Chapter Text
Bain slid onto the couch with all the wild energy of a tornado, tossing his shoes in one direction and his backpack in the other. Bard thought about chastising him– then the tomato sauce he was trying and failing to tame gurgled ominously. An unruly teen he could deal with, but canned bolognese on the ceiling was not a tango he wanted to dance anytime soon.
“There was a new kid today at school,” his son announced. “Elf.” He snatched the remote from the table (leaning at one end thanks to a broken leg Bard had never quite got around to fixing), flipping though channels at a speed that would have made Bard’s head spin had he given it his full attention.
“Off the TV, Bee, you know the rules,” Bard sighed. “And go find your sisters too and set the table: dinner’s almost ready.”
Bain looked at the pot with raised and suspicious brows. “Sure, Da. I got all my homework done, promise. It’s only the second week of school anyways. They won’t hand out the hard stuff for a while.”
“Your sisters, Bee.” Bard shooed him away. “Tell Tilda and Sigrid that if they’re not down here in five minutes I’m feeding their share to the ravens.”
“Da, that would be animal abuse and you know it.” Sigrid appeared at the top of the stairs with a wry smile and her little sister underfoot. “I think you’ve gone and made a biohazard on our stove.”
“Well I think it smells good,” Tilda sniffed.
“I’ve seen you eat dirt before, Tilds, your opinion doesn’t count for anything.”
“Does so!”
“Dinner,” Bard pressed with a sigh. He flipped off the stove and examined the sauce. All in all it didn’t look radioactive, which was the best outcome by a wide margin. His adventures in cooking hadn’t much strayed into the complex, but he was proud to say that at least he could make noodles and garlic bread without burning their little house down on their heads.
“Sigrid, would you mind taking the salad from the fridge?”
“Sure thing, Da. Tilds, come help me with the fruit.”
Slowly, Bard began to pour the tomato sauce into a serving bowl, taking care not to spill a drop. The ribbon of steam wafting from it made up for the fact that the noodles were probably cold by now. Both the noodles and the sauce made it to the table with no incident, and between them, the garlic bread that was only slightly burned on the edges, and the salad and fruit (really, who could mess up cutting strawberries?) the meal looked alright in his book.
You’d be proud, Elfie. You wouldn’t have let me anywhere near the stove before. Look at me now: practically a chef.
On habit, he ran his thumb over the wedding band he just couldn’t bring himself to take off. Elfie had been gone for some time now. The therapist, the one time he had been able to afford to go, had told him that the pain was good: grief was love run backwards, or something poetic like that. Grief was a stone in the garden he had to grow around.
Well, I’d say our garden is growing nicely. He sat down next to Tilda, ruffling her hair to make her squeal. Look at our garden, Elfie. Blooming just fine.
“How was school today?” Bard passed the pasta to Sigrid after he had portioned Tilda’s meal. “Two weeks in, and you’re already longing for summer?”
“No,” Sigrid rolled her eyes at the same time that Bain groaned a long-suffering “yes.”
“Bain, you’re only fifteen,” Sigrid eyed him with a wrinkled nose. “School isn’t even that hard yet. Just wait until you have to apply to universities and worry about test scores.”
“I’m not gonna go to university,” Bain shot back around a mouthful of spaghetti, “I’m gonna be a mechanic like Da and work on cool cars all day. And anyways, three years doesn’t make you the expert on hard stuff. You didn’t even have to balance equations in chem today.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Bee.” Bard pushed a slightly wilted leaf of lettuce around his plate, suddenly not feeling all that hungry. “We’ll talk about you and higher education when we get to that bridge.”
Bain chewed quickly, swallowed with a grimace, then said, “It’s okay, Da, I don’t have to go to university. It probably wouldn’t even be a good fit for me anyways.”
“Bain, you don’t need to worry about that sort of stuff. If you want to go, we’ll find a way.”
The table fell silent. It was a familiar silence, one that had become a staple as of late. Bard stared at the lone leaf, and tried not to pay the shame bubbling up inside him any mind. Money was tight, and all three of his children knew it just as well as he did. Sigrid had fantasies of University of Gondor, and she had the brains and the scores for it ten times over: what they didn’t have were the funds. The Bowman family had never been exorbitantly wealthy, but between his doubled work as a mechanic and mail carrier and Elfie’s secretary work they had carved out a life for them and their children. With Elfie gone, though…
Tilda’s small hand slipped into his. She looked up at him with round eyes. He squeezed it, and pasted on a smile.
“It’s my job to worry about all of you, not the other way around: alright?” Bard shook his head, tearing his attention from the salad. “You said you met someone new at school today, Bee?”
They all knew to drop the conversation quickly. Bain crammed a forkful of noodles into his mouth. “Oh, yeah, the elf kid. He’s got weird eyes.”
“Bain,” Sigrid said sharply. “Are you kidding me?”
“What? He’s got weird eyes, okay? And he never talks. He’s like a ghost, Da. He just sits in the back of the classroom and does his work and doesn’t talk to anyone, and when we get breaks to go outside he just disappears.”
“He’s probably just scared,” Bard said. “Imagine you’re the one transferring into a new school where you don’t know anyone, and then a boy tells his father that you have ‘weird eyes’ over his spaghetti. I wouldn’t be too talkative either.”
“Huh.” Bain cringed, then swallowed. “Guess I didn’t think about it like that.”
“You could be his friend!” Tilda piped up. “I don’t think Fili and Kili would mind another friend either. You guys could be, like, a corset.”
“Quartet, Tilds.”
“Yeah, that.”
“Did you even learn his name?” Bard pressed. Bain thought for a moment.
“It was something weird– I mean, it was unique. Legolas Thranduilion. I don’t think the teacher said it right, though. She got crazy tripped up on it.”
Ah. So he was from the Greenwood, or at least his family was. That wasn’t too far from Laketown depending on which part he lived in, maybe a day’s drive or two. The Greenwood was quite a different world from Laketown. No wonder the kid was feeling shy.
“Bain, be kind to him, alright?”
“I will, Da.” Bain was a good kid, and an honest one at that: Bard didn’t question his sincerity for a moment. “Me and Fili and Kili can be, like, his welcoming party.”
“Good on you.” Bard smiled, reaching over the table and ruffling his son’s head. “If you lot clean the table, I'll do the dishes.”
“Yay!” Tilda grabbed her (mostly cleared) plate and made a beeline for the sink. Sigrid took her own plate in one hand and the bowl of strawberries in the other and followed her little sister into their cramped kitchen. Bain stayed behind, moving around what little of his noodles were left with his fork.
“I didn’t mean to make him feel bad, Da, I promise,” he said quietly. “And I don’t want him to be lonely.”
“Oh, I know, son.” Bard put his hand on Bain’s shoulder. “Maybe you should invite him over sometime. You guys could do schoolwork together and wander around in the backyard.” The backyard, as they called it, was actually the acres of prairie behind their house. It was the one perk of being in such a small home: what they lacked inside, they more than made up for outside.
“Yeah, I could do that.” Bain’s smile flashed like the sun. “Fili and Kili would definitely be down as well. Can I text them right now?”
“After you help your sisters clean up,” Bard reminded him. “But yes. You’re a good kid, Bee, and don’t you ever forget that.”
“And you’re a good Da too, Da,” his son replied. He stood up, hugged his side in the way only awkward teen boys could hug their father, then grabbed the remaining bowls. “Don’t you forget that either.”
The house was quiet when he arrived home. That was okay; he liked quiet. His Ada wouldn’t be home for a few more hours, maybe around eight thirty or nine. That gave him around three hours to get his work done.
Legolas toed off his boots, then locked and triple-locked the door behind him. Safety. Safety was key– he checked the sliding glass door leading out into the woods as well, even though he knew he had locked it when he had left as well.
Humming softly to himself, Legolas set his backpack onto the table. He didn’t have much homework: even though he was two weeks late, the school system of Dale didn’t seem particularly rigid in its standards of excellence. He probably could have showed up three months late and still graduate near the top. Not that he would want that. Not that he even wanted to be here in Laketown in the first place: but what choice did he and his Ada have?
That feeling was niggling in the back of his brain again, creeping like a spider. Before he knew it Legolas was up again and at the door with his hand on the lock. The deadbolt retreating, then slamming home again was comforting.
Click-thunk. Click-thunk. Click-thunk.
The door was locked. They were safe. The door was locked. He was safe.
“Stupid,” Legolas muttered to himself. “Paranoid child.”
He returned to his seat at the kitchen table, pulling out his chemistry textbook from his back. Problems three through twenty-three were due tomorrow. Simple stuff, just balancing equations. He could do it in his sleep. He worked in silence with only the scratching of his pencil against paper to keep him company. While he worked, he thought of dinner. Sandwiches again, probably. His Ada needed to go shopping for food a few days ago: they had enough sandwich supplies for the apocalypse; but then, Legolas was getting thoroughly tired of tomato, spinach, and cheese on whole-grain. Leaving the house was still an uphill battle for the both of them. School and work were unavoidable: a grocery store packed with people was another battle entirely.
That feeling again. The spiders in his brain. Scuttling. Swarming. Up he went, right to the lock.
Click-thunk. Click-thunk. Click-thunk.
Only after he heard the third thunk did the weight on his chest let up. He stood at the door for a moment, staring at the brass knob.
Stupid, paranoid, childish idiot. You’re safe. Both of you are safe. He is far away, and He’ll never hurt Ada again.
The spiders still scuttled in the darkest corners of his brain. They were quiet, for now, but it would only be a matter of time before they got loud again.
“Stupid,” he repeated to himself. “Stupid.”
He retreated back to his homework before the spiders could creep out again. Silence was the thing tripping him up. Scrolling through his playlists, he found one that would drown out his thoughts nicely. He completed the rest of his homework to the dulcet tones of dwarven throat singing, interspersed with random saxophone solos. It was ridiculous, but it worked like a charm.
Just as he was finishing his last equation, his phone buzzed. Ada, the notification read, two new messages.
Legolas stared at his phone. His first thought was an awful one: his Ada had gotten into a car accident on the way home from work, or been hit by a drunk driver, or choked to death or had a heart attack or a stroke, or worst of all, He (because he had no name in Legolas’ brain, not anymore: He was always just He) had found them again, and everything was going to come crashing down and-
Somewhere in his spiral, he accidentally looked down at his phone, unlocking it and bringing his text notifications to the front.
Ada:
I’ll be home sooner than expected. I have dinner with me.
Are you alright? Did you make it home without incident?
Legolas sighed, already chastising himself for the freakout. With quick fingers he replied:
yeah im okay
what kind of food?
Curry from the family restaurant next to the office. I believe the proprietors are related in some way to a dwarf the other lawyer that I work beside is connected to. They are very kind there. Nearly everyone I met today has been kind. How was your first day of school?
Legolas’ thumbs hovered over the screen. He chewed the bottom of his lip.
it was okay
I think everyone thinks I’m weird
I heard a couple of kids whispering about me
Keep your chin up, little leaf. You are strong. Who cares what the other children think?
“I do,” Legolas whispered.
what are people at the office like?
did you get any crazy cases today
Three bubbles appeared on the screen, then disappeared, then appeared again. Legolas watched them move like he imagined mice watched hungry cats lurking in the corner.
This place is very different from Gondolin: there are not so many dramatic things happening here. My cases are small and personal. Currently I am working on a property dispute.
Legolas didn’t need to read between the lines: his Ada’s meaning was clear. Laketown was safer than Gondolin by a wide margin. There wasn’t much excitement in a small town like this.
I am driving home now, ion-nîn. I will not be able to text you until then.
I love you very much.
I love you too ada
Legolas stared at his father’s last message, burning it into his brain. It was a half an hour drive from their house tucked away in the woods to Esgaroth Law. He snuck a peak at the clock: 6:30. His Ada would be home a whole two hours earlier than he usually was. At least Elbereth was smiling on him for that.
Legolas closed out of his messages and opened the location app that both of them had downloaded through mutual agreement. True to his word, his Ada’s icon was in the heart of Laketown. With a sigh, Legolas propped his phone up on his chemistry textbook, then folded his arms in front of him on the table and rested his chin on his forearms, watching the icon slowly make its way down the tangled mess of roads. Just in case, was what he told himself. One could never be too certain. Just in case.