( open ) Down on my luck

[khiluz]

Who| Fíli and Nasir; Fíli and Kíli
What| Fíli gets seriously injured during a fight, dies from the wounds.
Where| The orchards; later on a hideout
When| Week 4
Warnings/Notes| Well, death. And it's Nasir so I expect some good amount of blood. Lovely things.


FOR NASIR;

The place was scarce in food and water, and Fíli knew that the longer it went on, the lesser were his chances of finding anything, and greater the ones that he would run into foe rather than friend. Still, he had to try. Both he and Kíli had reached the very last of their supplies, and he saw it as his own obligation that he would be the one to find them just enough food to at least last them a little longer.

Neither of them slept much, but in their hiding, he was relieved to see Kíli doze into sleep, perhaps out of sheer exhaustion, and though he did not want to leave him alone, they also could not remain here and expect food to come to them. So carving symbols onto the ground in khuzdul - went for food, stay here - he grabbed as many weapons as he had at hand - no more than a good number of daggers and a heavy pipe - and made his way out.

Every place was as empty of food and water as the next one, yet Fíli tried. The orchard seemed to him what once used to be a place with some edible things, so he made for it, pipe in hand as he made his way through the thick air surrounding him, always alert for any creature or even person to come at him.


FOR KÍLI;

The fight had rendered him almost entirely useless, and more than anything Fíli resented that one thing. He had gone to find them food and not even that much he had managed, returning with only a gash across his middle, bruises and cuts everywhere else, and though wrapping up the wound at first seemed to help, in a few hours the fabric was damp in his blood again. And all of it to no avail, as he had achieved nothing of what he had hoped for. His brother curled near him and worried incessantly, but he was starving, he was exhausted and Fíli could hear it in every word, could see it in every line in his face, even when he tried to hide it.

Each breath was a struggle; it had been for a while, but all the more so now. Pain ran sharply through him whenever he moved, each time he shifted, but he kept going even with that, out of sheer stubbornness or entirely driven by the fear that had settled in his gut.

It was not until that pain started to disappear, and he was left with no more than the struggle of breathing or even thinking, his sight falling out of focus as he glanced around him, that he realized.

He was dying. This was it.

"Kíli," his breath ragged, dissolved into a cough that had more blood oozing from the wound, staining his clothes now. He put one hand to his stomach, and the other searched for his brother. Weak, even though he was gripping at the arm as tightly as he could. "Kíli."

Comments

[khiluz]

It was a string of self-reproach and guilt going from one to the other, and Fíli wanted to stop it but he could not. He did not have the strength to speak so much, or to think too clear, and though the notion was there he could not arrange it into coherent strings of words, into proper sentences. He wanted to tell Kíli he was not to blame, that he could not wallow in this sorrow. That he should go on through the rest of the arena and that at the end of it they would be reunited. But no words came, and just trying to make them happen had him feeling even dizzier.

But that was the one thing he tried to cling to in the end. That once this arena was over he and Kíli would be together again, even if they were to be tossed back into the next one, only to suffer again.

As Kíli pulled him closer, more blood spilled from the wound, his sight turning to sporadic flashes of white from that loss. But pain there was none, so he made no noise of complaint. His arms slackened to his sides, and he simply let his head fall like a pointless weight against his brother's chest.

"F-find... you..." it was but a weak mumbling noise, perhaps only heard because of how close they were to one another at the moment, but Fíli no longer had the strength to speak louder. With breaths that came choked to him, he tried again regardless, feeling the cold hand of Death mere seconds away from touching him. "...will f-- ind..."

[emptytrousers]

Kili could not think ahead, could not think to a return to the Capitol, no matter the small number of words that Fili struggled to speak. The only thing that filled his mind were the pained gasps that may well be his brother's final breaths. Once more, Kili tried to get his brother more upright, to make breathing and speaking earlier, to deny the inevitable as long as he could. He reaffirmed his grip along his brother's shoulders, adjusted Fili, but nothing seemed to help smooth Fili's breathing.

"Fee, Fee," He pleaded with his brother, not even thinking of sentiments such as save your strength.

Instead, his mind filled with the buzz of my fault as he slowly began to rock with his brother's body and the tears rolled down his face without a thought to his appearance. He had gotten his brother killed, Fili's death had been so slow and painful because of him, because he could not stay up through the night, because he could still not fully fend for himself, because Fili had been cursed when he had been born.

[khiluz]

His brother's voice was at the same time distant and echoing loudly in his mind, wavering between a near deafening cacophony of sounds, and nothing more than white noise. Words on his end had died now, and whenever he tried to speak, it was no more than choking noises, breathless gasps as he struggled for air harder and harder each time, until, at some point, he no longer could.

The last inhale was a long and painfully slow one, plagued to him with thoughts of leaving Kíli alone, and with sounds of his little brother's cries, and he knew there were tears even without seeing them, without feeling them. His sight was entirely consumed by now, nothing but darkness, or light - at the time he could not tell the difference. And the strained beating of his heart was plagued with the ache of guilt and uselessness more than it was with fear, that he had not protected Kíli. He had not kept him safe and that he had failed in something even as simple as getting them some food.

Then silence fell around them, and Fíli became very still. In one last ounce of effort, he slid his eyes close and let out his last breath, slower even than he had drawn it in, and he let his brother's pained sounds fill his mind until it stopped altogether, and his heart stilled in his chest.

[emptytrousers]

More horrible than his brother's pained gasps was the silence that followed. Kili waited for Fili to take another breath, as long and agonized as they might be. He waited. And waited. And waited. After a handful of painfully silent moments, horror opened a terrible pit in his stomach, his eyes widened, and he shook his brother.

"Fili? Fili!" Kili shouted down at his brother's closed eyes. "You can't..."

Tears spilled freely down Kili's cheeks as he leaned down to press his ear to his brother's chest and found it as horribly quiet as everything else.

"No." He leaned up to shake his brother again by the shoulders. "Fili!"

Fili's head lolled limply, so Kili tried again and again, his attempts more panicked by the second, his mouth forming nothing but his brother's name in an effort to somehow breathe life back into the limp body in his arms. Kili found the yawning chasm in his gut grow, swallow him down into a pain he had never felt before and he scooped Fili up close to him again, cradling the blonde head against his chest as he began to rock back and forth. Fili's dead, his mind told him but Kili could not believe it, could not grasp the concept of a world without his brother in it. For decades, Fili's had been the first face to greet him every morning, his voice the first sounds to grace every day.

And now there would be none of it, because of him, because Kili could not protect Fili. He had silenced his brother's voice, erased the last smile from his face.

The rocking motion picked up both in speed and intensity as Kili's eyes grew wider at the facts his mind were slowly processing. Fili would never assure him it's alright ever again, would never drag his lazy butt from bed, would never speak, would never smile ever again.

Kili screamed. He screamed until his throat felt it would tear from his neck, a guttural, animalistic cry that shook through to his foundation, carrying with it the terrible weight of Fili's death. It cracked the solid stone he had built his life on, built his ideals and dreams, and shattered any last hope he had brought with him to the arena. He barely noticed or cared at the wretched sobbing that followed, how it attracted the attention of the ambling creatures around him. Nothing mattered anymore.

He cried until he fell asleep from sheer exhaustion and when he woke up, the body was gone.