Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Take me instead!”

The words shock all who can hear them. In the neighbouring cells, the rest of the company goes still. Before, the dungeons had been filled with the uproar of hollering shouts and bars being rattled furiously by strong, dwarven hands. But following Fíli's statement, everyone goes suddenly silent, uncertain if they had heard their prince correctly.

Then Fíli speaks again, his voice loud and clear in the resounding silence. “Please, not him. Take me.”

The elf nearest to Fíli’s cell turns to look down at the young prince with disdain, upper lip twisted in a mocking sneer.

“You?” The elf turns to his partner, who has paused at the open doorway of Kíli’s cell.

Hidden from Fíli’s view lies Kíli. Drugged and unconscious to the world and completely unaware of the danger coming for him.

“Why on earth would we choose you?” Cold blue eyes rake over Fíli’s form, inspecting him from head to toe and sneering as though they have deemed him of no more worth than dirt. Fíli ignores the way those eyes send a chill through him and he meets the elf’s gaze with an unwavering stare.

“Because I can make it good.” He colours visibly at his own words. He has to spit them out past his lips. In the surrounding cells he can hear the gasps of shock from the rest of the company and Fíli’s stomach knots and twists, humiliated but no less determined. 

He’d heard their conversation, as had the rest of the company. He’d seen them hovering outside Kíli’s cell, laughing about the drugged dwarf, mocking him until their conversation had taken a sinister turn. They’d planned to take Kíli while he was helpless to defend himself. They were sour about being made to watch over the dwarves rather than join in the festivities with the rest of the elves and they’d been looking for a way to make their guard duty more enjoyable. 

What’s one dwarf amongst thirteen? 

They had made their mind up and if it was going to happen, Fíli would rather it happen to him and not to Kíli. He would do anything to save his brother. 

“The dwarf you want, he’s drugged. Fucking him it— it would be like fucking a corpse. If you take me, I won’t fight… or I will, whatever you want.” He narrows his eyes at the nearest elf, accusation clear in his tone because really, he wouldn’t put anything past them. To see him fighting and screaming in pain… he bets they would love that.

The elf hesitates; eyes still on him and obviously interested, but the elf already half in Kíli’s cell scoffs.

“You think you have anything we would want? You are foul to us dwarf, every bit of you. This one at least is not too displeasing to the eye.”

Fíli presses himself up against the bars so he can see the second elf. “I have experience,” he confesses, blocking out the rest of the dwarves. If he’s going to convince them then he has to do this right, and that means pretending the rest of the company doesn’t exist. Nothing else exists but him, these elves, and his brother. He must protect Kíli, that is the only thing that matters. “I know how to please another male. Please, I’ll do anything you want; if you must do this then take me.”

The elves exchange a look, something silent passing between them. The elf closest to Fíli lifts his brows and Fíli glances between them desperately, trying to judge their reactions. Finally, the elf halfway through Kíli’s cell sighs and steps backwards, shutting and locking Kíli’s cell door.

Fíli feels a moment of triumph as the elf joins his partner outside Fíli’s cell. This feeling soon turns to dread as he realises just what he’s talked himself into. He backs up into the shadows as the first elf unbolts his door, then it swings open with a screech of metal hinges. They’re tall, their lithe forms blocking out the light from the passageway, filling the doorway entirely. Fíli looks up at them with wide eyes. Somewhere in one of the neighbouring cells, Fíli hears Thorin shout, bellowing at them to leave his kin alone, hearing the panic and fear in his uncle’s voice makes Fíli’s stomach twist painfully. He feels a brief flash of panic but he swallows it down, locking it away somewhere deep inside himself. He promised them he would be willing, he must keep the deal if he is to save his brother. He has to be strong.

The elves step into the cell, trapping Fíli in the back corner. The cell is small, there’s no real place he could run to even if he was going to run. The cell door swings shut, locking the three of them in and Fíli swallows.

The two elves don’t make it easy. Their intention is to humiliate and to hurt, driven by their hatred of dwarves; he is a piece of meat for them to toy with.

One of them looks familiar to Fíli, he realises dimly that it’s the elf who had stripped Fíli of his blades in Mirkwood.

First, they command him to strip. Fíli does so silently, keeping his eyes locked on them, his chin raised defiantly. They make cruel comments about his body as it is revealed. How small he is, how hairy, they comment on the stink he still carries from the road, how easily they could squash him. With each insult Fíli can’t keep the flush of hatred from spreading over his cheeks and down his neck, the burn of anger and humiliation.

The rest of the company have not let up on their fight to escape their cells, shouting insults at the elves, threatening them a world of pain if they so much as touch a hair on his head but Fíli knows it’s already too late. Nothing the rest of the company says is going to deter the two elves. Fíli’s only comfort is that it’s happening to him and not to Kíli.

When Fíli is naked the elves tell him to kneel down on the ground and pleasure himself. Tears prickling at the indignity, but refusing to let them fall, Fíli climbs down onto his knees and takes himself in hand. He can’t look at them as he strokes himself, he looks down at their feet, jaw pressed into a firm line. His body reacts to the stimulation but he gains no pleasure from it. Once he is hard, the elves circle round him. The first one, the one who had taken his blades, comes to stand behind him and Fíli suppresses a shudder as he feels thin fingers run through his hair, snagging on the knots and tangles.

The second stands before him, smirking down at him, fully aware of the power he now holds over Fíli.

“Take me out of my breeches,” the elf commands. Silently, Fíli reaches up and pulls aside the elf’s tunic to reveal the slight swell of his cock, already half hard. Fíli’s fingers fumble over the unfamiliar clasps, but soon he has them undone and he pulls the elf’s pale cock free of the material. It hangs between them, not even fully hard but already frighteningly large to Fíli.

“Suck it,” the elf says.

Somewhere above them, Fíli hears Thorin roar in outrage, promising blood and revenge.

Fíli closes his eyes. He opens his mouth and takes the elf’s cock in. It takes him a moment to grow accustomed enough to the taste and the feel of warm flesh against his tongue, having to swallow down the urge to gag around that unwelcome intrusion. And then he starts to suck on the head, lathering it with his spit and taking it further into his mouth. He feels the fingers of the elf behind him tighten in his hair and he hears a soft grunt from the second as he pushes into Fíli’s mouth, forcing his way in until he’s pressing against the back of Fíli’s throat. Fíli works his mouth and throat furiously. It takes all his willpower just to keep going and not to bite down on the loathsome cock. His hands come up, one braced against the elf’s hips and the other wrapping around the base of the cock, holding onto the last few inches he can’t take in. He hollows his cheeks and he bobs his head and he tries to imagine that this is something he wants… that he’s just coming of age back in Ered Luin and experimenting with his friends. Innocent touches and feverish kisses, sloppy and inexperienced but eager. It doesn’t work, every time Fíli feels his mind drifting the elf behind him gives a sharp yank on his hair, pulling him back into the moment, as if sensing his need to escape and denying him of it.

You’re not going anywhere, it’s as if the elf is saying. Mind and body, you are ours now to do with as we please.

Eyes still closed, a tear leaks down Fíli’s cheek.

For Kíli, that’s his mantra now. As he chokes on the cock, breathing harshly through his nose and clinging desperately to the elf, trying to control the sharp thrusting of his hips as he fucks into Fíli’s mouth. As the other elf pulls at his hair, fingers digging painfully into his scalp. He’s doing this for Kíli.

The elf behind him lets go of his hair. Fíli hears the sounds of rustling fabric and then the elf’s sitting on the ground behind him, legs spread on either side of Fíli’s knees. The hand returns to his hair and then trails down to his neck. Fingers brush his braids over his left shoulder, baring his neck and Fíli flinches when he feels something hot and wet against his skin; the elf’s mouth, sucking a dark mark into the back of his neck, claiming him.

Fíli’s eyes open and he makes a choked sound of protest, hunching his shoulders to try and ward the elf off. The elf standing over him slaps his cheek, just hard enough to shock Fíli.

“Concentrate,” the elf hisses, voice strained as he nears climax. “You’re getting sloppy.”

Fíli glares up at him. He digs his fingers into the elf’s hip, hoping it’s hard enough to hurt and he focuses on the cock in his mouth. By now the elf is just using him like a willing hole and Fíli can do little more than keep his head still and his throat relaxed as the elf thrusts into his mouth.

He’s painfully aware of the elf behind him as he trails his long fingers down Fíli’s spine to the small of his back. They dip into the cleft of his ass and Fíli lets out a shaking breath through his nose, panic rising the further down the elf gets. He feels so vulnerable, so helpless, there’s nothing he can do right now but let this happen and wait for it to be over.

Then, Fíli feels a finger teasing at his entrance and he loses it. He wrenches the cock out of his mouth and he scrambles across the cell until he’s pressed against the barred entrance, breathing heavily and eyeing the two elves like a trapped animal. That’s all that he is now; a wild animal, caged and frightened and helpless.

The elves smirk at him, they’re both still fully clothed apart from their unbuttoned breeches, a clear sign of the power imbalance between him and them. They have all the control here and they know it.

“Is the dwarf having second thoughts?” Asks one with mocking sympathy in his voice. “Such a pity, and we were just beginning to enjoy ourselves.”

“Perhaps we should visit his friend,” says the other. “He might be out cold but at least we won’t have to listen to him whimpering and snivelling.”

“Wait!” Fíli closes his eyes and wills his body to relax. His limbs are trembling and his heart is pounding against his ribcage like a bird. “I’m sorry, I just… I’ll need oil.” He opens his eyes again and he forces himself to climb to his feet and step closer to the two elves. “There’s no way I could take either of you without… it would be impossible.”

The elves exchange a look. One of them produces a vial of oil from his robes.

“Are you going to give us what you promised us now?” The elf asks with a mocking smile. Fíli lowers his head. He returns to the two elves, feeling like he’s walking directly into the jaws of the beast.

For Kíli, he thinks. For Kíli.

They prep him harshly, digging long fingers into him and stretching him. Fíli bites down on his tongue to keep from making any noise until one of them pinches him in the ribs and hisses into his ear, “Dwarves are not meant to be silent. I want to hear you.”

When one of them forces their way into him, Fíli can’t help but make noise. It hurts, Mahal but it hurts. He’s stretched wide, too wide, he feels like he’s being split in two. They hold him by his hips, lowering him down on the elf cock and he has no control over the depth or speed of the intrusion. He can feel it, stretching his skin taut and pushing into his guts and it hurts. Fíli cries out, begging them to slow down, to give him a second. His fingers scrabble at the shoulder of the elf penetrating him, toes curling at the pain as he squeezes his eyes shut.

It feels like it takes an age, but finally, he feels the base of the elf’s cock pressing against his ass cheeks and the intrusion stops just long enough for Fíli to gasp for breath, processing the pain until he’s mastered it. It never stops hurting, but it becomes tolerable. The elf penetrating him looks at him, cheeks flushed and eyes glassy and he parts his lips to say, “Well, dwarf. Move. Make it feel good.”

It’s the final indignity. Fíli bites down on his lower lip, swallowing the sob he feels welling in his throat and he braces his knees under him, fingers still clutching onto the elf’s shoulders as he moves experimentally. He can feel the elf’s length shifting within him, grinding against his innards. 

Slowly, he lifts himself up. Both he and the elf gasp at the sensation. Fíli can feel the second elf hovering just outside of his peripheral vision, stroking himself as he watches the two of them but Fíli ignores him. He lowers himself back onto the cock, and then he lifts himself again. Gradually, he finds a rhythm until he’s riding the elf’s cock and the elf is gasping and panting, nearing release.

‘Come’, Fíli wills him. ‘Come you putrid filth.’ The sooner the elf comes the sooner this will be over and the sooner he will be free of this torment.

Fíli snaps his hips and he bites his lip and he glares at the elf, wishing him dead, picturing his head rolling across the floor having been cleaved clean off his shoulders by Fíli’s own blade. ‘You will pay for this’, he promises silently. ‘The both of you will not survive this.’

He feels the second elf stepping closer and jumps in surprise when he feels fingers winding around his chest from behind. The elf’s fingers stroke down to his belly and move lower until they’re playing with his cock. Fíli growls, shoving back with an elbow to try and dislodge the elf only to have him tut disapprovingly in his ear.

“Do you want me to pay a visit next door?” the elf asks, his breath hot against Fíli’s earlobe. Expression dark as thunder, Fíli glares ahead as he lets the elf’s hands move back down to his cock. The elf strokes him back to hardness and there’s nothing Fíli can do to stop it.

The elf beneath him suddenly grabs his hips, murmuring something in elven as he snaps upwards, thrusting himself deeply into Fíli and Fíli feels the elf’s release inside him. He grunts, closing his eyes with sorrow even as the second elf continues to jerk him off. Fíli’s body reacts to the stimulation, his cock growing hard and swollen until he comes with a broken cry. As his release spills between them, a deep shame settles within Fíli, taking root deep within his mind, ugly and raw and broken.

It would be a small mercy to say that Fíli’s abuse had ended then. But the elves were not merciful. 

They use him again, his mouth and his ass. They whisper cruel insults into his ear, then they shout loud enough for the rest of the company to hear about what a good little whore he is, how well he’s performed for them. They make him beg for it, they make him thank them. It’s not just his body they want, it’s not just his mind, it’s everything.

It’s not until hours later, when Fíli’s cell reeks of sex and sweat, that they finally grow bored. They readjust their tunics and they leave him curled on his side, his back to the cell door, exhausted and broken.

“You were right, dwarf,” one of them says. “You made it very enjoyable for us, a perfect little whore.” They laugh as they leave and the cell door swings shut behind them, locking Fíli inside, but it doesn’t matter. He is relieved just to be alone again.

Distantly he hears the rest of the company shouting to him, asking him if he’s ok as they see the two elves finally take their leave. Fíli doesn’t answer. He stares blankly at the shadows playing over the back wall. There’s a dull ache in his stomach, but he’s numb to it. He’s numb to everything.

He closes his eyes, shutting everything out until he drifts into a fitful, exhausted sleep.

Fíli wakes up some time later, cold and shivering. He sits up slowly, wincing as sore muscles protest. The ache in his gut is still there, a painful reminder.

He doesn’t want to think about the fallout from what had just happened. It’s there, oh it’s there, haunting the edges of his mind making him feel nauseous and torn open, but he shies away from it.

It happened, but it happened for a reason, and that reason is what’s going to get him through this. He can deal with the repercussion later, when he has the luxury of being alone. Now, he must deal with the practicalities. The fact of the matter is he’s still naked and he’s freezing. 

He looks down sorrowfully at his body. He’s a mess; there are marks on his skin from the elves hands and stains that he doesn’t want to think about. There’s spotting of blood between his legs, but it’s dried, the bleeding having stopped a while ago. The damage can’t be too bad at least, one small mercy.

Fíli looks around his cell. There’s nothing he can use to clean himself, not properly. There’s an empty bucket for waste but that is all. The closed quarters still smells heavily of the ugly must of sex, making Fíli’s nausea rise and again, he swallows it down.

Having no other choice, he gathers his clothes together and starts to pull them on. It’s a slow and arduous task and he winces and hisses in a sharp breath when a particular angle twinges something painfully inside him.

“Fíli?” He hears his uncle’s voice echoing from one of the cells above his. “Fíli answer me are you alright?”

Fíli swallows. It takes him a few attempts before he’s certain that his voice is clear and strong enough.

“I am fine.”

There is a relieved sigh. “Mahal, I was so worried. Did they hurt you?”

Fíli laughs bitterly to himself. Did they hurt him? What a loaded question that was.

“It is nothing I can’t handle.” He jerks his breeches up over his hips and fastens them tightly, ignoring the ache in his gut.

“Fíli,” Thorin begins and then he stops. There is something in his voice, something heavy and aching. “What they have done… they will pay for it with their lives.”

Fíli pulls on his tunic and fastens his belt around his waist. They’d taken his coat and gloves just as they had the rest of the dwarves when they’d first been taken captive. He stares at the wall opposite, eyes dim as heaviness washes over him, a distant anger smouldering. “I’ll be the one to do it,” he vows.

In the neighbouring cell he hears Dwalin give a grunt of approval which causes him to flinch. He’d forgotten that the others were all so close by… that they had heard everything. 

“That’s my lad,” says Dwalin. “You’re a warrior, Fíli. We’ll show them.”

Hours pass of nothing. Elves come and go, delivering them fresh meals and water. The first time it happens Fíli stiffens, his heart racing with fear as he expects to see the two faces of his attackers but it is never them. 

The elves that come barely pay him any mind, they push the food beneath the door and set a bucket of water sloshing down next to it and then they leave. There is one elf, a female with long red hair that Fíli recognises from the woods. She is the one who had saved Kíli, but not before he had been drugged by spider venom and knocked out cold.

She lingers outside Kíli’s cell, showing an interest that bristles right through Fíli and he steps towards her with a warning growl. He did not save his brother from torment only for him to fall into the hands of another wretched elf.

"Stay away from him,” Fíli warns, murder in his eyes as he glares at her through the bars.

The she-elf only glances at him, sparing a passing interest before her attention returns once again to Kíli. She opens the cell door and Fíli grips onto the bars, rattling them on their hinges as he snaps, “I’m warning you, elf, stay away from him!”

Roused by his words, the rest of the dwarves begin to stir.

“What’s going on?” he hears Bofur ask, his voice heavy with sleep. “What’s happening?”

“You worms!” Thorin roars. “Leave them be!”

The she-elf ignores all of them. She slips inside Kíli’s cell and the door swings shut behind her. Fíli howls with fury as all manner of things runs through his mind of what the loathsome creature could be doing to his brother. He shakes the bars and throws himself against them, ignoring the pain that thrums through his abused body.

However, soon after she had disappeared inside Kíli’s cell, she reappears, silent as the night and locking the door behind her.

She turns to Fíli, staring at him with bright, pale green eyes. “I have given him an antidote,” she says simply, her voice light and soft. “He will wake up soon.”

And then she turns and she steps lightly away. Fíli glares after her.

He slides down to the ground, forehead pressed to the bars as he tucks his knees up to his chest, listening for a sound, any sound that might come from the cell next to his.  He doesn’t trust the she-elf; she has no reason to help them. However, he has no choice but to wait and hope that she had not been lying.

Sure enough, just as the she-elf had promised, within the hour Fíli begins to hear noises from inside Kíli’s cell. He hears movement and a low, pained groaning as his brother stirs.

Fíli sits up suddenly, climbing to his knees and gripping the bars. “Kíli,” he hisses, pressing his face up against the cold metal in an attempt to peer sideways into his brother’s cell. “Kíli!”

“What?” comes the muffled response. “Mahal, my head…”

“Are you alright?” Fíli asks. “I’ve been so worried.”

“Feel sick,” Kíli mumbles back. Then Fíli hears the sounds of retching followed by a pitiful moan. 

“Fíli?” Kíli asks.

“Yes?”

“I’ve just been sick.”

“That’ll be the venom leaving you.” Oin’s voice drifts down to them. “Let it out, lad. It’ll be good for you.”

“Venom?” Kíli asks. “So that’s why I feel like death”

Fíli feels close to crying he’s so giddy with relief. Just hearing his brother’s voice again, it almost makes him forget everything that has happened. Almost.

“Aye lad, you were bitten by the spiders in Mirkwood. Took a good dose of it too, you’ve been out since we got here.”

“Where’s here? Something tells me from the bars that we’re not welcome guests.”

“Elves,” Thorin spits out like the word is a curse. “Putrid worms, the lot of them. They’ve signed their death warrants the moment they—“

“Uncle,” Fíli says, sharp enough to cut through his uncle’s words. He says no more, praying his uncle will have picked up on his silent plea.

Thorin falls silent, stewing in his own private fury.

“Fíli,” Kíli’s voice is soft, closer now than it had been before. Fíli can see the tips of Kíli’s fingers wrapped around the bars of his cell. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Fíli says, the lie coming smoothly. “I’m just so relieved you’re awake.

He stretches his hand out between the bars, fingers straining across the divide between his cell and Kíli's. He hears a shuffling and then Kíli’s hand appears close to his. Their fingers just manage to brush against each other, not close enough that they can actually get a grasp, but it is enough. For Fíli, just being able to touch his brother and know that he is alive is enough.

The red headed she-elf returns frequently. She has a special interest in his brother it seems. That alone is enough to rile Fíli, but what really stings is that Kíli seems to return the interest.

He sits in the shadows of his cell, glowering out at her as she stands outside Kíli’s cell, the both of them chattering softly. They speak too quietly for the rest of the company to hear but Fíli can hear every word.

Stop it! he wants to shout at his brother. Stop talking to her, stop being kind to them!

Kíli is flirting with her, actually flirting! And with every smile he gives and every story he trades, it cuts deeply inside Fíli, feeling like a betrayal. But Kíli is blissfully unaware, he knows nothing and so Fíli can say nothing.

Her name is Tauriel, Fíli learns, captain of the guard and though she acts differently to the rest— gentler and warmer, though only barely— the fire in her is still cold and distant. Fíli still does not trust her.

He lets his hatred for her show through one evening when she is sitting beside Kíli’s cell and he can see his brother’s hands slipping through the bars as he passes her something. It is the promise stone their mother had given him before they left for Bag End.

Fíli watches her profile, fair and pale, as she turns the stone over and over in her hands, thin fingers tracing over the polished surface.

“It is a very special token,” she says with her strange Elvish inflections. “You are well looked out for.”

All of Fíli’s vitriol, his resentment that has grown and festered even as the physical pain has receded, spills over in an ugly, derisive laugh. Tauriel looks up sharply at that. Her eyes fix on him and Fíli sits up straighter, eyes widening briefly in surprise at the intensity of her gaze.

There’s something about her eyes, something searching and piercing and it feels almost like she is peeling his layers away. Suddenly frightened that she will discover the secret hidden underneath, Fíli looks away, inching further into the shadows until his face is obscured.

When he looks back, Tauriel has left, just as silently as always.

“Why are you so hateful towards her?” Kíli’s voice asks.

Fíli blinks, it takes him a moment to realise that Kíli is addressing him. “She’s an elf,” he says simply.

“She’s nice,” Kíli replies. “She was the one who gave me the antidote, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” Fíli says. But that doesn’t change what her kind has done… elves under her own command.

“Then why are you so rude to her? She’s only trying to talk to me.”

“And why do you talk back to her?” Fíli counters instead, accusation in his tone. “You know how uncle feels about them… you know our history. Are you so ready to betray us?” It’s unfounded and unfair, he knows, but the more Kíli digs the closer he gets to finding out the truth and the thought of Kíli knowing what had happened… what could have happened to him if Fíli had not stepped in, it fills Fíli with panic.

Kíli huffs out a frustrated sigh and his hands pull away from the bars.

“Whatever you say, brother,” Kíli bites out angrily.

“Kíli…” Fíli begins softly. “You can’t trust them. I can’t tell you why but just believe me.”

“And what if I don’t want to?” Kíli asks. “Believe you, I mean. The way I see it, you’re the one acting like an ass.”

It stings, but Fíli remains quiet. It is better that his brother is angry with him than him knowing the truth.

“Go easy on your brother, Kíli lad,” Dwalin’s voice floats down the row of cells. “He’s only looking out for you.”

“From what?” Kíli demands harshly. “What is it that none of you are telling me? I can tell that it’s something so don’t lie, just tell me!”

Fíli doesn’t breathe. He waits with his heart in his throat for any of the company to say something but mercifully, none of them do. Apparently, they all share the opinion that it isn’t their place to say.

Kíli had obviously been waiting for a response because he is quiet for a long while, before he sighs again and Fíli hears movement as Kíli lies down and rolls over onto his side. “I’m going to sleep,” Kíli says shortly. “Don’t bother me.”

Fíli closes his eyes and wills the heaviness away from his heart. They need to escape from here. But how?

Fíli dreams that the elves have come back for him.

They take him brutally, holding him down and choking him until his lungs are burning and stars are flashing behind his eyelids. Kíli is in the cell with them and he can see it all. He is crying, begging them to stop but they only laugh and fuck Fíli harder. 

Then they take Kíli. Fíli can only watch as his brother is tormented and torn apart before him and he wants to scream, he wants to tear them to pieces because not Kíli, do anything to him but not Kíli. But he can’t scream, he can’t move, he can’t even close his eyes he can only watch and listen as Kíli screams and screams and screams and—

Fíli wakes up gasping, clawing at unseen hands around his throat. His eyes dart around the cell, searching the shadows but there is nothing there. He is alone.

“Fíli,” Kíli’s voice comes to him. “Fíli!”

Just hearing his brother is enough to settle him some. His breath evens out though his heart is still racing, adrenaline thrumming through him. He crawls over the ground until he’s sitting by the bars.

“What is it?” he asks, swallowing. It still feels like there are ghostly fingers digging into his skin and he rubs at his throat, massaging the tendons.

“Are you ok?”

“Fine.”

“You were talking in your sleep.”

Fíli goes still. “What did I say?” he asks. How much had he unknowingly revealed?

“I couldn’t hear your words but I could hear you mumbling.” Kíli pauses. Fíli can picture him sitting on his own side of the thick wall separating them; frowning down at his hands in the same way he always does when he is troubled. “Was it a nightmare?”

“Yes.”

“What about?”

“It doesn’t matter, it wasn’t real.”

Kíli sighs, a sound of pure frustration and annoyance. When he speaks again, he does so quietly, barely above a hissed whisper so only Fíli can hear him. “I wish you wouldn’t block me out.”

“I’m sorry, I just…” Fíli stares at his hands. “There is nothing to tell.”

“I don’t believe you!” Kíli insists. “I know you; I know when you’re hiding something. You’ve been different ever since the spiders, ever since we’ve been in here.” He stops and then he says softly, “Something happened while I was unconscious, didn’t it?”

Fíli closes his eyes tight, they’re burning and his fingers are shaking and the dream is still so fresh in his mind… the memories.

“Did they do something to you?”

“Kíli, please….”

“What did they do?”

“Nothing!” Fíli snaps. “They did nothing I cannot handle. Would you please just leave it?”

Kíli sighs and when he speaks again it is with defeat, “Whatever you say.” He shuffles back from the bars, retreating to the far corner of his cell.

“Do you remember that tree we used to play in?” Fíli asks with a hint of desperation, because he needs the comfort of his brother, even if he cannot tell him the truth.

He hears Kíli shuffling back towards the bars and relief fills him. “The one by the river?”

It had been an old tree, so large that when the both of them had wrapped their arms around the trunk, they still couldn’t reach each other’s fingers no matter how hard they strained. One winter, the tree had started to rot from disease. It hollowed out the trunk and if they climbed through a hole left by a fallen branch, they could get right down to the heart of it, huddled away with the moss and the woodlouse.

“Remember the time you fell down the hole?” Fíli rested his head against the bars, his mind miles away and years ago back in Ered Luin. “You twisted your ankle.”

“And you cut your arm trying to get me out.”

“Thorin never liked us playing in that tree, he said it was dangerous. So we lied to him, we told him we’d been fighting with the human children in town.”

“All so he wouldn’t ban us from playing in the tree…” Kíli’s quiet for a moment, and then he asks, “why are you thinking of that now?”

“Home’s very far away,” Fíli replies quietly. He feels the heaviness in his heart, weighing it down like lead.

He hears Kíli take a breath, about to reply, when suddenly there are footsteps approaching them. Fíli sits up, instantly alert.

Tauriel appears, flanked by another two elves. She doesn’t go to Kíli’s cell like Fíli had assumed she would, instead her attention is on him. Fíli climbs to his feet and steps back as they unlock his door.

“Come with us,” Tauriel instructs.

Fíli doesn’t respond, he backs up until he can feel the wall behind him. Once again, he’s trapped and his heart begins to race.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Fíli,” she says. Fíli hadn’t expected her to know his name and curiosity wins over fear as he lets his guard down just slightly. Cautiously, he takes a step towards her, very conscious of the two guards behind her. They step aside, allowing him to follow Tauriel out of the cell without being manhandled.

“Where are you taking him?” Kíli asks frantically, holding onto his bars. Tauriel only gives Kíli a brief, compassionate glance before she walks away. Having no choice, Fíli follows behind her.

Tauriel leads him into a room cut off from the rest of the palace.

It’s just as ornately decorated as the rest of the palace with expansive, winding antlers on the walls and an arched doorway. The guards escort Fíli to stand in the centre of the room, and then with a nod from Tauriel, they depart, leaving her alone with her prisoner.

 “You can relax, young prince” Tauriel says, coming to stand before Fíli. “I meant what I said when I told you I was not going to harm you.”

Fíli looks up at her, defiant despite his nerves.

“Then what do you want?” 

Tauriel steps closer to him. She lifts a hand to Fíli’s shoulder. “May I?” she asks when Fíli jerks away. 

He doesn’t answer, but he stills, watching her warily as she reaches down to brush his hair aside. She bares his neck, revealing the dark bruise that had been branded on him by one of the elves’ mouths. Realising this, Fíli flinches away like he’d been burned. His hair falls back over his shoulder and he glowers at her, all but baring his teeth.

“There had been rumours,” Tauriel remarks softly, eyes narrowing at the sight of the mark. “Talk that one of the princes had been defiled in our jail.”

Shame courses through him and Fíli lowers his eyes, unable to meet her gaze. He feels sickened by the thought of those elves talking about him, sharing their stories and laughing about it.

“I need you to tell me who it was and I will make them pay for it. What they did…” she actually shudders with barely restrained revulsion. “It is unacceptable, unforgivable.”

Fíli stares at her. He had suspected she had not been aware of that night… but he had assumed it was an ignorance that came from choosing to turn a blind eye to it. But now, here, there is no reason for him not to believe her anger and he is surprised.

“I do not know their names,” Fíli admits, shoulders sagging. “Only what they look like.” He cannot forget their faces, they are burned into his memory like black marks branded behind his eyes. 

He can’t look at her for long. He feels so open here before her, so vulnerable. Nothing like the warrior he had been raised to be. He hadn’t expected her kindness and there is no fight left in him anymore, only shame and hurt.

Tauriel straightens. Her hands are fisted by her sides and her normally gentle features are tight and drawn. “If I bring them to you, you could identify them?”

Fíli nods. “But please,” he says, with an edge of desperation. “My brother… he cannot know.”

Tauriel only stares at him, curiously like she doesn’t quite understand. But finally she nods.

 “Tomorrow I will come back for you,” she says.

Only, Tauriel never gets the chance as that evening, Bilbo appears with keys in hand. Silent as a mouse he creeps from cell to cell, freeing each of them in turn. When he comes to Fíli’s, Fíli is anxious about the state of his cell, it’s poorly ventilated and he’s afraid of what Bilbo could read from it or even from him. Whether the stench of sex still lingers on his skin.

“Follow the path out and head down to the cellar,” Bilbo hisses at him as he opens the door. Then he moves to Kíli’s and Fíli steps out onto the narrow pathway. He ducks his head down; keeping his eyes averted as he starts to make his way along, but his path is suddenly blocked by Thorin. Fíli looks up at his uncle, almost afraid of what he’ll see in his eyes.

“You are well?” Thorin asks quietly. He sees none of the judgement he’d been afraid of, none of the recrimination, only worry. Right now Thorin is no more than an uncle concerned for his kin. Heart close to shattering, Fíli nods once, briefly, and Thorin clasps a  broad calloused hand to his shoulder and squeezes. It is the closest he would ever come to a hug; it had been a long time since Thorin had hugged either Fíli or Kíli, not since either were dwarflings. Fíli feels somewhat flustered by the gesture.

Then Thorin turns and marches down the path and away from the dungeons and Fíli feels a presence behind him. He turns to find Kíli looking at him, confused and slightly exasperated. He hadn’t missed the exchange between Thorin and Fíli and it had only increased his curiosity.

Fíli only shakes his head, not now, he pleads with his eyes.

Kíli’s frown increases, but he nods.

They follow Bilbo down into the cellars and crawl into the barrels. Curled in his own, Fíli can feel a damp stickiness seeping into his clothes from the wood that smells overpoweringly of rotting apples. He can hear the rest of the dwarves shifting and squirming in their own barrels and then he hears Bofur’s voice ask, “What now?”

“Hold on,” is Bilbo’s reply, and then there’s the sound of cogs grinding and suddenly, Fíli’s barrel is rolling sideways. He clings to the sides, closing his eyes tightly as he spins round and round then suddenly he’s falling. He lands with a splash in cold water, his barrel going under and soaking him through before bobbing back up to the surface.  Fíli clambers up, sputtering and gasping and he looks around him to find the rest of the dwarves bobbing along beside him, all of them carried by the current.

Of course, it’s a masterful plan. Like the rest of the dwarves, he reaches into the water and starts to paddle, guiding his barrel faster downstream. He drifts closer to Kíli and Kíli grabs onto the side of his barrel with a laugh.

“It seems we underestimated our little hobbit friend,” Kíli says. 

“Aye,” Fíli returns Kíli’s grin, feeling the same jubilation his brother feels. They’re getting away, leaving the dungeons and the elves behind them. With the water soaking into his clothing, he can feel it washing away the stain of the elves from his skin, he can feel it numbing stiff muscles and deep aches. They’re free.

Or they would be... only, alarms sound suddenly. The bay of a horn rings out from Thranduil’s kingdom and Fíli and Kíli exchange a worried glance, Kíli lets go of Fíli's barrel and the two of them begin paddling furiously in an attempt to hasten their lazy drift down the river.

They come to a bend and on the other side they find a bridge with a guard standing over it, lowering a barred gate into the water.

“Quickly!” Thorin bellows. “Paddle!”

But they’re too slow, they hit the gate one after another until they’re crowded together, trapped between the gate and the current.

Fíli looks up at the elf guard and he freezes. He knows this guard… he goes suddenly pale as ice flows through his veins. It’s one of the elves from the dungeon.

“Fíli?” Kíli hisses next to him, clutching the side of his barrel in a white knuckle grip. “Fíli what is it?”

Fíli doesn’t answer. His eyes are locked on the elf and the elf smiles cruelly back at him. He watches as the elf raises his bow and draws back an arrow aimed directly for Fíli’s chest. Only the elf never fires. He jerks suddenly like something has struck him and the ugly smile freezes on his face in a ghastly grimace. Then, like a rag doll, he flops forwards and into the water.

Fíli hears someone, Dwalin he thinks, shout that they need the gates opened. He sounds strangely distant as Fíli's eyes are fixed on the body of the elf. He can't look away. He watches as the body tosses and turns bonelessly in the churning water, knocked between the clashing barrels. For a moment, he sees the elf's face, sightless eyes staring up at the sky, his lips that had so cruelly taunted Fíli by forcing him into a brutal kiss, now slack and lifeless.

It is a small pity that it was not by Fíli's hands, but he is not sorry to see the elf die.

A sudden shout draws him back to the present and he looks up, just in time to see Kíli hauling himself out of his barrel and pulling himself toward the bank.

“Kíli!” Fíli yells, panic surging through him as fast and furious as the current of the river.

“I can get it open!” Kíli calls back as he scrambles up onto the slick stones. An arrow strikes the water near his hand and sends up a spray.

“Stay down!” Fíli shouts, trying desperately to get his own barrel under control, to reach him, but Kíli only grins that reckless grin of his and runs for the gate’s mechanism.

More elves have appeared on the far bank now, shouting in their own tongue, but they no longer seem focused entirely on the dwarves in the river. Their eyes scan the bordering treeline with narrowed eyes, their bows cocked at the ready.

Fíli frowns, twisting around in his barrel to try and see what they have seen. At first, he sees nothing, but then an arrow flies from the shadowy treeline and strikes one of the elves cleanly in the throat. The elf collapses without a sound.

Another arrow follows, this one black-fletched and tipped with a glistening, oily poison.

“Orcs!” he hears one of his kin holler, voice pitched halfway between anxiety and excitement.

Fíli's eyes fly desperately back to the bridge and he sees something that has his heart stopping in his chest. “Kíli!" he shouts in terror, "Get back!”

Kíli has seen it too. An orc has appeared on the bridge and is bearing down on him with his scarred lips twisted in a feral smile. Kíli however does not retreat. His reckless grin now replaced with a grim set to his jaw, he stands his ground. Catching a sword that Dwalin throws to him, he spins to meet the orc's attack with a clash of blades.

Fíli can do nothing but watch in fear as his brother fights on the slick stones. So fixated is he that he is nearly struck by the axe of an opportunistic orc standing on the riverside but Dwalin shoves him neatly down in the barrel just in the nick of time and the bite of steel finds nothing but air.

"Focus," Dwalin growls at him, thrusting a knife into his grip. "You'll be no good to him dead."

Fíli nods shakily. When he looks back to the bridge, he sees the blade of Kíli's sword arc through the air, gleaming wet with river water, and then he sees the orc’s head topple from its shoulders.

The victory is short lived. As Kíli turns triumphantly, an arrow whistles through the air and embeds itself in his thigh.

"Kíli!" Fíli screams as his brother staggers back against the wet stone, the sword clattering from his grasp.

No, no! Not now, not after everything…

Frantically, Fíli claws for the riverbank. He lunges halfway out of the barrel, ignoring the shock of the icy water, but Dwalin’s hand clamps on his shoulder and drags him back. Fíli screams as he fights to wrestle free of Dwalin's grip but the older dwarf refuses to let him go.

Kíli, stubborn to the last, drags himself up with one arm and throws his weight against the gate mechanism. It jerks, then groans sideways and slowly, the gate begins to rise.

Then he collapses, tumbling back toward the water. His leg strikes the rim of the nearest barrel with a sickening thud and the shaft of the arrows snaps off before he hits the river.

“Grab him!” Dwalin bellows, and between them they haul Kíli into his barrel.

Kíli is gasping, blood soaking into the water around him, turning it a deep red. Fíli tries to cling to Kíli's barrel but the current seizes them and tears them apart as they surge downstream.

Everything becomes chaos after that, barrels spinning, dwarves shouting, orc arrows raining down like black hail. And through it all, Fíli can barely breathe for the terror burning in his chest. He clings to his barrel and swings his blade, striking orcs when he can, but he is distracted, all he can think is that it wasn’t enough. Everything that he had done, everything he had sacrificed to keep Kíli safe. None of it was enough.

The night feels unnervingly calm.

Fíli sits on the wooden walkway outside Bard’s house. The boards are cold and damp, soaking through his clothes, but he has experienced worse. He needs the space and quiet more than he needs the warmth right now.

Laketown is quiet at this time, the bustle of its people has faded to a quiet murmur as most have retired to their homes for the evening. Here, by the water, there is only the sounds of the lapping of the lake and the creak of the posts as the walkway shifts with the slow current.

His hands are still stained with Kíli’s blood. He had tried to wash them clean, but it lingers, caught under his nails and in the fine lines of his palms. The memory of its warmth is worse than the sight.

Inside Bard's home, Kíli is sleeping at last. The poison is gone, Tauriel has told him. Her strange elven magic has pulled his brother back from the brink. Kíli is weak and he needs rest, but he will recover.

Fíli should feel relief. And somewhere inside he does, he knows that he will owe the she-elf a debt of gratitude for the rest of his days for saving Kíli. But right now, he feels nothing but the hollow ache in his chest. He stares down at the dark water lapping against the boards. The surface of the lake looks deceptively gentle, like black glass. Fíli stares at it until his eyes begin to blur.

It feels as though something has been taken from him and hurled into those depths, something he will never be able to recover.

The door opens softly behind him. He doesn't turn but from the corner of his eye, he sees Tauriel step outside and lean against the railing. Her silken red hair shines even under moonlight and she stares across the lake, towards where the dark silhouette of the lonely mountain is just visible against the stars.

Fíli doesn’t speak. He hopes she hasn’t noticed him, sitting cross-legged as he is in the shadow of the wall.

But she has, of course she has.

“Can a place truly be worth this much blood?” She doesn't look at him as she speaks, but it is clear she is addressing him.

Fíli swallows. His throat feels dry, and he wonders if he will choke on his own words, but he answers anyway. “If it isn’t, then what have we done it all for?" He stares at the black outline of the mountain for a moment before quietly concluding, "It has to be worth it.”

Tauriel turns her head then, studying him in the dim lantern light.

“Do you truly believe that?” she asks quietly.

Fíli doesn’t have an answer. Somewhere nearby, a shutter bangs in the breeze. On the shoreline, frogs croak and night crickets stutter and chirp. Tauriel turns her gaze back to the water.

“I have not forgotten my promise,” she says. “The elves who hurt you — they will receive punishment. Rape is… one of the most severe acts of cruelty an elf can do to another. The punishment will be just.”

Fíli looks down at his hands. The blood looks even darker in the glow of the lantern. He rubs them ineffectively against his tunic, only succeeding in leaving faint, rusted stains.

“One of them is dead already,” he says quietly. “I saw him at the river.”

“By your hand?” Tauriel asks.

He shakes his head. “Orc. Though I wish it had been my blade.”

Tauriel nods slowly. “Then one still remains.”

Fíli remains quiet. He stares out over the black, rippling surface of the lake where the mountain looms. It has been hours since Thorin and the remainder of the company left. By now they must have reached the mountain. Before all of this, the thought would have stirred something fierce and proud in his chest. He and Kíli had grown up on the stories. They had spent countless nights listening to Thorin’s deep voice recounting tales of the halls of Erebor, to their mother smiling as she prepared their measly dinner and spoke of the grand feasts they would have that would stretch on for days.

It had been a comforting dream for all of Fíli's life.

Now, the thought of setting foot there fills him with nothing but dread. He cannot picture the home he had longed for. He cannot picture anything beyond this night.

“What they did to me,” he confesses quietly, his voice barely carrying above the soft lap of water. “I thought I could handle it. I… volunteered myself because I thought I could take it over Kíli. I thought I could bear it if it meant he did not have to.”

The ache in his chest grows until it feels as though it will tear him apart. He bows his head, hands curling into fists against his knees. He wishes for the numbness again. Wishes to sink beneath it like a stone swallowed by the black lake.

“You should not have had to,” Tauriel says then and there is a firmness to her voice. “Neither you nor your brother should have ever had to. I am sorry, Fíli. Truly.”

“They hurt me,” he whispers, the words ripped from him like a wound reopening. He hates that he cannot stop the tears sliding hot down his face. “They hurt me so badly.”

“I know,” Tauriel replies, just as quietly.

The silence that follows is long. The lake is dark and endless, the night air cold on his damp face. Fíli sits with it all, silent tears running openly down his cheeks. He sits with it. For the first time since the dungeons, since the night that it happened, Fíli allows himself to simply sit with the pain, to let it exist, rather than choke it down.

When Fíli finally goes back inside, the house is hushed. The lanterns have been snuffed, and only the low glow from the banked fire in the aga lights the kitchen.

Fíli moves softly. He leaves his damp boots by the door and moves to the kitchen. A makeshift cot has been set up for him in the hall with blankets folded neatly in waiting, but he does not go to them just yet. Instead, he crosses the room to where Kíli sleeps.

Kíli is still pale, but his breathing is easier now, no longer wheezing and ragged with pain. His hair is still damp against his forehead, sticking in messy strands. Fíli kneels beside him, brushing Kíli's fringe back with careful fingers, and then he draws back the blanket just enough to check the bandage at his thigh.

He freezes when Kíli’s hand suddenly closes around his own. Fíli looks up and sees that Kíli’s eyes are open, and that they are dark and glistening with unshed tears.

Fíli realises then that Kíli knows.

He tries to pull his hand away, feeling the shame rising hot and bitter within him, but Kíli's grip only tightens, surprisingly strong for how weak he still is.

Not a word is spoken between them at first, but in the silence, Fíli sees a wealth of emotion in his brother's face. He sees the sorrow in his eyes, the grief and anger. But most of all, he sees no judgement.

"I'm sorry," Kíli whispers and his voice is hoarse from the fever, from his screams. "I didn't mean to listen in, but…"

Fíli wants to feel angry. That had been his secret, he had never wanted Kíli to know. And yet, like most everything else, it had been taken from him against his will. But when he stares into his brother's eyes he can't bring himself to feel anything but complete and utter grief stricken relief that he even has the ability to do such a thing again. There had been a time when he had feared that Kíli would never open his eyes again.

"I thought I had lost you," Fíli says. He manages no more than that, not trusting his voice not to give partway through. After everything that had been taken from him, he thought he had lost his brother too.

"I am here, I'm ok."

Fíli shakes his head and frowns. He stares down at their hands, where Kíli still grips his wrist. The elves had held him there. Their long fingers wrapped around his bones, making them look small and fragile. Weak.

“Stay with me,” Kíli whispers. “Please, stay with me.”

Fíli swallows hard, pushing those thoughts away.

“I will,” he says.

He lies down beside his brother, careful not to jar the injured leg, and Kíli does not let go of his hand.

For the first time since the river, the ache in Fíli’s chest eases. He thought he had lost Kíli, and it had been the greatest pain he had ever felt. But he has not. Kíli is here.

And for that, Fíli would do anything.