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Bilbo's eyes were currently fixed to the red and black race car—his car really—that was careening down the track and finishing another lap. Number 47 was in beautiful shape today, and as the sun beat down on the crowds, it glided and swooped down the black tarmac, leaving the lesser drivers behind.
It wasn't too long ago it seemed, when Bilbo lived in a small English town, a world away from—good Lord—Daytona, Florida of all places. His godfather, Gandalf, whisked him away one day. Just a hop over the pond and he ended up an unpaid intern at a car shop in the middle of the American desert with thirteen strangers, feeling completely and utterly out of place and unconnected.
But now here he was, gripping his clipboard so hard it was creaking, and invested heavily in the results of this particular race of this particular sport that he had barely known.
"Well, laddie, we're reaching the end. Only a few laps to go. You'll want to be with the rest of the crew when he finishes." Bilbo turned from the TV to face Balin who had a cap that had their team's logo on it—the word "Erebor" in a vaguely runic font over a stylized mountain—which had a strange effect on his normally oversized white hair.
Bilbo looked at the screen. "He might still make it. To first place that is. We know he'll finish well, top five for sure, but it's close, isn't it?" He looked back at the television where the cars were moving in this endless flicker as the camera went back and forth, trying to capture all the different angles of the race, as if it were possible to transplant an omniscient understanding of the event directly through the viewers eyes.
The old man shook his head, "No, laddie. Our Thorin"—Bilbo's heart stuttered at that—"is the best, but sometimes there are days where that isn't enough. It's that hotshot who's going to win, take my word for it."
The television was now broadcasting a red car with a yellow lighting bolt and a bold 95 blazoned on it. "Lighting McQueen... He was good—had my eye on him for the past few years. But he's gotten very good. Some new training with his coach, see?"
But Bilbo didn't see. All that work, all that effort that they put into this race. All that practice and training, and they became the best. Even Bilbo was able to help out in the end. And it wasn't just them, but their driver. Thorin.
Thorin, Thorin, Thorin, his heart seemed to beat out. There was a pounding in his ear as his heart quickened, and Bilbo stared at the screen to watch the final ten laps of the race. It was strange, the last laps. They always were. They were only about forty-five seconds each, less than ten minutes, but after literal hours, this was all it came down to. Time lengthened as the anticipation rose, and the crowd's energy grew into a storm that raged over the entire track.
But none of that mattered. All that mattered was Thorin's car, and the man sitting inside, working the gears and steering them all to certain victory. It had to happen. Bilbo could feel it, it was thrumming in his blood—they were going to win. Him and Thorin.
He couldn't stop thinking about Thorin, and how much he admired the man. His strength, his courage, tenacity, resilience. His deep well of hidden compassion. At first the man hated him, or at least seemed to hate him. He always frowned at him, probably puzzled at this soft English—probably in his eyes—child, playing at cars, and dropping wrenches and stumbling in his work boots.
Bilbo could never seem to figure him out. It was maddening how Thorin would treat him like an inconvenience, and Bilbo would complain to Gandalf often. Then, not too long after Bilbo first learned to change car oil, Gandalf left saying that he had business to attend to. This led Bilbo to not have an outlet and eventually the pressure built up and spilled.
It was dinner and Bilbo was served another meal of meatloaf, which seemed to be the only thing that could be created for dinner in America. Bilbo made a comment, which got some laughs from Bofur, Fili and Kili, but then Thorin's glower quickly shut them up. Bilbo didn't even remember what the comment was anymore, but he remembered Thorin's words.
The deep voice had said, clearly, perfectly, "If you're going to just complain about your time here, then you can just go home." And with that, Thorin had taken his plate and left the dining room.
Bilbo had sat there, frozen, while the other men looked awkwardly between them. Bofur spoke up and gave some platitudes, but Thorin had cut deep and true. Bilbo did complain, and didn't want to be there. If Gandalf came back then he could just go with his godfather back home. No more changing car oil. No more exhaust fumes. No more dirty overalls that didn't fit him. He could get home and be comfortable and... Be comfortable. Nothing new.
Bilbo had stood up and walked out to the sandy desert. He just wanted to get lost, to just not be seen anymore. The sun was setting and he looked at the long shadow of what the men called "The Lonely Mountain". It's true name was Erebor, which would later be the name of their racing crew.
His feet led him to the shop, naturally so, as he had walked there every day now—refusing to take a car, not when it was so close. Walking grounded him. Walking was safe. Some people were meant to go on, speeding towards their dreams, but that wasn't Bilbo.
He sighed as the sun dipped lower. It was probably time to go back and face... Well, face whatever he had to face. But just then he saw three hooded, and absolutely huge figures break into The Blue Mountain Car Repairs. Bilbo's blood ran cold. His phone was back in the boarding home. He didn't know where the payphone was.
He did know that the shop was full of valuable goods. And he couldn't help but overhear Dis yelling through her office door, on the telephone to someone over their finances—especially since it happened so often. A break-in... If the losses were big enough, the shop might have to close down.
Bilbo could barely remember what happened next, but he found himself with a wrench and facing down three, probably armed men. It wasn't his finest moment, but most certainly his bravest. It was probably his most foolish.
He was tied up immediately—Bilbo thanked his lucky stars he wasn't murdered in America, because his cousin Lobellia would have had a field day with that one—and sat there while the three thieves went through the supplies in the garage.
Being saved by thirteen men and your godfather wasn't something that happened everyday, but Bilbo was very glad that it had happened that day. He saw them jump into the fray and surround the three men, and Gandalf quickly came to Bilbo's side to untie him, looking very worried indeed.
"Oh Bilbo, I'm so sorry," said his godfather, untying the gag. But Bilbo wasn't looking at Gandalf. He was looking at the men he worked with, day in and out, wrestling with the three burglars. His eyes were magnetized it seemed and was fixed in place, because once his eyes caught Thorin, they couldn't look away. The bearded man with his long hair looking vicious as he tied up the criminals with their own rope. Suddenly Thorin looked straight at him, pinpoints of blue. Then it seemed like they were right in front of his eyes because Thorin's face was there, right in front of him, so quickly he couldn't think about how it happened.
"So I guess you were with them then? A fellow burglar?" came the deep rumble of Thorin's voice.
Bilbo sputtered indignantly, "Excuse me? With them? I-I- I tried to stop them! And you're accusing me of being a burglar?" This was too much, this was definitely the last straw and Bilbo was going to take his godfather and find the first flight home. He wanted to cry, because how dare this man. How dare he think that Bilbo didn't want to be here. Because despite it all, he felt like he had made some friends. He felt like he was doing something real— fixing cars and helping others, rather than staying home with nothing to do but sit around and use his trust fund to keep himself barely alive. He wanted to just, for a little bit, be part of this. Be a part of this circle of close friends. To feel like he had a taste of some kind of warmth, some kind of home.
But Thorin didn't think that Bilbo fit in. He'd rather think that Bilbo would try to rob from them than actually be helping.
Suddenly a finger, warm and thick, was pressed to his lips, silencing him. He looked up, and saw Thorin, smiling. This... This was new. And confusing. Bilbo opened his mouth, and the slight wetness of his mouth touched Thorin's index finger, his breath coming out, and the finger was pulled away as if Thorin had burned himself on the stove.
Thorin looked at his finger, and his face looked unreadable again, like he was grimacing, but when he looked back at Bilbo there was a slight grin.
"No, you're not with them. You're our burglar." Thorin stood up to face everyone, "Isn't that right, everyone?" And there was a roar of agreement. Thorin turned back, looking down at Bilbo and smiled. Bilbo couldn't do anything but smile weakly back.
After this, things were different. And there were sometimes nights where Thorin took Bilbo out to the desert. "Somebody needs to teach you about this place. I won't let anybody fill your head with the wrong ideas."
They would lie down in the back of the pick-up truck and Thorin would tell him local tales, of the gold hidden in The Lonely Mountain, about the stars and their constellations. Bilbo would lie there, and let the rumble of Thorin's voice wash over him. Sometimes he would fall asleep, but he'd find himself back in his bed the next morning. He thought he may have dreamt last night's stories, but the next time Thorin and him went out to the desert, the story continued, so they weren't dreams then. They just felt like it.
One night, Thorin talked about his dream. To continue his family's legacy of racing. He showed a weathered picture. "This was my father, Thrain. People called him Thrain the King. Best driver there was. Only one who could match him was The Hudson Hornet."
Thorin told Bilbo, under that cloudless star-filled night, about how his father's car spun out of control, and flamed out. How his father's gambling addiction had led to debts that now he and Dis were responsible for. How they had been working at The Blue Mountain for years and years, trying to make a living and keeping the minimum payments off their fathers monumental death. How he wanted a better life for him and his nephews.
Bilbo quietly shared his fear of driving. Why he would only walk to the shop. There was a winter, and there was a rough patch of ice. How he was now alone with his inheritance and nothing else but greedy relatives. How... He was happy to be here with them. With Thorin.
They both turned to look at each other, side by side. What did Thorin see, Bilbo wondered. Bilbo couldn't stop looking at Thorin. The wonder of heaven above him and he couldn't stop looking at the man next to him.
Somehow they ended up laughing then, small chuckles that led to bellyaching laughter that brought tears to Bilbo's eyes. They sat up, still in the back of that pick-up truck, and talked about what they wanted to do.
Thorin wanted to drive. Bilbo... He didn't really want to drive, but he felt like, maybe one day he could get his driver's license.
"I can teach you, you know," said Thorin, very seriously.
Bilbo smiled at that. "Maybe one day."
Later that week, Bilbo knocked on Thorin's door and shared a picture he had drawn. "I know it's not much," he babbled. "I just couldn't stop thinking about what you said about driving, and well, I'm not much of an artist but what do you think?"
It was a drawing of a sleek car, red and black, with a decorative name scrawled on the top, 'Smaug the Terrible'. Bilbo had also added in behind it printed inventory items of what would go into the car.
"I talked to everybody about what would be the best things to put in a car, but they all had so many opinions so I just printed them out and maybe you could figure out what would be best? I don't know. Um." Bilbo stopped talking.
Thorin was holding the paper in his hand, staring at the picture. He turned to Bilbo and without any warning, Bilbo found himself engulfed in a hug. It smelled like sweat and car oil and grit. The beard in his face was soft and the bead braided into it clacked against his chest.
Bilbo slowly lifted his arms, and held Thorin back. Dear lord the man was solid. Like really solid. Very real and under his hands. Oh, hmm. Bilbo quickly disentangled himself, and tried to calm the blood rushing to his face.
"I guess you liked it?" asked Bilbo.
"I loved it," replied Thorin.
It was after this that Thorin and Dis would have new arguments behind their door that had everybody listening. This went on for a week before it was announced that the shop would be working towards creating a race car for competitions. The men whooped in excitement. Apparently this was a big thing for them— they grew up on racing and Nascar and had big thoughts when it came to cars.
It came together somehow, people pushing each other, with their opinions clashing, but somehow, after all of that, the car came together. She was, as Dwalin called it, "a beast". Christened Smaug, the Blue Mountains Car Shop transformed itself to Erebor Inc. and then it all started.
Thorin entered races, and he won. That was almost all that had to be said. He came in, and he won, just like his father, Thrain the King. Now people were calling Thorin that, and he was known as Thorin the King of Erebor.
There was a loud cheer coming from the crowd and Bilbo snapped back from his reverie. There was only one more lap to go and it looked like... Thorin was taking the lead? Thorin was taking the lead. Thorin, Thorin, Thorin, and Bilbo ran, he ran and went to the rest of the crew who were screaming their heads off.
"And he had done it! The King has done it!"
Bilbo felt dizzy and sat down. Somebody was lifting him up, Nori? The men lifted him up and he saw Gandalf there on the side puffing his pipe with his smile. Bilbo had done it. Somehow. The car he inspired, the man he inspired. He and Gandalf wouldn't tell the men, ever, but they had worked it out with Dis. Bilbo had sold off his home back in England and liquidated his assets to finance the endeavor. Dis had given them the most fierce stare Bilbo had ever received, and then the most firm handshake he had ever felt.
Now it was all worth it. It would have been worth it even if they didn't win. Seeing Thorin race, and seeing the man, the joy on his face. That was all that mattered.
The man in question had rolled up to the crew pit and climbed out of the worn out race car. He was dressed in a dark blue suit with grey accents and panels. His helmet was a silvery grey, almost like a knights helmet. He took it off, and shook his hair out, and it all came out under the bright lights of the track, beads shining.
Bilbo was standing so far away, but he could smell it. He could remember it. It would smell like sweat and oil and Thorin. It made his heart quicken to see him. It felt like it was going to come out of his chest and his eyes were ready to just keep crying and crying, he felt so overwhelmed. Like the world had turned into an ocean and he couldn't breathe, or a desert of black tarmac that sucked the air dry.
Then the unbearable happened, and Thorin had locked eyes with Bilbo, and smiled. A broad smile that just lit up the world and Thorin waved to him, and Bilbo was still clutching his stupid clipboard and it was definitely snapping, and oh, it snapped in his hands.
Oh, so that was it. He loved him. Bilbo loved Thorin. He threw the broken pieces to the ground, and keeping his eyes locked on Thorin he started to walk, then run, and came up to Thorin, pushing past the crowd that opened up.
"Hello Bilbo," started Thorin, "Did you see that? I—umph," and Thorin had found himself with an armful of Englishman and soft lips on his.