#fff255

[lisbeth-kk]

Sherlock fandom.

Warnings: mentionings of torture, injury.

Don’t Tell Him

The pain is greater and more agonising than all the beating he got in that filthy cell in Serbia, because this pain isn’t just physical. Sherlock knows that if he answered John’s insistent questions about who the shooter was, it would break John’s heart, despite what Mycroft says.

“Tell him, brother mine,” Mycroft urges. “John is far more resilient than you give him credit for, and his feelings for you…”

“Don’t!” Sherlock snaps. “The love of his life shot me in the heart. I refuse to add that burden to his confused mind.”

“I agree that he is confused, but not for the reasons you think, Sherlock,” Mycroft says cryptically.

Sherlock closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep. He’s not only in constant pain, but he’s also exhausted with all the emotions that this whole business regarding Mary Watson throws his way. It’s so much harder to stay focused and aloof when the painkillers leave his brain all foggy and relaxed. His pining for John comes to the surface, tugging at his heart.

“Go home to Mary,” Sherlock urged John before Mycroft arrived. “She needs you more…”

“I’m staying,” John interrupted in his stubborn tone. “Just fetching some clothes and stuff before I’m going with you to Baker Street tomorrow. Non-negotiable!”

He had lifted his chin in defiance, daring Sherlock to protest. His last words are a puzzle Sherlock still hadn’t been able to deduce.

“You need me, and I need…to…”

***

John has gone to Aldi to buy milk, bread and eggs, wile Mycroft stays to keep an eye on his brother, with strict instructions from the good doctor to call if anything changes regarding Sherlock’s pulse, heartrate, temperature, and several other unnecessary trifles. (Sherlock’s words)

“John, for Christ’s sake, go!” Sherlock says exasperated. “I’m fine.”

John looks sceptically at him, grabs his wrist and takes Sherlock’s pulse. When he’s satisfied, he hurries out of the bedroom and descends to the front door, probably running all the way to the shops to reduce his absence to a minimum.

“Are you still convinced that he only has friendly feelings for you?” Mycroft asks with a quirked eyebrow.

“Don’t tell him, Mycroft! He can’t know. If he’s ever to realise how much…I…I wish she had finished…”

“Sherlock!”

Mycroft rarely raises his voice but when he does, it speaks volumes.

“I would not survive your demise, brother mine. She can count herself lucky that she didn’t kill you. Even John’s plea for her life would’ve been in vain, her pregnancy notwithstanding.”

Mycroft’s voice trembles with emotions, which is odd to witness.

***

Sherlock has no sense of time anymore, but he thinks it’s been days since his conversation with Mycroft. Something is being delivered, and John’s steps are heavier than usual when he ascends the stairs.

Carrying something. Not groceries. Two bags. One over each shoulder.

When John brings his meds later, Sherlock observes that something is different. John’s face is displaying a variety of conflicting emotions. There’s determination and insecurity, sorrow and relief, anger and hope. The last deduction does something to Sherlock’s shattered heart.

“What’s happened?” Sherlock asks calmly, although he’s terrified of the answer.

John’s voice sounds mechanical, as if he’s rehearsed what he’s about to tell Sherlock.

“Mary left a note. She’s gone. The baby isn’t mine. Her name isn’t hers. She’s apparently an assassin. Worked for Moriarty. She shot you. You knew, and you wanted to shield me. I want you to stop doing that.”

He sheds his clothes down to his pants and tee and climbs carefully into bed. Sherlock’s breath catches in his throat.

Is this real, or a hallucination?

“It’s real, Sherlock,” John tells him, as if he’s the one who’s become a mind-reader.

He lies down beside Sherlock, letting his palm rest over the wound, over his heart. The heart that beats solely for John.

Does he know? If so, how?

“You’re not as subtle as you think, Sherlock. What I saw traces of before this, became clear as day when your brain function was compromised by painkillers. Am I wrong?”

Don’t hide. Tell him.

“No, John. You’re not,” Sherlock says and places his hand over John’s.

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[ginneke]

Instincts

(aka, what can be found in the heart, or somewhere like it).

A @flashfictionfridayofficial promptfic.

--

When I first had an inkling of this idea, it was meant to be Link POV of a missing scene from the start of ch3 of Seed of Song. Then Revali stole it, and this prompt got me to finally write it.

(This becomes infinitely funnier after @avenin was doodling sleep-deprived Revali + chick earlier this evening as well. Yes we were watching the same osprey livestream what of it.)

--

The fire crackles and spits, launching red-hot embers into empty space.

Eyes closed, Revali imagines himself back at his Flight Range—comfortably alone and resting, for a little while, just like this: listening to the lapping tongues of the fire and the murmurs of a distant wind...

Imagination only serves to illuminate the utter futility of his wish to be anywhere else. This place is nothing like the Flight Range. The air is much too stuffy; the barracks' stone walls are stifling, and the space doesn't breathe as a building ought. Even the faint whisper of a breeze through the open window does little to keep the suffocating closeness at bay.

The sounds are all wrong, as well: no companionable creak of a hammock-rope overhead; no faint, distant hum of Vah Medoh turning watchful circles through the sky above him.

Instead there's a faint, incessent scratching sound. It goes on for a long, long time.

No, this place is nothing at all like his Flight Range. He is caged in, confined, and is altogether much too warm. He desperately wants to be rid of it. Revali struggles to quash his roiling distaste for being forced into such close quarters with another person. He cannot entirely succeed. It's like standing near an improperly-stored Shock Arrow, an unpleasant prickling that sparks under his skin and turns the tips of his feathers to barbs, leaving him battling the urge to get as far away as he can—

As if sensing the turn of his thoughts, the hatchling startles awake.

Revali cracks open one eye and cranes his head to study it. It doesn't look to be hungry, nor in any kind of significant distress. It roots around in blind, listless confusion, still coming to terms with the world outside its eggshell.

This fragile helpless thing wouldn't have survived a day without a fellow Rito's care. Revali reminds himself it's for the best that he's here, and that its wellbeing hasn't been left to the clumsy, haphazard efforts of a Hylian... but even for him, this is unfamiliar territory. He's largely ignorant of what its care entails. The best he can hope for is to keep the hatchling alive until it can become somebody else's problem.

A disquietening thought, and one which stirs bleak memories better left forgotten.

Revali sighs, repositions the chick so that it is better covered by his folded wing, and closes his eyes once more, chasing the illusion of rest. It remains elusive.

And that damnable scratching won't cease. It nudges at the edge of his hearing, incessant: scrape, scratch, scrape.

Under normal circumstances, the scratch of a metal nib against paper would be a sound familiar enough to be comforting. Revali reaches for the comfort of pen and ink often enough. Today, though, it only makes him long for his diary and the chance to sort through his jumbled, tumultuous thoughts.

He cracks open an eye, affixing his ire on the faint silhouette sat just in front of the hearth. "Would it be so impossible for you to cease that racket?"

The scratch of Link's pen pauses mid-motion. His curious sense of industry doesn't bear the cadence of a letter. The sounds are too elongated for script. Revali finds that disconcerting; he has no idea what Link is up to. He doesn't entirely want to know; only the thought that Link might be reporting back on the root cause of their delay gives him any reason to wonder...

Link's downcast eyes glitter lowly in the light. Revali bristles, certain that it's just a ruse.

"What, pray tell, are you looking at?"

At least Link has the decency of looking somewhat abashed—or whatever is meant to pass for embarrassment on those dull, expressionless features. He puts the pen down in an unhurried motion, blows on the paper—scattering a fine layer of dust in the process—and stoppers up his ink. Only then does he lift his head properly.

"Nothing," he insists.

Once, the sound of Link speaking would have been a novelty — something he never expected to hear. The sporadic proof that he can, and always could, is more jarring than it ought to be. Revali doesn't know what to make of this newfound willingness to...

He's torn away from that thought by the chick, which jerks awake with a high-pitched squeak of distress. The sound hooks into Revali's chest, lodging behind his heart and tugging until he forgets all else. He lowers his head to the hapless infant, trying to determine what might be wrong...

In the corner of his vision, the fire flares. Revali notices it with vague detachment. It's immaterial: the thing that matters most is the chick and whatever is causing it distress. Is it warm enough? too warm? hungry? He doesn't know, and the lack of certainty confounds and frustrates him.

"Here," Link mumbles, passing across the remains of the duck he'd caught earlier.

At that point, it becomes easy to fall back into a rhythm of trying, and trying again, to coax the chick into whatever instincts are driving it. (Revali is more than a little perturbed by the evidence of his own instincts on display.) He doesn't remember what it was like to be an infant as young as this; he has no way of recalling how she managed. If only he could ask. Revali isn't coping at all. He can't even hunt for himself; there's no way he could be the sole provider and guardian of a chick. As galling and infuriating as his presence is, it cannot be denied that Link's insistence on staying has accomplished some good...

—

Revali jolts awake into a night that's almost silent. He listens out for any disturbance. Only the low hum of the Flight Range answers. The murmur of the wind cannot drive the sense of solitude away; it can't fill the hollowed-out void in his chest.

[seekers-who-are-lovers]

‘Kill the longing, close the wound’

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial with the prompt #FFF255 In the Heart

Fandom: Buddy Daddies

Pairing: Kazuki Kurusu/Rei Suwa, Kazurei

Word Count: 605

Warning: Not so fluffy, a bit angsty, written during the first scenes of Episode 11 : Everyone Will Be Hypocrites

~~

“I'll never know which way to flow/Set a course that I don't know.” (“Everything Flows,” Teenage Fanclub)

WHEN Kazuki took the last batch of what he owned from the loft already prepared at the foyer, he realised that Rei was not in. There was, however, a note on the dining table.

“Give me some more time,” it said. Kazuki rolled his eyes and shook his head. He angrily crumpled the paper and discarded it to the next waste bin which was at the kitchen. He missed the target. Kazuki walked on and didn’t bother to pick it up.

He headed back again to his old room to check if he forgot something, just in case, like the rest of his collection of crime fiction that he kept underneath his bed, and the empty vintage American gin bottles he got as birthday presents. For the last time, he savoured the moment to take one last look at the place he once called home for almost three and a half years, which was now devoid of his computers, clothes and other paraphernalia.

And the kitchen? It was his favourite place in the apartment. He ran his fingers onto the tabletop, glanced at the tidied jars and the cans of spices. Until his sight fell on the bottles of Balsamico and olive oil that one of them forgot to bring back to the cupboards. It irritated him that none of them bothered, i.e. leaving the condiments stay untouched since Miri had lived with her mother. Come to think of it this used to be his kingdom once, but he felt hollow now more than ever.

He let out a sigh he was keeping for so long. When he closed the door of the apartment it felt final and infallible that he never looked back. The action pierced his heart.

Time to move forward, Kazuki.

~~

The Comedian knew the way to the Fairy Lips by heart. He knew it even if his eyes were closed. He could tell the alleyways and pinpoint the correct shield. This was where he always went whenever his heart was heavy, full of sorrow. Just like tonight.

“Well, well, look who’s here? The Comedian is here, Carol, ready to make us laugh,” the violet-haired Dorothy told her girlfriend.

“What can we do for you today, Kazu-kun? Didn’t it work out with your new love?” Dorothy’s punches went straight to his guts.

“Kazu-kun, we miss your jokes! We haven’t seen you in a long time,” Carol quipped, grabbing his arm, kissing his cheeks.

After Rei had decided that they had to go their separate ways, he was without anchor. Miri pointed them to the right direction of their relationship and most of all, held them together like a glue. First it was Yuzu, then Miri was gone. Now Rei too.

~~

He was heartbroken, but what could he do? He was used to it. He was used to people “abandoning” him. Intentional or otherwise. The sound of a rush-hour traffic in downtown Fukuoka couldn’t assuage the pain he was feeling inside.

Truth to tell it baffled him the moment Rei decided it was better for them to be separated after being partners for less than four years. And in order to save face, he told Rei that he could keep his loft by himself. Besides, the apartment was too big for one person.

But the younger man was insistent on giving him a parting gift: his ST Dupont lighter and a promise that he would abandon smoking forever. It remained to be seen if he would keep it and Kazuki would pretend that he never cared.

tbc

Note: June used to be a month for Kazureiweek. So I am reliving it bc I miss it. Also, I’ve been meaning to write a story during the Episode 11 era. I’ve been thinking of other possibilities if things turn out differently: if the situation wouldn’t be resolved during the second balcony scene.

[darkhorse-javert]

Leave Nothing Out

1940

The CO calls them each in by turn in to his office. One after one after one, all about his age, all the newcomers, really. On his turn, Calder looks up, accepts the salute he presents with a nod and then holds out a piece of paper over the desk.

Andrew takes it, looks down to read the orders, only to find it blank. He turns it over, blank on the reverse too.

“Sir?”

“I want you to take that paper, find somewhere quiet, and write a letter to your parents. Do you have a sweetheart?”

“No Sir. And it's only my father.”

Calder nods a little “Write to him then, Foyle. And tell him everything you want to, everything you feel, any thank you's you want to give.” The man's eyes are soft but he tries to smile “Any apologies you might think you owe.” The gaze steadies but is still the kindest he's seen from Calder, “No censorship now, not for this one.”

His eyes drop to the paper, the emptiness sharp now.

This – this is in case I don't come back one day. What do you even say for that?

Protocol brings his head straight up to a parade stifness, his hand to his forehead in the salute. Calder looks at him. “Foyle, remember to put it all down won't you, don't leave anything hiding back in your heart. Let this letter carry it all, just this once.”

@flashfictionfridayofficial

[divinemissem13]

For Keeps

Brenda/ Sharon (The Closer/ Major Crimes) Rated T 595 words @flashfictionfridayofficial

Sharon Raydor does not do things impulsively. Or at least, she didn’t until she met Brenda Leigh Johnson.

Brenda may be brilliant, but she doesn’t often think before she acts, especially not in her personal life. When it comes to romance, Brenda is as impulsive as they come. She’ll go from arguing one minute to kissing Sharon up against a wall the next. Despite her more cautious nature, Sharon can’t deny that Brenda’s lack of impulse control makes life exciting.

In any case, it must be rubbing off on her because pre-Brenda Sharon Raydor would never in a million years have done… this.

“Shar, honey? You home?” Brenda comes around the corner and stops dead in her tracks when she finds Sharon sitting on the couch, casually flipping through a magazine as if she doesn’t have a big old gauze bandage right there on her chest.

“Brenda Leigh! How was work?” Sharon asks, barely glancing up. She’s trying to appear nonchalant, but the real reason she doesn’t look up is she knows that if she makes eye contact with Brenda, she’ll crack like an egg.

“Don’t you ‘how was work’ me! You’re hurt! What happened?!” Brenda sprints towards the couch and bends down to get a better look at the bandage. “Right over your heart!” she gasps. “Good heavens, shouldn’t you be in the hospital or somethin’? Or do they just send people home with giant gaping chest wounds these days?”

Sharon finally looks up with a smirk. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting a little bit? It’s only a bandage.”

“OVER YOUR HEART.”

“Are you going to keep jumping to conclusions or would you like me to explain?” Sharon asks smugly. She pats the couch next to her and adds “Come up here and i’ll show you.”

Brenda’s curiosity gets the better of her and she sits on the couch and waits patiently (sort of) for Sharon to continue.

Sharon squeezes Brenda’s hand in reassurance and then slowly, meticulously begins to peel off the tape around the gauze.

A reddened patch of freckled skin is revealed and Brenda chokes back a sob when she sees the tender skin surrounding the raised dark spot on Sharon’s chest. It’s a bullet hole, or a knife wound, she just knows it. Except, a wound like that shouldnt be black. Or, come to think of it, shaped so strangely… Brenda leans in to get a better look and then looks up to see Sharon beaming at her.

“Sharon Raydor, is that a tattoo??” Brenda asks in disbelief.

Sharon confirms this with a hum as she pulls Brenda’s glasses from the collar of her shirt. “Look closer,” she murmurs, handing them to Brenda.

With the aid of her readers, Brenda can now make out the thin outline of a heart, no more than one inch in diameter. Inside of the heart, in letters so small they’d look like freckles if you aren’t looking for them are the letters BLJ.

Brenda’s fingers trace the heart gently and looks up at Sharon with tears in her eyes. “That is just about the tiniest … the most ridiculous… most romantic tattoo I’ve ever seen.”

“Tiny because it’s for your eyes only, and you have to get nice and close to see it,” Sharon purrs, leaning in for a soft kiss filled with promise. “Happy anniversary,” she whispers against Brenda’s lips.

After that, there isn’t much talking.

[rudbeckiasunflower]

Flash Fiction Friday 255: In The Heart

If reading almost 1k words on tumblr isn’t for you, here it is on AO3.

Thank you @flashfictionfridayofficial for a great prompt!

“We ought to go hiking. The weather is perfect. What do you think?”

Watson sits forward on the picnic bench, elbows on the table in defiance of the English manners of the two gentlewomen fussing over a younger girl at the next table.

He watches his companion’s face for any sign of interest, but Holmes merely shrugs.

“Your doctor said plain food, fresh air and exercise will improve your health.” He reaches his hands across rough, wooden slats silvered by years of rain, snow and sun. “This doctor agrees. There’s a waterfall I would very much like to see, and I would very much like you to come with me. It’ll be a far more pleasurable excursion with your company.”

There’s a sigh and a shift. Holmes lays his hands on Watson’s forearms and offers a flicker of a smile. “Then I will make the effort to be a better companion.”

Watson’s heart soars. “I’ll order a picnic.”

Holmes watches his dearest friend trot away to pester the kitchen staff. He flicks a covert look at the trio of women at the next table but there is no mystery to solve. The youngest will give birth in due course and the married but unblessed older sister will dote on the babe as her own while the new grandmother fusses with pride.

He wonders that the three women all look radiantly happy. One unfortunate error—he silently berates himself for assuming instead of gathering facts—one event that may or may not have been an error will cause joy for a whole family.

Boots on gravel make him look up, and something in his chest twists at the sight of Watson’s worry. Could he become a cause of joy instead of anguish for his dearest friend?

He could try. Perhaps. In short bursts. He forces his lips into a curve and Watson’s return smile shines like the sun, softening Holmes’s features into something more natural.

“Get ready, old boy. We can collect our picnic in fifteen minutes.”

Holmes follows to their spacious room on the top floor of the clinic. From the outside it looks like a chalet hotel. Inside, all that’s needed to turn the hospital into a magnet for English tourists is a cuckoo-clock on every wall.

He makes a mental note to amuse Watson with the observation later.

The view from the window of their shared bedroom is of green hills and grey, rugged mountains under a blue and white sky. Sunlight and shadows scud across the landscape in a mesmerising display. Holmes is under no illusion: Watson is his doctor and his nurse and his keeper. The lack of privacy is to discourage Holmes from any repeat of his drastic action in Baker Street. Watson’s nightly habit of slipping into bed beside him he attributes to his friend’s desire to be alerted to any attempt to abscond from his care, rather than any carnal desire. Still, he sleeps more easily cradled in those strong arms.

He whirls to face Watson. “How long have we been here?”

Watson studies Holmes’s face for any sign that one of his moods may be lurking, ready to drag them both down into an abyss of dark silence. He relaxes when he sees only genuine inquiry in those familiar features.

“Only five days. We have plenty of time to explore, and by all accounts there is plenty to see.” He’s encouraged by Holmes’s renewed attempt to smile. “Dr Moriarty says there’s a quaint village with a lovely little inn a day’s walk away over the pass. Later in the month, when you’re feeling up to it, we could stay there for a night or two.”

Even Holmes’s sardonically raised eyebrow gives him hope for at least that much of a recovery.

“Not today.”

“No. The Falls of Reichenbach will be far enough today. Ready?”

Watson leads. Their food is waiting in a knapsack that Watson shoulders before they head out of the hospital and along the road, diverting off where the trail marked on the map says they should. He’s mindful of Holmes’s sedate pace and need for frequent rests brought on by the drug-induced damage in his heart. It may improve with rest and a change of lifestyle. It may not, but he doesn’t want to think about that.

He wonders if Holmes knows why he pauses so often to re-tie his bootlaces or to adjust his knapsack or to sit on a rock and admire the view.

Being mostly uphill, the one-hour walk takes them three. But the falls are, he declares, quite the most terrifyingly beautiful thing he has ever experienced. As he stands and gapes at where the deafening torrent crashes into a churning, treacherously rocky basin far below, he’s surprised to feel Holmes’s hand grasping his hard enough to hurt.

He turns. Holmes stands still, eyes screwed shut, free hand reaching out as if to find balance. Watson steers him carefully back along the path one step at a time, to a flat rock where they can sit safely.

His heart gives a lurch at Holmes’s tear-streaked face. “You’re safe, my dear. Squeeze my hand.” He breathes relief when Holmes grips tightly. “Were you light headed? A touch of vertigo is not unexpected. Perhaps I made you exert yourself too much, too soon. We can rest here. Are you hungry? You should eat something. Let me—”

“Oh, Watson, do shut up.”

Watson grins at the welcome blast of Holmes’s characteristic snappishness. Their hands remain loosely clasped.

“I gazed into the maelstrom and had a sudden, overwhelming sensation of plunging into it. And of you trying to catch me and falling to your death too. I couldn’t bear that I might be the cause of your demise.”

Watson pulls off his glove and wipes Holmes’s damp cheek with his thumb. “Let’s eat. And talk, if you like.”

Holmes scoffs, but he beckons Watson closer, murmurs thank you my dearest, and kisses him softly.

[renee-writer]

In the Heart

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt 255: In the Heart. An Outlander Fanfiction

AO3

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

“I couldn't help it,” she sighs as she tries to explain it to them,” he became a part of my heart.” 

Brianna and Roger share a look. “So, you didn't love daddy?” Her daughter stares at her, arms crossed. Roger, for his part, tries to sooth her. He runs her back but her stiff posture doesn't change.

“I loved him as much as I could. Before Jamie,” what a relief it was to say his name after all these years, “I couldn't see loving anyone the way I loved Frank. There is just something truer about the love I feel for Jamie.”

“The love you feel?” Roger focuses on her.

“Yes Roger, time doesn't matter. Even two hundred years. There will never be a time that I won't love him.”

The couple share another look. Roger nudges her. “I am sorry mama. I thought,” she blushes, “that you were just another bored housewife that had an affair. I didn't realize that he, my real dad was…”

“The love of my life,” her mom supplies, “it is okay. Falling so deep, it surprised me too, the depths of it, how deep he got into my heart.”

[lucigoo]

Hitting him in the heart

#255 - In the heart, @flashfictionfridayofficial

Pairing -Bilbo/Thorin

Warnings - MCD x2, Murder suicide

Words - 1033

Summary - Thorin hasn't recovered from the Dragon sickness, he is just able to trick everyone but his hobbit.

Bilbo takes matters in his own hands to save his dwarves and Erebor. He will save them the only way he can.

A03 link here

Bilbo was tired. Body, mind, and soul. It wasn’t supposed to have ended up like this.

The war was over. Erebor was the dwarves again. The Arkenstone had been bartered away and regained.

Thorin had snapped out of the Dragon sickness, saved the day, almost died, proclaimed to all that he was going to take Bilbo and make him his Consort and Bilbo should have been happy about it.

He should have been ectatic to have his love returned. Instead, he was petrified.

Nobody else believed him, nobody would listen, Nobody could see it.

Nobody but Bilbo.

The film of sickness that sparked in Thorin’s eyes, the way he was not quite going back on his word, but almost. The way he still eyed all others with suspicion and disdain.

This Thorin was one between the real Thorin, the one Bilbo loved and adored, and raging Dragon sickness Thorin.

Dragon sick Thorin had been aggressive and dangerous. This one was insidious, sly, careful, manipulative and, most of all, absurdly possessive of Bilbo.

Bilbo’d had to get in between Thorin and his nephews too many times to count when he had tried to harm them for just talking to Bilbo.

As for the rest of The Company, Bilbo understood they were all busy, but to not realise that Thorin was growing worse, and Bilbo was becoming suffocated was unacceptable.

They were supposed to be his friends, his family, but he felt all but abandoned.

Which was why Bilbo was here, loitering in some of his only Thorin free moments, waiting for Nori to arrive.

Bilbo was prepared. He would never put his friend in danger, but he couldn’t live this way. He wouldn’t. Not any longer.

“Bilbo, there you are,” he heard a loud voice bellow.

Bilbo sighed. Of course it was Dwalin who had found him. Dwalin who wouldn’t listen to him. Dwalin, who was much too happy to have his best friend back to take Bilbo’s warnings seriously.

“No!” Bilbo said before Dwalin got too close.

“What? Thorin wants you, Bilbo,” Dwalin said in confusion.

“Thorin always wants me, but I’m going outside,” Bilbo said as he fingered the ring in his pocket. He didn’t want to use it, hated using it, but if Dwalin left him no choice, he would.

“But he said to fetch you, he’s the king,” Dwalin said as he walked closer.

“He isn’t my king. He is my partner and my betrothed. I’m going outside, where the sun is. If he didn’t want to deal with a hobbit, he shouldn’t have asked one to marry him,” Bilbo said, head held high as he turned and walked away to the closest balcony.

“Bilbo, you have to go to Thorin,” Dwalin repeated.

“No, I don’t and I won’t. If he wants me, he can come to me, out of that bloody throne room and out of his Yavanna damned mountain,” Bilbo said before he all but sprinted away from a perplexed Dwalin.

He waited until he was sure he wasn’t being chased and went back to loitering in the shadows.

At long last he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure about this?” Nori asked.

“There is no choice. Be well, my friend,” Bilbo said sadly as he took the small object Nori handed him. “Go, to Dori, get all The Company somewhere public. I’m so sorry, Nori,” Bilbo said on a sob.

He felt a fast, fleeting hug before he heard Nori’s soft footfalls drift away, and Bilbo continued on his own way.

Bilbo made it outside before he heard his dwarf bellowing his name down the corridor. He straightened his spine and gripped the railing for dear life, terrified for what he was about to do, but knowing there was no other choice.

“Bilbo, there you are,” he heard Thorin shout as he crashed through the door, a look of relief on his face.

Bilbo closed his eyes at that look, knowing this was the second time he would be the second and last time he betrayed his very heart. “Hello dear,” he said softly as Thorin came near, allowing him to bundle him in his arms.

Bilbo couldn’t help the tears he let fall as he snuggled deeper into Thorin’s embrace.

“It ok Ghiveshal, it shall be found. The thieves executed, destroyed,” his beloved said with in a dark tone.

“I know dear,” Bilbo replied. Knowing it wasn’t true. No one would ever find the arkenstone again, not when Bilbo had returned it to the very bowels of the mountain it had been dragged up from. All he could do was thank Yavanna that he had sent it far, far away from Fili and Kili, far away from any Durin forever more.

Bilbo stood on his tiptoes and softly kissed Thorin, who returned it eagerly. “Thorin, I love you,” Bilbo said.

“And I you,” Thorin replied.

Bilbo took a deep breath as he snuggled into his dwarf’s strong arms. He moved nothing but his arm, even as Thorin let out a little noise of surprise, of pain.

“Bilbo, why?” Thorin croaked out as he looked at his tunic and the needle sticking through it, straight into his heart.

“Because I love you, more than you can imagine. Because you are better than this,” Bilbo sobbed as he felt Thorin sag in his arms, blood slowly gushing out of his wound as Bilbo removed the poisoned needle. “Because the boys will do a wonderful job and we get to rest, love.”

“Be… betrayal,” Thorin gasped out as he leant on the railing heavily.

“Not betrayal. Freedom, love. Freedom from the dragon sickness, the fog. Freedom to be yourself again,” Bilbo sobbed as he grasped Thorin tighter.

Thorin felt himself sagging over the rails. He knew he was going to tip over them and he tried to use the last of his strength to push Bilbo away, to save his One.

Bilbo wouldn’t allow it. He wrapped his arms and legs around Thorin as tightly as possible as Thorin finally succumbed to gravity and went over the side of the mountain, of Erebor, with Bilbo wrapped around him, ready to meet his fate at Thorin’s side.