A few weeks ago I discovered the band "Sleeping at Last" through a wonderful Bilbo/Thorin fanvideo ("Thorin & Bilbo - He was my friend" by 00shelly77; and I'm still refusing to see it as slash, for me it's about their friendship) and the moment I first heard their song "Mars" I immediately thought of Fíli and Kíli and of how things might have gone differently for them.
So this is basically a fix-it!fic, but it's also a bit different from what I usually write. It's a songfic written in drabbles. I thought long and hard about writing this my usual way, but somehow the drabbles seemed fitting - less words, because sometimes no words can ever be enough to say what we want to say.
Along the dotted line
We laid our names to rest
Along the dotted line.
"Both of us, or none at all," as simple as that.
It is decided, and Fíli should share in his brother's excitement. But he has seen the shadow of doubt in Thorin's eyes and has detected his mother's fear beneath her smile when the final word was spoken.
They will go together, off to a foreign land that shall be their home, leaving behind the home they have come to know and to love. Fíli pats his brother's back, but secretly he asks himself if he's made the right choice.
He knows he will never forgive himself if he hasn't.
We left our date of birth
And our history behind.
He is one of youngest of the company, but Kíli does his best to prove himself to the elder dwarves. He breathes in the air of the wilderness as he follows Fíli down a narrow path. He has led a life in protection back in Ered Luin, he knows that. Here, far away from home, it doesn't matter that he is the nephew of Thorin Oakenshield, the exiled king under the mountain. Amidst the group of dwarves, the toymakers and tinkers and weary soldiers, he is simply Kíli, son of Dís.
He will make sure to always honour that name.
We were full of life,
We could barely hold it in.
Fíli stifles a chuckle as he listens to Kíli's lively story of orcs, wargs and trolls. Bilbo looks genuinely frightened and it is plain to see that the brown-haired dwarf is enjoying this. Perhaps he relishes the hobbit's fear a bit too much, but Fíli won't interrupt him. He grins to himself and absent-mindedly sucks at his pipe. The fire is burning low, and he thinks he can still hear the echo of their singing earlier that evening.
Kíli ends the story with a truly frightening impression of an orc, which makes Fíli laugh at last.
Sometimes life is easy.
We were amateurs at war,
Strangers to suffering.
Aulë made the dwarves strong to endure. Fíli holds on to these words that echo in his head. His body is hurting from his fall during their encounter with the stone giants, his stomach growls, and when he closes his eyes he sees Kíli's eyes widen in terror.
Beside him, Kíli is looking as miserable as Fíli feels. He only smiles faintly as he accepts the bread Fíli offers. The blonde doesn't care that now he has none left for himself.
The last thing he feels before he falls asleep is someone draping a heavy fur coat around his shoulders.
We made our families proud
But scared at the same time.
Kíli traces the engraved lines on the stone with his fingertips. It seems so long ago now that his mother gave the rune stone to him and made him promise to return. He remembers the way he laughed about her worries, and now he wishes he had told her the really important things more often. But she's his mother. She always knows. And because she knows him so well, she is scared, Kíli realises.
Only now he understands that there's nothing wrong with that.
Fíli sits down next to him, and Kíli quickly slips the stone back into his pocket.
We promised we'd be safe,
Another lie from the front lines.
Fíli lies awake at night, listening to the soft snores coming from his little brother next to him, and his own words echo in his ears. He remembers his promise. He will keep it, whatever it takes. And he hopes that his mother believes that her sons are safe, when in truth Fíli has understood long ago that there is no safety beyond the borders of home. It's a dangerous business, going out of your front door, Bilbo told him two days ago.
But Fíli will keep his promise, and with that thought he allows himself to drift into sleep.
Our backs against the wall,
We're surrounded and afraid.
"Start with the youngest!"
Kíli wishes he could stop his body from shaking. Beside him, Fíli moves a little closer, and Kíli draws comfort from his big brother's presence. Mahal knows he's scared, more scared perhaps than he has ever been. He has never encountered cruelty such as this, his insides twist as the goblin sneers and he feels sick thinking that the creature is enjoying this. He clenches his fists and narrows his eyes, willing his body to be strong.
He doesn't stop shaking for a while after their rescue. Too close, he thinks. He doesn't sleep that night.
Our lives now in the hands
Of the soldiers taking aim.
He sees Kíli falling to his knees, the arrow protruding from his thigh, one moment that replays over and over again in Fíli's head as he watches his brother fade before his eyes. Just one moment. One second that led to him wiping Kíli's sweaty forehead with a cloth, inwardly screaming and begging Mahal to please, please, let him live. Opposite him Óin looks more and more desperate, and it is the hopelessness in the elder one's eyes that kindles the fear in Fíli's heart.
When the elf heals his brother, Fíli should be overjoyed. But the fear still remains.
Our questions ricochet
Like broken satellites
Kíli wonders if somehow, with just one altered step or different decision, he could have escaped this madness. He moves almost automatically, catching the shield that Fíli tosses at him, and winces as his leg protests against the additional weight of the heavy armour.
War.
He has never been one to run from a fight, but this feels just so wrong. He knows Fíli feels the same, and yet the brothers would never let their uncle down. Their king, who needs them.
Deep down, Kíli knows that he might die. He only wishes to fight for something worth dying for.
How our bodies, born to heal,
Become so prone to die?
He has fought so hard. Fíli feels the anger stir inside when he realises that all his efforts have been in vain. He has tried to keep Kíli safe, he has done everything he could, and yet it wasn't enough. Around him they are falling by the hundreds, screams are cut off as lives are ended on a field of blood.
He sees Thorin battling the white orc, but he cannot help him now, for he has to stay with his brother. He promised. He promised his mother he would keep him safe.
At whatever cost, he will protect him.
Though time is ruthless,
Time stands still. Everything slows down, the only movement Kíli perceives is that of his brother. The spear was meant for him, not for Fíli, but of course Fíli didn't care and Kíli's scream dies on his lips as he watches him fall. He staggers to where he has fallen, crashing to his knees and feeling despair wash over him as shaking hands hover above the wound.
Too much blood is staining the torn armour, a stark contrast to the pale face that is drawn with agony, and Kíli is lost.
He must fight, but he doesn't know what for.
It showed us kindness in the end,
By slowing down enough,
A second chance to make amends.
Every gasp sends fire through his veins, fire that originates in the place where the spear has broken his armour to take his life. He wants to cry out, to scream, but he doesn't have the energy to even whisper. Faintly he hears a familiar voice, frantic, fearful, interrupted by broken sobs as Fíli focuses on the one thing that matters.
Breathe.
He knows it will only delay the inevitable.
"The eagles are coming. Fee, please, stay with me!"
The words are almost drowned out by the static in his ears, the agony leaves him breathless, but Kíli is safe.
As life replayed, we heard a voice proclaim:
"Lay your weapons down!
They're calling off the war
On account of losing track
Of what we're fighting for."
He cannot move. He cannot speak. He can only watch as Dwalin carries his brother away, heedless of Fíli's broken cry. Nori limps with one arm draped across Dori's shoulder and Beorn picks up Thorin from where he is lying motionlessly on the cold ground. He takes it all in, kneeling where Fíli has lain before, and he chokes when he notices the dark blood on his boots.
Kíli scans the area before him and knows that all the gold was never worth that.
He startles when someone touches his shoulder. Balin doesn't say much.
"Come, Kíli. He needs you."
So we found our way back home,
Let our cuts and bruises heal.
Fíli doesn't remember much of his being carried off the battlefield. He only remembers the fire and Dwalin's rough words and his desire to simply let it go. It would have been easy.
He is barely aware of strong hands restraining him, forcing a bitter liquid down his throat, and he finally finds words to beg with.
"Kíli… Kíli, is he alive? Tell me the truth," he repeats over and over again, he cries out in pain and fear and every movement sends waves of agony through his battered body.
Someone grabs his hand. His struggling ceases.
"I'm here, nadad."
While a brand-new war began,
One that no one else could feel.
Kíli's gaze is fixed on the steady rise and fall of his brother's chest. His right hand is holding Fíli's tightly, the pulse beneath his fingers in sync with his own heartbeat. His left hand is supported by a sling, his fingers wrapped in white bandages just like his shoulder. He has refused the medication Óin has recommended. He doesn't want to sleep.
Kíli pushes a strand of hair from Fíli's face. For a moment the pictures resurface, images of too much blood and pain-filled eyes, and he chokes on the bile rising in his throat.
The shaking has returned.
Our nights have grown so long.
Fíli doesn't know what woke him, but the moment he opens his eyes he wishes he could go back to peaceful oblivion. He takes a strained breath, and another, and by the time he manages the third his body is covered in sweat from both effort and pain.
It is then that he notices a certain absence at his bedside. He recoils, suddenly unable to breathe. It cannot be, he must be wrong, for surely Mahal would not be so cruel.
"Fee?"
A whispered word, and with a sigh of relief Fíli allows the darkness to claim him once more.
Now we beg for sound advice.
"Go to sleep, Kee."
Kíli tenses inwardly, but he tries his best to not let it show.
"I have slept."
But he has never been able to fool his brother, however weak he might still be. Fíli looks at him intensively, and suddenly the younger one feels his eyes starting to burn. He clenches his fists, furiously trying to calm down. He can't tell him. He can't tell him of the dreams that haunt him whenever he closes his eyes, of the blood and fear and death.
"Kee?"
But it's Fíli.
"What am I supposed to do?" he whispers hoarsely.
"Let the brokenness be felt
'til you reach the other side."
It is quiet but for Kíli's soft snores. It almost feels like back when they were young and shared a bed during a particularly horrifying thunderstorm. They were scared then, but together they were strong and fearless.
Fíli thinks that some part of these children still lives inside them, and it is a comforting thought that maybe not all is lost after all.
They have talked about many things, interrupted only by Óin's strict order to get some rest. Now Kíli has found sleep at last, and he looks peaceful in the dim light of the candle. Bruised, not broken.
"There is goodness in the heart
Of every broken man"
"Thorin is awake."
Kíli knows he ought to say something, yet he cannot find the words. Beside him, still lying in bed, Fíli takes a shuddering breath that is somewhere between a sigh and a sob. Their gazes meet for a brief moment.
"He asked after you," Balin adds, and Kíli noticed how the elder one's eyes are shining suspiciously. He lets the words sink in, remembering his own despair at his uncle's madness, his fear, his faint hope in the end.
He asked after them. Not about the outcome of the battle, not about the gold. About his family.
"Who comes right up to the edge
Of losing everything he has."
He looks so weak. It's the first thing that comes to Fíli's mind, shortly before he realises that he himself is leaning heavily on his little brother and must look just as awful as his uncle. He doesn't know what to say, which doesn't feel right at all because this is Thorin, for Mahal's sake, and they're alive and well and the war is won and –
"I thought I'd lost you," Thorin rasps, blue eyes searching and finding Fíli's first, then Kíli's. "Forgive me, my sister-sons."
To Fíli he suddenly looks more like a king than he has ever been.
We were young enough to sign
Along the dotted line.
"Do you regret it?"
By the way Fíli doesn't look confused for even the shortest moment, Kíli knows that his brother has expected the question. He seems to ponder it for a few seconds, though, during which he props himself up against the head of his bed. Kíli sits down cross-legged opposite him, his gaze never leaving his brother.
"Do I think that we were foolish to come? Yes." Fíli closes his eyes briefly, wincing as he shifts on the mattress. "Do I regret it? No."
Young and foolish, Kíli thinks, that's what we were.
But now they are changed.
Now we're young enough to try
To build a better life.
The coronation speech is long and full of complicated words, the wound in his stomach pulls painfully whenever he moves after standing still too long, and the new armour is itching in places that should never, ever itch like that.
None of that matters, though.
Thorin, King under the Mountain, with the raven crown sparkling in the light of the candles.
Kíli, alive and currently grinning widely, unable to remain serious.
The deep rumbling voices of dwarves singing an ancient song that hasn't been heard in these halls for many years.
Family.
This is what will always matter the most.