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Kili was a creature of instinct. He always had been, from the time he was tiny and breaking his arm in trees. In a way, it served him well as a hunter; instinct mixed with training let him stop immediately, shoot accurately, when he'd only seen movement from the corner of his eye.
Other times, it got him into . . . exciting situations. His mother despaired of him, thoroughly convinced that he would get himself into trouble he couldn't climb out of because he didn't stop and think things through. Kíli, didn’t worry, though. Things always worked out, either on their own or because of the intervention of his much more cool-headed big (little, he still luxuriated in that knowledge 30 years later) brother.
However, something was…changing.
And Kíli wasn’t sure what.
So he did what he always did when he needed to think things out: he grabbed his bow and a fresh set of arrows and slipped off into the forest. He could disappear for several hours and no one would think twice about it as long as he came home with something for dinner. His only companion was one of his best friends and a brilliant listener, even if she wasn’t much for giving advice (which was, frankly, often a blessing).
“He’s avoiding me,” he told her. “But I don’t know why.”
Fowl hooted what he assumed was agreement.
She’d picked their tree today, a study oak beside the brook that ran down the east side of the mountain. The air smelled like wildflowers.
Kíli swung his feet. He thought well in trees, not that he’d like people to know that. Dwarves weren’t meant to be tree-dwellers. Nor were they meant to be tall, or thin, or bare-chinned, or- well. Kíli-like. Fowl appreciated his idiosyncrasy, though, soaring ahead of him through the forest until she found a sturdy branch and landed on it, fluffing her feathers as she waited for him to join her. He was fairly certain she laughed herself silly every time he scrambled up after her – climbing was a talent, but not a particularly graceful one. “Which, of course, you love.”
Fowl looked pleased.
She never had warmed up to Fíli, even after all the years they’d spent together. Kíli reckoned she didn’t like sharing his attention, and Mahal knew Fíli was her biggest competition for it. He had other friends, of course, from his little cousin Gimli to Balin’s apprentice Ori, who’d attended lessons with them for years, to his favorite training partner, a female named Reeta who was one of the few dwarves who decided, like Kíli, to specialize in the bow. He even considered his mother a friend now that he was older. Still terrifying when she wanted to be, of course, or especially sappy, but a friend when the time was right as well.
But Fíli was something different. Something special.
Something that needed serious consideration in a tree.
What was Fíli?
His brother, definitely. He’d been a pain in Kíli’s neck for years with all his strutting handsomeness and gorgeous handwriting and decent attention span. He knew all of Fíli’s buttons, as any self-respecting little brother would, though he didn’t use them very often these days. A decade or so ago getting on Fíli’s nerves was a matter of pride, but now he mostly felt like a dwarf-shaped orc when he got Fíli mad at him. Which just wasn’t a proper brotherly reaction at all.
His best friend? Mostly likely. Kíli trusted Fíli down in his bones, like he did no one else. And they’d never managed to go a decent amount of time not talking to each other, even when they had a few epic fights over the years. It was hard to stay mad at Fíli, and Fíli was no better when it came to staying mad at him.
But best friend didn’t seem right.
Maybe that spot was for Ori, especially since Thorin had taken Fíli away for his own training a decade or so earlier. He liked Ori, but they squabbled like normal friends and got on each others’ nerves and sometimes went a week or so glaring over their slates at each other. But Ori didn’t-
Make his heart race, sometimes, just by smiling.
“Life,” Kíli told Fowl as he scratched her very favorite spot behind her ear, “is confusing.”
She nipped his finger to remind him that scratching is more important than thinking.
“I haven’t felt that way in a while. I mean, maybe a little with Reela sometimes or a couple of times when I saw Ori’s brother Nori – do not tell Ori I said that, he’d have a heart attack, but Nori is fun to look at for all that he’s, you know, a criminal and too old or me and just-”
Fowl fluffed up a ruff of feathers around her neck and glared him in the eyeball.
“Hey, a guy’s allowed to look, you know! Perfectly normal for a young dwarf’s heart to do a few backflips before you find the one who really makes it go-”
He froze.
Oh.
He sat up suddenly, disturbing the owl on his knee so that she took off with a squawk of indignation, showing her displeasure with more claw than necessary, but he’d been putting leather on the knees of his pants for years for just this reason.
“But he’s-”
Fíli, grinning at him when they sparred, knocking him back, Fíli’s thighs pinning his stomach, that cocky grin-
“He’s-“
Fíli in the tavern, sticking close, watchful and quiet among the ruckus, the way his eyes narrowed as, his shoulder pressed to Kíli’s-
“He’s-!”
“He’s what?”
Kíli didn’t fall out of his tree, but it was a near thing.
Because he knew that voice, smooth and confident and amused, of course he did. And of course Fíli would be here, now, right this moment, the absolute asshat.
“Nothing!” Kíli squeaked manfully as he grabbed at the trunk of his tree, knees clamping in place in what he pretended was an adult, dwarfly manner.
“Hmm.” There he was, Fíli, looking all-all golden and…and attractive like…well just. He was doing that on purpose. No one looked that adorable and handsome an amused without some kind of ulterior motive! "So you’re just out here,” he planted a boot on the side of the tree and oh, Mahal’s balls, he was about to climb up, “talking to yourself about a mysterious ‘he’ who does nothing all day?”
Kíli’s brain was much too muddled by this sudden, world-changing revelation for him to have a proper come back, so he fell back on the old standard, “Oh, button it.”
Fíli grabbed Kíli’s branch – his own, personal branch, and when did running into the forest become a family matter?! – and swung himself neatly up, straddling it only inches from Kíli’s personal Kiliness. “Oh, I don’t think so. You’ve been heading out here to brood a lot lately, and Mom’s half convinced you’re sneaking out to see a girl-”
Kíli huffed.
Fíli’s grin told Kíli that he knew full well that wasn’t the problem; he’d been fully aware of Kíli’s two brief crushes and teased him mercilessly for both “-and I told her I’d check in on you to make sure you’re not besmirching the family name among the bushes.”
Kíli’s brows drew together.
Kíli’s brows drew together and his heart pounded and that same instinct that made him sense game and fire before he could really think about it sparked in his chest and pushed him forward-
Right into his brother’s mouth.
“Wha-?” Fíli managed, and Kíli had an extremely brief glance of his brother’s eyes (had they always been that blue? Had he noticed for years and not noticed he noticed?) widening in utter shock before his teeth bumped a bit sharply into Fíli’s.
Okay, well, tooth bumping wasn’t really the plan-
“Kíli, what-”
“Hold on, just, that wasn’t what I was going for-”
A tilt of his head and a little less force, and then-
Oh.
Fíli’s lips were a little chapped and parted to talk, but still soft and warm and just-
Perfect.
Kíli scooted a little closer without pulling away, and pressed his mouth just that little bit more against his brother’s.
His heart was doing absolute backflips all over his chest, and something warm exploded happily in his brain, and then-
Fíli disappeared.
“Fí-?”
Kíli’s eyes fluttered open as his brother’s loud “Ack!” cracked through the air-at much the same time that Kíli’s branch, no longer feeling capable of holding up two dwarves at once – snapped neatly just past his fingers and dumped Kíli’s handsome brother straight to the forest floor.
“Fíli!”
Fíli hit the ground with a bit of a crunch that made Kíli wince, even as he started scrambling down the treacherous branches (a few more had done nothing whatsoever to save Fíli, beyond getting badly tangled in his suddenly glorious hair).
“Ow,” Fíli said, looking a bit dazed.
Fowl fluttered in a circle above him, giving the chuckling little hoots that Kíli always interpreted as a laugh. He’d have to talk to her about that. Possible Fíli injury was not funny!
“I didn’t mean to break you!” Kíli landed more or less on his knees and crawled hurriedly to his brother’s side.
“’M not broken,” Fíli assured him, and wasn’t that just Fíli, on his back in the leaves and still worrying about Kíli’s feelings. It made Kíli’s heart go pitter pat in an absolutely ridiculous way that Reela’s smile and Nori’s bad boy good looks had never managed. “Just a bit bruised.”
“I could kiss it better,” Kíli blurted and oh Mahal had he really said that?! Instinct was terrible! He was going to have his removed!
Fíli stared at him. Then, slowly, his eyes narrowed in that way he had that could mean he was about to send Kíli flying into the dirt or he was about to laugh so hard he’d have tears in his eyes. “You kissed me.”
It sounded so neutral, how was Kíli supposed to read that?!
“Ummm….yes.”
“Why?”
“Because….” Fíli was the one who was good with words, even though he got into moods when he rarely used them. Kíli was good at blurting out ridiculously embarrassing lines about kissing his brother’s arse. “I . . .”
Fíli watched him, still and quiet, his eyes steady. He did that, watched and waited, totally calm-
But oh, Kíli’s eyes, so attuned to movement, saw that maybe he wasn’t so calm.
Fíli’s chest moved with quick little breaths.
That insidious something in Kíli’s chest shifted and purred and told him to just-
“Because I love you.”
“I’m your brother, Kíli, you’ve always loved me. But you’ve never tried to nibble my teeth before.”
Kíli growled. “Stop being so literal-”
“How else am I supposed to be?” He said it calmly, but Fíli’s eyes flashed.
Kíli moved forward cautiously, a little shuffle on his knees. “Just shut up and listen.”
Fíli raised an eyebrow at him, and, insufferably, shut up and listened.
“I love you as in I’m in love with you as in I want to kiss you again and maybe just – sit and talk and – hold hands and just-” something low in his belly suddenly had a few ideas that made Kíli blush, and he cursed under his breath as his ears warmed up. “All those crushes and just – everything you do – it was just waiting for me to figure this out.”
Fíli shifted, winced, shifted again – moving carefully like an old dwarf indeed to his knees. “Are you sure?”
Kíli knew the answer to this one, he felt it in his bones. He thought, maybe, it had been there forever. From the first time he’d seen Fíli – a moment Fíli remembered (My very first memory, Papa putting you in my lap) but Kíli didn’t – through silly presents and new homes and sparring and saving an owl, he’d been getting ready for this.
“Yes.”
Fíli knelt in front of him. There were leaves and sticks in his hair, and it was obvious his poor backside had taken a beating since he moved like an absolute grandpa, but still-
Fíli took a slow breath. “All right.”
Kíli’s mouth twisted, his teeth biting into the bottom lip. “What…what does that mean?”
Fíli smiled.
It was a slow, happy thing, a tilt of the lips, a flash of teeth, and Kíli suddenly, desperately wanted to kiss it. “It means,” Fíli said, and there was teasing in his voice but also a distinct flush of pink peeking from under his beard, “I’d like to kiss you again, without falling out of a tree.” His smile transformed into a grin. “After all, you told me to marry you decades ago, and I’m sure Balin and the rest of the proper decorum brigade will be fine with us kissing after such a long engagement-”
Kíli kissed that smile with a wild laugh, throwing his arms around his brother and pressing their mouths together – too hard again, a bit of teeth – and then-
“OW SHIT!”
He knocked Fíli right on his tender bits. He’d always had a bit of trouble keeping up with what his knees were up to; Dwalin bellowed at him about it at least once a week.
“Oops.”
Fíli lay there in the grass, looking up at him. Fowl hooted merrily from her perch on the branch that had sent Fíli sprawling. “Loving you,” he said wryly, “is going to be dangerous, isn’t it?”
Kíli scowled at him, but his heart was absolutely dancing now. “We’ll figure it out,” he said, and leaned down very very carefully to try again.