Chapter Text
It wasn't that the house Gimli had inherited was creepy. It was just that it was....well, very creepy. He managed to keep up his confident smile and wave as Fili, Kili, Thorin, Dwalin and a number of other cousins and relatives took off in their cars. They had been there the entire day and helped him with the various electrical installations and plumbing the old house desperately needed in order for Gimli to be able to spend even his first night there. Now they were packing up their things and driving off, leaving him all alone. Bilbo was hoisting in a few thermoses and the by now empty picnic-baskets and food wrappings. He stepped up to Gimli and patted him on the shoulder.
"I have left some wrapped sandwiches for you in the fridge, a package of coffee and a thermos of chicken soup," he said kindly, being in his own way just as practical as the dwarves.
Gimli smiled. The hobbit could have just left some cans of store-brought soup but Bilbo did, very vehemently, not believe in pre-made food.
"Thank you so much. All of you. Once I have the house properly renovated, I will invite you all to my housewarming." He said warmly.
Bilbo shone up. He did love a party.
"I will bring you some honeycakes if you so," he promised before hurrying into the passenger side of Thorin's car. Both of them waved as they drove off.
Gimli felt his shoulders sag a little but he immediately straightened up as his father came around the corner, having thoroughly inspected the house and the big yard.
"It is a solid investment," Glóin said pleased as he walked up to his son. "The foundation is solid and the roof seemed intact. There is a lot of work that needs to be done of course, but most of it is cosmetic. A few weird draughts I can't get to the bottom of, and the heating system is making some kind of noise occasionally. But it is a good property. Clean up the grounds around it and you will have a spectacular view."
Gimli nodded. The grounds belonging to the house were several acers of very wild-looking trees, bushes and overgrown rocks. Even though they were technically still in the city, you couldn't see it or even hear traffic and you got the feeling of total isolation. A shiver crept up on Gimli's back. He glanced over his shoulder at the huge building behind him, a run-down crow castle with broken windows glaring out at him in the gathering gloom.
"Yes, it was nice of uncle Balin to leave it to me in his will." He croaked and Glóin sighed. The look in his eyes said he knew just what his son was feeling.
"Look son, just come back and sleep in your own bed tonight. At home. Your old home, I mean. Your mom and I love having you live there, you know that. We can come back tomorrow, fix the windows perhaps or the heating...."
"No." Gimli drew himself up. He couldn't live in his parents' house forever. "This place is closer to work. And uncle left it for me for a reason, I'm sure." He tried to smile comfortingly. "We have been all over this place all day. There is nothing dangerous in there. It's just a new place, that is all."
"I don't even know why Balin had the place for starters," Glóin muttered. "I don't think he ever lived here. Looks like an elven place to me." He said the last words with utter contempt. "Are you sure you don't want to come home? Just for the night?"
"I'll call you tomorrow. Tell mom I love her." Gimli gently shooed his father away. It was time to grow up after all, and this place gave him the perfect reason to move out.
Once his father had reluctantly left, Gimli stepped inside, closing the door firmly behind him. He stood in the foyer and looked around. There was something distinctly elven about the place, tall and grandiose, even despite its run-down state and decades of dust and it made him vaguely uncomfortable. There were elves at the university where he worked of course but he never spent time with them if he could avoid it.
He took a deep breath. The house was his, inherited from his uncle, and he would not be driven away from it because of flowery stuccatures. He decided to heat up the probably delicious soup Bilbo had made for supper, read a little and then go to bed. The first time in a new place was always the worse. Everything would look better in the morning.
The stove wasn't working. Gimli frowned as he tried to turn it on. Bilbo had spent several hours in the kitchen today, making food for a working team of hungry dwarves. If the stove had not been working, he would have told them so in no uncertain terms, Gimli was sure. And anyway, electricity was one of the first things they had all investigated, and the wiring seemed fine. No risk for creeping currents or, much worse, the house burning up. Gimli tried to stove again. Nothing happened.
A loud bang made him almost jump out of his skin and he spun around, hand going to his hip where the tool belt was still hanging. Sweaty fingers closed around a hammer as his heart raced, but there was nothing there. Nothing and no one. He vaguely recalled his father telling him about sounds from the heating system.
"Yes, that must be it." He muttered, wiping his hands on his shirt. What else could it be? The whole place had been crawled over by thirteen dwarves and a very nosy hobbit for hours. There was no one in the house, except him.
It didn't make him feel better.
At least the lights were still working. He would just have to drink the soup lukewarm from the thermos and then have an early night. He'd been working all day, after all.
He ate and did the dishes, double checked the door and decided not to let go of his tool belt. A hammer was better than nothing after all. Trees scraped their twigs against the windows with horrible scraping sounds that he tried to ignore as he went upstairs to the room he'd chosen as a bedroom. His mother had sent along his old belongings, including bedsheets, which mean his childhood bedspread with a comic version of his hero Aulë greeted him as he stepped inside. He almost scowled - he hadn't even lived alone for a day and his mom was already cockblocking him? - but it was almost comforting to see it as if its cheer ridiculousness dispelled some of the spookiness. No one could be haunted in such a silly setting, right?
And, he thought a bit glumly to himself as he opened random boxes looking for his toothbrush, it wasn't as if there was any cock to be blocked except his own. His lack of a lovelife, or even interest in one, was one of the reasons he had to move out. He couldn't take more 'friendly questions' or even worse 'my friend's daughter just came by to say hi, she is such a lovely girl, has her own mining prospect and everything' and then he had to be polite and sometimes even take them out for tea or beer. To be honest, he'd made many friends that way because the girls were indeed lovely, but not the way his parents hoped.
He sighed and finally found his tooth brush. Turning on the light he squeezed out some tooth paste and opened the faucet. He had been so temporarily distracted by his thoughts that his first thought when the water ran red was indeed that it was simply rust from the pipes being unused for so long.
But it didn't stop. And it kept growing redder and thicker.
Gimli stared, only vaguely aware of the tooth brush falling out of his mouth. The stench hit him, like iron, like rust, but this wasn't rust.
It wasn't rust.
Gimli turned and ran, out the room, down the stairs, towards the door. A noise followed him, a cruel kind of laughter that chased him until he stood with his back towards the door, desperately brandishing his hammer in one hand, trying to open the door with the other, eyes darting everywhere. He couldn't see anything in the dark foyer. But he could feel it presence, smell the musty stench of an upturned grave.
He couldn't see anything. But something touched his face with bony fingers and he roared, threw the hammer at the closest window which shattered into a million pieces and jumped out, fleeing across the yard while the trees were trying to hold him back and the laughter echoed in his ears.
"You need to get an exorcist." It was the first thing Fili said as he listened to his relatives' babbling encounter of the night before. "Or just sell the house."
"I am not selling." Gimli growled. He was deeply shaken by last night's events but he was also deeply embarrassed, and angry. "I wont let some ghost drive me out of my ancestors house!"
"An exorcist then." Fili nodded. "Not sure where to get one of those though."
"I don't even believe in ghosts!" Gimli buried his face in his hands. "Why is this happening to me?!"
Fili patted him on the back.
"Because it would seem the ghosts believe in you."
TBC