Summary: 'Only as it happens, Bilbo didn't write about the Great War, like we thought he would. He wrote about the Lonely Mountain. Can you believe that?' 1930s AU. Oneshot.
Goodness knows the only person who could get Dwalin into a bookstore was Ori. As they rounded the corner toward their destination, Bofur could see Dwalin's nose crinkle in distaste, but every time Ori turned around, beaming with pleasure, Dwalin's expression went blank.
It was a terrific bookstore, too, slotted surreptitiously between a cheap pub and a private apartment on a long brick avenue as if hoping to go unnoticed except by its closest friends. Even from a block away through the Oxford fog it looked well-read and trustworthy.
"Seriously, this is going to knock your socks off," Ori said as he held the door open for them. A clunky bell over the door sounded as they crossed the threshold.
Bofur took off his hat and nodded to the man who must be the owner. He was ensconced in a thick cushioned armchair, burrowed in layers of blue and sporting a twiggy white beard. In his lap, a large book lay open as he inspected its fragile binding with ink-stained fingers. He waved distractedly, and didn't look up until Ori greeted him.
They obviously knew each other. Ori removed one knitted glove to shake the owner's hand, and gave a brief explanation for their visit. The owner eyed Dwalin and Bofur suspiciously over his horn-rimmed glasses and grunted.
"Thank you again," Ori finished, corralling them around a corner to a display of recent publications, and leaving the surly proprietor to his tomes.
"Just give a look at this!" Ori said then. He grinned proudly and shoved a hardback under Bofur's nose.
Dwalin rumbled with laughter.
"Well, I'll be," Bofur breathed. He took the book from Ori, gentle and reverent, even though it was perfectly sturdy. He ran a finger along the title. The Hobbit or There and Back Again.
Dwalin reached out to angle the cover for a better view. "Who's J. R. R. Tolkien?" he asked.
Ori chuckled. "Oh, you know Bilbo. Likes to pretend he doesn't want all that attention, but then he holds weekly dinner parties at Bag End and visits the nearby towns every other day."
Bofur agreed that that sounded very much like the Bilbo Baggins he knew. His stony manor built against a Scottish hillside loomed a mile out from the closest village, and its most distinguishing feature was the tall wrought-iron gate that warned under no uncertain terms against trespassers. Bofur and his kin knew better, though. The winds across Bilbo's acres of property fueled his reputation as a mysterious and wizened old gargoyle, but his trips to the local pub were as frequent and eloquent as ever. In fact, he'd invited half the countryside to an extravagant celebration for his own birthday later this season.
He looked up at Ori, who was smiling softly at the mountains on the cover of the book. "Have you read it?" Bofur asked.
He had.
Bofur thought he caught a glint of mist in Ori's eyes. For a moment they all stared at the title and the Dwarven runes which outlined the cover, breathing in the thick dust brushed off their memory in Khuzdul typeset. "He remembered," Dwalin murmured.
Bofur swallowed around a lump in his throat. Bilbo might take his tales of the Great War, the French forests, the mucked-out trenches and Kili's marksmanship and Fili's acts of bravery out to the taverns; but it was Thorin, King Under the Mountain, and his quest across Middle-Earth that Bilbo immortalized in ink and left for the ages. Bofur let out a long, steadying breath.
"Well, that's that!" Bofur exclaimed matter-of-factly, breaking their trance. "I've got to buy me a copy."
And he did, and so did Dwalin—more than one copy each, in fact. The store's owner curled his lip as he packed their things, as though taking the time to accept their money was a great hindrance to him.
Once out the door, Bofur asked Ori if he might join him for Bilbo's birthday party. His answer surprised him, though it was more like the surprise of another air raid; the split second of human shock immediately replaced by a bleak knowledge that one shouldn't be surprised at all:
"I'm off to the warfront, actually," Ori said. "Balin's company needs a translator, and he cashed in a few favors and got them to let me along."
Dwalin pulled him into a one-armed bear-hug and clapped his shoulder and insisted Ori was a good capable lad and that he'd come back with a story to rival Bilbo's.
"You be sure to write it all down for us," Bofur demanded, mentally noting not to tell Dori or Nori about this development until their brother was long out of the country.
Less than a week later, Bofur had finished The Hobbit and decided to pay Thorin a visit.
"I'm happy to tell you," he began cheerfully, "that Bilbo finally finished that book of his. Published and everything. Only as it happens, he didn't write about the Great War, like we thought he would. He wrote about the Lonely Mountain. Can you believe that? The whole quest—Gandalf and Smaug and Laketown… I think he had a hard time with—that is, he couldn't bring himself to write much about Fili and Kili. At least, not their—well."
Bofur cleared his throat.
"Sorry. I did think we might be allowed some peace in this life…"
He rocked back on his heels and blinked away the ugly reminder of loss.
"Anyway, I've brought you a copy. He used a pseudonym, here you see, but we all knew it was Bilbo. Ori asked him face-to-face, and he was shifty about it in that wonderful Bilbo way, you know, but long story short, the rest of the world knows him as 'Tolkien' now, not 'Baggins'."
Bofur laid his hand on the cold granite headstone. His eyes drifted over Fili's marker, on Thorin's right, and Kili's, next to his brother as always.
Absentmindedly, Bofur traced his thumb along the S in Oakenshield, a name that was earned, once; a name that a dwarf paid for with valor and blood; a name that had no literal meaning in this life; a name to rest now on a second grave where it could whisper across the grey dew to the other undefinable lost names.
Author's Note: Posting because this will tide me over with the false sense of productivity while I work on a chap fic...