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“Excuse me,” a quiet voice spoke. It was Ori. The same Ori he had tried as hard as possible not to speak to… That didn’t stop him from sitting close to him, or maybe sometimes staring (even if he would never admit to staring if he had an axe to his throat).
“Yes, what is it?” Kíli snapped. Okay, so rudeness wasn’t really the best angle to go about wooing someone. What of it? He couldn’t really stop being himself, could he? Besides, if Ori couldn’t handle a little frustrated comment then he certainly wouldn’t be able to stick around in the long term… and what was he doing, thinking about “long term” anyway? He had no possible way of knowing if Ori was even interested.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Ori began. His fallback phrase, it seemed. Not like Kíli paid enough attention to notice something like that. “But you don’t seem to have had anything to eat yet tonight. I’ve brought you some.” He almost violently straightened his arm, thrusting a bowl of stew into Kíli’s surprised grasp. He gets a bit distracted by the soft, comforting sound of Ori’s voice when it’s directed at him. He’s certainly on his way to success with this one.
He had tried letting his face do the charming. That had worked in the past, no matter how little he honestly cared for the random attentions of nameless ladies. But Ori never seemed to meet his gaze in the first place, let alone long enough to notice his handsome face.
“Um,” he started. Ooh, good one Kili. He could write books. Yes, definitely winning awards with this charm. “Thank you.” Perfect ending. Ten out of ten, if you were going for the I’m-Not-At-All-Interested vibe.
“You seemed to not take notice when they told everyone to come eat. If something’s troubling you, you could… That is, I am here to listen,” Ori finished, a bit lamely. He already appeared to be turning around to go back to the others.
“Wait!” Kíli pleaded. He’s not sure why he did, really. He could easily allow the younger dwarf to walk away, everything would continue as normal. But as he sat floundering, searching for the words he wanted to say, Kíli decided he didn’t want everything to continue the way they were going. “Would you like to sit and eat with me?”
“Uh, actually I,” Ori glanced back to his brothers, who were eating merrily and laughing loudly. “One moment,” he said as he hurriedly turned and walked away.
Of course, he’s going to ask his brothers, who obviously would want him to stay with them. Just a clever way to get out of spending time with him, Kíli supposed. His pretty face only worked if you actually looked at it.
However, just as Kili was turning away from the others to eat his meal in peace, Ori returned with a notebook, quill, and ink.
“Sorry,” he said shyly. “I already ate.” He sat himself leaning on a rock a short distance away from Kíli, facing him. Ori then opened his notebook, all without another word.
“What’s that?” Kíli inquired. Being a man of action, he never had much time for reading, let alone writing. He knew how, he just didn’t see much point in it. He’s too young to have done anything noteworthy enough to document for future generations.
Ori blushed and moved his hands to cover the open pages, despite the fact that Kíli couldn’t see the pages anyway. “Just some drawings,” he finally replied. “I’m not very good, mind, but I enjoy it.” He looked to his quill fondly.
Kíli was surprised. He never really thought of sketching as a pastime while adventuring. It seemed much too organized and… cute. Very cute, mind, when the person blushing and tentatively drawing was Ori.
“Might I see one?” he asked softly. He didn’t want to impose, or make Ori feel as if he was obligated.
“Oh, well…” Ori responded, searching hesitantly through the pages until he got to one he liked. He looked in Kíli’s eyes for a moment, only to look away at the same time as he turned the notebook to allow Kíli to see his drawing.
Kíli’s face immediately filled with delight. Ori’s drawings were beautiful! “Why- it’s your brothers!” he exclaimed. He was shocked at the level of detail and care obviously put into the sketch. Depicted on the page one could clearly see were Nori and Dori, holding plates piled with food and goblets filled to the brim. “You’ve captured them in their true home, I see- at dinner!” Kíli laughed at his own joke. While he supposed he was surprised at Ori’s talent, what was truly making him so giddy was Ori’s willingness to share something so personal with him. “Might I see another?”
“I suppose it couldn’t…” Ori smiled shyly to himself as he searched for another page to show Kíli. He was absolutely delighted at Kíli’s reaction- he appeared to love the drawings in a way his brothers simply did not. They saw his talent and supported his interest in art, but they did not appreciate it as readily as they did, say, gold. It was nice to have someone to display his art to who truly appreciated it.
“This one isn’t quite done, I’ve just been trying to finish it,“ he began, but Kíli cut him off when he grabbed the notebook from his hands. In front of him was an uncanny representation of the Goblin King they had encountered earlier. “But the caves- they were dark! And we were not in there so long as for you to get this generous a look!” Kíli exclaimed. Dumbfounded, he looked between Ori’s face and his sketch, expecting an answer to questions he did not ask. “How?” he finally settled on as the question that needed answered.
“I don’t know, I have good memory I suppose,” Ori replied, clearly worried Kíli wouldn’t accept his answer.
“This is absolutely remarkable,” Kíli told him sincerely, looking into his eyes to assure himself the message was understood. After they had been staring at each other for several seconds Ori glanced away shyly, and only then did Kíli begin to turn the pages in the notebook.
“No!” Ori exclaimed and lurched to grab the book back, startling Kíli. But not enough to stop him from seeing the new page he had turned to.
There was hardly any blank space on the page, for it was so completely covered with etchings of Kíli’s own face. Some small, quick doodles of various moods surrounded one central, large sketch of his head thrown back in laughter. He was absolutely speechless. Certainly he would have noticed if Ori spent so much time observing him? But no, he had just seen evidence of Ori’s remarkable visual recall.
As he sat wondering how in Middle Earth he missed something as significant as Ori’s obvious attention to him, Ori snatched his notebook back into his own lap and closed it hastily, almost knocking over his ink pot in haste.
“I-“ Kíli tried to begin.
“Those are private,” Ori muttered with finality. He gathered his things and appeared to be ready to walk off when he hear Kíli say something so quietly, he wasn’t really sure he truly heard it.
“I like them,” Kíli tried again, louder this time. He didn’t want Ori to be embarrassed. Mainly, Kíli felt embarrassed that he hadn’t noticed something earlier.
Ori stood shocked, staring at Kíli. After a long moment of stunned silence, Kíli stood and approached Ori slowly. As he reached for Ori’s hands, which still clutched his notebook to his chest tightly, Ori flinched slightly as if expecting some sort of lashing.
“They’re beautiful,” Kíli murmured, resting his own hands gently on Ori’s. Ori simply stared with surprise.
Just as it seemed Ori was going to say something back, a loud bellow of “Get on with it!” and ensuing laughter erupted from the direction of the fire. The two youngest dwarves jumped back, surprised and more than a little bit embarrassed.
“Aw, leave the lads be!” insisted Bofur. “Embarrassin’ ‘em won’t make ‘em get a move on.”
“If you’re be plannin’ on continuin’ your canoodling,” Balin said to them as the rest of their companions laughed and chattered noisily, “You’d be better off if we couldn’t see you,” he finished with a conspiratorial wink.
“Don’t go too far, mind,” Dori interrupted. “And be on your guard all the same.” Ori blushed an even darker shade of red than before at the inclusion of his brother on the conversation. Kíli realized soon enough that Ori wouldn’t be the one to make the first move toward the woods, so Kíli grabbed his and made his way for a small collection of trees and bushes which were a decent distance from the fire. He didn’t want any eavesdroppers.
After the two of them were safely hidden from the other dwarves, they sat in a rather awkward silence for quite a while. Neither of them really knew where to start off. Finally, one of them did something about it.
“Kili, I fully intend to kiss you on the mouth and if you have any objections you can say so now.” Ori was blushing profusely, but the look of determination on his face was fierce. Kíli was only taken aback for a moment, before grinning wildly and closing all of the distance between Ori’s mouth and his own.
He would be lying if he said the kiss was everything he had dreamed; he never imagined brambles scratching at his forearms as he leaned over Ori’s legs, or rocks cutting into his knees unpleasantly as he knelt down, and he certainly never imagined being able to hear his kin laugh loudly at his expense. However, he had imagined the softness of Ori’s mouth, and the soft noise of surprise that escaped him, and the muted power showing itself in the push and pull that resulted. He had imagined all of these things, and they were infinitely better in real life.
Finally they parted, slightly out of breath. “I… I‘ve thought about that a lot,” Ori admitted, and Kíli just couldn’t help but sneak another chaste kiss from him.
“So have I,” Kíli countered, leaving out the part where he thought about a lot more than just kissing Ori.
At that, Ori smiled widely, brightening his whole face. He cradled Kíli’s face in his hands gently as he tenderly touched his lips to the tip of Kíli’s nose. “Should we go back?” Ori asked, seeming reluctant.
“Not just yet,” Kíli replies, “But too much longer and they might start to tease about more than just kissing.”
“Well then, we might as well give them reason to.” Shocked at the brashness of this remark, Kíli was completely taken off guard when Ori pushed him onto his back and kissed him harder than ever before.
It seemed as if Kíli wasn’t the only one who thought about more than just kissing.