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"May I kiss you?"
The question was asked so delicately that Ori almost missed it, so engrossed was he in the latest in a long line of delicate scrolls painstakingly rescued from the remains of the old library. But hear it he did, in that low, rough voice he knew so well, and he looked up in wide-eyed surprise, certain he’d heard it wrong. “What?”
Dwalin looked down at him, such a fierce dwarf, like a wild animal on the battlefield, but now he sounded calm, and hesitant. “I asked,” he said, with some gruffness in his voice at having to repeat himself, “may I kiss you?”
"Now?" Ori asked, which wasn’t what he meant to say, but he couldn’t put his thoughts into words. He couldn’t say, Now, after all this? After madness, and battles, and the pain I see in your eyes every moment of every day since we laid our king and princes to rest? So he said only now?, and let the rest linger in the air.
"Aye," Dwalin said, and the sadness was there, in his voice, but he didn’t back down. "There’d only be now, lad." He came around the table and sat, still taller but not quite so menacing, his hand almost touching Ori’s on the parchment. "I’d thought, perhaps … on the road, the question might be welcome."
Ori felt a tug of a smile on his lips, thinking of that Ori, two months younger and infinitely more naive, watching tall, handsome Dwalin and dreaming. He thought of conversations on the road and quiet nights sid-by-side and Dwalin’s growing protectiveness. “Yes.”
"But I didn’t want to speak until we were in Erebor."
The room was quiet, save their breaths and the crackle of the fire. The silence gave Ori the courage to say, “I thought you wouldn’t want to. After everything.”
After losing Thorin’s passion and Fili’s protection and Kili’s laughter.
Dwalin nodded, slowly, his eyes thoughtful. “Aye. But it is…because of everything, that I ask.” At Ori’s confused look he said, “The lads. My lads, they would not have remained silent so long. They would have pushed forward, and faced danger of the heart just as they did danger of the body.” He smiled, a twitch of the lips and a lightening around his eyes. “If they knew I had ye here, safe for the asking, and didn’t. Well. They’d never let me hear the end of it.”
Ori felt his own smile, delicate and uncertain, as he thought of the princes who became his friends. “They would,” he agreed, “and me too, if I said no.”
He reached out, and rested his small, ink-stained hand on Dwalin’s large, painted one.
"Then it’s a yes?" Dwalin asked, and there was a lightness and hope in his voice that had been missing for too long.
"It’s a yes," Ori said, and he imagined his grin looked young and foolish but why not? He had been, not so long ago.
The kiss was delicate, and a bit awkward, and their noses bumped, which made Ori laugh, but he imagined-
-he imagined their princes would approve of a little laughter.