Chapter Text
Fili stood over the drafting table, plans for the remodel of the Italianate colossus his firm had bought sliding across the Formica surface. It would be beautiful once it was done, the eves of the roof and the shutters in contrasting color to the main part of the house. Twisting his arms to push off the tension from his shoulders, the generic blue shirt untucked some out of his khaki pants. Smiling to himself, Fili had to admit Denver was on the rise so to speak in the property markets. Houses were going up left and right but so was the value. No reason he can’t have a foot hold, too.
One thing held true though in the land of legal marijuana consumption, the Nouveau Riche liked the big houses. The more eyeball splitting the size, the more garish the color too. Nothing trumpeted ‘baller’ faster than a three story monstrosity in pepto pink. But the old money, the Silver and Copper mine money loved the old houses in the neighborhoods. The places where it wasn’t unusual to have six acres between the main house and the street. Other parts of the city, the low rent section if someone was being unkind, didn’t have a lawn, they had a yard and it was the size of a postage stamp. The zip code was everything in this town.
Fili loved the old ladies as he called them, the pre turn of the century grandiose mansions of the Gilded Age. Some years stretched into a style, an architectural phase that was popular to the great and the good who ruled that place in time. Each style was paired with a name too, like Greek Revival, Italianate, Gothic Victorian, Queen Anne Victorian. Each a gorgeous girl and each had her own set of unusual drama.
Staring at the estimates for the renovation, the new owners were not favor of massive changes to the outside look for which Fili was very glad. There would be no gingerbreading as he called it with a huff. Leaning into the table, he continued to make notes on a separate pad for the types of materials needed for the reconstruction of the dismantled portico. Part of his job was the research on the buildings themselves, any old pictures that might have been in archives so that the owners had a very detailed idea on how their home has changed since it was built. But the newbies had done their due diligence already, which pleased Fili more than he thought it would.
His uncle, Thorin had instilled in him a love for architecture thanks to LM construction, his business and first love until he hooked up with Sigrid Dale. Fili and his erratic brother, Kili had spent many a summer and weekend swinging a hammer to help out if Thorin was short on time for a job. Fili smiled to himself suddenly, his little brother wasn’t so erratic now, not since they had gone to help family in Tennessee and fell in love with their cousin’s neighbor. Now, he and Tauriel were planning their wedding and couldn’t be happier. Love had settled his brother, pushing Fili to think of his own life and where it was leading.
Legolas.
Kili wasn’t the only one who had found love in Tennessee, Fili had fell hard for Tauriel’s step brother, Legolas. Looking out the window, he had to admit the thought of being gay had never crossed his mind. There had always been girls, growing up. He enjoyed sex but with Leg it was different, not because of the taboo factor. Legolas made him feel, he wanted so much and realized so much was possible with the taller blond with the slow southern drawl. Fili knew he loved everything about him, the long hair that looked like a model’s or that he spent more time with it than a female. The way his green eyes would light up when he laughed. The lazy mornings when Legolas slept him and Fili would lay there and just listen to him breath.
Fili loved all of it, which is why the distance of late hurt him the most.
He didn’t understand when it started, when the frustrated dents started appearing the other man’s forehead. Legolas worked at the Ranger group, a progressive lobbyist association with more Democratic leanings than Republican. The high score he achieved when he passed the Colorado bar, left no doubt that Legolas would be running for an office of something one day. But all the parties the blond went lately to make contacts, networking, then volunteering at shelters gave them no real time together. Fili had been concerned that there might be another man, but he hadn’t gotten the cheating vibe. He had to admit it, he was just getting tired of eating alone at night.
One of the reasons, they four picked Denver was because the university would allow transfer of credits and they could graduate in their chosen fields. Tauriel with her criminal justice degree followed Kili back to Wyoming so that they could be together while he worked at their uncle’s construction business. Fili and Legolas had talked about following but an opportunity had come up for Fili in Denver and Leg was offered his current job. Neither had talked further about moving again of late since they were rather settled in their current jobs but Kili and Tauriel’s leaving had left a hole in their relationship. A severed feeling.
Fili missed his brother and he knew that Leg missed Tauriel.
His cell started jumping around on the heavy German monstrosity Fili used for a desk, acres of old wood that might have served better in a presidential office. Snatching it up, he grinned when he saw the name flashing. “Hello, you have reached Fili’s phone sex hot HOT Line. All our operators are servicing other clients. After the sound of the school bell, please leave your name, number, and a short list of what turns you on.”
“If a man or woman approaches me, its because they’re wanting to get fucked. The average Joe looks at the scars and tattoos and knows the sex is going to be grinding.” The deep husky voice on the other end was very masculine, a hard voice that could deliver every dark promise.
Fili took a seat, rolling his eyes. “Your family, Dwalin. Stop trying to get my dick hard.”
The deep bass laugh rumbled over the speaker, pulling a chuckle from Fili he didn’t know he had. Dwalin’s egging continued in the same tone. “Oh, I didn’t know that. Someone should have said something years ago when Frerin and I were in high school and those first few leaves of his.”
Fili gasped, yanking the phone away to stare at cell like he expected to be looking Dwalin in the face. Frerin was Dis and Thorin’s baby brother and in the Army, a West Point graduate. The last thing he had expected was to hear Dwalin talk about his uncle like that, particularly in light of his mother’s enmity for her son’s homosexuality.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell, Dwalin!” Fili hissed at him.
The laughter continued, making Fili realize that it wasn’t a joke at his lifestyle. Thorin and the extended family had been fine for the most part with his and Leg’s relationship. Perhaps it was because there had been a Dwalin and Frerin years ago to blaze the trail for it. He hadn’t seen his uncle Frerin in many years, got Christmas cards every once in a while. Thorin had said he always afraid of going to the door and seeing a sharp dressed soldier on the stoop with bad news. Frerin did things, but no one knew exactly what they were. If Frerin was still into men, his mother sure didn’t know.
“Hey, I didn’t call to discuss my Bear years. Thorin said you are coming home in about two weeks, and there will be a party at my place for the 4th, you and your guy are invited.” Dwalin joked as he walked because the background music changed suddenly from Frank Sinatra to some hardcore rap that Fili couldn’t understand. He was still wrestling with the idea of Dwalin’s “Bear years”.
A tight band of anxiety wrapped itself around his ribcage to correspond with the one that was systematically squeezing his neck at the thought of Leg. An undignified squeak and a gasp tumbled out of his mouth went the lack of available oxygen failed to allow his brain to format a response. A minute, then another limped back while Fili tried to get a handle on what to say.
“Fili? You there?” Dwalin sounded confused, probably thinking that the call dropped.
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Yeah, the party would be no problem.” His voice was higher than normal giving him away at lying.
Leg hadn’t totally committed yet to going. He seemed to get hedgy when it was brought up, changing the subject to something else. When they talked, recently. Fili hadn’t had face time with his lover in two days, most conversations snatched quickly on the phone or whittled down to texting.
Silence fell for the moment. Fili’s mind scrambled for the words, though Dwalin helped him out. “Talk to me. There’s something going on, young’un.”
He looked over the rows of pictures on the table in the corner next to the window. The four musketeers, he had privately called them. Fili, Kili, Legolas and Tauriel. The four of them skiing at Telluride. The cruise they had taken in the Caribbean. Last New Year’s in Las Vegas. They had had so much fun together, in all those places. But always it had been Tauriel and Kili with them. Was their relationship not viable unless it involved others?
“We have…Leg and I .. I don’t know. Distant. It doesn’t feel like there is someone else or anything, just ..” Fili let it drop because anything else just hurt him with a strange buzzing in his ear.
“Have you thought about another cock besides his?” Dwalin blew out a breath like he was leaning back to get comfortable for this delving into the Dr. Ruth time. “Imagine waking up tomorrow, and Blondie isn’t there. You wake up and you are all alone without him in your life. He is a distant memory, something from the past that you remember when you see Kili’s woman.” Fili felt his breath seize, his lungs shut off without the slightest interest of starting up again. Legolas gone?
He sat for a few minutes, struggling with the fear and desperation that locked his body down from his control. Fili raised a hand to his face, noticing it that it was shaking with expending adrenaline. He needed to move, wanted to hit something. Anything to keep the idea of out of his head that Legolas would leave him.
“I take it by the silence and the little girl noises that you didn’t feel excited about the idea of chasing different dick or starting up with pussy again?” The tattoo’d bastard had the nerve to be amused.
“No!”
Fili roared the denial, getting out of the chair. He grabbed a heavy old brink he used for a paperweight to stalk to the window with not particular thought than to do damage. He wanted to hit something with his brick, pound something to dust then stick his foot all the way up……something.
“I don't want to be with anyone else! I just want to be with Legolas.” The blond man snarled at his phone, shaking down to his tan work boots.
“Then you need to talk to him, Fili.” Dwalin told him smoothly. “Legolas might not know it yet, but I don’t think you will take it well if there was a parting of ways.”