13: Fade Into You

Tauriel almost wished she could sleep for the sole reason of being able to wake up in Kíli's arms. That was something she imagined to be a very pleasurable experience. Then again, lying awake and watching him dream, tiny flickers of movement traveling across his face as he visited places she could not follow him to in his slumber, wasn't quite so terrible either.

She found herself mirroring his expressions despite the fact that he could not currently see her, frowning when his brows pulled together, smiling when his lips curved upward at the corners. It was easy to be comfortable like this, to almost forget where they were, the gentle rocking back and forth as they crawled closer to their destination in Rhûn soothing the mind rather than reminding it that this was, in fact, not a very safe place to let down their guard quite so completely.

Even though Tauriel would have liked to allow Kíli to rest for as long as it took to erase the faint purple shadows under his eyes, she knew that he would have to be woken soon. It had been several hours since they had received their customary meager portions of thin gruel and bread, once again sacrificing their rations of water to wash and subsequently dress the wounds on her back and his arm. It could not be that long before someone would come for them again. If she could, she wanted to spare Kíli the shock of being roused by the thump of heavy boots and the sound of the door being unbolted. Also, there were still some things they needed to discuss about how they would proceed now that Gansukh's intentions for them had been made more or less clear.

Pushing up onto her elbow while careful not to disturb Kíli's embrace, Tauriel leaned in and, with her heart in her throat, pressed her lips to the skin just above his temple.

"Time to rise," she whispered.

Kíli responded by scrunching up his face in a rather endearing manner and exhaled slowly through his nose. His eyes remained closed as he tugged her closer and buried his face against the side of her neck, his breath a warm caress against her skin when he spoke. "Not yet."

Tauriel smiled at the drowsiness of his voice. "How you can sleep at all on a floor as hard as this fascinates me."

All she got in reply was a vague humming sound, the vibrations of which she felt where her palm rested loosely against Kíli's side. Her grip tightened reflexively when, in his hazy state, he shifted closer still, one knee sliding between her legs so that they were quite firmly entwined from head to toe. Against her hip, Tauriel could feel the—also very firm—evidence of what this new sort of closeness between them was doing to Kíli. Within a breathless instant, the burning heat, which had been reduced to a gentle simmer after they had realized that they would indeed live to see another day, was blazing wildly again.

Her heart hammering loudly in her ears, Tauriel allowed instinct to take over and brought up one leg to curl around Kíli's waist. When she flexed her muscles, urging him closer, Kíli initially followed her encouragement and canted his hips forward. Then, to her disappointment, he gave a start and pulled back, looking up at her with wide eyes and cheeks that had flushed a deep crimson.

"Forgive me," he stammered, "I didn't mean—or, I did, but not like this, not when—"

Tauriel silenced him with a quick kiss, hiding her own embarrassment behind a smile when she drew back. "There is nothing that needs to be forgiven. Nothing at all."

Before he could protest, she leaned in again, this kiss deeper and longer than the one before. He held himself back, at first, but then she felt his resolve crumble as he allowed his tongue to slide between her lips, opening her up to taste her, to explore her. Tauriel welcomed him willingly.

Perhaps it was the general lack of air in the room which was affecting her faculty of reason, perhaps it was the fact that they had both almost died the day before. Either way, Tauriel found herself emboldened in ways previously unknown to her and surprised them both by rolling them over so that she came to sit astride Kíli's lap, her knees digging into the hard wooden floor on either side of his hips.

There, that was much better. Now she might finally find a way to address the throbbing ache which had been building between her legs, demanding relief, and soon. Her small whimper as she pressed down against Kíli was met with a hiss by him, his hips bucking almost helplessly against her.

"Ah, if you—ah, keep doing things like that, I can't—I wouldn't—What I mean is, I might not find it so very easy to just stop. Not again."

If she had not been quite so overwhelmed with the sensations coursing through her body, Tauriel might have grinned at the incoherence of his speech. As it was, she leaned forward to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw, supporting her weight with her palms against his chest. With the remote part of her mind that was still capable of reasonable thought, she noticed that the chafes on her hands no longer troubled her. Not enough to make her pull back, at least.

"Good," she said. "I do not want you to stop."

Kíli went completely still underneath her. "You don't?"

Tauriel's confirmation was somewhat muffled by the fact that her lips seemed very reluctant to leave his skin. Just there, where his neck ended and his jaw began, the scent she had so unconsciously grown accustomed to that it now caused warmth to swell inside her chest whenever she smelled it was the strongest, and she wanted to draw it deeply into her lungs until she would grow lightheaded. She wondered if he tasted the same way he smelled. Her tongue darting out from between her lips, she set about testing that theory.

Kíli's hands gripped her hips as a brittle sigh rushed past his lips. "This—ah—this is probably a rather terrible idea."

Tauriel remained unimpressed, in part because even as he spoke those words, his hips rose up to meet hers once again. "I thought those were your specialty."

A laugh punched its way out of his chest. "Aye, I did say so myself, didn't I?"

His hands slid from her hips up to her shoulders, merely skimming across the places that so ached to be touched by him on his way. With both palms resting lightly against the side of her neck, he guided her mouth to his once more, claiming her lips in a kiss that would have caused Tauriel to flush had all the blood inside her body not already been rushing madly through her veins as it was.

This time, when she rocked her hips, Kíli did not still her movements and met her halfway instead with just the right amount of pressure. Pushing herself up far enough so that she might watch his face through hooded lids, she set up a tentative rhythm that soon grew more confident, spurned on by the sounds he was making beneath her and the flush which had spread over his cheeks.

Perhaps this wasn't the most dignified thing she had ever done, but Tauriel found that she didn't have it left in her to particularly care. Yes, it was the wrong place and the wrong time for allowing the tension which had been building for days to finally boil over. All the same, this felt right simply because it was her and Kíli. They had been through so much together already, and it was fine, for once, to let herself go. Kíli would be there to catch her.

The air inside the small room was warm and close, causing a rush of heat to creep up Tauriel's neck as she kept moving against Kíli, desperate in her chase for that sweet moment of release which she knew was just a few steps ahead for both of them. Kíli sensed the exact moment when the friction between their bodies just wasn't enough anymore and he pushed aside the sorry remains of her dress, shaky yet determined fingers slipping beneath the waistband of her leggings.

Tauriel's arms refused to hold her up any longer when the calloused pads of his fingers rubbed against her most sensitive flesh, his movements somewhat clumsy because of the odd angle. Her heart pounded against her breastbone with the awareness that he would now know exactly what he was doing to her, how slick, how wanting their actions had left her.

And, indeed, Kíli turned his head to mumble into her ear, a mere few seconds later, "Mahal, you feel incredible. You—ah, this is almost too much. . ."

A finger dipped inside her, briefly, only to be withdrawn again immediately, spreading more of her wetness over her flesh. With a small whimper, Tauriel pressed down once more, trapping Kíli's hand between their body's in their shared heat. His head fell back against the floor as his hips jerked upward, his fingers twitching against her, curling into her.

"Do that again," he pleaded, and she happily obliged, and then again, and again, until her release crashed over her like a tidal wave, what little breath she had left rushing out in a stuttering sigh. With her remaining capability of conscious thought, she rocked her hips, just once, and then Kíli, too, arched against her, a few strained words Tauriel did not understand (but suspected had no coherent meaning behind them either way) tumbling from his lips as he held her close while he rode out the heights of his pleasure.

They both went completely still after that, the only sounds Tauriel could hear the hammering of her own heartbeat and Kíli's harsh breathing. Her face had somehow ended up pressed into his left shoulder, and she wasn't confident in her ability to change that position. For one thing, her limbs all felt deliciously heavy and weak at the same time, so that she wasn't even sure if they would carry her weight. Also, she did not quite know how you were supposed to meet the eye of someone you had just done. . . well, whatever you were supposed to call that with.

Kíli, who was more often than not the braver one out of the two of them when it came to confronting the tangled mess of feelings which existed between them, turned his head to press a kiss to her temple. He nudged her with his nose until she convinced herself to lift her head and look at him. Her cheeks were practically burning.

Despite her sudden shyness, the smile she discovered on Kíli's face was not a teasing one, but one full of happiness and contentment. And at least a tiny bit of embarrassment, too, she thought.

"Well, that was. . ."

"A terrible idea?" she supplied, a smile of her own stretching her lips until her cheeks hurt.

Kíli chuckled and she had to fight the urge to squirm against him when the rumble of his laughter vibrated through regions of her body that were still a little more sensitive than usual.

"I don't believe things like that ought to be judged on a scale from stupid to smart, since, if we're honest, they would not score very high most of the time." The teasing glint in his eyes was replaced by a tender glow. "I—I don't regret it, though. Not at all. And. . . I would like to do it again, sometime. If you're not opposed. I mean, you do not have to, obviously. . ."

Tauriel cut him off with a laugh and a kiss. "I do want to do that again." She blushed. "Maybe with less. . . fabrics in the way, then."

"Ah, yes, that might be of some advantage." Kíli winced and grimaced, shifting his hips. Tauriel took that as her cue to abandon her position on top of him, even though she was curiously reluctant to do so. Lying on her side with her head resting on Kíli's shoulder did, however, turn out to be a very agreeable alternative. Kíli lifted his head and glanced down at the damp stain on the front of his trousers, before shrugging and tugging his too long tunic down to cover it. "Might save me a couple of hours of discomfort, next time."

"I'm sorry," Tauriel winced even as her stomach fluttered with excitement at his reference to a next time.

Kíli tugged her more firmly against his side. "Don't be. That's definitely my own responsibility. Besides, I've had worse, at least when it comes to walking around in soiled clothes." He laughed quietly to himself and Tauriel sensed one of the little vignettes from his previous life which she enjoyed so much coming. She wasn't disappointed. "One time, Fíli and I got tremendously drunk while we stayed at the house of a distant cousin during a job Thorin had taken us along for. We raided said cousin's pantry in the middle of the night and I stepped in a full pot of honey. My uncle made me wear my sticky boot for the couple of days it took us to get back home—we were traveling on foot, mind you. Now, that was uncomfortable."

Tauriel stifled a laugh with her fingertips pressed against her lips. "I can imagine. Those must have been a few very unpleasant days."

"You could say that. And that's not even counting the ants and whatnot that a boot dipped in bloody honey attracts when you travel through mostly wooded terrain. To this day, Fíli swears he caught sight of a bear following in our tracks. A bear!"

By then, Tauriel was shaking helplessly with giggles. "To be fair, you probably deserved some of that," she said once she had calmed herself enough to do so. "You may have had honey in your boot, but your poor cousin had boot in his honey."

Kili gave a delighted snort but waved her argument away. "He'd been getting too stout in his old age anyway. Staying away from the honey will have done him some good, I should say. And either way—" he squinted at her, "aren't you supposed to be on my side?"

"I am," she laughed, reaching across his chest to clasp his fingers in hers.

"But you think I'm more trouble than I'm worth?"

She knew he was teasing her, but detected at least a hint of genuine underlying concern. Which made sense in light of the things he had told her about his family, how they often appeared to view him as too reckless, too young. A liability. "I think you are exactly as much trouble as you are worth," she said. "Which, from where I am standing, is rather a lot."

She leaned in to kiss him and was gratified when he returned her kiss with enthusiasm. When they pulled apart a moment later, he scrutinized her with narrowed eyes. "I am not certain whether that was meant as a compliment or an insult."

Tauriel poked him in the ribs instead of replying, which resulted in him setting out to find out if she was ticklish (she wasn't, but did not tell him so until after he had given every inch of her body rather thorough attention in his quest for the truth). They were blissfully occupied like that for some time before collapsing next to each other, out of breath despite the fact that they had barely moved from their spot on the floor for a long time.

Kíli pushed his tangled hair out of his face and, once again, tugged at his clothes in an attempt to get more comfortable. To be fair, they had already been in a rather sorry state even before this morning's events.

"Do you think they will still take us to get cleaned up?" Kíli asked hopefully. "Or have we lost those privileges after yesterday?"

"I could not say," Tauriel returned. "Gansukh did imply that in here would be the only place we would be safe for the time being. So perhaps this is where we will stay until we arrive at our destination."

Kíli sat up and looked around the room. "Maybe we ought to check those barrels, then? See if there's water in one of them." He looked her over. "There's only so much good one can do with a mere mouthful of water. It wouldn't hurt to give those scratches of yours a more thorough wash."

Tauriel had avoided putting any unnecessary strain on her back since the day before, but despite the fact that the places where the Warg's claws had marked her still stung rather unpleasantly underneath the makeshift bandages they had created from a few old rags found in a corner of their new cell, she shook her head. "I will be fine. And besides, I already looked while you slept. Most of the barrels are empty, and a handful contain some sort of ale I would not go near unless forced. And definitely not put on a fresh wound."

For a second Kíli looked at the very least tempted to suggest having a drink of the vile stuff, but then seemed to think better of it. "I suppose then we are back to hoping they will provide us with some other means to get properly cleaned up."

"I suppose we are," Tauriel confirmed with a sigh. Waiting really wasn't among her personal strengths—if her time as a captive of Gansukh and his people had taught her anything at all, it was that.

In the end, Kíli did get his wish, but not in the way either of them might have expected. When a pair of guards finally came for them at what Tauriel estimated had to be around midday, they bore no bowls of food nor, craved even more desperately, water. Instead, one of them placed a bundle of dark fabric on the floor just inside the door while the other glared at Kíli and Tauriel over his comrade's shoulder.

"Put these on."

Kíli and Tauriel were still exchanging a look of raised eyebrows when the door fell shut behind the guards, once again sealing them inside their store-room-turned-prison. Kíli shrugged, tugged at the frayed collar of his shirt.

"Can hardly be any worse than this."

Cautiously, they sorted through the pile which had been left for them, holding up each item in the dim light to examine it. In the end, they were left with two identical outfits that closely resembled the uniforms of the guards. Black trousers that were tight around the calves but looser around the thighs and hips were complemented by a black tunic which was wrapped around one's torso and fastened with sewed on ribbons at each hip. The thing which distinguished the uniform from those of the guards was a long, wide ribbon of a dark burgundy color which Tauriel concluded was intended to be worn around the waist like a belt.

Shooting a glance at Kíli, she found him wearing a skeptical frown. He met her gaze.

"You know what this means, right?"

Tauriel ran her fingers over the silky length of the belt. Even in the almost darkness, the color was so rich, she could not help but be drawn to it.

A good life in which you lack almost nothing.

Gansukh's words echoed in her mind. Was this the sort of thing he had talked about? Soft fabrics and charming colors? Well, he was a fool if he thought that they would be swayed by such trivialities. And still. . .

"If we put those on, Gansukh will see this as our acceptance of his terms." She looked up at Kíli, the belt hanging limply from her hands. "I believe we should do it."

His jaw twitched. "Just like that? Switch sides and become one of them? Or whatever it is precisely that he wants us to become?"

"I refuse to believe that wearing the clothes someone else has chosen for me will change who I am," Tauriel said mildly. She sighed. "I do know what you mean, though. You are thinking about the others, are you not?"

They had avoided a discussion of the fates of their friends until now, simply because they could not yet guess what the outcome of this whole situation would be for either of them. That did not mean, however, that Ingolf, Suri, and Ruari had not been on Tauriel's mind. And on Kíli's, as became clear when his expression darkened with the weight of his guilt.

"They probably think we did not survive that fight yesterday and here we are, safe and sound and. . . well. . ."

Color had risen high in his cheeks and Tauriel felt her own face grow warm at his implied reference to what they had been doing with their time since they had been locked in here. She chased the feelings which accompanied those memories away for now, focusing on the original topic of their discussion instead.

"With a bit of luck, Adis will have found a way to let them know we left the arena alive," she said. "They will still worry about us, of course, but there is nothing to be done about that. Not from our current position, anyway."

Kíli looked up from where he had been picking at a loose piece of thread on the black tunic he still held in his lap. "But you think that might change if we subject ourselves to Gansukh's will? That then we might be able to reach out to them? Even help them, perhaps?"

"There is no way to know that for sure, of course. But what I do know is that if we refuse, we shall not have the chance to do either. He would not let us go back to simply being imprisoned alongside Ingolf and the others. Truth be told, I'm quite surprised he allowed you and me to stay together instead of locking us up separately."

"Yes, why do you think that is?"

She gave a small shrug. "He is no fool. If he had forced us apart, we would have been even less likely to cooperate. That is scarcely a secret, I believe."

Kíli's gaze darkened even further at the image she had just painted of an alternate course of events. "Less likely to cooperate is putting it mildly. If they had taken you somewhere else, I would have torn the place apart trying to get back to you."

A smile that was incongruously sentimental for both the general topic of their discussion and the violence Kíli had just suggested stole its way onto her lips. "Then our captors ought to be grateful that this is not the fate which they brought upon themselves," she said, catching Kíli's eye and holding his gaze until he, too, smiled softly. "But unless you are inclined to tear this place apart nonetheless," she continued, "our best chances might yet lie in cooperating with Gansukh. For the time being, at least."

Kíli stared at the black jacket in his lap in dismay. "I don't like that. At all."

"Neither do I," Tauriel assured him. "And if accepting his terms meant that we would still be locked up in this infernal place, I would not argue in favor of it. But if wearing these clothes means we will get to feel the ground beneath our feet again and the sun upon our skin, I would not want to waste that opportunity just because we cannot get over our pride. You are very resourceful, and so am I, and I believe out there we will eventually find a way to freedom not just for us, but also for our friends."

Kíli grinned. "Never imagined an Elf to one day tell me I'm resourceful."

"Never thought I would do any of the things we have done with a Dwarf," Tauriel returned with an inelegant snort, then blushed. "That is not—I mean, it is not as if I have thought of doing them with a Dwarf. . . ah, forget I said anything."

Kíli's unrestrained burst of laughter was worth the burning in her cheeks, she decided even as she buried her face in her hands.

"Well, now that we cleared that up," Kíli said, still chuckling, "should we get it over with and just put those on?" He nodded towards the pile of clothes.

Even though her stomach gave a small churn at the thought of walking out of there dressed like those who had treated them like cattle over the past weeks, Tauriel nodded. It was the best plan, for now, and as much as she enjoyed bantering with Kíli, it was time to tackle whatever might await them down the road.

Shedding the garments she wore was a relief, even if they were the last tangible thing on her person she had brought with her from Mirkwood. Both her dress and leggings were soiled and torn and bore very little similarity to what they had looked like when she had been captured and it was most definitely time to part with them. What proved much more difficult, however, was changing clothes with Kíli in the room while (to make matters worse) he was doing the same.

Was there an etiquette, perhaps, for how you were supposed to undress in front of someone whom you had already gotten very, very close with, but who had yet to see you at your most exposed, most vulnerable? If there was, Tauriel would have been quite grateful for its knowledge. As it was, she turned her back to Kíli more because that was what one was supposed to do (right?) rather than because she felt an actual need to preserve her modesty in this manner and quickly took of her old clothes before stepping into the black trousers and shrugging on the matching tunic.

All the while, the temptation to sneak a look over her shoulder remained strong, unbearable, almost, but somehow she managed to keep her eyes straight ahead, staring at a blank stretch of wooden wall while behind her she heard the soft rustle of fabric and the occasional muttered remark while Kíli, too, changed. If she were to look, she thought, and found Kíli looking as well, then it would only be a matter of seconds before they found themselves in a situation she most assuredly did not want to be caught in when Gansukh came for them. Which could be any minute now.

Any minute, Tauriel, she reminded herself in her sternest mental voice and emphasized her point by tugging forcefully on the knot she had just tied in the sash after wrapping it around her waist and almost cutting off her air.

There. She was dressed, temptations had been resisted, and she now had the mental capacity to assess the fit of the garments she had been given. Thanks to the fact that the trousers were tied with a string at the waist, they fit reasonably well, the fabric loose around her thighs so that they would allow for easy movement. She wasn't quite sure if she had tied the jacket correctly, but it felt soft and pleasant against her skin and as long as that was the case, she wasn't going to complain.

She raked through the tangled mess of her hair with her fingers and quickly fashioned it into a single, long braid starting at the crown of her head. Tearing off yet one more strip of fabric from her old, tattered dress, she fastened the braid, then cautiously turned around. . .

And very nearly whirled back around again immediately. Black most definitely suited Kíli. So much for having overcome temptation and proceeding with a clear mind. Truly, this was getting quite tedious, but, then again, she had brought this upon herself, hadn't she?

The odd little sound which escaped her—half sigh, half exasperated groan—drew Kíli's focus away from the belt with which he had been fiddling while Tauriel had been having her very contained, yet very profound crisis.

"I can't figure out how this is supposed to be tied," he complained, then narrowed his eyes when he noticed her stare. He let go of the ends of the belt so that it hung lopsided on his hips. "I look ridiculous, don't I?"

Tauriel dropped her gaze to stare at her bare toes where they peeked out from under the hem of her trousers, her face warm. "No," she muttered, "no, not at all."

Reminding herself that she was a feared, strong-willed warrior and not a simpering maid, she crossed the small room in three long strides and reached down to grasp the ends of Kíli's sash. "Here," she said, "I'll help you. If you tie it like this, the knot will not get in your way and neither will it come loose."

She fashioned a flat knot just above Kíli's right hip and tucked in the ends of the belt, just like she had done with her own. When she looked up from her completed task she found Kíli's brown eyes studying her. A wayward strand of hair had fallen across his forehead while he had struggled with the finishing touches to his outfit and she bravely reached up to tuck it back in among the remainder of his shaggy mass of dark hair.

"Do you want me to braid it for you again?"

The urge to touch would not be overcome quite so easily and braiding his hair struck Tauriel as one of the more innocent ways of doing so.

"I think we can agree that the swiftness with which my hair returns to this state—" he pointed a resigned finger at his own head, "renders any effort on your part a waste of your time."

"Hmm, yes, we would not want that, seeing that I have such a busy schedule," Tauriel teased.

Kíli turned towards her more fully, pulling himself up to his full height. "I could think of a thing or two to keep you busy. Want to hear some suggestions?"

Tauriel was already swaying forward on the tips of her toes, her gaze dropping to Kíli's lips, which had curved upwards at her reaction to his flirtation. A sound at the door made her reel back, her mind going from fuzzy and distracted to sharp and focused in an instant. They were coming for them—it was time to discover what fate held in store for them next.

Kíli clasped her hand in his. "Ready?"

"No," Tauriel answered honestly and squeezed his fingers before letting go of him once again. "But I do not believe it would make much of a difference if I was."

"True," Kíli returned, moving to stand next to her as the bolt on the outside of the door was pulled back. "Here we go, then."

A/N: Chapter title credits - "Fade Into You" by Maximo Park (originally by Nick Drake).