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Coffee was sacred, coffee was normal. No one, deserved to go without coffee, especially when it was to be drunk at a specific time. If anyone wanted to take that from Thorin Oakenshield, gods have mercy on their soul.
This was the mantra that Thorin had playing in his head as his coffee pot hissed and spat and dripped at a snails pace on the counter.
This Monday morning happened to be a Monday morning of truly awful proportions. A half hour before his alarm was due to go off, he was violently awoken to the shrill tone of his cell. As a bit of a prank, an old friend (ie, Pain in the ass), Bofur, had changed the tone of this particular number to the sound of a goat screaming. Annoying as the sound was, it was useful in putting him in the right mood to answer.
“What have you done this time?” he growled into the phone, eyes not fully focused from his awakening.
“I may or may not have…. Put a dozen or so large-ish frogs in Mrs. Myers desk…?” the person on the other end responded, followed by a distant, “I probably didn’t help!” Oh, he definitely helped.
Needless to say, Thorin had been out the door before he’d had the chance to get his morning coffee, because some things just had to be dealt with immediately. He’d sped off to the high school to diffuse the delicate situation his nephews had created. Thankfully he’d managed to talk the history teacher, Mrs. Myers, down from her demands of a week suspension for the two boys. Instead they were handed two weeks of detention and handwritten apology notes (to be read in front of the entire class).
After nearly two hours of delay, he was back home, leaning heavily on his kitchen counter and praying that his ancient coffee pot would just hurry the hell up before he fell asleep there.
Now here’s where his morning went from awful to strange and also kind of interesting, but mostly mortifying. Finally, finally he had a cup of coffee poured before him, but Thorin wasn’t ashamed to admit he needed at least three sugars to down that heavenly, albeit bitter liquid. He picked his mug up, an old thing, chipped and worn with the words “King Under the Mountain” printed in gold across it’s surface (a nickname from his college football days). He stored his sugar in a cheap ceramic bowl on the counter just below the window, which meant when he went to retrieve it, a most interesting sight came to him.
It wasn’t exactly a secret that Thorin had developed a bit of a crush on his neighbor only in the sense that he was horrible at hiding it. He’d never openly admitted it, but most of his friends had come to recognize the far away, but stern look he adopted whenever he spotted his smaller neighbor puttering about in his garden. Dwalin had dubbed that particular facial expression his “Kingly Pining Face.”
As obvious as the crush may have been, Thorin had never exchanged more than a handful of words with the other man. Mostly a few greetings and “fine weather we’re having” s tossed at each other while retrieving the mail.
That didn’t, however, stop Thorin from peering out his kitchen window at one Bilbo Baggins whenever he was in view. So far the curly haired man hadn’t noticed, apparently his prized tomatoes were much too interesting to look up from every once in a while.
Needless to say, when Thorin glanced out the window to spot Bilbo out in his yard, his stare went unnoticed. And thank the gods for that.
Bilbo was struggling with a rake that was very obviously too big for him, but despite the physical struggling, he was grinning the brightest and most beautiful smile Thorin had ever seen. For a moment, he forgot how to breathe.
It wasn’t until the mug started to scald his hand that he found he could move, and even then it was only enough to release the offending cup. Bilbo was laughing, so loud that he could hear him across the yard and through the glass and it was an incredible sound.
And then, and then…
Bilbo let out a whoop of joy and threw the rake away, flinging himself bodily on the pile of leaves he’d just been so diligently raking up. For a moment he was lost among the reds and browns of the leaves, letting himself rest on top of the crunchy pile. Then, he threw himself up into a sitting position, a few of the leaves stuck in his lovely curly hair and his face pinked from his exertion and the slight chill that was claiming the air that morning.
And then his face fell. All at once, he looked shocked and horrified and embarrassed and—Oh no. He was looking at him, directly at him through the window.
Thorin felt his cheeks heat at being caught staring, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to break the gaze. So they held like that for several moments, the tension building despite the window and distance between then.
Finally, it was Bilbo that broke the awkward spell. With a series of awkward jerky movements, he yanked himself back onto his feet, dusted himself off, and took three steps toward the window before halting.
“You didn’t see that.” He insisted firmly, just loud enough to be heard across the barrier.
And then he was gone, practically running back into his house, rake and leaves abandoned.
After another few moments passed of Thorin watching awkwardly where his neighbor had dashed into the safety of his home before he felt laughter bubble up in his chest. This was ridiculous. He was a grown man crushing on someone he barely knew and took to staring at him through windows. He paid taxes for god’s sake.
“I’m going to talk to him.” He told himself then, shaking his head to himself as he finally dumped sugar into his coffee mug.
But first maybe he would fix up that pile of leaves. As an apology. Because that was a responsible thing to do. And perfectly normal. To just go into his neighbors yard and do their chores and…
“I might need to rethink my strategy….” He admitted grimly.