#snackfic

Fíli watched with mild curiosity, crumpling up his napkin and tossing it on his empty plate. The café was deserted apart from himself and the waitress and she was busy aggressively typing on her phone behind the counter. His coffee was full – two cream, two sugar – and his appointment was delayed so he indulged himself in the show transpiring across the street.

Leaning back in his chair, Fíli made himself comfortable as he waited for the inevitable; legs stretched under the table and crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his middle. Crescent-moon smirk spreading like a water stain as the scene unfolded.

The manager removed a piece the man had asked to see, placing it with absurd gentleness on the surface of the display case between them. The man nodded at whatever the manager was explaining, maintaining an air of sharp interest as the manager gestured at the piece’s various elements.

Even from where he sat, Fíli could see the million-dollar sparkle when the light struck it just right.

It was over exactly two minutes later; a handshake, a tilt of the head and a smile that promised a future transaction. The manager looked immensely pleased.

Fíli felt the smallest twinge of pity for him.  

A glance at his watch told Fíli it was three-fifty-two. The bell above the door chimed when a new patron entered, and the waitress sprung into action as if she’d been caught by a parent watching porn. Maybe she had been, Fíli didn’t know. But she was altogether ignored as her new client made a beeline for the chair opposite Fíli, pulling it out with a scrape and a quick, offhand order for an espresso – short – flung into the air with expectation.

           “Twenty-two minutes.” Fíli said, eyebrow raised in bemusement.

Hands flew up in submission, “I know, I know, I’m sorry—”

           “You’re not sorry, you’re late.”

           “I was looking for investors.”

Fíli snorted and turned his gaze to the jewelry store. “You were doing recon.”

           “I.” There was a pause and then a reluctant, “I may have been.”

Fíli’s mouth twisted into the faintest shadow of a grin. He didn’t want to encourage his uncle’s behavior, but he could hardly help it when Thorin was being amusing.

           “Is that why you chose this place?” Fíli waved to encompass the whole of the café.

           “It’s a nice place.”

           “It isn’t bad. Good coffee.”

Thorin melted into his chair, a casual arm thrown over the backrest, ankle over his knee. “Ah, you haven’t tried the pie.”

           “You didn’t bring me here for pie.” Fíli said flatly.

Thorin didn’t falter, simply kept smiling as if they’d been chatting about wives they didn’t have driving them crazy with dinner plans or curtains or whatever wives drove their husbands crazy with (Fíli wasn’t familiar). “I didn’t bring you here for pie.” He acquiesced with a flourish of his hand.

           “I doubt you brought me here to rob a jewelry store either,” Fíli heaved a breath, sat up straight and clapped and then settled forward with his hands folded on the table in front of him. “So. Why am I here?”

They both leaned away from the table when the waitress delivered Thorin’s espresso, dismissing her with a charming wink (Fíli) and a provocative smile (Thorin). She blushed and excused herself to return behind the counter.

Thorin leaned back in, elbow on the table, encouraging Fíli to follow suit with a subtle nod. “I have a job.”

           “Right.” Fíli said because it was obvious from the subtext of the collect call he’d received at four in the morning that Thorin had a job.

           “A big one.”

           “Okay.”

           “And I need you with me on this.”

Fíli uncurled himself and sunk back into his chair, taking a moment to sip his coffee while he considered Thorin’s request. Or, what would be considered a request by Thorin-standards. It sounded more like a demand, but Fíli knew he wasn’t obligated to do anything he didn’t feel completely certain was a good idea. The problem? Thorin’s ideas were never good but they always, somehow, someway, worked out for the richer.

He took a slow breath and then another before he decided to ask, “What did you have in mind?”

The expression that seeped over Thorin’s face was enough to make Fíli think about calling his mother because he may never see her again.

Beneath the dark, overcast sky, the house look transplanted from Bram Stoker’s Transylvania; like something out of a nightmare, left to rot with its secrets. The place was being cared for in the most casual sense: If a pipe burst, it was mended; if a tree branch shattered a window, it was replaced. Otherwise, the grounds were left untouched for what seemed to be more decades than Fíli had been alive. 

            “Jesus, we should’ve called a priest.” Kíli said, sounding very uncertain about being there. He sunk back into the passanger seat after leaning across Fíli for another moment, shaking his head in disbelief. “Are you sure this is the address?”

Fíli spared his brother a look that told Kíli exactly how Fíli felt about Kíli’s question. 

            “Of course it is,” Kíli sighed through his nose, “Because aren’t we lucky enough to inherit a fucking haunted house.” 

            “Manor.” Fíli corrected, distracted by the eerie façade. 

There were black stains licked up around some of the windows and into the eaves; dead, brown vines spilling over either side of the balcony above that rustled like dead hair in the wind, framing the grand oak doors on either side as curtains. No light came from inside, natural or otherwise, as if Fíli was peering into the void of Hell itself. 

A shudder overcame him from the toes up, clutching in his gut as he took it all in. The drive through town was enough to give him the creeps but now, being here, he felt ill. A squirmy, cold-wet feeling clawed up his spine the way it would when he’d been a child and saw a shadow flicker the wrong way in his room at night. 

Fíli swallowed the dread that thickened in his throat like sludge. 

            “I think we should reconsider the inn in town.” Kíli uttered, clearly faring no better, his brow clammy and the whites of his eyes too big. 

Fíli grabbed his brother’s hand and took a breath, clenching once to reassure Kíli that they were together, that nothing could hurt them. Besides, “It’s just a house, Kee.”

Kíli snatched Fíli’s gaze and held it fiercely, “Say it like you mean it and I’ll believe you.”

Unable to give the words shape on his tongue, Fíli simply clutched Kíli’s hand harder. 

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