Stay Awhile

Peter’s unrequited love is his burden to bare, and his alone.

                                                           - One of the very first things Bilbo Baggins learns is how to hide her soul mark. Her mother makes her a soft covering that fits snuggly over her wrist, and her father commissions a multitude of lovely bangles and bracelets. Together, they cover all traces of blue ink on her skin. Her parents tell her over and over again that soul marks are private things, to be secreted away and only ever shown to a single person. They tell her that she must never, under any circumstance, uncover her mark in public, or even speak of it, no matter what the other fauntlings do. She is a Baggins of Bag End, and Bagginses never do anything unexpected or improper, which bearing your soul mark most assuredly is. (They make no mention of the fact that she is also a Took, and that Tooks revel in doing things that are unexpected and adventurous.) She doesn’t understand for a very long time just how unusual her situation really is. After all, it’s rare enough for Hobbits to find a soulmate in a Man or an Elf, let alone a Dwarf. Personally, Bilbo thinks that Kìli is a perfectly fine name, even if she doesn’t know what to make of the strange rune that sits bellow it.                                                            - As a faunt, there is nothing Bilbo enjoys more than a good adventure. She runs off in search of Elves and Dwarves and Men in the Old Forest, and while she never does find any Elves or Dwarves she does find quite a few interesting Men. They introduce themselves as Rangers, and indulge her boundless curiosity as she pesters them about the places they’ve been and the people they’ve seen and the villains they’ve fought. When she isn’t with her Ranger fiends, she is dirtying her skirts by roughhousing with the other boy-hobbits or climbing trees and getting twigs and leaves in her curls. Her father complains of mud on the pantry floor of gossiping neighbors, but her mother only ever laughs and mends her skirts with deft hands, adding colorful designs and small embroidered Elves to cover the tears and the stains. The residents of Hobbiton consider her a curiosity at best and a wild child at worst, for her notions of adventures and unladylike pursuits. Their opinion of her only worsens as she ages and refuses to let go of her Ranger friends and outgrow her boisterous nature, as all Tweens must. It isn’t until after the Fell Winter that they get their wish. The price is her father’s life.                                                                  - Bilbo doesn’t have the energy to think of adventures or soulmates after the Fell Winter, not with the many burials and funerals. Her father is buried hastily, with so many others that Bilbo stops looking at faces. She doesn’t want to know which of her neighbors is being buried alongside her father, which of her friends she won’t be able to see come spring. There is too much to do to give any time to anything but survival. Her mother especially isn’t the same afterwards. There is a piece of Belladonna that lies in the ground alongside her husband, and nothing Bilbo does could ever bring it back. Belladonna fades a little more each day, uncaring in the face of a world without her soulmate. She persist longer than most would expect, and does so for her daughter. Belladonna Baggins, née Took dies eight years after her husband, and Bilbo is alone.                                                            - Bilbo is twenty nine when her mother dies, leaving her the Master of Bag End. She isn’t yet an adult, still four years away from her majority, but she manages well enough amidst the mutters of her neighbours. The Sackville-Bagginses especially would like nothing better than to have her declared unable to properly care for the large Smial her parents left her, leaving them to inherit it. That’s enough incentive to make Bilbo get up in the mornings and do what must be done, at least the beginning. Eventually, she finds other things worth living for, like her books and her father’s maps and her mother’s embroidery and her favorite cousins. She wraps her Baggins propriety around herself like a shroud, shielding herself from the snide remarks and the rumours. She distances herself from her Took cousins, learns to content herself with walking holidays instead of the adventures she used to dream of. Sometimes, in the privacy of her bedroom, she removes her bangles and bracelets and unfastens her coverings to trace her soulmark with her fingertips, and wonders. The marks are still as vivid as ever, the runes as foreign to her as the first time she saw them. She wonders what her bondmate is like, what they look like and what they are doing. She wonders what they would think of her, and she wonders what it is about her that makes her compatible with a Dwarf.  A part of her wants nothing more than to run out her front door and find the Dwarf whose name is engraved on her skin.  But she is a Baggins of Bag end, and that is what she will remain, and where she will stay.                                                                   - Bilbo is fifty, a spinster living alone in her great big smial when Gandalf visits the Shire. She remembers him fondly as a fount, as a wonderful story teller and a producer of stellar fireworks. She doesn’t keep the same opinion as he talks over her about adventures and how going on one would be good for her and amusing for him. How rude!   Naturally, he doesn’t hear a word of her protests, and brings a company of twelve rude dwarves to her Smial for supper the next evening. They are unexpected and uninvited, barging into her Hobbit-hole without care for her protests and making themselves right at home by raiding her pantry and eating all her food. They make a mess of things and track mud all over the place with their great big boots. They leave their weapons where she can stumble over them and drop their packs and coats where they will. They even have the nerve to create a mocking song about her, when she gets upset about their improper use of her mother’s fine china. And yet, she can’t stay upset for long, not when they seem so very happy to be together, and especially not when they sing of their lost home. It helps, certainly, that she’s in shock at finally meeting her bondmate.

Harry has learned to hate the rain. His cell is five paces wide and seven long, with a ceiling so high the corners are lost to shadows. There is a single window, out of reach on one of the barren stone walls. Harry can just barely see the sun or moon when they are at their zenith through it. He uses them to keep track of time, in an effort not to lose himself to the nothingness of his cell. Rain means clouds, and they never fail to block his view of the sky. And then he is trapped in endless nothing, with the faint pitter-patter of rain drops as they fall against the hard surface of his cell. The window is glassed over, so he can’t even enjoy the wind, or the swell of damp earth. No one comes to visit him, not even to bring him his meals. The room provides enough food and water to meet his physical requirements without even needing to ask. There are four hundred and twenty three marks on the wall, each one representing a twenty four hour period. Or at least on those days blessed with decent weather, since he has no way of even attempting to keep track of time when he can’t see the sky. Over one year, one month and twenty days since the end of the war, and the day he was first placed in his cell and forgotten. Harry’s anger towards the ministry for throwing him away without so much as a by-your-leave, to his friends for not coming to his rescue, and to Wizarding World has a whole for being so wretchedly cowardly has long since burned it’s course, leaving him empty.  He’s tired. Really, he should have seen this coming. It was all there, in the way they lauded him a hero one moment and a liar the next, in the way and entire nation expected a boy to do their dirty work. All because they were too afraid of a mad man and his followers to do anything about it.

Thorin is exhausted. He feels like he hasn’t slept in days, and not even the coffee he asks the stewardess to bring him helps. With a sigh, he gives up on working and puts his laptop back in its case. He slumps against the window and closes his eyes, head tucked into the crook of his arm. He falls asleep soon after, without care for the coolness of the window against his cheek or the armrest digging into his spine. That’s not how he wakes up. His head is cushioned by something warm and soft, one arm tucked against his chest and the other draped over the something beneath his head. He breathes in deeply, enjoying the sweet aroma of fresh coffee and old paper. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes, or questioning the change, content to bask in the warmth and enjoy the fuzzy feeling of only being mostly awake. Until he notices his pillow shifting in the steady rise and fall of someone breathing. With a jolt, he sits upright, and comes face to face with a mousy man he recalls was sitting to his left. There’s a wet patch that looks alarmingly like drool on the man’s shoulder, and his clothes are wrinkled from where Thorin griped them in his sleep. Thorin tries not to cringe when he raises a hand to his mouth to the unmistakable feel of half dried saliva in his beard. The man blinks up at him, looking startled by the abrupt shift. He rolls his shoulders, no doubt stiff from having Thorin on him for so long, and absent mindedly straightens out the wrinkles in his shirt.  “You should have woken me,” Thorin says, voice gruff from sleep.   He cringes again at how rude and abrupt he sounds, already imagining Dis scolding him for not being suitably grateful towards the perfect stranger that let Thorin sleep –and drool– on him for who knows how long. Thankfully, the brunet doesn’t seem offended, only a little perplexed. “Ah, well, you looked like you could use the rest.”   “Thank you.” Thorin finally says, as the brunet continues to smile kindly up at him. Even sitting down, the other man is much shorter than Thorin.  “Not a problem.” With a final smile, the man turns away and pulls a book from the bag at his feet. Thorin looks away, settles back into his seat, and takes his laptop back out of the case. He might as well get some work done, now that he’s had a bit of a rest and isn’t about to get yelled at for falling asleep on a total stranger. And drooling on them. Thorin shudders and burrows further down into his seat, head tilted down towards his screen. At least Dis and Frerin aren’t there to mock him for it.

I. After centuries of life, there are finally words engraved on his skin. The stark contrast of black against his albatross skin never ceases to mesmerize him, even as the years go by. He traces the bold markings reverently, filled with excitement and longing to finally meet the one they tell him of. There is nothing unusual about these writings, not amongst his kin. Rare of the elves who never know the joys of their presence, whose patience must last eternally as they wait for a soul that matches their own to come into the world.   The marks are a promise of joy to come, of love and acceptance, and of a soul so perfectly matched to your own that you are destined to meet the one with your own mark upon their skin.  The burst of pure joy and contentment Legolas feels when he awakens from his reverie one morning to find black ink upon the inside of his wrist is barely dampened by the fact that they are not in any tongue he knows. He encases himself in the library, perusing dusty tombs in an effort to understand that which now marks his flesh. He must admit defeat when books found in Mirkwood fail to explain the markings on his wrist, but he learns enough to guess that they are the written form of Dwarvish, which the Dwarves guard more jealously than any other secret. The fact that his intended is to be found amongst the Dwarves does not bother Legolas over much, though it is a constant source of heartache and anger for his father and brothers. He begins to wear long sleeves when they cannot help but to frown at the marks, but refuses to cover them in the privacy of his rooms. He is not ashamed of them, no matter what others may think of him. He does not resent his family their feelings, for he knows that they protest only out of love for him. They look at the markings on the soft inside of his wrist and see only pain and loss. They cannot see past the sorrow that is inevitable for an Eldar paired with a mortal, and fear it will prove his undoing. If then, Legolas cannot bring himself to regret the words on his skin, for surely the fleeting joy of loving a mortal will be worth the sorrow at the end of their tale. That his intended is a dwarf is regrettable, since not even promises written on skin can easily surmount the bad blood and ill will between Elves and dwarves, but Legolas vows that he will not let it keep him from the one who is meant to be by his side.  He will not allow pettiness and rapid judgments to infringe upon the short time they are given. He will not. II. Gimli is born with a hand print upon his shoulder. It is too large and slender to belong to a dwarf. He doesn’t understand until he is much older why his parents take such pains in covering it up, when his friends and siblings can show there’s without more than fleeting embarrassment while he cannot.  He is nearly forty when he understands the shame of having a One that isn’t a Dwarrow, and keeps the mark covered even in the privacy of his rooms. He considers, briefly, having it covered by a tattoo, as those in mourning often do, but finds that he cannot. His intended may not be a Dwarrow, but he is still Gimli’s. The Maker has forged them as One, and that means something. Even if no one else can see it. When Gimli reaches his majority, he promises himself that he will no longer let the lingering looks his parents give him bother him, that he will not doubt himself or his intended any longer. He is of age and thinks only of the joy he seen in the eyes of those who have found their One, and anticipates the day when that same joy will surely be reflected in his own eyes. Even if the elegant fingers clasped on his shoulder in an eternal greeting are too long to belong to any but an Elf.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter. Because no matter his intentions, no matter how hard he tries to end this thing they share, he always ends back wherever Kakashi is, never even thinks to turn him away when the other man is the one to seek him out, unless there is absolutely no choice. Iruka doesn’t remember when he started resenting that as much as he does. He does not remember when annoyance turned into hatred and when nonchalance turned into desperation. He does not remember when it stopped begin just a thing they did when one of them needed to vent, to have someone suffer the brunt of their anger. He doesn’t remember when he started looking for Kakashi in a crowd, or when he started to bite his tongue in an effort to hold back the little tidbits of his day he wants to share with the silver haired man.   Just because he doesn’t quite recall how it began or when it became more than it was doesn’t mean he’s willing to let it end. (Not anymore.) (Not yet.) So Iruka will find Kakashi, will take whatever the other man is willing to give him, and leave it at that.   (For now.)

Wars leave scares, some more visible than others. Harry loses both his eyes, and the majority of his upper jaw. The healers manage to replace the missing bones and repair the fractures, as well as mend the torn flesh, and even regrow his eyes. His nose doesn’t look the same, and most of his face is a mess of scar tissue, but he’s alive. He never gets his sight back. People tiptoe around him, never bringing up his disability. They treat him like a broken toy, to be put out of sight and out of mind. Even his friends treat him differently. The space between them is filled with awkward silences and long pauses. He can’t stand it. Losing his sight is a hindrance, but he is determined not to let it stop him. The war has been won, and Voldemort is finally dead by his wand. For the first time in his life, Harry is free of expectations and destiny, and he refuses to give up on himself after everything he’s been through. That his friends can’t seem to understand that hurts. Harry can do nothing to stop them from shying away from him, but he can do something about his weakness. So he trains his other senses. He learns to distinguish the smell of a sleeping potion from a pain-relief. He learns to identify people by their footsteps. He learns spells that heighten his senses, and let him hear even the echoes against walls and objects. He learns to project his magic forwards, and use it to identify objects and people. It’s difficult, and slow going, and often ends with him howling with pain when the spell overloads and the sensory overload becomes too much, or if he crashes into something. Eventually, he isn’t alone when he practices, and knows that he can always rely on someone to help him back to his feet when he falls. Luna and Neville are the first to get over any awkwardness, and the first to accommodate his new circumstance without making a show of it, or treating him like a cripple for it. Ron is next, fitting back into Harry’s life like a missing shoe. Hermione takes a while longer, bringing new spells to practice as a silent apology, though she never quite learns that mentioning is lack of vision isn’t an insult. Harry practices and learns and adapts until he can walk across a room without bumping into a single object, even moving ones. He gets better, and practices against spells, learning to detect the magic as it approaches him, to hear which spell is being cast in the swish of a wand. It takes months, but eventually he can go somewhere he’s never seen or explored before and walk around without bumping into things, and without anyone even noticing that he never needs to look at where he’s going, and that he never quite looks people in the eye when he talks. Harry even learns to focus his gaze, almost as if he were looking at something, and to angle his head so that it seems like he’s looking people in the eyes until nothing gives him away. Harry adapts until he doesn’t feel the lack of sight anymore, and can function better without than he ever did with. But even as he is then, there is no place in the wizarding world for him. The wizarding world doesn’t let him forget that he’s not as he once was, not a perfect little hero to be paraded about and displayed. They have no need for broken heroes, and even his friends aren’t enough to keep him anchored, what with their families and their jobs and their futures anchored into wizarding Britain in a way that he will never be. So he leaves. He wanders, and travels to places he’s only ever dreamed of visiting. He learns of the other wizarding cultures around the world, and how different than what he’s known. He finds societies where bloodmagic is as common as a standard levitating charm is in Britain, and other still where complete human transfigurations are as easy as breathing. He discovers a fondness for cursebreaking amongst the wizards of Egypt that depend on it, and makes a career out of it. And then it all blows up in his face. Literally.