A/N: Not mine, no profit, so don't send Smaug to collect money that I don't have. This was just a little 'what if' that I imagined when I noticed how Kíli's attitude towards Bilbo changed abruptly from tormenting him with a fictitious orc attack to being kind of happy to see him when he turns up after disappearing. As always, my muse (long thought vanished and only now poking her insane head around here again) adores reviews; constructive criticism also welcome, especially as I wrote this in several different sittings and may have missed a segue or two :D
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Kíli caught stealthy movement just at the edge of the firelight to his left and shifted slightly in his bedroll to shade the fire's glare from his eyes. There, partially hidden behind his rumpled up bedding, was the company's burglar, bent over his legs and fumbling with something which Kíli couldn't see in the flickering shadows. Bilbo straightened his back with a pained grimace, reaching around to short-temperedly knead at sore muscles as he furtively glanced around to assure that the sentries were still watching outwards while everyone else still slept around the built-up night fire. Kíli closed his eyes to slits and went limp to mimic sleep as that gaze swept over his spot against the rock wall.
Apparently reassured that he hadn't attracted any notice Bilbo returned to whatever he was doing in his bedroll, this time settled a little more towards the light, and a flash of off-white cloth caught the firelight as he awkwardly reached around his upper calf. Kíli carefully kept watch even as the hobbit inexpertly tied a sloppy knot in what he now identified as a bandage before the little being shoved his trouser leg down to conceal it and tiredly pulled his covers back into order. For over an hour Bilbo shifted around, and Kíli simply watched and listened as he thought, until he found a comfortable enough position which allowed his travel-aching body to finally rest.
Kíli found no such rest as his mind was running through possibilities. They had only been traveling for one long day, without any hint of fighting, and he hadn't heard of Bilbo having an accident. The way his kin carried on, if the hobbit had hurt himself within sight of any of them, the entire company would have known about it in short order. So that left the questions of how did their little burglar become injured, and what was Kíli going to do about it now that he possessed the knowledge. Even though he had devilishly tweaked Bilbo's terror tonight, and been soundly slapped down for it by Thorin, he didn't want the sheltered little guy to hurt if he could help it. Besides, with that sloppy bandaging job, it wouldn't stay wrapped for too long and a lame leg would become a dangerous liability to the entire company. Kíli shrugged his blankets higher up around his shoulders as a cool breeze found its way under them and resolved to deal with it, whatever decision he had to make, in the morning. No sense in staying awake all night worrying when they had another long day ahead of them and the problem would still be there when they were rousted out of their warm bedrolls. As Kíli wasn't supposed to take a turn on sentry duty this night, he allowed himself to fall under the deep cover of exhausted sleep.
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Morning came with a burst of chaos as a chill and heavy mist had descended on the camp, foretelling foul weather for the day, and Balin had the entire company whipped into a frenzy packing and breaking camp to where Kíli didn't get a spare moment to think about anything. He was right to rush them, though, as no sooner were they mounted than the heavens cut loose with a deluge fit to make an ocean of dry land. Miserable hour after miserable hour passed in cold and soggy riding, and as they shuffled around during the day's ride Bilbo ended up in front of Kíli for a few hours.
The position gave him time to observe the hobbit's miserably hunched posture, and even more importantly, observe the way he kept shifting in the saddle to favor his right leg. As soaked to the skin as they all were, the inexperienced bandage from last night would undoubtedly be less than useless by now. Kíli's mare slipped a bit in the muck and dodged out of line, and as he brought her back in hand he caught a flash of muddied white sticking out from under the hem of Bilbo's trousers. Just as he thought, the little one was just as splattered with filth as the rest of them were; Kíli could feel it lying heavy on his own trouser legs from where it was splashed up by his mare's shod feet and internally grimaced at the thought of what it could be doing to a wound. Should he tell someone about it, or let Bilbo take care of himself? If it was another dwarf, there wouldn't even be a question. They'd take care of themselves and have the sense to seek a healer if things it went beyond their capabilities.
The cold downpour dissuaded anyone from stopping for lunch as it was just as wet whether they were on their ponies or off of them and they all simply ate a cold lunch of cheese and fruits as they rode. More shifting pushed Kíli to the end of the line where he simply followed as he thought, where he could think in peace without his brother noticing his lack of watchfulness on the trail and scolding him for it. Hours passed unremarked as he kept to the back and wandered the trails of his own thoughts.
~ . ~ . ~
By the time Thorin called the night's halt everyone was feeling the damp cold that had seeped into their bones even though the rain had stopped a few hours before. Óin was set to create dinner while everyone else unloaded the ponies and dumped their packs around the hastily-set up fire ring. Fíli and Nori brought in the first armloads of firewood which Glóin wasted no time in setting ablaze for them. Everyone was more than happy to just slump around the warm fire and enjoy the scent of Óin's creation as they soaked up the heat. Putting into action the plan that he'd thought up, Kíli made sure that he was sent out to secure extra firewood and grabbed a protesting Bilbo to help him carry it all.
"Really, why do you need me out here?" The hobbit continued complaining and Kíli simply gave him a flat stare which made him stutter to silence. They were far enough away from the others now that he could be certain they wouldn't be overheard, and no one would be interested in stirring from the fire's warmth any time soon.
"How did you hurt your leg?" He asked. Kíli tried not to put Bilbo on guard, as most others didn't have the directness of a dwarf, but seemed to have failed as the other immediately dropped his gaze and became very shifty.
Bilbo shifted away, hand dropping toward his right leg and then jerking away from it as he fought to keep from giving himself away. "What do you mean? I haven't hurt myself," he blustered. Even went so far as to stamp both feet on the soggy ground to prove how sound his legs were, though Kíli noticed that he looked down as he did so to hide any wince he may have made. As Kíli himself had used the same tricks with his own brother many times to avoid a trip to their mother and the healing halls, he was wise to the game.
He backed Bilbo up until they were beside the rock pile he'd scouted earlier; it would shield them just in case anyone took a wild idea to come looking in their direction, though no one should. During the day's ride, he'd come to the conclusion that he'd just help Bilbo out whether he liked it or not and save notifying the rest of the company only if it became worse. Of course, he had to get a look at the actual wound first to see how bad it was; could be as simple as a scratch or as urgent as a venomous insect bite. The hobbit truly was an innocent for not knowing how to care for himself.
"Look, I know you're hurting," he explained as gently as possible. "I saw you wrapping it up last night and today wasn't good for you at all. Let me help you," Kíli asked and waited as Bilbo tried to decide whether to accept the offer of help or not.
The hobbit looked left and right around Kíli as if he dearly wanted to dart past and escape back to the safety of the group where he wouldn't be pressured into exposing a weakness when he's already considered the weakest member of the company. "Why? Why would you possibly want to help me?" Bilbo burst out in frustration, yet careful to keep his voice low enough to not carry. By that Kíli knew that he'd won him over.
He could give any number of reasons for why he was going to help. If Bilbo sickened, they would face the choice of either leaving their burglar behind and chancing the quest without him or slowing down and risk missing the only day of the year in which they could open the door to their mountain. If he remained weak, then he was a liability in a fight, and Kíli knew that others would risk injury or death as they tried to protect the hobbit. But he decided to give Bilbo a different answer, one which he thought the little being may have an easier time accepting. "I want to help because you're hurting and because my mother taught me to never leave someone in pain if I could help it. She's the sâman for our tribe, a healer for common things, and she'd smack me harder than an anvil if I ignored your injury."
Bilbo regarded him with consternation, clearly taken off guard by the answer, before he nodded decisively and sat back against the rock rubble. "I think it's just a saddle sore, from where the packs keep rubbing against my leg," he explained as he shoved his sodden trouser leg up to show an equally soaked and filthy bandage. "I wrapped it up last night, but, well, I guess I don't know how to do a good job of it," he semi-laughed at his own lacking. Kíli simply gave him a small grin and brought out the small pack he'd prepared and snuck from camp.
"If it's just a bit of a sore, then it'll only take a few moments to treat and then you'll feel much better for it," Kíli assured. It only took moments to help the failed bandage fall from Bilbo's leg to expose the reddened and weeping sore positioned above the calf, on the tender skin just below the knee on the inside. They both peered at it, though Bilbo had to twist around awkwardly to do so and his wince of pain wasn't entirely due to Kíli's probing fingers around the inflammation. "It doesn't look that bad," Kíli declared after a silent few minutes, "I think most of this is simply a reaction to the wet and to the day's riding, not infection."
"Oh, good, that's very good," Bilbo chattered as he gave up trying to watch, his back extremely unhappy with the additional torment of the day's cold ride wouldn't tolerate the twisting he had to do to watch as Kíli worked. He settled back against the rocks as best he could and simply let the dwarf work how he wished.
Kíli pulled out the waterskin of warmed water that he had filled from the hot fireside kettle earlier and used the cleanest rags he had to gently wipe away the stripes and smears of mud from the injury and surrounding skin. It looked like it had started out as a large blister which had burst and then been rubbed into a sore. The day's wet and the chafing as he rode had torn at the sore, inflaming it and turning it into the oozing mess that looked horrible until Kíli cleaned it up. "This isn't so bad after all," he reassured, "I've got some herbs I can mix up into a poultice, should take the hurt right out of it and help it to heal without problems."
"Not to be a bother or doubt you, because I'm sure you know exactly what you're doing," Bilbo babbled uncertainly as Kíli began to mix a handful of dry and dusty-looking herbs with the leftover water to produce a thick dark paste, "But may I ask exactly how you know how to heal?" For claiming not to doubt, Kíli wryly thought, his voice contained more than enough of it to make it wobble and stammer.
After two days riding together and listening to the being, he thought he now had a better understanding of the hobbit. "You don't think that Fíli and I could grow up together and not learn about healing? Our mother taught us much of it out of sheer self-preservation; the number of times we dragged each other back out of the cavern depths and wilds, torn to bits or broken, and she drew the line. Unless we were gushing blood or had a broken bone, we had to heal our own minor hurts and quit bothering her all the time." Bilbo stared at him. "In her defense, it really was several times a week that we got into trouble, so we didn't blame her one bit," he laughed and shrugged, evoking an answering chuckle from Bilbo before the hobbit could smother it.
The chuckle ended in a hiss as Kíli smoothed the paste over raw skin and it stung as began to clean deeper than water could reach. "Don't worry now, it'll begin to numb it in just a few seconds," he assured and soon enough Bilbo's face relaxed into a tentative peace, as if he wasn't quite sure that he could trust the pain not to return just yet.
"My compliments to your mother, Kíli, for that is a wondrous mixture," he sighed. Kíli merely grinned and nodded rather than laugh at the hilarious face that Bilbo made as the relief sank in. His cheeks hurt with the effort, but he didn't think the hobbit would be like his brother and want to tussle now that he was feeling better, so laughing at him probably wouldn't be taken the way he meant it.
Kíli efficiently wrapped bandage material, one of the few things which the company had packed plenty of for each member, around Bilbo's upper calf, sure to pad it over the wound so that it wouldn't get knocked into during the night and aggravated. "Look here, this is how you tie it off if you want it to stay on for more than a few hours," he prompted and showed Bilbo how to properly tie a bandage back onto itself so that it wouldn't unravel until taken off. Then, job done, he tidied up and regarded Bilbo.
"Now don't let Dwalin pack your pony again in the morning, get Dori to help you; he'll do it right and remember to make sure that nothing is in your way to rub another sore. Dwalin is willing to turn his hands to any job, but sometimes he doesn't remember that not everyone has our thick skin," Kíli apologized. "And if it gets worse, go see Óin, he's our proper healer, alright?"
Bilbo immediately shook his head. "No, I don't want to be any bother. Gandalf said that I had to make do, and so that's just what I'll…"
Kíli immediately pushed into Bilbo's face and interrupted him. "He didn't mean for you to ignore your own health, so if you're hurt or you need help, speak up!" he emphasized to the startled hobbit who could only nod at his ferocious words. Doing without pocket handkerchiefs was one thing, but putting everyone at risk by concealing and not treating an injury was unnecessarily dangerous.
Apparently his vehemence made an impression as Bilbo flushed a bit and nodded. "Right. You're right, absolutely," he stammered, and Kíli backed off with a nod of his own.
"Just remember that. Now, let's get the firewood before the rest come looking for us," he turned around and began gathering an armful. Kíli could hear rustling and wood thunking behind him as Bilbo followed suit in collecting his own firewood. Their burglar wasn't all that bad; he just had a lot to learn. Kíli hoped that the others would be likewise willing to take the time to help the little being, would have the compassion to work with Bilbo as he learned. Perhaps his innocence would be just what they all needed after the hard and unsettled lives they'd all lead so far.
~ . End . ~