Chapter Text
Bilbo stood with his fists clenched tight. His knees were scratched and bloodied, dirt and rock stuck deep into his skin. His elbows matched and his bleeding chin and swollen cheek a crown jewel on his sown kingdom of self. The children laughed as if his condition was a joke told over supper.
Stupid.
Ugly.
Retarded.
Orphan.
More spilled forward day in and day out. Peeling away his young years as the shire children tore into his insides as a pack of starved wolves. He knew better than to run from them. They clutched onto fear and grabbed fistfuls, pushed and pulled, hissed and screamed. They would make it so much worse so he had to wait them out. When they would tire they would leave, shuffling away announcing that he was no longer any fun. While they smiled their devil smiles as they snuggled into warm beds Bilbo would return home.
Quiet.
Empty.
He would light a candle. Take in the basket of food his uncle would leave and find what was left after the other children have rampaged through taking away everything to their liking. He would sleep in a bed far too cold, in a home far too alone to be called that.
Beware of Dog signs would be taken down from his door in the morning, written in cruel children's writing.
Bilbo schooled himself. They took less interest in someone that smiled and said kind words even when they bashed their fists into him. He hid all his wounds well, kept the scent away from them as he grew up.
As a respectable adult that was all they saw. Inside he was screaming, lost in an icy ocean tossing him with such ferocity that some days he could not pull himself out of his bed. The bright morning light stung on those days and a smile would not come to his face no matter how he tried. Self preservation kept him still in his room and away from the people that tortured his soul.
Then... Frodo came into his life. The small child came home covered in scrapes and bruises and cuts that marred Bilbo still. As Frodo cried in his chair at the kitchen table, thinking he was being punished. Bilbo could do nothing but move about the house. He stuffed his money away, grabbed their most sturdy clothing and stuffed it into a bag. He grabbed blankets and one pillow that he took a rope to tie to his bag as all he could hear was hear his nephew cry and that great sea inside of him opened into a fisher and he struggled not to fall into it and claw for purchase as to not be lost in the depression and sorrow of allowing such a thing to happen once more!
He took his lamps and threw them against the walls and floor. Grabbed Frodo onto his hip and left a burning burrow. A grand house that made others believe he was born with a silver spoon. A house that even when Frodo smiled and laughed it remained empty and cold. A hole in the ground with no comforts of home that only delivered offers of purchase of the land and a broken child to its door.
“B-bilbo?” Frodo barely managed to keep a quick trot as his uncle pulled him by his wrist. When he tripped he heard a choked sound from his uncle and he was picked up to his chest.
Sounds of people in the shire seeing the fire started up and Bilbo was running with Frodo clutched to his heart as he fled. Running through the open glens to trees and farther still until his legs burned and he pushed, harder than before. His heart would give out before he would stop, escaping the prison that had been built by others! He continued until he collapsed and couldn’t breathe. Where he crumpled to his knees. Frodo’s little arms wrapped around Bilbo’s shoulders and the child quietly clutched as the grown hobbit held him so tight that his body ached and his shoulder became wet with tears.
To Be Continued...