Work Text:
Bilbo Baggins was just as patient as any hobbit, which is to say he was infinitely patient if nothing bothered him, and he's been bothered pretty much ever since a band of dwarfs threw a party at his home without Bilbo having met any of them beforehand. There had been just so much going on and now Thorin had to go completely nuts - ah, Bilbo did miss nuts, especially caramelised! - and he did it majestically, because the dwarf couldn't do a thing halfway. A bit of madness could spice things up. Bilbo himself could be considered mad, although he preferred not to dwell on it too much, lest his Took relatives laughed at his Baggins relatives in the afterlife until both parties died a second time.
"This is your last word?" Bilbo asked, growling. He had learned from the best. "You won't honour your word and will ignore the host of elves and angry fishermen?" Bilbo pointed towards the winter sky, under which a few armies had been gathering.
Thorin growled back.
"Then I'm leaving," Bilbo said with a sigh. For a moment, Thorin's ferocious grimace fell, revealing the dwarf Bilbo knew and… Cough… Had coughs for. And learned growling and scowling from.
"Your part of the quest has long been over," Thorin said. He looked heartbroken and aching like an acorn, which was a strange turn of phrase, but Bilbo had had enough and a plan.
"Fine. Fine!" Bilbo threw his arms in the air.
The rest of the Company looked almost as heartbroken as an acorn, but none of them was as stubborn and pig-headed as Bilbo's very own acorn of a dwarf.
"You may take only what you can carry," Thorin said vengefully. "I'm doing it for your own good, Master Baggins. You'd be robbed and killed if you carry more."
"He'd be robbed and killed all the same!" Dwalin argued.
"Perhaps, we should all calm down," Balin said on pure instinct. Oín chose that moment to go completely deaf but his eyes revealed that the old dwarf was expecting something interesting, nay, entertaining. Nothing can surprise a healer, little can make a healer think that something good might happen, few things allow an old dwarf a glimpse of heartbreak and romance he'd only experienced in his long lost youth, and Oín was about to get it all.
Gloin shared a look with his brother and nodded.
"He can't go alone!" Kili argued. Maybe he had an ulterior, that is very tall and pretty motif, pardon elf to consider.
"I don't care," Thorin replied and turned around. Oh, so much shared and he still underestimated the hobbit.
"I'm taking you," Bilbo announced with a grin. "I'm taking you as my 14th share of the treasure." Black and silver, grim and perfect, handsome as only a legendary person could be, Thorin slowly turned back.
Nori giggled and Bofur had a coughing fit that didn't disguise his giggling as well as he might have hoped.
"I've read the contract, Thorin!" Bilbo said and crossed his arms. "I've had nothing else to read for months now! And there's nothing there that prevents me from claiming a member of the Company as my treasure ." Joking was better than admitting anything. Bilbo could be just as stubborn, and he's had enough and a cough for that stupidly gorgeous dwarf king. "Because Balin is either a wicked matchmaker or losing his touch." Bilbo winked at Balin who was nodding approvingly until Dwalin elbowed him.
Thorin glared at Balin. Balin just shrugged. "Bilbo can claim you."
"I won't come with you," Thorin turned his glare back to Bilbo.
"And break another word? You're becoming very good at it!"
(Down there Thranduil had been trying to appear entirely unaffected but it was more drama than he'd experienced in the last century or ten, including that time he tried to curl his hair and burnt half of it.
Gandalf had been trying to sort of light his pipe for some time now to appear equally unaffected.
Bard just wanted to go home and brood for a few hours and maybe hug his children and tell them the ultimate parental lie that everything was going to be fine.)
"You can't take the king away from his kingdom!" Thorin hissed.
"But you need the Arkenstone to fully claim your right," Bilbo countered. "And…" He reached for something in his pocket. "And you're not fit to rule right now. I'm sorry, Thorin." And with that Bilbo knocked the majestic majesty of Erebor with his own heirloom before tossing it to Fili. "I hope you'll forgive me when it's all over." He knelt next to Thorin's prone form and gently brushed his hair away from his face.
Fili looked at the Arkenstone then at the armies below. "Ehm… I have the Arkenstone!" Fili waved it cheerily over his head.
"Hurrah?" Dori cheered. Ish.
"I'm honouring my uncle's word as his heir and king apparent at the moment."
"And I need a horse!" Bilbo shouted but Gandalf was already leading one to the gates.
Swiftly and surprising his companions yet again, Bilbo tied the rope he had used the night before to sneak into Dale, around Thorin - with utmost care - and lowered Thorin right on the horse with as much dignity as the circumstances allowed before climbing down himself.
"We're going to clear the entrance and let you all in!" Kili announced after a short talk with his now kingly brother.
"It's cozy in here!" Bombur added.
"Ah, this is so romantic," Ori sighed.
"It's been a while since we had a proper royal elopement," Balin said, nodding wisely.
"Use my tent." Thranduil rode by Bilbo. "It's very romantic in there and no one will disturb you. When you said you can be persuasive, I didn't realise how much…"
"Soon the whole place will be full of orcs!" Gandalf interrupted impatiently.
When Daín arrived an hour later and angrily asked for Thorin, he was told that Thorin had been claimed as treasure. Upon hearing it, Daín laughed and then cried. Everyone agreed that deep down Bilbo must have been a dwarf.
Gandalf accompanied Bilbo and still unconscious but miraculously steady Thorin to the Elvenking's tent.
"A good healing knock on the head was all he needed," Gandlaf consoled Bilbo as Bilbo sat by Thorin's cot and held his hand.
Bilbo rolled his eyes. "What we needed, Gandalf, was you fully committing to this quest, not just sauntering away every time something more urgent came up!"
"Well… I… And you didn't tell me about the ring!" Gandalf decided to be just as childish as the rest.
"Well, take it!" Bilbo tossed the ring at Gandalf. "It'll make your disappearances easier!"
"Don't tempt me!" Gandlaf dropped the ring.
"He's going to be so mad at me!" Bilbo gazed at Thorin longingly.
"No, it's alright," Gandalf carefully lifted the ring with his staff and shoved it into Bilbo's pocket. For safe keeping and observation. "It's an ancient dwarfish tradition - to claim one's beloved as treasure. Outdated and not at all bothered with consent, but immortalised in songs… As you lot do."
"My lot sings about flowers and harvest!" Bilbo glared at Gandalf.
"Anyway. It's alright."
"He knocked you off?" At Thorin's nod, Frodo almost fell off the bed laughing. Thorin caught him and put him back among countless pillows and blankets.
Bilbo watched them from the doorway, his nephew and his husband. His nephew and his king, all handsome and wonderful.
"How did you avenge yourself?" Frodo asked, eyes eager.
"I married him, so he can't ever leave this place without a royal escort, or as your uncle puts it, a small army. As if he knows…" Thorin grumpily tucked Frodo in.
"That explains why there were so many people when uncle came to the Shire." Frodo yawned. "Love you, Thorin."
Thorin nodded and stood up.
"Spying on me?" He asked Bilbo with a very fond scowl.
"Never, my love. Just enjoying you being a big softie. Thranduil agreed to Kili's marriage."
Thorin growled and caught himself before Frodo could wake up. He dragged Bilbo outside of Frodo's room.
"Really?"
"No. But one of you has to be an adult about it, Thorin! They have ten children! Your kin lives in Rivendell!"
"And you want me to be an adult about it?" Thorin tried glaring at Bilbo.
"Please?"
Bilbo and Thorin had agreed about a year into their marriage that Bilbo could use puppy eyes only once a year. Apparently, it had been a year. Again.
"Alright. Alright, I'll be an adult about it!"
"Took you ten years," Bilbo remarked.
Thorin lifted Bilbo off the floor and rushed him into the bedroom. Bilbo pretended to be scandalised about it.