Amongst the Four
Soundtrack: Precious Illusions (Alanis Morissette)
you'll rescue me right? in the exact same way they never did..
I'll be happy right? when your healing powers kick in
you'll complete me right? then my life can finally begin
I'll be worthy right? only when you realize the gem I am?
but this won't work now the way it once did
and I won't keep it up even though I would love to
once I know who I'm not then I'll know who I am
but I know I won't keep on playing the victim
these precious illusions in my head did not let me down
when I was defenseless
and parting with them is like parting with invisible best friends
this ring will help me yet as will you knight in shining armor
this pill will help me yet as will these boys gone through like water
but this won't work as well as the way it once did
cuz I want to decide between survival and bliss
and though I know who I'm not I still don't know who I am
but I know I won't keep on playing the victim
these precious illusions in my head did not let me down when I was a kid
and parting with them is like parting with a childhood best friend
I've spent so long firmly looking outside me
I've spent so much time living in survival mode
but this won't work now the way it once did
cuz I want to decide between survival and bliss
though I know who I'm not I still don't know who I am
but I know I won't keep on playing the victim
these precious illusions in my head did not let me down
when I was defenseless
and parting with them is like parting with invisible best friends
these precious illusions in my head did not let me down
when I was a kid
and parting with them is like parting with a childhood best friend
I admit, I *knew* that the four very tall former-Hobbits would literally eat all the food in my house, but I didn't have enough cash on me to take them out, (having given most of it to Gabe to buy hobbit-bait), so I found myself leading them toward my apartment. I was also rather nervous that they would freak out, beat me up, and disappear, but that's another story.
Despite the fact that it was one thirty in the morning, Mrs. Briggs opened the door with a beaming smile. Sometimes I wondered if the woman was even human. "Hello, there, Mr. Leo! You've been gone a few days. And oh-!" her cloudy gaze focussed on my four companions "you've brought friends with you!" She descended upon them in a flurry of candy-floss hair and lavender perfume. "Lovely to see you, dears!" she declared. "Any friend of Mr. Leo's is welcome here!"
Each thanked her profusely, with far better manners than they'd shown *me*. Hmm...perhaps if I'd dressed in drag and acted my age (approximately 34,000) , they would have been nicer to me.
We trekked up the stairs, Peter moaning the entire trip about exhaustion brought on by hunger. Then again, subtlety had never been the hobbits' strong point. I heard Felix whispering to Sam, "I wish we had a landlord like that," and Sam's wholehearted agreement. At least, I was pretty certain it was Sam. I was distinguishing them all by personality, and I half-expected to turn around to see four short creatures with furry feet, grinning at me.
I was surprised, however, by the pang in my heart when I turned to behold four suspicious, hungry, and overly-tall rockers. I missed my friends of so many millennia ago. Some memories just didn't fade with time. Perhaps tonight would be the first step in reclaiming the friends I had lost.
We reached the top of the stairs and I unlocked the door, simultaneously speaking the trigger codes to deactivate my rune spells. As we entered the apartment, I remembered to warn them: "I've got a really, really old friend staying with me. He's a bit weird, though, so just ignore anything he says. He's a bum, mostly, eats my food, makes long distance calls on my phone, and sleeps on my couch."
There was a roar from the kitchen: "Who are you calling a bum, you pointy- eared elvish bastard?!?"
I suppressed a grin at Gimli -rather Gabe's- comment, and the confusion it caused among the four musicians. As one, their eyes flew to my ears, still safely covered with the bandana. I shrugged easily. "Like I said, he's a bit weird."
"Oh, just you wait, Master Elf..." Gabe grumbled as he emerged from the kitchen, to where the five of us now stood in the living room. His hand went for a weapon that he no longer carried, and he swore. Then he stopped dead in his tracks. "Damn," he groaned. "These days I'd be considered a psychotic axe murderer, wouldn't I?"
I snorted at the image. "Probably, " I replied. Then I snorted again as I observed the Hobbits, who all appeared to be measuring sprinting distances to the nearest exits. "Hey Gabe, don't be so inconsiderate. Bring out some food for our guests."
The dwarf-turned-Princeton-professor stared at Felix, Sam, Peter, and Mark like they were laboratory specimens. "That's *them*?" he asked incredulously.
I nodded.
"But they're *tall*!"
"I know. Kind of amusing, isn't it?"
"Ha ha. What do you guys want?"
Gabe headed for the kitchen once more, and I gestured towards Felix and Peter. "Give him a hand, will you?"
They shrugged, and followed Gabe. A moment later: "What's in that bottle?"
"Lake Merlot," I replied. "Bottled in 2032. A good year and very-"
"Is it liquor?" Peter's voice interrupted.
"Yes."
"Then we'll drink it."
They returned a few minutes later, both carrying trays of microwaved vegetarian pizza, french bread which they had slathered with about seven jars of peanut butter and jam, chocolate biscotti (who knows where Gabe had found that) and what *looked* like spam.
"Where did you *buy* that stuff?" I asked.
Gabe shrugged. "Here and there, y'know. The vegetarian pizza is for your delicate elven all-natural sensibilities. The spam is for the normal people."
Never mind. I knew they would eat it. In an ever-changing universe, where an infinite number of possibilities can be dreamed up, a Hobbit's appetite will remain constant. Even if he's been reincarnated as a six-foot plus rocker.
They settled down in the comfortable chairs of my living room, tearing into the food as though they hadn't eaten in a week. I noticed with a sort of absent amusement that Sam had sat close to the plants, as if he longed to discover how I kept exotic flowers blooming in a tiny apartment in New Manhattan. They rustled in the evening breeze from the open window. I sobered though, thinking that this was not the young gardener I remembered, surname be damned. This kid probably had never had dirt under his fingernails in his life.
I let them all get a few gulps of Lake Merlot. This was going to be hard enough to explain as it was. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gabe smirking at me. Stupid dwarf. The least he could do was come over and help me drag the Hobbits from these hormonally-imbalanced humans. But no, he was quite happy to sit back and enjoy the show.
I was really sick of this speech by now, but I decided to start with my standard beginning. "Gentlemen, I represent a consortium, a fellowship if you will, and right now, we need your help." Why, why, did I have to say that? It hadn't worked yet.
They looked at me blankly, and I forged ahead. "I'll ask you to suspend disbelief momentarily, and listen to what I have to say. You four are reborn members of an ancient race known as Hobbits, and you four are here, now, on Earth, to fight a dire threat, one that menaced the world when you were first alive. The threat of Sauron."
Peter glanced at me. "What, you've got another ring you want destroyed?"
I felt my jaw drop. The other rockers choked. Beside me, Gabe goggled. That was too easy. "You remember?" I asked, my voice strained.
He shrugged. "Sure. Why not? Past life experiences and all that crap. People get eaten by chimaera, for Christ's sake. Why shouldn't I be a Hobbit, named-" he squinted his eyes "Peregrin...no, Pippin!" He grinned impishly, and I saw a flash of the Tookishness which had been absent.
The other three stared at him. "Peter," Felix said carefully, as though he feared that his friend would suddenly turn violent. "Are you out of your goddamned mind?"
"The little folk disappeared from this world many centuries ago," I replied.
Felix turned his sceptical gaze towards me. "Great. So you're telling me that we were all little leprechaun folk or something equally insane-"
"Not leprechauns, you moron!" Peter interrupted before I could say anything. "Hobbits, geez, it's completely different. What was it we told Treebeard...'put us in amongst the four, next to Man: Half-grown hobbits, the hole-dwellers'."
Mark looked at him thoughtfully. "We were lost...in Fangorn Forest. We found the Ents there..."
Peter grinned suddenly. "Mark. You're my best friend in the entire world, but 'Merry' is not the name of a straight man."
I watched the blood slowly drain out of his face. "If my parents hadn't been dead for millennia I would kill them for giving me a name like 'Meriadoc'. What were they *thinking*?"
"So how long have we been gone, Legolas?" Peter asked.
"About thirty thousand years," I admitted.
"That's a *long* time to be dead," he whistled.
Gabe brought my attention back to Sam and Felix with a grunt. They were alternating fearful glances at each other, their seemingly insane friends, and the door. I noticed that they were both eyeing their wineglasses with an unhealthy dose of suspicion.
"What did you *put* in this wine?" Sam asked, his eyes narrowed to slits.
Felix stared at his friends, who were currently singing a song about the man in the moon and a cow. "What the *hell* have you done to them?"
Hmm...this was not going well...how to get through to them?
First order of business, make the Brandybuck and the Took stop talking. They were scaring their friends. "Shut up, you two," I said absently. Then, a 'bright' idea occurred to me.
I turned to Felix, and lapsed into the familiar patterns of elvish speech: ""Telin le thaed, periannath"." **
He blinked at me and coughed. "Sorry, I don't speak Welsh."
I sighed in exasperation as Merry and Pippin burst into laughter behind me.
"Sam!" I called. "Do you remember how much you wanted to see the elves?" I reached up and pulled off my bandana, revealing my distinctive ears.
His eyebrows shot up past his hairline, and he reached out and gripped Felix's arm. The two of them tensed, and, had I not been lost in thought, I would have recognized the warning signs. As it was, I was racking my brain for a way to break through their thick little hobbit-heads.
Pippin shouted a warning, just as Gimli leaped from the couch, but Felix and Sam were already moving. I could do nothing as I saw two built rockers bearing down on me, as I had foolishly stood between them and the door.
Oh, *shit*.
There was nothing to do but mentally sigh in resignation as I realized that I hadn't reactivated the wards on the door. And then I was flat on my back, feeling only *slightly* less worse for wear than when I'd been hit by the car.
Faintly, through the ringing in my ears, I heard them race down the stairs as the door swung shut. There was a muffled thump as they collided with an unfortunate tenant of my building.
I sincerely hoped it wasn't Mrs. Briggs.
"Well, two out of four isn't that bad," Gabe drawled.
"Crap. They always did overreact," Merry said, and Pippin agreed.
I peeled myself off the floor, slowly. "No, it's my fault. I looked at them, and I saw three-foot hobbits who might kick me in the shins, not street kids who could knock me over."
"Hey, no short jokes! They've got two extra hobbits in there!"
I nodded wearily at Pippin's indignation, and turned towards the door. "Do either of you have any idea where they might go?"
Merry shrugged. "They might head back for their apartment, I dunno. They've got lots of bolt-holes that we don't know about."
Gabe grinned. "Hmph, thirty millennia later, and the lad's finally learned a bit of caution. Good for him."
"But bad for us," I replied. "How are your tracking skills, old friend? They can't have gotten far."
Gabe raised an eyebrow, but before he could answer Merry interrupted: "What about Aragorn? He's the tracker, isn't he?"
I glanced at him archly. "Aragorn is presently not speaking to me, as he thinks I'm a mental ward escapee."
"Oh. Okay then."
"Come on, we've got hobbits to find." I headed for the door, followed by Gabe, Peter, and Mark.
************
Felix and Sam pounded down the stairs. They had no direction in mind once they made it to the relative safety of the streets below, but they had to get away.
Insanity, Felix decided. The two guys were obviously insane, or this was some kind of sick joke. He regretted leaving Mark and Peter behind, but they were spouting nonsense as well, and Felix wasn't sticking around to find out more.
They had made it down to the third floor landing when they collided with two other people going up. A man and a girl, were Felix's quick observations, the girl leaning heavily on her companion. The man's NYPD uniform only increased Felix's flight instinct, and he grabbed Sam's arm and pulled him bodily down the next staircase.
Then they were free of the place, sprinting out into the darkened streets, where they swiftly disappeared into the gloom.
** "Telin le thaed, periannath." Elvish for: "I'm here to help, Halfling."