Theo
Theo Dorian was a sensible young man. He was a good student, with good grades that he upheld easily as though achieving straight A's two years running, the majority of them being in the Advanced Placement program, was comparable to breathing for him. He came from a well off family and lived in a nice neighbourhood. The eldest of two siblings, Theo had an obligation to set an example for his younger sister, and he did.
In his seventeen years Theo had rarely found himself in trouble. He avoided it. It was sensible. In the two years of his high school career, he could count the amount of house parties he had attended on eight out of his ten fingers. He could count the amount of fistfights he'd been in without using fingers. Because he was Theo Dorian and Theo Dorian was a sensible young man.
This isn't to say that Theo didn't have things he did after studying that weren't related to academia. He had secrets that he kept from his parents. He did in fact go out regularly and have fun. He was just smart about it.
So, when he stood in front of his open locker, a police officer flanking both sides, the principal, and Constable Greene standing behind him, the world was shocked. As one of the uniformed officers reached into his locker and pulled out a familiar black back pack, unzipped it, and looked inside, Theo had felt his world lift into the air. When the officer had reached into the backpack and pulled out a large bag filled with a green plant, and a few more smaller bags holding a vast array of different coloured pills, Theo felt his world fall down around him and shatter like glass.
Theo was a sensible young man, so he didn't cry at the betrayal he felt. It was his last day of high school before final exams. He was supposed to be making plans with his friends. He was supposed to be getting ready for a backyard fire or one of the parties to add to his finger count. He was supposed to be celebrating the achievements of graduating a whole year early. Instead, he sat in the principal's office, between his parents as the news was given and punishment dished. His step-mother looked shocked. She had been shaking and Theo knew she was too business to cry. His father listened to the principal, but he barely looked at the man. He just looked at Theo and that was hard. He didn't yell and when the final punishment was agreed upon, all his father had said was;
"We understand. We will get to the bottom of this."
Theo wished he yelled. Wished he didn't talk in such a calm and collected tone, when he was told that his son was unable to complete his exams, get his diploma, and would face charges. Theo had expected that his father was holding back his rage at the school to stray away from public view, but even when they were in his fathers car taking that long drive home, his father said nothing. Theo wished he had gone on a well-worded speech about how he didn't raise his son this way, or how all of Theo's hard work was for nothing. Theo looked out the passenger window, his eyes watching the car behind them, his car, driven by his stepmother. He wished she were in the car with them. She'd probably have a thing or two to say.
Even when they pulled into the drive way and Theo's car joined them, both men were silent. Theo's stepmother handed Theo his keys when he made her way to him and Theo held his lip between his teeth has his fingers worked the ring. They were still quiet while he slid the car key off the ring, through the mess of jingling key-chains, and held it out to his father, and still his father didn't yell. He just looked at key and then to his son.
"I'm not taking your car from you, son." He'd said, "You're a sensible young man." and this time, he sounded almost sad. It made Theo sad.
He hadn't driven his car in nearly two weeks. He hadn't left the house or answered his phone. He had spent the majority of his time lying on his bed, starring off into space wondering what he had ever done to bring this on to himself. He held a book in his hands. The only thing he could have wanted less right at that moment. The cover was worn at the edges. The corners were folded in and there was a diagonal crease high into the glossy page, about three inches from the lower right corner. The illustration, for all the beauty it held, the green in the trees and the blues in the sky, made him sick with irritation. His fingers moved softly over the embossed golden letters.
Theo heaved his fiftieth sigh that afternoon and tossed the book onto the foot of his bed. Flopping on to his back he looked at his ceiling. It was white. That's it. Just white. Nothing exciting. It didn't even have the nasty, annoying spray stucco that Theo was very vocal about regarding his distaste for. He thought about it for a moment long ago, the chances of a flake falling into his eye, causing extreme cornea damage that would then result permanent blindness, and when he thought about it at that moment, his chest contracted. He hated stucco.
His mobile rang and for the first time in days, he answered it after the third ring. He didn't even have to announce himself before the caller on the other line began to speak.
"Theo. Get out of bed." The deep baritone on the other side of the phone held no tone of pity or disappointment and it made Theo feel light. He was sick of that after the first three hours, which is why he stopped answering his phone in the first place.
Hearing Dwayne's voice also made Theo's heart leap a bit into his throat as he realized how much he wanted to talk to his friends. He didn't say that though.
"Go away, Dwayne. I'm not even in bed." He lied, rolling onto his side and burying his face into his pillow. Dwayne is one of Theo's closest friends. He's not really sure as to why, though. The guy is a major dick sometimes.
"Stop lying to me and get out of bed."
"I'm not lying, you dick. I'm watching Netflix." Theo lied again, starting to feel giddy at the bickering he knew he was going to instigate.
"What? The Netflix original, "The Fibers of the Pillow are Very Blue Today"?"
"Wait. What?" Theo stammered the words out. Lifting his head and looking down at his in fact, blue pillow.
"I'm outside your window." Dwayne answered.
Theo nearly dropped the phone as he hastily jerked his head towards the window to the right of his bed. Dwayne was outside his window, hunched on the small section of slopped roof. Dwayne was by no means, a small guy. He's tall, really freaking tall, nearly six foot three and built like a wall. Or a bear. Or a wall built to keep bears away. When Theo though of his size, paired with his intimidating appearance, his dark hair pulled back form his face, showing off his undercut, his impressive beard and amounts of ink etched into his skin; and when Theo saw what he was seeing, Dwayne crouched outside the window like a five year-old playing 'ninja', Theo was nearly terrified.
Theo felt his eyes narrow on their own accord, not out of anger or irritation, but mere disbelief, and as he stared at one of his closest friends of all time, from behind the safety of his closed window, suddenly realizing that thought to have his window closed in the summer may seem odd, he's never been more happy, he had to ask,
"How?"
"Trees. I climbed." Dwayne said, his expression never changing from the perpetual scowl. It was a confusing sensation watching Dwayne's lips move one second before the words reached Theo's ear over the phone. "Open up. Lemme in."
"No."
"Do it."
"Go away."
"Do it, now."
"No." Theo's voice rose, but he didn't care, and he wasn't angry. "You can't just climb onto peoples roofs and look at them from outside their windows. Demanding them to get out of their own personal state of morose and self loathing, then tell them to let you in."
"Why not?" Dwayne tilted his head.
"It's rude. Not to mention, fucking weird, man."
Dwayne may have had something to say after that, but he never got to, because at that moment, three others joined the two friends, as blissful as they were in their moment.
Theo jumped about three feet into the air, as he heard his bedroom door slam open and into the corner of a chest of drawers, causing it to shake and jostling the delicate figures and models posed on it's top.
"Theo!" three voices of varying pitches but all match in volume shouted at him and then at each other and then back at him. And chaos happened.
"Oi!" Theo shouted, his mobile away from his ear to yell at his ridiculous friends, "Watch it! And don't you even think about shoes on my bed, you philistine."
There was a chorus of 'Sorry!' and then the loud of chatting. Not necessarily with him or each other, but more just, loud talking for the sake of loud talking. Theo pressed his hand into his forehead, put his phone back to his ear, shouted to be heard, 'Find a way in, dick.' into the receiver and hung up the mobile not before hearing the response of, 'Rude.' He dropped his arm to his side and sighed. Sigh fifty-one. He rounded on the three obnoxious adolescents who had just infiltrated his room in a wave of ruckus and horror that only three teenagers could manage. He said nothing.
Two of the three were sitting on his bed. Beau and Kieran. Kieran was talking loudly and animated, waving his hands wildly and smiling broadly. His shoulder length curls bounced against his shoulders with every movement, and Beau was laying his side, laughing and nodding. A quieter, calmer version of Kieran. But still loud nonetheless. At the window, Kieran's older brother, Farin was helping an agitated looking Dwayne through the now open window.
Theo still said nothing.
And they all didn't notice at first.
And then Beau went quiet.
Then Farin stopped quiet.
The Dwayne cuffed Kieran's ear and he finally shut up.
They all looked at Theo and Theo looked right back. No one said anything for a moment. Kieran made a move to leave, but when Theo look gave his younger cousin and mere glance, the sixteen year-old promptly parked his butt back on the bed. Theo took a deep, calming breath. He let it out through his nose. Slowly. Drawing it out as long as he could.
"What is wrong with you guys." His question wasn't a question. It was just a statement. In Theo's opinion, no one could ever explain his friends and family to him, not even they themselves. But, sometimes, speaking the words 'What is wrong with you guys.' out loud, gave Theo a sense of hope, that maybe, one day, hopefully soon, someone, maybe even one of them, would give him an answer and everything would make all the more sense to him.
Kieran looked at the others in the room, his head moving quickly, giving him an even more likeness of a lost and confused puppy. He looked back at Theo. His brown eyes were wide and shinning. Theo lifted a brow at him in a silent urge and Kieran opened his mouth.
"We thought-" He began, cutting himself off to gather his words, "It's just…" His words faltered and trailed off.
Theo sighed. Fifty-three.
This was the exact conversation he did not want to have. The conversation he was trying to avoid. The one he ran from when he walked from the school, eyes ahead and teeth clenched. The one he refused to look back at as he knew that all he'd see was a sneer he knew was on a face he once adored.
It made Theo sick to think about.
"You really didn't do it, right?" This voice was tentative, accented and belonged to Beau. Theo closed his eyes and shook his head.
"No. I really didn't" He said, "But looking at where I am now, I'm thinking that a probably should have."
Dwayne moved towards Theo, his arms crossed. "What do you mean by that?" He said gruffly.
"I mean that I could use the money, since I'm not going to school next year. Going to need a lawyer. Could have started a different savings account and move out." Theo listed off.
"You dad isn't going to kick you out." Dwayne said, "Did he say anything about kicking you out?" It was the kind of question that wasn't asked out of curiosity, but asked to make a point and it made Theo want to roll his eyes.
"He hasn't said anything." Theo said lowly crossing his arms. His father hadn't said anything past how they'd get to the bottom of it, the situation. He did however look at Theo, not with anger or that disappoint he found himself waiting for, but with a solid gaze of patience, as though he was waiting for Theo to come to him and open up.
"Either way," Theo uncrossed his arms, "I'm bracing myself for it."
The five boys sat in silence for a moment, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Theo moved away from the nagging in his mind and began to wonder what the others were thinking. It was a form of escapism for him, to leave his troubles aside for a second to play around with what could be happening in someone else's head. He regretted it instantly when he looked at their faces and saw the different signs of worry etched in each of them.
Dwayne leaned against the window still, arms crossed, his fingernails scrapping his bicep as his eyes were cast to the side, narrow and sharp. Kieran was sitting crossed legged on his bed, nibbling on the cord lacing of a leather band on his left wrist, looking down at the book he had picked up from where Theo had left it. Farin was leaning against his desk, his posture mirroring Dwayne's from the window, but instead of scrapping his skin, Farin had a hand up close to his neck, fiddling with the braid that he always kept behind his left ear no matter how short his cut his hair. His eyes firmly on the floor and a lip worried between teeth. Beau was lying back on Theo's bed, propped up with an elbow. Looking down his body and towards Farin. He had brought a hand up to his mouth and was absently running his fingers over his lips. Theo felt defeated. He'd find no fun in them.
"Who did that backpack belong to?" Farin finally spoke up, and when Theo looked at him, he looked right back, "Because it didn't belong to you."
Theo thought about the backpack, the familiarity of it. "I don't know." He lied. He did know. He knew more about that backpack than he wished. He knew the pockets and how one of the zippers in the front always seemed to catch on nothing. He'd reached into numerous times to pull out a phone, a notebook and pen. He knew that the straps probably still held that sent of a recognizable deodorant left there from summer heat, a brand that wasn't his. Betrayal stabbed him again.
Theo hadn't realized how much he wanted to see his friends. He also hadn't realized how that want would change the moment they were there. He knew that would have questions, that they'd want to know what happened and talk about it, but that's not how he wanted to see his friends. He wanted to see them relaxing, chatting and laughing, being a distraction of everything. It hurt him, but he didn't want them around anymore.
Theo felt defeated. He looked away from Farin and rubbed his forehead, pressing his fingers hard into his skin.
"Bullshit." Farin said. Theo snapped his eye back to his cousin.
"Excuse me?" He asked, actually surprised. Farin usually never called Theo out. When Theo said no, Farin would say fine. When Theo said yes, Farin would say okay. When Theo said he didn't know, Farin would say nothing. Even if he knew it was a lie. Farin calling bullshit to Theo's lie was as a fierce an action as stepping into a boxing ring with his cousin, challenging.
"I said." Farin took a step closer but Theo didn't move. "Bullshit."
"I refuse to fight with you, Farin." Theo said calmly though he was anything but. He was growing hot with the need to rise to his cousins challenge, but he didn't act on it.
"Of course you do, because you know I'm right." Farin's tone was just a calm as Theo's had been and he wondered if Farin too was fighting the urge fight. "You know that I have eyes. You know exactly who that bag belonged to, and you know we know. So save that lie for aunt and uncle, and the police and the school, because we're not them, and we're not stupid. We've been listening to you lie about him for a year, but this lie can destroy you."
Theo's eyelashes flickered, a Dorian trait that showed anger or sadness, any kind of emotional compromise.
"Step down and shut up, Farin. I will not ask again."
"I'll shut up." Farin said with a nod, the kind of nod where they didn't break eye contact, the kind that showed understanding but not surrender. "But I will not step down." They stood eyes caught in a long battle of defiance against an iron will. Blue on blue. Theo waited for Farin to go against his word and say something else, but it was Kieran who spoke so his brother didn't have too.
"Hey now." His tone was joking and light but the word were delivered with a shaking uncertainty, "Calm down, guys, and stop that weird eye war thing you got going on. Where is the love?" He was trying lighten the room which had become stiflingly heavy.
"You want some love? I got love. Come get some love." This was Beau, and from the sound of disgruntled and irritated laughter from Kieran paired with the younger of the two telling Beau to get off him, let Theo know that Beau was at his games again. The physical affection he forced upon Kieran in good-heated teasing was nothing new to the group. Theo and Farin didn't look away from each other as the Irish boy made loud obnoxious kissing noises and Kieran laughed at his stupidity. This time it was Farin's eyelashes that twitched and his face changed slightly.
"Kay, really?' Farin snapped, still not looking away from Theo, and he nearly opened his mouth to call out Farin for breaking his vow of silence towards Theo, but he wasn't speaking to Theo. Farin was speaking to the boys on the bed behind Theo's turned back, and for a moment Theo thought the reluctance to look away wasn't because of his cousin anger, but because he needed something else to hold on to and it would hurt him to look.
"Would you kindly get off my little brother before I shove-" Turned away from Theo then, finally breaking his gaze and reached over to Theo's desk, grabbing something from off it, "-This tape so far up your ass, that I'll be using your fucking mouth as my personal tape dispenser." He turned as he finished his threat and waved the roll of scotch tape at the Irish boy on the bed.
"Feel free to join, darlin'." Beau drawled from the bed and something flashed across Farin's face. Like maybe he'd punch the boy, but Theo knew that he wouldn't do that because he couldn't.
"No. Don't feel free." Dwayne's gruff words came from where he stood silent, finally finding a need to use his voice.
The next fifteen seconds are tense. Then Kieran's overly innocent voice chimed in the air and Theo thanked God for that.
"Why won't you tell them?" He said, voice a mix of a sad question, as though it pained him to ask. Farin caught his eyes with his own once more, and this time, it was Theo who needed something to hold on to as emotions crashed over him.
"Do you still love-" Kieran went on and Dwayne hissed through his teeth.
"Shut up, Ki."
"Of course he does." Farin's eyes said but his mouth said "Kieran. Enough." at the same time. Theo felt his breath hitch, but he was certain to catch before any of them did. He wasn't quite fast enough for Farin though, whose eyes softened. Kieran offered a small apology and Beau began talking to him silently, but Theo wasn't listening. From the corner of his eye he saw Dwayne pull his cell phone out of pocket, his thumb moving furiously over the screen.
"You're not grounded are you?" Dwayne's voice came down like a divider at a railroad crossing, like the sound of a teacher calling 'Time's up. Pencils down.' at the end of an exam, and Farin and Theo looked away from each other. Theo looked at Dwayne.
"They didn't take my car keys, if that's what you're asking."
"What I'm saying is Ollie's shift ends in thirty minutes." It was an invitation to a small adventure and Theo wanted to accept, but didn't. He just shook his head. Beau sighed as he heaved himself to his feet.
"Alright!" he clapped once, "Let's go. I gotta pick up Ollie. Don't care what you all do, but we are out." He must have done something unseen by Theo, judging by the way Farin brushed past Theo, rushing down the hall and stairs and out the front, slamming the door so hard in his exit that Theo swore the window shook and his mother shouted after her furious nephew.
Theo turned to Beau, questions ready but never delivered for Dwayne had a large hand placed high up on Beau's shoulder, fingers tight in the fabric of the blue flannel he wore, and was leading Beau, his head bowed, very quickly from the room. As they moved past Theo, he heard Dwayne's harsh whisper that sounded like,
"You cut that bullshit out before I tell you with my fists."
Theo watched them as the two of them made their way down the stairs. He soon heard Dwayne striking up a casual conversation with his mother and he heard Beau quietly apologize for something. Perhaps Farin's actions.
Then he turned back towards his bed. He looked at the still and silent form of his younger cousin, who had rolled over, giving Theo his back. Theo slowly made his way over to his bed and sat down next to Kieran.
"I didn't mean to them to get mad at you." he said quietly. He watched Kieran for a reaction but never got one. The kid must be pretty hurt. Theo cleared his throat, "You know what's going on with Beau and Farin?" He asked and again he got no answer. He leaned in closer, as close as he could without making Kieran uncomfortable and then loudly said,
"Ki!"
"Hm?" Kieran responded, looking over his shoulder at Theo, eyes wide with honest surprise "Oh. Sorry. Were you talking?"
Theo looked at the wide-eyed, puppy on his bed. Like sensibility, intelligence and the ability to control nearly any situation with a gaze, blue eyes ran strong in the list of Dorian traits. Kieran however had missed this. The genetic code skipped over him, and like his bother who had be given their mother's blond hair, Kieran was given her bight brown eyes. Theo both loved and hated them because they were impossible to refuse, or be angry with.
"Were you even listening?" Theo asked.
"Yeah." Kieran said, turning away again.
"When?" Theo crossed his arms. Kieran shrugged.
"Not really much after you got mad at me."
"I didn't mean to upset you." Theo lowered his arms.
"I'm not upset." Kieran said sweetly, and Theo couldn't tell if he was lying. He held up the old and loved copy of The Hobbit. "I love this book," Kieran said softly.
"Me too," Theo whispered.
"Do you know what makes me love it, more than Beorn and the dragon and the eagles?" Theo shook his head no and waited for Kieran to continue. "It's Thorin's conviction. His determination to get back the stone, the right to his home. And the way the other dwarves stood by him."
Theo leaned back a little and let Kieran's words wash over him. Something warm in his chest.
"They always believed he would do what was right for all for them, even Bilbo. And some of them died, and Laketown was pretty much completely destroyed and the Elves were pissed as all hell, they stayed, with him, with Thorin Oakenshield. Because they believed in him, in his heart. Like friends. Like family."
Theo suddenly became very aware of the intense way Kieran was looking at him, and even when Beau called up the stairs, neither of them moved.
"Kieran! C'mon!"
"That's what made me love it. That and trolls." Kieran ignored Beau's calls.
"Kieran. Let's. Go!"
Theo had to swallow the lump that had suddenly grown in the base of his throat. "Go on, Ki. I'll call you."
Kieran rolled off the bed and handed the book back to Theo. He pulled it back just as Theo reached for it, forcing him to look up. Forcing blues to look into brown.
"It's what family does." He repeated, letting the book go and taking his leave.
When the door closed softly behind Kieran. When Theo heard him make his way down the stairs to join the others. When the closing of the front the door shook the house slightly, Theo fell onto his bed, back first. Kieran's words bounced around his skull, all of them, starting with love and ending with family. What was Theo going to do?
What could he do?
He knew exactly what he could do. What he should do, but he wouldn't do it. He didn't want to do it. He needed to do it.
Theo sighed.
Fifty-four.
He flipped the yellowing pages of the book with his thumb, breathing in the smell of the paper. It was a nostalgic smell. His eyes fluttered and closed as a smile pulled the corners of his lips. He opened his eyes again and turned to the first page.
Two, maybe three hours later, Theo closed the book. He had read it cover to cover. He went through certain places, reading paragraphs over and over. Reading dialogue out loud so many times that he could do it by memory, with each word, each repeated sentence, he got more and more. He saw the images in his head and they became clearer. And he felt the warmth in chest grow.
It was only two, or maybe it three, hours. The timeless classic,273 pages, including illustrations, was not a difficult feat, but even still, when he had finally closed the book, when he placed it down beside him and pressed the palm of his hand into the colorful cover. When he released the breath he didn't realize he was holding, Theo felt lighter. Fluttery and vibrating with something akin to excitement.
Hope, maybe?
He would have called it 'enlightenment' but that was just pretentious, and it was more like enlightenments, anyhow. The small little gleam of light that says, "hello." so quietly that it's usually unheard by anyone not searching for it.
After laying on his back for ten minutes, doing absolutely nothing, not even moving, Theo sat up, very suddenly and successfully gave himself one of the biggest rush of blood to the head he had ever experienced. He pinched it eyes shut, cradled his head in his hands and hated himself for about three more minutes.
Which means that exactly thirteen minutes after rereading his childhood book, he picked up his mobile and dialed a number that he knew so well he barely even looked at the keypad.
One ring. Two rings. Three. Four-
"Blaine here."
Blaine was Dwaynes older brother. Theo never quite understood their name thing. He just came to believe that their parents were going through a strange poetry phase and wanted to be poets themselves. Poets who gave up after the first word.
Names aside, Blaine, being the older brother of Theo's bestfriend, had practically adopted Theo as his own, second little brother. Because really, one wasn't enough, obviously. He always made sure that Theo felt safe with him and that he could come to Blaine with everything and anything.
And Theo usually did.
"Blaine. Hi." he left out the 'It's Theo.' Blaine picked it up.
"Theo," He sounded calm, but Theo know that the probability of disappointment was very, very, high. They were both silent for a moment until finally, and with the same level of calmness, Blaine asked,
"Are you going to tell me what you've gotten yourself into?"
Theo chewed on the inside of his lip.
"I have a feeling you already have an idea what I've gotten myself into..." Theo let his words trail off. Of course Blaine knew, or had an idea anyhow. News travels fast. Even faster among people in the same grade. And even, even faster among friends and people who hung out in the same group.
"I do," Blaine said, "Actually, the entire school body has about twelve different ideas about what happened. But I want you to tell me."
Theo took a deep breath in and he told the recap of what happened. He told him about being called out of classes that morning and lead to his locker where the two police officers waited with Constable Greene. He told him about the backpack, about his father and how little he said, and how he only said that they get to the bottom of this. After he had finished, Blaine had asked;
"Why won't you tell them?"
"I can't right now."
"Why?"
Blaine was trying to piece everything together piece by piece without forcing Theo to say more than he was comfortable saying. It was a tactic that Theo really grew to hate. Theo's silence gave one hint away.
"Theo-" the tone of Blaine's voice went from a calm and rational questioning to concern with a hint of pity. Theo almost regretted dialing Blaine's number.
"Theo, do you still-"
"Don't finish that question." Theo said, not sharp or bitterly, but soft and pleading. "Please."
There was a pause on both ends.
"Would you tell me if you did?' Blaine asked.
"I don't know. Maybe." Was Theo's honest reply. There was another silence and a sigh.
"So, Theo." Blaine spoke up, "What are you going to do?"
"I read a book today." Theo said, because he really couldn't think of anything else to say. He wasn't trying to change the subject. He actually had nothing to say. No answer to give. His sudden statement didn't seem to phase Blaine though.
"Exciting. Which one?" He retorted right away and the swiftness of it put Theo into a bit of a calm.
"The Hobbit." He answered, chewing on his lip again
''Uh-huh."
"And I was... I experienced feelings."
"Were they of an almost human nature?" Theo could hear the smile on Blaine's lips and broke out into a grin himself.
"Har har. No, idiot." He said chuckling. He cleared his throat before continuing, "I have had an enlightening moment." Theo said, not even caring about the dramatizes in the way he was talking, "Thorin's conviction and the Dwarves loyalty towards him. He never stopped. He just kept going. And going and going. And yeah, he went crazy and nearly killed Bilbo, but ignoring that side of Thorin. He went on. You know?
"He wouldn't, he couldn't let anything or anyone stop him. He fought and for a short time, he had won. He actually won! And they all stayed with him, to the end of the line. To get back the stone, and his, their home. To regain his honour."
There was a silence on the other end of the line, Blaine was obviously thinking about what Theo was saying, or trying to say at least.
"Why do you say that he 'couldn't' let anyone stop him?" Blaine asked.
"Hm? Because it was important to him."
"Why though. What do you think was so important about his quest and reclaiming Erebor? Was it the mountain? The gold?"
Theo let out a sigh, not a tired one or exacerbated like the ones before, but out of thought.
"Well, I think he had to prove himself. His home was taken from him. His pride, everything was stripped from him in a horrible way and he had to start again. So I think he had to prove himself as the rightful King."
"But to whom did he have to prove this too?" Blaine fired back, "You said so yourself, the other dwarves were loyal. They would have followed him to the grocery store to claim it as their own if he asked. He didn't need to prove himself to them, so who did he have to prove himself to?"
Theo was silent. Running the pad of his thumb over his bottom lip, he said, "Himself. Maybe." There was yet another silence and Theo loved it. It was the silence that carried the unspoken though of 'Ah. There it is' of realization. Theo smiled. It felt weird on his face, but good to his heart.
"Now. Can I ask you to do something for me? I want you to think, think before you make any decisions. What do you want to take back? What are you willing to do to get there? Will you get hurt? Will others? Is it worth it to prove yourself? This about it and if it is. Call me. Call me and we'll do it."
Theo nodded, before saying yes. His eyes were starting to tingle behind the lids. He blamed the stress.
"Thank you, Blaine."
"It wasn't a problem. Think about it. And maybe talk to your parents. Good night, Theo."
Theo said it back and the line went dead.
A few moments later, there was a tentative knock of his door before it opened a bit and his father looked in. He still didn't look angry. Theo's expectation for anger was beginning to ebb away as he realized it probably wasn't going to happen.
"Whose backpack was that in your locker, son. Because I know it wasn't yours." His father, Thomas, said.
"Hey, dad." Theo said, sidestepping the question, his voice a bit broken. He swallowed a few times. "Perfect timing. Can you come in?"
Thomas stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.