His entire face was knit together in concentration, and he unknowingly held his breath as the scissors slowly neared his sacred hair. When he heard the door smack shut, he froze in his tracks.
"Kili?"
Drat his brother`s horrendous timing.
"In here," he called from the bathroom, while frantically trying to look as if wasn`t trying to cut his own hair.
"What on earth are you… oh"
"It`s constantly in my eyes. And my arrows are getting stuck in it," he explained quickly. What he was doing was obvious, Fili thought. As for why, it did make sense, but that his brother was willing to risk it despite his mother`s, never mind Thorin`s potential fury… Might as well do it properly then.
"But why are you doing it yourself?" Kili`s suspicion grew along the mischievous grin Fili tried (and failed) to hide.
"As if anyone would help me," Kili started.
"I`ll help. I`ve cut plenty of heads before."
"With your knives. Unintentionally," he replied drily all the while Fili took the scissors from him. He sat down on the stool, while nervously twisting at his sleeve.
"Sit still, you`re fidgeting"
"Your hair is tickling me," the younger brother whined.
"Shush, we don`t know when Thorin or ma will be home"
Now Fili`s brow was knit in concentration, and both dwarves held their breath. Kili was beginning to regret the decision (which by all means, hadn`t really been his) to let his older brother do the scissor-handling; though extremely skilled on the battlefield, Kili would never trust him, or anyone really, to cut his hair under normal circumstances. Then again, time was short, and there wasn`t anyone else that could – or would help him. And surely it would help his case if his brother was to blame.
"Were you really going to do it by yourself?"
"Obviously" Kili replied. "It`s not as if anyone would help," he explained.
"Uncle will have your head, you know." Though casually slung out, he glanced over at his younger brother – surely, he must have anticipated their uncle`s reaction.
"I thought I`d let you tell them while I slipped away. You know, let him cool off for a while" he smirked.
"As if I`d let you get out that easy" Fili teased
"You know you would," Kili said, easing a little at the familiar banter.
"As the older brother, I suppose I have to save your head. In all ways possible, it seems," he laughed.
For the second time that day, the door slammed shut. "Fili, Kili?"
Kili naturally twisted towards the sound, at the same moment Fili`s scissors slammed shut around a lock.
A single "oh" escaped the dwarf`s lips, which caused Kili to send him a look that was more frightened than anything.
"What did you do?"
"I can fix it, sit still." He concentrated hard on the very short strands of hair. "It`s nothing," he added cheerfully, though the smallest amount of doubt was mixed into his voice.
"What about Thorin?"
That was another problem. "Tell him… tell him something that`ll keep him out."
"Real helpful," Kili replied. "I`ll be out in a minute," he shouted.
"Might be more than a minute," Fili muttered, but pretended to not have said anything at his sibling`s apprehensive look.
He returned once more to the mass of brown at his hands. He hoped Kili would never see the back of his own head – he`d surely have his own as revenge. As would Thorin. And ma. He hoped they`d never notice either, but it was a pretty large short lock, and the rest of it wasn`t exactly looking especially good either.
He could either try to hide it with braids, or…
"Close your eyes," he commanded.
"No way," Kili snorted. "I`m not that stupid."
"I`ve got it all under control. I just need it to trust me," he tried convincingly.
"If I do, I`ll be the idiot who also let his idiot brother cut his hair while not looking, and I`ll only have myself to blame."
Fili let out an annoyed rant about the "uselessness of being the older brother", and something about "stubbornness" and "stupid", to no avail. In the end, he gathered Kili`s hair behind his shoulders, so he still wouldn`t be able to see it properly. He managed to cut his hair for a couple of minutes in silence, until the younger`s unrest became too much, and he turned towards him.
"Let me see?"
"No." It hadn`t exactly been improved. Fili`s stomach bolted with dread.
"Fili." His voice was near threatening, and it wasn`t definitely not a question. His hair that had reached his waist, was now just beneath his shoulders. As Kili tried to take a look at it all, Fili quietly slipped out of the bathroom, and into the living room. He tried sneaking his way towards the door, only to be met by –
"Fili?"
Before he could stop himself, a curse left his mouth, as he turned towards his uncle. "It`s nothing, it`s just –"
"FILI WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY HAIR"
"I didn`t mean to, I –" the elder began.
Thorin raised an unimpressed eyebrow at that, but as soon as his younger nephew entered the living room, he had to concentrate very hard not to laugh.
He was livid. And a mess. Righteously so; his hair was tangled and absolute mayhem at the best – this was far worse than his worst day. Tangled would be an underestimation; it could easily be mistaken for a bird`s nest at this point. And by Durin it was short.
Thorin again turned towards his eldest nephew, who was visibly squirming, while Kili was radiating with anger. He dreaded to think of what would happen if he hadn`t wasn`t there – the brown-haired, usually happy dwarf looked ready to pounce.
After having calmed his younger nephew sufficiently, he left Fili in the living room, while he nearly dragged Kili back to the bathroom. For the third time that day, hair-cutting ensued.
Thorin managed to disentangle the worst of it, before silently beginning to even the brown mess out. Though Kili was still fuming, he could also sense his anxiety; it took two to cut a sibling`s hair.
"Why did you let him?" he asked.
"I was going to do it myself. Fili helped." Thorin let out a snort.
"I`d call help an overestimation," he mused.
"He thought it was better than to let me do it alone. I didn`t see it until now, he wouldn`t let me" A laugh escaped Thorin, and even more so at the vehement "I`m never letting him touch my hair again"
He continued in silence for a little while; except for the very short strands, he had luckily been able to salvage some of his nephew`s hair, and a little more of his pride. The silence allowed him to think back to when the boys were young; there had been a lot of braiding and tugging, some of his fondest memories.
"Why were you going to cut your hair?"
Kili looked abashed, and – if he hadn`t known better - thoughtful.
"It was always in the way when shooting. And it`s constantly in my eyes." Thorin waited, sensing that this wasn`t all of it.
"And people seem to think that Fili and I are the same person. That I`m mindlessly following everything he does. I thought that if I didn`t braid it, and cut it it`d show them that I can think for myself. Instead…" He gestured helplessly at the brown mess.
Thorin started brushing his hair again, humming soothingly.
"You don`t have to prove yourself to them." Kili made the face he usually did when going to protest, but he didn`t say anything. "You don`t," Thorin continued. "There are easier ways than this – but I am proud of you for sticking to it." Kili softened at this. "And it won`t last forever; especially not when you`re working so hard to prove them wrong."
Kili glanced up, and found eyes filled with humour and kindness. "Thank you."
Thorin squeezed his shoulder, and handed him the mirror. "It`s short, but it`ll grow. Meanwhile, you can tell everyone how your brother mindlessly cut your hair." Kili merely grinned, having regained enough of his cheek and honour to nearly be able to think about forgiving his brother.
Of course it didn`t take long, but the ordeal wasn`t anywhere near being forgotten.
"I was wondering," Bilbo mused. He hadn`t been in the company for very long, but he was a very sharp hobbit, and he took great pride in his clever eyes and observational skills. He had already noticed some things, such as the company`s respect for Thorin, how they all – except Fili and Kili, obviously – treated him with immense awe. He`d also noticed the cheeky streak in the two youngsters; that was hard-missed. But what he found most mindboggling, out of all of the dwarfish secrets and mysteries, was the very short hair of the youngest heir of Durin. Their beards, he hadn`t dared ask about – apparently they were all very sacred. As far as his understanding went, hair wasn`t as sacred, but most of the company all had quite long hair. If Thorin and Fili was anything to go by, he`d expect Kili to have long hair too.
"Why is Kili`s hair so short?" he asked Bofur rather quietly. The dwarf was about to reply, glint in his eye, and grin always present, as the two heirs of Durin rode towards Bilbo.
"I told you he`d wonder," Kili said triumphantly, although Fili looked… uncomfortable?
"It didn`t turn out so bad in the end," he desperately began.
"You were wondering about my hair?" Kili asked, this time directed at Bilbo.
The hobbit had forgotten about their ability to hear anything, especially when it included themselves. He nodded. "Unless it`s some sacred dwarfish secret?" he added, just in case. You never knew, although the two youngsters certainly seemed more approachable then their uncle.
"You see, one day, I decided to cut my hair. And then Fili entered," he started.
"I-" his brother began, before being cut off.
Kili spared no detail in the guilt of his brother, the absolute chaos that was his hair, that his uncle had bravely manage to salvage. "He`s exaggerating," Fili muttered, but his brother paid him no heed. "It has grown a little since, but it`s not near its former glory," Kili said wistfully.
"It`s not as if you weren`t going to cut it yourself," Fili said. This time, Kili deigned him a reply.
"I bet I`d do a better job alone than you did."
"By his descriptions, I don`t think it would take much," Bofur added cheerily, with a nod towards the archer. Bilbo was entirely immersed in the story, and the brotherly bickering that followed, and he looked towards them until they were out of hearing range again, having trotted off to do some other mischief, he assumed.
"I can`t believe he let Fili cut his hair." The story seemed to have let quite an impression on the hobbit.
"Don`t your family cut your hair, master hobbit?" Ori asked.
Bilbo grew thoughtful. "Mostly our mothers do it, but I`ve done it myself for some years now," he replied. Ori seemed satisfied with that.
"Dori does mine. Although, once Nori had to do it, and it turned out… not as great," the little dwarf mused.
"Aye, although I`d wager you still looked better than Kili here," Bofur laughed.
"I heard that," the archer shouted from the front of the company.