Chapter Forty Two

"Are you nervous about your session tomorrow?" Kili asked Fili after they had scurried down to the basement after dinner.

"Not really," he answered with a shrug before throwing an arm around Kili and pulling him closer on the couch as the beginning of Elf began to play on the television. They had both seen it so many times that they didn't feel the need to pay attention. "We're just going to talk about what happened and figure out how I can stop having nightmares about it. Nothing to be nervous about."

Kili sat up straight and looked at him with a stricken look. "You have nightmares?"

Fili reached out and gripped his hand tightly. "You nearly died, Kee. I can't…" He broke off and swallowed thickly before giving him a wry smile. "I don't know how I'd gone on if I lost you. I'm not sure if I could," he finished sadly.

He gave a soft anguish cry as he surged forward to wrap himself around the blond. "Don't say things like that," he muttered forcefully. "You'd be fine without me. Yeah, you'd miss me and be sad, but you'd be okay. You're strong."

"Not that strong," he said with a shake of his head. "Not strong enough to survive losing you."

That made Kili's heart ache. "You're not going to lose me," he assured, holding onto him tighter. "I'm not going anywhere."

Fili gave him a soft smile. "Good."

They settled back onto the couch, Kili curled into Fili's lap and resting his head against the blond's broad chest. They watched as Buddy made his way to New York to find his father. He had just been kicked out of his dad's office when Kili spoke up again.

"You're going to end up talking about our relationship," he told him.

"Is that what you talked about with him?" Fili asked curiously.

He shook his head. "No. We didn't even talk about Smaug. We just talked about me. Dr. Peredhel said he wanted to get to know me."

"Then what makes you think we'll talk about you and me?"

Kili pursed his lips and twisted his head to give Fili an incredulous look. "Because Dad talked to him. He must've told him I was too stubborn so he'd have to work on you."

Fili rolled his eyes. "Why would Dad do that? Dad is happy we're together!"

"Really? When has he ever said that?" he asked pointedly, shooting Fili a triumphant look when the blond puckered his brow in consternation. "See! He's never said anything that said he was happy about us. He never wanted us together! Remember how he kept trying to make us spend time apart before we got together? And look at all he's done to try and keep us apart now! He made you move down here to the basement, he tried to stop me from graduating early, and he sent you back to school before me when he knew how much I needed you!"

He was breathing heavily by the end of his rant, righteous anger building in him as he spoke. "And you know Pop agrees with him. At least, Dad's convinced Pop that he's right. Pop's just playing nicer so that they can manipulate us more."

Fili gave him a pained look. "You know that's not true, Kee," he said in a pleading tone. "They love us. They want us to be happy."

"As long as we don't do anything they don't like," he spat bitterly.

"That's not true," Fili insisted, though his voice betrayed his doubt. "And I'm not any less stubborn about our relationship than you are, by the way. I love you and nothing's going to make me give us up."

"Until Dr. Peredhel convinces you that our relationship is bad for me or some shit and that it'll hold me back in life or whatever pack of lies he tries to feed you," Kili grumbled.

The blond shot him an angry glare. "That's not fair," he accused. "And you can't tell me if someone convinced you that our relationship was bad for me that you wouldn't rethink things."

"That's different," he said dismissively.

"How?"

"You're more important than me," Kili replied without thinking. He quickly averted his eyes and bit his lip as he realized what he had admitted.

"Kili, no one is more important than you," Fili whispered, shifting the brunet in his lap so that he had to look at him. Kili's heart clinched at the anguish in those blue eyes. "No one."

He shook his head. "I'm not so special. I can barely function when you or one of our friends aren't around. Fili, I couldn't even talk to anyone on my archery team when Tauriel and I were fighting. Something is wrong with me. Why else would people keep trying to hurt me? And that doesn't make me important, and it definitely doesn't make me more important than you."

"Kili, nothing is wrong with you," Fili stated firmly, an intense fire in his blue eyes. "You've had the bad luck to be born with a shitty father but you didn't let that dim your spirit. And because you shine so bright, you attracted the attention of a really shitty person. But that does not mean that something is wrong with you!"

Kili rolled his eyes. "You have to say that. You're my boyfriend."

Saying the word sent an unexpected thrill through him. It was odd. Even though they had been together for a couple of months, they had never really called one another "boyfriend" before. They had never even thought to label what they were. He pushed the thought away. Their relationship wasn't really normal. It was probably to be expected that they wouldn't go through the same steps as others did.

"Do you think I'd be your boyfriend if there was something wrong with you?" Fili asked.

Kili narrowed his eyes at that. "Don't do that. I know what you're doing and it's not going to work," he warned. Fili did that all the time, turning bad things he said about himself onto Fili. It usually worked, but Kili didn't like it. It was Fili trying to force him into thinking they were equal when Fili would always be better than him.

"Sorry," he murmured sheepishly. He pulled Kili tighter to his chest and hooked his chin over the brunet's head. "I just don't like you thinking there's something wrong with you when you're perfect the way you are."

"I'm not the perfect one here," Kili muttered.

"I'm far from perfect, Kee," Fili told him, frown obvious in his voice. "Don't think I am. I'll just disappoint you in the end."

He scoffed. "You'd never disappoint me."

"I never want to," the blond argued. "But if you put me on a pedestal, I'm going to."

Kili pulled away and glared at him. "And what do you do to me?" he asked hotly. "You says I'm so perfect and smart and strong and sometimes I'm not! Is it going to disappoint you when I don't live up to what you think I am?"

It was a fear that always niggled in the back of Kili's mind, not just with Fili, but with all his family and friends. Would they all leave you when they saw how weak and pathetic he really was?

Fili pursed his lips. "You don't see yourself clearly."

"I'm beginning to think you don't see me very clearly either," Kili accused, standing up and glaring down at Fili with his hands on his hips.

"Kili, do we have to fight about this?" Fili pleaded, reaching out to take Kili's hand but he snatched it away.

"We're not fighting!" he cried before he cringed. They were totally fighting. Well, if they were going to fight, he might as well do it right. With that in mind, he turned on his heel and marched upstairs.

"Kili!" he heard Fili cry out in distress, but he ignored it. Fili didn't need him.

He marched past their parents and Frodo in the living room as he made his way to the stairs, ignoring Bilbo's questioning eyes and Thorin's concerned frown.

He made it all the way to his room and shut the door before he collapsed in on himself with a sob.

What was wrong with him? Why'd he have to go picking a fight with Fili like that? The blond hadn't done anything to deserve that. All he had had done was tell Kili how much he loved him and how special he was to him. And what had Kili done? He had yelled at him and walked away.

He wouldn't even need Dr. Peredhel to convince him to break up with Kili, he thought bitterly. Why on earth would Fili want to stay with such a basket case? It wasn't like Fili needed him. He was so much stronger than Kili. He could move on and live his life.

Without Kili there to hold him back.

Kili sobbed harder as he realized he had done exactly what he had told Fili not to do. This was because Fili was having nightmares about him. As soon as Fili had told him that he couldn't go on without him, Kili had pushed him away. Why had he done something so stupid? What was the point? To prove Fili wrong? To show him that he was stronger than Kili?

Well, good job, he thought morosely. Fili probably wanted nothing more to do with him. Kili couldn't blame him either.

He knew that he should get into bed, but he honestly didn't have the strength to get off the floor even as his tears ran dry.

What was he supposed to do now?

A light tapping at his door startled him out of his thoughts. For one bright, shining moment, he thought Fili had followed him upstairs before he heard his dad's voice.

"Kili? Can I come in?"

Kili huffed out a sad breath. Of course Fili didn't come after him. After Kili had pushed him away, he really didn't blame him.

Knowing Bilbo wasn't likely to go away until he let him in, he shifted slightly so that he was curled up against the wall instead of the door and called out a weak, "Yeah."

"Oh, Kili," his dad murmured sadly as he caught sight of him on the floor. He quietly shut the door before sinking down next to him, wrapping his arms around the teenager.

Though Kili had grown taller than his dad in recent years, the sense of security that settled around him as Bilbo held him caused him to sag against him, tears once more streaming down his face and his shoulders shook with silent sobs.

He really didn't care in that moment that he had been furious with Bilbo not an hour beforehand. All that he cared about was being held in the safety of his father's arms as he cried.

"I ruined it," he muttered between his tears, voice sounding hollow to his ears. "I ruin everything."

"Hey, no," Bilbo soothed, rubbing small circles in his back. "You haven't ruined anything. There's nothing here that can't be fixed."

Kili shook his head. "F-Fili won't want me anymore. I l-love him so much, Dad," he hiccuped. "I c-can't lose him… I'm s-sorry you don't like it b-but…" He couldn't finish as a fresh wave of tears hit him and his body shook hard. How could he be this pathetic?

Bilbo held him tight for a few more moments before pulling back slightly to give him a stern look. "First of all, Fili is always going to want you. I don't know how you've missed it, but that boy loves you as much as you love him. And it scares me a little how intense that love is, but I'm very happy you two have each other," Bilbo told him. "I'd never ask you to give that up."

Kili was taken aback by that, not understanding. "But you've been frowning at us whenever we're together," he said in weak confusion.

Bilbo gave him a sad smile. "Because I worry. It's not easy raising two teenagers who are hell-bent on giving everything up for each other," he commented wryly. "And I understand the instinct, Kili, I do. But you don't have to give anything up for Fili, and he doesn't have to give anything up for you. It sometimes feels like the line between the two of you is blurring and that scares me, not because I don't want you happy, but because I do."

Kili tried to process that, but his mind was too foggy. "I don't understand," he said, blinking away the moisture in his eyes with sore and tired eyes.

His dad sighed. "I'm sorry. I've been trying to establish boundaries between the two of you that we really should have worked on years ago. I feel like I've been a terrible father to you."

That caused his head to jerk up. "You're everything I could have wanted in a dad!" he protested. "That's why it got to me so much when you didn't want me and Fili together…"

If he were honest with himself, he had never really been angry with his parents. He had been hurt.

"I do want you and Fili to be together," Bilbo insisted. "I'm not sure how this family would function if the two of you weren't together. Even before you both realized you were in love with each other, you've always been together. You were the ones who made us a family in the first place."

Kili snorted. "Guess I ruined the whole family, then," he said in self-deprecation.

"You haven't ruined anything," Bilbo told him. "The only reason Fili isn't up here now trying to apologize for what he thinks he did is because Thorin and I thought it'd be better to talk to the two of you separately first."

"Oh," he said, glad that Fili didn't seem to hate him. "But Fili didn't do anything wrong!" he cried as he processed what else Bilbo had said. "I'm the one who pushed him away!"

"Why?"

Kili looked down, unable to meet Bilbo's patient eyes. "I just… I don't know…" He took a deep breath to calm his fraying emotions. "He said he didn't think he'd have been able to go on if Smaug had killed me. It just… I couldn't… I don't know. I was stupid."

His dad sighed heavily and pulled Kili close again. "I know you don't want to hear this, but this is why the both of you need to work things out in therapy. You've both got to learn to not depend on each other so much. Not because you won't always have each other," Bilbo was quick to cut off Kili's argument before he even opened his mouth. "But because the two of you can be even stronger as a couple."

That didn't really sound so bad.

He yawned as he leaned against his dad, the quiet that stretched between them sinking into him and making him feel drained.

"I think it's time for bed," Bilbo prompted gently, standing up and helping Kili stumble to the bed.

He frowned up at his dad as he sat down on the bed. "Can I see Fili first?" he begged, needing to apologize.

Bilbo gave him a smile. "I'll send him up, but I expect both of you to sleep in your own beds tonight."

Kili made a face. Knowing and understanding why Bilbo was doing what he was doing was one thing. It didn't mean he had to like it.

It was like taking medicine, he decided as he sank down on his bed to wait for Fili. It might be good for them, but it wasn't a pleasant experience.

"Kili!" Fili cried as he rushed in and curled around him on the bed. "I'm so sorry!"

Kili swatted his arm gently even as he tucked himself against Fili's side. "You didn't do anything. I was just being stupid."

Fili shook his head. "No, you were right. Neither of us should think the other is more important than thy are. We have to be equals in this relationship."

"I see you had a productive talk with Pop," Kili murmured with a smile.

"Sometimes old people say smart stuff," the blond replied with a roll of his eyes.

"Mmm," Kili hummed sleepily in agreement as his eyes slipped shut.

Fili chuckled. "You're falling asleep. I'll let you rest. Love you," he said, brushing a gentle kiss against Kili's lips.

"Don't go," Kili mewled but Fili pulled away anyway. He pouted up at the blond. "I hate taking medicine."

Fili gave him a confused look. "Did you take something?"

"No," he slurred, eyes sliding shut again. "Love you."

Fili chuckled again and kissed him on the forehead. "Night, Kee. Love you, too."

tbc…

a/n: So this took a turn I didn't expect, but hope you enjoyed it anyway!