Chapter Text
“What’re you so cheery about, then?” Bofur gave Biblo a friendly pat on the back, but he was chivvied along the long hall by Nori before Bilbo had a chance to answer. Bilbo turned on his heel and waved after them; Bofur gave Bilbo a queer little half-smile over his shoulder and tipped his hat, then disappeared around the corner.
It was as well that Bilbo hadn’t gotten a chance to speak, so he couldn’t regret it overmuch. After all that had and had not happened, it still seemed strange to be on such good terms with the King Under the Mountain as to be summoned to his personal chambers.
Even though Bilbo had climbed on the table and started babbling away at dinner a week hence, he hadn’t seen Thorin since then, except in far-away glances over food and in the stone halls. He hadn’t done what he’d done for praise, but all the same when a short dwarf knocked on his door that morning and delivered a summons and a suspicious glance, Bilbo had been hard-pressed to keep from smiling all day.
As he drew nearer to Thorin’s rooms, Bilbo was struck with the thought that this might well be the norm. Thorin was a proper king now. What time would he have for one small out-of-place hobbit?
Bilbo frowned down at his sleeve as he tugged his shirt into order. He would simply have to find more ways of making himself useful then, he vowed, and knocked on the large door.
Perhaps it never would have occurred to Bilbo that it was somewhat strange to be plotting ways to claim Thorin’s time, or perhaps the door was pulled open too quickly, but either way the thought never crossed his mind.
“There you are, Halfling.” Thorin smiled down at him, a proper smile that warmed Bilbo from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. It was a rare sight, and Bilbo tried to press it into his memory. Metal clanked and furs shifted as Thorin stepped aside to gesture Bilbo in.
“Here I am,” Bilbo said, linking his fingers together behind his back and tilting his head up to smile back at Thorin, who shook his head with a bemused sort of look and shut the door.
They stared at each other for a moment. Then Thorin propped his hands on his hips, glowered, and said, “What in Mahal’s name am I going to do with you?”
Bilbo would have been taking aback, but there was a hint of humor behind the glower, and that kept his courage up enough for him to venture, “Reward your cleverest of burglars for his cunning?”
The solemnity on Thorin’s face broke apart and he laughed in earnest, quick but still enough to rumble through Bilbo’s bones and settle there, buoying him up under his breast.
“So you want a reward for interrupting my dinner, do you?” Thorin chuckled. He walked over to a large chair that sat by the hearth and unceremoniously dumped the weight of the furs from his shoulders, then unstrapped the shining bracers from his arm. Seeing the solid curve of Thorin’s shoulders and the long dark line of Thorin’s forearm suddenly appear made Bilbo’s pulse jolt. Surely he’d seen more of Thorin on the road many times. But this, watching Thorin slowly strip off his royalty next to the flickering light of the fire, felt different and strange, and very warm.
When Thorin was clad in just boots and trousers and a thin white shirt, he turned to Bilbo again, smiling still. Bilbo took a step closer without thinking.
“So, what is it that you wanted, then?” Thorin asked.
Bilbo’s mind went blank; for a second he could not recall any notion of what Thorin was speaking of. But then he remembered babbling nonsense in the face of Thorin’s glare. He blushed.
“I was only joking. I don’t actually want anything, don’t be silly. I didn’t do that much.”
Thorin raised one thick eyebrow and gave Bilbo one of those looks that never failed to make the hobbit feel very small. When Thorin turned away, Bilbo felt a mad urge to cry out, to take back his words, so long as Thorin would keep looking at him.
There was a chest of drawers near the bed, and it was to this that Thorin went. He opened up one, and then another drawer, and then looked over his shoulder and gestured to Bilbo with a jerk of his head. For the first time in many months Bilbo felt a very hobbitlike curiosity about other people’s homes rise up inside him; he wandered closer, wondering what Thorin kept so near to him.
“Oh,” Bilbo gasped, as soon as he saw inside the wooden chest. Because - of course, and yet…
“Beautiful, are they not?” Thorin asked, though Bilbo could not help but notice that his tone was brusque, and he did not look overlong at the dazzling jewels littering the bottom of the drawers.
Bilbo swallowed, his mind connecting the dots. “I - well, yes, they are, but, um…”
Thorin was raising his eyebrows at him again. Bilbo failed to resist the urge to scowl.
“Yes, but what?” Thorin prompted.
“But… but they are not for hobbits,” Bilbo finished lamely.
They stared at each other for a long moment. Thorin’s expression was blank, so that Bilbo had no idea what the dwarf was thinking. It meant there was time for Bilbo to stare at Thorin’s exposed forearms again, and then look away, and then wonder how he ever ended up in this position, a respectable Baggins of Bag End, in a dwarf king’s personal room looking at his jewels that were worth no doubt twice the Shire.
A slow smile, almost lost in his dark beard, curved over Thorin’s mouth. “So, you think these jewels are not for hobbits, do you?” he said.
Bilbo opened his mouth and was just able to say, “No - ” before the first necklace landed around his collarbone.
It was heavy; Bilbo let out a huff of air and looked down to see huge chunks of fire-bright stone hanging from his neck. He looked up at Thorin, who was grinning at Bilbo ludicrously, like he’d won some sort of victory.
Bilbo narrowed his eyes and glared. “Take it off,” he ordered, and reached up to do it himself.
But even when he had to reach into the chest to pull things out, Thorin was faster than he - Bilbo couldn’t even grasp the necklace before Thorin had grasped one of his hands and slipped on a bracelet thick with glittering blue jewels (maybe sapphires? Bilbo surely didn’t know).
“Thorin…” he complained, and of all things, Thorin put a shining gold crown on his head. Bilbo caught a glance of large, rough hands retreating from his head, and heard Thorin chuckle, deep and low and impossible to resist.
He should have saved his bewilderment for this, Bilbo thought, and let his hands drop to his sides in defeat, though he couldn’t help but laugh along with the king. Now he was not just a Baggins looking at kingly jewels, but a Baggins clad in them, and he could think of little more ridiculous than that.
Bilbo lifted his head to look at Thorin and tell him, but when he saw the expression on Thorin’s face the words died in his throat.
All the mirth was gone; Bilbo could not see any amusement left in Thorin’s face. The dwarf was simply staring, his head tilted a bit to the left and his mouth just slightly open as though he were thinking hard on something, dark eyes burning as they stared unrelentingly at Bilbo.
His stomach clenched and Bilbo lost the fight not to take a step backward.
Thorin followed him, but Thorin’s steps were much larger than Bilbo’s, and before Bilbo could back away any further a hand came down on his shoulder, trapping him. Bilbo tried to swallow away his fear and his mouth was too dry to do so. He tried to tug off the bracelet with one hand, hoping it wouldn’t make things worse, but Thorin’s other hand came down and stilled his.
“You look as you ought to,” a rough voice said in his ear. It took Bilbo a moment to hear him properly through the panic, and when he did, he blinked in surprise and looked up.
Oh, but Thorin was close; that familiar face was very near to his, and Bilbo tipping up his head to look only brought them closer. Thorin’s hands were not just warm, but hot; it felt as though they might burn him.
He couldn’t look away from Thorin’s eyes. “What - I look as - what do you mean?” he stammered. He could have tried to pull himself away from Thorin’s heavy hands, but he didn’t.
Thorin was close enough that Bilbo could feel the warmth of his breath when he spoke; almost close enough for the wiry hair of his beard to tickle Bilbo’s cheeks. He could feel them flush.
He remembered the night Thorin first walked through his door, late and hungry and irritated, scolding Gandalf for his inadequate instructions. He had been the last of many unexpected visitors who had in a few short hours turned his world upside down. Up until then Bilbo had known of the outside world, of course, he’d just never been aware of it.
But then Thorin had knocked on the door, all disgruntled honor and tired insults, and… And in spite of the unfriendliness and dismissal, in spite of everything, a longing for something he couldn’t even really name had awoken in Bilbo, and once it reared its head he could not put it to sleep again.
He’d followed the dwarves and fought for them and cared for them as something very near to kin, but Bilbo was uncomfortably aware that when you got right down to the marrow of things, every step he’d taken had been for Thorin. He’d fought orcs and wargs and spiders, he’d dreamed up insane plans, he’d endured, because… Because more than hearth and home, more than books and learning, more than treasure, more than honor, more than anything that Bilbo had known or heard of, he just wanted Thorin to look at him.
And now, Thorin was looking at him; Thorin was doing nothing but looking at him.
And Bilbo still wasn’t satisfied.
“Um,” Bilbo said, because he didn’t have any actual words yet, but he wanted something even if he couldn’t name it, and if hobbits are known for anything it is that they reach out for happiness with both hands, “um, I…” He fancied Thorin’s eyes grew warmer; certainly they crinkled at the edges as Thorin smiled, and Bilbo reached up to brush Thorin’s bristly cheek with his fingers.
Behind them the door flew open.
“Uncle, we have need of you, one of the silver mines is collapsed and… Oh.”
Fili’s voice cut sharply through the haze Bilbo had fallen into; he yanked back from Thorin without having any good reason to do so. Thorin pulled back a little, too, and looked over his shoulder at his nephew. For once Fili was completely ignoring Thorin and instead gazing at Bilbo with wide, shocked eyes. It took Bilbo a second to realize that he was decked in Thorin’s jewels, and that perhaps that was a little odd.
“Hullo, Fili,” Bilbo tried to laugh, because the situation was a bit absurd, wasn’t it, but Thorin’s expression remained stony, and though Fili smiled, it looked sad.
“Hello, Bilbo. I’ll just - I’ll come back in a minute, alright? I need to - check something. Outside.” He gave a small bow and stepped back out, closing the door neatly behind him.
Silence fell over the room like a pall; without speaking Bilbo drew off first the bracelet and then the necklace, and handed them to Thorin, who watched his actions intently and took the pieces without comment, setting them back inside the chest of drawers.
Bilbo took off the crown last of all and turned it over in his hands before giving it back to Thorin.
“It is heavy,” Bilbo said, and Thorin nodded.
“That it is, Halfling,” he said quietly, and set it away in the drawer as well.
They walked to the door together, but Thorin felt very far away; Bilbo could not feel as though he drew warmth from him anymore.
“So you offer me no reward after all, eh?” Bilbo spoke into the quiet, attempting some paltry levity.
He was sorry when Thorin paused with a hand on the doorknob and turned to look at him again.
Thorin’s eyes were as sad as Fili’s smile. “Because I knew that you did not ever truly want the jewels, Master Burglar, and now neither do I.”