Love Him, Love You

He fell in and out of consciousness until he found that even his own name was difficult to distinguish from the muddled thoughts that were pooling in and out of his mind. For fifty years he had gone without remembering even the slightest thing about his life before Mirkwood, and there he was seeing bits and pieces out of his childhood in some sort of horrific nightmare as they swirled together into a bizarre feverish dream. Kili had expected pain, but he never thought it could hurt so much.

The brief moments when he was awake were blurry and forgetful. He saw smeared faces and heard echoing voices, but was unable to pair the two features with any sort of name. Wishing over and over for peace, it was then that he first realized that he was begging for death.

There was no concept of time. He didn't know how long he lay in the disintegrating bed, or how many times he cried out for people he didn't know he missed. They were unfamiliar names that felt too personal, like Gimli, Khagan, and Khagam. He mourned people he never met.

Finally, he opened his eyes to a certain image and clear sound. Unfortunately, this also came with perfectly acute and sharp pain from the entirety of his abdomen. Kili groaned, and tried to sit up, only to find a hand restricting him from doing so. When he looked up, he found himself staring at the face of his brother.

"Shh," Fili comforted. "It's alright. Calm down." The younger sibling shook his head, still trying to get a good look around the room.

"Where am I?" he asked, after he figured the view he had was not sufficient in telling him the information.

"You're in Erebor. We took you here to help you heal. The room is above the main gates, looking over the entrance and lake," the elder explained. There was a pause.

"Where's Oin? Why are you here?" The question came out of the rather elvish dwarf more accusatory than he would have liked it to sound. Yet, his brother smiled slightly.

"Are you tired of me or something?" the blonde dwarf joked. Kili stared at his eyelids for a moment.

"You didn't answer my question," he pointed out.

Fili sighed, the playful aspect to him fading back to the usual serious prince. "They're all gathered at the bottom of the gate. You'd been calling out, and I finally got the opportunity to slip away and make sure you were alright."

"Calling out? For whom?" Thranduil's nephew questioned, a dead feeling in his stomach telling him that he probably didn't want to know the answer. The grim look reflected in his brother confirmed his hunch.

"Khagan and Khagam," Fili responded, and upon seeing the confusion on the injured dwarf's face clarified, "the dwarvish terms for 'Mother' and 'Father.'" Kili winced. Part of him wanted to inquire further about his parents, but the melancholy that was reflected from his elder was not one that he wanted to delve into further.

"Why are they all at the main gate? What's going on?" the dark-haired dwarf requested.

"We have visitors. Thorin is," the heir searched for a word, "negotiating with Bard of Laketown and King Thrandruil. It appears your friend was the one to slay the dragon, and is laying claim to the gold that our own king mentioned to the Master. Your…adoptive uncle is making a different call." At the mention of the elf that raised him, Kili once more tried to sit up, and was, this time, prohibited by a large stab in his torso. He inhaled sharply. An empty gasping noise escaped his mouth, and Fili placed a hand on his forehead. "You're still warm. I thought Oin said the fever was breaking." It was a clear try to change the uncomfortable subject, but the ill dwarf wouldn't have any of it.

"What does Thranduil want?" he demanded. His brother returned to the bed with a wet cloth, the same one the prince remembered from the side of mountain. Fili dabbed the edge of it on his younger sibling's temples, and paused to take a look at the right side of Kili's face. The elven-raised dwarf knew that this was where his only dwarven born scars were: four ridges that trailed from just above his brow to his cheekbone. Thranduil had told him that these were definitely the oldest on his body, and suspected that they came from times when he had lived with his natural family.

"You do have scars then," the gold-haired dwarf breathed. Kili wanted to desperately to ask where the marks came from, but was more pressed with the question that Fili had not answered.

"What does Thrandruil want?"

"He wanted to know if you were here," his brother finally admitted.

"He's asking for Thorin to turn me over, isn't he?" the injured dwarf inferred. The heir swallowed uneasily, and didn't meet his sibling's eyes.

"That's not exactly what's going on," Fili mumbled. It was something Kili had never seen the royal do. Suspicion rose in his throat like bile.

"Then what is?" the dark-haired dwarf repeated. When the blonde one didn't respond again, Thranduil's nephew exploded in a way to similar to the way Thorin did. "Fine! Don't tell me. Don't trust me. No one does anyway!" He gritted his teeth as another wave of pain washed over him. His brother still did not speak for another couple of seconds. And when he did, it was not the news anyone wanted to hear.

"Thorin has claimed that he has not seen you, and that he has not been in any sort of contact with you since Laketown. Since Bard has not counted you among the refugees Thranduil thinks that you're dead." Kili's eyes widened and mouth fell open. "And if that isn't bad enough, the elven king is claiming that this is grounds for war, as leaving you in Laketown when they were awaking a dragon was practically assassinating their ambassador of Mirkwood, not to mention an adopted family member of Thranduil." The muddy feeling returned to the injured dwarf's mind. This couldn't be happening. War would not be fought over him. He would not allow the two halves of who he was to destroy each other. The prince tried for the final time to sit up, and finally succeeding, folding at the waist so he held himself up with his hands on his knees.

"Why? Why would Thorin tell him that?" he begged. Fili tried to push him back onto the pillows, but the stubborn dwarf resisted.

"Uncle is convinced that you are in leagues with the elven king," his brother explained. "And by telling Thranduil that you are dead, he is eliminating any communication between you two. Not to mention he is punishing the king for keeping you all those years. He's convinced that the elf has used you, and by killing you in Thranduil's mind is revenge." Kili dug his fingernails into his palms.

"I need to get down there. I need to stop them-"

Before the prince could finish, the heir cut him off. "No. Not while Thorin is there. If he sees you throw this plan into jeopardy, he'll…" Fili struggled against the words coming out of his mouth. "He'll hurt you, Kili. Or…or worse." The injured dwarf shook his head repeatedly.

"We have to find a way to fix this. You have to speak to Thranduil, arrange sometime I can go down there and meet him," he ordered.

"You're not supposed to leave this room, much less go down to the gate and have secret meetings with our uncle's greatest enemy."

"I've never been one to follow the rules though, have I?"

Fili smiled, and this time it spread to his bright eyes. "I don't want a war to happen, and I don't want you to get hurt. I can't make promises, but I'll see what I can do." Kili returned the warm expression. "But you have to rest, or Oin will have my head. I'll be back when I can." At long last, his brother obeyed his elder, laying back on the bed, and trying to resign himself to the stinging and aching that filled his stomach.

~:~

He awoke screaming no particular words. It wasn't memories that called upon him as much as it was agony. A hand covered his mouth, and for a brief moment he was terrified that he couldn't breathe. Dark eyes snapped open to darkness, with a fleeting glimpse of gold. He panicked, struggling against the hands that held him firmly to the bed. Muffled voices filled his ears, but he could tell that they were not those of the orcs he had suspected.

"Fili!" he gasped, squeezing his eyelids shut. After living a lifetime of dull bliss, the torture that filled his body was not only unheard of, but ten times worse than he suspected it actually was. He had never adjusted to it.

"Don't worry. It's me," his brother confirmed. "You were screaming again, and I couldn't have Thorin hear and come to investigate. What's wrong?" Something in the question made Kili laughed. What's wrong? 'What's right?' would be the better question.

"Nothing. It just hurts," he admitted. A torch was lit in the pitch-black room, casting orange light and long shadows across the floor and furniture. The heir to the throne of Durin was now fully visible, as was Oin, who stood in the corner, mixing something in a chalice.

"I don't know if we should go through with this…" the healer worried, finishing whatever concoction he was working on, and carrying it over the bed. "We still don't know what is causing the sickness. This trip to the gates could put you both in more danger than I like to experience." He handed the goblet to Fili.

"It all depends on what Kili thinks," the gold-haired dwarf responded, and turned to his brother. "I managed to speak with the elven king. We should be meeting with him in a quarter of an hour, with or without you. Do you still think you can-"

"Of course I can!" the ill dwarf interrupted. "I have to see him. I have to." Oin and Fili exchanged a very concerned, almost parental look, before they seemed to resign to the idea.

"You'd better take this then. It's meant to help with the pain, but the more I'm watching you," the apothecary sighed, "the more I think it'll do little to help. I'm sorry." The heir handed his younger the cup. The liquid inside was a murky greenish brown, but he had swallowed more suspicious things in his life. Kili raised the chalice to his lips, and drank the fill of it. It was bitter and strangely dry, as if it had taken all the moisture from his body. Though he tried not to, the injured dwarf found himself in some sort of coughing fit. Each expulsion of air from his lungs felt like someone was ramming a dull knife into his abdomen. He doubled over, only comforted by Fili's strong hand on his back. Oin watched the scene with a strained expression, and eventually walked back to the corner where his herbs were set up. Slowly, the coughing subsided.

"I'm fine, Fili, I swear!" the dark-haired dwarf wheezed as he straightened up. The motherly expression never vanished from his brother's face. If this is what having a mother is like, Kili thought, then I don't know what it's going to be like when I finally meet mine.

"If you feel anything out of the ordinary or painful at all," the older sibling commanded, "then you have to tell me. We won't go through with this if you don't. This isn't meant to hurt you. It's meant to stop this madness with Thorin. Understood?"

"I promise I'll tell you if there's anything wrong," his baby brother repeated, looking up with the faintest ghost of a smile. "Happy now?"

"Not in the slightest," the blonde dwarf groaned, pulling out a cane from under the bed. "I don't know how walking will be, so I brought this."

"A cane?" Kili scoffed. "I don't need a-" He pushed himself off the bed and up onto his feet. Upon doing so he found that not only were his legs incredibly weak, and not only did they feel about as sturdy as mud, but his knees buckled, sending him onto the floor. Fili cursed, helping his startled sibling back onto the bed, clearly furious.

"Rule Number Two," the first prince strained, "if I offer you some sort of assistance, you take it." His younger brother nodded, winded, and placed his hand on the top of the cane.

"Shall we go then?" Going down to the main gate sounded simple when said out loud, but in reality was much more difficult than it had ever possibly seemed. Fili refused to bring a torch or lantern, for fear that Thorin would be able to see the glow from the throne room and would investigate, so the pair could only go off of the moonlight that shown through the limited windows. Oin stayed in the sick room to be a watchman, but this was little comfort. Looking into Erebor was like looking into a batch of tar: nothing was distinguishable. This not only made being a lookout rather difficult, but having a limping dwarf with a cane accompanied by an overly fretful healthy dwarf was not optimal either. The stairs were the hardest part, over which Kili tripped and almost fell a total of five times, and was only caught because his brother demanded to have one hand around the collar of his shirt at all times. Yet by some miracle, they made it down to the gate in one piece. The unsettling pale blue light of the moon didn't help the anxiety that filled the air like humidity.

A least there was a lantern down there, though Fili demanded to keep it on the floor at all times. It was easier to see, but the pair still had to squint as they waited to see if the elven king would show. The injured sibling leaned on the wall, panting, his cane lazily held in one hand while the other clenched and unclenched from a fist. The elder stood by the missing stone, peering into it every so often, until finally.

"I see this was truly not a trap, prince," a cool voice stated from the other side of the wall. "From what I can see of the situation that is." The gold-haired dwarf jumped a little, but quickly recovered.

"I keep the promises I make. A dwarven promise is not one easily broken." Fili was using his noble and serious voice, one that always sounded forced and 'put-on.' His statement was met with a haughty laugh from the elf.

"An ironic thing to say in the current situation, don't you think?" he pondered. The heir opened his mouth to respond, but Thranduil quickly broke in. "But I'm not here to talk about your uncle's poor decisions. You said that you had my nephew for me. Alive. Is this still true?" The tone of the king's voice made Kili's skin crawl. It was slightly horrifying the way he could be so cold and cruel towards those he didn't care for, but also so warm and welcoming to those he loved. Fili swallowed.

"It is." He motioned for his brother to come forward. They had to stand on a block to be on the level on the gigantic elf, but for once, the elven dwarf was not at all insecure about his height. His sibling moved out of the way so the sick creature could see the uncle he had been raised to think was his own.

"Kili!" Thranduil sighed, relief flooding through the ice blue eyes that were eternally intense. His creation felt the same emotion rush through him. "They told me you were…I thought you were…"

"It's good to see you, Uncle," he greeted. The elf seemed to share in the elation for only a brief moment, before he moved closer to the opening, peering into their peephole.

"You look awful. Are you sick?" Kili was only half-aware of how truly terrible he must appear. His skin was waxy and sallow, clinging to his skin think a survivor would to the side of a cliff. He knew that he had been sweating something terrible, and his hair hung lank and tangled at his shoulders. It was also a completely new experience to have his chin covered in the beginnings of scratchy, course hair. He hadn't had the opportunity to shave.

"I'm fine," he lied. If his uncle had any idea of the illness, this too would most likely be blamed on Thorin. His bent truth did not fool the elf, however.

"Don't tell me that. I can tell. What happened?" The gears within the injured dwarf's head were turning at breakneck speed.

"Nothing," he assured. "I just spent a cold night in a boat, that's all." The elf raised his eyebrows. Somehow he never believed a lie that his adopted nephew told him. Ever since his arrival in Mirkwood, the king could always call Kili's bluff.

"If you would just tell me the truth…" he griped. The tone bothered the dwarf, and he found himself suddenly frustrated with the royal.

"We both had truths we didn't share with each other. You were never so good at doing so yourself," he accused. Thranduil's lip curled slightly.

"I'm sorry, Kili," he pleaded, the edge gone from his commanding voice. "I'm so sorry about all of this. I've made more mistakes than a man has in a thousand lifetimes, and yet I still expect to be forgiven so easily. The world is a place of nightmares that I can't trust anymore, and my failure to be honest with you dragged us both into it." His nephew softened.

"It's alright. It' just…I was attacked by an orc in Laketown," he whispered. The king's downcast eyes flashed upwards. "He struck me with a sword, and he…he knew my name, I think." It was a detail he hadn't shared with any of the dwarves yet. Fili looked shocked. "I managed to escape, and when I got here, there was a sealed welt instead of a wound. There. Now we've both told the truth." The sound of the moon was the only noise.

"You need to get out of there. Now," Thranduil ordered out of the blue. "You can't stay. It's dangerous. I can get you to the elven healers I have stationed in Dale. Just leave that mountain." It struck Kili like a blow across the face.

"What? I can't just-"

"Yes you can. And you will. They don't know how to treat these kinds of wounds. You need elven treatment."

"I didn't come here so you could drag me out of Erebor by my hair, uncle. I came to ensure that you aren't calling for war," the dark-haired prince fired back. He himself was panicking because of the fear in the elf's face. It wasn't normal. Something was wrong, but he had not idea what.

"I won't attack the dwarves' city, laito. I will not bring my armies to its gates tomorrow, and I will give your king one more day to think about what he has to give," the king raved, "but I will not let you stay in there."

"Aran, I cannot leave these dwarves. My brother needs me. My uncle needs me," he argued.

"Indeed! I need you, Kili. I have lived with you every day for fifty years. Twice in the past three days I have thought you were dead. Twice in three days I thought I would die myself." A tear trickled from the icy gaze of the elven king of Mirkwood. "If something happens to you within those halls and I am unable to help…I…I would feel as if I drove you into the wild as Thorin did." Seeing the stone hearted Thranduil shed tear was something that rarely, if not never, happened. And when it did, the reaction spread to those close to him. The injured dwarf pressed his forehead against the cool rock as his eyes leaked.

"I would have never left if I knew of what it would cause, uncle. Laketown is ashes. Your armies march against those of my kin. I am watching those I love be torn apart by a treasure horde so vast that I don't believe it when I see it myself. I'm in more pain than I ever though imaginable. I…" A sob escaped his lips. Fili placed a hand on his brother's shoulders as they shook. Kili took a hand, and reached it part way into the gap between the stones. From across the wall, Thranduil did the same. Their fingers intertwined. "I wish I could go home. I want to go home," he cried.

"You still can," the elf whispered. "I promise you that you can." Though his face was no longer visible, the dwarf shook his head.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he kept repeating the phrase over and over until it meant nothing, until the words were unintelligible in his crying. He unlocked his grip on the elven king's hand, and slid it back to the dwarven side of the wall, burying his face in his hands. With uncertain steps, Kili walked off the platform. He heard Thranduil call his name, but he didn't care. Fili told the adopted uncle that it was time to leave. The stars' twinkle dimmed. He could hear the elf's footsteps as he walked away.

"I…" Fili tried to say words of comfort, but they didn't come out. His brother cried for a moment.

"Amin mela ho," Kili whimpered. "I love him." He switched from elvish to the language that he had heard only in brief snippets in his bitter memories. "Men lananubukhs menu. I love you."

I warned you it would be angsty! And there's more where that came from. Actually, sort of cried myself writing this chapter, but that can be the sleep deprivation coming in as well, so…who knows? Despite the feels, I hope that you have enjoyed this most recent chapter of my little story. Trying to keep to the chapter release schedule as best as I can. If you want to be told when I do update again, then please follow this story. If you really like it, then please favorite it so this story gets shared with other readers. And, as always, I love hearing from you guys, so please leave a review with any comments, critiques, predictions, theories, etc. Who is the better uncle, Thranduil or Thorin? I'm interested to see what you guys think. I usually end these author's notes with the phrase 'Until next time' but in doing some research for this chapter I downloaded a Khuzul (and also elvish, but that's a little irrelevant) dictionary. So, tak natu yenet…