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“Dwarrow only love once.” Dori says, and Ori nods in agreement. Bilbo frowns.
“But I am not a Dwarf!” He protests, clutching his quill and parchment close to his chest and leaning forward until he is balancing on the edge of his seat. Ori looks over at him and furrows his brow, opening his mouth as if to speak, before closing it, and scratching at the barely there scruff on his chin.
Dori blinks at him owlishly, “Well, no, you are not, Bilbo. You are a Hobbit.”
“But what does that mean for me?” He asks, yanking at his slowly growing curls. Nori says that, once they’re long enough, the three of them will make beads for him to braid into it. It's a rite of passage, a coming of age for young Dwarrow. His eyes are wide, green and dark with fear, “If I am not a Dwarf, does that mean that I do not have a One?”
Dori strokes his beard, brown hair streaked with white, “I, uhh, I suppose not. If I am to be honest with you, lad, I fear that I do not know much of the ways of Hobbits. All I know is what I see in you - soft and small and beardless everywhere but your feet.
“Perhaps I shall ask Balin. He should know,” at Bilbo’s distressed squeak, he hurries to add, “I do not wish to scare you, Bilbo. You must remember that Elves and Man - they do not have Ones, either.”
Ori nods enthusiastically, blond hair falling about his face, “That’s right, Bilbo! Even if Hobbits do not have Ones, it does not mean anything!”
Biting his lip, Bilbo murmurs with a frown, “But what if Hobbits do not fall in love at all?”
“Now, I highly doubt that, lad. Love is what makes many things in life worth while. I cannot imagine a race of creatures being forced to live without that pleasure.” Dori kneels down in front of him and Ori turns so that they’re both facing Bilbo, “Do not dwell on it for too long. We have plenty of other things to cover. Just know that Nori and Ori and I will love you for always. Dwarves are capable of more than just loving their Ones, you know.”
“But how do you know someone’s your One?” Bilbo asks, suddenly curious. Maybe, just maybe, if there was a surefire way to tell, then maybe he would be able to learn. Maybe one day he could try and make himself feel that way towards another. If falling in love felt the same as stubbing his toe, then maybe he would be able to tell.
Dori hums and strokes his beard again, “I suppose it’s a feeling that you get, deep in your belly. It’s warm and safe and it radiates all the way up into your heart until you feel it in your face. It’s like having a belly full of good food and being surrounded by good company. Except, in your heart.”
Bilbo nods warily, not really understanding what that was supposed to feel like exactly, but he allows the smallest of smiles to creep onto his face. Ori knocks his shoulder and Dori decides that perhaps it’s time for lunch, how did that sound? And the two of them acquiesce easily, slipping down from their chairs and following Dori out of their chambers and through the halls of Erebor and to the kitchens where they find Nori pinching biscuits from the pile and Dori scolds him.
“You are the reason I already have gray hair, brother! Must you do this to me?” Nori only snorts around a mouthful of biscuit and falls into line behind Ori, Bilbo bringing up the rear.
Dori and Nori start bickering over Ori and Bilbo's heads, like they always do, and Ori looks on in exasperation, and Bilbo falls behind when he catches sight of the Prince, flanked on either side by Dis and Frerin. Thorin looks over at him and smiles, small and kind, before turning and leaving the kitchens, Dis and Frerin following behind him.
Flushing, Bilbo squeaks, having lost his brothers. Ducking and weaving between the kitchen Dwarrow, Bilbo hurries to catch up to them.
It is because of this part of his teachings, and because of their limited knowledge of Hobbits, that Bilbo finds it very hard not to allow himself to think that maybe - even though he is but a simple Hobbit and, therefore, does not have a One - maybe someone will look at him the way Gloin looks at his wife, or Vili looks at Dis.
He dares not keep his hopes up, though. Instead, he goes about his life as normally as he can. For a Hobbit living in a kingdom of Dwarves, he believes he is doing as well as he is able. When his hair is finally long enough, Dori, Nori, and Ori each twist a braid into it and they are each held by a bead of their own creation. He ages fast, in comparison to Dwarflings, and by the time he reaches his majority, he is working in the archives with Ori and spending his free time in the kitchens with Bombur and, in the spring months, he wanders out into the fields and the plantation engineers teach him all they can about things that come out of the ground. Turns out, he is surprisingly good at nurturing growing things.
As he grows, Bilbo realizes that, for all intents and purposes, he should have remained invisible to the eye of the King’s children, Thorin as the Crown Prince specifically. But Bilbo has always had a habit of sticking his nose where it did not belong, and he had proved himself a worthy adversary in both wit and mischief with all three of Thrain’s children. So, when he is not being teased by Dis, or playing pranks on Vili and the many other Dwarrow present in the royal wing of the mountain, Bilbo is learning and growing and proving himself as more than just a Hobbit out of his depth.
When Ori is almost a quarter of a century past his 100th birthday, Bilbo has learned to ignore the way Thorin’s severe features soften every time he catches the Hobbit’s eye and the way he feels his eyes follow him around the archives during Thorin’s diplomacy lessons with Balin and the King.
###
It is Dis who mentions it first.
Bilbo is hiding in the kitchens, having fled from his chambers after Nori and Bofur had burst into it, looking to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting Hobbit. He snuck out, quiet as a mouse, while the two of them tripped over themselves to find him.
Now he is sitting on one of the less used stonework countertops, well out of Bombur’s way as he putters around the kitchen. Dis has sidled up to him and is standing calmly with her arms folded behind her back.
Bilbo remembers when she was younger, when she had less lines around her mouth and across her brow. He suspects that supporting Fili and Kili through their teenage years might have something to do with her increasingly haggard appearance, but that is not to say that the Princess of Erebor looks anything less than stunning at all times. Bilbo thinks she is beautiful.
She picks a scone from his plate and pops it into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Lady Dis takes after Thorin more than anyone, definitely more than Frerin; she has the same, aristocratic nose, hawk-like and severe, and a strong, round jaw. Her dark hair falls in waves down her back, with two thick braids starting at her temples and twisting around the crown of her head. The braids meet at the center of her hair, held together by a cast-iron bead Thorin had made for her when he was younger. Her beard is not nearly as thick as Gloin’s; instead, it is fine and wispy and comes down from her chin into two braids held together with wooden beads that both Fili and Kili had made for her.
She has one more braid peeking out from beneath her hair, a marriage braid, with a bead clasped at the end from Vili. It shines spectacularly in the light of the sun, sparkling blue and gold.
When she catches him staring, she smirks, and Bilbo is reminded that while she is very similar in Thorin to appearance, she is not nearly as intense. In fact, as Dwarrowdams go, she is rather jovial, and it is no secret where Fili and Kili get their talent for mischief from. Regarding Bilbo with eyes the color of sapphires, she says, “Frerin and I were just talking about you. He had some rather interesting things to say about your recent… Behavior, shall we call it.”
Bilbo takes a bite of a scone and avoids answering for a while, watching how Dis’ face gives nothing away. Gulping, he picks up another treat and asks, “What about my recent behavior has him so intrigued?”
“Specifically,” she trails, picking up another scone and inspecting it before taking a small bite, “He thinks you should probably stop mooning over Thorin so obviously. If you were attempting to keep it a secret, that is.”
Bilbo splutters and drops his scone. He does not have time to mourn the loss of his pastry before Dis is speaking again, steamrolling over his noises of protest as she is wont to do.
“I would be inclined to agree, except I am pretty sure that no one aside from the two of us have noticed or, believe me, you would be getting teased a lot more than this. Particularly if Nori noticed, because then Bofur would know, and then there is no telling where it would go from there.”
He feels his face going positively green. Instead of answering, he busies himself by sweeping the crumbs off of his trousers, picking up his empty plate, and hopping to the floor. He takes the plate over to the Dwarrow at the wash basin and thanks him profusely for his hospitality, but he waves Bilbo off with a dish rag. On his way out, Bilbo stops by Dis, who raises an eyebrow, and he sighs and beckons her to follow him out.
“Are you certain that only you and Frerin know?” Bilbo asks, feet silent on the stone floor as he leads her down the busy corridor. Her boots and armor clunk as she walks, making everyone turn as they pass. Dwarrow bow their heads in respect and those that know him spare Bilbo a polite smile. He nods at them nervously, jogging to keep up with Dis’ long strides.
“Where did you plan on heading after the kitchens?” She asks in lieu of an answer, and Bilbo frowns distractedly, but leads her through the large double doors of the library anyhow. When they approach his workbench, nestled in a little corner of the library with his things strewn about, Frerin is there waiting with a wide grin splitting his face in two. He has the same lines of age around his mouth and across his brow, but he wears them proudly, the middle child in a line of royalty.
Unlike his older brother and younger sister, upon meeting Frerin, one can immediately tell that he is as much the bright and shining star as he appears to be. He has waves of golden hair, streaked through with highlights of amber and topaz. There are two thick braids on either side of his temples, the same a Thorin’s, and his beard trails down his front in one long waterfall braid. He has the same icy blue eyes as Thorin, but they are narrow, always crinkled along the edges in a grin. He looks down his large, round nose at Bilbo.
“Master Hobbit!” He calls, hopping down from his seat on the table, “How good of you to join us!”
“How did you even know I would be here?” Bilbo gathers the papers and quills spread across the table and organizes them into piles, knowing before he has said it that it would be a stupid question. They are in the middle of the winter months. Where else would he be, if not in the kitchens?
Frerin shrugs easily, his shoulders unbothered by the heavy armor that he wears at all times. As Captain of the Royal Guard, he wears significantly more than either Thorin or Dis and always has several weapons strapped to his belt and shoulders, and yet it falls on him in a way that seems effortless, as if he was not wearing any armor at all, “Lucky guess.”
Bilbo stays standing and busies himself with shuffling through his books.
“Mhm.” He says absentmindedly. The way Dis and Frerin watch him makes him nervous, “So how are the boys, Dis? Good, I hope.”
Dis gives him an appraising look, “They are well. Troublesome as always. Fili is especially happy that all of his lessons have been cancelled this week because father and Balin are too busy conducting Thorin on the proper diplomacy toward the Mirkwood Elves.” She pulls a dagger out from underneath her collar of furs and picks at something in her nails.
Bilbo hums, “And how’s Captain of the Guard training going, Frerin? Is Dwalin faring well?”
“As well as he can, looking after the boys as practice. I told them to make him work for it.”
The three of them fall into a terse silence and Bilbo makes many fervent, futile pleas for them to suddenly remember that they each have something that they should be doing. Far away from him and the library. On the other side of the mountain, perhaps. Maybe even in the forges.
Bilbo never goes down there.
The hope is wasted, however, when Dis sheaths her knife back into her collar and smiles, too sweetly and with too much teeth.
“What were we saying about Mister Bilbo the other day, Frerin?”
Frerin pretends to think about it, pulling his hair over one shoulder. It cascades like a wall of honeysuckles. He fiddles with the ends, “I do believe we were discussing something having to do with matters of the heart?”
“Ahh, yes.” His sister replies and leans into his shoulder. The two of them share a conspiratorial look, “But whose heart, dear brother?”
“Mmm, perhaps a certain Crown Prince?”
Bilbo whines and cover his face with a dusty Elven tome. The Sindarin in upside down. “Why are you two doing this to me?”
“We are not doing anything, Master Hobbit,” Frerin answers with a mock serious frown, “We are simply talking about how Thorin has been acting kind of strange lately and, well, we seem to think that you have been acting very much the same.”
“So the Lady Dis has mentioned.” Bilbo grumbles from behind the book.
He can just imagine Frerin’s look of abject betrayal, “You told him without me?”
“How was I to know that I would find you here?” She sniffs, “Besides. You are here to tell him now.”
The two of them bicker for a while and Bilbo peeks at them from over the edge of his book. It is sometimes easy to forget how much older they are compared to him. He is only forty-three, a mere child by Dwarven standards, and the two of them are well into their hundreds, with families and careers of their own. Bilbo wonders how long he will live, how many more years he will get to spend with this kind, intriguing, hardy race of people he has found himself lucky enough to call family.
When they look back over at him and notice him watching, he wonders if this is the moment where his luck runs out.
“So tell us, Master Bilbo,” Frerin starts, leaning across the edge of the table casually, “What are your intentions towards our dear older brother?”
Bilbo snorts.
“Intentions, they ask. Truly.”
“We are being perfectly serious,” the way Dis purses her lips is anything but, “We see the way you look at him-”
“Like he’s got the stars woven into his beard-”
“And we simply want to know whether or not you plan on-”
“Acting on it.” Frerin finishes with a lecherous grin. Dis smacks him with the back of her hand and mutters a quiet, Stop that, you fool, and Frerin laments the curse of younger sisters.
“Of course not!” Bilbo shouts and quickly shrinks back behind his book when heads turn to inspect the commotion, “Of course not.” He repeats, just barely above a whisper.
“May we ask why not?” Tugging out one of the braids of her beard, Dis rebraids it with agile fingers.
“You cannot expect me to try and court a Dwarf. And the Crown Prince at that!”
They both stare at him with twin looks of confusion.
“What does him being a Dwarf have to do with it?” Frerin raises an eyebrow in wait.
“Because I am a Hobbit.” Bilbo says, as if the answer should be obvious.
Dis shrugs, “It does not seem to bother Thorin too much.”
Frerin nods in agreement, “It’s true. He moons after you just the same. Especially during the spring months, when you are out in the gardens. Balin had to move his lessons somewhere that had no windows. He complained for ages.”
“He tells you these things?” Bilbo does not know whether to be surprised or not. On the one hand, the three of them have always been close. On the other, Thorin has always presented himself as an incredibly private person.
They shrug in a practiced unison.
“Does Ori not tell you everything?” Dis reasons, and Bilbo supposes that when she puts it that way, it makes sense.
With a sigh, Bilbo finally asks, “Why are you telling me all of this?” He gives up the pretense of reading his book, despite the fact that it had been upside down the entire time. He closes it and places it gently onto the table and gives Frerin a withering look. His face feels like it is on fire.
“Because you are his One, Bilbo!” Frerin gives in, a note of exasperation tinging his tone. He says it like it is a fact, like there is no other truth in the world to parallel this one, and the way his stomach flutters makes Bilbo slightly queasy. Dis jerks at the word and curses at Frerin, but he ignores her.
Heart in his throat, Bilbo scoffs, “I am not Thorin’s One. As much as it pains me to admit it. Because, according to you two, I am glaringly obvious.”
“Well, why can’t you be?” Frerin says with a laugh, ignoring Dis and the way her eyes dart about.
“Why-” Bilbo splutters and struggles to find the words to explain just how absolutely ridiculous the very idea is. Him? Bilbo Baggins? Gardener extraordinaire, lover of books, completely incapable of wielding even the smallest of swords, no matter how many Gimli crafts for him as practice? “Because I am a Hobbit and he is a Dwarven Prince!”
“You cannot even know what that means,” Frerin argues, and Bilbo knows he gets that stubborn streak from Thorin, because Dis knows when to end an argument but no, not Frerin, never Frerin, “For all you know, Hobbits could be the royalty of all of Arda, and we just do not know it. Your lot could rival the majesty of Elves, I bet.”
“I cannot be his One!” Bilbo yells, and half the library turns around, equal parts surprised and annoyed.
Frerin bites his lip at the glare Dis throws at him and actually groans out loud when he sees Thorin peeking around the corner of one of the shelves with hard eyes. Dis lets out a long suffering sigh at the look on the Prince’s face and tugs at one of Frerin’s braids.
“Shut your mouth, you giant Orc!” She hisses, but Thorin has already rounded the corner and is standing behind Bilbo. His eyes never leave his siblings when he asks,
“Are my kin pestering you, Bilbo?”
“We were only telling him what you should have told him ages ago.” Frerin mutters, and Dis yanks at his braids again.
“Perhaps you two should have this conversation elsewhere…?” Dis suggests, locking eyes with all of the bystanders until they bow their heads and look away hastily.
Bilbo looks up at Thorin, but Thorin is not looking at him. He is staring straight ahead, neck long and shoulders back and spine straight, with his hands clasped behind him. He clenches his jaw, and Bilbo can see the more his brow furrows the longer it takes Bilbo to speak.
He gulps, “I am your One?”
Sighing, Thorin finally looks down and meets his eyes. There is something in them that Bilbo cannot place and it makes his stomach do strange things, “I had hoped to talk to you about it in private, perhaps after my Coronation but, yes. You are my One.”
Bilbo can feel the eyes of dozens of onlookers snap to him as Thorin, Dis, and Frerin wait for him to reply.
“Bilbo?” Dis takes a step forward, but a sharp look from Thorin stops her.
Instead of answering, Bilbo merely turns on his heel and runs. He hears Frerin make a loud, frustrated sound as he pushes open the library doors and Dis is calling after him, but he does not stop. When he reaches his rooms, he opens the first door he comes across and shuts it soundly behind him. He settles down with his back against it and his knees drawn up to his chin, and there he stays.
###
By the time Bilbo decides to come out of hiding, it is already nightfall. The weak winter sunlight that had been glittering through the windows of Bilbo’s bedroom, carved into the side of the mountain, has long since passed, leaving the chill of the night and the bright glow of the moon in its wake.
Bilbo opens the door cautiously, peeking around the edge to find Thorin waiting for him. It is not unusual for the Prince to be in his rooms; they often congregated at night for tea and pleasant conversation. There is a fire roaring in the hearth, no doubt stoked by Thorin as it had been nearly burned out when Bilbo first went into hiding, and candles are lit throughout the room. He is lounging in front of the fire on a bed of fur with a book from Bilbo’s nightstand, one of the ones he had been reading before bed every night, and his armor is discarded.
Bilbo watches him. He watches the way the flames make the evening shadows flicker across Thorin’s face, the way his icy blue eyes glow bright. His hair is tossed over one shoulder and out of his face, dark as the night. A couple of weeks ago, Bilbo noticed thick silver veins growing from his temples and Thorin had shrugged and blamed it on the stress of having Fili and Kili as his nephews.
What he does not say is that his impending coronation is weighing heavily upon him and he is a little over a decade away from his 200th birthday, and now his One is hiding from him in a closet.
He huffs and Thorin’s eyes flick up to his face quickly before returning to the book.
“Have you finished hiding from me yet, Halfling?” He mutters, and turns a page.
Grumbling, Bilbo slides out from behind the door and shuts it quietly behind him. He leans against it and waits; for what, he does not know, but still he waits, and it is a long while before Thorin sighs and closes the book. He sets it off the the side, but stays sprawled across the furs, held up by his elbows. Jerking his head, he motions for Bilbo to join him.
He approaches slowly and carefully folds himself down, spreading out beside Thorin. He leaves space between the two of them so that they are not touching, enough space to feel the heat of Thorin beside him, no armor to trap the warmth against his body. The Dwarf Prince makes him feel safe and comfortable, despite the fact that this is probably the most uncomfortable situation he has ever had the misfortune of being in in all of his forty some-odd years of life.
“I apologize for the things that my siblings might have said. They were speaking out of turn.” Bilbo starts to nod, but Thorin continues, “However. I would, at the very least, like an explanation as to why you decided to hide from me.” His voice is low and thick, slurred and sleepy in the back of his throat. Bilbo hides his face in his forearms and grumbles into the nook. The furs offer no reply, “I cannot hear you when you smother yourself like that, ghivashel.”
“Do not call me that, Thorin.” Bilbo picks his head up from the floor and shoots Thorin a withering glare.
“Why not?”
“Because I am not a Dwarf!” Bilbo shouts, and he sincerely wishes he had not for the dark shadow of agitation and frustration that falls over Thorin’s brow. Bilbo looks away quickly, watching the firewood crackle and burn.
Thorin glares at him for a breathless, terrifying second, “Is that what this is about? You think the fact that you are a Hobbit makes you so different from my kind - from our kind?”
“No, Mahal save me from the stubbornness of Dwarves, that is not what I am saying at all! What I mean is that,” pressing his lips into a thin line, Bilbo folds his hands together and shrugs, “What I mean is that I am not a Dwarf. I do not have a One. At least, that is what Balin and Dori say-”
“My advisor and your brothers know nothing of Hobbits.”
“And I do, Thorin?” Bilbo bristles, growing more and more irritated as the conversation drags on, “Thorin, I know next to nothing of my own kind, aside from the fact that I have an insatiable desire to eat all the time, abnormally large feet, and that, much like Men and Elves, I do not have a One. What Arda dictates for me, well, I believe I am expected to find someone to love on my own. But I have heard the stories of Men and how they love and leave more often than not and I do not- I cannot-”
Bilbo wishes he knew the rights words to say, to get that look of confusion and guarded betrayal off of Thorin’s face, but he does not. All he knows is that he still feels like a stranger sometimes, a tiny little lady bug lost in a forest of oaks and redwoods, so far out of his depth that he has no hope of resurfacing. He knows that Dori, Nori, and Ori have tried their best, knows in his heart that he has made them proud of the way he has grown since they found him so very long ago, stumbling around the gutters of Dale.
Nori had been plundering throughout the town when he found him and had thought him a child of Man until he saw his pointed ears and large feet and then, he did not know what he was, but Nori smuggled him home into Erebor anyhow and there he remained.
“I am afraid,” he starts again, taking a deep breath and looking straight ahead, “I am afraid that I will fail you, both as a lover and, eventually, a consort. What sort of kingdom wants a consort not of their kind?”
“I would convince them easily.” Thorin retorts without a moments hesitation, and Bilbo scoffs.
“You are a strangely optimistic Dwarf, Thorin.”
“It is not optimism if I know that I could convince them.”
Bilbo tries to hide a laugh behind his palm and fails, “Fine. So you would convince the court that a Hobbit on the throne would not be an egregious oversight of propriety. But what of my heart? I cannot deny that I love you, because I do,” Bilbo’s heart feels full, close to bursting as he admits it, and the happy sound that Thorin makes in his throat and the way he shuffles closer to Bilbo so that they are touching from shoulder to hip makes it worth the admission, “What if I cannot promise you the kind of love you can promise me?”
“I am willing to take that risk. You need to throw away this foolish notion. The fact that you are not a Dwarf does not make you incapable of loving one. I know that you are different, but as much as I know this, my heart does not care. You are the creature that Aule has intended to be my One, and I shall not argue. I may be stubborn, but I am not pigheaded enough to think myself a match for my creator.”
Snorting, Bilbo shakes his head, but does not say anything and allows Thorin to go on.
“What you have to understand, ghivashel,” and Bilbo shivers at the word, at the love and devotion present in the three small syllables, “Is that love is not as fickle as you think it to be. I have grown in splendor, Bilbo. I have not known the kind of loss that you have - no family or culture to speak of. But I feel as if I know a thing or two about loving a Hobbit. I have been doing it for many years, now,” Thorin pauses and turns his head to gaze at Bilbo, and Bilbo’s breath catches at the way his eyes dance in the firelight, “Would you deny me the chance to show him what it means to love a Dwarf?”
Bilbo is silent for a long while. All that can be heard, in the stillness of the night, is the sound of the fire blazing, the trills of the ravens, the rhythmic clang of metal on stone, all constants reverberating throughout the mountain; all sounds that Bilbo grew up with. Bilbo wonders if maybe he could love a Dwarf the way they are meant to be loved, wonders if he can love as passionately and as openly and as wholly as the Dwarrow seem to. Hopes that he can.
When he nods, Thorin smiles, brilliant and full of teeth, and rolls over, pulling Bilbo with him. There is an intense moment of terrifying realization on Bilbo’s part - he has just agreed to a courtship. Not only did he agree to a courtship, but he just agreed to allow himself to be courted by the Crown Prince of the Dwarrow. By Thorin Oakenshield, who thinks Bilbo is his One. Bilbo does not really know what to do with this information, but when he’s settled on top of Thorin, their bodies fitting against each other perfectly with Thorin’s hair fanned out across the furs and Bilbo’s hands buried into the soft, thin fabric of Thorin’s tunic, Bilbo feels something like a grenade being released inside his belly.
When they kiss, mouths slotting together like they were made for each other, that is when he feels it, deep in the pit of his belly; the feeling of a stomach full of good food, of being surrounded by pleasant company. Heat blossoms in Bilbo’s chest. It spreads like wildfire, its tendrils curling and weaving into every nook and cranny his body has to offer. He feels it in the tips of his toes, feet bare like a Hobbits should be. He feels it in the tips of his ears, but that could also just be Thorin’s mouth, traveling leisurely along his jaw and up, up, up, until he’s nibbling on the point of his ear and Bilbo’s moaning, embarrassingly loud, but it only serves to make Thorin that much more eager to pull those noises out of him.
When Thorin flips them over and presses Bilbo into the furs with the length of his body, solid and warm like his very own hearth, Bilbo laughs. He kisses down the column of Bilbo’s neck, latches on and bites, sucking red welts into the skin, and when he pulls away to see them, his eyes go dark. He moulds himself into Bilbo.
When Thorin kisses him again, slow and deep, as if he’s trying to memorize everything there is to know about the inside of Bilbo’s mouth, Thorin uses deft hands to strip the two of them of their clothes. He runs his fingers down Bilbo’s sides, over the plump rolls of his stomach that he could never truly rid himself of, Bilbo had come to learn, over his generous hips and thighs, under the backs of his legs. Bilbo reciprocates, hands smoothing over the muscles of Thorin’s chest, combing through the thick hair. Naked and wanting and burning at the foot of the hearth, Thorin wraps Bilbo’s legs tight around his waist and pulls him up, sitting him in his lap so that they are nose to nose, blue burning into green.
When Thorin takes them both in hand, they struggle to keep their eyes on each other, smiling and kissing and panting, trying to wrap themselves into each other. Bilbo locks his ankles together and presses into the small of Thorin’s back and tangles his fingers in Thorin’s hair and pulls. Thorin moans and moves his hand faster between them, nipping at Bilbo’s lips and whispering Khuzdul into his mouth, words that Bilbo knows but cannot separate from the noises Thorin makes or the way the fire roars or the way Bilbo whines. Their hips stutter together.
When their pleasure hits, Thorin wraps his arms around Bilbo’s waist and buries his nose into his neck and sighs and Bilbo wraps his fingers back into the long, braided hair, and they sit together, sticky and complete, in front of the fireplace.
Then Thorin says, “You are so much more than a simple Hobbit Under the Mountain. You are my One, ghivashel.”
Bilbo thinks that this is the first time he has ever truly felt like a Dwarf, wrapped in the arms of his One and only.