Chapter Four
Kili didn't want to let Fili go after he had finally got him back. To be fair, though, Fili didn't seem ready to let Kili go either. Mr. Bilbo and Fili's Uncle Thorin, who was the big, scary-looking man that Fili had come in with, exchanged a bemused before Mr. Bilbo had asked Kili to bring Fili up to the apartment while he and Fili's uncle talked.
Kili grinned before dragging Fili outside and then up to their apartment, making sure to keep a firm grasp on his hand the entire way.
He didn't care much for any of his toys or anything in his room now that he had Fili back, so once they had reached his room, he had just turned to look at his friend and smile in happiness, clinging to Fili's hand like he was afraid he'd disappear.
Fili smiled back at him. "So Mr. Bilbo seems nice." It sounded like a statement, but Kili could read the question in Fili's eyes, the one he always got whenever he had left Kili alone with other people. The one that asked, Are you okay?
Kili nodded. "I like him a lot, but I really missed you."
"He's taking good care of you though?" The question wasn't even disguised this time.
He rolled his eyes and pulled Fili over to his bed, dragging him down and curling up with him like they used to do in their room at the home. "You always worry too much," he accused, tucking his head under Fili's chin.
Fili chuckled and wrapped his arms around him. "Well, you're my little brother. I'm supposed to look after you."
A warm feeling spread through Kili at that. Not only did he have an almost-father, but he got his brother back to. How lucky could he get?
He frowned, though, as he remembered how scary Fili's uncle looked. "What about you?" he asked, almost afraid of the answer. "How's your uncle?"
"Uncle Thorin is great!" Fili gushed. "I mean, he works a lot, but that's okay because I usually stay with Uncle Balin then and he's really nice too. And he's adopting me, just like I told you he would. Only, he said it would take a little while for everything to be final."
"What does he do? Who's Uncle Balin? And why did he not find you sooner?" Kili was especially interested in this last question. He took it as a personal affront that Fili's uncle hadn't found him sooner. Why would anyone take so long to look for someone as great as Fili?
"He's a detective," Fili said proudly. "And Uncle Balin lives in the apartment across the hall from us, but he's not really my uncle. His brother is Uncle Thorin's partner at work. And he didn't know about me."
Kili scrunched up his face and looked up at Fili in confusion. "Didn't know about you? How could he not know about you?"
Fili shrugged. "He and my grandfather had a fight about something, and my grandfather disowned him. Told my mom that she wasn't allowed to talk to him. She tried anyway, but Uncle Thorin told her to not make trouble for herself. She never got a chance to tell him about me."
"Disowned?"
"It means he told Uncle Thorin that he wasn't his son anymore," he explained.
Kili looked at him in horror. "People do that?" What if Mr. Bilbo did that with him? "What'd they fight about that was so bad?" he asked in a low voice.
"Uncle Thorin being gay," he answered matter-of-factly.
"Gay? What's that?"
"It means that Uncle Thorin likes to kiss boys instead of girls," Fili told him.
"Oh. Like Ori's dads," he said thoughtfully. "And people don't like that?"
"Some people don't," he replied with a shrug. "My grandfather sure didn't. Who's Ori?"
"He's my friend," Kili said proudly. "His grandpa works at the bakery with Mr. Bilbo. Mr. Bilbo is friends with his dads."
"So Mr. Bilbo definitely won't have a problem with Uncle Thorin being gay," Fili stated with satisfaction. That was good, Kili decided. Not just because he'd hate for Mr. Bilbo to not like Fili's uncle, but also that meant that Mr. Bilbo would still like him if he decided he wanted to kiss boys instead of girls (not that he wanted to kiss anybody because ew, even if a small part of him wondered why people seemed to like it so much). "And you madea new friend?"
"I still like you best!" Kili was quick to assure, sitting up to look at Fili properly, begging him with his eyes to believe him. "I promise I wasn't trying to replace you!"
Fili just rolled his eyes and pulled Kili back down, letting out a small "oof" as Kili landed half on top of him. "I'm not worried that, Kee," he said in exasperation. "I'm happy you have other friends."
"Friend," he corrected.
"What?"
"I only have the one other friend," Kili confessed. "Nobody at school really wants to be my friend. They think I'm annoying. But they don't bully me!"
"They're stupid then," Fili grumbled.
"I don't need anyone else," he responded brightly. "I got you as a brother, I got Ori as a best friend, and I got Mr. Bilbo as something like a dad."
"Something like a dad? Does that mean he's adopting you?"
"He and Stephanie sat down with me when she came to visit here for the first time after I moved in," he said with a shrug. "They told me they'd start the paperwork if I was okay with it. But they said what your uncle said. That it'd take time to go through."
"So Mr. Bilbo is basically your dad, then? Not just 'something like' it," Fili stated like it was obvious.
"People assume he is," he all but whispered. "Mr. Dori and my teachers always call him my father and call me his son. I don't tell them any different. I..." he trailed off, picking absently at a thread on the blanket beneath them. Saying he wanted it to be true sounded pathetic.
"You could probably call him 'Dad,' you know?" Fili suggested casually.
Kili bit his lip. "He didn't tell me I could, though," he said uncertainly.
"He probably doesn't want to just ask you to," the older boy explained. "Doesn't want you to feel like he's trying to replace your real dad. That's what Uncle Thorin told me when he told me he was adopting me. Told me I could call him whatever I wanted because he knew I already had a dad and he didn't want to replace him."
"Mr. Bilbo is nothing like my real dad," Kili said with heat, twisting around to glare at Fili for even suggesting that.
"I know," he said gently. "Your real dad sucked."
Kili frowned. "I never told you that."
"You never had to," Fili said with a sad smile. Kili looked down, unable to meet Fili's eyes. He didn't like people knowing about his parents. The ones who did either pitied him (mostly adults) or thought he deserved it (mostly other boys at the home). "Hey," he said, dunking his head so Kili had to look at him. "He doesn't matter anymore. He's never going to hurt you again. Besides, you got a new dad. A much better dad."
Kili thought that over before smiling shyly. "You really think Mr. Bilbo won't mind if I call him Dad?"
"Never hurts to ask, right?" Fili grinned, laying back down on the bed and pulling Kili down with him. "Now, tell me everything I missed."
That was all the go-ahead Kili needed to tell Fili everything that had happened to him since leaving the home. He told him how Mr. Dori would always give him and Ori a treat for finishing their homework. He told him how his teacher had complimented him last week for being able to spell "responsibility." He told him how he had accidentally made Louisa, a girl in his class, cry after she had asked him if he would be her boyfriend and he had said no.
Fili had roared with laughter at that last one.
"I didn't even know her name until she passed me the note," Kili grumbled, pouting as Fili laughed some more.
"How'd you not know her name if she's in your class?" Fili asked.
"Well, she had never talked to me before," he pointed out petulantly. "Why should I have learned her name?"
"Fair enough," he chuckled. "But—"
Whatever Fili was about to say was interrupted by a knock on the door. Mr Bilbo poked his head in and blinked at them. Probably was surprised at them lying on the bed and just talking instead of playing or anything. He quickly shook himself out of his surprise though. "Sorry, boys, but your uncle says you need to be going, Fili."
"No!" Kili cried, throwing his arms around Fili.
"I'll come back as soon as I can," Fili promised. "And I can call you and talk to you tomorrow!"
"I've already given your Uncle Thorin our phone number," Mr. Bilbo assured as Kili turned hopeful eyes to him. "Now come on. Time to go, Fili."
Kili walked his friend to the living room where his uncle was waiting, clinging to his hand the entire way. He pulled him into a desperate hug before he left, holding on as tight as he could.
"I'll be back," Fili whispered. Kili just nodded.
Fili's uncle gave him a small smile before nodding to Mr. Bilbo. "We'll be in touch," he said, his voice deeper than any Kili had ever heard. He liked it, he decided.
Mr. Bilbo turned to him and smiled once they had left. "Dinner?"
Kili nodded, settling on the couch to watch television while Mr. Bilbo began cooking in the kitchen. He couldn't really concentrate on what was happening on the screen though. He couldn't get Fili's words out of his head.
Finally, he got up and walked to the door of the kitchen. Mr. Bilbo was in there, stirring something vigorously in a frying pan and talking to himself.
"—will not find that man attractive, Bilbo Baggins. You will not make things awkward with him," he was mumbling to himself. "I don't care how blue his eyes are. You will restrain yourself for—"
"Mr. Bilbo?" he interrupted, causing the man to start and nearly upend the pan.
"Oh," he cried in alarm as the frying pan teetered but managed to stabalize it before turning to Kili with a smile. "Did you need something, Kili?"
"I was just wondering," he said in a small voice, looking down at his shoes. "Well, you're trying to adopt me right?"
"Yes," Mr. Bilbo answered slowly, turning a knob on the stove and moving closer to Kili before kneeling in front of him. "But only if you want me to."
Kili nodded, looking up hopefully. "Well, I was just wondering if I could maybe... call you Dad?"
Bilbo swallowed thickly. "Oh, Kili," he said in an oddly choked voice. "I'd like that very much. But only if you want to."
"I do!" he replied earnestly. "I mean, I really want you to be my dad. If that's okay?"
"Kili," he whispered before wrapping him tightly in his arms. "Of course it's okay."
Kili felt something wet hit his ear and he pulled back with a frown. "Why are you crying, Dad?"
His father chuckled through his tears. "Kili. Son," he said with a smile. "I'm just so happy."
Kili grinned before hugging his father again, convinced this was probably the best day ever. It only got better when whatever Bilbo had been cooking ended up burning and they ordered pizza instead.
Life was pretty much perfect after that, Kili decided. Fili, as it turned out, lived in Jackson Heights, which wasn't too far from Bilbo's bakery in Sunnyside. It had apparently taken some pleading by Fili, and some assurances from Bilbo that it was no imposition, but Thorin had given his permission for Fili to visit Kili after school, as long as he got all his homework done and was home in time for dinner (something Kili was in awe over, because Thorin let Fili ride take the bus by himself, making Fili basically the coolest person ever).
Needless to say, Fili was over as much as possible after that.
They always did their homework as fast as possible (Kili usually finished first and it was always very hard to keep quiet and still waiting for Fili to finish). Mr. Dori still gave sweets for finishing. Ori had looked a little down the first time Fili came straight from school, though, which make Kili feel kinda bad for almost forgetting his friend so he invited him along to play with Fili and him. He still felt kinda bad because he and Fili sometimes got a little too caught up in talking to each other and he didn't want Ori to feel left out, but the little redhead didn't seem to mind too much.
He had asked him about it one day while they were waiting for Fili to show up at the bakery.
"You never leave me behind," Ori had said with a shrug. "I know you both are my friends. You're just something more with each other."
Kili accepted that with a shrug and tried not to feel bad about things anymore. He also made sure to never leave Ori behind though.
It was a Tuesday night when he was sitting on the couch after dinner (reading a book about the Egyptians pyramids and wondering whether or not he wanted to become an archeaologist) when the phone rang. He quickly abandoned the book and scrambled to pick it up.
"Hello?" he said in the receiver, hoping it was Fili. He knew he had just seen the other boy earlier that day, but that didn't mean he didn't want to talk to him again.
"Hello, Kili, is your father there?" Thorin's deep voice answered. Kili was only slightly disappointed. Mostly, he was curious over why Fili's uncle was calling his dad.
"Yeah, hold on," he said before covering the phone receiver. "Dad?" he called, the novelty of using that word still making something warm fill his chest. "Mr. Thorin wants to talk to you on the phone!"
A loud crash came from the kitchen where Bilbo was cleaning and he frowned. His dad came out looking a little frazzled, but smiled at Kili as he took the phone from him.
"Hello?" Kili kept a careful eye on his dad as he listened to whatever Fili's uncle was saying, wondering what was making him act so weird. "It's been no trouble," Bilbo responded to whatever Thorin had said. Probably something about keeping an eye on Fili the past few weeks. "I'm pretty sure Kili would have thrown a fit if it were any other way."
Kili scowled at that. He would not have done something so childish as having a temper tandrum. He really didn't know what he would have done, though. He wouldn't have wanted to make Bilbo mad at him, but he would've wanted to spend time with Fili. Thankfully, he didn't have to choose.
"If you're sure it wouldn't be an imposition," Bilbo was saying into the phone now. He smiled as Thorin obviously assured him it wasn't. "Well, we'll be there then." There was another pause before his dad said, "Goodbye," and hung up the phone.
"What'd he say?" Kili asked immediately.
"He invited us to dinner at their apartment this Friday night," his dad answered, looking a bit preoccupied at something else.
Kili tilted his head and looked up at him. "Dad, you like Mr. Thorin, right?"
Bilbo's eyes widened. "Of course, I do! Whatever made you think I didn't?"
"Well," he said with a furrowed brow. "You just kinda look funny whenever you talk to him."
"I like him just fine," he sighed. "I'm just silly sometimes. You'll understand when you're older."
He scowled. "I hate it when grown ups say that."
His dad laughed at that. "I remember hating it to, but some things just can't be explained. You just have to experience them."
"If you say so," he grumbled before going back to the couch and his book. Maybe he'd ask Fili what he thought Bilbo meant and if his uncle ever acted weird when talking to Bilbo. If they both acted weird, maybe they just needed a little help to work whatever the problem was out.
Satisfied with that thought, he went back to reading about pyramids.
Tbc...
This story is getting out of hand but I love it. I hope I'm not disappointing anyone with the slow build! Please let me know what you think by reviewing!