Chapter Text
The day that Bilbo found his Dwarf was a miserable one.
By the time he'd heard the slight whimpered moan off to the left of his walking path, he'd managed to become wet and muddy near to the seat of his breeches, and his jacket was not doing as well as he had hoped at keeping the biting wind from nipping at his sensitive skin. It was a terrible time for Bilbo to have been travelling from Scary, but he'd not wanted to stay in the area any longer than he'd had to, his irritation at having to take the time to travel there in the first place transferring to a need to leave as soon as possible, even when the weather had turned sour and ominous, and he'd trudged on even when the skies had broken and the rain had turned the path to sludge.
He'd not got near as far through the Brockenbores as he'd planned before he'd heard the noise.
Really, if he'd been sensible, he'd have turned right back around and gone back to Scary, and sent for the Bounders to take the pitiful creature off to the Rangers to deal with.
But. But.
Oh, it was a wretched thing, and Bilbo at first thought he'd stumbled upon a Goblin or some such, as scarred and sickly as he looked. That, really, is when he should have scarpered back to Scary with a healthy dose of Hobbity fear, but as it was, he instead found himself divesting himself of his cloak to wrap around the miserable creature, and try to figure out why it was whining so terribly. By the state of what Bilbo was going to assume was a him, it was a combination of sheer neglect and harm, that equalled a soul that just could not continue another step, and Bilbo rummaged quickly in his own pack for a sweet roll to feed the poor fellow, if only to give him the energy to get him out of the muddy, half-filled ditch he was huddled in.
They weren't near enough to the town of Brockenborings to get there easily, not with the Dwarf in the condition he was in, and so Bilbo had huffed and hauled and grumbled and got the fellow on his feet -bare and blistered, no sign of the customary clompers the fellows called boots- and haul him along to one of the old burrowing tunnels he knew of along the path.
When he was a lad, he and his distant cousins from amongst the North Tooks would camp amongst the hilly region Bilbo was traversing now. The old borings were the source of good camping spots, excellent for young lads intent on exploring and adventuring, and the perfect subject for ghostly tales of who could have built such Hobbit-like burrows deep into the stone, long before Hobbits came to live in the region.
Now, Bilbo would have to find a burrow that would get them out of weather, where he could build a fire and give what aid he could to fixing the fellow’s wounds and try and feed him something. Long enough to last the storm that was surely moving in, until they could get away to Brockenborings and find someone more capable of looking after a person in such a terrible state.
That is what Bilbo did. Look after the fellow, that is. He never did end up finding anyone to take the Dwarf off Bilbo's hands.
The Dwarf had not spoken, not in all the time -a whole day and two nights!- that they had rested in the old borings he'd found for them, but he'd looked so pathetically grateful for Bilbo's care and attention, the warmth, the blankets from Bilbo's pack, the food that he'd rationed out for them, the broth he'd put together with foraged mushrooms and herbs and fed to the fellow as often as he could stomach it. So very grateful for Bilbo's non-stop rambling chatter that had begun almost as soon as he'd got them settled, chatting and tutting and telling every story that came to mind to fill the silence between him and this stranger.
When Bilbo had finally led the fellow to the town further down the valley, he'd somehow found himself hiring a cart, rather than calling for the Bounders.
A mere few hours later, and Bilbo had been helping the Dwarrow into Bag End, and sending a few local lads to return the cart and fetch him in supplies, and sending for the Hobcotton lass that served as a sort of healer for the locals.
In the space of a few days, Bilbo found that he was quite in the possession of a Dwarf.
***
The days pass fairly quickly for Bilbo, caring for this visitor that he never expected, and can't quite seem to rid himself of. Or even, really, find any reason to not care for the fellow.
His Dwarf does not speak, and Bilbo doesn't mind. The damage he has come to understand across the Dwarf's body is harsh, and inflicted by something cruel. Bilbo has ceased to think of the thing that has done this to his Dwarrow as a person- a person would not do such to another. No, this was done to his Dwarrow by a thing, and whatever it is, Bilbo hopes that the reason his Dwarf is free now, is because he killed the thing that had done such damage to him.
Bilbo does not push him to speak, but he does worry on what to call the fellow. The first few days, he flinches when Bilbo calls him 'Dwarf', a slight thing that most would miss, but Bilbo sees that slight tension it brings, and ceases to call him 'Mister Dwarf'. Instead he settles for 'sir' and 'dearest visitor', and on one memorably occasion, 'you stubborn, grey-haired git', which actually brings the ghost of a smile to his Dwarrow's face. Bilbo allows a few 'Mister Dwarf's' to slip in after that, and it only occasionally brings a flinch. Eventually, Bilbo settles on a name for him, scolding him heartily, that if the fellow does not wish to tell his name to Bilbo, then Bilbo shall name him what he pleases!
He calls him Furlo, a fine Hobbitish name indeed, and smiles brightly when his Dwarrow grumbles and pouts, the closest to talking Bilbo has ever heard from the fellow. If he wants a Dwarrow name, Bilbo tells him, he ought to speak up and tell him one he would prefer.
Furlo doesn't, but it still feels like a victory.
After near three weeks (nineteen days, actually- Bilbo's counting) Bilbo has his new friend out in the garden with him, gnarled fingers dug happily into the earth, and there is something there, in Furlo's face, that is both content and also surprised, and Bilbo hands him tools and lets him loose on old beds that need digging up anyway, and leaves him to find peace in the dirt and the old brambles.
Furlo's body is healing well, as well as one can after what seems to be years’ and years’ worth of torment and badly healed tortures, righted through simple care and good feeding, and taking ease with his own body, and Dwarves truly are the hardiest of beings, if Furlo is anything to go with. Bilbo doesn't know quite what to do with that. Really, there's no good reason for Furlo to stay with him if he's healed, but so far, he's given no indication that he wants to leave, and Bilbo doesn't ask.
He's quite grown fond of the fellow.
As it is, Bilbo knows that Furlo's mind is the part that is far from healed, and Bilbo would never ask him to go if staying with Bilbo helps him to find peace.
More than that, though, Bilbo finds himself growing more than a little attached to his Dwarf, and he wonders at himself, that perhaps he was so lonely here in his big family-sized Hobbit hole, that just the company of a half-broken Dwarrow who does not speak is enough to make him so pathetically grateful for someone to share a home with.
And he is- grateful, that is. Bilbo can see the gratitude in Furlo's face almost every day, that he is fed, warm, clean, and not hurt, treated as a sentient being with rights to his person, and Bilbo does not know how to express to this fellow that Bilbo, too, is so very grateful.
Maybe that was why Bilbo was the one to find him. Maybe they needed each other.
Bilbo, however, is not one to be over thinking things, really. As much as he loves his books, his romantic tales of great deeds and valour, Bilbo is still a Hobbit to the core, and when he starts thinking along the lines of fate and destiny, he smartly raps himself over the head and applies himself to more practical endeavours. Like baking a few more of those apple pies that bring Furlo so much pleasure.
(The approving sounds Furlo makes with each new sweet presented him warm Bilbo's heart to the core, especially given how they become stronger and more free with every supper he serves him. Bilbo knows Furlo has a voice, knows that his lack of speech now is from some terrible thing from before. Knows that his lack of speech is either from being taught in the most cruel of ways not to speak, or from a part of Furlo himself that has refused to speak in the face of cruelty for so long that part of himself still compels him to hold that silence- Bilbo favours the second theory. Furlo is too quick to heal, too stubborn, too determined, for it to be anything but.)
With every day, Bilbo watches Furlo straighten a little more, another wound scarring, but fading. Less pain, more freedom of movement. The hesitancy of a new place while injured and hurt was there for a while, but Bilbo sees the stubborn set of those shoulders, and wants to clap and cheer. Furlo's steps grow strong and sure, and Bilbo pulls out every book with even the most basic pictures of Dwarrow, and designs new boots for Furlo, setting the designs in front of the Dwarrow with charcoal for him to pick and amend as he chooses, before he takes the designs to the sempster- Hobbits being quite a little thin on the ground in terms of cobblers.
Furlo also supplies him with some designs for tunics and breeches, and Bilbo finds amongst a pile of scribbles finely detailed drawings of quilted gambesons and leather brigandines with finely designed metal plates sewn to them, vambraces and hoods. Bilbo promptly and discreetly appropriates the designs to visit every worker of fabric, leather, fur, and metal in the village, cajoling embroiderers and tanners into every unhobbitly colour and angled stitch he can, yarn workers into weaving blocky designs into knitted gloves and scarves, even sending a letter to a cousin in Tuckborough for help and a few purchases from foreign traders, until he can finally present Furlo with a pile of clothes and armour, a full wardrobe of choices, down to braies, that are distinctly dwarvish.
The look upon Furlo's face when he sees himself in the mirror, dressed once more as a Dwarrow, all but breaks Bilbo's heart, if not for the fact that he is laughing and clapping for the joy of it, and Furlo takes him for an impromptu jig about the halls of Bag End, and Bilbo laughs and laughs, and wishes that everything from this day forth be able to bring forth the jubilant person with the hearty laugh that Bilbo sees now.
(Later, Bilbo shows him designs he had in mind for a sword, or an axe, and Furlo touches them with a reverence that he did not expect from such a thing. Furlo's designs are a far cry from Bilbo's poor attempts, and Bilbo very carefully copies every last line and angle to several different letters, and sends them off, with the designs for plates for the brigandines and vambrances, and for the boots.
No Hobbit smith will do, for this. For this, he will pay a Dwarven smith handsomely in gold, should he find one willing.)
Autumn gives way to Winter, and then all the way through Spring, and Bilbo realises it's been months and months since he found Furlo, and he barely even remembers what life was like before this wonderful dwarrow came to live with him. By Summer, Furlo is answering his chatter with grunts and sighs, gesturing to things, rolling his eyes -well, eye- and gently bopping Bilbo around the head when he tends to fret.
Sometimes, Furlo's humming fills their warm, cosy parlour in the evenings, safe and well fed by the fire, while Furlo whittles away at a new piece of wood (Mrs Brownwell down the lane had taken up the habit of feeding 'the poor wee lamb of a Dwarf' -a description that always leaves Bilbo a little wide eyed- with handfuls of her brown sugar biscuits, and Furlo, after a while, had returned the favour with a set of finely carved and polished knitting needles- Mrs Brownwell being known for her beautifully done bonnets and blankets across the whole village. Mrs Brownwell had been so very pleased, she had fair squeezed the very stuffing out of the Dwarrow in her excitement, and now biscuits and knitting needles in various sizes and shapes changed hands on a fair regular basis. Mrs Brownwell was well on her way to becoming the most envied matron in the village).
By Mid-Summer, Furlo is well and truly embroiled in the family business, stomping along with Bilbo on day trips to this or that property, visiting tenants and seeing to various repairs and services that are the Baggins leaser’s (i.e. Bilbo's) responsibility. Furlo has a sharp mind, and nudges and pokes at Bilbo at any opportunity to make his opinion known without speaking, and on one occasion, his gestures turn into something sharp and distinct that seems more a pattern of something than random waves of the hand, and he seems infinitely frustrated when Bilbo merely stares at him bemused.
The gestures are indeed a sort of language formed with hands, and sometimes the body, and Furlo patiently begins to teach him, again, without speaking, which means many a rolled eye on both their parts as they go. Eventually, Furlo takes to jotting out basic words, and then full sentences, in sharp, angular script, and Bilbo finds his eyes welling at Furlo working to find his voice, even if it is a more silent sort of voice than one would normally think.
(The writing remains an occasional event, and Bilbo knows without Furlo saying a word that he views writing out his thoughts as just as heavy a burden as he seems to see speaking, but Bilbo treasures the moments when Furlo absently reaches for instruments to speak to Bilbo, and doubly so when the gestures he teaches become more familiar, and Bilbo can feel honoured enough to be the one that may 'listen' to Furlo express himself.)
The accounts, Furlo also takes over, as it seems to bring him great delight to struggle through rows and rows of numbers, invoices and tally logs and spreadsheets, balancing the figures with satisfied hums. For Bilbo, indeed, it would be some small struggle, it being a somewhat necessary evil to the life of a Gentlehobbit, but for Furlo the job seems quite simple, if satisfying, and as long as it brings Furlo contentedness and a sense of achievement, then Bilbo will never deny him of it. (It doesn't hurt that Furlo is quite the businessman, and Bilbo's coffers do well under his input.) Instead, Bilbo devotes that time to the kitchen, in the hopes that may express his appreciation while also bringing more satisfaction to his friend.
Bilbo does, also, add Furlo to the employee records as his accounts man, and issues a wage, and quite ignores the full tantrum Furlo has at that. Fair is fair, and even if Furlo is trading and selling some of his whittled works at the markets, he deserves his own secure income, and he is doing the work, after all, Bilbo argues, and ignores the hand waving and stomping and the glares that Bilbo will never call pouts- at least, not out loud. Eventually Furlo gives in, as Bilbo can be as stubborn as any Dwarf, please and thank you very much, and takes his wages grudgingly, though he does tend to stomp off with his money pouch every pay day to the markets, and come home with groceries before Bilbo has a chance to even order them.
The git.
Autumn seems to fly past without notice, but for Bilbo's birthday and a grand party under the party tree, Furlo happily jigging with faunts and matrons, and fellows he's knocked a few pints with at the Green Dragon over the last few months. He manages to devour a good portion of the banquet, and a full six slices of the goodly sized birthday cake, covered with candied fruit and sweetmeats and sugared blossoms, and entertains the littlest of faunts greatly with his juggling of six empty plates and a potato.
(Furlo is startled, and more than a little weepy at the gift Bilbo presents to him- his own tobacco pouch in fine, buttery soft leather, stitched with some of the same designs that had gone into his cloak, all done in Bilbo's own hand to go with the pipe they had bought Furlo at the markets some months ago. Bilbo finds himself, too, a bit weepy when Furlo hugs him tightly, but puts their emotional display down to a few too many pints of the fine ale on hand for the evening.)
From there, Autumn seems one long party, what with the harvest being ample and well celebrated this year, and before Bilbo knows it, they are well into Winter. Bilbo is shopping at the markets for a Yule gift for Furlo when he realises with a start that his temporary Dwarven guest has been with him well over a year.
The time they have been together has been a joy for Bilbo, not counting the terrible first few weeks when his friend had been all but a stranger, and one so terribly wracked with pain and suffering at that. There had even been a satisfaction, then, though, to see, and be able to help, this fellow grow strong and healthy again, slowly heal in body, and then mind, and in turn find him growing so dear to Bilbo. There was not a moment that Bilbo regretted over the year and some that Furlo had lived at Bag End, but rather than leaving him aglow, it was a somewhat droopy Hobbit that trudged home from the market, even after successfully collecting the new commissioned fur-lined gloves, and good, new, Dwarvish steel carving set.
(Bilbo did not mind Furlo using his da's old carving tools, not at all- it was wonderful, seeing them used again when Bilbo was not the most enthusiastic of whittlers. But Furlo deserved a set of his own to love, and Bilbo does so love to find things of Furlo's people for him.)
Furlo gives him a glare when Bilbo arrives home looking so very glum, and Bilbo almost smiles, because he knows that glare to be concern, and busies himself in the kitchen to try to appear normal, but Furlo has more than come to the point of knowing when Bilbo is fretting, and makes a nuisance of himself while Bilbo attempts to bake, until Bilbo caves and wonders aloud as to whether Furlo has considered going to find what family he probably has, or other Dwarves, at the very least.
Furlo stomps off after that, and Bilbo sulks and mopes and bakes and peels taters enough to prepare three different kinds for their supper, and is mixing finely chopped pickled onions and small bits of ham into a bowl of mashed spuds to form into patties to fry in the pan when Furlo comes stomping back and gruffly takes over the pan of sausages on the back burner with not a look to Bilbo, glower still firmly in place.
He spends the rest of the evening glaring at Bilbo, until Bilbo finally snaps and quite tells Furlo off, because he does not want him to leave, and while the life Bilbo leads is more than good enough for Bilbo, surely there is more to be had elsewhere for a Dwarf, and he just wants Furlo to be happy, confound it all-
Furlo cuts him off with a cuff to the head and the most firm, encompassing hug, something a little desperate in the gesture, and Bilbo returns it just as fiercely. He tells no lie; he doesn't wish to lose his greatest friend, the one he counts as family, now, and he whispers that into Furlo's heavily clothed shoulder, and says nothing when Furlo's arms tighten.
The days leading up to Yule are somewhat dimmer. Furlo makes no move to suddenly pack and leave, but he is quieter -for a fellow that does not speak aloud- and is absent in mind at some meals. He's taken to sitting looking off into the distance, and Bilbo's heart thumps in his chest when he realises that Furlo always looks west- to the mountains, blue against the distant horizon.
There are evenings where Furlo will ignore his whittling, and Bilbo sitting in his own armchair across from Furlo's, a new book at hand ready to read aloud for them both, and instead take over Bilbo's study and his parchments, muttering and growling to himself as he jots pages and pages, all that go to the wastebasket nearby, or to the fire, when Furlo is particularly upset with his writings.
Bilbo does not mean to intrude on Furlo's privacy.... but he does it anyway, and unscrunches a sheet of paper that has made it to the wastepaper basket one eve. The writings within, though, are in no scripts Bilbo can read, the letters being sharp and angular scripts that Bilbo recognises as some of the patterning to garments and such that Furlo had scribbled out before, but none that Bilbo may read, and so he returns the parchments to the basket and lets himself worry and worry, late into the night.
He will not prevent Furlo from ever leaving, never do anything to dissuade him, but Bilbo knows his own heart, and knows he will mourn the loss of this person that has quite become his definition of home.
Yule morn is subdued, as much as Bilbo tries very hard to put forward a front of joyous celebration. Furlo knows better, and frowns all the more, but Bilbo ignores him and serves him warm fruit pies and elaborate pastries for breakfast, and brings him a great pile of gifts.
Furlo disappears without eating or opening his gifts for long enough that Bilbo feels his heart drop clear to his toes.
He does reappear again soon after, though, soon enough even that the breakfast is still warm, and with him, he brings his own pile of presents, including a beautiful new desk chair for Bilbo's study, of fine oak, with a pattern that is both Dwarven and Hobbit, and Bilbo feels his eyes well at the sight.
It's the knowing that the chair represents them, their odd little family, a blending of Dwarrow and Hobbit that is twining wood vines around blocky, ornate spokes, that Bilbo finally understands what Furlo is most upset about, himself.
Bilbo will not lose him, even if Furlo goes. They are quite beyond that.
It's in the whispered "Bilbo" in his hair when he hugs Furlo tight.