Chapter Text
“Thorin no, come on look at me, Thorin look at me.”
The ice stopped being cold long ago, the tear through his muscle and ribs stopped it’s dull throb and sank into the numb gray that’s overtaking him bit by bit. Bilbo’s hand is a steady pressure over him, a single point of heat in the deep cold.
He looks. He never could stop himself from looking when Bilbo was nearby.
It’s a far better end than Thorin had ever hoped for, having Bilbo here by his side. More than he would have dared to ask, more than he deserved to ask. And perhaps it’s his final blessing, that he’s receiving his wish to have Bilbo by him till the very end.
After everything that’s happened; after the rage and fog and fire, after the Arkenstone burning in the human’s hands and Bilbo’s terrified whimpers on the wall, Bilbo holds to his promise to be there until the end. Bilbo keeps his words in ways Thorin was incapable of.
The hands on him are shaking, one pressed over his wound and the other gripping tight onto his arm. They shake and Bilbo’s voice chokes on denials, face twisted with a pain that never should have been there. It’s more than Thorin ever wanted to see on that indescribably expressive face, there should never be pain there.
But Thorin, the greedy, selfish, low wretch that he is, drinks it in. He soaks up Bilbo’s pain and basks in it. It’s a balm on some rough and raw thing in him, that Bilbo could still look like that for his sake after all that has happened.
“Bilbo…” I’m sorry. For everything, I can never say I’m sorry enough. Go home. Get away from here. Go home to your comfort and peace and plant your tree. Go home and let me live on in you as you saw me. Remember me as the Thorin only you saw. Remember me as the Thorin who defined himself by his honor and wouldn’t feel relief in your pain. I’m sorry I brought you here. I’m sorry I would have dragged you here a thousand times over just to have you by me.
The words are thick on his tongue, caught in flecks of blood and frozen in the air. Thorin knows he has to let them out, has to say a final farewell. He’s so tired. Tired and hurting and he can feel the goodbye growing in him.
“Don’t!” Bilbo’s voice breaks thick and desperate. The hand on Thorin’s arm tugging sharply, like he just needs to get Thorin’s attention. “Don’t you dare say goodbye to me Thorin Oakenshield! Do you hear me? You’re not done here, you aren’t done, we aren’t done. Look at me Thorin, look at me. Keep breathing, just stay awake, and look at me.”
Thorin looks. He looks at the way the light catches in Bilbo’s hair, at the trickle of blood down the side of his face. Thorin looks at the twitches in Bilbo’s cheek from clenching his jaw, the furrows between his brows and the wetness in his eyes. He looks and can’t take his eyes away.
“Look at me.” Bilbo commands again, and Thorin can hear the iron that’s always hidden in Bilbo. The hard ore carefully kept under the soft, open warmth that’s shown to the whole world.
‘I’ve always looked at you.’ He thinks, distantly aware of the ground moving away from them, of Bilbo’s hands gripping tight at his shoulders and the wind pulling at his hair. ‘I never could stop looking at you.’
--------------------------------------------------------------------
If they had met in another setting, he thinks he may have been able to be friends with the halfling. Bilbo is clever, in his way. When he forgets to hold to his Shire manners he is nearly witty and able to keep an interesting enough conversation. His eventual willingness to sign that contract already makes him a step above the rest of his folk, and his fast thinking with the trolls had bought them valuable time.
Which did not negate the fact that Bilbo was the reason they were nearly eaten by trolls in the first place.
And that is the heart of the matter. Bilbo is witty, charming, big hearted, determined, and nothing but a liability to tug on Thorin’s mind. He may have told Gandalf that he was not responsible for the wizard’s pet project, but Bilbo swore his contract to Thorin Oakenshield. A pledge of service, even foolishly given, was not something to disregard.
So Thorin accepts the pledge, and each morning prays that the halfling will turn and go home before his gentle, home-bound soul meant for gardens and books and fireplaces ends up gutted by an orcish blade while under Thorin Oakenshield’s guard.
The halfling doesn’t seem any happier about the arrangement than Thorin is. He’ll mutter complaints and stare moodily at the mud on his fine waistcoat or the pony hair on his jacket. He’ll wish for baths and toss restlessly in the night. The complaining itself does not bother Thorin too much, the rest of his company is hardly shy with their grievances. The rest of the company is also at least capable of holding their own in a fight, while Bilbo holds the little sword Gandalf gave him like it might leap from his hand and bite him.
To say he is shocked, when the halfling comes running up behind them after disappearing in the goblin tunnels, is an understatement. Bilbo honestly should have been dead, though Thorin was praying the halfling had managed to slip away and was already on his way back to the elf hive where he would no longer weigh on Thorin's conscience.
But there Bilbo stands with his hands on his hips, smeared in dirt, the fine clothes he’s always complaining about torn and ripped, smiling awkwardly like he was embarrassed to have gotten lost from a party instead of coming out of an infested goblin city without a scratch on him. That he somehow survived and made it out after the rest of them had to scrape by with a desperate battle is shock enough, and that’s what everyone else is focusing on.
Thorin has other matters he’s concerned with. Bilbo should not have come back. Bilbo has no reason to come back. He’s shown no interest in the gold, complains constantly, and Thorin knows his harsh words in the mountains struck a blow to the halfling’s confidence. He should have left. He came back.
“Why did you come back?”
Bilbo considers him, head tilted and smiling a bit, and it doesn’t look like the same forced, hard smile that he usually wears when he’s biting back bitter words. Nor is it the bright eager smile of a fool running off to excitement that Thorin has seen a few times.
This smile is sure, confident and firm. Bilbo looks Thorin in the eye now, as he stands straight and smiles. There’s something hard there, and the Bilbo who shrugs and smiles on as he speaks of homes and fighting for them does not seem to be the same one that had missed his armchair and his books. It’s like throwing a piece of plain stone to the side, and having it break to show iron ore within. But this is just a halfling, and Thorin wants to know where this came from. Wants to march forward and demand to know what happened in those tunnels, that spat out this quiet and grounded, smiling creature that is not the Bilbo Baggins he has come to know.
Thorin wants to know why this little book keeper would come back for a home that isn’t his. Why he’s so concerned for them when they’ve dragged him into hardship and peril. He wants to know why, after all his harsh treatment, Bilbo looks right at Thorin as he explains that he wants to help them find a home. He wants to know why Bilbo looks at him, and says ‘you don’t have one’ in a way that yanks at something in Thorin’s chest and has him lowering his eyes, looking down from a hobbit of all things. But Thorin lets it go, notes it as something to keep an eye out for, and nods his head, heart hammering, deciding that he’ll have to start paying a little more attention to their formerly simple burglar.
The mystery is forgotten in running and panic and the mad thought that they’ll be running for the entire quest, from one catastrophe to another.
There’s fire. Burning the trees like torches, like the orange glow that came with a roar years ago.
There’s a pale orc that rides in from his nightmares. Blood and snapping pain and a rage that clouds out every injury until he is left humiliated on the ground, grabbing at his sword and thinking that he can’t let his life end in this mockery. He can not let himself go on remembered as the fool who had his head taken by a nameless orc foot soldier.
There’s a scream, a tiny battle cry, and a tinier body slamming into the orc over him. Thorin’s vision is fading in and out, but he can see that it’s the halfling plunging his little sword into the orc’s chest with a wild snarl on his open face. It’s the halfling stumbling to stand in front of Thorin like a small guard dog, bright blue sword held stiffly in an awkward grip, swinging wildly against the dark and the flames and the snarling wargs.
Bilbo. Of all the fools to come flying to his rescue, it’s Bilbo Baggins standing fierce in front of Azog. It’s Bilbo who’s about to die standing in a fight, instead of small and scared and shivering as Thorin had thought him.
And when they stand on the Carrock, and Thorin can feel every torn muscle and broken bone in his body, it’s Bilbo who stands a little ways away, looking small and scared again.
It’s one of the most amazing transformations Thorin has ever seen. Bilbo’s eyes Thorin warily, his hands flexing at his sides and his eyes blinking rapidly. He’s a far cry from the ferocious halfling who flung himself in front of battle raged orcs while he barely knew how to hold a sword.
Thorin thought he understood the halfling. He thought this was some little pet project of a bored wizard who, if not an outright accomplice to Gandalf’s plans, was simply a fool who confused the real world for the stories in his books. He only saw meekness and a weak heart that may have been filled with good intentions, but would ultimately fail. He thought Bilbo had no place there, had no business being outside of his Shire.
And now it’s nothing at all to crush Bilbo to him, trying to show with a single embrace how sorry he is for doubting, how in one day Thorin’s entire view has spun around and left him dizzy with the exhilarated shock of it. Everything he thought he knew about this halfling has been flung in his face, and Thorin finds that he has never been so happy to be proven wrong.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
His head is full of fire.
There’s heat and ice and blood rushing through his mind, burning and searing away everything that he was. The smoke fills his mouth and sticks to his skin, and all the air is full of rotting and burning meat. He can see his brother in it, his sister and father, Fili and Kili caught in the fire that burns in Thorin and consumes everything in it’s path while it leaves him hollow and standing. Dis had said once that the fire had followed them all from Erebor, and Thorin knows that she was right, because the burning was in him all along.
It lifts, the smoke lingers but the burning and ice slowly ebb away leaving a thick haze that thrums over him. Through it he can barely see firelight caught in gold, it’s not the blazing gold of the treasure halls, but soft golden-brown hair that reminds him more of sunlight and warm wood than of gleaming metal.
“Bilbo…?” His own voice echoes through the haze, like it came from somewhere else. And there are hands on him and a voice shushing him but Bilbo can not be here. He was sent away, thrown down and cast off and far, far off where the ice and fire can’t touch him.
Bilbo is not here, but Thorin still grasps at the illusion of him, desperate with apologies and pleads for a forgiveness that he does not deserve. He clings and is only aware of a soft worried voice and hands on his sleeve that would not be Bilbo’s. Thorin's voice drifts and echoes, and the flames rise up again, the smoke billowing over him and consuming this illusion and pulling him back down into the inferno forever burns within him.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gold.
Gold beyond sorrow.
Beyond grief.
Beyond his orders for Kili to stay in Laketown, beyond Fili's glare as he stayed by his brother's side. Beyond the sweeping ripping horror as the dragon flew to the little town of men that held two of the brightest points in Thorin's heart.
The town burns behind him, screams drifting over the distance and pulling at him. There is no way to tell one cry from another, but part of him still listens for his nephews in the fire.
Dis screamed at him, when they signed into his company. She struck him full across the face and screamed with a fury he had not seen in decades.
"You do what you will! Follow our father, our grandfather, into madness and ruin! I can't stop you anymore. I gave up on stopping you long ago. Follow them, burn and go mad like they did if you want it so badly. But don't you dare take my sons down with you!"
The mountain beats in a steady pulse over the screams, like a soothing heartbeat. In there, in that warmth, there was no more loss. There was no more failure. The memory of the gold is a wave sweeping over him, a calming pulse like the thrumming rush of wings in the air and the heat of a well lit forge.
It crashes over him, and he lets the memory of warm gold and flickering fire smother the screams of the town and of his failure.
Gold beyond measure. Beyond life.
It crashes over him and calms the fire in him, quenching it with how the gold catches the light of all the torches. He spends hours in the gold, feeling the pride of their people, the calm comforting pulse of it, wash over everything else. The fire turns from a blaze into a thick wrapping heat. Like a hot day of summer or the damp, heated air around a forgefire. For the first time he does not feel the tense, consuming need to go, to do, to accomplish and run. There's nothing but the strange, tranquil syrupy heat and the gold soothing his mind.
"Thorin-"
He's only distantly aware of the voice over the gold, small and tense and beckoning at some other part of his mind.
"-need to eat! Plea-"
He looks up from a chalice that had caught his eye, so perfectly crafted and made of smooth curves. The sharp runes carved along the lip had caught the light in a different way than the flowing handles of it did, and he was lost in the different fractals of light reflecting off the sweet, cloying gold. He's ready to bare teeth, to snarl at this intrusion that has rudely pulled him from his calm study.
It takes a few seconds for him to recognize the small, worn creature in front of him.
"Bilbo?" Oh yes. Of course it's Bilbo. Thorin smiles a bit because yes of course it's Bilbo. Bilbo was always fretting, always determined to stand by him. "You worry so much." He says, feeling a sudden rush of fondness welling up in him.
Bilbo is standing in amongst the gold, the firelight catching in his hair and in his dark, dark blue eyes. They're so dark, for such a light thing, like pools under moonlight.
Like sapphires, like gems.
Like something that should be swept up and guarded and protected.
Something precious and cherished. By Thorin's side at all times.
Bilbo isn't something to wander and stand in rags, he is far to grand for that. He should be draped in g o l d.
Gold hair threaded with gems, with citrine and emeralds that would be greener than any tree of the Shire. Clothed in silks and furs and the finest mithril chains and drops of gold falling over him, catching light as his skin does.
He is far, far more than just a trinket to be picked up and looked at for a few moments. Bilbo is something else, something that stays with him, something that belongs down here with the gold, locked away kept and guarded and safe and all of it is theirs and Bilbo is his all-
There's a panicked twist, a sharp pang that has him looking away, heart pounding as he stares back at the chalice. The roaring in his head overcomes the sweet pulse of the gold for a few seconds, and as he fights it down he nearly forgets that Bilbo is there.
"This is not your concern." Thorin growls, something keeping him from looking back up at the halfling that had, for some reason, so captivated him a few seconds ago. "Leave me."
"Thorin! You need to rest! It's be-"
"I said leave me!" He bellows, the roaring back in his head, leaving him gasping for air and staring at the chalice. The roaring doesn't settle until he hears the quiet, hesitant steps of halfling feet against stone leading Bilbo out of the treasure halls.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The smoke starts to clear again, leaving him blinking slowly in clear air. Everything is worn at the edges, blurred and smeared. Thorin wonders if he has passed into the halls of beyond, but he is in a bed, and the room is blurred and swimming but it's very ordinary.
What is not ordinary, is the halfling sitting by his bed. That is how he knows for sure that he is still lost in his own mind. Because Bilbo would not be sitting nearby, a furrow between his brows and his mouth pulled into a very ordinary frown as he looks down at the book in his lap.
Thorin takes a few moments to simply watch, eyes still swimming and head pulsing with the distant blaze that burns over his skin. It's such a different heat, than the gentle warmth of the fire that bathes over Bilbo. It strikes him as the difference between the two of them, that Thorin is a consuming and devouring blaze, while Bilbo has always been the crackle of logs in a hearth warming the space around him.
That, or the fire of a forge, warming the mountain from the roots and heating pure metal into something stronger.
In this light, in the soft clean clothes that are too large for him (a dwarvish shirt, rough cotton and clean of blood), Bilbo looks so ordinary in a way that defies logic. His hands are blunt and soft, more suited to the pen in his hands, to turning the pages of a book, than for gripping onto iron. It's all a clever lie, a fascinating one, this ordinary facade.
'Yazârnu sanzigil makhaha nimthurul 'abban.' Balin's voice drifts through is fevered mind. That had always been one of the old dwarf's favorite sayings. 'Even mithril is found among plain stone.'
His hand moves through thick air when it reaches out, brushing against Bilbo's arm and marveling at the very ordinary softness of it. This softness that survived dragonfire and madness. Bilbo jumps at his touch, book slamming shut and eyes wide when they go to Thorin.
"Thorin! You're awake!" It's strangely panicked, but Thorin's still too caught in the gentle way the firelight catches Bilbo's warm skin. Bilbo clears his throat, wincing, face defined in folds and little furrows that are constantly moving. "How uh, how are you feeling then?"
Nearly a year he has known Bilbo, and his mind so perfectly recreates every crease and curve of him, down to the shadow between his eyebrows, the worried mouth and concerned, dark eyes.
And all he can think is the one question that seems to always come to mind, when he tries to wrap his head around everything the halfling is.
"How are you so soft?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the time Thorin realizes what has happened, it is already far too late.
He can never place when it started, or how it grew. Even years later he only knows when it hits him that it's already settled too deep to root it out and stamp it down.
The halfling was a constant source of mystery and confusion that Thorin already knew he was drawn to. Now that he was paying more attention, he was finding that Bilbo was nothing but contradictions.
He would talk too much, babble nervously in sword practice sessions or even in actual battles. Determined, it seemed, to distract Thorin with his prattling and deadpan little jokes.
And that was another surprise, Bilbo's jokes. They're so flatly delivered, with such utter seriousness, that Thorin finds himself laughing over them before he is truly aware that Bilbo has made one. He wonders how many of the halflings strange little comments ("Well I am a fair hand at conkers, if you must know.") were actually jokes, and how many of them were at his expense. Thorin starts listening carefully, hovering around conversations for glimpses of that humor that he somehow missed before.
He would talk too much, but he could sit in silence for hours. Bilbo could be quiet in a way that Thorin can appreciate more than most dwarves. The others will sing and laugh and banter, and sometimes he could join in and feel for a few moments, as if he is simply part of the throng. But there are the nights where he's drawn to the edges, to the peace and quiet, and more often than not he finds the halfling there as well.
It becomes a habit, seeking out the quiet company of Bilbo, who somehow doesn't feel like an intrusion into Thorin's need for solitude. They can sit without a word and be aware of each other without a need to even look at each other. And somehow that company calms his burning thoughts more than simple isolation ever has.
The halfling is a mystery, a puzzle. Thorin likes to understand things, prefers to know what is going on with anything that he is involved with. Understanding makes it easier to come to decisions.
He does not understand Bilbo, not since the Carrock, and it's not like the prickling thorn of mystery that Gandalf is. Not understanding Bilbo is strangely fascinating. Thorin finds himself wanting to pry and nudge every secret from the odd creature.
That was his thought, when he asked Bilbo to talk about the Shire.
He only wanted to know how this halfling could miss home so much in one breath, then roll his eyes and sneer at any memory of his own kin in the next. Bilbo's lack of respect for others in his family (The Baggins', and it's an odd custom, Thorin thinks, to name an entire line of Kin beyond simply tracking lineage.) is a shock for Thorin. Bilbo can understand home, but not the bonds of kin, which are so tightly knit together in Thorin's mind that he can't fathom the separation.
So he wants to know what Bilbo thinks of, when he thinks of home.
And then he can barely hear Bilbo's answer, because he's hooked and caught fast by the way the halfling's voice goes distant and gentle, full of a longing that yanks at Thorin.
It's like a pain, hearing Bilbo's voice filled with such tenderness as he describes trees and rivers and hills, seeing his face soften in the mix of moonlight and firelight. It's captivating, and Thorin feels the slow start of a suspicion he can't quite name, when he wonders at his own aching.
His heart is pounding, and he's frowning as he tries to sort through the suspicion, to find it's source and root it out. Thorin dislikes not knowing his own mind and feelings, and is determined to get to the bottom of this odd tangle.
Then Bilbo smiles at him, and it's a rare, true smile. Bilbo smiles often, as a reaction to everything. He has sharp smiles that do nothing to lessen harsh words, thin smiles that bite down annoyed sighs, quick flitting smiles and laughs that only come out when Bilbo is making it clear that there is absolutely nothing funny going on. But this is a true one, sweet and lighting up his face in a subtle glow.
“Well, you’ll have some of your own I expect, at the end of this.” He says. And Thorin is too caught in working through the hammering tightness in his chest to follow Bilbo's meaning.
“Some what?”
“Stories about home. You’ll be able to have some again, when we get your little mountain back to you.”
It's such a little thing. Not that different from things Bilbo has said before. It's small and innocent and he's sure Bilbo means nothing by it.
It's devastating.
It crashes down through all the confusion and tangle that he's been picking through, setting it all ablaze with a sudden horrid, sickening certainty.
'Make them with me.' Thorin thinks, feeling a lurch deep in him like his soul is being drawn in towards Bilbo's smile, which is slowly fading in the face of Thorin's stare. ''Make a home with me. Make new stories, start over. Find a way to look at me with that longing that you hold for the Shire.'
Everything is far too clear, and he could wring his own neck for not catching this sooner, because it's too late now. Without him even realizing it, his heart has set itself on Bilbo Baggins, a little soft-hearted halfling from the Shire. And he can feel it deep, that there is nothing else now. His heart had been so content with only Erebor and home, with the need to be everything he could for his people, but now Bilbo has been drawn into it.
Thorin had never thought of the possibility of falling in love with a single person. It's a relatively rare thing for dwarves, and most never allow it to happen in favor of craft or some other impersonal passion. But now there's Bilbo, blinking in confusion at him, and Thorin knows there could never be another like this. His kind do not fall easy, but when it happens it never releases them.
A halfling. Mahal help him he went and fell for a halfling without even knowing it. Dis would laugh herself sick if she knew. King Thorin Oakenshield, heir to Durin's line, setting his heart to a gentle little halfling.
And why not? He starts to think. What's the shame in loving Bilbo Baggins, who has been a source of amazed confusion for weeks, who has saved Thorin's life and talks to him as if he's just another dwarf, and not a king of legend or doomed failure?
He could leap up right now, take the short stride over to where Bilbo sits, grab his hands and ask him to stay in Erebor after this quest is done. Thorin is not one to hide or skirt around things, and his skin thrums with his realization, and the need to let it all out.
Why not? Because they're sitting away from a traveler's campfire, on their way to very possible death and ruin. Because there is a kingdom to fight for, his company to look after, orcs to run from, Azog's return from death, a wizard's riddles of something far larger than Thorin's quest for home.
His head is already being pulled in ten directions, and Bilbo had just spoken of a place far away with a longing that was all too familiar. How can Thorin ask him to leave that now? How could he ask Bilbo to abandon the green hills and trees of the shire, when he has nothing to offer nothing in return? When he only has danger and dragonfire and an empty mountain?
Bilbo blinks at him, brows coming together in confusion, completely unaware of the spark he's lit with what was such a meaningless little sentence.
'I love you.' Thorin thinks, nearly terrified with the weight of it. 'I just realized that I am very much in love with you. And nothing can be home now, without you there.'
And that is too much. Thorin stands quickly, wanting to run, to escape from the fact that once again, Bilbo has flung everything to the wind and changed all that Thorin knew in such a short time. Home had been Erebor, he only needed that stone of his past and his kin within it, and now there's the horrifying lurch of knowing that he also needs this halfling there. This halfling who already has a home.
Bilbo's mouth is opening and shutting on questions, apologies, whatever is going on in that mind of his. Whatever is about to come out, Thorin can't hear it, can barely hear his own hasty goodnight before he's hurrying away. He rushes back to the fire, back to the distracting babble and bantering of his Company.
He sits heavily next to Dwalin, feeling wrenched and dazed as he stares blankly into the fire.
He's in love with Bilbo Baggins. There's nothing he can do about it. It's already happened.
Dwalin glances over, pausing as he cleans his knuckle-irons. "Y'alright there?"
'I'm in love with the damn halfling.' Thorin thinks. He shakes his head instead, heart caught in his throat. Dwalin is quiet for a few more moments, then sighs loudly and sets his irons down.
"You don't want to talk about it, do'ye?" He asks, and Thorin is so grateful for the fact that there is no real invitation in the question. Mahal bless Dwalin. Balin would have been prodding at him and giving him the most pitiable smiles until it was all forced out.
"No." Thorin responds. And Dwalin nods sharply, sighing in relief, then goes back to his cleaning and lets Thorin stare in horror at the fire.
------------------------------------------
He is surprised when he wakes, that it is on a normal bed of roughly hewn wood, in one of the smaller rooms of Erebor, with normal gray stone and an ordinary fire warming the air. Thorin had been expecting the endless vaulted halls, filled with light and kin from his past and the eternity of the kingdom of Mahal.
He’s not sure if he is glad or disappointed.
It takes only a few seconds to take stock of himself. Breathing is a tight pain, but not excruciating, so there are a few cracked ribs. There’s an oddly numb stretched feeling on his left side, constricting bandages over his entire upper torso, and he assumes that he has one of Oin’s numbing salves to thank for the lack of mind stopping pain. He also itches slightly under the bandages, so healing is already underway, meaning he has been unconscious or unaware for a few days at least.
“It looks like you’ve returned to your senses, in multiple meanings of the word.” Gandalf says by him, closing a little book as he looks up. Thorin takes a few minutes to frown at him, trying to remember when the wizard returned. The last he can recall, Gandalf had left them outside the Elf wood without any explanation. Thorin had not been too sorry to see the wizard go, and was not overly pleased to see him here. He can not understand why Gandalf would only appear now, after the battle and sickness and-
When he remembers, it’s a booming voice in his mind and small hands desperately gripping his arms.
‘If you do not like my burglar, Thorin! Then please return him to me unharmed!’
“Bilbo?” It’s the first panicked thought to spring to his mind. Thorin can’t recall seeing Bilbo after the wall. He can’t remember if Bilbo-- no, now it’s coming back. Bilbo had been there, on Ravenhill. The halfling had appeared breathless and bracing his hands on his knees, snow in his hair and not nearly as far from the fight as Thorin would have hoped. But he was there, there to warn them. He was there to look Thorin in the eyes and, with no time for words, had still given the smallest smile and nod before everything fell into chaos.
Bilbo had been there when Thorin was ready to let go, was ready to finally give in after he spent years, decades fighting death. Bilbo was there clutching and begging, as if Thorin had not tried to kill him that same day.
‘Don’t let go Thorin, look at me please just look at me…’
But Bilbo isn’t here now. And there had still been so many orcs, far too many. Swarms of them over the top of Ravenhill even with the eagles there. There were too many orcs and Bilbo isn’t here, what if-
“Bilbo is fine.” Gandalf sighs, and tucks his book into some fold of his robes. Thorin breathes out, hands unclenching from the blanket at those two words. “He’s just fine, Thorin.” Gandalf goes on. “He had a nasty lump on his head that healed up nicely while you’ve been out this past week. Though he has made himself quite difficult to find the past few days. You know how scarce he can make himself, if he choses to.”
“He is good at that.” Thorin agrees.
There’s a quiet that comes over them, as Thorin looks down with a distant interest at the cuts and bandages and scrapes on his hands. A gash here, grazed knuckles there, a dark bruise over there. He can feel an anchor, a lead ball around his lungs, pulling him down and down, as the silence crushes on him.
“You were right.” He admits. The words drag the weight out of him, and leave him just hollow and scooped out inside. Everything he had fought to prove wrong, everything the Wizard, the Elf, his own sister, had feared, had been right. “I was not strong enough. Everything that I swore I would not become-”
“You became.” Gandalf says, brusque but not harsh. “And you overcame.” His voice gentles as he sighs and leans back in his chair. “You came to yourself, and your mad charge was the morale boost that quite possibly saved us all, Thorin. And-” the wizard raises his eyebrows with a wry smile and a sidelong glance at Thorin, “it could be said that if you hadn’t had your ill thought idea to call on Dain, we would be doomed. The armies of the Iron Hills proved invaluable against Azog’s attack.”
Azog would not have been there to attack, if Thorin had taken only one more swing and finished the deed those many, many years ago at the battle of Azanulbizar. Many things would have been different, if he had only had the foresight to simply thrust his sword through that filth’s chest after taking his arm.
If. If. If. The word that plagues his life. If he had not given in to pride, if he had gone in and finished things instead of being satisfied with the thought that Azog had died in humiliation.
Azog, who had led them into a trap. The panic comes back in a wild rush, grabbing at his heart and clenching it tight when he remembers Ravenhill. Thorin’s head whips up, eyes filled with the memory of Fili held up in Azog’s grip, yelling at them to run.
“Fili!” He gasps, “Kili? Are they-”
“Fine, Thorin.” Gandalf says quickly, putting a thin hand on Thorin’s arm. “They are fine! A bit worse for wear, but they came out better than you did and have both been fully awake and aware for some time now, and they will be very glad to hear of your recovery.”
Thorin lets out a slow breath, and leans back against the headrest then. The panic drains out and leaves an odd, hollow ache, and leaves him aware of the sharp pulling pain in his side where Azog’s blade has punched through him. “I did not think to recover at all, or even survive.”
“No. I did not think that was in your plans.” Gandalf says quietly, and Thorin looks away from the piercing eyes trained on him. Thorin dislikes how much the wizard sees, how much he knows, and how much he keeps hidden. “But you have survived.” Gandalf continues. “And now you face the wonderful, terrifying question that happens whenever you survive.”
“And what is that?” Thorin grits his teeth, feels his side throb a bit. He’s in no mood for a wizard’s riddles. He’s tired and sore and his entire body feels like it’s been wrung through and drained out He very much wants to sleep for another week and wake without a wizard trying to impart twisted truths and gleams of wisdom hidden as if they were fine treasures that Thorin was privileged to receive.
Gandalf seems to take no notice of Thorin’s displeasure, or, more likely, doesn’t care. “Now what?”
He doesn’t want to think of ‘now what?’ He wants to sink back into an oblivion where he does not have to wonder how he’ll rebuild a kingdom from a ruin and how he will face the world after his madness. He doesn’t want to know what has happened outside the mountain, if Dain will take the rule from him, if anyone will acknowledge Thorin’s claim, how they’ll find food for the winter, if he is truly himself or this is a brief respite before he falls back into rage and the pulsing heat that filled his head in the height of the sickness. If, if, if, if; circling in his head and pulling at every hope of peace.
He very much wants to see Bilbo. Thorin hadn’t hoped to see the halfling again after the wall, had given that dream up as lost. It had sat in his chest like a pit, knowing that he had to let go of Bilbo, that his own actions had ruined every chance of the future he had seen for them. That was lost, but Thorin had pushed on to reclaim his name, to try and reclaim his honor at least if he could not have his happiness.
But Bilbo had still been there, had looked him in the eyes with a short nod and then clung to him and kept him from falling into that tempting exhaustion and darkness. There may still be nothing there, but he wants to know for sure. At the same time, he dreads knowing. He has no idea where he stands with Bilbo for the first time in a long time, and he’s not sure he’s ready to find out.
He loses any choice in the matter when the door jerks open sharply, kept from banging against the wall by the glaring hobbit gripping the handle.
Thorin has seen Bilbo angry, he has seen Bilbo throwing a temper tantrum and seen the quiet rage that simmered long before exploding or hissing out in harsh insults. Bilbo is not angry, he is livid. He’s vibrating with it, hand white knuckled on the door handle and eyes flashing with a barely contained rage. It pins Thoin to the spot, shoving a metaphorical blade through any vestige of hope he’d allowed to grow, and in his mad head he still thinks for a second that Bilbo quietly furious is a glorious thing to behold.
“Well, well, Master Hobbit! Good to see you, as always.” Gandalf says brightly as he stands. Thorin glances away from Bilbo to stare at the wizard instead, suddenly changing his mind on the old man’s presence and desperately hoping he’ll stay and distract Bilbo enough to spare Thorin for at least a few more moments. Thorin may deserve whatever harsh words are sure to come, but he doesn’t want to face them just yet. “I’m sure you two have much to discuss.” Gandalf chuckles, patting Bilbo, who doesn’t break his glare away from Thorin, on the shoulder and strolling out the door.
The door shuts, and the click of it is like metal striking iron in Thorin’s head. The silence after it is torture, and Bilbo only narrows his eyes further.
This has been coming for him. Bilbo has followed him halfway across Arda, left his home far behind, walked into a dragon’s den, battled orcs, and stood by Thorin and challenged him in his madness. Thorin has repaid him with injury, threats, insults, rage, and, though he suspects Bilbo may not know of this, a forced and underhanded marriage proposal.
He thinks he will leave that part out, to avoid the awkwardness as well as to save himself from the shame of it. Everything has gone wrong, everything he had imagined is ruined and tainted now with his own madness.
“Right,” Bilbo says, marching towards him with a voice like stone. “Right then. Mister Thorin Oakenshield.”
“Bilbo,” Thorin tries to keep his voice calm, tension coiling through every muscle in his body. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. There was never supposed to be this tense anger and silence and heavy weight, not with them. And he should be grovelling and begging forgiveness for destroying everything, for nearly getting them all killed through his pride and lust, but he tries to cling to some form of normality, unwilling to let it go. “It’s … good to see you are well.”
“Don’t,” Bilbo’s voice is a slap and Thorin quiets instantly. “Don’t. Give me that. You.” Bilbo goes on, pointing a finger accusingly at Thorin. And if things weren’t so dire, if he weren’t about to have everything they could have been dragged out and thrown to the ground, it would have struck him as funny because it’s so painfully Bilbo. But this isn’t another day where he’s being lectured for rudeness, this is Bilbo standing with a bandage on his head and far from home, and Thorin lying broken on a bed before him. So he doesn’t laugh, and prepares himself for the painful end, for Bilbo to finally see that he’s nothing but a mad, greedy king driven by rage and need.
“You.” Bilbo says again, “You kissed me.”
Thorin whirling thoughts scream to a halt, and he takes a few seconds to reconcile what he was bracing for with what Bilbo actually said. “No I didn’t.” He has spent enough time thinking about kissing Bilbo to be sure that he would remember doing it.
“Oh yes you most certainly did!” Bilbo shouts at him. “Trust me on this one, I was actually awake for it!”
It sinks in him like a slow knife in his stomach, that Bilbo is telling the truth. And Thorin can only stare and think that of course he did, of course he went and threw a match on everything by finally kissing Bilbo, and he can’t even remember it. He can’t even try to think of an excuse, and only stares when Bilbo begins pacing at the foot of his bed, scrubbing a hand back through his curls.
“Just … where is this coming from?” Bilbo sounds nearly frantic. “You pulling that! And everything else you were spouting off!” Everything else? Mahal help him what has he been doing this past week? “I nearly watched you die and I had to deal with that, I had to sit there and hold your insides in where they’re supposed to be and I had to deal with that and then—you! You!”
He’s being yelled at for almost dying. For kissing Bilbo while feverish, and Thorin has no idea how to continue, or what to say. His exhaustion is forgotten and his heart pounding, beating against the pain in his side where Azog’s blade had pierced him and Bilbo’s hand had pressed against the flow of his blood. Bilbo peters off, hands falling away from his hair and he seems to collapse inside, deflating and falling to sit heavily on the edge of Thorin’s bed. He’s so close, so close and again, confusing and amazing Thorin by not doing anything expected. Thorin wants to reach out, wants to let the small flicker of hope in him grow and allow him to reach to Bilbo as he had imagined doing so many times. But he needs to let Bilbo finish, needs to hear where the halfling is going.
“You nearly died up there,” Bilbo’s voice is quiet now, drained of rage and soft with some other emotion. “You nearly died and I didn’t … after everything else, I’d never thought of you dying at the end. You were always supposed to … to just be. Somehow. And I never took a chance to even think of, of any of that!”
“Any of what?” Thorin asks, dares to ask. Bilbo isn’t talking about the wall, about the madness, and there is a quaver in his voice that has Thorin fighting back the hope growing in his chest.
“This!” Bilbo snaps, some of the rage back, though it’s still coming through as shaking and wrought. “You! You kept waking up and, and saying things! And then in the mountain you were all—” Thorin can’t stop the sharp inhale, as he remembers everything he was in the mountain. There it was, there’s where this is going, what he has been expecting. But then Bilbo keeps going before he can address it. “You haven’t been you. It’s all too much. It’s all too much at once.”
Thorin watches Bilbo’s face, expressive as always and flickering with so many emotions as Bilbo scrubs a hand over his eyes. His heart is set to burst, and he’s sure Oin would disapprove of how it pounds against his ribs after he nearly died but Bilbo is here, worried about his death and about his sickness. And for the first time since he awoke staring at the golden floor, feeling a heated veil lift from his mind, he dares to hope. He dares to let himself see what Bilbo may yet still feel for him.
He lets the hope grow, lets himself reach out and put one of his hands over Bilbo’s. His fingers wrap around the softer hand, feeling the beginnings of callouses on the soft palms, put there by Thorin’s actions. Bilbo shouldn’t have been dragged into this peril, but Thorin can see how it all has tempered Bilbo’s spirit, brought out the fierce and bright fire that his burglar had always kept hidden. And Bilbo doesn’t pull his hand away, only goes so still, as still as only a halfling could manage, and the hope is something unstoppable and incandescent.
“I meant it,” Thorin says, hoping that the three words will capture everything, everything he ever meant and everything this amazing halfling means to him. “All of it.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is something unspoken, unsaid with just the two of them.
Thorin feels it in the air between them, in exchanges that are nothing more than a shared look, a nod and a smile. It's said in quick touches and the charged feeling when he sits close enough to Bilbo for their shoulders to brush together.
It's a slow torture, not being able to say anything. Every day he wants more and more to sweep up to Bilbo, ask him to stay with them in Erebor. He wants to court Bilbo properly, to speak plainly and let everything out.
But this is not the time for courting.
They're still a lot of bedraggled, worn travelers chasing after an impossible task. He's still barely the king of a young colony, and barely even that since he left the crown to Dis when he left.
Want is something Thorin is familiar with. He is accustomed to wanting. A home, recognition, freedom, safety for his kin, an end to the images of young Frerin lying in the funeral pyre, an end to the long and weary journey of his life. Want is no new thing.
Want for a person, is very new.
He has felt desire, has had fumbled encounters with other young dwarves when he was a carefree prince of Erebor. But they had always been purely physical meetings that had been less about want for another and more about experimentation. They were fast, mild, and he felt little need to seek them out.
But now Bilbo exists so close to him, and Thorin wants. He wants to feel the oddly short, curling hair under his fingers, wants to kiss that animated mouth and feel it move against him. Wants to follow the lines of Bilbo's throat down to his collar bones, down under the dirty and tattered silks and velvets of his Shire clothes.
Bilbo will waves his hands as he tells some story, and Thorin wants to feel them on him, warm and wrinkled and soft against his flesh. Bilbo licks his lips, or licks a bit of food from his finger, and Thorin wants to chase the tongue with his own back into Bilbo's mouth and drink in the sounds that would follow. Bilbo will stretch and make a pleased noise, and Thorin wants to hear that sound from beneath him, catching on his name.
Bilbo smiles, and Thorin wants to tell him that each true smile stops his heart for just a second.
Bilbo asks of Erebor, and Thorin wants to hold his hand and tell him that it could be his home as well.
Bilbo twirls a sword in his fingers, and Thorin wants those fingers in his hair, plaiting in a new braid and running through the snags and tangles of the day.
It's a torture, but it's made easier by the lingering smiles Bilbo gives him, by the fond little laughs and the fact that the halfling will seek him out to sit by him at the end of each day. They don't need to say it, don't need the words between them to know where they are.
Thorin wants. But Bilbo will glance over, smile, pat a rare, casual touch to Thorin's arm, and the tension eases in him.
He wants, but there is the unspoken agreement between them.
'Not now. Wait.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bilbo walks out the door, shuts it quietly, and Thorin drags in a ragged breath that he did not know his lungs had stopped against. The air burns, catches wet and harsh in his throat and he wishes it could keep burning the rest of him.
His hands are still warmed from where they held Bilbo's.
'I can't...'
Thorin understands.
He understands with a sickening clarity. Of course he had allowed himself to hope, had read too much into Bilbo's concern, had sought after what he could not have yet again.
'Thorin, I can't...'
What he had with Bilbo, what he thought he had, was cracked far beyond repair by his own actions. And Thorin, being a greedy, needing fool, had grabbed too fast and too hard at the first sign of hope that he saw, and ended up breaking what was left in his clumsy fist.
And Bilbo couldn't. And Thorin understands.
'I can't.'
He could not let it be. He could not control himself, could not simply ease and try to fix the break between them. Could not be bothered to find the patience to mend what he had done before he leapt fully and dared to clutch and scramble at what was not his.
'It's too much, Thorin.'
He understands. He understands why Bilbo would leave quickly. Why he should escape from the mad greedy king who rules an empty mountain of gilded tombs.
The hollow, empty pain gives way to burning, to a fury that slowly creeps over him until his fists are shaking in his lap and his breath catches tight and furious in his throat.
Fool. You greedy, selfish fool! You truly can not see beyond your own desire!
There had been a small pitcher of water sitting by the bedside. He's grabbing at it blindly, screaming his rage and pain out as it flies into the wall by the fireplace, shatting and scattering to the ground as the door opens.
Dwalin grips the handle, stares from the broken pottery on the floor, over to Thorin, his face grim.
"Get out." Thorin snarls, fingers tense and curled, wanting something else to fling and shatter and destroy.
"No." Dwalin growls, stomping into the room. "The halfling left a note. What happened?"
"Get out, Dwalin!" Thorin swings his legs out from under the blanket, shoves himself up onto his feet and growls when his legs buckle under him. He stumbles into one of the bedposts, teeth gritted against a wordless cry at the pain shooting up his ribs and the shaking in his arms and legs. He still tries to swing his fist when Dwalin approaches, needing to break something needing to lose himself in a fight and blood and shattered bone.
His punch doesn't even connect, swings wildly off target and Dwalin grabs his shoulders, shoving him to sit roughly on the bed, ignoring the enraged yells as Thorin tries to throw him off.
"What happened, Thorin?"
"What do you think happened!? I tried to kill him, nearly killed all of us, and thought he would still allow himself to be Naiblil'âmralê with me. Now get out!" Thorin snaps, teeth bared and fingers digging into Dwalin's forearms. "Get out, before I throw you out!"
"Oh I doubt you can manage that." Comes Balin's voice by the door, sighing sadly, and the knowing pity in his eyes is too much right now. "Thorin..."
"I'll throw both of you out if I must! Leave me!"
Dwalin snorts and pushes him back onto the bed. "You can barely walk, y'fucking fool."
"Come now laddie." Balin shuts the door behind him with a shake of his head. "You'll pull yer stitches if you keep this up."
"I don't give a fuck about my stitches, Balin!" Thorin hollers, feels his throat crack and the yell take something from him. The last of the fire leaves in that shout and he's back to just sitting on the bed, curling in on himself with aching ribs.
There's a large arm around his shaking shoulders, a broad but gentler, old hand on his back, and Thorin curls in further on himself.
"I've ruined it." He says, his voice shaking on a sob and his body wracked with tremors that he can't get to stop. "I've ruined everything. They were all right about me."
None of it was supposed to be like this. Not the reclaiming, not Bilbo, not the aftermath. He was supposed to die in glory and redemption up on that frozen waste, and Bilbo had held him and kept him there only to leave him lost in the wreckage of his own making.
"I've ruined everything..." He says again, and he finally breaks down, sobbing broken and ruined in Balin and Dwalin's embrace.