Chapter Text
The rain in Northern England did not simply fall; it insisted. It was a pervasive, weeping grey that slicked the cobblestones of the narrow alleyways and turned the brick facades of the old town into dark, glistening walls.
For Bilbo Baggins, the rain was usually a comfort, a valid excuse to stay inside his flat above The Green Dragon (his tiny bookshop that smelled perpetually of vanilla and dust and was his whole pride and joy) and bury his nose in research. But tonight, the rain was merely a rhythm to which his insomnia danced.
The digital clock on his bedside table read 2:14 AM.
Bilbo sighed, a sharp, frustrated exhalation that puffed into the chill of the room. The heating had clicked off hours ago, leaving the air with a biting nip that required thick woollen socks and a heavy cardigan. He sat at his mahogany desk, the glow of his laptop screen illuminating a face etched with the specific weariness of a writer who had deleted more words than he had kept in the last four hours.
He was working on a translation of local folklore, trying to weave the dry historical records of the region into an interesting narrative, but the words lay flat and dead on the screen. He pushed his chair back, the wood groaning against the floorboards, and stood up. He shuffled to the window, wrapping his arms around his chest.
Across the narrow alleyway, about twelve feet away, was the back of the adjacent building. It was an old industrial structure, red brick and sturdy, the ground floor occupied by a carpentry workshop called Oakenshield & Sons.
And there, on the first floor, a rectangle of yellow light cut through the gloom.
Bilbo rested his forehead against the cold glass of his window. He wasn’t the only one awake. He never was.
For the past six months, since the new owner had taken over the workshop, that light had been a constant companion. Bilbo didn’t know the man well – they had exchanged muttered greetings while collecting the post, and Bilbo had once held the door open for him when he was carrying a massive plank of white oak – but he felt a strange kind of connection to him.
The man, Thorin Oakenshield, was an imposing figure. He was broad-shouldered and all solid muscle, with a mane of long, dark hair streaked with grey that always seemed windblown, and a beard that was kept neat and looked surprisingly soft. He looked less like a modern carpenter and more like an ancient warrior or king that came straight from one of Bilbo’s books.
Bilbo watched the window across the way. The blinds were half-drawn, but he could see the shadow moving. Back and forth, almost rhythmic. It wasn’t the pacing of a nervous man, no, it was the steady, working cadence of someone who could not rest. Bilbo knew that only too well.
"Still at it," Bilbo murmured to the glass. "You and me both."
He felt a sudden, desperate need for tea. Or perhaps something stronger. But mostly, he just needed to escape the blinking cursor that was mocking him from across the room.
***
Thorin Oakenshield ran his hand over the curve of the chair leg. It was ash, pale and straight-grained, and it felt cool and smooth under his calloused fingertips. It wasn’t smooth enough. He picked up the sanding block again.
The sound was the only thing that could muffle the noise in his head. The workshop was silent otherwise, save for the relentless drumming of the rain against the windows. He was in his flat above the shop, but he had converted the second bedroom into a smaller, private studio for the finer work, the kind of work that required patience he didn't possess during the daylight hours.
His sister, Dís, told him he worked too hard. She told him he was trying to rebuild their grandfather’s legacy in a single year, trying to prove something to a world that didn't care. She was probably right (she usually was).
But Dís could sleep at night. Thorin could not.
When he lay in bed, the silence was too loud. It filled with worries about invoices, about the way his hands could never quite find peace, about how lonely he was, about his nephews, Fíli and Kíli, who were kind and brilliant but chaotic apprentices. The only way to drown it out was mostly with the friction of sandpaper on wood, the smell of sawdust, the proof of progress.
He paused, blowing a fine layer of dust off the wood and rolled his shoulders, feeling the tension crackle in his neck.
He looked up. Through the rain-streaked window, across the black gap of the alley, the light was still on in the flat above the bookshop.
The neighbour. Baggins.
Thorin didn’t know much about him, other than that he dressed like a university professor and bought an alarming amount of tea from the grocer down the street. He seemed soft, in the way moss is soft. Quiet, unassuming, but resilient in its own way.
Thorin found the light comforting. It was a lighthouse in the dark ocean of the sleeping town. It meant he wasn't the only soul unable to find peace in the dark.
He set the sanding block down. His hands were vibrating slightly, a phantom buzz from hours of work. He needed air. The dust was coating the back of his throat, tasting of dry earth.
He grabbed a packet of cigarettes from the workbench, a bad habit he had quit three times and restarted three times, and headed for the stairs.
***
The air smelled of wet pavement and the faint, sweet rot of damp leaves.
Bilbo was standing under the small overhang of the bookshop’s back door, clutching a mug of tea with both hands as if it were a talisman against the cold. He was wearing a quilted dressing gown over sweatpants, his bare feet shoved into slippers that were entirely unsuited for the damp concrete.
He jumped slightly when the metal door of the workshop creaked open
Thorin stepped out, the orange light from the workshop spilling into the night before he let the door clang shut, plunging them back into the semi-darkness of the streetlamps filtering in from the main road.
They stared at each other for a moment.
"Oh," Bilbo said, his voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat. "Hello."
Thorin nodded, reaching into his pocket for his lighter. The flame flared, illuminating the sharp angles of his face, the dark circles under his eyes, and the dusting of fine white powder on his black t-shirt.
"Baggins."
"Oakenshield," Bilbo replied, hugging the mug tighter. "Bit wet for a smoke, isn't it?"
Thorin took a drag, exhaling a plume of smoke that mingled instantly with the mist. He stepped closer to the wall, finding the scant shelter offered by the eaves of his own building.
"Bit wet for a picnic, but there you are." Bilbo huffed a small laugh, looking down at his slippers. "Touché. Couldn’t really sleep.”
"I know the feeling," Thorin murmured, his voice a deep rumble that seemed to shake something deep inside Bilbo’s gut. He looked at Bilbo, really looked at him. The smaller man looked frayed around the edges. His sandy hair was sticking up in tufts, and there was an ink smudge on his cheek.
"You're always up," Thorin observed. A statement of fact.
"So are you," Bilbo countered. He shivered as a gust of wind whipped rain around the corner. "I see your light. The workshop. Do you ever stop?"
"Not if I can help it." Thorin flicked ash onto the wet ground. "Silence is... heavy."
Bilbo hummed in agreement, looking up at the narrow strip of sky visible between the buildings. It was purple-black, free of stars. "Heavy is the right word. It presses down, doesn't it? When the rest of the world is asleep, your own thoughts get very loud."
Thorin turned his head, surprised by the insight. Most people told him to try melatonin or meditation. They didn't understand that the noise wasn't biological; it was existential.
"What are you writing?" he asked, deflecting from his own psyche.
"Folklore," Bilbo said, animating slightly. "Local history. Myths. Trying to convince the modern world that there’s still magic, if you know where to look. It’s proving difficult. The modern world is very cynical."
"The modern world is tired," Thorin corrected. "It wants furniture that comes in flat boxes and falls apart in two years."
Bilbo smiled, a genuine expression that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "And you refuse to give them that."
"Wood has a memory," Thorin said, the passion rising in him unbidden. "It was alive. You can’t treat it like plastic. If you force it, it splits. If you listen to it, it lasts a hundred years."
He stopped, realizing he had spoken more words in the last minute than he usually did in a whole day. He clamped his mouth shut, feeling foolish. Bilbo didn't look bored, though. He looked fascinated. He was watching Thorin with a keen, bright intensity.
"Wood has a memory," Bilbo repeated softly. "That’s good. I might steal that."
"Royalties are ten percent," Thorin rumbled, the corner of his mouth twitching the tiniest bit.
Bilbo laughed, a bright sound that seemed to push back the gloom of the alley. "I’ll buy you a pint at The Prancing Pony instead. Deal?"
Thorin paused. He wasn't in the habit of socializing. His life was work. But looking at the shivering author in the dressing gown, with the ink smudge on his face and the desperate need for connection in his eyes, Thorin felt a crack in his own defences.
"Deal," Thorin said.
A silence stretched between them, but it didn't feel like the heavy, suffocating silence of isolation. It was companionable. It was the silence of two people acknowledging that they were both broken, but weirdly enough, in compatible ways.
Bilbo took a sip of his tea, grimacing. "Cold."
"Go inside, Baggins," Thorin said, his tone gruff but not unkind. "You'll catch your death out here."
"Yes. Yes, I suppose I should." Bilbo shifted, but he didn't leave immediately. "Thorin?" Thorin looked at him, the cigarette burning down near his knuckles. "Hm?"
"It helps," Bilbo said quietly, looking up at the opposing window. "Seeing the light on. Knowing I'm not the only one staring at the dark."
Thorin felt a tightness in his chest, a sudden, sharp pang of something that felt dangerously like hope. He dropped the cigarette butt and crushed it out with the heel of his boot. "It helps me too," Thorin admitted, his voice barely audible over the rain.
He met Bilbo's eyes. In the dim light, they were warm and intelligent. There was a moment of suspension, a beat where the rain seemed to slow, where the distance across the alley felt bridgeable.
"Goodnight, Thorin," Bilbo said softly.
"Goodnight, Bilbo."
Bilbo turned and slipped back through the door of the bookshop. The lock clicked. Thorin stood alone in the alley for another minute, ignoring the rain that was now soaking through his t-shirt. He looked up at the window above the bookshop. A moment later, Bilbo’s silhouette appeared. He sat back down at his desk.
Thorin turned and went back inside.
He climbed the stairs to his studio, the smell of sawdust greeting him like an old friend. He walked to his workbench and picked up the sanding block. But before he started, he looked out the window.
Bilbo was typing. The hesitation was gone from his posture.
Thorin sat down on his stool. He didn't pick up the sandpaper immediately. Instead, he just watched the window across the way, the yellow square of light cutting through the rain. He felt a strange sense of calm settle over him, a quietness in his mind that had nothing to do with exhaustion.
His hands were still. For the first time that night, he didn't need to work to keep the demons at bay. He just watched the light, and breathed.