Chapter Text
His father is buried in Leyton. It’s an old sprawling cemetery that sits just along the tracks of the Central Line, overgrown and green and perpetually damp. Bilbo has visited his grave every weekend since he was just a child and every weekend his mother would sit by his side, their backs to the polished black granite of his tombstone, and exchange memories like photographs.
Bilbo only had so many. They were limited to improvised goals scored in the sitting room with two chairs and a spongy football, games that ended with them both sprawled across the carpet, breathless with laughter. He remembers how he would sneak him little slices of a chocolate orange before dinner, how his aftershave smelled, the way he looked seated in his favourite armchair with a cup of tea at his side. By the time he turned sixteen he had exhausted all his stories and so his mother spoke instead. She never cried, never once played the role of grieving widow.
“There’s no sense in it,” she would tell him. “No sense in it at all.”
And now he sits with his rain coat spread out over damp grass and thinks that for the first time in a very long time, Belladonna Took got something wrong. He fiddles idly with the lens to his camera, an old Fujifilm from the sixties. It belonged to his father and after he died his mother would carry it around, hooked over her shoulder.
He looks through the view finder, twisting the lens into focus on a hazy grey sky and the clutter of old tomb stones and monuments, crumbling and weather stained. Were it not for the occasional pass of the tube, with its clunky screeching wheels, Bilbo thinks this would be the most quiet place in all of London. Perhaps it’s irony though, that while he sits back against his father’s grave, surrounded by his grandparents and great aunts, all he can remember is his mother and how she looked as she pulled weeds from around the stone and laid her flowers every spring.
“Excuse me.” A man in a fitted suit with a jacket draped over his arm trudges across the field, stopping just in front of him. His hair is windswept and his eyes are dark and he looks like he hasn’t slept in days, but he is beautiful all the same. “It is disrespectful,” he snaps, gesturing at Bilbo’s camera. “This is a place to grieve not a photography project.”
Without a word Bilbo pulls his bag into his lap and digs around until he finds his license and hands it to the man with a smile. He looks down, reading it, and glances back up with a question ready on his lips until he catches sight of the names stretched across every tombstone, every epitaph in each direction.
“Baggins,” he breathes, before handing back his card. He doesn’t apologise, he doesn’t bow his head or flush in embarrassment. He turns to walk away.
“It’s not prohibited, you know,” Bilbo calls after him. “This is church property.”
“Not anymore.” His voice echoes off the stone and Bilbo is certain he’ll hear it for days to come.
“Since when?”
The man pauses, his fingers lingering on the top of an orthodox cross. “Since yesterday,” he says.
—
His mother had no ties to Leyton, unlike the Baggins’ and their five generations of bodies laid to rest in the marshy, stubborn ground. Instead her ashes were spread off of Porthpean Beach. She never did need much sleep. So now, when Bilbo visits the cemetery he visits for two, at least he tries, but his mother’s voice is all that comes to mind.
He turns up every Sunday and sits against his father’s tombstone to take a single photograph. The cemetery is over crowded, with old graves shifting into each other as the ground settles and tree roots dislodge banks of soil and Bilbo has yet to capture anything twice. He thinks if it were anywhere other than sleepy, secluded Leyton, Bilbo wouldn’t be so keen on visiting. But up until one cloudy afternoon, the man in the suit was the only person he had ever encountered there.
Bilbo sees him from a distance and peeks around the edge of a marble carved rose to watch as he stumbles down the pathway, his head hanging low, before he collapses at the base of a mausoleum. He looks young, pale, his fingers weaving into unruly curls and tugging at the roots. Bilbo stands, brushes the dirt from his trousers and walks to his side.
He has his eyes covered, his fingertips red from the first bite of autumn with tear tracks streaked across his skin and he doesn’t look up until Bilbo is sitting directly in front of him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He jumps, wiping at his eyes and breathing heavily through his mouth. “Well this is embarrassing.” He mumbles, his voice rough, bent with a pleasant northern pitch.
“It’s not,” Bilbo assures him with a smile. He looks no older than twenty, with the bright eyes of a child.
“No, I mean - uh -,” he coughs. “No one died. Well I mean loads of people have died,” he says, eyeing the graves. “But no one of mine has died - no one I liked. Fuck’s sake, that sounded terrible and it’s not what I meant.”
Bilbo laughs. “Yeah, I think I got something out of that. I’m a bit relived, honestly. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to say to you. But my offer still stands.”
He smiles with red rimmed, beautiful eyes. “You just went right for it, mate.”
“I figured if I was going to attempt to console a stranger I may as well do it properly.”
He wipes his eyes with the backs of his hand, shaking his head. “It’s alright,” he says. “I’m useless at that shit as well. Kili, by the way.”
“Bilbo,” he says. “It’s lovely to meet you.”
—
Kili is London born but Leicester raised, the product of boarding schools and an absentee mother, over confident and underfed. Had Bilbo been a decade younger he might have hated him. But now he sits across from him in a hipster cafe with black furniture and white walls and he sees someone young, someone enthusiastic and unafraid and just a little bit heartbroken. They never speak about their afternoon in the cemetery. Kili doesn’t ask him why he was there and Bilbo doesn’t ask why he was crying and together they meet in central London every two weeks to indulge in their mutual pass time.
“Banker,” Kili says immediately, watching as a man in a navy blue suit strolls up to the register. “Has his coke door delivered.”
Bilbo snorts into his tea. “Or a big shot QC. Helps bankrupt small newspapers for libel.”
“Oh,” Kili says. “Good one. How about this?” He nods in the direction of a young girl with her hair pulled back into a bun, setting a tray down on an empty table by the window. “Classics student, doesn’t play well with others.” They watch as she digs through her overstuffed rucksack and pulls out a tome of a textbook which reads Accounting and Finance in block letters. “Yeah alright, maths student. Still doesn’t play well with others.”
“He definitely has a trust fund,” Bilbo says, glancing at a boy with tattered jeans and unwashed hair. “Education paid for, monthly allowance from his parents.”
“Oh come on,” Kili says, glancing over his shoulder. “There’s a difference between tramp and tramp chic.”
“I don’t know, he dresses an awful lot like you.”
“I’ll have you know these jeans were two hundred quid. Trust me, I know a posh kid when I see one.” And of course he does, because Kili fits the bill down to the last letter. He lives in a flat owned by his uncle, the same man who pays for his fees and his rather extortionate drinking habit, his weekend tendency towards drum and bass clubs in Farringdon.
“I’ll concede to your expertise.”
“And I to yours.” He flashes him a cheeky half smile followed up with a bitten lip and pleading eyes. “On that note-“
“I’m not writing your paper, Kili.”
“It’s written! I’m finished. It just needs looking over.”
Bilbo raises his eyebrows. “I’m not going to rewrite it for you either.”
“I would never dream of asking. Mainly because you’re too uptight to ever say yes-“
“It’s like you forget I have a real job or something.”
Kili ignores him. “I know reading stuff over is allowed, you stuffy old man. I used to get-" he stops, suddenly, and looks away. It’s not the first time he has spoken before his tongue catches up with him, beginning a sentence he has no intention of finishing. Bilbo isn’t sure exactly who it is that Kili has so meticulously cut out of his life, out of his stories of late night adventures and early morning starts. But he thinks he could probably guess. “Anyway, it’s fine. I know it’s fine. Loads of people have gone over my stuff before.”
“Alright,” Bilbo sighs. “But for grammar and structure only.”
Kili smiles like he’s just promised him the world and looks over at the woman walking through the door, her hands full with designer shopping bags. “Personal assistant,” he says and Bilbo applauds him for avoiding the obvious.
—
He nearly doesn’t notice at first. He’s sat in this very spot for so many years that the overgrown grass and the falling stones just blur together. Occasionally a fox will cross his path, entirely unconcerned with either him or the creaking of the passing trains, but little else changes. What he does see, he sees in sections. The crumbling rock wall that separates the old graves from the new slowly fills its gaps with missing stones, sliding into place like keyholes down the field. The thick, overgrown grass that sprouts along the gates is mowed down, overturned headstones are righted. By the time October rolls around and Bilbo sits beside his father’s grave with a thermos of tea in hand, the cemetery looks tame.
He takes his photographs, murmurs his goodbye’s and steps carefully around the graves and back onto the path. It’s nearly four o’clock and already dusk has settled and Bilbo thinks he rather hates autumn. He can make out the silhouette of someone standing just outside the main gates, still and unmoving and perhaps a little afraid.
“It’s open until eight,” he says gently as he passes. “You still have time.”
“I know.” His voice rings in a familiar sombre note and Bilbo smiles as he looks up at him.
“Did you do all this then?” Bilbo gestures back behind him. He looks down, his brows pulled into a scowl. “Aren’t you the man who told me off for taking photographs?” He continues. “I’m guessing you’re responsible for cleaning it up a bit?”
“Not directly,” he says, rolling his shoulders, staring out across the fields.
“Well no, you don’t look the type to be out there pulling weeds or righting stones. Did you buy it?” He looks distinctly uncomfortable but Bilbo doesn’t feel particularly inclined to leave him be.
“Yes,” he says, finally. “None of the policies will change. It’s just-“ he stops, as if something has caught his attention, before he straightens even further, his breath turned to clouds in the half light.
“Someone had to take care of it,” Bilbo says for him. “Well I’m glad, honestly. I’ve been coming here since I was seven years-old and I’ve never once seen it look like this. You’ve done well.”
He nods, the smallest possible acknowledgment, and Bilbo leaves him to the silence of Saint Patrick’s.
—
Kili doesn’t sleep well, some nights he doesn’t sleep at all. Instead he puts on comfortable shoes and see-through tops and thrashes about on dance floors, losing himself to the steady pulse of drum and bass. Bilbo imagines he must be the envy of those clubs. He is beautiful and fluid and he never leaves alone.
Bilbo’s fingers brush against the polished silver knocker and he checks his phone to make sure the address is correct. Kili has a habit of showing up unannounced at his flat, but this is the first time he’s caught a glimpse of the quiet, picturesque street in Bethnal Green that Kili calls home. His house is a beautiful two story terrace of pale brick and caved wood and it doesn’t suit him at all.
After a few moments of shouting Kili’s name through cupped hands, the door swings open. Kili’s eyes are red rimmed and his hair is mussed from sleep and despite his tendency towards ripped jeans this may be the first time since the day he met him that he looks just a little bit undone. “Bilbo,” he murmurs, glaring past him into the street. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Saturday,” he says, holding up his offering of coffee.
“Yeah, and? Listen, Bilbo, this isn’t a great time.”
“You told me to come here, Kili.” He says, eyebrows raised. “You begged me to edit your paper and then we were going to sort through books to donate?”
Kili’s eyes widen. “Oh fuck. Was that today?”
“Like I said, it’s Saturday.”
Kili looks slightly torn, glancing back behind him and squinting out into the light. “Yeah, alright.” He ushers him inside. “Go sit in the living room, but I uh - I have to get rid of someone.”
“I was young once,” Bilbo tells him with a smile. “Where’s your laptop? I’ll get started.”
Kili leads him into the sitting room where blackout curtains are pulled closed, giving the impression of perpetual dusk. “Watch your toes,” he says, moving to halfheartedly push them open, letting a bit of dusty light filter through the windows. “You never know when a French end table or a letter desk will jump out in front of you.” The room is littered with furniture, a mix of deep, rich oak chairs and beautifully carved chaise lounges. Everything appears to be antique and well looked after but the sheer volume of pieces feels at best excessive.
Bilbo sits on the edge of silk embroidered cushions on a Victorian settee and runs his hand along the carved armrest. This is not what he had expected.
“My uncle used to move a lot,” he says, watching him. “He only just started to settle. But he’s a collector. Keeps everything in this flat. You should see the upstairs,” he adds. “We have a room devoted to armoires and buffets. He’ll never find the time to get his own damn house. Anyway, I'll be right back.” He sets a thin silver Mac on his lap. “I’ll make tea and all that jazz in just a second.”
He all but runs through the doorway and up the stairs. Bilbo opens his laptop and begins to read, making edits as he goes, wishing he had proper paper and a red ink pen. He looks up, minutes later, to the creak of hardwood. The boy is rather beautiful as well, dressed in fitted military green trousers and a white button down, rumpled and worn from the night before. His hair is a neat, trimmed blonde, with pale eyelashes and blue eyes. He could be a flawless match for Kili’s dark looks, such perfect contrast, but Bilbo knows better.
The boy leaves without a word and Bilbo returns to his editing.
—
Kili is stunning and well spoken and he knows every barista in a five mile radius of Euston Square station by name. He is quick to laugh and even quicker with money and Bilbo can’t quite work out what it is he’s missing, what hole he is trying to fill by sprawling out across his living room floor as Bilbo sits cross legged at his coffee table, reading through funding proposals.
“You are just so boring,” Kili tells him, reaching blindly for the remote.
“And yet you’re still here.” He adjusts his glasses and sets his paper aside. “And you’re eating all my food.”
“I told you I’d pay for your food. Or better yet I’ll just bring my own food so I don’t have to eat yours when I come round.”
Bilbo groans into his hands. “Kili you are not leaving groceries at my flat.”
“Then stop complaining about my eating habits.” His attention is quickly lost to the proposal Bilbo had just abandoned. “What’s this?”
“They want our charity to give them money.”
“For what?” Kili asks, squinting at the fine print.
“To send electric kilns to rural villages in Tanzania. Morons, the lot of them. They want to send electric kilns, which use more energy than the fucking London Eye, to a country with very limited energy outlets.”
“So I’m guessing you’ll deny them?” Kili asks with a grin.
“You’ve guessed correctly.” He picks through another proposal as Kili paws at a few loose papers at his side.
“You know,” he begins, laying with his hands pillowed behind his head. “You should give me a job.”
Bilbo watches him with raised eyebrows. “Kili, I know an awful lot about you.”
“So?”
“So that means I know you’re the least employable person in all of London.”
Kili doesn’t even have the decency to look offended. “Well yeah that’s true - no wait, hear me out. I have no fucking clue what I want to do with my life and I’m taking all of three modules this term. It’s not like I’d ask you to pay me. Call it work experience. Maybe I’ll find something I’m good at.” He pushes himself up and moves to sit at Bilbo’s side. “I mean, you’re helping people, right? Maybe I’ll like helping people.”
“Yeah, we do, but working in an office isn’t exactly field work in Sudan, you get that right? It’s mostly reading over proposals and doing research or coordinating meetings. We have events and everything but they’re just comprised of drunk, wealthy men bidding on signed rugby balls in an attempt to spend more money than their coworkers. It’s not much fun, Kili, I promise.”
“Hey. I didn’t say I wanted it to be fun.” He gently nudges his shoulder. “Give me more credit than that.”
Bilbo turns to look at him. He is a Botticelli portrait, flawless and sincere. “You’d have to actually comb your hair, you know.” Kili turns to grip his arm, his mouth falling open in a grin. “And wear clothes made for adults.”
“I absolutely will,” Kili says. “I promise, I won’t disappoint you. When can I start?”
—
Kili goes away to Majorca for the Christmas holidays, to a beach house that his family shared between siblings for years and years though neither his uncles nor his mother ever visit anymore. Bilbo grew up with Christmases at his grandmother’s house in North Yorkshire, busy and bright and unbelievably cold. There was nearly always snow on the ground and his uncles would sneak him sips of mulled wine and he would fall asleep in front of the fire place with Drogo at his side. He hates the idea of Kili being alone with only the surf for company.
“Oh I won’t be alone,” Kili assures him with an exaggerated wink. Bilbo thinks he may as well be. “Anyway, I bet you’ll be counting down days 'til I’m back. Your soon to be employee of the year.”
“Don’t count your chickens,” he tells him, but Kili kisses him goodbye and shouts, “Too late!” over his shoulder.
Bilbo spends Christmas Eve sitting cross legged by the fire, a glass of cider as his feet, flipping through a popup book with a lapful of children who sigh over each page. He runs his fingers through Frodo’s hair, black and curly and beyond taming, and hopes very much that someone has loved Kili like he loves every single one of his wayward cousins.
—
No matter how many years Bilbo spends attending charity auctions, he doesn’t ever think he’ll get used to them. Part of him still hates every bank executive he has to smile at, every forced laugh, every “I’ve been to Africa, you know.” He has listened to more drunken renditions of the Eton Boating Song than he will ever willing admit to and each note grates on thin nerves.
It is perhaps less surprising than it ought to be that Kili handles fundraising events with a worrying amount of skill. He prowls the room in a well fitted suit and hunts for the banker most likely to write off a cheque at the sight of war torn villages, for the barrister who has a religious dedication to West Ham United, for the PR manager with a client to impress. He fits into their little semi-circles, with his polished Oxfords and slicked back hair.
“Philanthropy just runs in the family.” A large, bearded Scottish man has Kili in a half head lock, surrounded by a small flock of men in navy suits. “My cousin raised him right, he did. His brother too, off risking his life in Pakistan.”
“Lebanon,” Kili corrects him and despite his practiced smile Bilbo can see the slight hunch to his shoulders, the way he plays idly with the buttons on his blazer. For a moment his eyes look distant, like there is something projected onto the ivory painted walls that only he can see. “Not exactly risking his life.”
“Surely he isn’t military,” says a small, crude man with greased hair.
“Foreign Office, actually. Queen and country and that. Cousin Gloin, I am terribly sorry, but I have a few more guests to greet. You know how it is.”
“A drink before you go, laddie?” Kili waves him off politely, shaking the hands of every man in arm’s reach before retreating back in Bilbo’s direction.
“You could’ve helped me out there.” Kili whines, saddling up beside him. They both nod politely to a passing elderly woman and Kili snatches the glass of champagne from Bilbo’s fingers.
“You were handling it very well.”
“I handle it every time we have a family reunion. I really don’t need to handle it here.” Kili has taken to charity work far better than he ever expected. Initially, he spent four horrible weeks at a desk as Bilbo watched his attention span slowly deteriorate to dust. It wasn’t until Dori came down with the flu that Bilbo made the panicked decision to lend him out to events coordination and all it took was three days before he made it permanent.
“Any other relatives on the guest list you want me to help you avoid?” He asks as Kili leans heavily against his side.
“Actually, yes.”
“You’re joking.”
“Not joking. Gloin’s brother’s on there, another cousin of mine. And Dwalin, but he’ll stay away. He was probably forced into it. You hate these things, right? Just stick with me and I’ll let you know if I need a diversion. You and me Bilbo,” he says, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “We’ll make a great team.”
“You mean you’ll do all the talking and I’ll tag along to whisk you off should an unwanted relative appear?”
“Exactly. A great team.”
—
It’s February when he sees him again. He stands at the other side of the cemetery before a gravestone of emerald granite as Bilbo watches from his usual spot in the grass. He’s shivering and his legs are numb, but Bilbo doesn’t want to leave, not yet. The man doesn’t lay flowers or brush dust from the stone. Instead, he stands with his hands in the pockets of his trench coat as he stares down at the barren soil like it still has something left to say.
Bilbo watches him and wonders what Kili would say if he were here, what guesses he would make about the man across the field. A widower perhaps, alone for the first time in many years. Maybe he’s military and these visits are born of guilt, or perhaps an estranged parent lies buried at his feet. He isn’t sure what his guess would be, because no matter what combination of variables he constructs to build this man’s life, nothing feels quite right.
He stands with a lingering touch to his father’s grave while thinking of his mother’s smile and turns towards the path. The man looks up as he reaches the gates so Bilbo waves, a smile at his lips. He hesitates, but after just a moment he nods his head in response.
—
Bilbo knocks on Kili’s door at half-past nine, ignoring his groan of, “Come on Bilbo, not today,” as he shoves past him and into the entry way.
“I’m going back to bed,” he says.
“I’ll give you the twenty minutes it takes for me to make breakfast. Then you’re getting up and we’re going to the book fair.”
Kili mumbles inaudibly as he climbs the staircase and Bilbo shifts his grocery bag in one hand. He dodges bookcases and end tables in the dusky sitting room and makes for the sunny white glare of the kitchen. He pauses in the doorway, glancing around at the granite counter tops and their stark contrast to the antique corner cabinets and the mahogany carved dinner table set against the bay windows. Everything is covered in a fine layer of dust, and the counter space next to the kettle is dotted with water stains and empty mugs.
“Interesting choice,” he says to himself, setting the groceries down and inspecting the piano that sits in the corner of the kitchen, shining black lacquer. It is spotless, wiped clean of dust and fingerprints and Bilbo tries to imagine Kili sitting at the thin little bench, his shoulders uncharacteristically straight, fingers poised. He flicks open the cover and drags his fingers lightly across the keys. It sounds in tune, echoing through the low ceilings as Bilbo sits and taps out a simple lullaby that his aunt had taught him as a child. Bilbo’s fingers stumble and cross as he tries to remember the keys, how it used to sound played in his grandparent’s house, his mother watching from the sofa.
“Please don’t.” Kili is standing in the doorway, his hood falling over his mess of hair. “It’s not mine.”
Bilbo looks up at him, sees his dark shaded eyes and the exhausted curve of his shoulder. He sees the remnants of stamps on the backs of his hands and his nails are bitten to the skin. “Sit down,” he says, closing the keyboard lid. “I’ll make breakfast.”
—
Bilbo stands with folded arms against the carved stone walls of Guildhall, watching as straight backed government ministers and civil servants toe along the scarlet floors, lit by low hanging chandeliers. Their voices echo off the vaulted ceilings and Bilbo briefly considers drowning himself in one of the bathroom sinks. He sighs, keeping his head down and avoiding eye contact to the very best of his ability as he searches for Kili among a sea of black and navy. If nothing else, he is a terrible gossip and Bilbo could use some entertainment.
He finds him beside one of the auction tables, speaking to a man with a long white beard and kind eyes. Kili looks genuinely happy to see him, but as Bilbo draws closer, his smile falls.
“I spoke to Fili yesterday,” he says in a soft Scottish lilt, out of place among the Oxbridge drawls of his peers. “He asked after you, and mentioned that you haven’t been answering his calls.”
“I’ve been busy,” he says, fiddling with a cufflink.
“I told him as much. I can’t say he believed me.”
Kili chews at his lip, ducks his head and murmurs, “How is he?”
“He seems happy. Beirut suits him, I think. The work suits him. His French lessons served him well and his Arabic is coming along.” He smiles, sympathetic and knowing. “He misses you, laddie. Perhaps you should call.”
Kili doesn’t answer so the man squeezes his shoulder and leaves with a soft, “Give Thorin my love, when you see him next.” He retreats to a group of haggard looking bureaucrats and Kili scrubs at his eyes with his fingertips before he sets off in search of the drinks table. By the time Bilbo makes it to his side, he is half way through a glass of red wine.
“You alright?”
“Fine,” Kili answers, flashing him a fake smile. “I just handle the corporate stuff better than these government events, you know? Bankers at least know how to have a laugh.”
“How about we get out of here and go down to St. Paul’s or something? I’ll just check in with a few people, make sure they have it handled, and then we can head out?”
“Bilbo,” Kili sighs his name against the rim of his glass. “My eternal love, and nothing short of it.”
He wades through crowds to find his department heads. They all smile knowingly when they see him coming as Bilbo has quite the reputation for bowing out before the auctions ever start. Kili is on his second glass by the time Bilbo hooks a hand around his elbow and drags him towards the door.
“You seem keen,” Kili says idly, sticking his hands in his pockets and rolling his shoulders back. He looks right in the shadows of ancient government buildings, in front of towering spires. He looks like he belongs there and Bilbo finds he hates the very idea of it.
“If I had to hear one more MP mention public welfare I was going to drown myself in the lavatory.”
“Nice toilets though,” Kili says and their laughter echoes. “Come on. We can still salvage this night.”
They walk down towards St. Paul’s, where tourists crowd in circles outside the lit dome, pointing cameras up at its shining gilded crosses. They stop at Marks & Spencer for a bottle of wine each before making their way across the street to the Millennium Bridge. It's cold but calm as they sit side by side on the icy concrete steps that lead down to the bank and watch the city lights with barely a word between them. Kili’s bottle is half empty by the time the wind picks up, pushing his hair back in a tilted crown of curls.
“Tell me about your brother,” Bilbo says, leaning back on his palms.
“I’d really rather not.” He takes a drink and closes his eyes.
“You sure?” He asks.
“Yeah,” Kili whispers. “I’m sure.”
—
It’s his mother’s birthday and Bilbo lays tulips at his father’s grave. They will wilt and wither on the cold marshy ground, but she wouldn’t mind. It's raining, a steady downpour, and he stands in wellington boots with a sturdy black umbrella and watches as the mud swallows each petal. Bilbo adjusts his gloves and glances over each grave in turn. He has every name memorised, every date, every epitaph of 'loving mother' and 'faithful husband' and it’s time and time alone that keeps it all from blending together into something unrecognisable.
“Excuse me.”
Bilbo turns, imaging a trick of sound, the steady percussion of rain against canvas but instead he finds the man from the cemetery gates, his collar turned up against the rain, his hair falling out of place and into his eyes.
“Hello,” Bilbo says. “You do know it’s raining, don't you?” He holds his umbrella up, stepping closer until it covers them both and says, “It’s nice to see you again.”
“I wanted to apologise for the way I acted. You had every right to be here, with or without a camera.”
“Grief is not very conducive to manners,” Bilbo assures him. He peaks over his shoulder and sees a black car parked inside the gates, its lights left on and the engine running. “Did you come all the way out here just to apologise? I must say, I’m certain you would’ve had other opportunities.”
“I was passing by,” he says and Bilbo laughs, leaving him looking slightly flustered. “And I haven’t said it properly yet, so I’m sorry for the way I treated you and for not saying it any sooner.”
“Apology accepted. Though, could I ask a question, before you go?” He nods so Bilbo continues. “Who do you come to visit?”
“My grandfather.” He looks down at the graves that surround him and says, “I don’t know why he asked to be buried here. I’d never heard of this place until my solicitor read me his will. As far as I know, he never once lived in Leyton. No one in our family has.” He unfolds like spring weather and Bilbo thinks he sees a glimpse of something gilded inside.
“So you bought it?”
“It meant something to him,” he says.
“I’m glad,” Bilbo tells him. “I really am. Now go on, get out of the rain.”
He hesitates. “Would you like a ride?”
“No,” he says, with a gentle touch to his arm. “I think I’ll stay a while. But it’s kind of you to offer.” He watches him go, his shoulders hunched against the wind and as the headlights shine a path along the distant hills, Bilbo wishes he had thought to ask his name.
—
They eat lunch at a little bistro near the Camden locks, watching the trendy twenty-something’s in their high heeled boots and dyed hair as they scurry past. They stay out a little longer than they ought to, longer than their lunch break generally allows, but Kili seems oddly content with the clear winter weather, so they take their time with fabricated stories for each stranger that catches their eye.
“Camden sure attracts some weirdos Bilbo. Fucking great sandwiches though,” he says with his mouth full of food. “Never knew this place existed.”
“I’m an expert at Camden Town,” Bilbo says, smiling. “You just never trust me.”
“You eat pâté,” Kili points out before reaching over to slide a gherkin onto Bilbo’s plate. “And fucking pickles. You freak. Oh, by the way.” He digs a hand into his pocket and pulls out a keyring strung with two silver cut keys and a little golden model of Big Ben hanging off the side. “Here. Figured you should probably have a copy.”
“Are these your house keys?”
“Yeah, one of the spares.”
Bilbo raises his eyebrows. “I’m not giving you the keys to my flat, Kili.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “Chill, Bilbo. Just figured they’d come in handy, that’s all. Plus I’ve locked myself out more than once and had to call a smith, so it’s a bit like insurance.”
He pockets the keyring with a shrug. “I’ll still knock,” he says and Kili’s laugh is like a breath of fresh air.
“Yeah, I’m sure you will.”
—
He uses the key not a week later when Kili calls in sick on a Thursday afternoon. He sounded dreadful over the phone, his voice thick and his words slurred. “It’s the plague,” he’d said.
“It sounds to me like a cold.”
“This is the end. Promise me something? Make sure my replacement isn’t from King’s College, those fucking pricks.”
Bilbo soothed him with promises of soup from their favourite cafe in Kentish Town.
“Don’t bother knocking,” he mumbled into the receiver and so he doesn’t. Bilbo pushes the door open, hearing the familiar creek of wood, and calls Kili’s name. The flat is dark, so he fumbles for the switch, using his mobile phone to see by.
“Christ, Kili,” he says as he walks carefully through the sitting room, avoiding the mess of old takeaway containers and misplaced shoes and switches on the kitchen light. The piano gleams, polished and spotless, next to the dirty glasses and empty plates that riddle every remaining flat surface in the kitchen. Bilbo pours the soup into a pan to reheat it and begins washing dishes by hand until it begins to simmer.
“Kili,” he calls again, as he carries a bowl through the hall and up the stairs, a packet of crackers tucked under his arm. He makes it to the landing and glances around the hall. He’s rarely been upstairs, save for brief attempts to pull Kili back down them, and he’s never once seen his bedroom. Every door is closed except for one and Bilbo thinks the message is rather clear.
“Kili,” he says again, pushing the door open and reaching for the shadow of a standing lamp. The room floods with soft yellow light and the lump in the centre of the bed groans, curling beneath the duvet. Bilbo looks around as he sets the bowl on his bedside table, surprised to see his bedroom bare of nearly anything but bookshelves, filled and overflowing.
He sits on the mattress and pulls at the duvet until Kili emerges, squinting up at him. “I hate you.”
“I brought soup.”
He struggles to sit up, running a hand through sweat drenched hair. “I hate you slightly less.” Bilbo presses the bowl into his hands as Kili tries to breathe through blocked sinuses.
“Eat,” he says. The bookshelf to the right of the bed is covered in a collection of identical books, bound in black leather with gilded letters along the spines. They look heavy and expensive and well loved. He stands, running his fingers along the titles of Greek prose, pulling out a copy of Medea and admiring the thick woven pages.
“They’re yours?” He asks, thinking of the piano, untouched but well looked after.
“Yeah,” Kili mumbles around the spoon. “They’re custom made. I got them every year, as a gift. I still do.”
Bilbo always assumed Kili’s method of choosing his course of study was more or less left to a dart thrown at a list of possible subjects. Kili smiles then, the tip of his nose is red and his skin is flushed with fever but still he sees more than he ever lets on. “You thought I was doing classics as a lark, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Bilbo admits, carefully putting the book back in its place. “A bit.” He sees it now, what he missed before. The other shelves are filled with books on ancient Greek alphabets, photo journals of Athens. A worn copy of the Iliad is left open on his bedside table, stacked on top of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.
“Have you read them all?” He asks.
Kili blows idly over his broth. “Every one. Not such a shallow posh boy now, am I?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Bilbo says, taking a seat beside him and handing over the packet of crackers. “You must’ve done something ridiculous like Classical Studies for A Levels.”
“And Latin,” Kili admits with a smile.
Bilbo laughs, shaking his head. “Posh, definitely. But not shallow. Though I’ve always known that much.”
—
Kili fiddles with his father’s old camera, looking through the view finder and watching the light meter. “Do you ever print your photos?” He asks, turning to capture Bilbo’s disapproving frown, twisting the lens to focus.
“No,” he says. He has a box of undeveloped film left stored below his bed with new rolls tucked in the bottom drawer of the fridge. He watches as Kili adjusts the aperture and holds the camera to his eye once more. “That’s a shame.”
“It isn’t,” Bilbo assures him. He likes those memories left bound in spools of film, rolled right alongside his mother’s capped canisters. “I imagine I’m not a very good photographer, anyway. But you look like you know what you’re doing,” Bilbo says, a halfhearted attempt to change the subject.
It works. Kili sets the camera back down on the coffee table. “Yeah,” he says finally. “I had a good teacher.”
Bilbo never quite knows what to say in situations like these, so he stands and switches on the kettle, pulling two mugs from the cabinet and tea bags from the top shelf.
“Remember the sugar,” Kili calls from the sitting room. Bilbo tends to add less and less each time, an attempt to ween Kili off his truly terrible taste in tea. He thinks he’s probably noticed though he never says a word.
—
Something in Kili’s voice sounds off as he recounts his most recent brush in with his Early Greek Philosophy professor, but he listens just the same. “Honestly,” he murmurs. “If she wants us to attend all the tutorials she shouldn’t schedule them for nine in the fucking morning.”
“I’m fairly certain she has no control over that.” He packs his bag with a flask of tea and a waterproof coat to sit on and reaches for his keys.
“Nine in the morning, Bilbo. It’s practically inhumane.” He takes a deep breath. “Anyway. Can I come over?”
“Not today,” Bilbo says, locking the door behind him. “I’m just heading off.”
“Where’re you going?” His voice is soft, wavering, and Kili is anything but quiet.
“Is everything alright?”
“Not really,” he says.
“Then meet me at the cemetery in Leyton.”
He looks just slightly more ragged than usual, with a thin coat and a long t-shirt to cover his black skinny jeans. “Christ, Kili,” Bilbo says, unwinding his scarf and handing it to him. “You’re going to freeze in that. Come on.”
His chunky beige scarf looks out of place at Kili’s throat but he tucks his nose into it regardless, murmuring “Thank you,” into the wool.
“Who do you visit?” He asks, following Bilbo along the path.
“Most of my family. We have enough generations buried here to remember when it was still swamp land.”
Kili stands before the grave as Bilbo lays out his jacket and says, “He died a long time ago. I was just a kid.” He motions for him to sit and opens up his thermos, filling the cap with tea and handing it over to Kili. “But my mother brought me here nearly every week, so it just kind of became tradition, I suppose.”
“Where is she now?” He inhales the steam, his eyes closed.
“Scattered over a beach in Cornwall. She would’ve killed me if I let her stay in a place like this.” Kili’s fingers trace patterns in the dirt and Bilbo pats his knee. “What is it you’re really here to tell me?”
“Fili’s coming home.”
“Ah.” He leans back and Kili sips at his tea and finally Bilbo asks, “For how long?”
“Two weeks. It’s not for - he won’t be back for a few months yet, but I didn’t exactly expect him to be back at all. My uncle told me this morning, thought I would be delighted.”
“But you’re not.”
“I’m not.”
“Tell me about your brother.” He says and this time Kili does.
He has blonde hair, the only one in the family, born with paper white curls that faded to gold as he got older. He wore it long enough to tie up into messy buns, he carried hard bound notebooks to class in a sea of laptops, he would wake each morning and wrap himself in one of Kili’s scarves stolen from his wardrobe, insisting it smelled like him though Kili could never tell the difference.
“Mum was the head of the French sector, our uncle ran the London office so we grew up with house parents in boarding school and au pairs and nannies that changed with each season so really all we had was each other and we preferred it that way.” The room Kili sleeps in now, sparse and spartan, was once used for nothing but bookcases. The room they shared as teenagers remains behind a closed door, along with childhood trophies, film posters, and art projects.
They attended the same university for two years while Fili completed his master’s degree and trudged through solicitor’s training. They waited for each other outside of lecture halls, bringing coffee cups with their names written in black ink across the sides, and would sit on the steps to the old refectory wondering what life was like for the students who woke each morning and walked to class alone.
“We didn’t get along with other kids, not really. I mean we liked them alright, but we preferred to be on our own. Our house parents in Leicester kept telling my uncle we needed therapy because we ignored the boys in the house. So we started pretending, at least a bit, to be interested in other people. By the time we moved back to London Fili'd stopped pretending altogether, but I got used to having friends. Sometimes he’d come out with me, do proper uni stuff you know, pub crawls and that with my mates, but I knew he just did it to keep me happy.”
Their synchronised lives were thrown off time by the gear of Fili’s ambition, something Kili has always rather lacked unless it extended to the tips of his brother’s fingers.
“He applied for civil service and we talked about moving to York or to Edinburgh or Belfast when he got his placement. But instead they offered him the Foreign Office, and he took it.” Kili looks away. “That fucking bastard took it, and now he lives in goddamn Beirut and Christ, Bilbo, I wish I could hate him for it.”
“It’s an amazing opportunity,” Bilbo says. His tea has gone cold and his fingers are numb, but he has the feeling Kili hasn’t ever said any of this out loud. “And it’s not forever.”
“It could be,” he whispers. “And honestly I thought - I thought he would get there and he would feel like this, like I do. I thought for sure he would ask to be transferred to domestic within weeks. But my cousins say he’s happy there, that it suits him.” Bilbo wonders how often he has lingered over those words, heartbroken and bitter.
“Didn’t you know,” he begins, his voice soft. “Didn’t you know that one day you two would have to separate? At the very least when you met someone? When you needed your own space, got married, had kids, did all the things normal people do?”
Kili turns to him with glassy eyes and says, “I never wanted anything else. Not one thing. And for twenty years I thought he felt the same.”
“You’re sure he doesn’t?”
“He must not,” Kili says. “Because he left.”
—
The next time he visits his parents there are flowers left in the grass, pressed back against the gravestone. They are yellow and white daffodils, plain and wilting. They’ve been there for days, maybe longer, and Bilbo sets them aside as he lays out his jacket. He sits back against his father’s grave and plucks a faded petal, absentmindedly rubbing his fingers along the satin edge.
“Who’s been to see you?” He asks, watching the tube meander past. Bilbo has aunts and uncles and cousins enough to fill a small book but not a single one left in Leyton. As vast and spread out as they are, he can’t imagine any would think to visit.
He takes a single photo of the flowers with their drooping stems and curled petals and the wet winter grass that surrounds them. His mother would call it kind, his father might say it's curious, and Bilbo takes another petal to tuck into his pocket.
—
“Please,” Kili says. He is sitting in the chair across from his desk, his palms flat on his thighs, his eyes focused. “I know I can do this.”
Bilbo is rather certain he could do it as well, but it’s not ambition that drives him, nor is it a desire to prove himself. Bilbo knows distraction when he sees it. “The amount of work that goes into managing-"
“I know how much work it is, Dori’s been training me and besides, I do most of the organisation anyway and I’ve been handling the final proof on the guest lists for months. Come on, give me this one chance.” He won’t need a chance, he’ll need a showcase. Kili will do beautifully and they both know it.
“What if this affects your school work?”
“It won’t,” Kili promises. “I have no assignments due for the next two months, the worst of it is over until exams.”
“The next fundraiser is planned for April. Won’t you have certain family obligations to attend to in April?” Bilbo asks and Kili looks away.
“Come on, Bilbo.” He whispers. “I need this. I’m good at this.” What he needs is an excuse to be away from home, away from his brother, for hours at a time, and Bilbo is already rather bad at denying him anything at all.
“Fine,” he says and Kili lights up like he always does until Bilbo holds up a hand. “But there are conditions. First, if I begin to suspect you’re skipping lectures then I’m pulling you out.”
“I won’t skip a single one,” he says. “Which will be a significant improvement on what I’m currently doing.”
Bilbo does his best to ignore him. “And second, when your brother gets here and the event is over, you two need to sit down and talk. You need to actually listen for once without hating him for getting on with his life.”
“I don’t hate him,” Kili mumbles against his palm. “Also you’ve never even met him and this sounds suspiciously like you’re taking his side.”
“I’m taking your side, you relentless brat. And I can tell you’re miserable. So I’ll give you lead on the next event. All the planning, all the delegations, go to you. But afterwards you try and make things right with Fili.”
“Fine,” he says. “I’ll try.”
“Good. Now go, it’s your lunch break.” As he watches Kili close the door behind him, Bilbo wonders if he hasn’t made a rather terrible mistake.
—
The flowers are never fresh on a Sunday. By then they are already torn by the wind and frosted over in the mornings, but they are always there, in little tied bouquets from a local flower shop, bunches of whites and purples and reds. Bilbo sighs and shakes his head and takes a fading petal from each set, pressing them between the pages of his mother’s favourite cookbook.
Kili is prowling his office while he waits for Bilbo to get off the phone, running his fingers along the spines of binders, term reports, and spreadsheets. He pauses over the picture frames, photos of Frodo and Primula, Drogo scowling at the lens.
“Finally,” Kili breathes, as Bilbo hangs up the phone. “I need you to sign off of on the hall for the seventeenth. I’m aiming for Barbican.”
He barely glances over the specifics, knowing that Kili has already visited the location himself and picked through all of the details that he would never think to enquire after. He hands it back with a smile, adjusting his glasses. “Quick question.” Kili’s fingers tap at his side, filled with restless energy. “You don’t happen to visit the cemetery all that often, do you?”
Kili frowns. “No. Haven’t been since I went with you.”
“Right.”
“Why?” He asks.
“Someone’s been leaving flowers at my father’s grave.”
Kili sits on the edge of his desk. “Can’t be extended family or something?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Maybe one of his friends? Old people don’t have much to do and they are usually the ones cleaning up cemeteries. Bit depressing, if you ask me. Kind of like foreshadowing.”
Bilbo snorts and shakes his head. “Get back to work you absolute monster.”
Kili blows him a kiss before he shuts the door behind him.
—
Kili starts spending the night in Bilbo’s flat, commandeering the guest bedroom, leaving his laptop open to email lists and spreadsheets. Half the time he falls asleep on the couch, his faced pressed into a throw pillow with his feet dangling off the edge. They make each other milky cups of tea and coffee with too much sugar. Bilbo throws together pasta bakes with whatever he has left in the cabinet and Kili orders takeaway on the nights they get in late. He doesn’t have the heart to send him home, not yet.
“When does his flight get in?” Bilbo asks as he flips through the channels, deciding on one of David Attenborough’s many wildlife documentaries.
“Next Thursday,” he says, snatching the remote from his hand and changing it to an old seventies rerun of University Challenge.
“You can stay until Saturday morning,” he says. “Then you have to go see him. Did you let him know you wouldn’t be home?”
“I’ll leave a note,” Kili says and Bilbo sighs, resigning himself to the static chatter of the television. When Bamber Gascoigne asks the origin of the word Wednesday, Kili murmurs a soft “Woden” at his side.
“Woden is correct,” Bamber echoes and Kili leans against his shoulder.
“I’d rather he didn’t come home at all. Now I just have to watch him leave again.”
Bilbo doesn’t have siblings, so he hardly understands the sentiment. Though after watching Kili’s eyes glaze over at the mention of his name, Bilbo suspects he wouldn’t understand it anyway. This is something altogether outside his realm of experience, outside of his Christmas dinners and occasional visits home. “I’m sorry,” he tells him, because there is very little else for him to say.
“Caligula,” Kili mumbles as the buzzers sound on the television.
“Caligula is correct,” Bamber says. “Next question.”
—
“I’m heading off early,” he says, poking his head into the storage room that has recently been repurposed into an office for Kili to turn into a minor disaster zone. He may fit in among the men in Whitehall, in the glass towers of Bank, but Bilbo thinks he looks best in his rumpled shirt and frizzy hair, reading through donation sheets and crossing off names on two tier lists. He plans to offer him the job formally at the auction, on the condition that he still graduates in July. It’s a secret he holds to his chest and makes him smile as he watches Kili chew on the cap of his pen.
He glances up, his eyes shine gold in the yellow lamplight. “Where’re you headed?”
“To the cemetery, before it gets properly dark.”
Kili grins. “After the mysterious flower man, are you?”
“You don’t know it’s a man,” he says. “But yes, that’s exactly who I’m after. They’re never there on a Sunday, so I’m giving Wednesday a shot.”
“Good luck. Hope it’s not a serial killer.”
“You’d better.” He tells him. “Otherwise you’ll be out of a job.”
“Nah, I’d find a way. Everyone here likes me better than you.”
“Watch it,” Bilbo says, but he can’t bite back his smile.
“I’ll see you at home,” Kili calls after him. “Don’t be late for curfew, young man!”
There are no flowers at his father’s grave, new or wilted, so he stays until dusk settles, humming old songs with words he can barely remember. Once the trains turn more frequent as rush hour picks up he stands, stretching his arms above his head, and says goodbye with a touch to the stone.
—
Kili spends the first hour running around the Barbican Centre in polished Oxford shoes and a new suit, tying loose ends and whispering quick instructions to the wait staff. When Bilbo finally gets a hold of him, his hair is in disarray and he’s slightly out of breath. He shoves a glass of champagne into his hand and says, “Drink.”
“I have to ask Dori to-“
“Kili,” he says, smiling. “Calm down. It’s perfect. Everything is perfect. Now drink up.” He clinks their glasses together. “We’re celebrating.”
“Don’t count your chickens,” he says with a smile, smoothing back his mess of curls. “The evening has barely started.”
“That’s not what we’re celebrating.” Bilbo hands him a business card, simple beige stock with his name written in embossed ink.
“Head of Events and Development,” Kili reads. “But that’s-"
“Dori wants more time to spend with his family, and we think you’re perfect. I still expect you to graduate mind, I will not have a uni dropout on our board committee.”
Kili hugs him so tightly that they both slosh champagne onto the carpet and Kili’s laugh has turned somewhat hysterical as he wipes tears from his eyes. “You didn’t even properly ask me.”
“I didn't feel the need.” They set their glasses down and Kili inspects his business card and shakes his head with the ghost of a grin at his lips. Finally he says, “You know, a lot of bets were traded in my family on whether or not I’d have to work retail.”
Bilbo pats him on the back. “You’re working charity, Kili. It’s not going to be that much better. But if it counts for anything, I am so very proud of you.” He turns, reaching for another glass, but Kili stops him, clutching at his arm, his fingers digging into his skin. Bilbo follows his eye line, the pale movement of his lips, until he catches sight of the man stepping through the door.
His hair is parted at the side, a wave of curls held in place with product, sheared and neatly trimmed at his nape. His suit is fitted and his skin is tanned with freckles dotting his cheekbones and red woven bracelets lining his wrist. He hands his coat off to the waitstaff and stands in the doorway, glancing around the ballroom.
He sees the exact moment that he finds Kili’s face in the crowd. His eyes light up, he mouths his name, and makes his way through the sea of guests until he’s close enough for Bilbo to shove Kili forward with a subtly placed hand to his lower back. Fili pulls him into a hug with one of Kili’s hands still stuck in his pocket. He is clutching at his shoulders with long fingers, piano player’s hands, Kili had called them.
He can see it now, the family resemblance, in the way that Fili’s eyes crinkle as he smiles and the curving slope of his nose. Fili holds him at arm’s length, looking him up and down while the words that tumble from his lips are lost to Bilbo in the echoing hum of chatter. Kili clutches at his wrists like a lifeline, responds in rushed sentences before jerking his head in Bilbo’s direction. He takes his cue for what it is.
“Hello,” he says, walking over to them and holding out a hand. “My name is Bilbo Baggins. You must be Fili.” His grip is firm but his smile is strained and were it not for Kili’s darting eyes he would leave them be.
“Mr. Baggins, I cannot thank you enough for everything you’ve done for Kili.” It must come as second nature, speaking for his brother, making sure to pick up the words that may fall between the gaps of Kili’s teeth.
“I haven’t a clue what you mean,” Bilbo says. “Kili has all but saved my sanity these past few months. He’s absolutely invaluable and not just because he knows how to throw a party. We’ve always been rather useless at this bit, to be honest, and it’s one of our more crucial functions. Nothing brings in the money quite like intoxicated investment bankers. If you’ll excuse us for just a moment, I do have one rather important thing to discuss with him and then I assure you, he’s yours for the evening.”
Kili murmurs his apologies in his brother’s ear before following Bilbo through the staff doors and into the halls leading to the service entrance. “Are you okay?” Bilbo asks.
“Not at all. I thought this would buy me time and I wouldn’t-“ he sounds breathless, on the verge of a panic attack, so Bilbo takes his hands in his and lets him lean against the white washed drywall. “Balin must have sold me out, my uncle has no idea.”
“You were going to see him in the morning anyway, remember?”
“Yeah,” he gasps. “But it wasn’t now.”
“Calm down. This isn’t the disaster you think it is. Go introduce him to some of the staff, walk him around, explain what we do. And then for fuck’s sake go home with him, Kili. Talk to him. He’s clearly missed you and I know you’ve missed him. Don’t ruin this.”
“I’ve already ruined it,” he whispers, staring at the opposite wall.
“Don’t be silly. Come on.” He pulls him forward and dusts off the back of his jacket. “Everything will be fine. And if it isn’t, you know where I live.”
—
Since the day Bilbo found him crying near the cemetery gates, Kili hasn’t gone more than a handful of hours without a constant flood of communication. He texts with unreasonably nimble fingers and leaves voice messages by the dozens. He calls and emails and stops by with sticky cakes from the market near his flat. He crashes in his guest bedroom, sits on the edge of his desk until the offices close, invites him for coffee outside Warren Street. Kili is constant undying energy, and Bilbo has learned to love him for it.
He spends his weekend tallying funds from the charity auction and doing a bit of windowsill gardening and it isn’t until he returns to work on Monday that he realises he hasn’t heard from Kili in three days.
“I gave him a half week,” Dori says. “He called first thing this morning. Said he was sick. Like I don’t know a lie when I hear one. But the poor lad has worked noon and night for weeks so I thought he deserved a break.”
“Yes,” Bilbo agrees. “He does.”
“By the way, you never told me. Did he accept the job?”
Bilbo grins as he recalls the way Kili’s fingers brushed over the letters of his business card.
“Yeah,” he says. “He did. So I will finally accept your retirement with all the grace and understanding of an old friend, but only if you agree to stay long enough to settle him in.”
“Wouldn’t dream of leaving a minute before,” he says.
Bilbo sends Kili an email, brief and to the point. He tells him he’s proud of him, to enjoy his day off and to call if he needs anything at all. He doesn’t respond and Bilbo doesn’t expect that he will.
—
No matter how often Bilbo tries to vary his visits to the cemetery he never manages to catch the flowers in time. Sometimes he visits before there’s any flowers at all and other times they are days old, sometimes only hours. He thinks it’s unlikely that their schedules will ever match up, so today he tapes a note to a faded yellow petal and sticks it against the edge of his father’s gravestone. Thank you for the flowers, he writes in a flash of green ink pen. He signs his name and hopes that they will see it before it rains. He knows it’s unlikely, but he likes to pretend there’s a chance.
—
Wednesday rolls around and Kili hasn’t come to work. Bilbo sits at his desk, tapping a pen against his blotter, and wonders if he should be worried. He forces himself to stand and seek out Dori who is currently digging through a drawer of paper supplies in the front office. He knocks lightly on the doorframe before asking, “Have you heard from Kili at all today?”
“Not a peep. I thought maybe he’d spoken to you. He was supposed to be in at nine, you know,” he says. “It’s not like him.”
He sends a quick text and busies himself for an hour or two while preparing for the monthly board meeting, but finally his eyes wander to the clock and Bilbo reaches for his phone. It goes straight to voicemail. He listens as a recording babbles his instructions and the tone sounds in his ear. “I’m coming to check on you after work,” he says. “No one’s heard from you since Monday, and we haven’t spoken since Friday night. You do know I worry.” He sighs down the receiver. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
It rains as he walks from Bethnal Green station down toward Victoria Park. His note will be nothing but smudged green ink and he can’t quite bring himself to care. The street lights flicker on as he nears Zealand Road, with its little brick homes and their white carved trim. He climbs the steps to Kili’s door and peaks over the railing and into his front window. The heavy blackout curtains are pulled closed but through the gap he can see a flicker of blue light, a television left on. He calls Kili’s name as he knocks but he doesn’t answer, so Bilbo digs out his keys. The door creeks as he pushes it open, though he hears nothing except for the muted chatter of the television in the sitting room.
He finds them asleep on the high backed antique sofa, the cushions all pushed to the floor. They are pressed against each other, Kili’s head resting at his collarbone and Fili’s arms pulled tight around his shoulders. He is no longer the slicked back professional bureaucrat that he had seen at the auction. His hair is falling into his eyes, his shoulders are lightly freckled, his lashes dust his skin with gold, and in the glow of the television screen they look etherial, bare except for their single white sheet.
He steps back from the doorway and the full picture comes swimming into focus. A blue silk dressing gown is tossed over the carved mahogany edge of the couch. He spots Kili’s shoes kicked into the corner, the remnants of Friday’s suit left in pieces around the floor, his tie just steps from the entrance. Familiar takeaway bags are tucked under the French end table and tissues litter the hardwood. He sees little torn foil packets, condoms tied and tossed near the rubbish pile of leftovers.
The pieces fall into place like stones in Saint Patrick’s mended rock wall and Bilbo sees Kili’s broken heart for what it truly is. He leaves them asleep, curled against each other in the low light like the star crowned twins, and locks the door on his way out.
It is dark as he walks back to the station, but the sky is still a polluted hazy orange. Bilbo pauses by a church with red stained glass windows while he digs for his phone.
“Something came up,” he says, leaning back against the wrought iron gate. “I won’t be able to make it to your flat after all, I’m stuck in preparations for the board of director’s meeting. But you’d better charge your damn mobile and call me when you get a chance. I imagine I’d have been notified if you’d died horribly in the last five days, so I’ll forgive this little bout of radio silence so long as I hear from you before the week is done.”
—
Bilbo opens his front door to Kili wringing his hands together, frowning down at his shoes. He’s wearing a heavy beige cardigan that Bilbo doesn’t recognise and he’s pulled the top of his hair back into a bun, leaving the rest in unwashed curls along his shoulders. There are smudges of dark below his eyes, from too much sleep or too little, Bilbo isn’t sure.
“I’m so, so sorry,” he whispers, without looking up. “I - would you believe me if I told you I lost track of what day it was?”
Bilbo smiles, despite himself. “Maybe,” he says. “Come in. I just put the kettle on.”
Kili toes off his shoes with less complaining than usual and follows Bilbo into the kitchen. “Is Dori furious?”
“I told him you had the flu.”
“Yeah, well.” Kili pulls out a chair and sits with his knees tucked to his chin. He looks so young, with his sleeves falling over the edges of his knuckles and his hair grown too long. Sometimes Bilbo forgets what it was like to be twenty-one. “I told him the same thing and he sounded ready to call me out on it.”
“He has little brothers,” Bilbo reminds him. “He knows a lie when he hears it. He believed me though. He doesn’t expect you in until next week.” He sets a mug in front of Kili, milky tea with a heaping spoon of sugar, and sits across from him. “I’m guessing you haven’t been attending classes, either.”
He bites at his lips. “Not really. But I mean most of them are useless now anyway. It’s just my dissertation left.”
“Which I know for a fact you haven’t written a word of.”
“I have time, Da, don’t worry.” He says with a bit of a smile and Bilbo rolls his eyes.
They sip their tea in silence and Bilbo thrusts a plateful of chocolate digestives in Kili’s direction, watching as he nibbles at the edges. “Do you want to talk about it?” He asks, finally.
Kili smiles down at his mug. “We did alright,” he said. “We fell back into things, it was like he never left. But it doesn’t really matter, does it? Because he’s just going to leave again and then I’ll have to start from scratch. I thought I was doing well, I mean - I was working, I liked working, but then Fili gets here and everything falls apart and I’m sorry Bilbo, I really am. You were so kind to offer me that job and then I repaid you by-“
Bilbo cuts him off, reaching out to rest a hand on his forearm. “Hush, Kili. You know I don’t think any less of you for skiving. Honestly, I expected you’d call out every other day when I first agreed to sign you on for work experience. But you’ve been brilliant. You deserved a week off.”
“It wouldn’t just be a week,” he says softly. “If Fili stayed I’d slip back into this, I know I would, because when he’s around I can’t think of a single thing but him. He’s not that way, you know. He did so well in school, so well with all of his part-time jobs and volunteering and work placements. It’s just me who can’t handle it.”
“How long is he here?”
“Until next Saturday.” His breath hitches, like the thought alone could collapse his lungs.
“Then you can start by coming into work on Monday. You can leave a few hours early each day, but at least come in. Go to all of your classes and I’m sure Fili wouldn’t be opposed to meeting you outside lecture halls. You can spend your afternoons together, you can bring him into the offices, show him around.”
“Okay,” Kili murmurs around the rim of his mug. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologise for.” He watches him sip at his tea and he thinks that perhaps he loves Kili as much as he loves his hoard of badly behaved little cousins, as much as Frodo with his wide blue eyes, and Drogo and his signature scowl. He wishes more than anything that he had stayed at the office on Wednesday evening because Kili’s secrets weigh on his chest like slabs of granite stone. Bilbo finishes his tea and moves to set his dishes in the sink, running his fingers through Kili’s knotted hair as he passes.
—
Bilbo visits the cemetery on a chilly Sunday morning and finds his note is gone along with the wilted yellow flowers. In their place are three white lilies with dusted pink petals and he thinks it must be nearly spring. It never gets quite cold enough in London for the grass to wilt and dry like the garden at his grandparents’ estate in Yorkshire, so the ground is a vibrant, lively green but the sky is still endless white overhang.
Bilbo picks up a lily, leans back against the stone and for once he doesn’t think of his parents, he doesn’t try to remember his father’s voice, doesn’t close his eyes to his mother’s laughter. Instead he thinks about Kili and the way his fingers looked splayed out over his brother’s collarbone. He thinks about his startling laugh and his red rimmed eyes and the blonde boys he brings home from Farringdon.
He wonders how it started but more importantly he wonders how it will end. Fili loves him, he could see it in his eyes, lit by the low lights of the Barbican Centre, but he thinks of Kili’s restless hands and how easily he swallows tequila straight from the bottle and he desperately hopes it will be enough.
—
Fili wears light blue jeans, ripped to match, and a military issue parka with one of Kili’s knit beanies pulled down over his ears. Kili steers him through the office in his smart blue shirt and brogues, introducing him with all the flare and cheery laughter that his colleagues have come to expect from him. Bilbo watches through his office windows as Fili shakes hands with Dori, smiling at something he says, and begins to collect his things.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Bilbo says, standing as they shuffle closer to his door. “Lunch will be a bit of a walk. I thought we might head down to Regent’s Park.”
“You never take me to Regent’s,” Kili says with a frown.
“Special occasions only, Kili. And I see you every day.” Fili laughs and it startles him how similar they sound, like a recording from an old set of speakers, just the slightest bit off in pitch.
“It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Baggins.”
“Bilbo, please,” he says, shrugging on his coat. “I’ve heard so much about you I feel as if you’re already family." It’s not quite true, of course, because Kili had cauterised the wound of his brother’s absence by pretending he didn’t exist. But Kili looks at him like a disciple from a Renaissance painting, and for now that tells him enough. "Now come along, we have a reservation to keep.”
“May I ask how you two met?” Fili says as he zips up his parka against the wind.
Kili opens his mouth and he can already see the lie forming on his tongue, so Bilbo cuts in and says, “I was visiting my parents’ grave and Kili happened to be passing by. We got to talking and I learned he was a terrible gossip. Needless to say, I decided to keep him around.” Kili scoffs but he looks thankful all the same.
“In Bethnal Green?” Fili asks, glancing at his brother.
“Leyton,” Bilbo says.
Kili nudges Fili’s side with his shoulder as they walk, catching his attention before saying, “It’s where they buried Thror.”
“Who?” Bilbo asks, before he can stop himself.
“Our great-grandfather,” Kili says. “We didn’t - uh, we weren’t close.” There is more to the story, Bilbo is sure of it, something hidden in the sudden, tense line of Fili’s jaw, in the way Kili hunches over, staring at the ground. “Anyway, that’s just about it. We got on, became friends, and then I asked Bilbo for work experience and it turns out I wasn’t totally rubbish at it. Grandmother’s awful Christmas dinners did teach me something after all.”
“Manipulation,” Fili says with a smile.
“Flattery,” he agrees.
“Whatever it is, we’re all terribly thankful for it.”
Fili, like his brother, is a wonderful conversationalist. They discuss their most recent projects and he listens as often as he speaks, offering small insights and perspectives into regional conflicts and government aid schemes. Kili grumbles over their shared interests so their topics turn to the fall of Camden Town, facts which Kili recites from A History of London, the book that sat on Bilbo’s shelf for nearly his entire life, though Kili was the only one to ever read it.
When Fili talks about Beirut, Kili looks away, gazing up at the trees of Regent’s Park, his hands bunched into his coat pockets. Fili describes the sea, the smell of salt water and brine. There is noise, constant and comforting, and in the evenings he listens to the call to prayer from his balcony. He always wakes to church bells. He talks of humid mornings and coffee brewed with cloves and the French infused Arabic that he practices over and over again in front of a mirror.
“It’s beautiful,” he says. He repeats it like a conviction. “It’s beautiful.”
Kili swallows hard and looks up at the sky. “More beautiful than London?” He asks.
Fili watches him from the corner of his eye. “It’s brighter,” he says. “And when it rains, it rains in ernest. But no, Kee. It’ll never be more beautiful than London.”
—
Kili sits at his desk with a pen balanced between his fingers, his chin rested on his hand, and stares up at the clock. Bilbo leans in the doorway as Kili’s eyes follow the second hand, dragging along like only time can manage. Finally he clears his throat and Kili’s elbow slips from the desk. “Christ, Bilbo. No need to sneak up on me like that.”
“Go home, Kili,” he says.
“It’s no where near time.” Kili smiles and looks away. “I would know.”
Bilbo closes the office door and sits on the desk at Kili’s side. “You’re no use to me like this.”
“Then I won’t be much use to you at all, soon.”
“Good thing I don’t just keep you around for your utility then, isn’t it?” Kili leans forward and rests his forehead against Bilbo’s thigh, sighing as he runs his fingers through his hair. It’s down today, a rare thing since Fili has been home and Bilbo is beginning to think the length rather suits him. “Kili,” he begins, tucking a stray curl behind his ear. “Can I ask you a question?”
Kili sits back, watching him with glassy eyes and Bilbo thinks he already knows what he wants to ask. “Are you in love with your brother?”
“Yeah,” he whispers. “I am.”
“Then go home,” Bilbo says. “Go out to lunch, spend the evening together. Don’t come in tomorrow.”
Kili’s chin is tucked against his chest, his fingers clasped around Bilbo’s sleeve. “I wish you’d been my uncle instead, you know. I wouldn’t have turned out this way. I’d still love him,” he adds. “I’d always love him. But maybe I could be like him, maybe I could have a life outside of this and Bilbo, I know I would’ve been so different if I had you.”
“Then I’m glad you didn’t,” Bilbo says, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Because I’m rather fond of you as you are. And besides, you have me now.” He’s not sure if it’ll be enough, if he can do anything at all to numb the pain that will come with Fili’s return to Beirut but he will certainly try.
—
Bilbo spends Friday morning delegating, handing off tasks and ticking off checklists and he heads home just before noon to pack his little canvas bag with sandwiches and tea and a worn paperback. London’s short gusts of spring weather have fallen in his favour and for once the sky above the cemetery gates is blue with a hazy stretch of orange and when he raises his camera to his eye he can’t quite bring himself to press the shutter. He drops his bag and turns in slow circles, watching the world through the mirrored glass of his worn old lens.
He sits back against his father’s headstone and closes his eyes to the yellow glare of the sun and he wishes this afternoon would last forever. He wishes Kili could remain by Fili’s side, sprawled together along swaths of white sheets, frozen like oil paintings with their lips against each other’s skin, Fili’s fingers entwined in the black curls of his hair and Kili’s eyelashes shadows against his brother’s collarbone.
He wishes he could spend forever sitting on the thawed soil, fingers pulling at patches of thickening grass, and enjoy the sunlight, the clanking of the tube, the whistling pair of magpies. He wishes the echo of his mother’s voice would always be this clear, that his memories of her won’t fade like the ones of his father, won’t turn like yellowed newspaper.
Bilbo knows well enough by now that the world waits for no one, so hours later, when the sun begins to set he raises his camera to his eye and he takes a photo. Through the view finder, he sees a man step through the gates, skinny and slight, his shoulders hunched and his fingers wrapped around a familiar bouquet of flowers.
He slowly lowers his camera and watches the young man was he walks along the trail, staring at the ground, ridged straight fringe falling into his eyes. “Hello there,” Bilbo says, smiling at the startled expression on his face when he realises there is someone sitting at the graves.
“Oh,” he says, his voice a high, shaky thing. “Oh I’m so very sorry, I didn’t expect anyone to be here.”
“You’re the one who brings the flowers?” He asks. He doesn’t recognise him. He certainly doesn’t look like a Baggins, though one can never be sure with his father’s family.
“No, actually, not me. Not directly. I’m a personal assistant and sometimes, when my boss is gone, he asks me to bring them instead. He’s away this weekend, so-” he gestures awkwardly with the flowers.
“Well thank you,” he says. “For bringing them if not for the thought. What’s you name?”
“Ori,” he says. “I really am sorry to disturb you.”
“Not at all,” he says. “May I ask the name of your boss? It’s just, I’m the last of my family here and I can’t imagine anyone who would wish to visit my parents so religiously. If you think he wouldn’t mind, that is.”
“I can’t imagine why he would,” Ori says, laying the flowers gently at his side. They are pink today, a mix of red petals and magenta speckles and Bilbo waits for his answer. “I work for Thorin Durin.”
“Oh,” Bilbo says. “Well thank you. I appreciate it. It’s getting late and I’m sure you’d like to head home. Thank you again for delivering them.”
“You should head home too,” Ori tells him as he turns down the path. “It’s getting cold, now that the sun has gone down.”
“I will. And Ori,” he calls after him. “If you get a chance, tell Thorin I appreciate the flowers.” Ori shouts his promise and Bilbo watches him leave, a silhouette at dusk.