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Bilbo thought that he could live to be over one hundred and still not fully believe what mother hens his dwarves were. Seriously, he wasn’t even related to them - he wasn’t even the samerace as them - and they all treated him like some sort of fragile baby brother. He wouldn’t ever understand how Ori could handle Dori constantly babying him. But then again, Dori was just one dwarf. Bilbo had to deal with thirteen of them.
It all started on the very first week of their journey. The only ones paying him any mind were Fíli, Kíli, and of course Gandalf, though the latter didn’t really count because he’d been the one to drag him along. If he’d ignored him Bilbo would be positively pissed.
Bilbo’s spirits were dampening after each hour; the harsh reality of what he’d gotten himself into sinking in slowly but surely. He kept squirming in his saddle, occasionally thinking that even his pony was rolling its eyes at him. He felt the young princes throwing him looks, but refused to meet their eyes. He was still getting used to dwarves, after all.
Soft rain was catching up to them; not enough to completely drench them, but enough to make Bilbo thoroughly irritated. He ruffled his hair, trying to stop it from becoming too flat and falling into his eyes.
A sudden object hitting him on the side of his face almost made him fall off his horse. He instinctively grabbed it, glaring at the direction it had come flying only to find Kíli looking back at him sheepishly.
“Sorry! I should’ve warned you. I don’t know how good a hobbit’s reflexes are.”
Bilbo huffed, not sure if he should feel offended. “What did you throw at me anyway?” he asked, looking at the fabric in his hands.
“My extra coat,” Kíli replied. Bilbo only stared at him. “To cover your head,” he clarified. “You don’t seem like someone who likes getting wet.”
He barely knew the boy, yet Bilbo felt warmth spread through him at the gesture. He quickly draped the coat over him, finding that it did the job of protecting him from the cold drops perfectly. He turned to Kíli with a smile.
“Thank you. I don’t know what to say.”
“As long as it keeps you from squirming around in annoyance, ‘thank you’ is enough,” Fíli suddenly said from his other side, grinning teasingly at him.
Bilbo held up his index finger in protest. “Excuse me-”
“You’re excused.” Fíli reached over to ruffle his hair through the coat, making Kíli snicker happily beside him. “We don’t want an unhappy burglar, do we?”
“Not at all,” Kíli agreed. “They get so fussy.”
It only took Bilbo a few seconds to realize that they were messing with him, but not in a mean way. It was more like when you were teasing a sibling or a close friend. He felt his heart go warm once again.
The second time one of his dwarves fussed over him had been just after the troll incident. Feeling as if he’d proven himself quite a bit, most of the company started warming up to him. Especially Bofur and Ori seemed to take a liking to him, and Bilbo quickly found himself returning the sentiment.
“If you don’t start sleeping closer to someone you will freeze to death come autumn.”
Bilbo raised an eyebrow at the dwarf that had suddenly appeared before him. “Sorry, what are you talking about?”
Bofur rolled his eyes good heartedly. “You sleep so far from everyone that you won’t make it through the colder months,” he said as he sat down next to him. “Shared body heat is crucial.”
Bilbo pursed his lips. “Can’t I just sleep closer to the fire?”
“The fire has a tendency to die after just a few hours,” Bofur reminded him.
“But sleeping close to someone feels…weird.”
“You get used to it. But if it makes you feel better you can sleep next to me. I certainly don’t mind.”
Bilbo whipped his head toward him quickly. “You…really?”
Bofur nodded almost eagerly. “Yes, really. You seem like a great cuddle buddy.” He poked Bilbo in the chest playfully, chuckling when the hobbit batted his hand away.
“Oh, stop it,” he muttered, but was unable to keep his grin at bay. “I’ve heard that I’m a kicker.”
“We’ll just have someone lay on your legs.”
“I hope that someone also carries me for the rest of the journey then, since I certainly won’t be able to walk after that,” he replied dryly.
Bofur shrugged. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Bilbo was secretly grateful for Bofur’s offer. He might not be freezing to death at night, but he didn’t like the chilliness that sometimes found him, and had found himself longing to scoot closer to the dwarves for a while now. Sleeping so far away from them to avoid awkwardness hadn’t been his best idea after all.
The third time they didn’t even bother pretending to be casual about it. He’d tripped and scraped up his leg and Óin was nearly losing his mind when he spotted him tumbling.
“I know exactly what to do!” the healer proclaimed, rushing off to get his tools. “You stay right where you are, Bilbo! Don’t you move!” he called back to the hobbit.
Bilbo huffed from the stone he’d been forced to sit on. It was wet and cold and immensely uncomfortable, so he made to stand and find another place to sit and wait, but more than one pair of hands grabbed him to push him back.
“Didn’t you hear him? Don’t move,” Dori scolded him with a frown.
“You do know that I’m not dying, right?” Bilbo snapped back irritatedly.
“You can never be too sure,” Glóin said with a slight shake of his head.
“Yeah, your knee might get infected,” Kíli added, his eyes widening exaggeratedly in mock concern.
“I suppose it would be a lame death compared to being scorched by dragonfire,” Bilbo deadpanned.
Fíli nodded oh so very seriously. “Exactly! What would people say if they found out?”
Bilbo barked out a laugh just as Óin returned. He eyed the hobbit suspiciously.
“Is the pain making you lose your sanity already?”
“It doesn’t actually hurt that much.”
“You shrieked when you fell.”
Bilbo felt his face heat up. “I didn’t shriek!” he protested as Fíli and Kíli sniggered.
“No, that was obviously a battle cry,” Bofur said from somewhere behind Glóin. “To show the ground who’s in charge.”
“How come I like any of you again?” the hobbit muttered as Óin crouched down to rub a salve into his - almost invisible and totally not hurting at all - wound. He took pride in the fact that he didn’t wince or hiss as the cold ointment burned his knee ever so slightly.
“Because we keep saving your skin,” Óin replied as he reached for the bandages.
Bilbo did actually feel a lot better once Óin was done, but he wasn’t going to admit that to anyone.
After that they all became ten times more protective of him, and he didn’t know if he was grateful or not. On one hand, it was nice to have someone care for you. He hadn’t had that ever since his parents had died. And of course he prefered them to hover over him rather than blatantly disliking him, but he sometimes felt like they were suffocating him.
“I got it, I got it,” he snapped as Bifur attempted to help him wash his clothes in the river. “The water won’t drown me, I swear.”
Bifur muttered something in Khuzdûl before stalking off, throwing him a wounded look. Bilbo sighed and leaned back against the boulder he was sitting next to. He watched the water for a few moments, knowing that he should find Bifur and apologize, but not having the energy to do so.
“He was just trying to help,” a deep voice said above him, making Bilbo’s head snap up. Thorin was standing next to him, his eyes sweeping over the shore on the other side of the river.
Bilbo exhaled loudly through his nose. “I know, I know. They’re all just trying to help, but…”
“You feel as if they’re babying you.”
Bilbo nodded. “Something like that.”
Thorin met his gaze and smirked. “This is what it’s like being close to dwarves. You better get used to it.”
Bilbo snorted. “Wow, thanks. That makes me feel so much better.”
Thorin let out noise that almost resembled a laugh. “You should finish washing your clothes before the sun goes down and they won’t dry.”
“Good call.” Bilbo scooted closer to the river again, grabbing his shirt and sinking it into the water. “By the way, I surely hope you won’t start babying me as well.”
Thorin shook his head. “You won’t have to worry about that.”
“Good, because that would be disturbing.”
A few weeks passed and Bilbo realized that the future King Under the Mountain was a rotten liar.
After Bilbo had saved him - which was still very surreal and he would never fully be over it - they became a lot closer than before, and it was then that the dwarf took after the rest of the company and became a complete mother hen that rarely left Bilbo out of its sight.
Bilbo wanted to scream.
“Better be careful, burglar. You’re walking too close to that edge.”
“Don’t stand so close to the fire. The wind is blowing your way.”
“Let me take that.”
“Bilbo, let me do that.”
“Bilbo-”
“What?!”
He hadn’t meant to say that as loudly as he’d done, but he owned up to it when he glared at Thorin who raised an eyebrow at him.
“I was just wondering if you’d like to borrow my coat,” he said, his voice not as soft as it’d been before. “You seem cold.”
Bilbo instantly felt bad for having snapped at him. “I…you don’t have to…”
“I know, but I want to.” Without another word Thorin draped the garment over his shoulders and sat down next to him.
Bilbo snuggled into the coat. “Thank you. Sorry for yelling.”
“It’s fine. I know we’ve all been driving you crazy lately,” Thorin admitted. “Can’t help it.”
Bilbo snorted. “Of course. It’s just your maternal instincts.”
Thorin barked out a laugh. “Why do you think my sister let me take her sons with me?”
“I always assumed it was to annoy you.”
Thorin looked skeptical for a few seconds. “There’s more than one reason, I guess.”
“It’s to spur you on, I reckon. To remind you of how things will be unless you reclaim Erebor. All that space in the mountain will make hiding from them a lot easier.”
“Good point. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“It feels good to know that I’ve helped you on your future escapes.”
They both grinned stupidly; as if their conversation was the most amusing one they’d ever had. Bilbo found himself smiling quite often around the dwarf. It was rather refreshing, especially considering how Thorin hadn’t really liked him at first.
Thorin’s smirk was suddenly replaced by a frown though. “It’s quite chilly tonight. Better sleep extra close to someone.”
Bilbo’s annoyance returned instantly. “If any of you ever try to baby me again I swear to Eru-”
“Better sleep next to me tonight,” Thorin cut him off, averting his eyes. “My coat can cover us both.”
Bilbo paused and felt himself flushing at the thought. “I couldn’t…”
“I insist.”
“You…are you sure?”
Thorin shot him a fleeting look. “I am.”
And thus, as Bilbo spent the next few weeks sleeping snuggled up on Thorin’s side, it didn’t take long to realize that this had been the king’s plan all along.
“Very clever,” Bilbo told him before crushing his lips against his dwarf’s. Thorin only hummed in return, but he didn’t really need to say much more.
Bilbo still complained at the dwarves’ overprotective nature, but they all knew it was in good spirits.