Thorin was at a loss. When he got home he was greeted at his car by Bilbo who was strangling an already frayed and torn dish cloth showing he had been doing this worrying action for far too long. He lept out of his car and grabbed his husband's shoulders.

"What happened? Are the boys safe?"

"Yes, yes they but... Thorin, dearest... we have a situation." Bilbo grabbed one of his husband's hands for strength. "You know how Kili was... not doing well this morning and was very sad. Ori informed me that he... he self harms. So Fili went up to talk to him while Ori and I gathered anything sharp and everything seemed alright at first but then we heard shouting and Fili was tossed out of Kili's room."

Thorin frowned deeply trying not to let the worry over take him. Bilbo said they were safe and he trusted Bilbo above all others. "Fili was picking on Kili?"

"No, I don't believe so." Bilbo took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, oh Thorin was not going to like this. "I don't know the reason but... um... when I had last talked to Kili before Fili went to him he was fully dressed and when Fili was tossed out of his room he was shirtless."

"What?" Thorin felt something give under his feet. He must have heard that wrong. Fili... Fili was a good boy, he would never take advantage of someone, ever.

Bilbo reached up and touched Thorin's face with his fingertips, holding his face so they looked into each other's eyes. "The... other day when I picked up Ori we, we passed by a car in the middle of the road with the occupants kissing. It was Fili's car and he was kissing Kili." He held fast when he saw his husband try to make a move, a rage starting to brew behind his blue eyes. "Be. Calm when you talk to Fili, or so help me I'll tan your backside."

Thorin growled. This was... a predicament. He wanted to protect Kili, chase of unwanted affection and beat the face of anyone who made his little boy hurt, but Fili was the one that he raised with Bilbo. Blond curls and happy smiles, mix ups of calling him dad instead of uncle for many years. Both were precious to him and to have them interested in each other... or was it just Fili? Was Fili forcing himself on Kili? But that didn't sound like his boy, not at all! And Kili wasn't the type to- He gave a deep sigh resting his forehead on Bilbo's. A great mix up this was.

"I... will see them both. Then we'll figure out what to do." He said calmly more for Bilbo's sake than his own.

"They are both fragile." Bilbo warned as he started to walk into the house. Bilbo picked up his discarded wash cloth and started to wring it once more. Why, oh why did he stop smoking?

It was the quiet that met Thorin inside the house. A deathly sort that set his body on edge. He looked around the house coming up empty in his quest to find one of the boys until he came to Kili's bedroom door.

With a gentle knock he tested the knob, it clicked open and he slowly stepped in greeted with a rather intimidating glare from Ori. The redhead was stroking Kili's long hair as the brunette laid on his side on the bed, facing away from the door.

"Kili?"

At the sound of his voice the brunette stiffened and then curled up into a tighter ball. He murmured something that only Ori heard. The youth shook his head and shushed him with comforting words that everything would be okay. Ori looked back at Thorin and mouthed the words, "Give us a moment."

Thorin nodded. He ducked out of the room and closed it with a soft sound as if trying to not wake the occupants of the house. He would have to talk to Kili later.

He went on another search for Fili finally coming across him outside in the back of their estate. He was caressing a wrapped package on his lap with one hand, the other held a cigarette to his lips.

"May I sit?"

"If you want to sit with a daft git, go ahead." Fili mumbled taking a drag off of his smoke.

"Thought you quit," Thorin said softly his eyes taking in how Fili's hands trembled.

"I had. Needed one though. I'm sure Bilbo told you about all the crap that happened, at least the best he knows. Hates secrets, that one." Fili rolled the half smoked cigarette between his fingers extinguishing it and tossing it on the ground. "Don't blame him. You broke up a few times because of secrets, stupid ones too... How... how did you managed it?" Blue eyes turned to Thorin's own. Fili was shattered, destroyed inside and barely keeping a hold of the treads at the end of a tethered outside. His bottom lip quivered, a few tears slipping free he asked in a tiny voice. "When Bilbo tried to kill himself... how did you survive that?"

Thorin took the package from Fili and set it down to the side. He pulled his nephew close in a tight hug. He hated this. He never wanted to see the same face he wore when Bilbo had tossed him out of the house those few years ago. He never wanted Fili to feel the pain of loving someone that had hurt themselves, knowing there was something you could have done to prevent it. Even if all odds were against you, you still struggled with hindsight. Still blame yourself completely.

"I had you." He rubbed Fili's back speaking honestly. "You kept me from completely shattering when he was in the hospital. Remember you... coming to the hospital with burnt meals that you cooked for us? Remember how Bilbo smiled each time?"

Fili buried his face into Thorin's neck, feeling small and vulnerable as a child. "Don't know why..."

"Because you were showing him you loved him in your own way. It helped ebb his darkness away. We know that I was no help." He softly admitted hoping this would help his boy understand how he was not alone. "I just kept apologizing for letting Lobelia even come near him... but... what I'm saying Fili, is that... well, you have us, just as much as you had us back then."

"You're rubbish at these talks." Fili pulled back, slumping his shoulders and rubbing at his dry eyes.

Thorin smiled a little. "Bilbo should really be the one to do this, I agree. But as it is I, then I want to ask you what happened, be truthful with me."

Fili ran his hands through his hair. "That's the thing! I don't know what I did wrong or what's going on!" He dug out his pack of cigarettes from his pocket only to have Thorin grab them and crush them preventing him from indulging in the habit. "Really? You had to do that?"

Thorin nodded as if nothing happened at all. "Of course. I told you I would never allow you to smoke again and I mean it."

The blond growled but still understood. Thorin always stood by what he said, no surprise there. So instead he picked back up the package he had earlier and picked at the twine wrapping the brown paper around it.

"I... was trying. I mean, we didn't really get along with each other when we first met. Well, no, we did, but he was pissy and I wasn't going to let some wanker insult you and Bilbo without knowing you first so after that we didn't get along. Then he was smooshing Bilbo's cheeks and being all cute and excited over research for some kid's book he was hoping Ori would make. He was really nice with Bilbo and I thought 'why not try to be friends with him'. He was good, no great, with the stupid idea of starting over and we were at the pub and he could hold is liquore and drink it like a hero from some book and I couldn't stop blushing for some reason.

"Then I saw him listening to a radio play in the pub and he looked so... so..." Fili clawed his hands in frustration in the air.

"Amazing?"

"Beyond amazing!" Fili flipped his hands back down onto the package with a thump. "And the more I got to know him and his weird, old world habits I couldn't stop wanting to reach over and touch his hand but he would wipe his hand and god forbid I actually fall for someone that doesn't have chirophobia! Then I caught Lobelia sniffing around him!"

"She was what?" Thorin bristled.

"I was gone for a moment and came back and she was practically humping his leg. I nearly stabbed her in the street, Kili had to pull me away. I just... I don't know, I just lost it. I didn't want her anywhere near him. I DON'T want anyone else near him and I kissed him and it was perfect and wonderful and all that rainbow shit girls puke up all the time in romance novels. And he was okay with it! I tried to apologize but he was all perfect again with his stupid perfect face." Oh god he felt like he was being whipped around in a tornado, tossed about like a rag doll with no ground under him.

"What happened today?" Thorin rested his hand on Fili's back, encouragingly.

Fili covered his eyes with a hand. He could still feel Kili under him. See that scared face and torn tears. He was certain he was going to drown, drown and suffocate on dry land. The blond pressed his lips together as he gathered the words, trying to push them out of his throat eliciting a small whimper. Then he shoved it out and pushed out all the air in his lungs to give the barest of whispers. "He was sold."

Thorin swallowed hard. "Sold?"

"I...I don't know more than that..." Fili gave a long sniff, running his fingers down the growing whiskers on the sides of his mouth. "I remembered he still had my pocket knife. I panicked, made him take off his shirt to see if he hurt himself. He called himself stupid and ugly and I- how do you tell someone that they were wrong about something they thought to be truth and make them see? I- I-"

"You kissed him again." Thorin sighed. Oh how Fili was more like Thorin than the boy knew.

"When he didn't want to anymore I pulled back! I wouldn't force him Uncle, I would never-"

"I know. I know." Thorin patted his back.

"Then I heard something on his laptop, some conversation between him and someone else and... and it was Kili's voice that said that he had been sold by his mother and Kili threw me out and..." He closed his eyes feeling his heart spill out onto the ground in front of him. His voice cracked. "How do I fix this?"

Silence fell between the two of them. Thorin resting Fili's head on his shoulder as he tried to process everything. He wanted to shout in rage that his ex-wife sold his baby boy for god knows what services. He wanted to hire a killer to hunt her down. He wanted to fly off the handle and beat something up! But... Fili needed him level headed. He needed his dad, not his uncle. So he silently comforted him trying to figure out what would be best for them to do. He settled on the idea that he would have to talk to Kili first before he decided.

Thorin broke the silence indicating the package. "What's that?"

"A present I should have given Kili instead of a kiss. It would... be weird to give it to him but I just want him to smile again."

"Keep a hold of it for now. Let me talk to him and we'll figure out how to fix everything back to the way they should be."

Thorin got up and nudged Fili's hip with his foot, "Get inside and get some biscuits from Bilbo. You know he would have been nervously baking since we started up this talk."

"Bilbo's biscuits do make you right as rain," Fili sighed in defeat. He wanted to be left alone to be miserable but when his uncle opened the back door the sweet smell of the cookies made him want to seek the warmth of Bilbo more than have the cookies.

When Thorin passed by the kitchen Bilbo came out, his dish rag nearly torn in half as a tray of cookies cooled on the counter. "How is it going?"

Thorin smiled and touched Bilbo's face. "We'll get through this."

Bilbo sighed with relief and nodded while he leaned into Thorin's hand. His cheek was caressed for a moment before the older man went up the stairs.

Now, to talk to Kili...

When he got up to the room he knocked softly and pushed the door open. Kili was finally sitting up. He looked horrible worse than Fili.

"I'll be right outside the door." Ori kissed Kili's temple, shuffling out and closing the door. He knew what mood his brother was in and hoped and prayed that if Kili only talked to someone that wasn't Ori that he would be accepted and realize that no matter what he was loved. So he had to take a chance. A gamble that intelled that he sat outside the door, not going in, not allowing anyone else in, and no one out, not until Kili was better.

Thorin sat on the bed next to Kili.

"How are you holding up?"

"How am... I holding up? How am I holding up?!" Kili shouted as he nearly curled in on himself over the ridiculousness of the question. "I just kicked Fili out of my life, how do you think I'm holding up?!"

"You didn't kick him out. He's still here, you could-"

Kili shook his head and rocked. "Nnoo, no, he hates me. How could he not? I'm damaged goods!"

"Kili, calm down. Tell me wh-"

"Tell you what that bitch did to me, idad/i?" Kili nearly spat, his mind a flurry of pain and anguish. He hated this whole situation! He rather be crammed in his stupid little ransacked apartment in Bellingham, Washington. He wanted to be home in all the pine trees where there were no sheep to randomly walk by and kill him! Where there were no faces he can't remember but feel strongly for. Back to that little lonely apartment where there was no magnificent blond who tried to care for him and make him smile and feel uncomfortably warm.

"She fucking sold me! She took me by the hand and threw me on the lap of some lady I had never seen before. The lady took me to some man and I don't remember anything after that besides waking up with loose clothes and feeling dirty!" He shot up to his feet when he felt a hand on his back. He started to pace. "And apparently, and this is the beautiful part, she wasn't paid ENOUGH! So she stalked me and my new 'family' until she could snatch me away like the fucking psycho she was! You know what happened next?!"

Thorin tightened his jaw. He felt sick. He should have tried harder to find her, he should have pushed himself farther to find Kili.

"I asked you a question!" Kili hated repeating himself, yes, but at the moment he was so emotionally compromised that he couldn't keep himself in check.

"Did... she try to sell you again?" Thorin felt bile rise up his throat when he asked this.

Kili gave out a bitter laugh. "Oh, oh that would have been rich. No. Oooh no, no, NO!" He felt unsteady on his feet at the memory of falling, eyes vacant. The thud and crunch. Weeks hooked up to tubes and needles. "She threw me over a the railing of a sky walk when they came for us. Just... tipped me over to the cement below nothing to cushion the fall. Called me what I am when she did."

"What..." Thorin ran his hands over his face, his whole body trembling with shock and rage. "...did she call you?"

"Stupid whore."

Suddenly Thorin was to his feet. He grabbed Kili by the upper arms. "Look at me."

When he didn't Thorin shook him, a painful grip tightening on Kili. "You look at me, boy!"

Frightened, unsure, eyes looked to his icy gaze. "She was the stupid whore, not you. You will never be that. You understand me? You are nothing like her!"

"Then why-!"

Thorin shook him again. "Get those notions out of your head! I have been trying to find you ever since she took you away from me and I'm sorry I did not try harder." His voice softened, his grip loosening. "I knew that terrible creature, I had been married to her and I should have protected you. But know this, no matter what she did to you, no matter what others forced upon you, you're still my boy and no matter what happens I'll love you."

Kili's chin quivered, hot tears spilling down his already stained cheeks.

"D-daddy." He let out a heart wrenching sob, broken and battered showing all his raw insides. He clutched at the front of Thorin's suit crumpling up the finely pressed material as his tears and snot stained the cloth.

Thorin held onto Kili kissing his brow and temple as if he was a tiny child only five years of age. He picked up the youth when Kili could no longer stand and carried him over to the bed. Moving back the duvet and sheets, he toed off his shoes and rested with Kili in the bed. The youth cried himself asleep and hours afterwards Thorin stayed awake, tucked under duvet and his slumbering son, stroking chocolate brown hair until, finally, he fell asleep himself.