Chapter Text
The soft sound of crying disturbed Thorin’s planning. He glanced up from the iron trivet he was sketching to see Bilbo passed out in his arm chair by the fire, exhausted by his grief at last. He paused to listen, and sure enough, there it was again, a quiet sob over the crackling of the fire and his husband’s soft snores.
He sighed and put down his charcoal. He’d hoped their newest addition might sleep a little longer. Mahal knew he needed it, after what he’d been through these past several days, and the funeral that morning had reopened wounds that had just begun to scab over.
Thorin eased the bedroom door open, and in the spill of light from the hallway, he saw little Frodo, curled up in a ball in the very center of the bed, the covers pulled up to his ears.
“What’s wrong, Khajimel?” he asked gently, painfully aware that everything was wrong, and very little of it could be fixed by the likes of him.
“Get up here by me, Uncle Thorin,” the little hobbit squeaked urgently, “before the water sweeps you away too!”
Thorin tried a reassuring smile. “There’s no water in here, Frodo,” he soothed. “Just dry boards and a worn old rug. Just look, and you’ll see.”
But as soon as Thorin sat on the edge of the bed, Frodo jerked the covers over his head and refused to look. Then, afraid of the darkness under the quilt, he uncovered his eyes again. They darted around to all the shadowy corners of the room, everywhere but the floor, and Thorin suspected it was time for the same talk he’d had with Fili and Kili when they were about Frodo’s age. Water under the bed was a great deal like the monsters his nephews had conjured after lights out.
“Are you afraid of the dark, Khajimel?”
“I’m not!”
Thorin’s eyebrows went up at Frodo’s vehemence, but he nodded. Just like Fili and Kili. “Okay then. Nothing to worry about.” He got up again, and ignoring Frodo’s little squeak of protest, he shut the door to the hall, returning the bedroom to full darkness. With his dwarven eyesight, Thorin had no problem seeing, but little Frodo was all but blind.
“Open the door again,” Frodo moaned. “Open it before the water comes back! We’ll drown in the deep dark!”
Thorin took his face in his big, callused hands. “Khajimel,” he said firmly, “calm down. I am here. I would not let you drown.” He waited for Frodo’s breathing to even out, and then the little fauntling was curled against his chest, clinging to the collar of his dressing gown. “Did you know that most dwarves live out their lives in the deep dark of the mountains’ roots?”
“Not a dwarf,” Frodo mumbled into his chest.
“True… but you could pretend.”
Frodo sat up and peered at him skeptically, eyes wide and desperate for any scrap of light. He frowned. “What for?”
“So you wouldn’t have to be afraid, Khajimel.”
“Well, I’m no good at pretend.” Frodo ducked back down to hide his face once more.
“Oh, it’s easy to pretend to be a dwarf,” Thorin said reasonably. “It starts simply enough: are you afraid of your room in the daylight?”
Frodo snorted. “Course not.”
“See? Easy enough to start. You’re not afraid of the dark, and you’re not afraid of your room. You’re half a dwarf already, Khajimel.”
Frodo giggled a little hysterically, but some of the tension left his shoulders. “What’s next?”
“Well, this part is a little trickier. You have to think like a dwarf, and that takes a little practice.” Frodo looked a little put out at that pronouncement, but Thorin caught his chin to regain his focus. “People aren’t really afraid of the dark, you know. They’re afraid of what might be in it — like the water that frightened you just now. But dwarves know something very important: there’s nothing there in the dark that wasn’t there in the light. Does that make sense?”
Frodo shook his head.
“Let me show you.” He got up again and opened the door. “What are you sitting on?”
“The bed,” Frodo said flatly, clearly under the impression that Thorin had lost his mind.
He shut the door. “Now what are you sitting on?”
Frodo giggled again. “Still the bed, of course.”
“Are you sure it’s still the same bed?” Thorin asked. “It’s not made of stone or thistledown or cheese?”
Frodo threw a pillow at him, catching onto the point just a bit quicker than Thorin’s other nephews had. He was a bright little thing. “Still the same, silly!” he squawked. “Blankets and pillows and wood!”
“If you’re sure…” Thorin opened the door again. “How about that nightstand? What’s on it?”
“A candlestick and a doily.”
Thorin shut the door. “Now what’s on it?”
“Still the candlestick and the doily!”
“No turnips?”
“No!”
“No stinky shoes?”
“No!” Frodo laughed, hopping out of bed.
Thorin opened the door. “What are you standing on?”
“The rug!”
Thorin shut the door.
“Still the rug!” Frodo singsonged before Thorin could ask.
“Are you sure it’s not an apple tree?”
“Uncle Thorin!”
He opened the door. “Just checking.”
They continued the game, until Frodo had explored most of the room in the dark. “Dwarves are silly,” he declared at last, after assuring Thorin that there really, truly was no oliphaunt behind the dressing table.
“Most certainly,” Thorin agreed, scooping Frodo into his arms. “But the important part is, you now know how to think like a dwarf. You’re a natural. So, when I shut the door again,” he did so, “and I ask you if there’s any deep water in here now, what are you going to say?”
“Of course not?” Frodo said tentatively.
“You don’t sound very sure of that, little dwarf. Dwarves must be sure.” He opened the door once more. “Is there any deep water in here?”
Frodo looked around. “No.”
Thorin shut the door. “How about now?”
“Still no water!”
“Not even if I put you down on that apple tree where the floor used to be?”
“It’s still the floor, Uncle Thorin!” Frodo squealed as Thorin plopped him down in the middle of the rug in the dark.
“Well, Khajimel?”
There was a pause, and then Frodo leapt to his feet. “No water! Ha! There’s no water!”
Thorin laughed to see his little nephew jumping and singing, that awful weight of dread lifted off his shoulders. Frodo seized his hands and led Thorin in a galloping jig around the rug.
The door opened suddenly behind them, and they both whirled to see Bilbo standing in the doorway, bleary-eyed and confused. “What’s going on in here?” he asked sleepily.
“I’ll tell you about it in the morning,” Thorin said, giving his husband a quick peck on the forehead. “I’m sorry we woke you, Ghivashel. Why don’t you head back to bed? I’ll be in shortly, once I get Frodo settled.”
Bilbo hummed sleepily. “Night, Frodo, my lad,” he murmured, ruffling his hair. His voice was suspiciously thick again, and Thorin suspected tears would soon follow. Thorin squeezed his husband’s shoulder, and Bilbo patted his hand gratefully, then left, closing the door behind him.
Thorin turned to see Frodo already in bed. Thorin joined his nephew, perching on the edge of the mattress once more. “Uncle Thorin,” he said tentatively, “do you think Uncle Bilbo might need dwarf lessons too?”
“What makes you think that, Khajimel?”
Frodo wrinkled his nose in thought. “Well, I thought, since being a dwarf made me not so scared of the dark, maybe it might help Uncle Bilbo not be so scared of… of… well, whatever it is he’s so scared of. I hear him crying sometimes, late at night, or when he thinks he’s alone…” The fauntling’s eyes went wide. “Do you think that’s what he’s scared of, Uncle Thorin?”
“What, Khajimel?”
“Being alone? My mum and dad are gone now, and maybe Uncle Bilbo is scared of being alone, like I was scared of the dark water. But it’s not really real, because I’m a dwarf, and maybe Uncle Bilbo should be a dwarf too, so he knows being alone isn’t really real either. Oh, Uncle Thorin! I’ll bet Uncle Bilbo is great at being a dwarf! He tells such good stories, he’s got to be the best pretender in all of Arda! He—”
“Peace, Khajimel,” Thorin laughed, catching hold of the excited little hobbit before he could topple off the edge of the bed in his haste to start pretending. “That is a great deal of thinking for the wee hours of the morning.”
Frodo bounced in agitation, little arms waving wildly to underscore his point. “We’ve got to help him, Uncle Thorin! It’s so scary being just a little hobbit sometimes! And I know Uncle Bilbo would be a good pretend dwarf! I just know it!”
“Easy, Frodo,” Thorin soothed, worried all the commotion would disturb Bilbo again. “You’re absolutely right: your Uncle Bilbo is the bravest dwarf I’ve ever met.”
“Pretend dwarf,” Frodo corrected, giving Thorin a look like he thought his uncle was not quite keeping up.
“Pretend dwarf,” Thorin amended. “But if you’d seen your uncle, little letter opener in hand, standing alone against Azog the Defiler and a whole pack of Gundabad wargs and their foul riders… Well, Khajimel, you might have mistaken him for a real dwarf, too.”
Frodo’s eyes were wide and round as tea saucers. “You mean out on the Burning Cliffs? Outside Goblin Town?”
Thorin chuckled at the awe in his nephew’s voice. The lad knew the stories almost as well as Thorin did by now. “I do.”
Frodo frowned, nose wrinkling in thought once more. At last, he shook his head. “He must have forgotten, Uncle Thorin. We have to —”
Thorin caught the excitable little fauntling again. “We will, Khajimel,” he assured him. “First thing in the morning.” He stood and pulled the tangle of quilt over Frodo’s legs.
“But—” Frodo tried to shove the quilt off, but Thorin caught it and tucked it up under his chin, pushing him gently but firmly back into the mountain of pillows behind him.
“No buts,” Thorin rumbled. He gave Frodo a very serious look, and the fauntling stopped his squirming. “A case as serious as this one calls for desperate measures. That means a good night’s sleep and a trip down to the market before anything else.”