Archive of Our Own

At Beorn’s house, Thorin dreamed. Unfortunately. He preferred not dreaming when he could manage it, not that he ever had much say in the matter. The fire came as it had come the first time—against his will, with no warning, sparing no mercy. When he jerked awake tonight, he was practiced enough to do it without a sound, though the healing bite marks in his side howled at the sudden movement. But he was silent, and when he fell back onto the hay Beorn called a bed, no one would think it anything but a sleeper adjusting in the night. Only the cold sweat would have seemed wrong, and none felt that prickling but him. When he reached back to rub the back of his neck, his hand came back not damp but wet. The furs around his neck were soaked and curling to stick against his skin, but the thought of undressing made his wounds ache, and his fingers felt too fat and dull with exhaustion to unfasten a single cord. So he lay there in the damp hay, not quite awake but certainly not asleep, while around him his companions snored.

There was Balin, his grasping breath, and Dwalin, his steady rumble, and Fili and Kili muttering to each other even in sleep, and Bifur groaning, and Bofur grinding, and Bombur snoring, with Ori, Dori, and Nori keening the strange high rattle that made Thorin want to give their backs a good thump, and there was Gloin twitching in his sleep, and Oin sleeping like the dead, and there was him awake. All dwarves present and accounted for.

Then Thorin’s wounds and ghosts of burns were left mind because now he was upright, peering around in the dark for a body smaller even than the youngest of Thorin’s kin. But the body was nowhere to be found. He wouldn’t have gone outside, not after Gandalf’s stern warning, he was too smart for that, but Thorin was counting at he wasn’t here and—

“Thorin?”

A whisper, so quiet it was almost just a breath, from the shadows by Thorin’s side, and no one could convince him that Bilbo had been there a moment ago. He hadn’t been, he hadn’t, the moonlight had passed over that spot and it was empty, but Thorin didn’t hear any rustle of hay, and surely Bilbo couldn’t be so silent as to have moved soundlessly through those dry stalks. But Bilbo was here, and he hadn’t been a moment ago, and his hand on Thorin’s chest was ever so gently pressing him down. “You had a nightmare,” Bilbo said, leaning over Thorin a little so all Thorin could see clearly were the edges of his curls, the golden hair turned silver in the moonlight. “You’re alright. You’re safe.”

“You weren’t there,” Thorin mumbled as exhaustion rolled over him once more like a blanket. His eyes drooped to a slit and then lost the battle entirely.

“I’m here now,” Bilbo said, and that wasn’t quite what Thorin meant, but he wasn’t sure what Bilbo meant or what he had meant himself, and he wasn’t sure he was even awake right now or if the weight on his head like someone stroking his hair was anything but his own imagination.

Thorin woke, and forgot where he was. But the smell of honey was too thick on the air to forget for long, and the sound of laughter and dishes clinking would have told him, at least, that they were safe for the moment.

“You’re awake!” Kili said cheerfully when Thorin staggered up to the massive table, where sat only his youngest nephew and Ori. One of Kili’s fists appeared to be covered in honey. Ori seemed to be knitting a lavender balaclava. Thorin decided he was not awake enough yet to address either projects.

“Why did you let me sleep?” Thorin asked. It came out gruffer than he meant, but he could either sound gruff or pained as he hoisted his wounded self up into a chair, and Thorin’s pride had taken enough of a beating as of late. “It must be past half day.”

Kili nodded. “Oh definitely, deep afternoon. Fili said you might sleep till it was night again, and Oin said that it’d be good for you if you did. Didn’t he, Ori?”

Ori made the little squeaking noise he always made when he had to talk to Thorin.

Kili jerked his head at Ori. “See? He said sleep is good for you.”

Thorin glared at his nephew over the thick slab of honey bread he’d cut for himself. “Do not speak for others, Kili. You should have woken me.”

“Why? You’re still injured and we’re safe.” Kili spread his slightly sticky arms and gestured at Beorn’s grand hall. “I think you’ve earned a bit of a lie-in.”

Thorin shoved a bite of honey bread in his mouth to avoid arguing it. He had needed the rest and was better for it, the pain a duller roar than it had been last night when he’d lain down. Thorin would attribute his fast recovery to wizard magic more than more natural arts, but it seemed the traditional medicines still did some good. Still, he hated to sleep while others were awake around him. It was equal parts dangerous and intimate, and he wasn’t sure which unsettled him more.

But then again, how long had it been since he’d slept that deeply? How many years had it been since he’d sunk that far into dreamless sleep and woke in the morning (or, fine, the late afternoon) feeling refreshed? Or—Thorin frowned. No, no, not dreamless. The fire had come as it always did, down from the north and sweeping through, and he ran, as he always did, and it was faster than him—

And he had woke in the terrible darkness of night with the conviction he always had for that split second upon waking, that the dream was right and his memories were wrong and that the fire had caught him all those years ago and seared him to the bone.

And he had woke. And what happened next?  

A hand, in the darkness. A halo. The soft scratch of hay.

More dreams, Thorin thought. Still more dreams, and nothing more.

The rest of his illustrious company was outside, basking in a sun Gandalf had warned them that they would not be seeing for a while. “There’s precious little light in Mirkwood these days, and there’s nothing in the night,” the wizard had chided over dinner the previous night, before he’d disappeared into the night with Beorn on business he would not discuss. “Get what sweet dreams you can here. They’ll be gone soon enough.”

If uneasy dreams were the worst thing they faced under those old trees, Thorin would count himself lucky.

Thorin surveyed the garden, counting off heads as had become his habit by now, and when he reached thirteen—having remembered on the second try to count himself as well as the two young dwarves inside—Thorin felt an eerie sense of remembrance as he looked for the missing hobbit. A bit of dream, perhaps, finally remembered in the afternoon. Or maybe it was the memory of the party standing on the other side of the Misty Mountains, and how Thorin had decided, no, he would not risk his life or the lives of his kin to rescue a deserter. And then Bilbo had been there. And then Thorin’s chest burned hot with unexpected shame. It still burned there now, though not so unexpected since it had been burning him for the last week, a flare-up of sparks every time he saw Bilbo.

Yet it seemed, Thorin thought bitterly as he scanned the garden, that not seeing the hobbit fanned the flames further.

After a few moments, Thorin found him around back of the house, slumped on a massive bench that faced out into the honey fields. Bilbo’s head bobbed and drooped as Thorin approached. Whenever his chin hit his chest, Bilbo’s head shot up, and then the drooping began anew. It looked like an odd gesture of genuflecting to Thorin’s eyes, until he saw Bilbo’s closed eyes and realized what it was. Sleep had caught Bilbo unaware. His pipe still smoldered in his left hand still held high enough that from a distance it looked like Bilbo was just enjoying a pleasant smoke.

He’d seen the hobbit sleep before, of course. Thorin kept watch same as any member of the party, and more than once Bilbo’s bedroll had been the closest to the watch post. At night he slept curled in on himself, until he was so small you might have thought him nothing more than a lump in the blanket. Sometimes all you could see of him was the top of his curly head, just barely poking out from the cocoon. When it was out there like that, Thorin understood why his nephews took such great pleasure in ruffling that hair whenever the chance arose. Balin had called them off once, but Bilbo had just ran a hand through his abused curls and said dryly, “Don’t worry about it. I grew up with plenty of cousins.”

That was all Thorin knew about Bilbo’s family, he realized.

Bilbo’s hair looked almost golden in the sunlight—a crown worthy of king. For a moment, Thorin was almost overcome by the urge to reach his hand out and check for himself that it was only hair, always only hair, not little locks of spun out gold as the kind only the finest craftsmen could make. Quite against his will, Thorin’s hand stretched out towards those bobbing, bouncing curls. He could just reach Bilbo, standing an arms-reach from him.

And then Bilbo’s head snapped back, harder than it had been, and the hobbit’s entire body started. “Thorin!” Bilbo blinked blearily at him, his mouth turning in a little frown as Thorin ran his hand through his own hair like that had always been its trajectory. “Why are you in my garden?” The words slurred out. Bilbo shook himself again, and when he reopened his eyes, they looked sharper, clearer. Once they started to look a little embarrassed, Thorin knew Bilbo was fully awake.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” Thorin said.

Bilbo waved him off. He was still swaying a little, his movements a little less careful than they normally were. It must have been a deep sleep. “s’fine. It’s fine. I shouldn’t be napping anyway, like I’m just sitting outside Bag End. One of these bees could carry me away if I’m not careful.” As if to make Bilbo’s point, a bee as fat as a small cat bumbled between them.

“I’m sure you could defend yourself against them,” Thorin said. He exactly wasn’t sure why, but Bilbo smiled at him like he’d made a joke. Thorin noticed that Bilbo’s dagger—sword, he supposed, to a hobbit—was unfastened from his side and resting on the bench beside him. Thorin seized on the topic. “You will have to learn how to fight. I see that now.”

Bilbo looked at him, worried, which was not what Thorin had been intending. “Did I do so badly then?”

“What? No.” And then because Thorin could never mince around the truth, “You could have fought better.”

“Did alright,” Bilbo said, a touch defensively.

“Yes,” Thorin agreed quickly, trying to steer the conversation remotely back in the vicinity of where he’d meant it to be. Wherever that was supposed to be.

Bilbo cocked his head at Thorin, his curls shifting like gold never did, and Thorin realized he was waiting for more.

“Get back to your nap, Master Baggins,” Thorin said. “You’re no use to us tired.”

And if anyone called what he did next “a hasty retreat," Thorin would have glared dragon fire at them, but he couldn’t have said they were wrong.

Another night, another dream, but that was the wrong way to put it because it wasn’t another, it was the same, always the same, and Thorin woke as he always did, when the flames struck, and when he flopped back down into the hay, he still smelled the burning flesh. Another night, the same dream, and it was like he was an ash-covered youth again, still freshly homeless and not yet hardened. Sometimes he went months without the dream and here, in this damn haven choking him with the cloying scent of honey, he dreamed twice in two nights. They needed to leave this place. In Mirkwood, his mind would know better than this.

Inch by inch, Thorin sat himself up, wincing in the dark as he never would in the light, and counted. Twelve, he thought and then thirteen when Thorin remembered himself, and that left who it always left, always the odd one out. Thorin peered into the darkness around where he remembered Bilbo curling up. The spot was empty, but there were little footprints in the hay, so faint that Thorin spotted them only because he was closely looking. Up, up they went to the table where the company supped and there, sitting on one of the lower benches in the moonlight sat a small figure with silver curls, kicking his feet as he ate one of the leftover pieces of honey bread. The sight was beautiful, Thorin thought, his sleep-addled brain too bleary to deny it. Bilbo always looked so much a creature of the earth, of mud and flowers and gentle winds, but in the moonlight he looked like part of another world, a stranger world.

When Thorin was little, his mother had told him of strange creatures the likes of which no mortal or immortal had ever seen, but who were so mischievous that they defied classification. They snuck in at night to steal your children or plant gold in your wallet or strangle your grandmother or heal your sick. The thought of them used to keep Thorin awake at night, in bed with his eyes almost but not quite shut so that he could see anything that scurried by in the dark towards secret acts of evil or good. At last, Thorin thought to himself as his eyes started to droop again, I’ve found myself one.

Then he saw Bilbo reach for his side. The hobbit moved with such stealth that not even in this silent hall did he make a sound as he drew his sword. Bilbo rested the blade on his lap for a moment, staring down at it. Then he held it up until it glinted in the moonlight as if the orcs were near. How long Bilbo held his blade up and simply stared at it, Thorin could not tell you. But he fell asleep before Bilbo sheathed it, and when he slept, he dreamt of the fire again, and a small corpse of bones and charred meat leaning against the parapet as Thorin turned and ran.

They needed to be on the road, but Oin said another few days would allow him to remake all his balms, and Thorin’s legs still had the tendency to buckle if he walked too fast. The rest of the company didn’t mind. Thorin minded tremendously, but there was nothing he could do about it. They couldn’t trek through this country on foot, and if they made a try of it, they’d either get hunted down by wargs or simply waste an extra month. The ponies Beorn promised them would take as long to get as Oin’s fermenting potions.

“You dwarves are always so keen to rush off,” Beorn said when Thorin balked at the delay. “If you want to go, then go. But you’ll take none of my ponies with you to get them killed.”

“Waiting has never made a safer world,” Thorin snapped.

Beorn smiled with fangs. “Hunting does, though. And I have a few more nights’ works before I’ll trust these wilds again.”

So that was that. When Thorin felt the delay squeezing him too tightly, he hobbled up from seat at the table over to the open door and looked out at the warg pelts Beorn had hung from his porch during the night. The sight was a comfort, morbid and satisfying.

The third time Thorin wandered over to behold the skins, the midafternoon breeze carried to him the sticky smell of honeysuckles and something cleaner as well—the smell of grass, perhaps, or distant trees. The idea of going back inside suddenly seemed intolerable.  Thorin had never been a great outdoorsmen. Call it the mark of his people. If all was going well, there was no need to be outdoors, and if they were, it wasn’t in places like this, lush fields where the ground felt soft as a down quilt and even the weeds had a gentle beauty. Thorin walked slowly, having no real choice in the pace, through the outskirts of the hive colonies and vegetable gardens. In the shadow of the great house, the grass grew soft and wild, and a rabbit sitting near his warren stared at Thorin without fear. Thorin stared back. The rabbit waited, perched on its back legs with its ears twitching, for something to happen. After a long moment, it plopped down and hopped away, perhaps in search for more interesting sights.

“They’re fearless, aren’t they?” said a familiar voice off to his side.

Bilbo, sitting on a smaller bench than he’d found yesterday with a pipe in his hands and a book on his knee, watched the rabbit go with idle interest. His head was leaned back against the back of the bench, and he winced as he raised it. It looked as though he’d been asleep again. “I suppose they have nothing to fear here, judging by what Beorn cooks. I imagine he eats his meat elsewhere,” Bilbo continued, giving Thorin a wry look. The hobbit had turned perfectly white this morning at the sight of the bloody skins dripping on the front porch, and now he was quietly scornful of the whole concept. Thorin wasn’t sure if hobbits were unexpectedly resilient creatures, or if he had just picked up a strange one.

“Reading?” Thorin asked because that seemed like a safer line of inquiry.

Bilbo shut the book with his finger in the pages and held it up. Thorin walked forward to read it. “One of Beorn’s three books, a collection of old children tales,” Bilbo said. He dropped the book back in his lap and rubbed his eyes. “Though they’re no tales I’ve read before.”

“Such as?”

“The first one was of a young girl who saw her parents eaten by wolves.” Bilbo shifted over as he said this, and Thorin realized it was an invitation. “She hunted the wolves and killed them by ripping their skin and eating their hearts.” Thorin sat. Bilbo’s sword was once again laying on the bench beside him, and it served well enough as barrier between them. “When she wrapped the skin around her, she became a great wolf, larger than any others in the forest, and her belly swelled. After a year, she gave birth to two pups. When she licked them clean, she discovered they were her parents, alive and human again. But she was now a wolf forever.”

Thorin hesitated, and then with a great deal more casualness than he felt, he dug his own pipe out. “Is that it?”

“Yes. It was a great deal longer than that, though, I cut out a number of descriptions of disembowelment. Light?” Bilbo held out one of the matchboxes he’d picked up on the way out of the Shire. Thorin personally found them worse than useless, as would any respectable dwarf, but he accepted the offer with minimal eye rolling. “I’m sorry,” Bilbo said as Thorin lit his pipe. “Did you prefer to grab some rocks to bang together?”

“Yes,” Thorin said and handed the matches back. He noticed how carefully Bilbo took them, almost as if he were afraid to bump his fingers against Thorin’s.

“To each his own, I suppose.” Bilbo was still half-turned towards Thorin, his arm propped up on the back of the bench and his head propped up on his arm like he couldn’t quite hold it up on his own. There were circles under his eyes like Thorin had never seen before. They almost looked like dirt smudges, they seemed so out of place on Bilbo’s face. The urge to lean over and try to brush them away was almost irresistible.

Thorin leaned over instead, wincing a little, and tugged off his boots with his hands while he clenched his pipe in his teeth. He could feel Bilbo’s eyes on him as he peeled off his socks. They looked odd and pale beside the hobbit’s, like the underside of two fish ready for gutting. His feet were smaller than Bilbo’s, Thorin realized as he sat back against the bench. How Bilbo could walk with those spades at the end of his legs, Thorin would never know.

“I thought you slept in those,” Bilbo said as Thorin nudged the boots away so he could run his bare feet in the soft grass without impediment. The blades did not live up to their name, or else let all weapons in the world caress as softly as the grass did now.

“Your home looks like this,” Thorin said, almost a question though he had seen the Shire himself and knew that it rivaled Beorn’s gardens in greenery. He watched his pale toes twist into the soft dirt of the earth. “I am living as hobbits do.”

After a moment of silence where Thorin feared, genuinely feared, that he had somehow caused offence, Bilbo laughed. “Not with those feet,” he said, but good-naturedly, and when Thorin glanced up at him, Bilbo had a little gleam in his eye.

“Forgive me, Master Burglar,” Thorin said dryly. “We cannot all grow leather instead of skin.”

Bilbo smiled at him, and his eyes dropped to his book again. Thorin looked away. “Do not let me stop you from reading,” he said.

“No, no, it’s alright,” Bilbo said. “I am still recovering from the last one. They make for unsettling bedtime stories.”

“It is not bedtime.”

Bilbo looked away and waved his hand. “An expression,” he said vaguely.

It was as if Thorin could see Bilbo stepping away, though the hobbit did not move, and Thorin didn’t know why. But this was the most they had said to each other that had nothing to do with the quest, and Thorin was reluctant to let that go. Not when he was pretty sure he hadn’t actually said anything wrong. He flailed internally for a conversation topic and said, “Are hobbit tales gentler?”

“Yes. No. It depends.” Bilbo shifted, sat up a little straighter. “The ones adults tell children, those are kinder and sweeter and generally with such morals as why you shouldn’t hit your sister, and the danger of not doing all of your chores.”

Thorin smiled, remembering those tales well enough from his own childhood. His mother taking him into her lap to tell him a story about a clever lad who knew better than to touch the forge even when he thought it was cold and his brave friend who burned both his hands off. Even as a child, he’d thought that tale a bit obvious, but when he told his mother that, she tweaked his nose and said, “Maybe all children aren’t as clever as you.”

He thought about telling this to Bilbo, but it was such an old memory. The thought of speaking it aloud made him feel very shy.

“The stories children tell other children, though, those would fit right in here.” Bilbo patted the book cover. He looked a little brighter, a little more awake. Thorin should have expected that talking about his home would bring a little light to Bilbo’s face. Bilbo smiled a little, and Thorin could feel himself match it.  “I remember my cousin telling me about the eyeless woman who wandered the backwoods of Buckland on full moons. If you ever looked upon her, she’d rip out your eyes and pop them into her head. When Petunia told me that one, I had nightmares for a month.” He shook his head, smile faded a little at the edges. “I suppose that when I get back, I imagine I’ll have a few of the stories we aren’t supposed to tell children myself.”

And Thorin remembered Bilbo sitting in the moonlight and cutting the air with his blade. He’d half-erased it as a dream. Have you had nightmares, he wanted to ask, have you been dreaming too, but that kind of question had no place in the honey-scented sunlight. “Will you?” Thorin managed. Bilbo glanced askance at him. “What tales would you tell?”

Bilbo’s eyes were a strange cast that Thorin had not seen on the hobbit before, the few times that they had spoken before this side of the Misty Mountains. It was a calculating, measured look that made Thorin want to squirm. Bilbo had never judged him before, Thorin realized, not without shame for Thorin had looked in judgment at Bilbo since their first exchange and had found him, always, wanting. “Fire,” Bilbo said at last, and Thorin’s heart went cold. “And wolves. That ought to do it, don’t you think?”

The smell of dragon fire scorched the smell of honey. The swaying grass writhed in the sunlight and burst into flames. The rabbits ran and fell, their little bodies charred. The wind crumbled them to ash and blew them away. Thorin shut his eyes to the burning world. “Yes,” he said, through the guilt in his throat so thick he could hardly get the words out. “That would do it.” When he opened his eyes again, the grass was green, the rabbits still hopping. He still smelled fire like a promise. He didn’t look at Bilbo. He was afraid to see a charred corpse. The book was open in Bilbo’s lap again, and Thorin stared down at that instead, his eyes passing over the faded words of distant horrors. “I will teach you how to fight,” Thorin said and watched Bilbo’s fingers tighten on the cover.

“No thank you,” Bilbo said wearily. “Not right now.”

“No.” A little body, a little sword, a little hope against the oncoming enemies still rushing towards them. This was his fault, he had brought Bilbo here, and this would be his fault. He could at least give him something. Bilbo had thrown himself against a warg with nothing but bravery, and bravery wouldn’t save him from death. Bilbo’s pale face and clenched hands told Thorin that bravery hadn’t even saved Bilbo from wounds. “Now. You need to know how to kill before you are killed.”

Bilbo’s head jerked. “No.”

“Get your sword and stand up.” You don’t understand the danger I will lay before you, Thorin thought, even as he knew that he would never be able to say the words.

Without looking up from his book, Bilbo bumped his foot against the back of Thorin’s calf, where it sloped into the ankle. Thorin froze. The hair of Bilbo’s feet was coarser than Thorin would have expected, if he had expected anything at all. “We’re living as hobbits do, right?” When Thorin looked at Bilbo in surprise, he gave him a tired little smile. The dark circles of his face made him look as though he were in shadow even as they sat in the warmth of the sun. “Hobbits don’t waste lovely afternoons on swordplay.”

“I saw you,” Thorin said, his voice too pained, “last night.”

Bilbo looked away. “You should have been sleeping. You need the rest.”

“So do you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look tired.”

“I’m fine,” Bilbo said, his voice taut.

“Are you?” Thorin asked genuinely. He did not know. He could not tell. He did not know Bilbo well enough to know what his fine truly looked like.

“As fine as ever,” Bilbo said, his voice so weary that it made Thorin tired. Bilbo must have heard it too because he shook his head and looked begrudgingly at Thorin. “I’m sorry. I’m not used to—this. I think I tricked myself into thinking that I was an adventurer and now that we’ve reached a little civilization, the lie’s wearing off.”

“There is no lie,” Thorin said. Did the fervor in his voice surprise Bilbo as much as it surprised Thorin? Thorin had to guess yes from the baffled shock playing across Bilbo’s face. But no—Bilbo was more shocked for his bafflement stayed unabated while Thorin had only been surprised that the words he’d thought had come out his mouth. “You belong here,” Thorin’s conviction said to Bilbo’s bemusement. “As much as any of this company. As much as any dwarf of Erebor. As much as Durin’s kin.”

Bilbo stared at Thorin a moment longer before he popped his pipe back into his mouth. “Well,” he said, “I’m grateful I’m here at least for your sake, I suppose, even if you think my fighting was pitiful. It took your nephews a damn long time to get out of that tree.”

The weariness was gone from Bilbo’s voice or rather, not gone but buried, and here instead was this false lightness that set Thorin’s teeth on edge. This particular conversation, Bilbo said without saying it, was over.

If Thorin had a sharper tongue and a quicker wit, he would pressed the matter. But no—it wasn’t his tongue or his wit that were lacking. It was something baser than that. Heart, perhaps. Thorin could go no further without an apology, one almost impossible to speak. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, he might have said. I would not wish the nightmares on anyone. I know them too well. I know everything that comes with them. You have given me bravery, and I have offered you nothing but peril.

But Thorin would not say that. Thorin could not. So instead as Bilbo looked at him with distant eyes, Thorin reached over the sword between them and pinched the book from Bilbo’s lap. Bilbo squeaked.  Which was interesting. Dwarves did not, generally speaking, squeak.

“It looks interesting,” Thorin said, flipping through the paged as Bilbo glared at him. Bilbo had not been lying about the amount of disembowelment. If this was a book for children, Thorin was suddenly very glad that Beorn had no Beornlings for them to deal with (though he was certain Beorn felt otherwise).

“It is interesting,” Bilbo snapped. “I’m quite looking forward to reading it.” When Thorin gave him no answer, Bilbo snatched at it. He probably thought he was being quick. Thorin hoped that he’d swipe the Arkenstone easier than this book.

Thorin held it over his head and couldn’t help but grin when Bilbo glowered up at it. Frerin had given him the same look many a time, when Thorin had been a more fun brother, when Thorin had had a brother. “I’ll read it, if you like,” Thorin said.

“No, Thorin, that’s the opposite of what I would like.”

Thorin’s pulse pounded in his ears. “I’ll read it to you.”

Bilbo opened his mouth as if to argue again and then, as if it took him a moment to hear what Thorin had said, stopped, froze even, and for the second time gave Thorin that strange new look. “Read to me?”

Thorin lowered his arm and wondered it Bilbo would make another lunge. The hobbit would have to clamber into Thorin’s lap to have a chance, and the thought made Thorin’s pulse beat harder for some reason. “Why not, Master Burglar?”

Still with that odd cast in his eyes, Bilbo parted his lips and wrapped them around his pipe again. “Fine,” Bilbo said, almost like a challenge. “Why not?”

It took one page for Bilbo’s head to droop. Another three and Bilbo was snoring on the bench behind him, his head thrown back and his mouth fallen open, slack. Thorin’s reading voice grew softer and softer. In the tale, the young mother ripped off the wild boar’s head and fed its heart to her daughter. Bilbo didn’t so much as twitch as Thorin murmured the evisceration scene.

“You’re too tired during the day to be sleeping at night,” Thorin said. Bilbo didn’t twitch at that either.

Here it was again, the burning in his chest, because Bilbo had never wanted for sleep before. He had always been the first in the bedrolls and the last to wake in the morning. It was part of why Thorin had thought him soft so long. And now he watched his sword at night and stole sleep during the safety of the day.

Fire, Thorin thought as he closed the book, and wolves. And I’ll have offered you more than that before this journey is over.

Thorin woke. More or less. He had not been asleep, or rather he had not been very asleep. There was still sleep in his mind, his eyes, his clumsy limbs as he clambered to his feet, but he dozed as he used to when it was his turn at watch, when he had not yet learned the danger of the world and thought he could get away with indifferent vigilance. Something had woke him, he knew that, but he didn’t know what yet. It didn’t feel like danger. He knew he shouldn’t trust that thought, but he did. He was too tired for guile.

There was a soft rustle that seemed to come from the empty air in front of him. Someone moving away. “Stay,” Thorin whispered, and the rustling stopped. He could see nothing in the darkness, but he know who was there. “You comforted me in the night. I remember now. You were like a shadow. I thought I dreamed you, but I didn’t.”

The darkness offered no response, but Thorin thought he could hear a little inhale.

In the stories, the ones his mother had told him, if you captured on of the strange creatures in the night, you could ask them for a wish. A boon, she’d called it as she tweaked Thorin’s nose, and he had believed every word she’d spoken. That was what you did when your mother told you the secrets of the world. Thorin spread his arms wide, and realized that at some point it had stopped hurting to raise them. “I’m awake. You’re awake. Let’s be awake together.”

Silence. Or rather, noise but only the noise of sleep. But Thorin waited. If he’d been more awake, he might have gone back to sleep. But he stayed standing, too drowsy to have much pride. And out of the darkness—from nowhere, it seemed, but that couldn’t be true—stepped Bilbo. The outline of him at least, silhouetted against moonlight slanting in through the high windows. He wore his sword at his side, and that was hardly odd  as Bilbo had worn it day and night since they found it, but still it had no place in this house of peace and honey. It looked strange. Bilbo looked strange. Not quite what he was in the daylight. More fairy than hobbit, more shadow than form.

“Alright then, keep your voice down,” the silhouette said, and the words transformed it into Bilbo again. “I was just getting a late night snack.”

Thorin knew that was a lie. Bilbo knew that Thorin knew that that was a lie. But Thorin let it lie. He walked on quiet feet a few paces behind Bilbo’s silent ones, out of the long row of hall where his company snored around them and past the table where they ate. There was a bend in the great hall, a corner that formed a nook where Gandalf had smoked and sat before he’d disappeared on his mysterious duties. There was a bench and a table that must have been pointlessly small to Beorn and a candle sitting upon it, which Bilbo lit with a match that flared up as bright in the darkness as if it had been the sudden dawn. While Thorin shaded his eyes, Bilbo hopped up onto the bench. The hilt of his sword dug into his belly, and without seeming to think about it, Bilbo unsheathed it and rested it on the table by the candle.

“Wearing it isn’t natural to you,” Thorin said without thinking.

He knew that Bilbo knew what he meant. “No,” he said, not looking at Thorin, “not particularly. I’ve never worn it easily, for all you dwarves call it a letter opener.”

“You wore a waistcoat into the wild and tried to turn the company around for handkerchiefs,” Thorin said. “I know this is not your life.”

Bilbo snorted. “No, it’s not. Not like you, Thorin Oakenshield.”

“A fancy name for an idiot who lost his real shield in battle,” Thorin said. Bilbo looked at him, the candlelight flickered golden across his face while the moonlight painted his silhouette silver. He looked so beautiful in that moment that Thorin could hardly breathe. But he managed a breath and then another and said, “Do not judge yourself against me. Both of us will come up lacking compared to someone we could never be.”

Bilbo said nothing. But then he patted the seat beside him. Thorin thanked Mahal that his limbs did not move as shakily as his insides felt as he settled besides Bilbo. No blade lay between them like some wicked chaperone this time. Thorin sat too close. Bilbo didn’t move away.  

“The waistcoat is ruined, of course,” Bilbo said. “Ori’s promised me some string to tie it shut, but that’s hardly a proper replacement for buttons. It’ll work well enough for keeping the chill out, I suppose, but I’ll look like more of a disreputable character than this quest has made me already.”

They kept their voices low, though Thorin knew for a fact that nothing short of screaming could wake dwarves keen on a good rest. But they whispered and murmured nonetheless. It made each word intimate. “It’s no great feat to fashion yourself buttons if you need buttons,” Thorin said quietly, and somehow they sounded like a promise that he was afraid to keep.

Bilbo gave him a sidelong look, one eyebrow raised. “Forgive me,” he said wryly. “Us simple Shirefolk prattling on about domestics while dwarves would stoically whittle themselves a new wardrobe. Tell me, do dwarves buy anything or does that reek of unbearable softness?”

Thorin glared at Bilbo. It didn’t have nearly the effect that it once did, not on this side of the mountains, not with candlelight falling softly across their faces. “I meant that if it is such a concern, you could have buttons.”

Bilbo’s smile was a little lopsided, but it was a smile nonetheless, accompanied by a quick shake of the head. “I welcome your practicality,” he said, “but sometimes it’s nice to just complain about the simple difficulties of life.” His eyes fell on his sword. “These new problems are rather bigger than me.”

For a moment, Thorin almost rested his hand on Bilbo’s and let that be his comfort. But he did not. Bilbo made Thorin’s body shy, in a way Thorin could not remember ever feeling before.

“I could make you buttons,” Thorin said instead. “Unless you’d rather complain about not having them.”

Bilbo seemed to be thinking about whether he did indeed preferred complaining before he said, “Thank you. I would like that.”

Thorin nodded, more grateful than he should have been for that response. “Good. Then we will be equal.”

“For what?”

Thorin kept his face straight. “For you saving my life.”

Bilbo looked at Thorin’s face, startled, before he laughed. He pressed his hand to his lips and looked ruefully in the direction of the sleeping dwarves. “Come now,” Bilbo said, his voice low and amused. “Your life’s worth a greater feat than that. Toss in some new handkerchiefs as well.”

Thorin smiled, but he had seen the fresh weariness spread across Bilbo’s face as soon as the laughter passed. And even now, Bilbo’s eyes dropped to his lap where his hands twisted. “What is wrong?” Thorin asked.

Bilbo shook his head. “Nothing, Thorin,” he said with a bone deep exhaustion. He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s—I don’t—it doesn’t—it doesn’t matter.” Bilbo met Thorin’s eyes and shrugged again, not casual but drained. His mouth was pressed firmly shut.

Thorin leaned over and blew out the candle. The darkness was sudden as a snap. But Thorin knew the darkness of mines, and Beorn’s house had nothing on those pitch black tunnels. It only took a moment for Thorin’s eyes to adjust. He could just make out the shape of Bilbo’s body, tensed as a tightened string on Thorin’s harp. “Tell me,” Thorin whispered.

“I could have told you in the light,” Bilbo whispered back. They leaned towards each other to make out the words. The darkness required quiet, the quiet require proximity. Thorin could feel Bilbo’s heat.

“You couldn’t have,” Thorin said. “Dark thoughts need the dark.”

Thorin’s eyes had adjusted enough to see Bilbo’s lips part. Without sound, they started words and stopped. He closed his mouth. He opened it again. Thorin waited, his palms damp and his heart pounding.

“We don’t fight,” Bilbo said at last. “Hobbits, I mean. It’s a very strange thing for us to run off and do.” He paused, his mouth twisting. “It’s a very strange thing for me to do. I suppose that’s the long and short of it.”

“You did well,” Thorin said.

Bilbo did not move. If not for the steady rise of his chest, he could have been a statue.

“There’s honor in bravery in battle.”

After a moment, Bilbo said, “Yes, I suppose.” Then he pursed his lips together, his hands twisting each other once more. “It’s just that I would rather not have gained that honor. Or—I don’t know. I—it’s all so—” Bilbo cut himself off with a frustration little groan while his right hand strangled his left.

Maybe it was the moonlight that made him bold, or maybe it was the burning in Thorin’s chest that didn’t feel exclusively like guilt, but either way Thorin reached over and touched Bilbo’s hands with his own, pressed his fingers against Bilbo’s, white from clenching. The hobbit went very still. Thorin’s eyes found Bilbo’s. He looked up just in time to see the last of the shock leave Bilbo’s face, before he looked back at Thorin with lidded eyes that gleamed in the darkness. Another new look, Thorin had time to think, before Bilbo’s hands shifted. Thorin found himself cupping Bilbo’s hands, those strange and delicate things, light as two sparrows.

“I would rather not know how it feels to kill,” Bilbo said softly. He said it as he might have said, “The weather was a little bitter today,” but his hands were still clenched and his eyes were still bright. “I dream about it. I can feel my blade going into someone else’s body. And I know, I know I had to do it, I know they would have killed me first. They would have killed you. And I couldn’t let them kill you. But in the tunnels, I could have—should have—could have killed something, but I didn’t. It felt wrong. So I didn’t. Then I escaped and I did. And the two things have nothing in common. But just the same. I dream about it. Every night. I can still smell blood on my sword. I’d rather not know that smell.”

And with the words finally out, Bilbo fell silent.

Thorin’s tongue felt fat in his mouth. He had nothing to say. Bilbo tilted his head, the curls of his hair flopping along with it, and Thorin could not resist reaching up to cup Bilbo’s cheek. His hand could cover Bilbo’s face. His hand could break Bilbo’s neck. Bilbo leaned into Thorin’s hand, his eyes squeezing shut.

“I would rather you not know that either,” Thorin said, not knowing what else to offer. Fire and wolves, he thought again, and only the softness of Bilbo’s cheek stopped Thorin’s hands from clenching in reflexive shame.  

Bilbo’s smile was only a half one, but the half of his mouth that smiled was the half on the side Thorin touched. It was a small thing to shift his thumb that he could brush the edge of Bilbo’s lips.

“As long as we’re all sorry then,” Bilbo said.

Bilbo moved first. Thorin knew that at least, though all other thoughts left his head when Bilbo slid his hand to cup the back of Thorin’s neck. He pulled. Thorin followed. He had never bowed his head so easily, so eagerly as he did now. The touch of Bilbo’s lips made Thorin’s eyes shudder shut. Bilbo swallowed Thorin’s sigh. When Thorin tangled his hands in Bilbo’s curls, he found them soft as the grass.

They spoke then, still with mouths and hands but not with words. I’m sorry I brought you, Thorin said, and with the same intensity, I thank Mahal that you are here.

I am glad to be here, Bilbo replied, and with the same intensity, Will I ever sleep easy again?

Bilbo broke away, but not very far, just far enough that they weren’t kissing anymore and not a hairsbreadth farther. Thorin kept his hands buried in Bilbo’s hair. Bilbo’s hands slid down from Thorin’s neck to bunch themselves in the fabric of Thorin’s shirt, as he panted against Thorin’s lips. Bilbo’s eyes were still shut. Thorin kept his eyes open. He loved beauty too much to close them now.

“You have nightmares too,” Bilbo whispered. It was not a question, not at all. He had seen them, after all, this strange creature who wore the night like a cloak.

Thorin held Bilbo’s face fast and pecked Bilbo’s lips. “For longer than you have lived.”

“Age is not the sort of thing one ought to mention while kissing.”

Thorin kissed Bilbo again, softer and longer than before. Bilbo’s hands clenched and unclenched in Thorin’s shirt, and the feel of Bilbo’s fingers against his chest made Thorin want to keen. “Apologies, Master Burglar,” Thorin said again, whispered it across Bilbo’s lips so softly that he would have wondered if Bilbo could hear him at all if Bilbo hadn’t softly snorted.

“Don’t ‘burglar’ me. I’m not the one stealing kisses.”

That was a fair point, and Thorin thought that he ought to let Bilbo continue making it so he kissed Bilbo again, and Bilbo kissed back like honey, sweet as honey, slow as honey, so slow, so languid, so that when Bilbo drew back again, Thorin could not have told you if a moment passed or an hour. “There are stairs behind us,” Bilbo murmured, the words hot and wet. “They lead up to a hayloft that overlooks the back gardens where there’s an excellent view of the stars.” His eyes fluttered open, his eyelashes brushing Thorin’s nose as he nuzzled his forehead against Thorin’s.

Thorin couldn’t think. He didn’t much want to. He wanted Bilbo beneath him and against him and around him, he wanted Bilbo on his tongue again, the taste of his mouth and more, he wanted his fists balled in Bilbo’s hair as they pressed into each other hard and slow. He wanted to lose himself with Bilbo, wanted to help Bilbo lose himself, wanted to come undone together with him and reassemble themselves better than they were before. He didn’t want to think. But he tried anyway. “This wasn’t my intention. If you thought that I arranged this because—I was worried. If you need, we could talk.”

“We are talking,” Bilbo said. “There’s just nothing more I can say. But I’m awake. And you’re awake.” He pressed his palms flat on Thorin’s chest. He must have been able to hear how Thorin’s heart pounded like a hammer on anvil, beat like a fluttering bird, like any poetry you liked, for Bilbo made Thorin the worst kind of writer. However his heart moved, it did so all the more when Bilbo pressed his mouth to Thorin’s neck. He kissed the line of Thorin’s pulse and whispered, “So let’s be awake together.”

And that was that.

Thorin dreamed, and Thorin woke, and Bilbo stayed wrapped in Thorin’s arms, his head still resting on Thorin’s chest, his breath still warming his skin, and there was the palest light of dawn coming through the eaves, and Thorin’s heart kept racing, and the smell of fire kept burning, but Bilbo was there in his arms, stirring, peering up at him, and saying, “Go back to sleep, if I didn’t have a nightmare then you don’t get to have one,” and Thorin thought about arguing about how that didn’t make any sense, and how it wasn’t a nightmare, not really, because sometimes he killed the dragon and those dreams were worth the burning anytime, but he didn’t say that because Bilbo was already back to sleep, and Thorin was nearly there, and maybe Thorin had never been awake at all because he was starting to think that Bilbo had a point, and if Bilbo slept fine then why shouldn’t Thorin, because it was a good night, it was a good night, it was a good night, and Thorin pitched himself backwards into the sleep he barely crawled out of before, and his last thought before he went under was something about Bilbo’s cheek rubbing against Thorin’s breast, and that was yes that was yes that was the way to go.

Thorin woke with his face buried in Bilbo’s hair. It smelled like the hay they lay on, but it was soft as spun cotton and cool as spun gold. Thorin nuzzled deeper into it and felt his pillow humph.

“Stop that,” Bilbo slurred through sleep-swollen lips. “I’m asleep.”

“Not at the moment,” Thorin said into Bilbo’s curls.

“Yes, that’s why I’m cross.” But Bilbo turned so that his face was pressed against Thorin’s neck. Thorin mapped their bodies. They’d shifted in the night so that Thorin curled around Bilbo. Now Bilbo had move so they faced each other, Bilbo’s forehead against Thorin’s neck, Bilbo’s knee’s against Thorin’s knees. They were still mostly clothed—who could sleep naked on hay?—but Bilbo’s hands come up under Thorin’s shirt, his fingers notching against Thorin’s spine. Thorin ran a finger along Bilbo’s stomach, where his shirt rode up over his unfastened trousers.

Nights were easier to endure, Thorin thought, if you got to wake up to someone like this.

“You’re beautiful in the morning light,” Thorin said. Then he glanced around. “Maybe the noonlight.”

“Afternoon,” Bilbo muttered. “I heard them having breakfast hours ago. Your nephews are very loud. They were talking about us.”

“Oh?”

“Ready to form a search party.”

“And did they?”

“Balin dissuaded them.” Bilbo was starting to sound a little more awake. “Dwalin just laughed. They’re going to be insufferable, aren’t they?”

“Just to you. I’m their king. They have to pretend to respect me.”

Bilbo laughed and stretched, his spine popping. He settled back against Thorin and, yawning, said, “Toss them in the dungeon for me.”

This time Thorin moved first. He scooped his arm around Bilbo and pulled him up, until Bilbo lay on Thorin’s chest and they were eye to eye. Their noses bumped, first by accident and then on purpose and Bilbo nuzzled against him before their mouths found each other again. They kissed deep and slow. Even morning breath tasted like honey in this house. Half awake and half aroused they sprawled against each other, Thorin’s hands tracing the curve of Bilbo’s back, Bilbo’s hands cupping Thorin’s face. Thorin remembered last night how Bilbo had laughed as Thorin had laid him down and said, “Be gentle with me, your beard’s already rubbed my face raw, and I can only imagine what it will do elsewhere,” and how Thorin had flushed and smiled and said, “I didn’t think you minded,” and how Bilbo had said, “I don’t mind anything right now, but I suppose we ought to think a little about tomorrow morning.” And now it was tomorrow morning, with Bilbo warm and heavy on top of him, moaning softly into Thorin’s mouth.

Then Bilbo laughed.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, his forehead pressed against Thorin’s. “I just thought about what the neighbors would say.” Bilbo furrowed his brow, and Thorin felt it furrow. “What an odd night. I’d say this feels like a dream except it seems too pleasant.”

And Thorin found that the flames of shame had merely been banked as they flared to life again. “Bilbo—”

“Stop,” Bilbo said simply. He sat up and looked down at Thorin. “Please, I can’t stand it when you look at me like that, like you’ve already decided my inevitable death will be entirely your fault. I don’t intend to die for your mad quest, thank you.” His curls were messier than Thorin had ever seen them, and they frizzled out like a halo as Bilbo studied Thorin with eyes the color of morning mist. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I tried, but—” Bilbo shrugged one shoulder. “I slept more than I have been at least, even if it’s less than I used to. And I can sleep fine during the day, though what good that will do on the road, I don’t know. I’m hoping exhaustion will help there. I think there’s too much peace in this house. Too much time to think about things. So I’ve been using this time to think.”

“About what?” Thorin asked.

Bilbo braced his hands on Thorin’s shoulders, resettled himself as he straddled Thorin’s stomach. “About whether you were right about whether I should be here.”

“You know my answer.”

“And I thought I knew mine. But I wanted to be sure. I don’t want to kill, but I don’t want to be killed either. I don’t want to watch anyone die, but I imagine we’ll see more death before we’re done. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

Thorin didn’t either.

“And so I thought about stories,” Bilbo said. His eyes found Thorin’s. “About ones worth telling. I didn’t have one before I met you.” Bilbo gaze laid Thorin bare.

Around the terrible guilt lodged in his throat like a sob, Thorin said, “I can’t promise you a happy ending.”

Bilbo snorted. “You mean you can’t guarantee my safety?” Then as Thorin’s stomach dropped, Bilbo wrapped his hands around one of Thorin’s. “I know. But I thought if our story ends up being a tragedy, well, then at least it got to be a story first.”

Thorin didn’t breathe. For a moment, he’d forgotten how.

“Though obviously,” Bilbo added after a moment, “I’d prefer if it wasn’t. I’d like to be a proper bedtime story.”

Thorin’s hands felt numb, but he managed to lace his fingers through Bilbo’s. He didn’t speak. What could he say? What could either of them say? Bilbo was right. There’d be more death before their journey was done, and Bilbo would probably have to inflict some of it. When this embrace was done, Thorin would march him downstairs and make him learn how to inflict it better. The nightmares might fade, but they might not. Thorin’s never did, not for long. If you couldn’t get past them, you learned to work around them, accommodating trauma like a limp. There were no words soft enough to change that.

And still. “I didn’t say I was wrong because you fought,” Thorin said. He ran his thumb over the back of Bilbo’s knuckles as Bilbo tilted his head in confusion. “If that’s what you think. I knew I was wrong when you came back. I knew I was wrong when you spoke of home. When you offered nothing but your understanding and your service.” Thorin’s eyes darted between Bilbo’s hands to Bilbo’s face. His mouth was half parted. He almost looked surprised. “I admire your bravery in battle and I owe you my life. But that is not your true worth.”

“Oh,” Bilbo said softly. Thorin listened to him breathe, watched Bilbo shift as Thorin breathed underneath him. The golden sunlight through the eaves lit up the dust dancing in the air around them. It looked like magic out of one of his mother’s old stories, and the weight on Thorin’s chest felt like the world’s most pleasant burden. Thorin rested his hand on Bilbo’s hip. Bilbo glanced down at it and smiled. “I suppose I could have let someone else save you then,” he said. 

“Then what kind of hero would you be?” Thorin asked. He spoke with a lightness that felt neither natural nor easy to him but sounded right. It was a beautiful day, and Bilbo was soft and heavy and warm above him, an unreal creature so undeniably real. Why shouldn’t they speak with lightness? And for it, Bilbo rewarded him with a smile as bright as the Arkenstone, and as beautiful too. “Though I wish you were a hero of a gentler story. You’ll give the children nightmares.”

Bilbo leaned down until their lips almost touched. “I’m glad,” he said, the words fanning across Thorin’s lips. “Those were always the best tales.” He kissed Thorin, light as the sun slanting across them.

There would be worse yet to come on the road before them, but maybe some better yet to come as well, and either way those stories came later. In this one, here in the gentle place between hope and resignation, Thorin’s arms were filled with Bilbo, and Bilbo’s hands were steady on Thorin’s chest, and they would deal with the night when the night finally came.