Work Text:
‘You could have put a shirt on,’ Kíli told Fíli seriously as they panted for breath. The door they were leaning against seemed poor protection in light of the danger that was hovering close at hand. Fíli tried reminding himself that it was inches thick, locked and opened onto a room filled with… old tack, if he had to guess. Certainly nowhere he and Kíli would be expected to hide.
All of that reassurance failed entirely in the face of the sudden shriek that pierced the air, sounding almost as if it was right next to him.
‘We have to keep moving,’ he told Kíli in a panicked tone.
‘Oh for…’ Kíli muttered. ‘We are not moving, you idiot. Stop being such a coward.’
‘It’s alright for you,’ Fíli said in a hunted tone. ‘It isn’t you they’re after!’
Kíli snorted derisively.
‘Seriously, shirt,’ he told his brother. ‘You just have to actually wear a shirt when you’re practising. How hard is it?’
‘It was HOT,’ Fíli snapped. ‘Besides, how was I supposed to know this place was full of mad-women.’
‘Well, if we didn’t know it before we do now,’ was Kíli’s response. ‘Why else would they be squealing because of you?’
‘Bastard,’ Fíli grumbled.
‘A very unwise statement,’ another voice said, making Fíli and Kíli both jump and give little shrieks of their own. ‘Your mother was upset before she knew what the two of you are up to. If she finds out you have run off to join a quest to Mordor and questioned her virtue you won’t live to see sundown when we return to Erebor.’
By now, of course, both Fíli and Kíli recognised that voice and where it was coming from.
‘Uncle?’ they chorused, Kíli unlatching the door as Fíli wrenched it open.
‘What are you doing here?’ Kíli asked disbelievingly, goggling at Thorin.
‘Never mind that,’ Fíli said over the top of him. ‘How did you get through all those Rohirrim girls? If they were mad over a Crown Prince, I’d expect them to tear a king apart.’
‘Ah,’ Thorin said wisely, ‘but you see I had two advantages.’ He paused and both boys nodded eagerly, waiting to hear what cunning trick he had pulled.
‘First,’ Thorin continued, ‘I am not blonde.’
Kíli nodded sagely at this. He did not have girlish claw marks on his shoulder and clearly this was the reason. He simply had the wrong colouring to attract Rohirric girls.
‘Second,’ Thorin said, gravity cracking as he spoke, ‘I always have the sense to keep my shirt on when in susceptible company.’
Fíli was about to give this sally the contemptuous response it deserved. Then he heard another shriek, far too close.
So instead he grabbed his uncle by the collar, hauled him in to the store room and slammed the door shut again.
Kíli locked it.