Number 4 Scipio Lane stands like an ancient relic in the dead center of the empty street. It's quiet here, but the air is charged with the terrible secrets that almost seem to leak from under the cracked and dusty windows. The front door is stained a faded white colour, and the lone hinge it teeters on creaks whenever the wind blows. Worse, even as Bilbo watches, tiles slip from the roof and smash into the browning garden, and the chimney, clearly already in great disrepair, sways like a pendulum threatening to snap the string it swings on. Tearing his eyes from the house and back onto the street, where only a single shadow rests across the asphalt from a tree standing awkwardly in middle of the sidewalk, Bilbo waits for the man he is expecting to meet here. He checks his voice-mail again, to verify, and the voice on the other line strikes him as it always does as somewhere between murderous and exasperated. He has a name, Thorin Oakenshield, but looking him up on the internet has proved only that he's male and that he travels a lot for business.
It's not until almost half past two when the silver sports-car rolls down the street. It's occupant is obvious, namely because of the way the vehicle so sharply clashing with the decaying remains of broken buildings that clutters the lane-way. It pulls up and parks just behind Bilbo's car, but the windows are tinted just enough that Bilbo cannot see inside. He steps out of his own car, shielding his eyes from the beating afternoon sun, and begins his trek across the road.
Thorin meets him halfway, a folder of papers tucked under his arm and a disposable camera peaking out of his back jeans pocket. He's taller than Bilbo expected, almost a head more than he, and his face is so alarmingly handsome that it disarms the younger man into nearly stumbling. Thorin offers his hand, the cuff of his shirt rolled at the elbows, and Bilbo shakes it in turn, noting how small his hand appears in contrast to such a dominating figure.
"Thank you for coming," Thorin says, his voice tight. "Did you bring a breathing mask?"
"I, uh, yes," Bilbo manages to say, clearing his throat. "But surely that won't be necessary."
Thorin frowns, the line creasing his brow fitting there as if along a rut. "You haven't seen inside yet."
Together, the two men advance towards the house. The driveway dips in odd places, probably from drainage problems, and the front steps have risen completely out of the foundation. Bilbo mimics Thorin and pulls the mask out of his pocket, watching as the other man gingerly eases open the door. Bilbo peers inside, and what he sees there is enough to steal all the breath from his lungs.
From floor to the ceiling, wall to wall, corner to corner, every inch of the house is filled with things. There's upended boxes, there's legless chairs and leafless tables, there's cans, there's books, there's plastic bags, and overwhelmingly there's just junk. A corner of an off-pink couch reveals what is bracing the mass of the things in the front foyer, but into the sitting room to their right is nothing but a sea of mismatched clothing and shoes, piled so high and so thick it could rival a small hill. And below it all lies the floor, completely hidden from sight, no matter where the eye dares to look.
Bilbo, with a shaking head, raises his mask to his face. Thorin does the same, but his rage is poorly disguised, even behind the white plastic. He turns to Bilbo, a questioning look in his eyes that says, "This is what I hired you for, this is your job. How are we going to fix this?" Bilbo doesn't answer him directly, but instead sidesteps him and begins to climb the mountain blocking the front entryway. Thorin calls out something, perhaps a warning, but Bilbo only looks back to wave him onward.
Every rocky foothold they gain knocks loose items into the air, leaving them to bounce and slide through the mess until they become indistinguishable in it once more. There is no sound besides their breathing and that of falling clutter, and occasionally Thorin cursing, words Bilbo can guess at with great accuracy depending on the man's expression. Travel is slow and labourous, and twice they have to backtrack and try a different route before they can make any real headway. When they finally get to the top of the pile, Bilbo sits down on the top of a sideways closet, Thorin kneeling on the back of a bookcase across from him.
This is the worse I've ever seen, Bilbo wants to say, but instead he asks, "How long has it been like this?"
"I wish I could tell you," Thorin replies, shaking his head angrly. "Too long."
"And about how much of it is yours?"
Thorin snorts. "The house is mine, the property is mine, but almost everything in it is not."
Bilbo nods, coming to further understand Thorin's position. They sit in silence for a while, glancing around the crowded space between them, and watch for the inevitable. Every now and again something can be heard falling, from another room, another pile, another hill, and the resounding crash echoes through the rafters like distant earthquakes. It's eerie and unsettling, but honestly, not unlike anything Bilbo has seen before, if only on a smaller scale.
"Thorin," he says finally, softly, trying to keep his client as civil as possible. "Can you, please, explain to me again how exactly it got to be this way?"
Thorin hesitates, and at last Bilbo sees the exhaustion in his eyes, the defeat, the hopelessness. "I'm a defense attorney," he explains, "and around this time last year, I won my first big case. It was all over the news, went international. I had interviews with radio stations and talk shows and newspapers, the whole lot." He tries to sit up, straighten out his back, but his head hits the ceiling and he gives up. Rolling his shoulders instead, he rubs one of his bare arms with his free hand, his distress evident only in this nervous motion. "And then maybe...six months ago? The lady who had hired me to defend her son, in that case, she passed away, and in her will she left me three of her nine houses. One of the three was this one." He looks around the room again, as if he can still see the state it used to be in, the dream he once hatched in this very spot. "I thought I could turn it for a profit, give it off to one of my nephews, even, but the construction crew I hired bailed after the first week without telling me. I was working another case at the time, so I was out of the country for four months. When I came back-"
Suddenly, a shout breaks out from the room behind Bilbo and they both turn, Thorin's hand shooting to his side where presumably he keeps his gun. Bilbo, in
the line of fire but unafraid, calls back, but neither of their words seem to be understood by either party.
Slowly, only a little at a time, the top of a head appears in the doorway. It's followed by a hand, then most of a face, and finally part of a torso. The man is pressed almost completely flat against the ceiling because of the amount of stuff piled in that room, but even in that weird position, he still manages to look terrifying. He bares his teeth, half of them gold, and makes a sound similar to the hiss of a large and pissed off cat.
"Mr. Smaug?" Bilbo tries again, lifting his mask away from his face for a moment so he can speak more clearly. "Mr. Smaug, I'm Bilbo Baggins. I called you yesterday? I'm the therapist and personal organizer hired by Thorin Oakenshield to help clean out his house."
Smaug mumbles something that is obviously not very kind, and then hisses again. "Don't be touching my things," he says, his accent heavy from a place Bilbo cannot identify. "Mine, all of it, mine."
"Yes, yes, I understand," Bilbo replies, trying to edge closer to the doorway where Smaug is lying. "Can we talk about this though? Will you come out to speak with us about this?"
"Don't waste your breath," Thorin snaps, grabbing Bilbo somewhat roughly by the arm. "Why can't we just kick him out and call a dump trunk?"
If anything, that seems to even more enrage Smaug. He lunges from the doorway into the room where Thorin and Bilbo are, his mountain of stuff swallowing him like quicksand. When he appears again, he's clinging to a twisted metal bat, which he waves around threateningly. "I'd like to see you call them peoples," he spits, the saliva staining the already tattered black jacket he's wearing over his thin frame. "You can't go throwing my stuff away. I know my ways."
"Your ways?" Shouts Thorin, his own anger crashing back in like a tsunami. "This is my house, you crazed lunatic! What gives you any rights to just fill it with your crap?"
"My treasures!" Smaug whines, retreating a step but still brandishing his weapon. "Mine, all mine."
To Bilbo's horror, Smaug recoils and throws the bat, venom practically dripping from his studded tongue. His eyes flame a ghastly red, red like fire, red like blood, and all at once he starts throwing everything in reach, hurling it with no regard of where it goes or who it hits.
Thorin cries out and draws his gun, but Bilbo slides in front of him and takes the blunt of the onslaught. "Drop it, Mr. Oakenshield," he says over his shoulder, deathly calm. "Just drop it." Covering his face with his arm, Bilbo begins edging closer to where Smaug is crouching, waving nothing but his other hand in an attempt of stilling his attack.
Smaug stops, but only of his own accord. He drops like a large child onto his mountain, clutching a long striped scarf in his hands. The item seems to rob him of his fury, and then he's nothing but the twenty or so man he is, alone, vulnerable, and defenseless.
Bilbo eventually manages to reach his side, and gently touches the youth on the shoulder. "Hey," he whispers, "everything's going to be okay." He can feel his foot sliding into the pile, being scratched by things unseen, but he doesn't care. This is what he lives for. "Listen, alright? I'm going to get you out of this mess. I'm going to make sure no one throws away your treasures, or breaks your things, or hurts you. But you have to promise me something, something in return, okay?"
Smaug looks up at Bilbo, his eyes back to their turquoise, his matted hair drooping like sad puppy ears. "What do you want?" He whispers, his voice broken.
Bilbo gently rubs his back. "You need to let me help you."
As Smaug considers this, Bilbo watches Thorin in the reflection of a cracked mirror glance down at the scene before him, something indescribable on his face. Bilbo has tried to explain his methods over the phone to him, but Thorin has been adamant-you can't reason with hoarders, he said, they're all a lost cause.
But Smaug, turning into Bilbo, rests his head on his shoulder and closes his eyes. He looks so young suddenly, so tired, so worn out. "Help me," he whispers. "Please, please help me."
Bilbo holds him closer and whispers reassuringly to him. "Don't worry Smaug," he says, "I'm not going to leave you. I'm going to help you out of this. I'm going to make everything better, I'm going to make everything right." Turning his head, he meets Thorin's eyes, glacier blue and cold as ice. "I promise you that, if it's the last thing I do."