one of his own, squeezing, thumb pressing against the pulse in Kili's wrist.

"No, it's not that bad. And yes, you were right then, and you're right now." He leaned forward, nudging his forehead against Kili's again. "I think we can manage a good life here, until Mahal takes us again." And that is all right, with him.

In some ways, Kili feels like he understands Fili better now. They might have always been close but there had always been that thin barrier between them; the maturity and duty that Fili had to uphold, and the freespiritedness that Kili threw himself into wholeheartedly. That had to change in some ways, of course, because Kili has been forced to grow up in some ways and accept a sense of maturity. There had been childishness clinging to him even as Kili walked into that battlefield, and when he awoke covered in blue and helpless like a foal trying to stand it came with the feeling that something irrevocable had changed.

And it had continued to do so. Sometimes Kili felt mired, here. He wasn't quite sure how to handle himself, how to stand with the knowledge of his death and the fact that there is very little stretching on in front of him aside from what this ship offers. There's no going home. It is, sometimes, why he hides out in the gardens so often. Why he talks to Thranduil and Legolas, and why taking care of the fledglings a scant few hours ago had eased his worries so.

Kili is worried he doesn't know who he was any more, and worse -- that he won't know who he is, now.

But Fili is always there for him and knowing that his throat is whole and stitched together beneath Kili's hand is as much a relief as the fact that he can see from both eyes. The instant a hand covers his, Kili lets their fingers entwine, pulses beating together beneath fingertips and trembling hands.

"We can try, at least." A smile trembles at Kili's lips and he leans into his brother, eyelashes a sweep of black across his cheeks. He takes a shaking breath, and exhales as his shoulders straighten, back lined with purpose. There's a glint in his eyes, steely determination. "We can do it."

Just, just don't leave him Fili. He wouldn't know how to go on if he were to lose you again.

"Of course we can." Fili gathers up Kili, then, tugging him into his bigger arms, like he used to do when they were children. While he is very aware of how different things are, now, he doesn't truly care; perhaps this is more for his sake, than for Kili's.

"As long as we have each other, we'll be fine." And he truly believed that. Even if Kili, or he, questioned themselves in other ways--as long as there was the constant of the other, they would manage.

He goes easily, longer limbs tucking around Fili as he curls up in his brother's arms. It's almost uncomfortable, they're much too big now for such a thing, but it's something that reminds Kili of soothing hurts after one too many adventurous tree climbs or older dwarves' taunting and so he just nods and thinks of home.

If he closed his eyes and tried not to think otherwise, it would almost be possible to imagine Dis moving about in another room and the metal room around them as the familiar one they grew up in back in Ered Luin. But it hurts to think of such things, so Kili just twines a braid between his fingers and smiles because they can do this.

"You gettin' sappy on me, Fili?" But he means thank you.

"Aye, perhaps I am." For this reminded him of the times he tried his best to make things right, when he was doubly young, trying to deal with the loss of father, while still attempting to be a brother, and taken on something greater. He had always felt pulled in so many directions, but Kili had always been a center, a way to find less complications in a world fraught with them. So that was this now, as well. A way to find his center in the mess of it all, and hug the one thing he knew he would never lose, for better or worse.

"I'm sure I will get over it soon enough and shove you off the bed as you well deserve."

It's not a bad thing, the emotion Fili freely expresses. In some ways, it's what makes Kili know he's real, that despite it all his brother is alive and kicking, being a sap and an irritatingly loveable sort of person no matter what. It's this, in truth, that once convinced Kili that Fili would be a good King one day.

And sometimes he still looks across and sees that leonine profile and nods, knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that while he never got the chance, Fili would have done well with the crown at his brow.

Still, he snorts, hands clutching Fili tight against him, "I'll just drag you with me and you know it!"

Fili lets out a laugh, struggling with very little true effort against the grip, shaking his head, "You are a knave--I fear you have been learning too much from Nori!" But still, he knocks their heads together, even as he tries to find a way to get Kili the short distance to the floor without making himself fall--it is most likely a losing prospect.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I Know You Know [closed]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject