The Lion and His Hound [NC17] Fili/Kili, Fili/Kili/Thorin
Title: The Lion and His Hound
Author: queenklu
Beta by: leupagus
Pairing: Fili/Kili, Fili/Kili/Thorin (with some blink-and-you-miss-it Thorin/Thranduil allusions, aaaaand the possibility of Thorin/Bilbo preslash. ...go big or go lonely mountain i guess.)
Word Count: 4.3k
A/N: This is all Gus's fault, don't let anyone tell you different. (also i'm sorry i only have a tiger icon and nothing lotr)
Kili is Thorin’s favorite-that much is clear to all with working eyes and ears. Even as a young dwarf Fili noticed the way his uncle’s gaze tracks Kili’s movements, finds him first in a crowd. He can still remember, even if Kili cannot, the first time Thorin visited after Kili was born-the way his parents had warned him to keep his brother occupied, Uncle Thorin not being known for his patience with small things.
He remembers how Kili stood from the blocks they’d been hammering with in the dirt; the slow, unsteady, toddling steps Kili took towards Thorin before tripping forward to lean against the thick fur of Thorin’s boots, smiling back at Fili with his happy baby burbles. The amazed fascination has never truly faded from his uncle’s visage since, not where his favorite nephew is concerned.
Yet as long as his memory can reach, Fili does not recall a time where he resented being passed over. Of course Thorin should favor Kili. It is as obvious a choice as favoring the sun over the moon, for all Kili is dark-haired where Fili is light. Kili laughs loudest, climbs highest, burns brightest. Of course Thorin would wish to reach out and touch.
It was many, many decades before he dared, though. Many fleeting visits from their uncle, many times where Fili caught Thorin faintly slack of jaw, eyes shielded as Kili grew into himself, almost elvish-skinned as his beard stubbornly refused to fill. Until one day Fili caught him tying his long hair in front of his face; Fili tugged the leather tie free himself.
“It will come or it won’t,” he said, feeling Thorin’s constant scowl warm his back.
“Even Ori’s whiskers are coming in,” Kili grumbled, drunk from mead and the stories of their people as he rested his head against Fili’s chest with a quiet grunt.
“Do your braids pain you, brother?” Fili teased. He saw now how tangled they were, how lumpy and in turns too-tight against his scalp; most dwarves tended to their own braids, and it was an indulgence bordering on impropriety that Fili often allowed Kili to settle them back-to-chest and do Fili’s braids, so much more careful with his brother’s hair than his own.
Now Fili shifted until he could find his uncle’s gaze, and calmly met the challenge there with calm strength learned from iron.
Thorin’s constant inner-blaze flickered, and in a blink sparked, and banked down. “How is it, nephew,” he said, joining them by the hearth, “that your braids are so fine on others, and such a mess on your own head?” His caught a free silver clasp and lifted it in question, eyes not on Kili but on Fili, waiting for his nod with almost mocking deference.
Sometimes when he was younger, Fili forgot that Thorin had been raised a prince.
Once the nod was given, Thorin’s rough hands moved through Kili’s braids like dragon bone through finest silk. Fili kept Kili tucked close, combing what he could reach with his fingers as Kili wriggled and sighed.
“All a warrior truly needs is this,” Thorin said, gathering part of Kili’s hair and pulling it to the back of his head. “See? Keeps it out of your eyes, makes it harder for your enemies to grab.” He gave his fist a little shake and Kili’s mouth parted, lids sliding lower. Thorin abruptly let go. “Everything else is decoration.”
His smile was wry but he shared it with Fili. Fili, already with braids from his mustache down to the corners of his mouth, did not return it. “Heritage,” he reminded Thorin in a moment of pettiness, a dwarf who, of course, needed no reminding.
He half expected to be cuffed for it. But after a moment Thorin’s anger slid into sadness, and his knuckles brushed the beads in his own hair. “Yes,” he said, “heritage,” and stood.
“They look very dashing,” Kili said, flicked at Fili’s mustache clasps and smiled at his uncle, and the lost expression on Thorin’s face was as stark and barren as the stories of the Long March.
~*~
In the years since that last visit, many things change. Kili learns the bow, his fingers as deft with fletching as they are with finest filigree. The times they come back from a hunt empty-handed grow fewer with each passing season, moving through the trees as shadows, Kili ahead of their quarry and Fili behind.
“Look, it's Kili’s shadow,” a small child says one day, pointing at Fili before his mother rolls her eyes and tucks his hand in hers.
The words stick to him like burrs, small and gathering feather down until Fili finds his brother again that night and speaks them over rabbit stew. He doesn’t know what he expected, but Kili’s brightest laugh is startling.
“My shadow?” he repeats, scoffing. His boot knocks against Fili’s as he thinks it over again. “By my beard,” Kili says with a shake of his head, “if anything, I am your…hound.” He grins, seemingly more pleased by the second.
“Your beard is nothing to swear by,” Fili points out as he jostles their elbows, feeling strangely warm despite the gathering cold of night. Kili’s stubble is only now starting to lengthen, instead of growing in patches. Fili doesn’t know what it says about him that he loves still being able to see all of his brother’s face.
“Hounds need no beards,” Kili says, leaning in too close to nip at the air just shy of Fili’s jaw. “They need only love and affection-“
“And a stern hand,” Fili cuts in as he grabs Kili by the scruff, holding him still as Kili yips and pup growls, presses closer until they topple over.
Fili’s foot knocks over the stew pot as they fall, and then it’s easy as anything to wrestle like they always do, shoving and grappling as Kili’s laugh fills up the forest. When Fili pins him Kili’s grin is sharp, and if he was a hound his tail would be thumping smugly against the leaf-strewn ground. He leans up, nips again, close enough that Fili feels the ghost of his teeth on his mouth, and it’s nothing at all to follow Kili down and kiss him soundly.
Kili makes a surprised, pleased noise in the back of his mouth and hauls Fili closer by the straps of his hunting vest.
“I thought you would never,” he says, as if he’d just seen Fili take up the bow and arrow. With so few dwarf women Fili has, of course, known that finding a male companion was within his options-but who could ever wish for more than Kili?
Kili eyes are soft and dark, and his grin hasn’t changed.
“I live to surprise you,” Fili says after a moment, dancing too close to the truth he’s beginning to know.
Kili, never still, arches his back with a sinuous, sinful roll of his hips that steals Fili’s breath away. “Surprise me, then.”
Naked, Kili is a sight to behold, slender by dwarf standards but sturdy in the eyes of men, strong across the shoulders and narrow in his waist. Fili’s build is only marginally broader; he can’t wait to see how they’ll fill out with age, widen like Balin or Dwalin.
Fili takes him in his mouth first, silver beads of his mustache braids kissing the sweat-glistening skin of Kili’s hips as Fili catches them in his hands and pins them to the ground. It doesn’t keep Kili from writhing or whining or tangling his thick fingers in Fili’s hair, urging him on and then pulling him off, dragging him up by the hair at his nape for more needy kisses. The spit between them eases the way for rutting together, and the barn owl hoots above them as they topple and fall.
~*~
“You’ve gone wild,” Thorin says when next they see him, touching his fingertips to Kili’s braidless hair after they embrace. His gaze falls on Fili and the implication is clear: You’ve let him grow wild.
“And we’re the better for it,” Kili says, ducking out of his grasp. “Can you imagine us as stuffy little princelings?”
It is clear the words strike Thorin like a blow, as if he is only now realizing they carry no hope or bitterness for their stolen birthright.
“What good is the wealth of bloodlines in a forest?” Fili asks when Thorin opens his mouth to fight.
“Your anger keeps you warm, Uncle,” Kili says, giving Fili a wink behind Thorin’s back. “We have found another way.”
If Fili reached out now Thorin’s skin would skald.
~*~
And then there is the quest.
They go because Thorin asks, because it was their mother’s home, because of the gold that will help their people to a better life. Because it’s an adventure, because Kili looks at him and quirks his eyebrow, knee jittering under the table against Fili’s leg. But mostly because Thorin comes to them, and asks.
~*~
“Look how he wants you,” Fili murmurs in his brother’s ear, eyes on Thorin across the glen.
“What, Uncle?” Kili says, observant as ever. “Wants me how?”
“However he can get you,” Fili chuckles, low, and slides in close against his brother’s back, pulling him in with a possessive hand against his belly until Kili understands his meaning.
Kili could guffaw, and Fili’s braced for it, but instead his brother leans against him, easy and relaxed, humming idly as he turns the thought over. Thorin’s face has gone as stormy as a thundercloud, brows drawn together as he turns from his aborted pacing and stalks toward them.
“Fili! Kili! A word.”
“Oh, now you’re in for it,” Fili says just to hear Kili’s indignant squawk.
“He called for you too, you-ow, ow, ow!“ He yelps when Thorin gets them both by the ear; Fili manages to bite back half of his own pained noises behind a grimace, at least until they’re out of ear- and eye-shot from the company.
“You had but one job between you,” Thorin growls, looming over them as best he can. “And yet cave trolls-not a kind known for their stealth and slight of hand-managed to steal four ponies from under your noses!”
“Two ponies,” Kili corrects. “We saw them take the next pair.”
Fili steps up to the chopping block, elbowing his brother back a step. “I was distracting him.”
Thorin’s gaze grows sharp as flint. “Distracting how?”
Kili’s hand fists in Fili’s shirt, knuckles digging into his ribs in warning. Fili can feel the smirk curling his lips in answer. “Can't you guess?” he asks. If Thorin means to shame him for his choice in Kili he will be sorely disappointed. “Or did you want specifics, Uncle?”
His back hits the rock face in the blink of an eye, Thorin’s hands clenched in the fabric of his shirtfront, not quite cutting off his air but threatening to. Thorin’s breath is hot and smells of spices from Bombur’s stew, and Thorin has never looked at Fili the way he is now, with the same intense focus he saves only for Kili and the middle distance where his Lonely Mountain is just out of sight.
“Your carelessness and reckless behavior nearly cost us the quest,” Thorin snaps, shaking him, fingers slipping past cloth to burn skin-on-skin.
Anger wells up, helpless childish anger pushed high by Kili bodily trying to pull them apart. “Can you truly say you would have done differently?” Thorin shoves him away before he can finish, “If he kissed you, would you turn him away?”
Thorin has always carried the look of one who is hunted, but Fili has never seen it so clearly on his face before.
Kili looks hungry.
~*~
Watching Thorin go to his knees is as thrilling as bringing down a stag together, Kili at its throat and Fili at its flanks.
Fili’s grip is tight across Thorin’s wrists, holding them behind his back because he couldn’t seem to stop himself from half-heartedly struggling, his palms skidding over skin and elbows and shoulders-not quite a caress, not enough to push them away. Tangling his hands in the shirt they stripped off him had settled him, sent a shudder down his spine that stripped the fight from him.
Kili’s eyes are dark and searching, and Fili is glad he cannot see Thorin’s face from where he is, pressed flush against his uncle’s back, spreading his knees by simply being between them. Kili grips Thorin’s chin between his blunt fingers and lifts, makes their gazes meet. “How long?”
Fili might be the only thing keeping Thorin upright when he answers, “As long as I can remember.”
Kili shakes his head in wonderment. “Why did you say nothing? It’s common enough for shield brothers to-“
“I could not ask it of you,” Thorin chokes out. “I wanted it too much. And I knew-I know I cannot keep you.”
Fili lets the beads at the end of his mustache braids brush against the bare curve of Thorin’s shoulder in comfort, for if there was ever a doubt in their minds that Kili could be swayed it is writ clear now across his face that he will not. Fili’s heartbeat thumps out of time, a joyous sort of pang that steals his breath away.
“I am sorry, Uncle,” Kili says, his kind hand at Thorin’s nape, “that you always seem to reach for things you cannot have.”
Fili hooks his chin over Thorin’s shoulder to watch Kili kiss him, see the way Thorin’s mouth goes slack and gasping even before Kili takes him. Kili has always been the best at kissing, between them, knows when to soften and when to press an advantage, and Fili feels a fierce sort of pride well up in him watching his brother tease and play, watch him leave Thorin straining against Fili’s hold to get more.
Kili’s grin is sharp, wolfish, when he pulls back, and Fili can feel Thorin’s throat work to hold in a sound. “Shh,” Fili hushes anyway, “mustn’t be too loud, you’ll bring the others running.”
“I can hold my tongue,” Thorin growls, half-smiling already, as if merely kissing Kili has already begun unraveling the oppressive cloak of duty he wears like a second skin.
“We’ll see,” Fili hums, free hand catching Thorin’s hair and smoothing it away so he can trail nipping kisses along the bared line of Thorin’s neck, up to where his beard begins. It sends a thrill through him, bright and illicit, and his eyes find Kili at once.
“I know,” Kili laughs, giving one of Fili’s braids a tug. “It’s alright.”
Thorin’s beard feels amazing against Fili’s, rough strands catching Fili’s mustache braids in a delicious, delirious drag. And then his mouth, that looks so firm but feels so supple, quick and responsive and warm, not afraid to show his teeth. He kisses Thorin longer than he should, long enough it has to make his neck ache with the way he’s twisted around, but when Fili strokes a hand down Thorin’s chest his fingers bump Kili’s where they’re playing with the peaks of Thorin’s nipples. Thorin doesn’t gasp but he makes strangled noises like he wants to, angling his hips in supplication for the jut of his cock.
The look on Kili’s face is pure delight. Like holding an ax or a bow or kissing Fili for the first time, and he does so now, as soon as Fili turns his head-laughs into the kiss and presses Thorin close between them. Fili can’t seem to keep his tongue to himself, needs to know if Kili tastes any different now that he’s kissed someone else-but it’s the same, right and familiar and calming to the jackrabbit beat of Fili’s heart.
“What do you want?” Kili murmurs in Thorin’s ear when they part, eyes on Fili dancing with mischief.
“Anything.” Thorin lets his head fall back on Fili’s shoulder, almost-nuzzling as he says against the rough stubble on Kili’s chin, “This is already far more than I could have hoped.”
Fili can feel the shiver run through his brother, through Thorin, as sure as he can see Kili’s smile grow, see his lashes flutter. “Will you let my brother have your mouth?” Kili asks, thumb brushing Thorin’s lips as he drags it over Thorin’s beard, one stroke against the grain that makes Thorin’s mouth slip open before Kili smooths it again.
The mere thought forces Fili’s eyes shut, turns his breathing ragged as Thorin shifts in their arms to press a kiss at Fili’s temple until he opens his eyes once more. His grip on Thorin's wrists goes slack. “It would be an honor,” Thorin says, near a growl at the last, possessive and almost proud.
Fili finds himself on his back the instant Thorin works his hands free, breath knocked from him and Thorin stealing the rest with a grinding kiss that makes him dizzy with the feel of their beards dragging together. Thorin making fast work of his clothes is distant and distracting, leaves him catching gasps of need in his mouth when they have to break to strip his shirts from him. He catches one glimpse of Kili doing the same with his own clothing over Thorin’s shoulder before that beard is back, dragging fire over the sensitive skin of Fili’s throat and lower, trailing down to the nipple Thorin catches between his teeth.
It makes him hiss, makes his hips buck up into Thorin’s grasp, and he tangles a hand in the mess of loose hair at Thorin’s nape and holds on for dear life.
“Look how he wants you,” Kili says, tugging at Fili’s attention with the echo of his own words. His brother’s eyes shine so bright they might be stars.
Thorin breaks off to duck his head, resting it against Fili’s navel where his hair thins between chest and groin. Then-and Fili would believe it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes-their proud princeling arches his strong back, presenting himself. “Would you,” he asks, barely audible, barely daring to glance back, “please…”
Kili look is wild-heat and disbelief and wonder that he shares with Fili. Fili doesn’t understand why he hesitates at first, and then he nods, near frantic, because Thorin's breath is hot against his skin and he can imagine nothing so incendiary as his brother rutting into Thorin while Thorin takes him in his mouth. That Kili felt he needed Fili’s permission is too much to bear thinking of.
They still have the oil they’d smuggled with them from home to use sparingly in the dark, most recently employed while they were guarding the ponies. Fili bites his lip too hard at the realization that Kili must still feel it inside him, with how he’d begged Fili to thrust harder, muffling his rough urging against Fili’s throat. Thorin would probably kill Fili for thinking it, but he’d gladly lose an entire herd of ponies for those stolen moments-or perhaps Thorin is the one person who’d understand.
This isn’t Thorin’s first time being breached, being slicked open, but Fili can’t spare the thought of who else might’ve brought their leader to this quivering ball of tension and need when Thorin bites back a moan and brings Fili’s cock back to his mouth, drawing him inside that wet heat. He is no novice at this either, pulling back to suckle the head of Fili’s cock, oh-so-carefully shifting his beard against the beading moisture at the tip and nearly shattering Fili entirely.
“I wish you could see the picture you make together,” Kili groans out, and Fili drags his eyes open in time to see Thorin’s features convulse with pleasure as Kili does something with his fingers. “By my…”
Thorin lets Fili fall from his mouth to slap wetly against his belly, muscles shifting under his skin as he twists to glare over his shoulder. “Now, Kili,” he growls, “Now,” and Kili nods too fast and moves closer on his knees, lining himself up.
Fili knows the look on his brother’s face when he’s sinking in, but Thorin pushes, shoves himself back on Kili’s cock and Kili scrabbles at his hips, letting out a whine of pleasure. One hand steadies himself on Thorin’s shoulder and Fili clings to it, tangling their hands together over Thorin’s skin as Thorin takes him in his mouth once more.
As wondrous as it feels, as spine-melting, diamond-breaking, Fili can barely stave off the orgasm he feels building in the marrow of his bones, the rightness, the hiccupping moans Kili doesn’t even try to bite back as he fucks into their uncle with his eyes on Fili, and Thorin’s gaze too, and Thorin’s beard, and Kili’s hair sticking to his bare skin with the sweat and sway of his thrusts-Fili snaps his hips up and Thorin lets him. When Fili comes, he comes brutally, like something vital ripped free in the spurts of come in Thorin’s mouth. The groan Thorin makes tugs another shot free, streaking his beard with white. Fili’s balls ache with how much more he wants to give and can’t.
“Oh, gods, Fili,” Kili gasps, and Fili finds the strength from somewhere, rolls out of the way and when Thorin buckles, turns him over. Kili slips free for a moment but it’s worth it, Kili has to see this. The mess Thorin is, the hot flush down his heaving chest. Kili makes a noise like he’s been hurt and thrusts back in, kissing and licking Fili’s come from Thorin’s beard and mouth.
Fili settles in along Thorin’s side, close enough to run a hand down his brother’s back and flank to urge him on. “There,” he hums, voice as loose and well-fucked as his joints. He catches one of Kili’s hands and brings it to Thorin’s blood-heavy cock. “Together now.”
It takes less than seven strokes to bring Thorin to ground. Fili is so caught up in the twist of pleasure on Thorin’s face that he almost misses just how far his uncle shoots, all the way to his collarbone, what’s not trapped by Fili and Kili’s intertwined fingers. “Impressive,” he laughs breathlessly, and bedecks the side of Thorin’s face with nuzzling kisses now while he is in no shape to argue.
Kili has stilled his hips but it’s costing him, hands clutching restlessly along Thorin’s strong thighs. “Can I-“ he gasps, “Can I?”
Thorin’s eyes are blue and glazed and happy, and Fili cannot remember loving his uncle more. “Come on, then,” he says, tugging Kili closer with his legs.
On impulse Fili reaches out and smacks his brother on the rump just as he begins to thrust, and Kili yips and comes undone, too close to the edge to stop himself from spilling deep into their princeling, grinding it in even deeper as Thorin and Fili soothe him to the end.
He collapses in pieces, first his head against Thorin’s chest and then the rest of him, face turned toward his brother as Fili throws an arm over Kili’s shoulders and settles down. Kili clasps their hands together over Thorin’s heart, fingers gone shaky and weak; Thorin gets an arm under Fili’s head and curls around him as protectively as the hand he has petting Kili’s hair.
“I will never understand,” Kili mumbles, eyelids drooping, “why either of you look at me as if I’m made of gold.”
“No. I’ve seen what loving gold does to a dwarf,” Thorin says, and before Fili can lift his head Thorin grins, eyes crinkling at the edges, at once so unexpected and relaxed that it stops Fili’s confusion in its tracks. “Fili loves you like a lion.”
Fili can’t say who moves first, only that it feels right to press foreheads with his uncle, let everything he can’t say go silent between them but not unheard. They’re all a mess, with only the water from their canteens to clean them, but with Thorin rumbling a quiet lullaby deep in his chest Fili thinks it can wait a few minutes.
~*~
Most everyone is bunked down for the night, Bombur and Gandalf’s steady snoring mingling with quiet conversation around the fire from the handful of those still awake. Bofur is the first to see them, and a look of understanding crosses his face with a soft upward turn of his mouth-Fili gives him a nod, and shouldn’t be surprised when he catches Thorin doing the same out of the corner of his eye.
Kili is already at the fire, scrounging for dinner scraps as he trips over Bilbo. “You were gone quite a while,” Bilbo blurts, once shaken from his brooding.
“Scouting the area,” Kili says with his mouth full, “for any more trolls.” It’s a decent lie, even though Kili can’t seem to help giving Fili a smirk over the fire, eyes twinkling with more than just firelight.
Still it’s apparently enough to convince Bilbo, who mutters an, “Oh. Right,” and goes back to forlornly staring at the fire.
Fili goes to nudge Thorin only to find his uncle’s eyes already on the hobbit, sharp and intense, focused in a way that feels strangely-
Even when Thorin cuffs him the most Fili can do is bite down on his hand to try to stifle the laughter that bubbles up in him, starting at his toes.
“What?” Bilbo asks, smile flickering as he tries to decide if the joke’s on him. “What’s so funny?”
Fili shakes his head as tears start welling up beneath his eyelashes, and Thorin heaves a longsuffering sigh and shoves him in the direction of his brother.
“Remember your learned patience for small things, Uncle,” Fili advises under his breath, and runs to Kili before he can be cuffed again, feeling light in a place he hadn’t known was heavy.
For Fili is Kili's favorite, and in comparision all the gold in the world seems pale as dust.
the end
comments are ♥
Author: queenklu
Beta by: leupagus
Pairing: Fili/Kili, Fili/Kili/Thorin (with some blink-and-you-miss-it Thorin/Thranduil allusions, aaaaand the possibility of Thorin/Bilbo preslash. ...go big or go lonely mountain i guess.)
Word Count: 4.3k
A/N: This is all Gus's fault, don't let anyone tell you different. (also i'm sorry i only have a tiger icon and nothing lotr)
Kili is Thorin’s favorite-that much is clear to all with working eyes and ears. Even as a young dwarf Fili noticed the way his uncle’s gaze tracks Kili’s movements, finds him first in a crowd. He can still remember, even if Kili cannot, the first time Thorin visited after Kili was born-the way his parents had warned him to keep his brother occupied, Uncle Thorin not being known for his patience with small things.
He remembers how Kili stood from the blocks they’d been hammering with in the dirt; the slow, unsteady, toddling steps Kili took towards Thorin before tripping forward to lean against the thick fur of Thorin’s boots, smiling back at Fili with his happy baby burbles. The amazed fascination has never truly faded from his uncle’s visage since, not where his favorite nephew is concerned.
Yet as long as his memory can reach, Fili does not recall a time where he resented being passed over. Of course Thorin should favor Kili. It is as obvious a choice as favoring the sun over the moon, for all Kili is dark-haired where Fili is light. Kili laughs loudest, climbs highest, burns brightest. Of course Thorin would wish to reach out and touch.
It was many, many decades before he dared, though. Many fleeting visits from their uncle, many times where Fili caught Thorin faintly slack of jaw, eyes shielded as Kili grew into himself, almost elvish-skinned as his beard stubbornly refused to fill. Until one day Fili caught him tying his long hair in front of his face; Fili tugged the leather tie free himself.
“It will come or it won’t,” he said, feeling Thorin’s constant scowl warm his back.
“Even Ori’s whiskers are coming in,” Kili grumbled, drunk from mead and the stories of their people as he rested his head against Fili’s chest with a quiet grunt.
“Do your braids pain you, brother?” Fili teased. He saw now how tangled they were, how lumpy and in turns too-tight against his scalp; most dwarves tended to their own braids, and it was an indulgence bordering on impropriety that Fili often allowed Kili to settle them back-to-chest and do Fili’s braids, so much more careful with his brother’s hair than his own.
Now Fili shifted until he could find his uncle’s gaze, and calmly met the challenge there with calm strength learned from iron.
Thorin’s constant inner-blaze flickered, and in a blink sparked, and banked down. “How is it, nephew,” he said, joining them by the hearth, “that your braids are so fine on others, and such a mess on your own head?” His caught a free silver clasp and lifted it in question, eyes not on Kili but on Fili, waiting for his nod with almost mocking deference.
Sometimes when he was younger, Fili forgot that Thorin had been raised a prince.
Once the nod was given, Thorin’s rough hands moved through Kili’s braids like dragon bone through finest silk. Fili kept Kili tucked close, combing what he could reach with his fingers as Kili wriggled and sighed.
“All a warrior truly needs is this,” Thorin said, gathering part of Kili’s hair and pulling it to the back of his head. “See? Keeps it out of your eyes, makes it harder for your enemies to grab.” He gave his fist a little shake and Kili’s mouth parted, lids sliding lower. Thorin abruptly let go. “Everything else is decoration.”
His smile was wry but he shared it with Fili. Fili, already with braids from his mustache down to the corners of his mouth, did not return it. “Heritage,” he reminded Thorin in a moment of pettiness, a dwarf who, of course, needed no reminding.
He half expected to be cuffed for it. But after a moment Thorin’s anger slid into sadness, and his knuckles brushed the beads in his own hair. “Yes,” he said, “heritage,” and stood.
“They look very dashing,” Kili said, flicked at Fili’s mustache clasps and smiled at his uncle, and the lost expression on Thorin’s face was as stark and barren as the stories of the Long March.
~*~
In the years since that last visit, many things change. Kili learns the bow, his fingers as deft with fletching as they are with finest filigree. The times they come back from a hunt empty-handed grow fewer with each passing season, moving through the trees as shadows, Kili ahead of their quarry and Fili behind.
“Look, it's Kili’s shadow,” a small child says one day, pointing at Fili before his mother rolls her eyes and tucks his hand in hers.
The words stick to him like burrs, small and gathering feather down until Fili finds his brother again that night and speaks them over rabbit stew. He doesn’t know what he expected, but Kili’s brightest laugh is startling.
“My shadow?” he repeats, scoffing. His boot knocks against Fili’s as he thinks it over again. “By my beard,” Kili says with a shake of his head, “if anything, I am your…hound.” He grins, seemingly more pleased by the second.
“Your beard is nothing to swear by,” Fili points out as he jostles their elbows, feeling strangely warm despite the gathering cold of night. Kili’s stubble is only now starting to lengthen, instead of growing in patches. Fili doesn’t know what it says about him that he loves still being able to see all of his brother’s face.
“Hounds need no beards,” Kili says, leaning in too close to nip at the air just shy of Fili’s jaw. “They need only love and affection-“
“And a stern hand,” Fili cuts in as he grabs Kili by the scruff, holding him still as Kili yips and pup growls, presses closer until they topple over.
Fili’s foot knocks over the stew pot as they fall, and then it’s easy as anything to wrestle like they always do, shoving and grappling as Kili’s laugh fills up the forest. When Fili pins him Kili’s grin is sharp, and if he was a hound his tail would be thumping smugly against the leaf-strewn ground. He leans up, nips again, close enough that Fili feels the ghost of his teeth on his mouth, and it’s nothing at all to follow Kili down and kiss him soundly.
Kili makes a surprised, pleased noise in the back of his mouth and hauls Fili closer by the straps of his hunting vest.
“I thought you would never,” he says, as if he’d just seen Fili take up the bow and arrow. With so few dwarf women Fili has, of course, known that finding a male companion was within his options-but who could ever wish for more than Kili?
Kili eyes are soft and dark, and his grin hasn’t changed.
“I live to surprise you,” Fili says after a moment, dancing too close to the truth he’s beginning to know.
Kili, never still, arches his back with a sinuous, sinful roll of his hips that steals Fili’s breath away. “Surprise me, then.”
Naked, Kili is a sight to behold, slender by dwarf standards but sturdy in the eyes of men, strong across the shoulders and narrow in his waist. Fili’s build is only marginally broader; he can’t wait to see how they’ll fill out with age, widen like Balin or Dwalin.
Fili takes him in his mouth first, silver beads of his mustache braids kissing the sweat-glistening skin of Kili’s hips as Fili catches them in his hands and pins them to the ground. It doesn’t keep Kili from writhing or whining or tangling his thick fingers in Fili’s hair, urging him on and then pulling him off, dragging him up by the hair at his nape for more needy kisses. The spit between them eases the way for rutting together, and the barn owl hoots above them as they topple and fall.
~*~
“You’ve gone wild,” Thorin says when next they see him, touching his fingertips to Kili’s braidless hair after they embrace. His gaze falls on Fili and the implication is clear: You’ve let him grow wild.
“And we’re the better for it,” Kili says, ducking out of his grasp. “Can you imagine us as stuffy little princelings?”
It is clear the words strike Thorin like a blow, as if he is only now realizing they carry no hope or bitterness for their stolen birthright.
“What good is the wealth of bloodlines in a forest?” Fili asks when Thorin opens his mouth to fight.
“Your anger keeps you warm, Uncle,” Kili says, giving Fili a wink behind Thorin’s back. “We have found another way.”
If Fili reached out now Thorin’s skin would skald.
~*~
And then there is the quest.
They go because Thorin asks, because it was their mother’s home, because of the gold that will help their people to a better life. Because it’s an adventure, because Kili looks at him and quirks his eyebrow, knee jittering under the table against Fili’s leg. But mostly because Thorin comes to them, and asks.
~*~
“Look how he wants you,” Fili murmurs in his brother’s ear, eyes on Thorin across the glen.
“What, Uncle?” Kili says, observant as ever. “Wants me how?”
“However he can get you,” Fili chuckles, low, and slides in close against his brother’s back, pulling him in with a possessive hand against his belly until Kili understands his meaning.
Kili could guffaw, and Fili’s braced for it, but instead his brother leans against him, easy and relaxed, humming idly as he turns the thought over. Thorin’s face has gone as stormy as a thundercloud, brows drawn together as he turns from his aborted pacing and stalks toward them.
“Fili! Kili! A word.”
“Oh, now you’re in for it,” Fili says just to hear Kili’s indignant squawk.
“He called for you too, you-ow, ow, ow!“ He yelps when Thorin gets them both by the ear; Fili manages to bite back half of his own pained noises behind a grimace, at least until they’re out of ear- and eye-shot from the company.
“You had but one job between you,” Thorin growls, looming over them as best he can. “And yet cave trolls-not a kind known for their stealth and slight of hand-managed to steal four ponies from under your noses!”
“Two ponies,” Kili corrects. “We saw them take the next pair.”
Fili steps up to the chopping block, elbowing his brother back a step. “I was distracting him.”
Thorin’s gaze grows sharp as flint. “Distracting how?”
Kili’s hand fists in Fili’s shirt, knuckles digging into his ribs in warning. Fili can feel the smirk curling his lips in answer. “Can't you guess?” he asks. If Thorin means to shame him for his choice in Kili he will be sorely disappointed. “Or did you want specifics, Uncle?”
His back hits the rock face in the blink of an eye, Thorin’s hands clenched in the fabric of his shirtfront, not quite cutting off his air but threatening to. Thorin’s breath is hot and smells of spices from Bombur’s stew, and Thorin has never looked at Fili the way he is now, with the same intense focus he saves only for Kili and the middle distance where his Lonely Mountain is just out of sight.
“Your carelessness and reckless behavior nearly cost us the quest,” Thorin snaps, shaking him, fingers slipping past cloth to burn skin-on-skin.
Anger wells up, helpless childish anger pushed high by Kili bodily trying to pull them apart. “Can you truly say you would have done differently?” Thorin shoves him away before he can finish, “If he kissed you, would you turn him away?”
Thorin has always carried the look of one who is hunted, but Fili has never seen it so clearly on his face before.
Kili looks hungry.
~*~
Watching Thorin go to his knees is as thrilling as bringing down a stag together, Kili at its throat and Fili at its flanks.
Fili’s grip is tight across Thorin’s wrists, holding them behind his back because he couldn’t seem to stop himself from half-heartedly struggling, his palms skidding over skin and elbows and shoulders-not quite a caress, not enough to push them away. Tangling his hands in the shirt they stripped off him had settled him, sent a shudder down his spine that stripped the fight from him.
Kili’s eyes are dark and searching, and Fili is glad he cannot see Thorin’s face from where he is, pressed flush against his uncle’s back, spreading his knees by simply being between them. Kili grips Thorin’s chin between his blunt fingers and lifts, makes their gazes meet. “How long?”
Fili might be the only thing keeping Thorin upright when he answers, “As long as I can remember.”
Kili shakes his head in wonderment. “Why did you say nothing? It’s common enough for shield brothers to-“
“I could not ask it of you,” Thorin chokes out. “I wanted it too much. And I knew-I know I cannot keep you.”
Fili lets the beads at the end of his mustache braids brush against the bare curve of Thorin’s shoulder in comfort, for if there was ever a doubt in their minds that Kili could be swayed it is writ clear now across his face that he will not. Fili’s heartbeat thumps out of time, a joyous sort of pang that steals his breath away.
“I am sorry, Uncle,” Kili says, his kind hand at Thorin’s nape, “that you always seem to reach for things you cannot have.”
Fili hooks his chin over Thorin’s shoulder to watch Kili kiss him, see the way Thorin’s mouth goes slack and gasping even before Kili takes him. Kili has always been the best at kissing, between them, knows when to soften and when to press an advantage, and Fili feels a fierce sort of pride well up in him watching his brother tease and play, watch him leave Thorin straining against Fili’s hold to get more.
Kili’s grin is sharp, wolfish, when he pulls back, and Fili can feel Thorin’s throat work to hold in a sound. “Shh,” Fili hushes anyway, “mustn’t be too loud, you’ll bring the others running.”
“I can hold my tongue,” Thorin growls, half-smiling already, as if merely kissing Kili has already begun unraveling the oppressive cloak of duty he wears like a second skin.
“We’ll see,” Fili hums, free hand catching Thorin’s hair and smoothing it away so he can trail nipping kisses along the bared line of Thorin’s neck, up to where his beard begins. It sends a thrill through him, bright and illicit, and his eyes find Kili at once.
“I know,” Kili laughs, giving one of Fili’s braids a tug. “It’s alright.”
Thorin’s beard feels amazing against Fili’s, rough strands catching Fili’s mustache braids in a delicious, delirious drag. And then his mouth, that looks so firm but feels so supple, quick and responsive and warm, not afraid to show his teeth. He kisses Thorin longer than he should, long enough it has to make his neck ache with the way he’s twisted around, but when Fili strokes a hand down Thorin’s chest his fingers bump Kili’s where they’re playing with the peaks of Thorin’s nipples. Thorin doesn’t gasp but he makes strangled noises like he wants to, angling his hips in supplication for the jut of his cock.
The look on Kili’s face is pure delight. Like holding an ax or a bow or kissing Fili for the first time, and he does so now, as soon as Fili turns his head-laughs into the kiss and presses Thorin close between them. Fili can’t seem to keep his tongue to himself, needs to know if Kili tastes any different now that he’s kissed someone else-but it’s the same, right and familiar and calming to the jackrabbit beat of Fili’s heart.
“What do you want?” Kili murmurs in Thorin’s ear when they part, eyes on Fili dancing with mischief.
“Anything.” Thorin lets his head fall back on Fili’s shoulder, almost-nuzzling as he says against the rough stubble on Kili’s chin, “This is already far more than I could have hoped.”
Fili can feel the shiver run through his brother, through Thorin, as sure as he can see Kili’s smile grow, see his lashes flutter. “Will you let my brother have your mouth?” Kili asks, thumb brushing Thorin’s lips as he drags it over Thorin’s beard, one stroke against the grain that makes Thorin’s mouth slip open before Kili smooths it again.
The mere thought forces Fili’s eyes shut, turns his breathing ragged as Thorin shifts in their arms to press a kiss at Fili’s temple until he opens his eyes once more. His grip on Thorin's wrists goes slack. “It would be an honor,” Thorin says, near a growl at the last, possessive and almost proud.
Fili finds himself on his back the instant Thorin works his hands free, breath knocked from him and Thorin stealing the rest with a grinding kiss that makes him dizzy with the feel of their beards dragging together. Thorin making fast work of his clothes is distant and distracting, leaves him catching gasps of need in his mouth when they have to break to strip his shirts from him. He catches one glimpse of Kili doing the same with his own clothing over Thorin’s shoulder before that beard is back, dragging fire over the sensitive skin of Fili’s throat and lower, trailing down to the nipple Thorin catches between his teeth.
It makes him hiss, makes his hips buck up into Thorin’s grasp, and he tangles a hand in the mess of loose hair at Thorin’s nape and holds on for dear life.
“Look how he wants you,” Kili says, tugging at Fili’s attention with the echo of his own words. His brother’s eyes shine so bright they might be stars.
Thorin breaks off to duck his head, resting it against Fili’s navel where his hair thins between chest and groin. Then-and Fili would believe it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes-their proud princeling arches his strong back, presenting himself. “Would you,” he asks, barely audible, barely daring to glance back, “please…”
Kili look is wild-heat and disbelief and wonder that he shares with Fili. Fili doesn’t understand why he hesitates at first, and then he nods, near frantic, because Thorin's breath is hot against his skin and he can imagine nothing so incendiary as his brother rutting into Thorin while Thorin takes him in his mouth. That Kili felt he needed Fili’s permission is too much to bear thinking of.
They still have the oil they’d smuggled with them from home to use sparingly in the dark, most recently employed while they were guarding the ponies. Fili bites his lip too hard at the realization that Kili must still feel it inside him, with how he’d begged Fili to thrust harder, muffling his rough urging against Fili’s throat. Thorin would probably kill Fili for thinking it, but he’d gladly lose an entire herd of ponies for those stolen moments-or perhaps Thorin is the one person who’d understand.
This isn’t Thorin’s first time being breached, being slicked open, but Fili can’t spare the thought of who else might’ve brought their leader to this quivering ball of tension and need when Thorin bites back a moan and brings Fili’s cock back to his mouth, drawing him inside that wet heat. He is no novice at this either, pulling back to suckle the head of Fili’s cock, oh-so-carefully shifting his beard against the beading moisture at the tip and nearly shattering Fili entirely.
“I wish you could see the picture you make together,” Kili groans out, and Fili drags his eyes open in time to see Thorin’s features convulse with pleasure as Kili does something with his fingers. “By my…”
Thorin lets Fili fall from his mouth to slap wetly against his belly, muscles shifting under his skin as he twists to glare over his shoulder. “Now, Kili,” he growls, “Now,” and Kili nods too fast and moves closer on his knees, lining himself up.
Fili knows the look on his brother’s face when he’s sinking in, but Thorin pushes, shoves himself back on Kili’s cock and Kili scrabbles at his hips, letting out a whine of pleasure. One hand steadies himself on Thorin’s shoulder and Fili clings to it, tangling their hands together over Thorin’s skin as Thorin takes him in his mouth once more.
As wondrous as it feels, as spine-melting, diamond-breaking, Fili can barely stave off the orgasm he feels building in the marrow of his bones, the rightness, the hiccupping moans Kili doesn’t even try to bite back as he fucks into their uncle with his eyes on Fili, and Thorin’s gaze too, and Thorin’s beard, and Kili’s hair sticking to his bare skin with the sweat and sway of his thrusts-Fili snaps his hips up and Thorin lets him. When Fili comes, he comes brutally, like something vital ripped free in the spurts of come in Thorin’s mouth. The groan Thorin makes tugs another shot free, streaking his beard with white. Fili’s balls ache with how much more he wants to give and can’t.
“Oh, gods, Fili,” Kili gasps, and Fili finds the strength from somewhere, rolls out of the way and when Thorin buckles, turns him over. Kili slips free for a moment but it’s worth it, Kili has to see this. The mess Thorin is, the hot flush down his heaving chest. Kili makes a noise like he’s been hurt and thrusts back in, kissing and licking Fili’s come from Thorin’s beard and mouth.
Fili settles in along Thorin’s side, close enough to run a hand down his brother’s back and flank to urge him on. “There,” he hums, voice as loose and well-fucked as his joints. He catches one of Kili’s hands and brings it to Thorin’s blood-heavy cock. “Together now.”
It takes less than seven strokes to bring Thorin to ground. Fili is so caught up in the twist of pleasure on Thorin’s face that he almost misses just how far his uncle shoots, all the way to his collarbone, what’s not trapped by Fili and Kili’s intertwined fingers. “Impressive,” he laughs breathlessly, and bedecks the side of Thorin’s face with nuzzling kisses now while he is in no shape to argue.
Kili has stilled his hips but it’s costing him, hands clutching restlessly along Thorin’s strong thighs. “Can I-“ he gasps, “Can I?”
Thorin’s eyes are blue and glazed and happy, and Fili cannot remember loving his uncle more. “Come on, then,” he says, tugging Kili closer with his legs.
On impulse Fili reaches out and smacks his brother on the rump just as he begins to thrust, and Kili yips and comes undone, too close to the edge to stop himself from spilling deep into their princeling, grinding it in even deeper as Thorin and Fili soothe him to the end.
He collapses in pieces, first his head against Thorin’s chest and then the rest of him, face turned toward his brother as Fili throws an arm over Kili’s shoulders and settles down. Kili clasps their hands together over Thorin’s heart, fingers gone shaky and weak; Thorin gets an arm under Fili’s head and curls around him as protectively as the hand he has petting Kili’s hair.
“I will never understand,” Kili mumbles, eyelids drooping, “why either of you look at me as if I’m made of gold.”
“No. I’ve seen what loving gold does to a dwarf,” Thorin says, and before Fili can lift his head Thorin grins, eyes crinkling at the edges, at once so unexpected and relaxed that it stops Fili’s confusion in its tracks. “Fili loves you like a lion.”
Fili can’t say who moves first, only that it feels right to press foreheads with his uncle, let everything he can’t say go silent between them but not unheard. They’re all a mess, with only the water from their canteens to clean them, but with Thorin rumbling a quiet lullaby deep in his chest Fili thinks it can wait a few minutes.
~*~
Most everyone is bunked down for the night, Bombur and Gandalf’s steady snoring mingling with quiet conversation around the fire from the handful of those still awake. Bofur is the first to see them, and a look of understanding crosses his face with a soft upward turn of his mouth-Fili gives him a nod, and shouldn’t be surprised when he catches Thorin doing the same out of the corner of his eye.
Kili is already at the fire, scrounging for dinner scraps as he trips over Bilbo. “You were gone quite a while,” Bilbo blurts, once shaken from his brooding.
“Scouting the area,” Kili says with his mouth full, “for any more trolls.” It’s a decent lie, even though Kili can’t seem to help giving Fili a smirk over the fire, eyes twinkling with more than just firelight.
Still it’s apparently enough to convince Bilbo, who mutters an, “Oh. Right,” and goes back to forlornly staring at the fire.
Fili goes to nudge Thorin only to find his uncle’s eyes already on the hobbit, sharp and intense, focused in a way that feels strangely-
Even when Thorin cuffs him the most Fili can do is bite down on his hand to try to stifle the laughter that bubbles up in him, starting at his toes.
“What?” Bilbo asks, smile flickering as he tries to decide if the joke’s on him. “What’s so funny?”
Fili shakes his head as tears start welling up beneath his eyelashes, and Thorin heaves a longsuffering sigh and shoves him in the direction of his brother.
“Remember your learned patience for small things, Uncle,” Fili advises under his breath, and runs to Kili before he can be cuffed again, feeling light in a place he hadn’t known was heavy.
For Fili is Kili's favorite, and in comparision all the gold in the world seems pale as dust.
the end
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