A/N: This story, like so many before it, began as an innocent prompt presented to me on tumblr. Naturally, I'm about 12,000 words deep because I don't understand the meaning of the word 'drabble.' It's full of some of my favorite tropes because I'm a sucker for stories like these. Judge me as you will. Title is indeed derived from the song by the Dropkick Murphy's.

This chapter contains sexy times. Be kind, I'm a bit rusty at them.

Shipping Up to Boston

Chapter One

She's had the same dream almost every night for as long as she can remember.

She's running after him, running, running, always running. As though she's been running all her life, or perhaps for an eternity. She's chasing him, straining and desperate, but he is always just out of reach.

Along the path there are things, terrible and grotesque, shifting in the shadows, reaching and grasping at her. She can feel the sickening brush of their fingers in her hair and across her skin, leaving cold, sticky trails in their wake.

She's terrified, but not of the nameless, faceless creatures, not really. The fear grows as he slips further and further away, stumbling headlong into the darkness, and she knows she won't reach him in time.

A moment before the blackness envelopes him completely, he turns toward her, a familiar name on his lips, and when she wakes she can almost remember his face.

The pub is loud, packed with people, and swimming in clouds of cigarette smoke. It's not the sort of place Tauriel typically would have glanced twice at, let alone entered, but it's their last night in Dublin before they head back to the States and her girlfriends wear her down.

She can barely hear herself think as they pass through the doors, immediately pressed together by a sea of hot, sweaty bodies. There's a live band playing at the far end, but it's so loud she can't tell whether they're any good or not. The four of them find a place at the bar, barely managing to order drinks, and her friends start to 'scope' the place out.

Their final year of college starts up in a little less than two weeks, and the weight of that realization strikes her suddenly, taking some of the excitement out of the evening.

Her friends, all of them perky and dressed to impress, mingle easily, they usually do, but Tauriel isn't great with people she hasn't met before and never seems to know what to say. She hangs a back a bit, sipping her whiskey and coke (light on the whiskey) and tries to listen to the band. They're pretty good, she decides, just able to make out the lead singer and the guitarist. The singer is blonde and handsome and the guitar player dark and rakish in comparison. They are both very good looking, but it's the darker of the two who really draws her eye. There is just something about him.

A few moments later the song ends and the blonde singer announces they will be taking a short break. To her surprise –and alarm- they jump from the stage and head straight toward her. The dark one locks eyes with her and she flushes deeply, ducking her head and turning back toward the bar. For some insane reason her heart is pounding madly in her chest and she mentally chastises herself.

Stirring her drink awkwardly, as the two band members squeeze themselves in next to her, she's shocked when he turns and speaks to her.

"Have we met before?" he asks in a soft brogue, his brow crinkled in honest confusion.

Swallowing thickly, she finds he is even more handsome up close, but also smaller than she had previously thought. He's at least two inches shorter, his eyes a warm brown and a roguish smirk on his face that should definitely be illegal, along with the ridiculously attractive layer of stubble on his jaw and chin. His hair is thick and curly and he unconsciously tucks it behind his ears as he waits for her response.

Tauriel shakes her head, but she finds that she feels the same. As if they have met somewhere before, a long time ago.

"N-no, I don't think so," she says, mentally kicking herself for stuttering like an idiot.

His eye brows shoot up a bit in surprise. "An American, eh? Here on holiday then?"

She nods, sipping anxiously at her drink and wishing she'd ordered it a little stronger. "Um, yeah, it's our last night before we fly back."

He smiles at her, and it warms her more than the whiskey, settling low in her belly. "A shame, that. Will ye stay through the set?"

"Well," she turns to glance at her friends, each of them occupied with their own conversations, though they are throwing her furtive and knowing glances that make her cheeks heat. "Yeah, I think so."

His smile widens, and he's blushing as he says. "I hope ye do. I'd like to buy ye a drink."

Tauriel bites her lip, but she can't hide her delighted smile. "I'd, well, I'd like that."

His blonde friend elbows him then, giving him a meaningful look and offering her a kind smile as he heads back toward the stage.

"What's yer name?" he asks, walking slowly backward through the crowd.

She giggles a bit as he trips over a girl's insanely high pumps. "Tauriel," she cries over the noise. His face brightens and something almost sensual glints in his eyes.

"Alright Tauriel, ye wait right there, aye?"

Feeling ridiculously pleased and somewhat foolish she nods and watches as he turns and hurries back to the stage where his friend is waiting impatiently, rolling his eyes.

One of her friends sidles up to her, smirking and wiggling her brows, and draws another blush from Tauriel. She ducks her head, unable to wipe the smile off her face.

A moment later she hears his voice over the microphone. "I'd like to dedicate this next song to a very special lass. Tauriel," her eyes shoot up, stunned as she finds his eyes, as well as the entire pub's, are now on her, "Here's hoping ye let me buy ye that drink."

Feeling as though a giant spotlight has been fixed on her, he begins to play and sing, his voice gruff but pleasant. Suddenly, she has a vision of the man in her dream turning and he has his face, and it nearly knocks her off her feet. In that moment she grows roots into the floor, and thinks it would take several natural disasters to move her an inch as he holds her gaze determinedly through the entire song.

He buys her a drink after his set is done. It's late and the bar is thinning.

Tauriel sips at the whiskey, willing it to give her courage even as awkwardness settles in. Tauriel has never been particularly good at talking to boys. Especially handsome Irish ones who play the guitar and sing in seedy bars. Tonight is no exception. But the warmth and genuine interest in his eyes makes her want to try. That and a strange, niggling sense that it was meant to happen, their meeting. A feeling she can't explain, a feeling that is both frightening and exhilarating.

"Y-you're very good. At the guitar, I mean," she stutters, blushing. Her friends remain close by and she can sense that they are ready to leave, to head out and find their next adventure. A part of her hopes they will leave without her.

He smiles, stirring his own drink, which is a pale amber with only a perfunctory dash of cola to darken the Jameson. He's wearing a dark plaid button up over a faded t-shirt, which is emblazoned with a band she's never heard of. Faded jeans, that are a bit tight, hug his thighs and calves, tapering down to end in scuffed, black leather boots. In contrast, Tauriel had been 'forced' to wear a tight red dress that cuts low in the back with a pair of short, black heels. Marci, her best friend, had spent nearly an hour curling her hair and artfully pinning it to one side so that the coppery locks fell over one shoulder. Her friends had even managed to convince her to wear eyeliner, mascara, blush, and a light lipstick. She feels overdressed.

"The name's Kíli," he says, flashing her a smirk. He jerks his head to one side, indicating the blonde singer who is surrounded by a gaggle of female fans in one of the larger booths at the back of the bar. "And my brother was always the better singer, but I like to try from time to time, when the mood strikes."

He winks at her, taking a long swallow of his drink and Tauriel bites her lip as she watches his Adam's-apple bob against the olive skin of his throat. He's leaning casually against the bar, exuding confidence and a sort of raw masculinity she's never encountered before. She's used to frat boys who try too hard, Kíli seems comfortable in his own skin. It's refreshing.

"I didn't mean to say you weren't a good singer, because you totally were, just that you're, like, really good at the guitar," Tauriel forces herself to stop rambling with an internal cringe. Kíli laughs and looks at her like he thinks she's the most interesting thing in the room.

"I make ye nervous, don't I?" he asks bluntly, and Tauriel looks down at her toes, sure she's never going to stop blushing.

"Of course not!" she protests, glances up, catches his look, and amends sheepishly, "Well, perhaps a bit-"

"Ye make me nervous as a bloody chiseller," he scoffs.

Tauriel frowns. "A what?"

Kíli blushes a bit himself and tugs a hand through his curls. "Ye see, yer making me forget how to talk proper."

"Proper?" she prompts, still confused, her head beginning to buzz pleasantly as she takes another sip of her drink.

He raises a brow at her, looking amused. "How long you say you've been in Dublin?"

"Oh, um, a few weeks. Why?"

"This yer first night at a Local- Ah, at pub I mean, one that ain't in the touristy parts of town?"

Tauriel shrugs a little. "I guess so, we've mostly been hitting the museums or driving into the country to see the sights."

He nods his head as though this has answered all his questions. "You been enjoying yourself then?" Tauriel notices that his brogue is softer now, as though he's concentrating on the way he speaks to her, enunciating each word carefully.

"Well yeah, it's a beautiful country… a bit cold and rainy at times, but the people are wonderful. I'll be sorry to leave," she adds, realizing suddenly that it's true and that the reason is completely ridiculous. They've only just met and she's probably boring him silly. Another ignorant, air headed American girl who only frequents the touristy parts of towns and cities.

"Where you from in the States?"

"Boston, right now, attending college, but I was raised in New York City."

"A city girl eh," he teases lightly, and heat creeps through her veins. "What you attending Uni for?"

"Oh, well, I'm pre-med, my last semester," she mumbles into her glass, not quite able to meet his eye. An old worry and stress swells in her stomach, clawing its way up her throat. She'd nearly forgotten what she would be returning home to for a few blissful moments; the endless applications for medical schools, the shadowing, the long hours of volunteering and studying...

Kíli whistles softly. "Smart and beautiful, I'm sure your boyfriend is anxious ta have ye home."

Tauriel blinks at him, surprised. "Boyfriend? I don't have a boyfriend."

His smirk is slow and almost sensual over the rim of his foggy glass and she feels that heat rising again, banishing all thoughts of medical school and future uncertainties.

"A shame, that," he says and his voice has taken on a husky quality that warms her even more than the whiskey.

Tauriel opens her mouth to reply, not entirely sure what she means to say, when Chloe grabs her arm.

"Alison wants to hit this club downtown before it gets too late," she says at a loud whisper.

Her friend is a little wobbly in her fire-red heels and her mascara has started to run. Tauriel grabs a napkin from the bar and dutifully wipes the blackened streaks away. Her friend smiles thankfully, sneaking appreciative glances at Kíli.

Tauriel turns to Kíli, not wishing to leave. It's foolish, but if tonight has to be her last night before returning to reality, she'd rather spend it with him. But she hardly knows him, he could be a crazy axe murder for all she knows. It's not the safe or logical thing to do, and Tauriel is nothing if not safe and logical.

"Um, well, it was nice to meet you…" she says, feeling decidedly lame.

Kíli's smile is a bit forced. "Twas a pleasure ma'am, though I'd be remiss if I didn't say I wish you weren't leavin'."

Chloe giggles, clearly smitten, but tugs on Tauriel's arm anxiously, all but dragging her from the bar. She wants to tell him that she doesn't want to leave either, that she'd quite like to stay the whole night talking to him over glowing glasses of whiskey, shoulders brushing over a dirty bar on the wrong side of town. That she'd like to get to know him. That she wants to know silly things like his favorite color, whether he prefers dogs or cats, and what his favorite movies are. But other things, deeper things, his dreams, his fears, what he thinks about alone at night, if anyone has broken his heart, if he's ever been in love… if he even believes in love.

Instead she lifts a hand awkwardly and says, "Goodbye, Kíli."

He raises a hand briefly in response, his expression difficult to read in the semi-darkness, and then she's gone and back into the night.

They're a block away when he catches up to them.

Tauriel is sullen, the magic stolen from the night and her feet aching. Her friends are chattering excitedly amongst themselves, but Marci at least senses her withdrawal. The much shorter girl, dressed in a slinky black dress and open toed heels, slips an arm through hers and offers her an apologetic smile.

"He was pretty cute," she says nonchalantly.

Tauriel shoots her a look and rolls her eyes. They both laugh and she feels marginally better. It's silly to feel sorry over a stranger, a man she barely knows. She doesn't believe in fate, after all. No matter what her heart might be whispering traitorously in her ear.

He grabs her by the arm a moment later and spins her around. He's out of breath and his dark eyes wide.

"How'd you like to see the real Dublin?" He asks breathlessly, stunning her and her friends completely.

Without consciously deciding to do so, she slips her arm from Marci's and opens her mouth, her heart racing. Nothing comes out.

Marci answers for her, "She'd love to, let me just jot down the address of where we're staying."

"Marci!" Alison protests, giving Kíli a nasty look. "She can't just go roaming the streets with some random from a bar!"

Marci rolls her eyes as she digs in her purse and pulls free a pad and paper and begins scribbling down an address. They'd come to Ireland, the five of them, under the pretense of visiting Marci's Aunt, though they'd spent little time at all in her upscale little condo.

"Don't forget our flight leaves at noon tomorrow," Marci tells her seriously before fixing Kíli with a look. "You take good care of her, show her a good time, and if anything bad happens to her I'll reenact the movie Taken and go Liam Neeson on your arse , you get me?"

Kíli flashes a relived sort of smile. "Aye, I get you. I promise not a hair on her head shall be harmed."

"Good," Marci says and nods sternly. She shoves the piece of paper at him. "Don't have her back too late, she's a total bitch if she doesn't get enough sleep."

"Hey!-" Tauriel sputters, still trying to wrap her mind around the situation.

"I promise not to let her turn into a pumpkin," Kíli says. His face is bright and eager, but his gaze keeps sliding nervously across hers. Tauriel feels as though she's being sold into some strange sort of arranged marriage.

Marci begins to usher their friends away, practically shoving Alison down the street, before Tauriel can muster any sort of protest or acceptance. A moment later, she and Kíli are alone beneath the dim yellow of a wrought iron street lamp.

Kíli rubs a hand over the top of his head and rocks back on his heels. He shoves both hands into his pockets and then fixes her with a determined stare. "So, I wanted to take ye somewhere."

"Yes," she replies, "I had gathered that."

"It's somewhere I think you'll like," he offers.

"I should hope so."

"You don't have to if you don't want to," he says, uncertainty creeping into his voice.

Tauriel stares at him for a long moment, a hundred thoughts chasing each other through her mind. She manages to ignore all but one.

"Alright, lead the way."

They walk a few blocks, barely speaking, but their shoulders brush every few steps. Tauriel feels hyper aware of him. Of the way he smells –cigarettes, whiskey and something musky-, of the sound of his footsteps, and of the way his clothes shift with his body.

Her hands are tucked up under her arms as she attempts to ward off a chill, but also because she feels oddly vulnerable. Like she might come apart at any moment. She can feeling him looking at her but doesn't realize what he's doing until his outer shirt is draped over her shoulders.

"Don't bother ta protest," he says, "I won't be taking it back. I don't think yer friends would appreciate it if I let ya freeze ta death."

Robbed of what she had, in fact, been about to say, she blurts out the first thing that pops into her mind. "What's your favorite color?"

She can feel his amusement in the subsequent silence, but purses her lips in determination as she tugs his shirt closer about her. It smells fantastic, even with the slight but sharp note of his sweat, or perhaps because of it.

"Well, I'd have to say red… tonight," he says meaningfully, his eyes tracing the fall of her hair and the cut of her dress appreciatively.

"O-oh? And every other night?" She's glad it's dark so he can't see her blushing.

"I can't remember, but I think it'll be red from this night on," he says seriously.

"You're very smooth," she accuses a moment later as they round another corner. There are several groups of people wandering the streets with them and they all seem to be heading the same direction.

"Well, I'm glad ye think so, but I mostly have a poor habit of sayin' every fool thing that comes into me head." His brogue is thick again, rounding his words and deepening his voice.

"Is that why you came after me?" Another 'fool notion.'"

She glances sideways at him and catches his crooked smile. He's handsome and sweet and just being near him makes her skin warm and prickly. She wants to kiss him. Wants to press him against some wall in some alley and tug her fingers through his curls and nip at his full lower lip. Wants to make him moan and press against her, his hands up under her shirt, skating across her skin. She'd like to kiss him into the ground. She'd like to kiss him until she forgets her own name.

Instead she listens as he says, "Na, t'was possibly the wisest thing I've done in years."

"Well," she cautions, all but bursting with pleasure, "The night isn't over yet."

He reaches out, eyes deep and unfathomable, and boldly takes her hand. At the press of his palm to hers, she shivers with recognition. That feeling of déjà vu, of fate, washes over her again.

"I like my chances," he says with a wolfish grin.

"Come on," he adds, "we have ta hurry."

He takes her to an underground night club.

They laugh their way down a pitch black flight of steps with a gaggle of girls, feeling the music before they can really hear it. She should be concerned; a strange man leading her into dark places, but it's not fear she feels tightening in her belly. The darkness seems to press them closer together, seems to amplify the current between them till their both breathing a little unsteadily.

At the door she hands him his shirt, peeling it off her body like she's removing some piece of herself and revealing a newly awoken creature beneath. A creature born to confidence, to spontaneity, to seduction.

Tauriel has never been one for clubs, or dancing, or running off with strange men. But tonight she wants to be for all those things. Tonight she wants to be all those things for him. Or maybe she wants to be them for herself for once. Maybe he's just the catalyst to a long life of always doing the right thing, the safe thing.

She locks eyes with him as the music pulses through her, the rhythm syncing to the thrum of her heart, and she sways her way into the crowd of undulating bodies as the stage lights throb. He stalks after her, a predatory look in his eyes, and nothing else exists.

When he catches her, large hands encase rounded hips and he leans into her, his pupils blown and his full lips slightly parted. Before the front of his body can meet hers, however, she flips playfully around in his grip so that his chest meets her back and her ass dips into the seat of his lap. She can feel the moist heat of his breath along her already sweaty neck and she bites her lip as they start to sway in tandem.

She's never felt like this before.

So free, so powerful, so alive. His hands smooth roughly down her sides and her arms reach around to clasp behind his neck. She think she feels the graze of his lips and teeth down the slope of her neck, but she's lost in the music, in the way she feels against him. Sweat condenses between her breasts, runs down her neck, and slithers over the ridges of her spine. She can smell him, almost taste him on her tongue, and it's electric.

Earlier she'd wanted to kiss him. Now she wants much, much more.

She has no idea how long they dance like that. Like they're having sex on a very public dance floor surrounded by equally explicit couples and groups of people, but eventually Kíli moves them across the room and to a set of closed doors at the very back of the club.

"Where are we going?" she asks as he leads her through, hands never leaving her waist.

"I hadn't brought ye here for that," he murmurs into her ear. "No' that I'm complainin' or anythin'."

"Oh?" she says, out of breath and pulsing like a flame. "What did you bring me here for then?"

"If you'll stop distractin' me, I'll show ye," he says, his voice roughened as his fingers flex against her and then release her only to take her by the hand again.

She has the strangest notion that she'd follow him anywhere.

"A church?" she asks, surprised, as they emerge from below ground into the sort of room she'd expect to see in a medieval movie or something. They'd followed a series of tunnels, using the flashlight on his phone to find their way, speaking little but remaining close.

"Aye," he says, climbing up the stairs behind her and looking a bit sheepish.

Tauriel raises a brow at him, shivering a little as the sweat cools on her back. "Hoping to make an honest woman of me?"

"Lord no," he says with vehemence and she laughs despite herself. "I just, well," he waves his hand awkwardly around them, "This is wha' I think of when I think of the real Dublin. The Dublin I wanted ye to see."

She turns from him, her blood still singing, but the old church has returned some of her senses to her. Enough of them to appreciate what he is showing her.

The church is clearly very old, though not so old as a few of the cathedrals they'd toured. Stained glass windows rise over a gold painted cross, the visage of Christ hung and bleeding above them. The full moon through the colored panes casts the world in hues of blue, red, and gold. It's ethereal. It's poignant.

The sense of fate, of the idea that they were meant to be here, intensifies, and she's afraid. Afraid of something she can't even begin to comprehend. The dream comes to her in flashes. The running, the chasing, and the terror of losing something –someone- more precious to her than life, than anything. Tauriel thinks that, the next time the dream comes, the man will no longer be faceless.

"I used to come here with my Pa afore they shut it down for repairs. Repairs they clearly never made," Kíli says from behind her.

His voice is soft, reverent, as his feet scuff along the dusty floor. The air is heavy here, and she feels as though something is watching her, watching them. She shivers.

"It's beautiful," she mummers, because it is, despite its decay and ruin.

"This is crazy," she adds a moment later, but it's also exciting and tangible where so little in her life has been.

"Aye, it is that a bit," he says ruefully and he comes to stand behind her, close enough that when he breaths, she can feel the titillating brush of his shirt on her bare back. "Feels like we've been here afore. Standing as we are, and I don't rightly understand it," he continues and his breath tickles the short hairs on the nape of her neck. It takes all her will power not to lean into him.

"I've never done anything like this before," she says, her voice catching a bit. "Running off with a stranger as he leads me through creepy underground tunnels into abandoned churches."

Kíli chuckles and it's as smooth as melted chocolate. "Well, if it makes ye feel any better, I've never brought a lass here afore. Mostly come here alone to think."

Tauriel bites her lip and turns toward him. She has to look down a bit, though she thinks they'd be of equal height if she weren't in heels. Without another thought, she toes them off, feeling the dusty chill of the stone beneath her toes. He's very close to her, but he doesn't move. He hardly seems to breathe. She's still a bit taller, but she feels more on equal ground, their eyes at level.

"What do you think about?" she asks and her voice wavers.

"Lots of things, my Pa mostly, he died when I was ten," he says, a brief flash of hurt slashing through his eyes. An old pain, but a lingering one.

Tauriel reaches out, brushing her fingers along his arm. "I'm sorry for your loss. You must have been close."

He's stepping closer to her and she swallows thickly, forcing herself to hold her ground.

"Not your fault," he says kindly. "What about yer Ma and Pa, are you close?"

"They died when I was very little," she says, her pain minimal in comparison, more a regret than anything. She has no real memory of them, just flashes of faces and feelings, which might be little more than wistful imaginings. She'd been living with her god-father and his son nearly all her life.

He reaches out hesitantly, clearly as unsure and confused as she, and brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes. His fingers linger on the apple of her cheek and trace down the line of her jaw. Her eyes flutter helplessly and she leans into his touch.

Nothing so small should feel so sinfully delicious, she thinks. They haven't even kissed and she's never felt so intimately connected to another human being before. It's insane, completely bat-shit crazy, but she can't help herself.

"I want to know ye," he says on an exhale. "Everything about ye, is that crazy?" he asks and she can taste his breath puffing across her lips. Her mouth waters.

"Completely," she says, "but I feel the same way."

A moment of silence and his fingers coast down her neck and shift into her hair. "I'd like to kiss ye," he confesses. It feels like a confession, like he's asking for absolution.

"Yes," is all she can manage to say before they've closed the distance.

His lips are dry and warm and gentle, despite the passion she can feel vibrating between them like a live wire. His mouth moves slowly across hers, like he's trying to learn everything about her with his lips and the graze of his teeth. Wide hands encompass her hips, making her feel small, feminine, and they cage her in his embrace. And, God help her, she is his willing prisoner.

Tauriel doesn't realize they're moving until her back meets the altar. Their lips part, foreheads pressed together and breathing erratic. His eyes are lidded and dark, full of promise and desire. Tauriel lets out a helpless, husky whimper and something snaps between them.

Their next kiss is bruising and desperate. Her hands fist in his hair, tugging on the smooth curls, and he crushes her body between he and the rough edge of the alter table. She moves to sit on it and he helps her, hitching her legs around his hips. The skirt of her dress bunches at her waist and she moans at the hot press of his dick through his jeans. A groan rumbles through his chest as he rocks into her, igniting the spark in her belly until it's an all-consuming blaze.

She's hardly aware that he's slipping the straps of her dress down, or that she's tugging his shirt over his head, or that she's about to have sex on an altar in an old, abandoned church with a man she barely knows. She's unaware of anything beyond his hands palming her bare breasts and his mouth and teeth latching onto her throat and scraping down her sternum. They're rocking desperately together as she arches into him, faintly aware that she's ridiculously close to orgasm with his pants still on and her panties firmly in place.

It's he who pulls away.

He tears his mouth from hers with a loud moan and then pushes her gently back.

Tauriel is dazed, reeling from the loss of contact. "Wha-"

"We shouldna do this," he says gruffly, his words cutting through her haze.

Tauriel swallows, an embarrassed flush sweeping up her chest and she jerks her dress up to cover herself, snapping her thighs together with an echoing clap.

"Oh, um, right, because the church-"

"I don give a damn abou the bloody church," he growls, and he looks up at her through his hair. He's clearly at war with himself and she bites her lip, fighting to understand.

"I don wan to take ye here like some ruttin animal is all. Ye deserve somewhere nice an…" he hesitates for a moment. "Ye deserve someone a hell o' a lot better than me," he continues, his accent growing thicker by the second.

Her knees are trembling as she comes back down to earth, brain desperately trying to catch up with her actions. She licks her lips and draws in a shaky breath before reaching out for him, touching his arm and feeling him flinch a bit at the contact.

"I-I don't want somewhere nice, and I don't want to be here with anyone else. I know this is going to sound crazy, or slutty, or stupid, but I-" she falters a little before squaring her shoulders, "I want to do this, now, here, with you, tonight."

There's a long pause and his eyes search hers even as his remain guarded and unreadable.

"Yer sure?" he asks softly, his hands flexing at his sides, as though he's barely able to keep himself restrained.

She bites her lip and nods.

He studies her for another endless moment before extending his hand. "Alright, but perhaps we shouldna ravish each other at the feet o' Christ."

Tauriel flushes deeply. "I suppose it is the height of blasphemy."

He shoots her a shaky grin. " 'S not tha so much as I think he migh jus enjoy the show too much. I'm a private sorta fella, ye see."

Tauriel snorts despite herself as he leads her round the back of the alter and up a series of back stairs to a balcony above. There's a space at the very end of the walk with an array of old pillows and blankets, littered with a scattering of papers and pens and pencils, even a few empty cans of beer and soda.

Tauriel raises a brow. "You do come here a lot."

Kíli releases her hand to quickly gather up the papers and kick the cans away, clearly embarrassed. "I don' live here if tha's what yer thinkin. Jus been needin' to get away more ofen than no recently."

Tauriel smiles softly and presses a light touch to his bared, bowed back, the contact stilling him. "I was only teasing, I can see why you come here. It's very peaceful and quiet. It's… special."

He sets his papers aside and turns toward her, his expression warm and grateful. "I had hoped ye'd like it."

She steps toward him, bracing a hand on his naked chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart. "I do like it. Very much."

His hands are at her hips again and his eyes have darkened. "I mus confess tha I think I'll like it here much more afer this."

"Oh?" she teases, leaning forward, "And why is that?"

He responds with his lips on hers. The sense of urgency has been tampered somewhat, focused and molded like the edge of a blade. His kiss is gentle, affectionate, and questing as they learn the touch and feel of one another. When she lets her dress slide down her chest and stomach, he helps her shimmy it over her hips so it pools at her bare feet. Her plain cotton panties follow quickly after and Kíli steps back a little to look at her.

Tauriel's sure that her makeup has run all over her face and that her hair is a terrible mess, but he's looking at her like there's nothing else in the world.

"Ye'r the lovliest thing I ever saw," he breathes and Tauriel draws in a harsh breath.

She's had one sexual partner before this, her ex-boyfriend of three years. It had ended badly with many hurt feelings on both ends. Especially since they'd basically grown up together, like brother and sister all their lives, and it had caused a major strain in their small family circle. He'd told her she was beautiful regularly, but there was something about the way Kíli says it now that allows for no argument or self-doubt.

He says it as though it is merely a fact of life, something real and unchangeable. It gives her the courage she needs to reach for the button of his jeans, her heart thundering into life at the prominent bulge of his dick against the fabric. She brushes her knuckles purposefully against him, and he lets out a desperate hiss through his teeth.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," he groans as she pushes his pants down and cups the heat of him through his boxers. Biting her lip with pleasure as he pulses against her palm, she squeezes gently.

"If ye don let me touch ye, I may die," he gasps out as she strokes him once, then twice.

She grins mischievously, stroking him firmly a third time before releasing him. He's on her before she can manage a startled gasp and he's lowering her gently to the musty blankets. She doesn't care though. She wouldn't have cared if it had been a dirty alley with her back pressed against a cold stone wall.

Not with him.

God, she feels unhinged, but it feels glorious and dangerous and perfect. Like him.

She cradles Kíli's weight between her thighs as she strokes her hands up his muscled back. The dark hairs on his chest crinkle and tease at her nipples as he kisses her, deeply and with a purpose. Despite the relative chill of the church, their bodies have already begun to glisten with perspiration.

He pulls back, their noses brushing and his forearms braced on either side of her head. He's so close his eyes keep threatening to meld together.

"Last chance," he says, panting, his voice rumbling out of his chest.

Tauriel reaches between them and tugs his boxers over his hips, toing them down his legs.

They don't speak after that as the world becomes hazy and warm. Kíli proves he can do more with his hands than strum a guitar as he slips the dexterous digits between her moistened folds, teasing her into madness. Tauriel kisses every part of him she can reach, tracing the veins thundering against his throat with her tongue, scraping her nails up his back and pulling desperately at his hair.

The only awkward moment comes when he fumbles a crinkled condom out of his wallet. His hands shake as he glides it down the reddened shaft of himself and she traces soothing, eager patterns against the flat of his stomach. She likes the way his muscles jump and stutter in response.

With the colored light of the windows behind him, he is wreathed in a timeless, magical glow. Like they exist in place out of time and space.

He returns to her, sliding the length of himself against her slowly, making her whimper with want and anticipation. He takes his time kissing her, even as he twitches eagerly against her thigh, and it's like he's trying to tell her something. Like he's trying to convey parts of himself to her that he's too afraid to say aloud.

Tauriel lifts her knees and he slips inside her with ease. Their shared groan echoes and floats through cavernous room. She can feel him tense as he tries to restrain himself, quivering like a fawn above her. He's buried to the hilt and she relishes in the feeling of being full and stretched and taken. It's already better than anything that's come before. Better, she thinks, than anything she might find after.

"Alrigh'?" he croaks, eyes screwed shut.

"Good," she moans. "So good."

"God, ye feel good," he grunts, pulling back to thrust swiftly forward, making her gasp. "So damned good."

Their bodies fall into an ageless rhythm, rising and cresting as the pleasure coils and tightens until she can scarcely breathe. He's panting and sweating and straining, whispering words she barely understands against her neck and into her hair. Something deep within her knows they've been here before, that they were meant to be here now, and that they will be here again.

Her orgasm almost surprises her with its intensity, and she's only dimly aware that it's her voice echoing around them, Kíli's answering groans a perfect counter point. He holds her steady, keeping her safely on the ground as he seems to finally let himself go, his movements losing their structure, the snap of his hips erratic. A dozen more thrusts and he's arched above her, head thrown back in the glory of completion and she thinks that he was wrong before. He is easily the most beautiful thing in the world.

He collapses against her, barely able to keep the brunt of his weight from her with trembling arms as they both gasp for air. Awareness trickles back and reality with it as her heart slows to somewhere near normal.

He rolls onto his black, skin glistening, and she bites her lip, trying to fight back a sudden rising panic. Kíli cracks an eye open at her and frowns a little as he takes in her expression.

"This is where ye say we made a mistake," he says, still breathing hard.

"D-do you think so?" she asks, resisting the urge to find her dress and cover herself.

He studies her for a long moment, making her squirm beneath his gaze, before finally propping himself up on an elbow.

"I'm gon to tell ye somethin' I probably shouldn'," he begins.

"Oh shit-" she groans, a thousand terrible possibilities running through her mind.

"Don go lookin like tha, I aint got a disease or anythin," he pauses and seems to compose himself. He speaks his next words carefully, his accent all but gone. "I just want ye to know that I don't want this, whatever this is between us, to end here tonight. I don't want ye to fly away and never speak to me again, see me again."

Tauriel sits up, her hair falling in disheveled waves around her shoulders as she attempts to process everything he's saying. On the one hand she feels as giddy as a school girl, on the other hand she thinks that he must be insane –that they both must be. It would be better to leave things as they are; a passionate, wonderful experience… that won't ever be able to happen again.

"And I know that sounds mad as hell but," he pauses and reaches for her, turning her face to his with a gentle pressure. "I mean it. Every word. This doesn't have to end here."

"But we barely know anything about each other," she protests feebly, already swaying.

He smirks a bit, looking far too appealing naked amongst the shabby blankets.

"Ask me anythin', I'm an open book," he replies, waving a hand toward his enticing body with an exaggerated flutter.

Tauriel rolls her eyes and chuckles despite herself. "That's not what I mean and you know it."

"Alrigh," he amends, "but we've all the time in the world to get to know one another. Email, phone calls, even letters -I ain't saying it'll work, but I'd like to give it a try," he says, his expression serious and a little pleading.

Tauriel considers every reason why it's a terrible idea, and there are a lot of them, before letting out a long sigh. There seems to be only one reason, one feeling, that matters.

"You really mean it?"

"Aye, I really mean it," he promises, and something about it, maybe the church, or the fact they're both completely naked, makes it feel like a covenant. A contract.

"Alright…" she agrees hesitantly. "As long as you understand we're both clearly out of our minds."

Kíli smirks and reaches out to drag her up against him. He kisses her firmly and quickly on the lips. "Oh, we're both gone in the head to be sure. But you say it as though it tis a bad thing."

A/N: PSA, ladies and gents, I do not recommend running off with hot strangers in a foreign country. That being said, hope you enjoyed. (PS: still working on the kinks in Kili's accent, be nice.)