A/N: Thank you for your patience! This chapter contains the long-awaited Gollum scene. I hope it satisfies you! Review if you want to make my day =) I hope to post sooner than later!
All earlier disclaimers apply. This is still an epic modern AU of which I own nothing but my own thoughts. It is still not slash. It is still employing quotes when possible.
"Things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway."
i.
Bilbo was afraid.
He was stiff, rather than shaking, the sort of paralysis that came over mice before snakes, so the stories said.
All his vestiges of bravery had left him. The knife in his hand seemed too small, and he, too ignorant to properly use it. Yet all the same, he believed it to be the only thing that kept the strange pale eyes at bay.
The eyes! Wide and luminous and empty, in a shriveled face. The teeth between the cracked lips were pointed, or so they seemed to him in the uncertain light.
Yet he had followed this creature—more gremlin than man—into some sort of lair, because there was nothing else to do.
Answers, the stranger had promised. We—I—knows the way out.
The air smelled of dust and death and formaldehyde. Bilbo saw curious things in the dull light of a few rusting lamps—vials and measures and dust-covered canisters, stacks of notes and cases of test tubes. It was some sort of lab, in the very belly of this city, and he fingered the slim glass tube in his pocket, wondering what it all meant. "You—you said you would help me," Bilbo began at last. His voice quavered more than he would have liked to.
The stranger blinked. "Questions, first, precious. Questions first."
Bilbo wondered what was precious. There seemed to be nothing but filth and ugliness in this dark, dank little room. "Very well," he answered, doing his best to master his terror. "What questions do you have?"
"What are you?" the man gurgled, folding his long, flat hands under his chin.
"I'm—I'm a stock painter, fr-from the Shire."
"The Shire..." his s's were sibilant, soft. "We hasn't heard of that before."
"We?" Bilbo looked around, startled. Was there someone else here?
It seemed to be the wrong thing to say. The pale eyes glinted coldly. "We doesn't like it. Doesn't like its questions." The hands unfolded, stretched out, nimble, spidery fingers wriggling. "Perhaps we-"
"No, no!" Bilbo cried, nervously at first and then remembering his knife. He held it out before him, setting his jaw as firmly as he could. "Listen here, I don't know what your game is-"
The eyes blinked, looking suddenly, eerily childish. "Games? We love games. Does it like games? Does it like to play?"
"I...I do." Bilbo did not know what else to say, being trapped in this cloying, rotting room, with someone who seemed to have lost his humanity long ago, in the dark. "What sort of games do you-um, do you like?" He hoped the choice would fairly innocuous.
A long finger ran over the cracked lips thoughtfully. "What has roots as nobody sees?"
He's a scientist, of some sort, Bilbo thought. Think math. Be clever. Roots. Roots. Nobody sees—he racked his brain for memories of algebra in school, trying to dredge up something to offer. "Well, imaginary numbers can't really be seen, can they?" he asked. "And the unit imaginary number, i, equals the square root of minus one...is that what you're after?"
The lips stretched in a smile. "Yes, yes! It's clever, oh it's clever. Give us another one!"
But then, as a spasm or contortion, an ugly look fell over the man's face. "No, no," he snarled. "No more games. We asks the questions—"
BIlbo saw the tide turning. The room seemed to close in more tightly around him, and he did not trust the baleful glare of those eyes.
Puns, he thought. And clever, strange riddles—about science. And math. He had better think of something quick, something to distract.
"Uh...colorless floats, odorless, flutters-it is no common-"
"Gases, my precious! Noble gases!"
I must have done something right, Bilbo mused. But how can I—
"Let's have a contest, yesss?" The hissing again, and a dangerous glimmer in the depths of his opponent's eyes. "We told you that we knows things. If you asks us, and we doesn't answer, we shows you the way out. And if we asks, and you doesn't answer..." he flapped his flaccid hand towards the dingy shelves and cupboards. They were filled with jars and cases, but Bilbo couldn't see what they contained. "We need more subjects." A dark tongue ran over his lips. "For our...experiments."
"Very well," Bilbo agreed, his mouth answering before his mind could. It was too dreadful, too risky to think about—but he saw that half a chance was better than none. "It's a deal."
"Why is it here?" And the childish look had slipped again, leaving the wide eyes very cold. "What does it want?"
"I came here by mistake," Bilbo said. "I—I got lost. And I hurt my head."
"They are coming, aren't they," squeaked the man, looking suddenly frightened and small. "They're coming—they're coming for us, do you hear? He knows—"
A dark contortion twisted his features, while Bilbo watched, still too terrified to tremble.
"No. It's a fool. It doesn't know. Doesn't know about him. Doesn't know that we—what we took—" muttering, almost to himself, and Bilbo was curious.
"What did you take?"
A snarl. "Nothing! Not its business, no!" The pale eyes were close again—the rancid breath fanning his face. "You've come here to steal and lie, haven't you? Haven't you?" It was a moment of lucidity, and Bilbo found it almost more unsettling than the babbling conversations that the man seemed to be having with himself.
"I don't understand what you're talking about," he answered, as calmly as he could, thrusting out his little blade, reminding the twisted being to keep his distance. "I'm—I'm just a traveler. I'm not a spy. I don't know what it is you do down here, and I've no interest in finding out."
"Kind," murmured the man, blinking rapidly and taking a step back. "Very kind, it is. So…nice. And from the outside." A long finger wavered in the darkness, nearly beckoning. "What is it like? What is it like…outside?"
Bilbo swallowed. This, by far, was the strangest thing he had encountered here—this creature, with his infantile ramblings and his shattered intellect, the dark, eerie cunning and the incessant, broken chatter.
"My home is very fine," he said, stilling the shaking of his voice. "There are green meadows there, sweet and pleasant. A lot of other houses, but often I can find the woods—and there are streams, and birds—"
His words had an effect on his unpredictable host; the man seemed more focused, less uncertain, and he scuttled about the dirty room, sorting and tidying his vials while he listen.
Bilbo muttered a silent prayer and kept talking. He had lost his way utterly—he might die down here, alone, or run into someone who would kill him instantly if he tried again. Better to wait, see if he might not convince the mad scientist to help him, to—
"We had a home, once," whispered the voice, quite close to his ears, and Bilbo spun around with a shock. The man's face was mild, though, free from its spasms of mania, at least for the moment. His wispy hair floated like cobwebs around his scalp in the half-light.
"Did you?" he asked, backing away and hoping he wasn't too noticeable.
The man nodded. "We had a home. A name. And we—I—I was brilliant. I made things. I understood how all the pieces worked together. How many bits of this, of that, how to heat and mix and—"
"And then?" Bilbo prompted. Breathe, Baggins, he told himself. You can do this.
"The world is a nasty place." The man's hissing voice slowed, sounding sad. "A cold, hard land. And a cold, hard man. He had a job for me. He had so many jobs—" his face changed, darkening. "Nasty, nasty," he growled. And then, clawing at his own face, "Shut up! Shut up!"
"I didn't say anything!" Bilbo cried.
"We weren't talking to you." The man showed his uneven teeth. "You asks us things and we won't tell you anymore, no. The Precious is ours, and you can't take it from us!"
"I didn't ask—" Bilbo began, but the man had turned from him and was shuffling through the drawers and shelves, long fingers scrabbling nervously as he muttered to himself. "Must make sure," Bilbo heard him whisper. "We must check—check—always check—"
Then he screamed. It was a terrible sound—tearing along the edges of Bilbo's nerves, despairing and enraged. He turned towards Bilbo with a fey glint in his eyes, and in his hand Bilbo saw a small case, battered around the corners as though it had been often-handled. It hung open, and there was a space in it as for a single slender shape.
Almost without thinking, Bilbo's hand went to his pocket.
The man's eyes followed. His cracked lips formed the word.
"Thief."
"I'm not—" but there was no time for that. The man's sunken cheeks were ashen with fury, and his eyes flashed. With another shriek, he lunged, hands groping for Bilbo's neck. Bilbo ran. But he man was before him, blocking the door, and he saw the long hands fumbling in ragged pockets.
Bilbo waved his sword, feeling woefully ineffectual. He was facing a madman, and he knew nothing of this—nothing at all.
I didn't mean to steal anything, he thought. He had picked up the vial—well, just because. He didn't know what it was. He supposed he should just give it back, but he thought it was likely too late for that now.
Then he saw the creature's hand flash up, with a hypodermic needle in his fingers. A weapon, Bilbo thought. No doubt something very bad indeed.
With a cackle of deranged laughter, the scientist hurled himself at Bilbo. In a moment of strange clarity, Bilbo grabbed rather than stabbed—catching the man's wrist in his hand and twisting it back with more strength than he knew he had in him.
I won't die here, I just won't, he thought, strangely fixed on the idea, and his plunged the needle downward.
The man dropped like a stone in front of the door, the needle in his neck. For a long moment, standing stone-still in the middle of the floor, Bilbo believed he had killed him.
But the man seemed to be only deeply sedated, wide pale eyes unfocused and shifting, spidery fingers flexing weakly in the dust and grime beneath him.
I still can't get out, Bilbo realized. I'm trapped here—no direction, nothing—
Don't lose hope. It sounded almost like Gandalf's voice, little more than a murmuring in his mind. No doubt this fellow's got maps down here.
He put himself to work, because that was better than melting into a puddle of cowardly hysterics. Methodically, Bilbo searched the dirty room, packing his pockets with some needles like the one he had nearly been attacked with. They might come in useful, he thought. An unexpected weapon.
At long last (though he did not know how many minutes had passed)—he found a rough map of the tunnel system, or so it seemed. Catching up one of the smaller lamps, he turned towards the door, where his opponent still lay very still.
I could kill him. The thought was bitter in his mouth—ugly and disturbing. First he was collecting weaponry with callous calculation, and now he was ready to kill a man in cold blood?
He tried to kill me first! But it didn't feel right—didn't feel good, and though he held the blade in his hand, tightening his fingers around the leather grip, the only thing he could see before his eyes was the faded light in the madman's eyes, when he had said that he had once had a home, and a name.
Bilbo pitied him. Bilbo thought that he could pity anyone homeless and nameless, trapped in an ugly darkness, even if it was their own making. He kept his blade in his hand but he ran and jumped instead, across the fallen body that looked all the more corpselike now.
A cold, clammy hand closed around his ankle.
"Thief!"
Panicked, Bilbo slashed down, striking at the hand—it released him but man was on his feet, flapping after him down the passage. Bilbo tossed the light down behind him, even though the map was no good to him in the dark—and ran on. But he was winded, he was frightened, and he had done too much already.
I will be caught. A lump seemed to lodge itself in his throat.
Think! You fool! Gandalf again. Bilbo heard the footsteps racing behind him, and suddenly recalled how he had gotten away from the mob hours before.
The ground, you idiot. They don't look at the ground. He dropped, rolled to the side, through something sticky and cold—tried not to think too much of it—and waited.
The man would see better than he did in the dark. But no doubt the drug was still in his system—perhaps Bilbo had a chance—
The footsteps came closer, closer. And then, as Bilbo held his breath, they passed him by.
As silently as he could, Bilbo scrambled to his feet, and followed.
Up ahead, he could hear whispering.
"One left. Two left. One right, three left."
"It doesn't know the way, precious. It will be lost again!"
"It has the map. It saw!"
There was a gurgling, weeping sound. "It has the precious. It has the precious. We needs the precious. We can't make more without it! We will die. We will die!"
"Shut up."
Bilbo fingered at his pocket. What is this? he wondered. Another kind of drug?
I'll have to ask Gandalf, if I ever make it back alive.
He ran on, scarcely daring to breathe, listening to the mumbling before him for what felt like hours. At last, silhouetted in a blessed light still too dark to be outside, the man stopped. Bilbo saw the narrow shoulders hunch, the head bobbling from side to side.
Bilbo shrank into the shadows. He couldn't risk detection—but he had to get to the light. It must be a doorway, he thought. Up, out. Freedom.
The man sank down, still gulping sobs. "It's gone, precious. It found a way out!"
Catch him off-guard. Bilbo saw that two tunnels converged here before becoming one—they had come along the left-hand side. There was a narrow passage veering to his right, just around a cement pier. He searched his full pockets, found the little flashlight he had used to guide his way, and regretfully, he hurled it as far as he could down the right-hand passage. It clinked its way along with a hollow sound.
The madman's head snapped up, and he crouched forward, taut and froglike. Then he stumbled to his feet, and scurried off down the passage, just as Bilbo had hoped.
I am sorry, Bilbo thought. But not sorry enough.
He ran towards the light.
ii.
Kili had blood in his mouth. They had been running a long time in the darkness, sometimes fighting and sometimes in long bursts of near-silence, broken only by panting and muffled curses when someone tripped over something.
Their opponents were still scattered, he thought, if he was any judge of what was happening—but it was hard to know much of anything, trapped in this tangle of tunnels. Gandalf seemed to know where they were going, and Thorin was following him, and Fili was following him, and Kili.
Well. Kili followed Fili.
They were moving up and out. There was something like light ahead, or at least Kili wanted to believe it was light, but every time he was certain they were closing in on it their path veered again.
The hoots and curses of their pursuers were never far behind either. Some of the men were slowing; Nori had a gash along his temple, and Oin was positively faint. Kili himself would nurse bruises later, but for now he relied on the high spirits that had gotten him through innumerable scrapes in childhood.
He felt like a child now. Or less so, for when he was young—younger—he had never really been frightened like this. He was always dashing and jumping ahead, climbing the higher tree in the park, teasing Fili into doing stupid things.
Never again, he promised himself. I'm never going to do anything stupid again.
He stumbled forward over a broken board and shook his head. You're going to die being stupid. Who are you kidding?
They were up another flight of stairs. Thorin hung back, and Kili thought he was counting. His hand landed heavily on Kili's shoulder, pushing him forward. It hurt—there must be a bruise there—but it was comforting.
The floor beneath them was rotted—it made for careful stepping, especially where Bombur was concerned. Up ahead, Kili heard Gandalf muttering to himself.
"Foolish," he said.
"What?" Thorin growled.
"We took the long way round," Gandalf said, shaking his head, but before he had time to speak again, there was a triumphant bellow.
The leader loomed in front of them, blocking their pathway, the passageway creaking beneath his feet. The goblin knew his own tunnels, Kili realized, his heart sinking as he crowded behind Thorin.
They were surrounded.
The man glared at Gandalf, his face ghastly in the half-light. Light, Kili thought, trying to stay calm. It wasn't easy—it seemed far too evident that they were never going to see day again.
The man swayed before them, savoring the moment. The fat lips peeled into a grin. "What are you going to do now? Still the wizard?"
Gandalf's shoulders were hunched forward. He looked more like a battered, defeated old man than anything—but then, almost quicker than Kili could see, his long walking stick lashed forward, striking just behind the man's flabby knees.
With a great shout, the man fell, and Kili gaped as the floor splintered beneath him. With a howl, the goblin-leader and several of his followers fell into the darkness.
"Leap!" Gandalf commanded, springing rather nimbly ahead, and the men followed suit. Thorin and Dwalin practically propelled Bombur across the expanse, but everyone else, even Ori, made their way without difficulty.
"Onwards and upwards!" Gandalf cried, drawing his gun and firing a few shots above the men's heads. Behind them, there were shrieks.
"If we can get outside," Gandalf said, turning half-back so that Kili could see the hawklike curve of his nose, "They won't follow. It's light—and they fear it. Scrounging, groveling cowards—daring dark deeds only in darkness."
"Keep going," Thorin returned tersely.
They weren't followed. Kili wondered if the thugs' blind devotion to their leader had overtaken any remaining interest in holding onto the captives.
It was too early to hope, though, and even as he ran Kili couldn't keep his mind from straying to darker thoughts.
Azog. An ugly name, and one he'd been hearing too often lately. "One phone call," the fat man had said. "That's all it's gonna take."
It didn't matter that they'd escaped, if someone else was just going to corner them.
Part of Kili wanted to believe that Uncle Thorin had a plan, just as he always had, but so much had been changing and shifting and—well, falling apart lately that he couldn't drum up much hope. Not while they were still in the dark.
Just keep going. Keep going.
"We're almost there," Fili's voice murmured, close by his ear, nearly winded. Fili, sensing his discomfort even now.
Fili didn't need a plan. He just looked out for his brother.
Ordinarily, Kili railed against it, just to prove how grown-up he really was. But now? He kept his eyes fixed on his brother's, two steps before him, and asked for nothing more.
iii.
Freedom at last—or as near to it as Fili had known for what felt like an age. Squinting in the sunlight of early morning—strange to think, that night had passed in squalor and danger—he was momentarily content to breathe in the greasy city air and count his blessings.
There had been this one time, when he was still quite small, and the electric had been shut off in their apartment. Mum hadn't been able to pay the bills, but he hadn't known that until later. Uncle Thorin had come by two days later with the money. Until then, they had lived rather creatively—and mostly in the dark.
Mum had made it a game. She had lit a few candles and bundled her sons in blankets, making shadow puppets on the walls. They'd eaten cold soup out of cans, but Mum said it was part of a test. They were—adventurers, she'd said, barely hesitating. These were the sort of things that were done.
Fili almost smiled at the memory, thinking of how easily she'd convinced them that nothing was wrong. He'd have given anything, this time around in the dark, to reassure Kili that it was all a game.
But Kili wasn't a child anymore, no matter how much he might occasionally like to act like one. He had known fear, hatred, and ugliness—and Fili had been helpless to save him from that.
It's only going to get worse, you know. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. That's what they say.
Now, Kili was slumped against him, hanging on his arm as though he was still a sleepy toddler. Fili cast a critical eye over his brother, assessing the damage the underground louts had done. Nothing more than a few knocks and bumps—aside from looking grimy and pale, Kili was fine. Still, Fili's lips tightened when he saw the bruised shadows on his throat—the fingerprints of the goblin-men's leader. Sending him through a floor wasn't enough…if Fili could have taken a knife to him—
He hacked out a breath, trying to calm himself. Thoughts of aimless violence, however merited, weren't what the company needed right now. They had gravitated towards a part of the city that Gandalf deemed "relatively safe," whatever that meant, and Thorin looked grim as hell, smoking and conversing in a low voice with Dwalin.
The men were huddled in small groups, tending to minor injuries, cursing and complaining and telling tales of their valor in the tunnels.
"'m fine, git off!" Nori protested, as Dori fussed over him, trying to dab at the cut on his head with the corner of a sleeve.
Oin was doing his best to take on his role of medic, but he was obviously exhausted. His brother, bushy brows drawn together, laid a hand on his shoulder. "Sit down," Gloin warned. "They'll live."
"I'm hungry," Ori murmured. "So hungry."
It had been hours since they had eaten. Yet again, they had lost everything—food, clothes, and luggage. Everything but a few weapons.
Fili felt strangely sick.
Gandalf was spinning slowly around, murmuring to himself, and Fili didn't know quite what he was doing until he stopped short, bushy brows drawing together like a thundercloud.
"Thorin!"
Fili stiffened, feeling Kili draw up short beside him. No one—no one spoke to Thorin in that tone and lived.
Thorin's expression, already rather…forbidding…darkened exceedingly. "What?"
Gandalf looked to be in no mood to back down. "Where is our burglar?" he demanded, and his voice shook slightly. From anger or some other emotion, Fili couldn't tell. "Where is Bilbo?"
iv.
Damn the burglar. Thorin had forgotten about him entirely, and only now, at Gandalf's accusing words, did he think to consider him.
The nervous little man was nowhere to be seen.
Guilt swept over him, followed swiftly by anger. His men were safe; he had led them in and out of peril, and if the old man thought his assistance merited the right to take charge, then—
"What of it?" he spat out. "He was your project from the first, not mine. If he is lost, then you can blame your own poor judgment. My men, eldest to youngest, were able to keep up."
There was a brief pause. Gandalf's brow was darkening, but unexpectedly, Nori interjected.
"I sawr 'im." His rakish face was blood-spattered. "Dropped away—managed to get out. In the first rush."
It was easier to believe than to imagine the alternative. Thorin squared his shoulders and turned towards Gandalf, lips curled. "There you have it. Mr. Baggins saw his chance and he took it. We will not be seeing your burglar again."
Silence fell. His nephews looked positively crestfallen, and if the lads hadn't been as bedraggled as they were, Thorin told himself, he would have reprimanded them on the spot.
The men seemed uneasy, unwilling to speak. Gandalf was probably closing in on some pompous one-liner, though, so Thorin broke the stillness himself. "Since we set out, he hasn't been one of us. This isn't his quest. It isn't his mission." He lifted a brow, then a shoulder, hoping the gesture was sufficiently dismissive. "I can hardly blame him for leaving. It's the way of men like him."
"Pardon me," said a voice behind him, slightly breathless, but insistent nonetheless.
Thorin stiffened, turned, and looked down to meet the eyes of Mr. Baggins.
His clothes were torn, lumpy in strange places, as though he were smuggling bricks under his coat. His face was smeared with dirt and blood, and there was something altogether grim about the set of his features that was utterly unlike the diminutive little man who had bobbed on the doorstep some weeks ago.
"Bilbo!" Gandalf nearly shouted, beaming broadly. "You're alive! You—you capital fellow!"
"How did you survive?" Kili demanded eagerly.
"Why did you come back?" growled Dwalin.
Bilbo swallowed hard. "You weren't surreptitious in your leaving," he said, eyebrows shifting. "I managed to pick up the trail, that's all."
"But why?" Thorin asked, finding his voice. He was echoing Dwalin's question, and he nearly never followed anyone, but just now…he wanted—no, needed to know.
In answer, the little man met his gaze more firmly and frankly than he ever had before. "Look, I know you doubt me, I know you always have. And you're right... I do miss home. I often wonder why I went off on this crazy mission that feels like—well, anything but mine. But you know, that's just it. I miss home. And so do you. All of you. It was taken from you. But I will help you take it back if I can."
The men cheered. They were standing in a deserted alley, dirty and still damp, near-friendless. Alone. But somehow, the words of a shy stock-painter, entirely out of his depth, managed to raise their spirits even when Thorin couldn't.
He nodded solemnly—it was the most approval he could give, at the moment, and turned to move outwards, focusing all his efforts on choosing a path and strategy that would keep them away from Azog's seeking eyes.
"I'll get the story out of you eventually, my lad," he heard Gandalf say, almost merrily, clapping Bilbo on the shoulder.
The clamor of voices moved on around him, but Thorin did not look back.
It was taken from you.
That was despair.
But I will help you take it back if I can.
That was something else.
v.
She was everything to this city. Ears, eyes, and most importantly—feelers.
She could sense it in the wind when something was wrong…and nobody noticed faded clothes and pale features, quiet steps flitting to and fro.
Almost nobody.
She'd known him a long time—the man in the gray hat—and she'd seen him again, spoken with him.
You'll know how to find me, he'd said. He'd pressed money into her hand. Gratitude, that's all.
Give and take, they were. He helped her, she helped him. And when the little man with the curly hair and the wide, frightened eyes had burst out of the tunnels, looking frantic and utterly lost, she'd pointed him in the right direction.
"Thank you, thank you," he'd said, fervently. "Uh—who am I to thank?"
"Moth," she'd said, slipping him a smile. "And you needn't mention it to anyone. Except Old Graybeard, I suppose."
"Gandalf?"
"I imagine."
Now, she watched. Just as he had had asked. Every street corner—every alley. Feeling the city. Its cankers and its ills.
A breath flew from her lips suddenly. There. That cruel, smooth man—sharp-toothed and keen-eyed. He and his followers moved more like creatures than men.
Something was wrong.
Moth darted into the shadows.
