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Thorin pulled the plastic tab on the bag of charcoal, ripping the threaded seam open.
It was that time of year again for the annual Durin family barbeque, which inevitably turned into a neighborhood affair. Dís was a terrible busybody who was practically friends with everybody on the entire block (minus that douchebag Smaug).
On top of that, Dís had tried to convince him that this year they should use an electric grill. It would do a better job of cooking the food evenly, she had tried to argue. There was also a mention of good reviews and how it would be environmentally better.
Thorin hefted the bag up into his arms and tipped the open end down, dumping the bag of charcoal into the monster grill he had been using for years. Thorin couldn’t care less; nothing could compare to good old charcoal grilling. He was the master of his grill, after all.
He left the metal grate on the table next to the grill and ducked back into the garage, tossing the empty charcoal bag as he headed for the shelf where he normally kept the lighter fluid for the grill.
The lighter fluid wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Damn it!
Thorin stomped over to the door leading into the house, yanked it open, and bellowed, “Dís! Have you seen the lighter fluid for the grill! It’s not in the garage!”
No reply.
“Dís!”
“Well, shit,” Thorin muttered and shut the door.
He began pulling stuff off the shelves, leaving boxes of stuff on the floor in irritation, hoping that maybe it ended up somewhere else—he would deal with the clean up later (he would bribe Fíli and Kíli into doing it).
“Thorin,” Dwalin called from the open door of the garage leading out to the patio.
“What?” Thorin huffed, looking over his shoulder to see what his cousin wanted.
Dwalin’s eyebrows were raised as he shook a blue and white bottle with the words lighter fluid printed over it.
“What the hell, Dwalin?” Thorin snapped and headed for the door, nearly tripping over a blue pool noodle as he went, and swiped the bottle of fuel from his cousin’s hand.
Dwalin offered him an uncaring shrug and a smirk. “I knew you’d forget to buy more, after last year.”
“What do you mean ‘after last year’?” Thorin said pushing past Dwalin.
“You don’t remember using the fuel on the bonfire last year for Kíli’s birthday?”
Oh.
Thorin chuckled darkly.
Kíli had really wanted to do s' mores and other campfire shenanigans post-birthday party, but there were too many people for the small patio fire pit. Bofur had the brilliant idea to do a bonfire, he even (conveniently) had several wooden pallets in the back of his truck. So Thorin, Dwalin, and Bofur put together a pile to burn and lit the kindling on fire. It had been slow going until Bofur brought the lighter fluid out. It was lucky for them that they didn’t catch on fire with how close they were standing to the burning woodpile then Bofur started squeezing the fuel onto the open flame.
Dís nearly killed all three of them, but Kíli had a blast.
Thorin sat the bottle of lighter fluid on the table next to the grill’s metal grate and shoved a hand into his pocket, digging for the box of matches, “Yeah, I remember now.”
Dwalin looked thoughtfully between the unlit grill and the fuel, then at Thorin “Can I?”
“Fine.”
Dwalin reached over and swiped the bottle, uncapped it, and squeezed some of the lighter fluid over the charcoal.
“That’s good,” Thorin said and grabbed the metal grate off the table, fitting it back into the grill.
When that was done, Thorin pulled out a match from its box and struck the head of it against the rough strip on the side of the matchbox, lighting it. He carefully dropped it between one of the gaps in the grate, and the lighter fluid immediately caught fire. The flames ate their way through the path Dwalin had drawn with the bottle only a moment before.
A wave of Déjà vu hit Thorin then as Dwalin shifted next to him, bringing the bottle up.
Dwalin pointed the bottle at the grill and firmly squeezed it. Thorin watched in fascination as the flammable liquid arced through the air and into the grill; the flames greedily gorged themselves on the fuel with a hungry whoosh.
Dwalin snickered and did it again, and Thorin grinned.
As Dwalin began squeezing the bottle for the third time, there was a sharp smack of skin hitting bare skin. Thorin had a second to register the sound and what it meant before a hand smacked him hard against the back of his head.
“Knock. It. Off!” Dís growled before stomping off.
Balin, who had been setting up tables and dragging out chairs to the backyard snickered at them.
Riding the same wavelength, Thorin and Dwalin both flipped him off.
*
As Thorin predicted, the entire neighborhood was in his backyard.
His yard was huge, thankfully; big enough that the twelve or so little hooligans using the slip n’ slide aren’t actively running over other people in their excitement.
Thorin lifted the lid of the grill up, heat, smoke, and the delicious smell of marinated meat cooking hit him like a brick wall. He took the grill tongs in hand and turned a rack of ribs, the juices dripping from the cooking meat make the flames beneath hiss, and repeated the process for the second set of ribs and the salmon steaks.
If Fíli and Dís ever finished cutting up the veggies, he’d grill those too. He’d hassle them about it, but they were taking care of the food for the few vegan and vegetarian folks that usually showed up. Thorin was thankful because he had no clue what he was doing, and he’d hate to fuck up specially made food.
While Thorin waited for the salmon to finish cooking, he let his eyes wander. He watched his neighbors mingle: chatting and laughing, probably gossiping.
Kíli had gotten a hold of the music player and put on some weird music genre he called synthwave—Thorin would have preferred Bruce Springsteen or Johnny Cash, maybe even some Nirvana. Kíli’s music wasn’t really to his tastes, although there were a couple of songs that weren’t too bad (he wouldn’t admit it to anyone). But it looked like no one really minded, some even seemed to be swaying to the (surprisingly) calm beats.
Thorin’s eyes darted over to where the kids were playing as they shrieked in delight. It looked like Bofur and little Gimli found the super soakers and launched a water attack on the little twerps. Serves them right. Thorin snickered.
His eyes swept over the rest of the gathering quickly, but someone unfamiliar caught his attention.
A man with curly golden hair stood out from the rest. Someone Thorin had never seen before. For a split second Thorin had thought it was that asshole Smaug from down the street.
The man was wearing a pale blue, short-sleeved button-down, khaki shorts, and a pair of flip flops. Standing next to him, a little boy with black curls (wearing a blue spider-man shirt, a pair of black shorts, and a pair of red crocs) held his hand while he looked about curiously.
“Thorin,” Dís said, startling him out of his observations. She held out the platter of assorted veggies to him. “I’ve got the veggies! Oh, it looks like he decided to come!”
“Who?” Thorin asked, taking the platter.
“Bilbo Baggins. He just moved into the house down the street with his nephew, Frodo.”
Thorin looked at Dís expectantly. He wasn’t a mindreader.
Dís sighed, “They moved into Radaghast’s old place.”
“Oh. Well, how the hell was I supposed to know that?” Thorin grumbled.
“Maybe if you’d take your head out of your ass and live in the real world, then maybe you’d know stuff like this.”
Thorin ignored Dís as he watched as his new neighbor crouched down next to his nephew. He was quietly talking to the boy as he pointed toward where all the kid's stuff was set up.
“Don’t you have better things to do than to irritate me?” Thorin huffed in annoyance.
Along with the slip n’ slide, there were also a few big buckets of toys (mostly nerf guns, a football, a volleyball, and other kids-safe outdoorsy type stuff) that Fíli and Kíli had put together. Which reminded Thorin, he’d have to get Dwalin to set up the badminton net soon.
“Thorin.”
Frodo looked unsure, but after some gentle coaxing, the shy little boy meandered his way over toward the other children. Bilbo straightened up out of his crouch and watched the little boy go, waving when Frodo looked at him over a shoulder.
“Thorin.”
Thorin liked the little smile that graced Bilbo’s face as he gently encouraged his nephew to keep going.
“Thorin!” Dís jabbed him in the ribs hard with her elbow.
“What?!” Thorin snarled, rubbing his arm against his side where she had hit him.
“The salmon is on fire.”
“Shit!” Thorin said and all but threw the platter of vegetables on the table next to the grill as he dove for the tongs. The salmon was indeed on fire, now charred and unsalvageable. Well, that was a waste of money. Thorin sighed in frustration.
“Well, it’s been a long time since you burned something on the grill,” Dís cackled at him, not bothering at all the hide her mirth.
While Dís chortled at him, Thorin spared a glance toward where Bilbo was.
The man in question was looking right at him, a hand covering his amused smile while his shoulders shook with laughter.
Nice going, Thorin, he silently scolded himself.
*
After burning the salmon, Thorin kept his focus firmly on cooking the food.
He had moved on from steaks, ribs, chicken, and fish to burgers and hotdogs. Those were safe. They didn’t require special attention and they were off the grill a little quicker and weren’t completely inedible if they were a little extra charred.
Slowly the children and teens started showing up with plates, and the hotdogs went quicker than the burgers.
“What would you like?” Thorin asked as the next plate was held up.
He wasn’t paying attention to the people he served, still tending to his injured pride. So when he shifted to look at the person silently asking for food, Thorin was surprised to see little Frodo staring up at him with wide blue eyes.
“Are you going to ask for a hot dog, Frodo?” Bilbo, who was standing a few steps behind his nephew (who Thorin hadn’t noticed until now), asked. His wide grin giving away his fond amusement.
Frodo shuffled his feet awkwardly and Thorin fought the urge to snicker. The little boy was adorable, and his shyness reminded him of how shy Kíli used to be. After a moment Frodo seemed to work up the courage to talk to Thorin.
“May I please have a hot dog?” Frodo asked quietly, it was almost a whisper.
“You sure can!” Thorin grinned then and plucked a hot dog off the grill with his tongs, placing it in the open bun on Frodo’s plate.
Frodo’s face lit up and he grinned right back at Thorin. Kids were great.
Thorin spared a glance up a Bilbo, only to find the man looking at him with a soft and happy expression; one that spoke of genuine relief and hope.
Then Bilbo winked at him.
“And what do we say?” Bilbo asked as he wiggled his fingers on the back of Frodo’s neck, making the little boy shrug away from him and giggle.
“Thank you, mister!” Frodo answered and then darted off to eat with his new playmates.
Now it was Thorin’s turn to shuffle awkwardly as the conversation immediately died. Admittedly, he wasn’t a very good people person…
“I don’t want to alarm you, but your grill is on fire,” Bilbo serenely remarked.
“What?” Thorin asked dumbly, and then Bilbo’s words sunk in, “Not again!”
For a second time that day, Thorin dove for the grill. Unlike the salmon, the burgers and hot dogs didn’t suffer too badly—they were perfectly caramelized.
Bilbo giggled at him, and Thorin blushed. He hoped that between the grill and the summer heat that Bilbo wouldn’t notice.
“I’ll take responsibility for the food catching on fire this time,” Bilbo said when his laughter petered out enough for him to speak. “Maybe I could cook for you sometime this week to make up for it.”
Thorin spluttered, because wow this not at all what he was expecting. He figured that Fíli and Kíli might cause a lot of mischief, or maybe the barbeque would get rained out with an unexpected thunderstorm. But no, he was the one setting the food on fire and being asked over for a meal by his new neighbor for the trouble.
Bilbo was laughing at him again. It was incredibly embarrassing, and if it were anybody else Thorin would have blew a gasket, but he didn’t mind it at all that it was Bilbo.
Oof, he had it bad—and the man had only been there a half-hour.
“I don’t—thanks but...” Thorin awkwardly evaded as he pulled the burgers and hot dogs off the grill, placing them on a paper plate and covering them with aluminum foil.
“Dís and her sons are also welcome to come along.”
Thorin made the mistake of turning back to face Bilbo.
“I-I guess that would be okay,” Thorin said, his resolve crumbling under the scrutiny of hazel eyes.
It seemed impossible, but Bilbo brightened considerably with Thorin's answer.
How could a man such as Bilbo Baggins exist? The warm and inviting expression alone would be the death of him. He was hard-pressed not to imagine what other sorts of looks that face could hold.
“Perfect!” Bilbo said, and held out his hand. “May I see your phone?”
Thorin’s brow furrowed in confusion, but he reached into his pocket and dug out his phone anyway, placing it into Bilbo’s waiting hand.
Bilbo pulled the phone close and quickly began tapping away on the screen. After a moment he handed it back to Thorin.
The screen was still lit up when Thorin looked down at his phone.
Bilbo had added both his cell and home phone numbers into Thorin’s contacts.
“I’ll see you sometime this week, then,” Bilbo said, turning to walk away. “Make sure to let me know when to expect you!”
Thorin watched Bilbo leave. He looked back down at his phone and pressed the home button. It lit back up to reveal Bilbo’s contact information and a small smile curled itself on Thorin’s lips.
He would definitely take Bilbo up on his invitation.