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Chapter Text

It’s a near thing that the line of Durin survives the battle of Erebor.

Thorin and his nephews had strayed far too close to death for Bilbo’s liking that day, something he is keen but seemingly unable to forget. Not even five years after the horrid battle, the great halls of Erebor rebuilt and filled with life again, can the hobbit forget the feel of dwarf blood on his hands. Of the sight that was fading light in blue eyes, or the still bodies of two brothers lying prone and ill looking on the bloodied snow of Ravenhill’s ruins.

The hobbit flips the object in his hands for the nth time in the past few moments, sighing and shoving the memories away as he continues to stare down at his fiddling fingers.

No, not even five years after that day can Bilbo forget his darker memories. What Bilbo can and does do, however, smiling as he smooths his thumb over the cold metal surface of his ring, is think of the fonder memories from more recent times.

The princes, not yet in full health after months of healing but getting better every day, begging to be set free upon hearing their mother would be arriving at the mountain soon. The arrival of the said dwarf, and her serious but emotion filled expression of gratitude to Bilbo for saving her family and reclaiming their home for them.

Or, in memories that were a little less sentimental, just last week when Fili and Kili had been banished from the kitchen for trying to steal one too many cookies during the rush to prepare a small welcoming feast for a soon-to-arrive group of dwarrow. Bilbo huffs, shaking his head as he gently drops the ring into his other hand, when he recalls their put out faces. And, of course, their sudden joy upon seeing him as they rushed over with pleas of Uncle Bilbo won’t you go get us some cookies?

With a content sigh, Bilbo closes his hand around his ring and averts his gaze to instead stare at the comfortable, well fed fireplace across the room- yes, the fondest memory out of them all, becoming Consort and, by proxy, an uncle to the princes.

It had been just shy of two years after Erebor was reclaimed, near all those involved with the dark battle at the foot of the mountain in better if not complete health, that Thorin had approached Bilbo. The hobbit had been in the library, as he tended to be during those early times of the newly reclaimed Erebor, when the dwarf king approached him.

The hobbit had been stunned when Thorin shly- shly, when had Thorin ever been anything but royally stern let alone shy!- offered him a bundle of slightly damaged, but well meaning, flowers. The air between them was awkward and tense, the dark haired dwarf looking uncomfortable beyond his means but determined to give the hobbit the flowers he had brought.

Of course, Bilbo hadn’t let his hopes rise; Thorin hadn’t known of Hobbit courting ways nor what the significance of the type and color of flowers he was presenting. “That’s a wonderful gift, Thorin, thank you,” Bilbo managed in a clipped voice, hoping to dampen his disappointment for dwarrow not knowing his race’s courting customs and accept the flowers simply as a gift from a dear friend.

But Thorin had again made his heart skip a beat when he, in his gruff, quiet, endearingly awkward voice told the hobbit of letters sent to the Shire between himself and Bilbo’s newly wed cousin, Drogo. Including the means and workings of Hobbit courting, such as the flowers he had just presented to Bilbo himself.

Upon realizing that Thorin truly meant to court him, in his culture’s ways no less, Bilbo had placed the flowers down, hugged the dwarf standing in front of him tightly, and muttered a giddy acceptance to the courtship offering.

Then promptly burst into tears not a second after.

Bilbo scrunches his nose in embarrassment, aimed primarily at himself, at that memory. Surely being emotional during a moment such as that was justified, but he’s certain he nearly killed Thorin out of fright with his sudden and inconsolable tears.

But better days had passed since then, including his wondrous wedding that was a blend of both Hobbit and Dwarf customs, and Bilbo found himself loving his new home and family more than he could have imagined feeling for anything else before.

The only true downside to being Erebor’s consort- and yes, only, because no matter how much Thorin seems to enjoy arguing otherwise, Bilbo was, in fact, completely content with now being the princes' uncle no matter how mischievous they could get- was the meetings that were demanded of his title. Not all were terrible, of course, and Bilbo prides himself as being a very politically and socially savvy hobbit, but tonight his nerves were a particularly thorny bramble that snaked around his gut.

A simple party, that’s all it was in reality, a social gathering between the King, his company, and some of the most official dwarrow in Erebor. Nothing Bilbo hadn’t done before, but in the recent months something had been, for lack of better and more informative description, off.

Bilbo is a hobbit of anxious mutterings and nervous pacing, it’s simply part of who he was; prone to fretting over the simple things. And while he often didn’t display such behaviour in front of other dwarrow- besides his closest friends, of course- Bilbo was never faulted for his oddities.

But if there was one thing Bilbo was not, it was paranoid.

And yet, in the recent months, a growing dread had nestled deeply into his heart and continued to fester something ugly. It’s a dark thing, something fully opposite of Bilbo’s entire being, but there it grew, shadowing his mind and corrupting his feelings further every day.

Of course, when the hobbit had first noticed such feelings and became startled by the realization of how truly deep this mysterious paranoia ran, he informed Thorin. In typical fashion, his overprotective husband had fretted over him like a nervous hen, shepherding him to Oin and asking the dwarf to find what was ill with his husband.

But Oin had found nothing, hesitant to even claim it may be Bilbo’s head wound from the Ravenhill battle seeing as it had been so long ago and no other signs had been made apparent that the injury was still pestering the hobbit’s health. The only thing that could have had some merit was Bilbo’s quiet confession that perhaps the winter months inside a cold- but lovely, of course! He made sure to point that out in his words; he’d wish for no better place to be but within Erebor with his friends- mountain could be tampering with his emotions.

The Shire, even in winter, was not a harsh place. Sure there was to be some snow and the Brandywine frozen thickly over with its seasonal ice, but never such things like the weather Erebor provided during her coldest months.

Howling storms and blizzards that dug deep into the mountain with their freezing talons. Ice upon everything outside and not a lick of color besides frozen-blue and blinding-white across the furthest lands one could see with an unaided eye.

Unaccustomed, Bilbo had offered to his husband and friend, to such weather and being a creature who lived well in warmer climates, perhaps it was a seasonal ailment that bothered him so much.

Thorin- all though confused on how weather could make one ill, or why previous winters had not affected him in such a way- had asked Oin if that was a possible reason his husband would feel so uneased in his own home. The healer had been slow to explain but nonetheless accept Bilbo's reasonings however, and the three of them considered it settled.

But Thorin hadn’t truly let the issue fade away, and with his usual overbearing concern had been near frantic- not that anyone besides his family and closest friends could tell, seeing as to any other he would have looked as stoic and stern as ever- in finding ways to boost Bilbo’s mood.

More food, because if there was any sure way to cheer up a down hobbit, it was with food; fireplaces filled with licking, larger than normal flames as they were constantly fed with more wood. The anxious hovering over Bilbo’s shoulder and constant questions about his health and related such emotions, the thickest and softest fur blankets Bilbo had ever had the pleasure of feeling let alone being gifted.

And when the shadowed feeling did not seem to fade upon Thorin’s fretting, and only seemed to further upset the dwarf king at its stubborn and unyielding presence, Bilbo had at once decided to give his husband a sweet smile, eyes soft with love, and lied.

He told Thorin that his meddling and over-anxious acts of concern were helping and he could stop being such a mother hen. The hobbit acted as if he never felt, or still feels, an unfamiliar pressure in his chest or tic of his eye when a shadow seemed to move on its own, just within the corner of his sight. Bilbo answered Thorin’s every inquiry about his feelings with a placid smile and a gentle yes, Thorin dear, I feel just fine.

But truly Bilbo did not feel alright, and the realization that his mindless wander through memories and anxieties had wasted the time he needed to get ready for the party only worsened his current down mood.

The hobbit stood, looking away from the fireplace and gently slipping his ring into his pocket despite the nervous tremor they had seemed to gain over the past weeks. With a twitch of his nose Bilbo ran a hand through his curls, pacing along one edge of the room as he tried collecting himself.

“This is silly,” he berates himself, one hand unable to resist coming up to his vest pocket, thumb rubbing over the smooth and cold curve of his golden ring. “I’ve been to plenty of parties before, there’s no reason to be so worked up now.”

But even trying to voice such reassurances out loud does little to help Bilbo feel less wound in the chest and shaky in his limbs. A faint clammy feeling settles over his skin, as if he was moments away from a nervous sweat, and his ears seem keen to pick up every noise in nearby existence, only serving to further overwhelm the hobbit.

With a shaky sigh, frustration and upset rising, Bilbo drops himself back in the chair he was in moments before and holds his face in his hands. “I don’t know what’s the matter,” he whispers to himself, and is more horrified by not being surprised by the rising tears than he is of their appearance.

It’s as he breathes heavily through his nose, trying to fend back the unwarranted tears, that Bilbo hears the chamber doors open; he doesn’t bother looking up, knowing only one dwarf who would walk in without first knocking. But he does, at least, attempt to reign his tears in as to not startle or worry his husband.

“Bilbo,” Thorin states flatly, but to the hobbit he can hear the undercurrent of confusion and worry upon seeing his current and sorry state- huddled in a chair, head cradled in his hands and shoulders pitched high and taunt. Yes, Bilbo’s sure he makes quite the sight right now.

He inhales deeply and lifts his head, giving Thorin a sweet smile he’s sure looks as fake as it feels, and tries to act as if he weren’t about to cry in their room right before a rather important gathering.

“Thorin,” Bilbo says for lack of anything else to acknowledge his husband with because he certainly wasn’t about to tell him about the near breakdown. But despite his- truly, rather easy to see through- attempts to appear in good spirits, his dwarf is not a fool and can tell something is wrong.

“Are you feeling unwell?” Thorin asks, stomping over in all his broody, sharp eyed concern. Bilbo sighs, and when he presses an ear to his husband’s middle, the dwarf is quick to wrap his arms around the hobbit’s shoulders in comfort.

“It’s nothing,” Bilbo first attempts, but they both know he’s lying and Thorin squeezes his shoulder in a nonverbal way of insisting he try that again and do so with the truth. “Well, really it’s quite silly is all. It’s nothing to worry about Thorin, just me being odd again.”

“You are not odd,” Thorin states, and while he sounds stern there’s a certain softness to his tone and the hand drifting from his shoulder to instead rub his back has Bilbo knowing his husband cares for him deeply. After a quiet moment, both simply taking comfort in the other’s presence and contact, Thorin speaks again. “Tell me Ghivashel, what bothers you?”

Bilbo sighs, pulling his hand away from his ring pocket only to close it into a tight fist. His fingers burn at the sudden distance between the golden band in his vest, and Bilbo’s whole arm seems to twitch at the restraint of not touching the piece of jewelry again. The hobbit leans back to sit properly in his chair again, and even so Thorin’s hands remain clutching his shoulders in concerned affection.

He looks at his husband, eyes tired but smile at least somewhat true. “Just my nerves, dear, really.” Bilbo concedes, and feels the same mix of guilty relief when it seems that Thorin believes his lie of his health and mood as he always does.

The hobbit flattens his palms on his thighs, rubbing them over the familiar texture and looking away from Thorin as his nerves seem to tighten their thorny vines around his chest.

“Just nerves,” Bilbo says absently, staring off at the far wall behind the figure in front of him. The figure, which upon gently shaking his shoulder, he remembers is his husband, the one he’s meant to be trying to convince he’s fine so the dwarf won’t fly into a frenzy of worried smothering.

Thorin studies him for a long moment after he turns back to meet his gaze, blue eyes sharp and brow furrowed. He seems to be debating whether or not he wants to push Bilbo for more and risk whatever consequence that may bring- considering past events of being prodded too much by his husband, Bilbo is likely to either snap at Thorin or cry, neither of which the dwarf would want.

“We do not have to attend the gathering tonight if you feel unwell, Bilbo.” Thorin reminds him though the sentiment is completely unnecessary; yes, Bilbo knows he doesn’t have to go, especially not if he’s in a particularly strong and odd mood of his. His friends would understand, and the other dwarrow- the more royal-ish ones with high power in Erebor’s courts, of whom the party was for in the first place- would also understand such an excuse lest they feel the wrath of Thorin’s displeasure.

But then again, Bilbo really can’t miss such an event, not if he was to remain the proper hobbit he was raised to be. Failing to fulfill his duties as consort simply because his nerves were especially bothersome? No, Bilbo would not let such a trivial thing keep him from being a respectful, proper host.

“I’m fine.” He says with a sharp finality, narrowing his gaze at his husband in a half challenge. “Just silly nerves getting the best of me for a moment. Now,” Bilbo says, standing and brushing a hand over Thorin’s arm as he walked past him, “since you’re here you wouldn’t mind helping would you?”

“Of course not,” is his dwarf’s instant and unthinking reply, Thorin trailing behind the hobbit as they crossed the room.

“Perfect,” Bilbo replies, and opens his wardrobe- because while he and Thorin share many things, clothes included in some cases, he refuses to let his husband’s lack of organization skills get the better of his neatly folded and contained garments- and leans against Thorin's side. “Help me figure out what to wear tonight?”

Thorin, of course, does so easily and with only a playful mumbling of something under his breath about lazy hobbits as he shifts through his husband’s finer, more royal looking clothes that would fit their event’s expectations.

Bilbo scoffs, similarly as playful, and swats Thorin’s arm in retaliation. And while his mood has definitely risen in the presence of his husband, there’s still a lingering unease settled in his mind, one that seems to have grown over the past months and continues to fester.

It’s all nerves, Bilbo reminds himself, just silly old nerves.

Silly nerves they are, and yet he can’t seem to stop his hand from drifting to his pocket, thumb rubbing across the smooth, golden surface of his ring.

Chapter Text

Truly, the party is a nice thing and Bilbo feels rightfully silly for getting so worked up over such a simple thing.

After Thorin had helped him- not that he really needed his husband’s help picking out what to wear, he wasn’t a faunt and knew very well how to dress himself for formal occasions- pick his outfit, they had arrived at the party as a pair.

The whole company was there, of course, as well as a selection of their own family members. They were a happy group upon seeing Thorin and Bilbo, though the hobbit’s sure most of the company was secretly glad the king had appeared only so they could see their favorite hobbit, as they so called him.

Bilbo was lucky enough to not have immediately run into his nephews, loud and energetic as they were, and his nerves further eased upon seeing his sister-in-law, Dis.

Dis was a fine dwarf, both in looks and her fierce smarts and attitude. Bilbo had seen her argue with more frenzy than even Thorin had at times, and for that the hobbit found her fit to be a great friend. And in spite of husband’s pouting- and probable fear upon such a conjoinment of Hobbit stubbornness and Dwarvish smarts- he and Dis became very close companions.

Bilbo had broken off Thorin’s side to talk with Dis and Balin, who already seemed to be mid conversation with another dwarf that looked familiar but that the hobbit couldn’t remember the exact name of. Upon realizing Erebor’s consort was now among the event’s population, Dis had been happy to include him in their talk of, easily enough, trading routes between Erebor and the other dwarf’s home in another, somewhat distant mountain.

A few hours had passed smoothly, Bilbo’s nerves never fully disappearing but calming down to an easily ignorable level. Drinks and food had done an excellent job at loosening the knot of anxiety in his chest- as had Thorin’s constant and overused check ins with him, even if that warranted the king barging into conversations between his guests and husband.

And now the feeling of the event was mellowed. Bilbo was conversing with a dwarf not from another settlement but from Erebor herself and wanting to talk to her consort about the potential materials they could get from trading with other Dwarven settlements from further away lands.

“Of course, while the cost of transporting such materials from a place as far as this would be high,” Murimi, the dwarf that Bilbo has been happily holding conversation with for nearly the past half hour, says, “I really do think it could improve some of our own guilds.”

“And I completely agree,” Bilbo replies, giving the dwarf in front of him a smile, one which she returns easily. “And as such I advise we try speaking to my husband’s best advisor, Balin. I’m sure he can help us figure out how to smooth over such an agreement.”

Because while Bilbo was very well taught in the ways of the more fickle and small details of politics- and if he does say so himself, very proficient in tradings specifically- he was often doubtful of himself when it came to making final decisions for Erebor. No matter how many times he was told, be it by Thorin, Dis, Balin, or really any other close friend of his, Bilbo was not sure-footed as he ought to be on these things.

Having an experienced dwarf, and one who was also a close friend, such as Balin agreeing with his ideas always helped settle any self-doubt. And the hobbit was lucky that Murimi seemed to be happy with his need for a second opinion, falling easily in step with him as they scanned the crowd for Balin.

The night was growing late and the mood of the event was settling with it, and yet some of Bilbo’s unwelcome nerves seemed to be stirring yet again. He supposes the doubt over finalizing such trade agreements as he had been discussing roused such ill feelings into waking again, but it was no matter since they did not seem content to fade away as they had earlier.

Plenty of dwarrow were right drunk by now, seeing how long the gathering had been going on. And while every dwarf- and in this case, one hobbit- there was of an official standing, nothing could stop even the most prim dwarrow from being at least a little rowdy when deep in their food and drink.

Bilbo himself was feeling content with the alcohol in his system, as little as it was. He’d only had a few drinks at the start of the event, just enough to settle his nerves long enough to start conversation and hold it without feeling an anxious skip of his heart.

And dwarrow who were drunk did not tend to be the most nimble. Bilbo and Murimi, as they made their way through the crowd in search of Balin- or, at this point, the hobbit would have even settled for Kili to be his second source of advice. There were far too many dwarrow crowded around him and Bilbo was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed- were often bumped against or, while not unkindly, shoved.

After a particularly harsh stumbling into, one which Bilbo had not been able to avoid as he felt as though he was being watched and had to look over his shoulder, Murimi grabbed his shoulder.

“Master Hobbit, are you sure you are well?” She asked in a concerned tone, hand retreating as to keep their contact minimal and respectful. It seemed that his current companion noticed Bilbo’s current nerves as they wound higher and tighter. “Should we find a table to sit at for a moment?”

No. Bilbo may be getting wound up- eyes watching him, waiting to take something from him when he was unaware, bodies shoved too close and near enough to steal from his pockets- but he was not going to be as rude as to excuse himself mid task and leave Murimi without definite answer to both their inquires about trade agreements.

“No,” he says outloud, and smooths his hands over his vest; one slips into his pocket for but a moment, fishing out his ring and fiddling with it between his fingers in an attempt to calm his nerves with the familiar movements. “No, I’m quite alright my dear. Just a bit noisy in here and I’m afraid my poor sleep from last night is catching up on me.”

A complete lie, of course, but it’s not as if Murimi had any reason to doubt Bilbo’s fake excuses as to his flighty behaviour and shifting eyes. The dwarf instead nods, giving the hobbit one last look over to be sure he was truly alright, and moves in step with Bilbo as he leads the way to finding Balin amongst the crowd yet again.

The cold, familiar feeling of the golden band in Bilbo’s hand quietened his mind entirely, not just his growing and unnecessary anxiety. It was a particularly handy thing, running his thumb over the ring or even simply holding it loosely in one hand, at times. The calm, placid feeling the piece of unassuming jewelry brought him was almost addicting; in a way it was much like some particular mushrooms or a good pipeweed.

Bilbo gently shoves his way past many dwarrow as he moves along- he learned long ago that a simple, polite excuse me was often not heard by dwarrow and physically guiding one out of your way was the best route to take- and tried ignoring the whispers of an unwanted paranoia that was growing in the back of his mind.

In attempt to distract himself, Bilbo thought of his husband and how long it had been since Thorin’s last check in with him. While the interruptions were bothersome in most cases, the hobbit found a small comfort in his husband’s constant presence; Bilbo mentally hoped that Thorin would find his way over to them sooner rather than later, simply so he could feel some ease again.

Bilbo’s sure he just about sees a dwarf who looks to be Balin across the way, fingers fiddling with his ring happily as his overly content mood brought on by the contact with the gold eased into something closer to actual emotion, when a large body and voice interrupt him.

“Ah, you must be Thorin’s husband, Erebor’s consort! I’ve been meaning to speak with you all night but you always looked to be amidst another conversation and I did not wish to interrupt.” A dwarf exclaims loudly, nearly making the hobbit wince as he looks slightly up- curse his hobbitish height!- to meet the gaze of his new companion.

The dwarf is broad, as they all tend to be, and with a dark mane of wavy hair. He has an easy smile with bright eyes, a dwarf Bilbo would have no problem holding a nice conversation in any other moment, but there's one problem.

Gold, so much of it, all over the dwarf who had stepped in front of him.

Bilbo eyed every shine of the metal on the new dwarf with a sharp paranoia. His hand closed tightly in a fist over the ring, protective of his own golden band, as he counted the numerous rings this dwarf had.

Golden hair beads, gold rings, golden clasps, stylish and of course golden stitching on his coat; it was simply everywhere. No matter where the hobbit looked on the friendly dwarf there was a gleam of metal.

He’d steal my ring, a voice in Bilbo’s head cautions venomously, fingers crushed tight over his ring. He’d see my gold and take it for himself. But he can’t because it’s mine! No one else can even think of touching my ring, my precious ring-

Bilbo’s too busy clenching his jaw in unwarranted anger and paranoia to see the uneasy look Murimi gives him. But he does hear a familiar voice that is instant in knocking him out of his sudden, sharp mood and has him looking away from the friendly, well meaning dwarf who had been attempting conversation with him.

“Bilbo,” Thorin says, just a few paces away and looking right at him. Nerves bundled tightly and anxiety rising beyond his control, the sight of his husband has Bilbo calming down. He gives Thorin a small smile, hand unconsciously loosening its hold as he began to feel less uneasy; he opened his mouth, about to greet his husband, when he was roughly jolted to the side.

Dwarrow were not so nimble when drunk, and one had just clumsily shoved into Bilbo.

Surprised and already overwhelmed by his sinking mood and gathering nerves, the hobbit gasps and stumbles to catch himself. The loosened hold on his ring falters in his shock, and the golden band falls from his grasp.

Bilbo’s face, recovering from his gasp and attempting to smile at Thorin again, falls completely flat as he sees and feels his ring escape his hand and fall towards the floor. Something numbing, all encompassing and familiar from only one other occasion washes over Bilbo with all the strength of a winter’s storm.

The noise is of little care to him now, Bilbo’s every focus on the golden band which lands on the floor and bounces up with a slight arc. The lights gleam perfectly across the ring’s smooth surface, and the hobbit finds himself fully unable to look away from the beautiful, golden object.

It rolls, it rolls so horridly away from Bilbo and the hobbit nearly cries out as his ring runs in the opposite direction it should be, which is towards him.

There’s boots, all too close to his ring and fighting for Bilbo’s wrath as they all narrowly avoid stepping on his precious golden band. The ring, after a tortuously long few seconds, stops rolling, right in front of another pair of unknown boots.

But this time there’s pale, thieving fingers reaching down for his ring.

Undeserving skin brushes the edge of his ring, and Bilbo lunges.

It was as if he was back in Mirkwood, fighting viciously against that disgusting, pale plated creature as it tried keeping him from his fallen ring. But it’s worse this time, stronger, more possessive, and Bilbo will not let anyone touch his ring for a second should he help it.

Whatever has reached down- and grabs his ring! Actually had the nerve to not only touch his ring but take it from him!- is slammed by Bilbo’s full force and sent crashing to the floor. There’s a rush of noise and movement around Bilbo and the would-be ring stealer, but the hobbit ignores it all.

He’s no animal, his lips not built to pull back and bare fangs, but Bilbo all but snarls anyways. He wraps his hands around a neck, ignoring the desperate scrambling of the thief’s hands as it attempts to get away; fingernails cut into skin, harsh and rage driven.

“No,” Bilbo hisses, crushing his fingers as much as he could around the thief’s windpipe.

The hobbit stares down at… something. He’s sure he sees disjointed features of a face, the fearful gleam in the eyes, the confused furrow of the brow, but above all he sees a thief. A nasty, sticky fingered little thief who had been meaning to steal his ring.

Bilbo’s about to lift the thief’s neck up, planning to slam it back down and repeat this until it drops his beautiful, precious golden ring, when a set of hands grabs his arm and yanks him off his victim’s chest and away from its neck.

The hobbit bares his teeth again, jaw clenched as he’s pulled away by something speaking too loudly. He can’t hear what they’re saying, whatever or whoever it is, but Bilbo knows they mean to conspire with the ring thief in stealing away his beloved ring.

In a rush, working on instinct fueled rage, the hobbit grabs the dagger he doesn’t remember having but knew it was on his person anyhow and swings out.

The metal hits something, and there’s another rush of noise and movement; two more hands, trying to wrestle the blade from his hand and pull him in another direction. Bilbo makes an enraged sound and lunges directly at one of the sources of the hands on him.

He collides with a body, smaller than the first thief but just as solid, and raises his dagger above its face. Bilbo does not hesitate, the moment his arms are raised as high as they will go he’s forcing them back down.

These sniveling, thieving little rats! They think they can take my ring- well they can’t! It’s mine! My ring, my precious, mine, mine, mine-

It’s Bilbo being tackled and knocked to the floor this time, and while his surging, unfamiliar, all controlling anger screeches in offence at such an attack, his eyes and full attention are drawn to the pale, hideous fingers still holding his ring.

It’s looking right at him, taunting him. The gold is perfect and precious but in the wrong hands and Bilbo needs that metal back in his pocket, in his palm, on his finger.

The thing holding him down is strong and very loud, shaking his shoulder while another pair of meddling hands is nearing success in wrestling his dagger away. But Bilbo doesn’t care, he knows he needs his ring back and he cares not how that’s accomplished.

Instead of trying to struggle upwards, Bilbo instead twists over to his side, yanking his hand away from what or whoever was trying to take his blade, and adjusts his hold on the handle of the weapon.

He’s rewarded with both escaping his restraint and in injuring whoever was above him, the blade of his dagger slashing across their side with little accuracy but doing significant damage.

Bilbo scrambles away as noise erupts at his actions once more, avoiding being pinned once again, and makes for the thing holding his precious ring. It’s a person probably, Bilbo can’t really tell what’s what other than his ring and the things trying to take it from him, but the thief is on their knees.

With an angry shout the hobbit brings his blade down on the one attempting to keep his ring from him, the thief managing to twist and avoid being stabbed in the face directly. But they are stabbed in the shoulder, the blade dragging briefly towards their back before Bilbo yanks it back out.

“It’s mine!” Bilbo screeches, and when he swings his knife back up in an attempt to force his victim to drop his ring, the blade clips what he thinks is a cheek.

And finally, all at blissfully once, the disgusting, horridly undeserving hands let go of his ring.

Bilbo scrambles away from the bloodied thief and dives for his ring, frantically scratching his nails against the floor as if in a frenzy. His skin touches cold and familiar metal and his heart sings, mind settling from its explosive anger into a deep, venomous possessiveness.

The hobbit is crouched, hunched over his closed hand and holding his dagger with the other. He glares in the direction of his would-be restrainers and thieves, not seeing their features or figures clearly but knowing full well they were waiting for their chance to steal his ring again.

“It’s mine,” Bilbo spits harshly, teeth bared as if he were an animal. “It’s mine. You cannot have it, it’s my precious.”

Nothing happens, none of his attackers move towards him, nothing comes for him or his beautiful ring. It seems the room is frozen in place, whether in fear or shock Bilbo does not care. The hobbit only kneels there, breathing in heavy pants and disheveled curls hanging in front of his face like an untamed mane.

Slowly, very slowly, true awareness bleeds back into Bilbo.

He first feels how deeply he’s gasping, and how warm and sweaty he feels. The clammy coolness of his skin is faintly nauseating, as is the solid floor beneath his heels as he is crouched away from the crowd.

The crowd, which as he finally looks around with his mind fading back in, are all dwarrow. Dwarrow he knows in fact, some of which are his very dear friends and family.

Bilbo continues to pant, exhausted but coming back to himself with each passing moment, and focuses hard enough to pinpoint a single face in the sea of semi-familiar features. It was his dear and youngest nephew, Kili, and most horribly of all he looked terrified.

That lurches Bilbo fully back into control of himself, mind scrambling to understand what he did just moments ago. And with the rush of full awareness, the hobbit comes to realize there’s more than sweat clinging to his skin; the stickiness of blood is familiar, and all too soon the coolness of the inner mountain was that of a frigid hill.

Bilbo gasps, pants cutting short with a wheeze and turning more in a hyperventive state, and looks down at his hands. His bloodied, shaking hands; flashes of Ravenhill, of still bodies and fading eyes and above else blood, invade his mind and Bilbo nearly gags.

Had the horror of the situation not been squeezing his throat shut, Bilbo would have certainly gotten sick right then because there, right in his own hand, was a dagger and it was covered with blood. And not just any dagger, no- this nightmare was well crafted enough to have Bilbo holding the dagger his husband, Thorin, had gifted him as his first- Dwarven, that is- courting gift.

Bilbo feels tears roll over his eyes, hand shaking so badly he can hardly bear to hold the dagger any longer. The wheezing and shaking turns worse as Bilbo further realizes there’s blood all over him, both from others and himself.

With a panicked noise the hobbit throws the dagger from his hand, the blade clattering on the hard floor and skidding briefly towards the crowd which has circled around him.

“Oh Yavanna,” Bilbo tries to whisper, but his throat is still too closed tight and he can do nothing but gape at his hands, mouth opening and closing in shock and fear.

What had he done?

His mind rushes away from memories of Ravenhill and now instead to his time in Mirkwood, right when he had saved his dear friends from the giant spiders.

He had dropped his ring then too when shocked, after falling down the tree tangled within the legs of a dead spider. The landing had been harsh and stolen his breath, but uncaring of his possible injuries the hobbit had realized in a second his ring was gone and he became frenzied.

Bilbo remembers seeing that horrid, misshapen beast of a thing crawl out from its burrow and step on leaf litter right next to his ring. He does not remember exactly what he did, not without feeling uneasy and heart pounding, but Bilbo does again remember what happened directly after.

Horror, at himself. Bilbo remembers holding the ring up to the dead creature’s general face area after ruthlessly stabbing it to death, taunting it with a viperous, hissed mine. Bilbo remembers pressing a hand over his mouth to keep himself from getting sick as he closed his other hand around the ring again.

This- this was not him. Bilbo is not violent or bloody or angry or any of this! He’s a gentle hobbit for Yavanna’s sake! He wouldn’t just- he couldn’t do something like that again.

But he did, Bilbo realizes all too suddenly, looking up with a tear streaked, terrified face at the dwarrow around him. He did do that again, and Bilbo feels so ill he briefly sways in place and he’s sure he sees spots in his vision as his hyperventilating gets worse.

Wordlessly, Bilbo turns towards Kili again, now noticing his mother beside him and with a protective arm braced across his center, ready to push herself to the front and protect her son. She’s- Valar, she was looking at Bilbo like he was the most vile creature she’s ever had the displeasure of encountering.

He’s not sure if he chokes, coughs, or wheezes for a moment but Bilbo nearly collapses flat on his face in that moment. Fear of what he has done morphs into what Dis will do, and to him no less.

She’s a formidable dwarf, Bilbo’s sister-in-law, and to have her ire directed at him is sure to mean a special kind of pain.

“I-” Bilbo manages to gasp out, but even that takes all his fading breath and he frantically wheezes to try and reclaim it. He coughs, noticing distantly that the pain in his nose- and really his whole body- must be the cause of the blood droplets dripping off his face. “I don’t- what is- I, I can’t-”

The hobbit is coherent now, his fractured mind still putting every piece of what he did during his raging episode slotting together, furthering his horror.

And then Bilbo remembers, sharp and terrified, of those he injured.

The ring- oh by the Valar does Bilbo want to cast that thing in the furthest depths of Middle Earth, far away from his touch and sight. He wishes nothing more than to rid himself of the awful golden band, but he can’t- is closed in one hand, knuckles white with the force he presses into them. Bilbo struggles to get upright, stumbling to one side and reaching out as his imperfect balance has him falling back down.

But the arm he throws out is dodged as if it were a horrid plague, the dwarrow nearest to the hobbit jumping back from him. Bilbo chokes as he falls back down to the floor, wheezing at his hard landing but struggling to push himself upright once again in spite of it.

His second attempt is successful, and Bilbo sways on his feet as he looks to the other side of his young nephew and sister-in-law. And what he sees has him stumbling yet again, feet pedaling backwards in half committed steps of horror.

His dear friend, Nori, with his silly hair and usually mischievously glinting eyes, is slightly hunched over and pressing a hand to his side. His side which is bleeding because Bilbo remembers swinging his dagger across his side in his frenzied state.

“ Nori-?” He croaks, quiet and horrified.

The dwarf stares at him, wide eyed and- while not outright horrified like Kili looks to be- fearful, like Bilbo was a warg, crouched and ready to pounce upon him.

Then, with a sense of dread so strong Bilbo stops breathing entirely in the moment, the hobbit looks downward, where he now remembers he attacked something else, someone else.

“Thorin,” Bilbo whimpers through his wheezing and tears. He slips the ring into his pocket without thinking, nearly dropping it from all his shaking, and stumbles towards his husband.

Thorin is not entirely still, but he may as well be seeing how badly he looks to be struggling to even turn his direction. His nephew, Fili, is by his side and trying to stem the horrid rushing of blood from his weeping shoulder wound, as is Oin who the hobbit had not noticed before. The dwarrow are whispering to each other, trying to corral Thorin into a position into which they can best bind or at least somewhat treat the large gash across the top of his shoulder.

Bilbo’s sudden, anguished whimper has Fili snapping his gaze up, frantic concern for his uncle morphing quickly into fear.

Fili was scared and it was all because of Bilbo.

“Fili,” the hobbit gasps, tears clouding his vision and disgust aimed at himself choking him. “What did- I didn’t mean to. I just- it’s-”

Bilbo stops, wheezing and feeling seconds away from being ill, entire body trembling, and looks down at his husband.

Thorin’s coat had been shed sometime during the party as he was only clad in his shirt and vest, both of which were torn and bloodied so thoroughly that they had morphed multiple shades darker, nearly black. He was facing nearly away from Bilbo, but upon his slipping footfall and panicked wheezing, the dwarf king turned to look at him.

Bilbo cries out, clamping both hands over his mouth in horror and knees nearly buckling.

Thorin, his lovely, dear husband, has blood all over the side of his face, the liquid leaking from a slash across his left side. From nearly the base of his ear to his cheek, some finger widths below the center of his eye, Thorin has a dagger wound and it’s from him.

The shock and fear and rather everything becomes too much for him, and Bilbo drops his hands from his face and moves towards his husband who still lays on the floor and is being hovered over by his nephew and healer.

“Thorin-” Bilbo whispers, just a few steps away and shuffling forward.

But then Thorin does something Bilbo’s only seen once before on his face, and these past memories rush forward with such speed the hobbit loses progress towards his husband and instead stumbles backward.

Betrayal, the same variety of it Bilbo had seen on the ramparts when he told a gold-sick Thorin he had pawned the Arkenstone off to Bard and Thranduil.

Bilbo remembers those moments, the hands Thorin had fisted into his shirt and held him over the wall with. The lack of fear that was directed at the dwarf threatening his life but rather the terror that he’d fully lost his real Thorin, forever stuck in the depths of a dragon’s curse.

But now he couldn’t fear losing his husband to madness; Bilbo had no choice but to recognize he had lost himself in his own madness. Of a different variety than a dragon’s gold-sickness, but dangerous just as Smaug’s curse was.

“Oh- oh Valar,” Bilbo whispers, continuing to step backwards, away from his injured husband, a bleeding Nori, and the remaining horrified faces of his other friends and family. He makes it only a few feet away when his foot catches an object on the floor, slick and half sticky, and Bilbo slips.

He falls to the floor, wheezing back in its full, hyperventive force, and Bilbo eyes his bloodied dagger with wild eyes.

It’s Nori’s blood, it’s Thorin’s blood, and it’s all over his dagger. It’s all over his hands.

Unable to get up again, Bilbo scoots along the floor, kicking out with his feet and dragging himself back on his hands.

“I- I didn’t- why would- I-” he rambles incoherently, gaze fixed entirely on Thorin’s pale, bloody face and his heartbroken, betrayed eyes.

Suddenly, from his side, hands grab Bilbo’s arm and yank him upright. In his terror- Yavanna, Thorin looks so devastated; he’s so pale and it only makes the blood on his face that much more vivid- the hobbit screeches out a breathless no! but whoever has him restrained does not falter.

Bilbo is dragged, away from the crowd, away from his friends and family, away from Thorin, wheezing and kicking and shaking the whole way.

“Thorin!” He cries out, not sure if he’s wriggling for escape so he can rush to his husband’s side or so he can just collapse on the floor undisturbed in his horrible misery. “Thorin please! I didn’t mean to- Thorin!”

The dwarf- he does not care to figure out who it is, he’s got other things to think about- dragging him pulls him out of a grand doorway and around a corner, leaving Bilbo unable to see his husband and only the shocked, grim faces of the other dwarrow in the room. And that’s all it takes for him, body going lax and his fight drained so entirely he’s sure his breath is completely gone.

Bilbo lets the dwarf restraining him drag his limp body across the floor, hands pressing against his face as he sobs.

By the Valar-

“-what did I do?”

Chapter Text

While Thorin may, by all appearances, seem- and, in some cases, actually be- oblivious he is by no means an idiot.

He is not fooled by his husband’s attempt to mask his anxieties when he enters their shared chambers, nor does he honestly believe Bilbo when he reassures him many times his ill mood is simply due to ‘nerves’, as he so excused it.

Thorin has seen the dampened mood that hung over his husband many months ago, and was very relieved when Bilbo had come to him for help.

But no matter the trust the hobbit had put in him for guidance, nor the hopes that Oin would know his ailment, there was no cure to Bilbo’s growing unease and, from what Thorin could tell, paranoia.

Thorin had no way to know what he looked like, how he sounded or acted like when he was in the thralls of the dragon’s accursed gold-sickness. And none of the company seems sturdy enough to weather his questions about his time when he wasn’t in his right mind.

Even Balin, ever trustworthy and always willing to give Thorin his honest opinion, seemed to shy away from truly explaining the true grit of his worst moments while under the possession of his gold induced mania.

“You just- you simply weren’t yourself, laddie.” Balin said with a sad look and shake of the head. “It’s best you not bother yourself with what you can’t change and focus on better things.”

Thorin could, and did, get his information from another dwarf, however; Dwalin was an excellent, painfully blunt with the truth, source of information in which to learn about his gold-sickness.

HIs closest friend did not hold back on explaining how sickly Thorin looked, how possessed he acted, while in the depths of a dragon’s curse. The fiery gleam in his eye, the paranoia and spitting fury about betrayals and untrustworthy kin. And of course, the case of one Bilbo Baggins.

Thorin was nearly sick upon hearing Dwalin explain how he went from mania to fury and shook their dear hobbit over the ramparts like he was naught more than a startled rabbit.

But his friend was equally as stern at reminding Thorin that those affected by his gold-sick induced actions had long since and easily forgiven him, Bilbo especially. He had no reason to blame himself for things he had no control over and or power to fix.

The descriptions of his illness, however, stuck in Thorin’s mind. And while he had gradually gotten over and even forgotten some of Dwalin’s words, they came rushing back upon the sight of Bilbo’s recent behaviour.

His husband, after first coming to him with his concerns about his worsening mood, had declined in a slow but steady manner. Thorin remembers his best friend’s description of a dragon’s gold curse when he watched Bilbo look over his shoulder with shifting eyes. When his husband occasionally mouthed words, not actually saying anything and nothing Thorin could make out, but still a worrying habit for the hobbit to pick up.

Bilbo had done an excellent job in suppressing his worsening health of the mind, Thorin can admit that. After all the, as it was called by his husband, fretting in hopes to rid his hobbit of his ‘season induced illness’, Bilbo seemed to get at least a little better.

But in the past week or so Thorin had seen the signs surfacing again, with more vigor than he was ready to handle.

Bilbo had gone from the occasional glance at a corner to a constant worrying over his shoulder, eyes darting restlessly between one place or dwarf to another. His hands never seemed to stop fiddling, with what Thorin was not exactly sure of, but he assumed it to be his husband’s ring. 

Mouthing of words became whispered speaking, mutters of- from only when Thorin could catch his husband unaware and still thinking he was alone in his worrying habits- repetition. No’s and mine’s were commonplace in Bilbo’s whispers, something which greatly troubled the dwarf king.

Thorin, only two days ago, had been discrete in meeting with Nori and asking the thief- spy now, since Erebor was nearly in her full glory and one could never run a kingdom without spies keeping an ear out for any would-be dethroning attempts- to have his brother scour the library for anything on a dragon’s gold-sickness.

While cautious of involving his younger brother, Ori, into such an odd and plainly dangerous topic, Nori had relented when Thorin revealed he was greatly worried for Bilbo’s declining mind.

Earlier that day, while in one of the darker hallways of Erebor’s many paths, Nori had found Thorin once more to discuss what his brother had found.

By Ori’s research, there was no account of anyone but Thorin and his grandfather, Thror, being affected by a dragon’s sickness, at least in the past centuries. And even then the older tales and accounts only mentioned dwarrow, in some cases, elves, and the dragons themselves which were the cause of the sickness.

So, disappointingly, there was no known case of a Hobbit catching gold-sickness, nor was there ever any proof they even could.

But Nori had given Thorin a concerned look and told the king that he too was worried about their hobbit’s odder than normal behavior. The spy encouraged him to withdraw Bilbo from his duties as Erebor’s consort- perhaps another source of stress which was further draining his mind- and have him seen by someone outside the mountain who had more experience with such ailments, namely and most importantly Gandalf.

But to their displeasure the Grey Wizard seemed to be unbothered by Thorin’s letter from weeks past, saying that Bilbo was probably ill at ease due to the ferocity of this year's winter and simply longing for his favoured, warm summer days.

Thorin did not trust Gandalf’s judgement, feeling irritated that despite his favoring of Bilbo he still brushed off his worries about his husband’s behaviour. So he decided that after their most current event- a gathering between himself, the company, and the highest officials of Erebor- he would speak privately with Bilbo about his declining mind and their choices in which they could get help or treatment for such behaviours.

A decision which, upon having stepped into his chambers earlier that night, was confirmed to be correct because his hobbit seemed moments away from crying had he not interrupted.

Thorin let Bilbo excuse away his bad mood and let him believe he was thoroughly distracted from the topic. But the dwarf king could not help but worry, and throughout the event he made many excuses that allowed him to slip away and check on his husband.

By all luck, Bilbo did not seem too nervous or odd-minded as he had earlier in the night while in the privacy of their bedchambers. It seemed that socializing and a bit of drinking had loosened his husband’s anxiety. Throughout his many check-ins with his hobbit, Thorin could not sense the lingering, almost-dragon’s sickness in Bilbo’s words or actions.

Now it was much later into the night and the mood was quieting down to something much more manageable and relaxing than it had been in its earlier hours. Thorin even found himself letting go of his anxiety over his husband and his recent decline of the mind, trusting that as the gathering drew closer to an end Bilbo would be content with drunkenness and happy to settle down into bed for a long sleep.

And for that reason, Thorin does not check up on his husband as quickly as he had been earlier.

The dwarf king finds himself content in a conversation with Bofur- now one of the heads of Erebor’s mining guild- and a few other dwarrow of a similar standing as the miner. And while Thorin feels no push to go seek out Bilbo on his own, he does catch a glimpse of said hobbit scurrying through the crowd and that’s enough excuse for him to leave.

“Excuse me,” he says, giving his companions a nod. “I must go, but I’ll speak to you later and continue our conversation.”

The other dwarrow give him understanding words and similarly respectful nods, but Thorin catches the knowing look Bofur throws his way; all the company know by now the dwarf king’s obsession with his husband and insistence of being near the hobbit.

Narrowing his gaze at the miner- while Bofur knows better than to tease him in the company of others, Thorin can never be too sure- and walks off to follow his husband through the crowd.

Bilbo is moving at a committed pace, but Thorin cannot tell what his husband is after exactly. He seems to be cutting through the crowd at random spots, always pausing for a moment before turning away and looking in another direction.

Thorin is following behind Bilbo for nearly a minute before a large, heavily accessorized dwarf steps in his husband’s path.

The dwarf king knows the dwarf in question, a friendly and smart fellow named Rolin who was the exact type of dwarf Bilbo would take company in. Rolin is a loud voiced but very quick witted dwarf and Thorin knows he would have no problem keeping up with his husband’s witty humor and particular skill in all things political.

But instead of seeing Bilbo engage in conversation with a dwarf he easily should be, Thorin watches his husband grow still and tense. It was as if he had been struck, frozen in place either in fear or rage.

Considering that Bilbo’s hands look to be curling into tight, almost shaking fists, Thorin guesses the latter and quickens his pace towards his husband.

“Bilbo,” he calls out calmly, despite his growing worry for his husband’s behaviour and mood. The three of them- Bilbo, Rolin, and a female dwarf Thorin does not know but assumes was with his husband- move to look at him.

Whatever growing anger was festering in Bilbo seems to drop at the sight of Thorin marching his way, and the hobbit starts to give him a familiar, loving smile when he’s bumped into and stumbles to the side.

The female dwarf closest to him seems to move to catch Bilbo before he falls, and his husband’s mouth opens like he’s about to give her his thanks, when Thorin sees the glint of something familiar fall from his hobbit’s hand.

Bilbo’s ring, unassuming in looks but powerful in its invisibility magic, must make some small metallic noise that Thorin cannot hear over the drone of the gathering and crowd around him. But the ring nonetheless does start to roll and lands just a pace away from Thorin.

Thorin, unbothered by the action, leans over to pick up the golden band, intent on handing it back to his husband before announcing to the nearest dwarrow they would be retiring for the night, when he’s tackled.

The moment his back meets the hard floor Thorin is ready to throw his attacker off, years of defending himself and his people rising up, but he stops just short.

Because there, poised above him with the cruelest, most furious expression he’s ever seen on him, is Bilbo. His husband, sneering down at the dwarf king something vicious.

Before Thorin can figure out what’s happening, ask his husband what exactly he’s doing, there’s small and deft hands crushing his throat and nails digging into his skin.

“No,” is all Bilbo hisses, eyes alight with a fury Thorin has never seen on his face. Not even when the company first barged into his smial, rude and ill mannered about their host’s home; not even when Thorin suggested he go to the Shire and finally return home only to be lectured about stubborn dwarrow, family, and home. Never had Thorin seen this emotion in Bilbo, and it struck fear deep in his heart.

Thorin feels Bilbo tense, fingers curling and arm muscles coiling as if he is about to bash his head against the floor, when a set of hands grab the manic hobbit’s arm and yank him off the dwarf king’s chest.

Dori, having been nearby in the crowd and no doubt rushing over to see what the commotion was all about, attempts to speak with the hobbit after pulling him off Thorin. He begins to turn Bilbo to face him as Thorin starts to push himself back up.

“Bilbo,” Dori half whispers, harsh and confused. “What’s the matter with you? What happ-”

But before the dwarf can say anything further, Thorin watches his husband’s face twist- his eyes haven’t left Thorin once, burning and hateful as they are. That, or Bilbo’s focused entirely on the ring he had attempted to pick up- before he reaches towards the side of his coat.

Thorin knows what he’s reaching for, and his eyes widen and he rushes to get up.

“Bilbo don’t-!” He barely gets out before his husband is pulling out his dagger and slashing it at Dori’s arm.

The dwarf pushes away in shock and pain, not expecting Bilbo of all people to pull a blade on him let alone use it. A growing line of red soaks Dori’s sleeve, blood pooling instantly from the relatively small but vicious slash.

The crowd gathered around them all react loudly in surprise, most moving to shove themselves away from the scene of a bloody dwarf and vicious hobbit. The only ones who seem to try and act upon Bilbo again are two dwarrow that had been closest to Dori- perhaps friends or conversation partners to the dwarf before their hobbit’s attack- and they grab Bilbo’s arms.

Bilbo makes an angry, animalistic noise and lunges directly at one of the dwarrow, knocking them to the floor in a rush and Thorin watches as his husband raises his already bloodied dagger as he prepares to bring it down on his victim's face

In an instant, Nori and Fili are leaping at Bilbo, the spy tackling the hobbit off of what would be his second victim as the prince tries wrestling the blade from his uncle’s hand. Thorin watches, all in dumb and confused shock, as his friend and nephew manhandle a writhing, furious looking Bilbo; the two dwarrow Thorin does not know make haste in shoving themselves away and further back in the crowd.

“Bilbo.” Nori hisses, despite his strength seeming to struggle to completely pin the writhing hobbit. Or, more likely, afraid of using his full strength and injuring Bilbo. “Stop it! Bilbo what are you doing?”

Thorin lets himself settle on his knees, mind reeling at the sight of his husband pinned to the floor and raging over something as trivial as a ring.

A golden ring, he realizes with a jolt and looks hauntingly down at the simple metallic band in his palm.

Dragon sickness was a cursed, sinful thing. Thorin knew what it entailed, if only by explanation from others, but he knew it all the same. And here he saw it now, in the empty eyes of his husband as he seethed and wrestled with his friends and family over a simple golden ring.

“Uncle Bilbo please,” Fili attempts to console, fighting his uncle’s near death grip on the handle of his bloodied blade. “Just let me have the dagger.”

But before either Thorin, Nori, or Fili can stop him, Bilbo twists away. He yanks his wrist away from his nephew’s attempts to take his weapon and tucks his arm close to his chest as he twists and bucks.

Nori shouts and falls off of Bilbo, a hand coming to his side and Thorin sees the blood which pools from a long, deep gash across the dwarf’s side. Startled by his intent to attack even his closest friends, Fili pedals away from his uncle and moves to push his brother and mother- who had come over at some point due to all the yelling and commotion, as had many other dwarrow and members of the company- further back from the manic, dagger wielding hobbit.

Thorin is about to get up and attempt on his own to pin, or maybe somehow console, his husband from his fury, but Bilbo turns to him as soon as Nori has been cast off him.

Quick as he ever has been, Thorin’s husband pushes himself up and launches at him with an enraged shout. The hobbit’s dagger is raised, and Thorin has nothing to protect himself with, so the best he can manage is a twist that will leave the blade missing his face.

The dagger instead digs deep into the top of his shoulder, and Thorin gives a pained shout as Bilbo yanks it out, slashing part of his back in the process of removing his weapon.

“It’s mine!” His husband all but shouts before swinging his blade again, this time in an upwards angle and clipping the side of Thorin’s face.

On reflex Thorin brings his hands up to further guard his face from injury, and in doing so drops the thing that caused the mania in Bilbo in the first place- the ring.

The golden band falls lightly to the floor and quicker than an angry dragon with its hoard, Bilbo dives upon it and scurries away.

Thorin collapses on his back on the floor, exhausted, confused, overwhelmed and in pain. His eldest nephew, Fili, is bold enough to burst from the crowd to be at his side, as is Oin who comes rushing over from a direction Thorin cannot see.

From his ringing ears, Thorin can make out- for he cannot see his husband from his position staring up at the ceiling- the heavy panting of Bilbo and his venomous voice.

“It’s mine,” his hobbit repeats, tone biting. Bilbo pants between his words and his voice sounds nothing like the light, flowery one he knows his husband by.

Now his voice is raspy and angry and something Thorin finds to be chillingly dragconic.

“It’s mine.” Bilbo repeats from behind Thorin some distance away. “You cannot have it, it’s my precious.”

It sends chills down his spine, to hear his husband speak in such a tone, and Thorin sees his nephew feels the same. Though focused on helping Oin tend to his uncle’s injuries, Fili looks up briefly, wide eyed, at his other uncle in shock.

Nobody says anything after Bilbo’s words, not even the hobbit himself. The hall, moments ago filled with the calming din of a dwindling, late party is now forgotten and deathly silent. A few murmurs in the crowd reach Thorin’s ears, but they are faint and fearful as if being too loud will get them attacked by the blade wielding, manic hobbit.

Thorin, with the help from his nephew and Oin, slowly moves to sit somewhat upright. Only enough that the healer can better tend to his king’s weeping shoulder wound; his face wound, while bloody, is the lesser of two evils right now so Thorin is not bothered by no care being directed toward it.

Still facing away from his husband, Thorin looks over to his fellow dwarrow, all of whom are either looking at him with open concern or staring widely at Bilbo somewhere behind him. One of the crowd members looking at him though is his sister, Dis, to which they share a look.

His sister is grim faced, eyes stern as she stares at him. Thorin stares back, hoping she gets what he’s saying to her through his gaze.

I don’t know what happened. Bilbo is not ok.

Dis’ brow starts to furrow in concern, but Kili, directly by her side, inhales sharply and takes an aborted, faltering step back. His sister’s gaze snaps away from him and instead to a threat further away, that of her brother-in-law.

Thorin is heartbroken to see his youngest nephew so fearful- especially at Bilbo of all things. He’s not sure he’s seen any creature look at his Hobbitsh husband with anything close to fear before- and his sister so protective, arm pressed across Kili’s center as if she were about to step in front of him.

Thorin focuses on his husband’s panting behind him, attempting to distract himself from the pain Oin’s pressure on the shoulder wound brings or the searching, desperate eyes of his eldest nephew.

Bilbo’s breathing remains heavy, but slowly seems to falter in its pattern. Soon Thorin can tell Bilbo is wheezing more than he is panting from exertion, something he’s not sure if is a good or bad sign in this situation.

The hobbit’s breathing worsens, and after a moment makes a particular loud noise that sounds like a choked gasp.

The metal clatter of something colliding the floor is eerily loud across the hall, and as it slides across the floor he knows it to be his husband’s dagger.

Bilbo makes another breathless, pained noise from wherever he is behind Thorin, which the dwarf king listens to intently. Yet unable to turn and face his husband, Thorin must settle for listening to what his hobbit is doing on his end of the circle made by a stunned crowd.

For the next few slow, painful moments Thorin hears naught but the wheezing of his husband in a growing panic and the stunned murmurs within the crowd around him. But eventually, he hears Bilbo cough- or something along the lines of such a sound- before whispering in a shaking, watery voice.

“I-I don’t- what is-” his husband babbles, his broken voice cutting deep into Thorin’s heart and urging the dwarf king to try turning to face the hobbit. “I, I can’t-”

Thorin hears the shuffling of his husband moving followed soon by the frantic scuffle of many dwarrow boots backing further away; Thorin nearly winces at the sound of a body, no doubt Bilbo’s, falling back to the hard floor after a moment.

Encouraged by his emotions, crying out and as pained for his husband as they are, Thorin turns his neck just enough to incite agony from his shoulder wound and catch a glimpse of Bilbo through the edge of his vision.

The hobbit struggles to stand for what must be a second time, wobbling as if he were a newborn fawn and not yet used to using such limbs. His husband scans the crowd, landing on Nori who is close to Thorin and on the nearest edge of the circling spectators.

Bilbo shudders, stumbling backwards when Thorin assumes he realizes the injury he’s caused to their friend of a spy.

“Nori-?” Thorin’s husband croaks out in his broken, raspy voice.

And then, all too slow, Thorin watches as his husband’s gaze falls down and lands upon him.

A bloodied, ragged mess he is. And although it’s because of Bilbo, Thorin does not care. He worries not over his own injuries but for what plagues his husband so thoroughly it has caused him to attack not only his dearest friends but also his beloved husband. The dwarf king turns to face his hobbit better, hoping that he’ll see some scrap of familiar life in his eyes and not the burning, dead anger from before.

Bilbo, in his own way, is as ruffled as Thorin is. His hands, coat, and vest are all speckled and stained with blood from the hobbit’s attacks. Similarly red are his hands, which Thorin notes are shaking so bad it made him ill to even look at; mixed with tears across his cheeks was a smear of blood trailing down from his nose. No doubt an injury Bilbo received sometime during his spat with the Ri brothers and his eldest nephew.

Thorin, in a rush of concern for his husband and needing to simply be in contact with his hobbit, tenses as he readies to stand up. But Fili’s stern, if only a little shaky, hand squeezes his uninjured shoulder in a way that tells Thorin it would be unwise to get up yet.

When his uncle shuffles forward a half step, Fili snaps his head up and Thorin watches his concern and confusion switch quickly into a fear he seems to share with his brother- something unfamiliar and directed at their usually gentle-souled uncle, Bilbo.

The hobbit takes a stumbling step back upon seeing his nephew’s fearful face, or so Thorin assumes. Bilbo’s face breaks in anguish even further than it already is, tears leaking over his face and mixing with the sticky, not yet clotted blood streaming from his nose.

“Fili,” Thorin’s husband gasps, breaths wheezing and voice faint. “What did- I didn’t mean to. I just- it’s-”

Bilbo seems to choke on his half formed sentences and moves his gaze back over to Thorin himself. And when their eyes meet, the dwarf king finds his heartbreak near physical in its presence, weighing heavy in his chest and tight around his throat- where bruises from Bilbo’s hands are sure to be forming already.

They stare at one another for a moment, Thorin getting closer to tears himself the longer he gazes at his ragged, blood soaked husband. But then Bilbo mutters something too quiet to hear and begins to pedal backwards, shaking his head the whole way and staring at Thorin’s bloodied form with wide eyes.

Bilbo does not seem to be fully aware, whether that be from his gold-sick outburst or his sure to be overwhelming emotions, and trips over the dagger he had cast aside some time earlier. It takes real pressure- and the searing pain of his shoulder being jostled- from Fili to keep his uncle on the floor when his husband falls.

But the hobbit is not content with his distance from Thorin, and instead of attempting to get up he instead slides across the floor.

“I-” Bilbo begins to babble once more, staring brokenly at Thorin who’s own anguished eyes are locked on his. “I didn’t- why would- I-”

Thorin sees movement, fast and determined in the crowd, from the edge of his vision; someone was headed right for Bilbo’s pitiful, retreating form.

Dwalin, though Thorin is not sure where he was before now, breaks from the crowd circling around the hobbit and dwarf king. He doesn’t stop his march as he reaches down to grab Bilbo’s arm, nor does he falter when the hobbit screeches out a terrified “no!”

Thorin makes to get up again with a protesting noise as his husband is dragged away, crying his name like he’s being dragged to his own death.

“Thorin!” Bilbo pleads, voice louder than it had been throughout this whole event. “Thorin please! I didn’t mean to-”

As Dwalin drags him towards the door- to their chambers or to a dungeon cell, Thorin does not know, nor can he decide which is most appropriate right now- Bilbo continues to writhe and kick, his hand weakly pawing at Dwalin’s arm.

Just as they turn the corner out of the room Thorin’s husband gets out a final, terrorized, “Thorin!”

With Dwalin and Bilbo gone, the air of the room seemed to snap from its tension and many of the dwarrow in attendance made to either far edges of the room, huddle closer to their injured king, or make for exits not just used by a hobbit dragged away.

“Uncle-?” Kili’s small voice questions Thorin, to which the dwarf king looks up to his youngest nephew. He sighs though, because he knows what they’re all going to ask him, including Kili, and he only has one theory.

Balin, Dori, Nori, and what Thorin thinks is Bofur’s figure, more to follow out the main door used by Dwalin moments ago, all casting brief, unsettled looks at their king before hurrying off- either to aid Dwalin in corralling a manic Bilbo or to treat the Ri brothers’ injuries.

“I-” Thorin starts, hissing when Oin pulls back the cloth on his shoulder, dried blood peeling at his skin from the movement. “I fear Bilbo has caught Smaug’s dragon sickness.”

There was a burst of noise from the remaining crowd that was gathered around him, but most cries being along the lines of either Hobbits can’t get gold-sickness or Smaug’s been dead for years, he can’t have a sickness on Erebor anymore.

“We need to get you into the healer’s wing,” Oin declares, both at Thorin and Fili who remains hovering by his side. “Bilbo got-” the older dwarf falters for a moment before shaking his head. “You got cut deeply, Thorin. This is going to need stitches, once I clean it.”

A wound so deep it needed stitches, one caused by his beloved, oh so gentle Bilbo; of all the terrors of Middle Earth, Thorin never dreamed his husband of being one.

Dis remained wordless, staring intently at Thorin after his suggestion of a case of a dragon’s gold lust infecting another member of their family’s mind. She feared it as much as he did, with a personal knowledge of a gold-sickness’ effects on the mind and body alike.

They would not let another fall for such an illness, least of all their beloved Bilbo.

Thorin grit his teeth, Fili jumping to help his uncle stand as Oin directed a stern-faced Gloin from the crowd to hold the cloth against Thorin’s shoulder.

“Get my shoulder fixed quickly,” Thorin says, voice pained but determined. His eyes burn from unshed tears and his heart longs for all but one thing.

“Then take me to Bilbo.”

Chapter Text

Dwalin had his numerous doubts about bringing any who were not direct kin on the journey, let alone some random Halfling the wizard apparently favoured.

Upon first seeing him, wrapped in his comfortable gown and staring up at the dwarf on his doorstep as if he were a dragon come to eat him, Bilbo was not within Dwalin’s good graces.

See, he was not a dwarf who pitied the smaller, weaker folk unless they were children. And while the hobbit they brought along was certainly fussy enough to be a child, as far as Dwalin knew Bilbo was a grown hobbit by his race’s standards. So the thought of bringing along a creature who could probably barely lift a sword, someone who had never even left his homelands before, was an unpleasant thing.

But, like the rest of the company, Dwalin grew to like their fretting and anxious companion. It was refreshing, to see Bilbo adapt to life on the road yet not lose himself to its horrors. The only one of them who didn’t grow fond of Bilbo during their early travels was Thorin- he scoffs to think of how that turned out; love sick husbands they both were now.

Their hobbit was also the kind of creature with a fast mind and sharp intellect, things which saved their hides far too many times on their journey. The trolls, goblins, Thorin from Azog- twice - the giant spiders of Mirkwood and even the Elvenking’s halls themselves. And even past those greater feats of heroism Bilbo had helped them.

Berries from the princes who had been all too happy to find a snack only to have the hobbit screech in alarm about poisons and death. Helping a fretting Dori convince Ori to not be so upset upon losing their supplies when their ponies had spooked, including his beloved journal. Even when their great king was lost in the throes of Smaug’s accursed gold-sickness, Bilbo had been there to reel him back.

But now something was wrong, and Bilbo was not the hobbit Dwalin had grown to care for.

Staring at the stunned crowd as it makes a wild circle, the dwarf can hear the angry, hissed voice of a familiar creature. And while rushing forward from the other side of the room to see what’s gotten Bilbo sounding so unlike himself, Dwalin also hears other things.

He hears dwarrow shuffling away from something and the panicked tones of other company members. Dwalin has to stop dead in his tracks when he hears Thorin’s fearful, rushed Bilbo no! simply because it seems too much like a dream- never had his closest friend uttered something fearful in regards to his Halfling husband.

Dwalin moves only close enough to see most of what’s going on, and feels something close to the dread he felt when Erebor rumbled beneath his feet as Smaug first awoke when he realizes what’s going on.

Thorin, looking stunned and staring at his husband on the floor. The hobbit who is being manhandled by Nori and Fili, hands and clothes spattered with blood and a vicious snarl pulled across his usually happy face.

And he can do nothing further but watch in shock as the situation continues to worsen, his apparent nightmare- because in no world could Bilbo , the most anxious, fretting creature Dwalin’s ever met, be attacking his friends and other dwarrow with the veracity of dragon upon its hoard- spirals.

Bilbo fights off his friend and nephew, injuring Nori on his way up, before slashing his husband in the shoulder with a furious noise. The hobbit hisses some words about something being mine! before swiping the dagger Thorin had given him across the dwarf king’s face.

That has Dwalin pushing his way up through the stunned crowd because no matter his love for Bilbo he cannot simply let the Halfling maim Thorin as if he were naught but a wild animal.

But then he sees the hobbit dive to the floor, scrambling to pick something up with his bloodied hands before scurrying away from his victims. And what Bilbo says has him faltering, remembering a close friend who had nothing but hatred and paranoia in his eye with fury in his words when he spoke of Erebor’s gold.

“It’s mine. It’s mine.” The hobbit says angrily, directed at no dwarf in particular. Dwalin is closer than he was before and can just barely make out the manic look in Bilbo’s eye; he looks just like Thorin after they had entered Erebor and had fallen deep into Smaug’s sickness. “You cannot have it, it’s my precious.”

Had- had Bilbo truly fallen into something as sinister as dragon’s sickness? Dwalin hadn’t even thought such a creature like Bilbo would be capable of being affected by such evil things, seeing as Halflings seemed to be some of the purest creatures in the whole of Middle Earth.

Dwalin is shocked into stillness again, trying to piece it all together.

Bilbo had just viciously attacked his friends and his husband, leaving multiple bloody and seriously injured. He looked wild and rabid, like a frenzied and agitated dragon upon its golden hoard. Their hobbit was only scales and wings away from being a true dragon at this rate, missing only the body of such a beast and making up for one’s fury and greed easily on his own.

Dwalin, as is the rest of the crowd of dwarrow circled around their king and the manic hobbit, is stuck in place as he watches Bilbo slowly come back to himself. Unable to look away as the Halfling babbles and wheezes about not meaning to and things along that line of reason, eyes wide with terror rather than draconic rage now.

It’s only when Bilbo is shuffling himself along the floor after falling, spiraling into some other episode of his, that Dwalin realizes the hobbit cannot stay here.

Dangerous enough was his outburst that made him attack his dearest friends and even Thorin, the hobbit risks his own life by coming back into his own mind. Other dwarrow would be quick to get over their shock upon seeing their frenzied consort and no doubt be equally as quick in retaliating for Bilbo’s violence.

Should the others in the hall see Bilbo was no longer a small, rabid creature uncaring of who he harmed and instead a sniveling, wheezing mess of tears and shaking, he would be attacked himself. And no matter what the Halfling has done to them, to Thorin most of all, Dwalin cannot let BIlbo be taken out like that.

So with the grim face of a dwarf marching to his own death, Dwalin breaks through the crowd and snatches Bilbo’s arm before dragging him off.

The hobbit’s panicked cries to his husband, the one he had maimed only moments before and whose blood stained his hands, makes Dwalin want to falter. Because he’s not dragging a dragon cursed, gold-sick Bilbo down the hall, he’s dragging a terrified, begging to see his husband Bilbo away. He’s not feral in this moment, and Dwalin is handling Erebor’s favorite hobbit as if he were still a mindless animal.

Only when Bilbo whimpers out a broken what did I do? does Dwalin look down at the Halfling- now limp in the limbs and sobbing with force into his hands- and he truly takes in what he looks like.

He’s covered in blood, of course, but there’s some that isn’t just from Thorin or his other victims. Bilbo has blood smeared across his face from a nose injury of some kind and the dwarf is sure beneath the blood and ruffled clothing there are going to be other nicks and bruises from the hobbit’s animalistic outburst.

His usually somewhat-tamed curls are all over the place and tangled up like a particularly unruly brush, strands hanging across his face or sticking out from behind his ears. Dwalin wonders at what point Bilbo will truly come back to himself, not the sobbing mess he is now, and begin fretting over the blood staining his coat or spattered across his vest.

Unsure if trying to console the sobbing hobbit he’s dragging will either leave him screaming or begging for answers, Dwalin clenches his jaw and continues to move down the grand halls of Erebor.

He’s angry that someone, let alone Bilbo, would attack Thorin so viciously; Dwalin’s upset that a creature he finds to be a long time and good friend has fallen in the throes of a dragon’s sickness and is covered in the blood of his friends and husband.

But despite the warring emotions, Dwalin doesn’t take Bilbo down to the dungeons with their dark cells. As much as the hobbit could be argued to deserve it, after attacking and seriously injuring many including the king, Dwalin can’t bring himself to do it.

Bilbo hadn’t held Thorin’s ill actions against him when he was under Smaug’s gold curse, not even when he was nearly thrown over the ramparts for it. Dwalin must give the Halfling the same chance as he recovers from his gold-sick fueled outburst, let him have the same chance he gave Thorin after nearly killing him for the Arkenstone madness.

So instead Dwalin is moving to put Bilbo back in his chambers, the one he shares with Thorin.

It’s a large enough space the hobbit won’t feel as if he’s being imprisoned, and maybe having a familiar place will help calm the Halfling down enough they can begin speaking with him.

The King and Consort’s bedchambers were also one of these most protected areas in all of Erebor, meaning Bilbo can be safe from outraged dwarrow or- Dwalin ponders worriedly, looking down at the still limp and sobbing hobbit he drags- from himself, should such a thing be needed.

He turns down the hall which leads to Bilbo and Thorin’s room and is nearly stopped by the guards patrolling. Upon realizing who Dwalin is, however, and seeing the bloody, limp mess of a consort he’s dragging, they hesitantly pull away.

“Don’t let any but members of the royal family and company-” every dwarrow knows exactly who was amongst the group that reclaimed Erebor and remembers them very well by name of the company- “in these halls until further notice and get an extra set of guards in front of the King’s chambers.”

Still looking at the sobbing mess that is Bilbo, the pair of guards seem to hesitate, stuck staring at the bloody hobbit; emotions already frayed and patience thinned, Dwalin snaps.

“Now!” He barks harshly, sending the guards scrambling to obey his orders and off to find another round of guards to patrol the hall.

Dwalin continues his path down the hall, doing his best to be gentle while dragging Bilbo along, and doesn’t have to say anything for a second set of guards to open the King’s chambers for him. They both stare at Bilbo and Dwalin with wide, confused eyes, as expected but are wordless when they close the doors behind the dwarf and the Halfling he drags beside him.

In the grandness of Thorin’s bedchambers, Bilbo’s sobbing is louder than ever.

Dwalin is not entirely sure what to do now, having gotten Erebor’s consort out of immediate danger and isolated enough he could not harm another. He’s not the type well versed in consoling others in any situation let alone when someone was sobbing such as Bilbo was, all breathless and whimpering.

Feeling more awkward than confused over the whole thing now- not to say he isn’t still confused, he very much is. But Dwalin has himself focus on the current moment rather than the cluster of chaos that was the rest of Bilbo’s episode- Dwalin hesitates in dragging Bilbo around any further.

He attempts to let go of the hobbit, but Bilbo seems content to remain limp and let himself be sprawled pitifully across his room’s floor. Grimacing at the lack of movement besides shuddering sobs, Dwalin attempts to rouse Erebor’s consort.

“Bilbo,” he says flatly, and upon speaking the Halfling tenses and appears to try muffling his sad noises. Worried that he’s now rigid and near silent, Dwalin’s brow furrows and he tries lifting the hobbit to stand on his feet.

“Bil-” is all Dwalin gets out before Bilbo begins to become frantic.

“Don’t touch me!” The hobbit cries and leaps up from his limp state and attempting to throw himself from Dwalin’s hold. Surprised but not caught off guard enough to slip his hold on the Halfling, the dwarf does not release Bilbo, even as he continues to try lunging away.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Bilbo repeats tearfully many times, giving up on trying to leap away and instead cowering as low as he can while his arm is still being held up by Dwalin. “I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry. Just leave me be, go, please. Just go, I’m sorry, I’m so-”

“Bilbo,” Dwalin says, shocked and unsure of how to proceed. He’s never seen the hobbit in such a state before and knows not how to remedy it. It seems that Bilbo does not even realize who is holding him, eyes never having once lifted to Dwalin’s face and instead fixed on either the door- to attempt an escape, no doubt- or at the ground.

He’s saved from trying to figure out what to do next, however, when the doors behind him open; he swings around to see who’s entered, relieved to find his brother accompanied by Bofur in the doorway of the chambers.

Balin looks as grim-faced as Dwalin expects him to be, while Bofur seems much more concerned for Bilbo than he does over the horror of the event that just happened. But it seems both dwarrow are equally intent on helping their hobbit friend and move quickly into the room.

“Bilbo,” Bofur says quietly and crouches low so he’s at Bilbo’s cowering level; when the miner grabs the hobbit’s shoulders, Dwalin releases his grip on his arm and lets Bilbo drop into his friend’s embrace.

Instead of trying to escape it as he did with Dwalin, Bilbo simply curls up, continues to cry, and falls into the tight hug Bofur provides for him.

Those two seemingly busy with each other now, Dwalin turns to look at his brother, who is staring down at Bilbo’s bloody and shaking figure. When he eventually does look up, all Balin does is shake his head and turn his gaze back to their hobbit.

“Thorin thinks he’s fallen into Smaug’s gold curse,” Balin informs his brother quietly, to which Dwalin is not surprised but still stunned such a thing could have even happened.

“Aye,” is all Dwalin can respond with, and he joins his brother in watching as Bofur attempts to calm Bilbo down from his manic sobbing and broken-voiced apologies.

“Bilbo, lad-” the miner tries carefully, holding Bilbo out just far enough to see his face. But the hobbit still keeps his hands pressed tightly against his features and refuses to look at his friend. “-c’mon now. You’re alright now, it’s all over, isn’t it? Why don’t we-”

“I’m sorry,” is all Bilbo replies with and makes an upset noise when Bofur retarcs one hand from his shoulder to instead rub his arm worriedly. “Oh I’m so sorry, I truly am. I- I hadn’t thought it’d happen again let alone with you lot. Oh Yavanna- I’m so sorry.”

“Again?” Balin and his brother repeat at the same time, equally as startled by the hobbit’s words.

Had Bilbo fallen into gold-sickness before this outburst? Had the Halfling attacked someone else and they hadn’t yet heard of it? In spite of the brothers’ concern, Bofur continues trying to console his- arguably, considering the bond he and Bilbo had formed very early on in their journey- best friend.

“Bilbo really,” the miner says while hugging the hobbit close, still rubbing one arm gently as Bilbo continues to cry into his hands. “You really ought to calm yourself, lad. Once it’s all settled you’ll see that everyone’s fine and-”

“I killed Thorin!” Bilbo cries before curling up on himself. The pain in his voice cuts even into Dwalin’s heart, and the three dwarrow in the room seem equally as surprised by the sheer emotions and raised volume Bilbo expresses.

“Oh laddie,” Balin says quietly, finally moving closer and resting a gentle hand on the Halfling’s shoulder. “You didn’t kill him. Thorin’s quite alright, Bilbo, just a little nicked up.”

“I saw him,” Bilbo whimpers into his hands, still stained and smearing a mix of his own and other dwarrow’s blood across his face. “I saw him, he was so- he was covered in- I- it-”

The hobbit seemed to spiral back into incoherent babbling, making both Balin and Bofur’s faces twist worriedly. The miner holds Bilbo out again, ducking his head to try and catch his friend’s gaze as Balin moves to hold the hobbit’s shoulder tighter.

“Bilbo-” Bofur says just as Dwalin’s brother starts to say, “laddie-” but Bilbo begins to shake.

“I- it- there was- and Thorin had-” the hobbit’s voice seemed to be getting thinner, and his hands were slowly drooping from his face; Erebor’s consort gasps for air between every stuttered word. “And- and Dis was- and Nori. Is Thorin- will he-”

“Balin,” Dwalin cautions, and just as he does, Bilbo flutters his eyes and drops limp into Bofur’s hold.

The miner makes a noise of surprise and Balin moves away in shock, eyes wide with concern. He backs up until he stands beside Dwalin once more, but even then the older dwarf seems startled beyond his words.

Bilbo now passed out- just like he had that night they all barged into his home. A fretting little thing he was then, and though it’s a concerning thing, Dwalin’s somewhat relieved the Halfling has stressed himself so much he’s no longer conscious- and Bofur worrying over his limp form, the room falls into a tense quietness.

After realizing the extent of Bilbo’s faint, Bofur moves to pick the hobbit up and move him somewhere more comfortable than the floor beneath them. Dwalin moves to help him, but then remembers that despite being a toymaker most days, Bofur is, in fact, a well experienced miner and very strong.

Bofur has no trouble scooping the limp hobbit up and moving him to lie on his bed, face smeared with darkened, dried blood and his hands equally as stained. Resting on the soft blankets of his bed, Bilbo looks worse than he ever has- bloodied, tear streaked, and fragile.

Despite it being very much not his room, Bofur is quick to drag a chair over to the bedside and make himself comfortable next to his passed out friend. His usual gloved hands are bare and gentle as they hold one of Bilbo’s bloodied ones, eyes drifting from the hobbit’s hand and up to his equally as rough looking face.

Not that Thorin would mind Bilbo’s best friend sitting by his bedside, even if said bed was in the royal chambers. Dwalin’s not sure the dwarf king’s going to care about anything other than his husband for a great long while, as they all are sure to be.

After a quiet few minutes, Balin sighs and shakes his head again.

“Try cleaning the blood of him, laddie.” He directs to a still startled looking Bofur, who turns to look at the dwarf speaking to him. “His face especially. Hopefully when he-”

Balin pauses, and when Dwalin looks down at his brother he sees the same expression he’s seen on everyone else in the hall- grief, fear, concern, confusion- before he looks away from the hobbit laid on the bed.

“When he wakes up, he’ll feel a little better and he can talk to us.”

Bofur nods and looks back to his friend but seems content to spend another moment or two by Bilbo’s side before getting up and listening to Balin’s suggestion.

Balin moves towards the exit, hand grabbing Dwalin’s arm as he passes.

“Come, brother,” he says quietly, “we have letters to write.”

Chapter Text

Thorin is not at all relieved to hear that Bilbo has passed out, and Kili’s sure the only thing keeping his uncle from leaping up from his seat is Dwalin’s stern hand on his uninjured shoulder.

“Easy, laddie,” Balin consoles the near frantic dwarf king, ignoring the affronted glare Thorin sends his way for suggesting he be calm after hearing his husband fainted. “Bofur’s with him now, he’ll be quite alright.”

The healers’ wing is a quiet rush of movement and low noise around them, and Kili spies all three Ri brothers on the other side of the room. Despite having his own injury- and arm wrapped with bandages over his own wound- Dori is fretting to near obsession over Nori as his side is treated; Ori, standing on Nori’s other side from where the middle brother is laid, wrings his hands nervously near his chest, eyes wide and locked on Nori’s bloody gash.

Kili looks away from the set of brothers when Balin sighs, body taunt with concern and still fading adrenaline.

“Thorin, we need to send requests for help.” The eldest dwarf says to his king, who is still being hovered over by Oin as his shoulder is stitched; Kili does not know how his uncle does little but furrow his brow in discomfort as the needle dips in and out of skin. “We have no means in which to cure a dragon’s sickness on our own.”

“We did before!” Gloin protests, though his interruption is probably more out of stress than it is actually disagreeing with Balin’s suggestion of getting Bilbo help. “Thorin was brought back from Smaug’s curse without help, surely we can-”

“Because Bilbo saved him,” Kili interrupts, looking at the red haired dwarf with a stricken face. “It was uncle Bilbo who brought Thorin back from his gold-sickness.”

Every dwarf seems to grow quiet at that, and the youngest prince’s face falls as he looks down at the floor, upset and anxious over the whole thing.

“If Bilbo’s sick now, I’m not sure what could help him.”

“Which is why we need to send for aid,” Balin replies to Kili’s soft spoken statement, looking back at Thorin with a seriousness they all share.

“And who would have knowledge of a dragon’s curse better than our own?” Thorin asks, voice gruff and eyes downcast. “The Grey Wizard is at least weeks away from Erebor, if not further considering his tendency to wander. Lord Elrond-” and it’s a surprise that Kili sees no twisted faces upon hearing of an elf, but in the case of Bilbo’s health he’s also not shocked no other dwarrow seem to cling to their ill will of the high race- “is months travel away, despite being one of Middle Earth’s best healers.”

Balin thins his lips and remains quiet at Thorin’s words, as do many of the company with them. Kili, of course, along with about half of the company had come with their king to the healers’ quarters; Oin and Gloin had come with Thorin at once, and along the way- probably having heard of the commotion that had happened- were joined by concerned looking Ori and Bifur.

Bifur, upon hearing that his cousin was with Kili’s ill uncle, had moved away and left Ori scurrying over to his injured brothers with a concerned flush in his face.

Kili had been the only one of his family to stay with his uncle in the healers’ wing, however, as both his brother Fili and mother had left with Bifur to the royal chamber to see Bilbo.

He wishes at least one of them had stayed with uncle Thorin and himself; his mother was a strong, steady presence in the wake of chaos such as this. And Fili always seemed to know what to say to his younger brother to soothe his nerves.

But they weren’t here, and Kili instead has to converse about how little help they had in the matter of his sick minded uncle.

“I’ll send a letter to Gandalf,” Balin says eventually, “as he will know best on how to mend Bilbo, even with his far distance. And I can send a letter to Lord Elrond in Rivendell. Perhaps he could write us some advice as how to best-”

Kili suddenly perks up, having thought of another possible source of help for his uncle.

“Tauriel!” The dark haired prince announces, Thorin and Balin both turning to him. “I can ask Tauriel to talk to the Elvenking about Bilbo’s sickness! He’s not that far off and could give us help sooner than-”

“We are not asking the Elvenking for aid,” Thorin interrupts, voice taunt and eyes sharp. “I will not beg an elf, let alone one such as Thranduil, for help in any circumstance.”

Kili’s shoulders drop, as does his face, and he looks at his uncle with every tangled up emotion he has in his heart.

“Uncle,” he says in a quiet voice, “Bilbo is ill. Worse than anything we can cure on our own. We cannot refuse him help just because it comes from an elf such as Thranduil.”

That seems to knock Thorin out of rage directed at his elven neighbor, blinking before realizing what he had suggested- deny his husband the help he needed over a grudge for an elf. The dwarf king shakes his head and then looks down at his boots, the hand on his uninjured side forming a tight fist on his knee.

After a long moment Thorin sighs, and Kili feels hope rise in spite of all his anxieties and concerns over his other uncle.

“Send letters to the wizard, Lord Elrond-” he pauses for half a moment- “and Thranduil. Inform them of Bilbo’s state and inquire if they have any form of aid- written or cure we can produce- as it is something we are in desperate need of.”

Kili all but shakes in place, eyes widened with rising hopes for his uncle Bilbo’s future and improved health, and turns to Balin.

“I can go to Tauriel myself,” he tells the older dwarf, “and have her speak to Thranduil directly so we won’t have to wait for a letter to be written.”

Balin seems uncomfortable at the idea of Kili rushing off to go meet with the she-elf all on his own, but Thorin interrupts any would-be disagreement.

“Go,” is all his uncle says, “see that our need for aid be brought to Mirkwood’s attention, Kili.”

Kili nods and quickly moves out of the room, avoiding any changed minds or further discussions of how and who they would ask for help. The dwarf prince wanders his way down towards the royal wing, intent on doing one thing before rushing out of Erebor in search of Tauriel and her king’s help.

There’s twice as many guards in the halls near his uncles’ room, and Kili is looked at by an extra set of guards at the King’s chamber doors as he is allowed in.

Despite having watched the whole episode and knowing how ragged his uncle was sure to look, Kili is not fully prepared to see Bilbo in the state he is.

Bofur is sat at their hobbit’s side, gently soothing the dried blood off Bilbo’s hands, while his cousin, Bifur, stood behind him; the rag the miner was using to clean his uncle’s hands was stained a dull pink from its use in cleaning.

On the other side of the bed sat his mother, for which Kili was glad to see, but she looked troubled.

Dis is also sat in a chair, but she is leaned forward, hands pressed together and in front of her mouth in serious concentration. Her focus was turned strictly to Bilbo, seeming to ignore Fili’s hand on her shoulder or Kili’s entrance into the room.

His brother, however, is not so focused on their uncle and looks up when he enters the room.

“Kili,” he says in a relieved tone, and Fili is met halfway across the room as the princes share a strong, somewhat desperate hug.

“How is he?” Kili asks quietly when Fili pulls away after a moment, to which his brother sighs.

“Bofur says he was crying and incoherent before he fainted and has been deeply asleep since then. Not even when trying to rouse him or when cleaning his face has Bilbo woken up yet.”

Kili’s heart jumps a little and he resists making his rising concerns more visible than they already are.

Bilbo looks a right mess, clothes bloodied and a tiredness that seems woven into his whole frame even while sleeping. The now visible scratches on his wrists and hands from where he wrestled with Nori and Fili are small but numerous and his uncle’s hair remains as untamed as it was back in the hall during his outburst.

He notes that his uncle has, however, been shed of his coat and jacket, both hanging on the back of a nearby chair and the blood soaked into them a dark reminder of Bilbo’s furious attacks; mostly protected by his other two layers, Bilbo’s simple shirt is nearly free of red stains or spatters.

After a moment of staring at his uncle, Kili turns to his brother.

“I’m riding to Mirkwood,” he announces, to which Fili gives him an odd look. “I’m to ask Tauriel and the Elvenking for advice on what can cure uncle Bilbo from his dragon’s sickness.”

“Right now?” Fili questions slowly, glancing between the other occupants of the room quickly. He turns back to Kili, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It’s nearly the middle of the night, Kili, are you sure you are going to leave right now?”

“Of course,” Kili replies, motioning to their passed out, fragile figure of an uncle on the bed. “Bilbo is ill enough of as is, Fili. I don’t want to wait a moment longer than we have to in means of finding him help.”

His brother says nothing in response, face pinching but no other form of object presented. When the room is quiet for a moment longer Kili looks to his uncle on the bed.

“I only wanted to see Bilbo before I left,” he admits quietly, which has Bofur pausing in his single minded act of cleaning his friend’s hands of blood and Bifur turning to give him a sympathetic look. Kili takes a step back, moving towards the door of the room as if to leave.

“I’m only grabbing my bow and then I’m leaving.” He says, and just as he turns to exit, a quiet, serious voice stops him.

“I’m joining you.”

Kili stops, turning to look behind him and sharing the same surprise as his brother.

“Mother?” Fili questions quietly, but Dis does not acknowledge his curiosity. Even as she stands she does not look away from Bilbo’s still form.

After a second of confusion, Kili is hesitant to speak. “Are you sure, Mother?” He asks softly, to which his mother frowns and her eyes hang onto a certain dark feeling she has within her.

“Bilbo is a member of our family,” Dis states, finally looking up from the hobbit in question and instead to her sons. “And I will not have another one of you stolen by a dragon’s curse.”

It’s hard to ignore the friendship his mother and uncle Bilbo share, even to those not as close as their inner circle is.

Dis is a smart and very opinionated dwarf and Kili knows her to never do anything with moderation. If she is to commit herself something it is to her fullest possible extent, something he knows is a trait she shares with Bilbo.

A hobbit traveling across Middle Earth for a journey he had no obligation to aid was not a small thing, and Kili knows his mother admires Bilbo highly for it.

But even beyond the debt Dis feels she owes to Bilbo for helping not only take back her home but for saving Thorin and her sons through the whole of the journey- especially amidst the battle of Ravenhill- there was a deep friendship between the Hobbit and Dwarf.

Bilbo, in all truth, is probably the best friend his mother has had in a great many years.

“Of course,” Kili says quietly, casting a glance at his brother who seems to come to the same understanding he has. “Are you ready to leave, then, Mother?”

Dis nods and makes for the door, same as her youngest son; as she passes Fili, she brushes her hand over his arm absently but with every intent on being affectionate.

“Grab what you need and we will leave as soon as we can,” she agrees, and marches out of the room and down the hall with Kili at her side. The guards nod as they pass, but Dis ignores them and continues her fast paced steps down the halls of Erebor.

Kili is in high spirits and remains so until he’s in his room and grabs his bow, then he realizes all too sudden that his optimism about this whole thing is wholly improbable.

Even if Thranduil agrees to help them in curing his uncle’s illness, it’s no sure thing the elf will even have such a remedy. Though he doubts the Elvenking would ignore a plea for help in the name of Bilbo- who’s told Kili himself about the Elvenking’s odd fondness for him, seeing as he managed not only sneak into his halls but also steal away a herd of dwarrow from his own dungeons- that does not mean the Mirkwood elves will have the help they need.

Kili’s fingers curl tightly around the neck of his bow, and his face pinches in upset as he stares absently at the weapon.

The thought of Bilbo never getting better, of being forever stuck between a state of panic and outright fury, would be something Kili would forever be haunted by, should it become their reality. He worried enough over his memories of Thorin when he was in the depths of Smaug’s accursed sickness, the empty eyes and easy violence he used.

Kili jumps slightly when a hand lands on his shoulder, shocking him from his thoughts, and he looks up at his mother.

Dis has all the same emotions he does in her eye, the mixture of confused worry for their sickly hobbit; he’s not sure if that’s comforting or disheartening, to have his mother feel just as uncertain of Bilbo’s fate.

“Mother,” he starts quietly, worried that voicing his anxieties will make them all that more likely to become true. “What if- what if we cannot find a cure for Bilbo?”

She gives him a sad but reassuring smile, removing her hand from his shoulder.

“Kili,” Dis says just as quiet, just as worried. “Do you really think Thorin, or I, for that matter, will ever stop looking for the cure your uncle needs? If the Elvenking does not have an answer then we will continue to search for one until it is found.”

With no other answer to give than nod, Kili remains quiet and follows his mother out of his room. The guards they pass remain grim and stiff, surely having heard of the drama that Bilbo is the cause of; Erebor is still and waiting, tense with worry over her one and only- and very much beloved- hobbit resident.

It’s dark outside, as the middle of the night is sure to be, and the moon is but a sliver in the sky that provides very little light. Only he and his mother’s lanterns guide them down Erebor’s slope and past Dale, to the forest of Mirkwood.

Kili hopes, if there is only one good thing he can have today, that by some luck Tauriel will be in the woods at this time and be there to greet them.

—

Thranduil does not make a habit of sleeping very often. It’s something an elf, especially one as old as he, does not require like the rest of Middle Earth’s races.

Which is to say that when he does sleep he quite likes it to remain undisturbed.

“My king,” an elf calls from his door- which is open without him even giving them leave to come into his room- “there’s an urgent message from Erebor, come from Lady Dis and the prince.”

Thranduil sits up, smoothing any untamed strands of his hair that had become ruffled in his sleep back into place, and gives the intruding elf a flat look.

“So urgent as to wake me and barge into my room at this hour?” He asks, face blank but tone near biting.

But instead of backing down, like many would, and apologizing for being so rude to him, this elf does not. Instead they look straight at Thranduil, some faint worry in their stricken face, and nods.

There’s a moment where Thranduil and the elf stare at each other, the Elvenking greatly unimpressed by being awoken but the cause of the interruption standing their ground in his doorway.

“Very well,” he relents in a bored tone- though he must admit to himself, it is odd that Erebor should send a message to him so suddenly and late in the night- and gracefully stands up. He waves a dismissive hand at the elf who’s relayed the information to him. “I’ll get dressed and come down to hear of-”

“My king,” they interrupt again, really beginning to bother Thranduil with their rude behaviour. “The Lady Dis and Prince Kili are already down by the throne and await your presence.” A pause. “Urgently.”

Well that certainly should have been the first thing Thranduil was told, that the dwarves in question were within not only his borders but his actual home. It appeared rudeness was an infection going around, seeing how many seemed affected by it- could dwarves not see the ill manners barging in on one’s neighbors mid night displayed?

“It must be extremely urgent if I am to come down in my night clothes,” Thranduil raises a challenging brow at the elf in his doorway. And while they do seem to look nervous from making such a demand from their king, they still do not back down.

“Tauriel insists you come down as soon as possible.”

“Ah,” Thranduil says, further unimpressed by the unfolding of events; his irritation is flat, unhumored, and growing with every new thing he’s told. “Yes, of course she is. I should not be surprised she’s the one insisting I encourage such rude behaviour from our sister kingdom- barging into my home in the midst of the night and waking me from my sleep.”

“Lady Dis-” the elf pauses, and the Elvenking notes the certain look of worry on their face. “Lady Dis deems it important you know the manner of her presence and message.”

“Which is?” He asks tiredly, already wishing he stayed asleep and ignored the whole thing.

“That Erebor’s consort is gravely ill and the line of Durin as a whole asks for your aid.”

Thranduil’s face cannot remain completely flat, and despite his skill in maintaining a controlled expression he can’t help but be surprised by such news.

The Hobbit of Erebor? So sick that the dwarves run to him for help this late in the night?

“I see,” is all the Elvenking says, and without further comment drifts out of his room and down towards his lower halls where his unexpected guests are waiting, no matter the ill prepared attire he wears.

As elves do not need much sleep, Thranduil’s halls are as alive and in motion as they ever are, though it is quieted in respect for those resting at this hour. But as he walks through his halls, the Elvenking takes note of the tense air among his people; word of Lady Dis’ appearance in Greenwood has traveled fast, and so too has the mysterious meaning for such an act.

When he makes it to his lower halls, Thranduil drifts past Lady Dis, her son, Prince Kili, and Tauriel who are all collected in the center of the platform his throne is situated upon.

“The Lady Dis,” Thranduil says flatly, fluidly moving to sit and twist in his spot to face the dwarf in question. “And the Prince, Kili. Whatever could draw you out of your mountain and into my halls at such a late hour?”

He notices and ignores Tauriel’s look of irritation; if he is to be awoken in the middle of the night and demanded he not even take time to dress more appropriately he can be as snide as he wishes to his sudden guests.

“King Thranduil,” Lady Dis responds to his greeting, and he notes curiously that the usual disgust dwarves have when speaking to an elf is almost entirely absent. “I apologize for arriving so unannounced, but our situation is in urgent need of response.”

“Yes,” he says boredly, letting his eyes wander around his hall, “I’m sure it is, to wake me at this hour.” Thranduil turns to look at the dwarves in front of him fully and is not sure how to feel about how grim faced they both look. “I was told it had something to do with your Halfling?”

Lady Dis’ lips thin, no doubt annoyed by Thranduil’s easy dismissal of her visit’s cause and uninterested attitude he provides, but her son is quick to cut in.

“Bilbo is ill with a dragon’s curse and we mean to ask for your help in curing him.”

Thranduil looks at him for a good, long moment; Kili means no jest and looks as serious as he possibly could at his young age. He narrows his eyes at the dwarf prince, looking over with a sidelong glance to Tauriel by the dwarf’s side. Both serious, both looking stressed.

“Impossible,” he finally declares and turns his gaze to Lady Dis instead. “Hobbit’s are Yavanna’s children and are not susceptible to such temptations and greeds that a dragon’s curse brings.”

“My king-” Tauriel starts, but quickly stops when he shoots her a highly annoyed glance.

Yes, while her behaviour had been less problematic in the wake of the great battle for Erebor, Thranduil was still rather cross with her actions all the same. No matter the dampened fondness he has for the young she-elf, the Elvenking was not going to let his affections blind him from his irritations with Tauriel.

But it seems she doesn’t even need to speak further, because the prince continues for her.

“King Thranduil,” Kili says, and the near plead in his voice has Thranduil’s brow raising in curiosity. “It’s true, Bilbo is under the control of gold-sickness. My uncle has told us of his behaviour becoming more odd over these past months and tonight he-”

The prince cuts himself off, either because he does not wish to reveal something personal or fearing he’s given up too much information about the situation at hand.

But Thranduil’s interest is already peaked- a Hobbit being enthralled by a dragon’s curse of all things? He’s never heard nor seen of something so odd as that happening in all of Middle Earth- and he’s curious enough to push the subject further.

“What did the Hobbit do tonight that was so troubling, Prince Kili?” The dwarf averts his eyes, full of anxiety and concern, and doesn’t answer. Irritated, Thranduil further pushes for a response. “Surely it is something so odd you felt unnerved enough to run to me for help. Has the Halfling stolen the king’s beloved Arkenstone again? Or has he begun to hoard gold like a dragon? Perhaps he’s-”

“Bilbo,” Lady Dis interrupts his listing of theories, something she surely caught were made in jest of her kingdom’s situation and irritated by his joking. “Has attacked multiple of his dear friends and has greatly injured the King in a fit of possessiveness that he seemed unable to escape from until he was reunited with the object of his obsession.”

It sounds as outlandish as a dragon being allergic to gold, having a Halfling of all things be violent or vicious. But Thranduil can tell Lady Dis is not lying or playing some elaborate jest on him, nor is her son seeing how real and troubled his anxiety is.

“As urgent as you seem,” Thranduil relents after a moment, “I will again stress that a Hobbit is unable to be enthralled by something as dark as a dragon’s curse.”

He gives the dwarves in front of him a condescending look. “And might I remind you that the dragon Smaug has been dead for many years- whatever curse he placed upon your kingdom’s wealth will have long since faded.”

“We are well aware of that,” Lady Dis counters with a clipped voice. “And it’s why Bilbo’s behaviours worry us so. He acts as though he is controlled by a gold-sickness yet no source of one can be found besides the object he fought so viciously to defend tonight.”

“And what is it that he became so manic over, Lady Dis?”

Thranduil doubts it is something of value or it to be something misunderstood by dwarves and that is the reasoning for a hobbit to become so rabid as to attack his friends. But whatever he expected to be told, it certainly isn’t what he hears.

“A simple golden ring,” Lady Dis states, and when Thranduil gives her an odd look, he sees her frustrations at him have dwindled in the face of a rising concern she seems to harbor.

Having for a moment looked down at the floor, the dwarf looks back up at him; her eyes shine with a silent plea for help and a burning determination to get the answers she so seeks.

“Bilbo has attacked his husband and friends for nothing but a ring and we are beyond our means on figuring out what possessed him to behave as such. We need outside help and you, King Thranduil, are the nearest source for answers we can look to.”

It’s nearly flat out begging, what Lady Dis expresses to him. The need for answers they hope he can provide as to why their beloved Halfling would become so violent. Had Thranduil not had a nagging fondness- and small curiosity- for Bilbo Baggins, he doubts he would even be humoring this audience at all.

But something bothers the Elvenking to hear of behaviour like this coming from a Hobbit, a race which should be free from the pull of greed other races of Middle Earth were prone to. Especially for such a creature like Erebor’s Hobbit to act so feral and attack the king when Thranduil’s met Bilbo himself and sensed not a single ill will within his words or actions.

And while he would happily hold over the heads of these dwarves that had come crawling to him for help, Thranduil looks at Lady Dis and her anxious son by her side, and realizes this is something beyond their races’ long standing feud- this is about a Hobbit both sides have a fondness for.

“Is the Hobbit here with you now?” He asks eventually, previous joking gone from his tone.

Lady Dis opens her mouth to answer, but her son again interrupts her.

“Bilbo is resting in Erebor but if you-” Prince Kili starts then hesitates, looking at his mother for what must be guidance and swallowing anxiously at the look she gives him; the young dwarf turns back to him. “-if you need to see him for yourself, we welcome you in if you mean to provide us help.”

Thranduil looks to Lady Dis after her son’s claim, meaning to see if she backs up such a bold statement as to invite the Elvenking into their Dwarven halls.

But he sees no hesitation in the dwarf’s eyes, nor in her voice when she continues to stare at him with a determination Thranduil has not seen in the eyes of many that were not in truly dire situations.

“Yes, as Lady of Erebor I invite the Elvenking into our halls if help is provided to our consort.”

Interesting indeed, Thranduil ponders but does eventually give the dwarves a nod. He stands, folding his hands behind his back and looking down upon his visitors.

“And I am to assume dwarves will not be harassing me should I come into your mountain to aid the Hobbit.”

Lady Dis’ face briefly twists with irritation. “The term is dwarrow, Thranduil-” he knows this, but he finds no remorse in bothering her in such a way- “and yes. By my word and my son’s, as one of the princes of Erebor, you will not be bothered while you provide Bilbo with help.”

He nods, drifting back away from his throne and set on going back to his room.

“If you give me the time to dress appropriately,” Thranduil says, looking at Tauriel and catching her annoyance again at his back-handed comment to their guests, “then we may leave at once. Does that please you, Lady Dis?

He does not look back to see her face, but hears in her voice what must be the same determination she’s been hanging onto since he first laid eyes upon her.

“Yes-” she says, and Thranduil almost falters in his steps when he hears the next words. Something broken and pleading and all around deeply emotional, not at all what he had been expecting to hear from her during their conversation.

“Thank you.”

Chapter Text

Bilbo wakes up feeling groggy and slow, spending all but half a moment wondering why he feels so awful and sore before remembering all too quickly what he’s done.

Then he promptly turns over the edge of his bed and loses the contents of his stomach.

Not noticing before the company he had, Bilbo is startled by the surprised noises from a voice he’s familiar with and the sudden appearance of a reassuring hand on his back.

“You alright lad?” Bofur’s concerned voice questions him quietly, even as Bilbo regains his breath from heaving- not even having brought anything up- and remains leaned over the edge of his bed, panting. “Quite a rude way to wake up, huh?”

Bilbo doesn’t respond and chokes on the inhale he tries to take in when his eyes flood with tears- sweet Yavanna, what had he done?

Then, in an instant, the hobbit forgets the terrible things he’s done and realizes, very sharply and with a familiarity he has now, that something is missing.

Worried by his nonresponse, Bofur moves his hand up Bilbo’s back until it instead rests on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Bilbo?” He asks in a near whisper, and is not at all prepared for his hobbit friend to suddenly tense.

Now, Bofur’s been Bilbo’s best friend for many years, having bonded early in their journey for Erebor and only growing closer in the years after the kingdom’s reclamation. And if there’s one thing he’s familiar with, it’s an anxious or upset hobbit.

With the tendency to strive for perfection, it was not uncommon to stumble upon a fretting Bilbo who paced and rambled about not having the shiny enough buttons to be seen out in public or something equally as silly. Not that Bofur really judged him, of course, he knew that Hobbits were a fickle people and Bilbo was no different.

But the angry, hunched curve of Bilbo’s shoulders right now as he seemed to be coiling for an attack was not something Bofur was familiar with in the slightest.

“Bilbo-” he starts, cautiously, just barely lifting his hand off his friend’s back and making ready to move away if he needed; none of them knew why Bilbo had been set off so viciously last night and Bofur does not wish to be jumped upon if the hobbit was in a similar mood as his last outburst.

He startles when Bilbo lurches upright, knocking Bofur’s hand off his shoulder and making the dwarf take a step back with wide, worried eyes.

The miner watches as his friend frantically pats down his shirt- face twisting into something uncomfortably angry that has Bofur wondering if he should throw something and wake the sleeping forms of Fili and Bifur on the other end of the room- before doing the same with his trousers.

“Where is it?” Bilbo hisses, not directly at Bofur but not really at himself either.

Concerned about his uncharacteristic behaviour, Bofur puts a fake cheer in his voice and pretends like he isn’t prepared to jump away from his best friend at any sign of aggression.

“Where’s what, Bilbo?” He asks, and nearly startles again when the hobbit snaps his narrowed eyed, angry gaze to him; mentally, he tries willing his cousin and Bilbo’s nephew into waking.

“Did you take it?” The hobbit bites out, glaring fiercely at Bofur, an expression the dwarf is completely unfamiliar with seeing on his face.

Shaking his head and raising his hands in a placating way- and also maybe taking a further step and a half back- Bofur gives his friend a shaky smile.

“I really don’t know what you-”

“My ring,” Bilbo interrupts, irritated and looking seconds away from snapping up and strangling Bofur despite having been ill and shaking not moments ago when he first awoke. “Where’s my ring?”

“Where uh- where’d you last have it, Bilbo?” Bofur asks, glancing at his cousin on the far end of the room who, by all luck, does seem to be rousing due to Bilbo raising his voice. He looks back at his friend when he huffs sharply, like an angry bull, and tries to maintain his friendly smile.

“My pocket!” Bilbo snaps loudly, throwing himself up from his bed and takes an angry stomp in Bofur’s direction. The dwarf’s eyes widen as he pedals a few steps away from the irate hobbit in fear. “It was in my vest pocket but now my vest is gone.”

Bofur points, near frantic, to the chair some distance from the front of the fireplace and a few strides away from them. “I-I put your coat and vest on the chair!” He says quickly, watching Bilbo glare at him before stomping over to the clothes in question. When the hobbit frisks his vest and pulls something from its pocket, he stands staring down at his hands and the object he’s retrieved.

“I didn’t mean to upset you at all, Bilbo.” Bofur says quietly; looking over at the other end of the room he sees Bifur, now fully awake and no doubt catching onto Bofur’s placating stance and strained tone, is shaking Fili awake as well. “Really, I didn’t.”

There’s a long pause, where Bilbo does nothing but breathe heavily through his nose while standing next to his hung up coat and vest. But then he sighs, and his posture is one that Bofur can recognize as one of Bilbo’s regulars.

“Oh I- I’m sorry Bofur,” Bilbo says quietly, and when he turns to his dwarf friend it's a near thing that he doesn’t start crying right then.

But it seems his friend is unbothered by his outburst and his previously shaky smile becomes far more genuine.

“It’s quite alright, Bilbo. I know you aren’t feelin’ well right now.” Bofur tells Bilbo, though his kind tone does little to quell the hobbit’s upset. He attempts to give his friend a smile in return, but the faltering of Bofur’s expression has Bilbo knowing it doesn’t work.

Feeling profoundly upset and almost entirely at himself, Bilbo wanders back over to his bed and sits down on the edge, staring at the floor as he fiddles with and flips the ring in his hands. He feels more than sees Bofur sit down beside him, throwing an arm over his shoulder and leaning into him.

He expects the miner to say something but Bofur remains peaceful and steady by his side. His hand rubs Bilbo’s arm with a relaxed, calming pace and Bilbo feels tears continue to rise but more out of the love he feels from his friend than at himself- not to say he isn’t still quite upset with himself over his actions at the gathering, though.

After a moment of sitting in silence, Bofur’s hand rubbing Bilbo’s arm and leaning in close to him, Bilbo hears the shuffles of hesitant feet from the far side of the room behind him. Stilling the ring in his hand, Bilbo twitches his nose then looks up to see who else is approaching; he nearly chokes when he sees his nephew’s face.

“Bilbo,” Fili says quietly, looking unsure if he should come any closer but still fiercely concerned for his uncle. The worry his nephew holds for him makes the tears in Bilbo’s eyes well high enough to begin trickling down his face.

Bilbo twists harshly away, curling in on himself and squeezing his eyes shut; Bofur slowly retracts his arm and gets up from the edge of the bed. “Oh I- I’m terribly sorry Fili.” He gets out between strained breaths, ones which catch in his throat when a new dwarf sits down beside him, replacing Bofur’s spot. “I don’t- I really don’t know what came over me at that gathering. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, I swear-”

Bilbo stops talking as his nephew draws him into a sideways hug, hands desperately clinging to Fili’s coat and breaths shuddering.

“Uncle Bilbo please,” his nephew says quietly as he continues to cry, “you needn’t be so upset. Everyone’s alright. Mother and Kili ride to Mirkwood as we speak in hopes the Elvenking will have a cure for your-” Fili pauses for a moment- “ill mind.”

“I’m sorry,” Bilbo repeats in a whisper as his nephew rubs a hand along his back. He gathers his bearings for a moment before clearing his throat and trying to will most of his tears away.

“You’re alright, aren’t you Fili?” He asks quietly, to which his nephew hugs him tighter.

“Of course I am, Uncle.” Fili replies confidently and seeming unbothered by his uncle’s sniffling and his attempts to fend off his tears. “We all are and so will you, I promise.”

They both go quiet then and the room settles into something not quite relaxed but not as wound up as Bilbo had been feeling moments before. After some minutes he even opens his eyes, stinging and clouded with tears as they are, to look around the room.

Bilbo sees Bofur a few feet away from him and Fili, moving his hands in the familiar language of Iglishmek; when the miner sees Bilbo is looking at him he briefly stops his signing to give the hobbit a friendly smile before continuing his silent conversation with his cousin.

The hobbit tries focusing more on the current moment than all the horrid memories rising up, but finds he can’t truly ignore them all. Most of all Bilbo cannot escape the haunting images of Nori and Thorin, bloody, scared, and looking at him as if he were a wild animal.

He also can’t help but have a dreadful feeling that there are other things that happened which he cannot remember through the fuzzy, angry haze that was his outburst.

“Fili,” he whispers, his nephew humming in acknowledgement, “I didn’t hurt anyone else beside Nori and Thorin, did I?”

Bilbo knows the answer before Fili responds because the dwarf’s hand falters from its repetitive pattern of rubbing his back; he’s leaping up before he can be stopped.

“Wait Bilbo-!” Fili attempts to console his uncle, but the hobbit is scurrying backwards steps away from both him and Bofur with wide, tear filled eyes. The prince’s face contorts sadly, wishing his uncle would stop looking so distraught. “Please, you weren’t yourself. You can’t be blamed-”

“I did, didn’t I!” Bilbo cries, clutching his hands to his chest in a panic. He looks widely around the room for a moment before his eyes settle again on Fili and his breath stutters. “Oh- oh no. Who- who else did I hurt?”

Fili and Bofur look at each other for a moment, not answering Bilbo and only making his dread and nerves rise higher. “Fili? Bofur?” The hobbit tries and then looks over to the other dwarf in the room and begs with a desperate, “Bifur?”

His nephew sighs before standing up and stepping towards Bilbo.

“Please, Uncle.” Fili says quietly with a sad undercurrent to his voice; Bilbo starts to back away from his outstretched arms but finds himself trembling too fiercely to move all that much. “You have to know that everyone’s alright now and we know you didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

Staring at his nephew with tear filled eyes, Bilbo shudders when a hand is placed gently on his arm. “Who else did I hurt, Fili?” The hobbit demands quietly, though he’s not sure he can handle whatever answer he gets, his heart feeling as if it was fit to burst right out of his chest any moment now.

Fili looks briefly over to Bofur, which Bilbo follows and sees his friend shares the same stricken expression as his nephew does. “Please just tell me,” he whispers as Fili turns back to him.

With a sigh, his nephew grabs both of his shoulders and pulls him in for another hug, not releasing Bilbo even when he puts up a pitiful, weak protest.

“You managed to get Dori across the arm,” Fili says as he rests his chin on his uncle’s head, closing his eyes when he both hears and feels Bilbo lurch with what’s surely an upset sob. “And you nearly harmed another when they tried getting you away from him. But truly, Uncle, that’s all . You didn’t kill anyone or really do any damage that cannot be fixed with a little time and rest.”

“Dori?” Bilbo whimpers, trembling as his nephew holds him.

Bilbo very much liked every dwarf in the company, but Dori had always felt different. Despite being a dwarf he acted much like a Hobbit, what with his fussy ways and strive to always look presentable to any manner of audience.

He was really the only dwarf during the stop at Rivendell who seemed to not complain about the elves serving them vegetables let alone enjoy them. It was actually something Bilbo approached him about later and was one of the first steps in their friendship.

Dori made him feel a little lighter when a bout of homesickness struck him, being surrounded by people and customs not his own. The oldest Ri brother always was welcome to sharing a cup of tea with Bilbo when he was feeling down and spend an afternoon talking about silly things like books and buttons and the weather- all things Bilbo used to do in the Shire.

To hear Bilbo had, in his fit of unprecedented fury, attacked Dori in such a way shook the hobbit down to his roots. Something he’s certain Fili catches onto if his sad sigh is anything to go by.

“He and Nori have been asking to see you, Bilbo.” His nephew says quietly as Bilbo continues to tremble and sniff back tears in an attempt to reign himself in. “They aren’t mad with you, Uncle. They’re worried for you.”

Bilbo brings his arms up to mirror his nephew’s hold on him, one hand still closed in a tight fist around his ring. He feels like his knees are about to buckle at any moment and Fili is the only thing keeping him upright.

“I don’t know what’s wrong.” He says quietly and with all the worry he has within him. “I truly don’t, Fili. I just- it’s something I can’t control, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” his nephew assures and doesn’t release the hobbit even though they’ve been hugging for a long moment. Instead they stand there, clinging to each other in hopes they can fend off their uncertainty over the whole series of unsettling events that have happened.

Should I go get Dori and the brothers? Bofur asks through Iglishmek to Fili over Bilbo’s head, to which the prince gives a faint nod.

Quietly, the miner and his cousin slip out of the room. The prince watches them go, sighing after a moment and giving his upset uncle a gentle squeeze.

There’s very few times Fili’s ever seen Bilbo so distraught, and even then the memories are fuzzy and uncomfortable to recall; injured as he was on Ravenhill, and near passing out himself, the dwarf prince is sure he’ll never be able to forget the haunting screams and broken pleas from a hobbit to dwarf king. The frantic no’s as Bilbo was fretting over Thorin’s bloody body was not something he saw but it stuck in Fili’s mind all the same.

The only thing that had helped his hobbit uncle then was the news that he, Kili, and Thorin were all expected to live through their injuries. Bilbo had gone from shedding heartbroken tears to relieved ones and he all but collapsed upon hearing the news.

But there was no such answer now for his uncle, no assurance that things would get better and heal with time, because a dragon’s curse is a dark thing and there is very little Fili knows that can cure such an illness.

The only time he’s seen gold-sickness mended was when Bilbo had been the one to do it- if his uncle was willing to attack even Thorin in his bout of madness, Fili’s not sure help can come from any of them.

Fili pushes the worries from his head and instead moves to hold his uncle out in front of him. His face is flushed with tears and his mouth is turned in an upset frown, but he tries all the same to give Bilbo a reassuring smile.

“Why don’t you go lie down again, Bilbo?” The prince suggests, guiding the hobbit back to his bed. “I’m sure you’re still very tired.”

Bilbo nods absently, sniffing and trying to wipe at least some of the tears from his face. “Yes, yes I suppose I am quite drained.”

With the steady guidance of his nephew’s hand, he’s gently moved to sit on the edge of his bed. And with further encouragement pulls his legs up and lies down fully instead of swinging them over the end; the ring, cold, familiar, and calming in his palm, helps numb Bilbo’s upset mind.

His nephew remains quiet now, Fili letting the hobbit relax at his own pace. Only the sounds of snapping wood from the fireplace, well fed and leaking with warmth as it usually was, echo throughout the large chamber.

It’s a few minutes later when Bofur and Bifur interrupt the near silence, opening the door and stepping in. They’re trailed by the full set of Ri brothers, all nervous looking and knocking away any sense of calmness Bilbo had gained in the past moments.

Nori, the only one who looks almost entirely unbothered by it all, watches as their hobbit sits up and stares at them with overly sad eyes. And although he shakes as he stands up, Fili offering an arm to steady himself with, the spy can’t help but notice Bilbo shows no hesitancy when he slips something from his hand into the pocket of his trousers.

“Dori,” the hobbit says quietly, looking a breath away from crying. Had Nori not wanted to comfort the hobbit himself he would have rolled his eyes at the way his eldest brother rushed over to Bilbo, sweeping him into a tight hug.

“I’m so glad you’re alright, Bilbo.” His brother says over the hobbit’s sniffling. “We’ve all been so worried about you.”

“I’m so sorry, Dori.” Bilbo whimpers, hands clutching Nori’s brother’s shirt with a desperation he’s rarely seen in his hobbit friend. “I truly don’t know what came over me. I didn’t hurt you too badly, did I?” He asks hurriedly, shoving himself out of Dori’s hug and hovering his hands around the dwarf while looking for the injury he had caused.

“Nothing too bad!” Nori’s brother reassures, looking just about as wound up as their hobbit friend. “Truly, Bilbo. You needn’t worry about us all that much my friend.”

Bilbo shakes his head, pulling his hands away from the dwarf and- smoothly, seemingly without a thought behind it- reaches into his pocket before holding his hands to his chest. Nori keeps hold of his healthy suspicion of the hobbit’s behaviour as he’s turned to be looked at.

“And you, Nori?” Bilbo asks quietly, eyes shining and face distraught. And truly, no matter what suspicions he has about the hobbit, Nori can’t ignore the tremor in his voice and look of pained desperation.

“Just fine, Bilbo.” The spy answers, giving him a nod and hoping he won’t come over to hug him as he did with his brother; as good as he is at pretending the gash on his side doesn’t hurt, Nori not sure he could keep that mask up should Bilbo come over and squeeze him.

But it seems Nori’s in luck because the hobbit seems satisfied by his answer enough to simply nod back and move back to sit on the edge of his bed. Dori follows as well, sitting a short distance from Bilbo’s side as Ori, creeping up from behind Nori with an anxious look, sits on his brother’s other side.

With no place for him to sit, and not feeling a particular need to in the first place, Nori simply crosses his arms and watches the dwarf prince and his brothers try to console an upset Bilbo.

“I really don’t know why I acted so horribly to you all.” The hobbit frets, staring down at his hands as they fiddle with something small and unseen. “In truth I can’t even remember most of what I did. I only recall realizing what I did after the fact.”

Hobbits can’t be enthralled by a dragon’s curse, but Thorin couldn’t remember most of his time when in the depths of gold-sickness either and the similarities between the king and their hobbit are all too worrying for Nori.

“I’m sure we’ll figure it all out soon enough,” Dori assures, and when he moves his hand to rest atop Bilbo’s, Nori catches the second long flash of aggression and the quick tightening of a fist.

He’s not sure if any of the other dwarrow catch the signs, but Nori keeps the sight fresh in his mind and right beside the other memories of a frantic, vicious Bilbo who tried gutting him and killing Thorin for a piece of jewelry.

“I sure hope so,” Bilbo replies. The hobbit slips his hand back in his pocket before pulling it back out, empty now, and grabbing the hand his nephew offers him. “I don’t think my heart can handle another event such as this.”

The four of them continue to talk quietly amongst themselves- and with a silently conversing Bofur and Bifur that have gone all but unnoticed by the room- as Nori stands by, watching.

The spy notes that Bilbo does not show any big signs of spiralling into aggression, but there’s plenty of little things Nori does catch.

A hand beginning to drift down to his pocket before it stops, fingers twitching, and moves back to where it was before. The shifting eyes that scan the room after every aborted attempt to grab the object from his trousers, the paranoia that lives for half a second in Bilbo’s eye when his friends or nephew reach his direction.

For all that he trusts the hobbit, Nori’s glad his youngest brother is furthest away from Bilbo than the other two dwarrow. Should Bilbo end up snapping into a rage again, Ori would be least likely to be targeted and have a better chance of running from harm’s way.

Nori and his brothers remain in the royal chambers for nearly half an hour before Fili suggests they leave his uncle to get some more rest. Of course, Dori is quick to get up and shepherd Ori out with him, apologizing for keeping Bilbo from his sleep. The cousins that were on the other end of the room follow behind the two Ri brothers, waving at their friend and giving him friendly smiles and wishes for a goodnight.

Bilbo thanks everyone for keeping him company, wishes them all a goodnight, and reaches into his pocket to pull out and fiddle with his ring.

Nori, last to leave out of the group, raises a brow at the action and looks to the prince standing at the hobbit’s bedside.

Fili, too, looked somewhat troubled by the obsessive behaviour Bilbo displays by constantly pulling out or staring at his ring. But it seems the dwarf prince knows better than to try and take the object from his uncle’s hands and instead turns to the last remaining dwarf in the room.

He and Nori lock eyes for a moment- seeming to share the same understanding and concern for Bilbo’s possessive actions over his golden band- before the spy moves off, excusing himself from the room.

Taking quick steps to catch up with his brothers further down the hall, Nori wonders, quietly and to himself, if simply taking the ring and burying it in the deepest mines of Erebor would cure Bilbo’s madness.

If only it were that easy, Nori laments in his mind and can’t help but feel this issue is going to be a lot more complicated than any of them think it will be.

Chapter Text

When Kili had said he was going to Mirkwood in hopes of getting Tauriel to speak with the Elvenking, Fili did not imagine said king would be in the halls of Erebor a few hours later.

Asking Thranduil for help in such a desperate situation was already pushing Thorin’s limits and he’s sure his uncle was going to throw a fit something awful once he saw who was drifting about his halls with a disinterested brow raise at nearly everything.

“King Thranduil,” Fili greets, somewhat stunned that the elf is even here.

The prince had left his uncles’ chambers sometime after Bilbo had drifted to sleep, deciding that the guards outside his doors and patrolling the halls would be enough surveillance for the hobbit. Fili intended to go to the healers’ wing to see Thorin, but was intercepted by a stern looking guard who informed him that the Elvenking of Mirkwood was in Erebor’s council room.

Which led to him now standing, half awkward and completely unsure of how to proceed any further, as he’s stared down by a mildly annoyed looking elf.

“Prince Fili,” the Elvenking greets flatly; seeing Fili’s confusion, a certain humorous glint rises in the elf’s eyes. “I see you are as ill prepared for my visit as I was.”

“I certainly am,” Fili says slowly before turning away and looking at his mother, seated a few chairs away from the Elvenking and looking as concerned as she has since everything happened. Across from her sits his brother and by Kili’s side is the familiar face of a certain red haired she-elf.

“Tauriel,” Fili greets quietly with a respectful nod that the elf returns, greeting his brother and mother in the same fashion before taking a seat at Dis’ side.

Once he’s seated Thranduil’s eyes drift away from him, instead coming to focus on Fili’s brother and the she-elf beside him. If Fili wasn’t busy worrying about other things, he’s certain that the Elvenking looks annoyed by Kili and Tauriel making the choice to sit next to one another.

“So,” the elf says after a moment, the turn of his head slow and fluid as he looks at Dis. “Where is the Halfling at? I’m to assume that if I’m needed here so urgently he’s somewhere nearby?”

His mother looks over to him, seeing as he would have the most relevant information on that topic considering she’s been gone for hours; Fili clears his throat and tries to act as formal as he can when there’s still haunting whispers of Bilbo’s voice rasping about a ring being mine while covered in his friends’ and Thorin’s blood.

“Bilbo is resting in his chambers,” Fili says to the Elvenking, who gives him a flat but still somewhat annoyed look. “He’s only just fallen asleep again, and while I’d hate to bother him, I do know how urgent his state is.”

Thranduil hums and looks down at his clothes, smoothing the nonexistent wrinkles from the fabric with a steady hand. It’s an act of pure boredom and Fili is greatly bothered that the elf can be told of his uncle’s vicious attacks and still act as though he’s the one being put out the most.

“Am I to see him now or after he’s done resting, Prince Fili?” Thranduil asks, still busying himself with the unnecessary smoothing of the silky fabric he wears. Even when Tauriel makes an audible sigh through her nose- in what the dwarf assumes is a frustration they share regarding the Elvenking’s unbothered, rude behaviour- he does not remove his focus from where he’s brushing his hand.

“He’s rather worn out from the whole thing and I’d like him to rest just a little longer-”

“A courtesy I was not given,” Thranduil reminds, shooting a look to both Kili and Tauriel in annoyance. His brother’s face twists into something irritated while the she-elf returns her king’s look with her own flat one.

Growing very swiftly annoyed with Thranduil’s rudeness, Fili closes his mouth and takes a deep breath through his nose; the pause is long enough to allow his mother, Dis, to speak up.

“And one we will forgo in this situation.” She says seriously, and is earned a bored look from her elven guest. “As exhausted as Bilbo may be, his condition is not one we can put off for his convenience.”

Thranduil gives Fili’s mother a long look, expression unreadable as it always is, before he gives a slight nod. Dis nods back and stands from her seat, followed by the others in the room if only much slower and gracefully done by the Elvenking at the head of the table.

“I will show you to his chambers,” Dis says to Thranduil as they begin to move out of the room. “Kili, go find your uncle and inform him of what’s going on.”

His brother nods, perking up upon being given something to do, and Fili watches him shoot a glance at Tauriel by his side.

The eldest dwarf prince expects the she-elf to remain by Thranduil’s side- while Fili’s not sure what the exact relationship between Tauriel and her king is, he knows it’s a close one; he feels as though the sibling-like bickering he witnessed between the she-elf and the king’s son, Legolas, has something to do with it- but that’s not the case.

Tauriel barely looks at her king before he’s lifting a hand in what’s to be a very minimal and dismissive motion. The she-elf nods at her king before peeling away from their group to follow Fili’s brother down further halls, away from them.

“Do you not wish to keep your guard with you?” Fili can’t help but ask.

Thranduil does not look down to him, still focused on the path ahead of him, and his face twitches almost like he’s smirking. “Your mother Lady Dis promised I would not be harassed while within your halls. Am I to take her words as false, Prince Fili?”

“I meant no such thing,” he says and closes his mouth before he can speak of anything else. As much as Bilbo always threw a fit over their hatred and behaviour towards elves the hobbit always seemed to forget it went both ways. No matter what Fili was to say, Thranduil would twist it into a barb or something to annoy him, which he is not interested in encouraging.

At the very least, Fili can admit, the Elvenking remains most respectful to his mother. There’s no hint of poking upon the long standing Elf-Dwarf feud, as far as he’s seen himself, and for that Fili forces himself to push his feelings about the Elvenking away.

If his mother and the Mirkwood king can put aside their differences for Bilbo, so can he.

They’re nearly to Thorin and Bilbo’s chambers, just within the royal wing, when Thranduil suddenly stops; when Fili and his mother turn to look at him, he seems less bored and far more serious than he had been before.

“This-” he draws out a pause that would seem unsure if it weren’t coming from Thranduil himself- “behaviour your Hobbit displays. Will it be affecting his mind when we enter the room?”

Fili and Dis share a look before he answers. “He should not.” He says slowly, though there’s still an uncertainty to his voice. “When I was in there with him he was fine, just upset. And the only thing Bofur mentioned about Bilbo is when he first awoke and was angry when thinking his ring was gone.”

“I see,” is all Thranduil says before allowing them to further escort him down the royal halls to Bilbo’s bedchambers.

The King and Consort’s chamber doors are a familiar sight, as is the dwarf standing by them.

“Nori,” Fili says in a confused but trying to remain neutral voice. The dwarf nods his direction, focusing on the prince and seeming to be intentional in his ignoring of a certain elf king. “I did not expect to see you here.”

“I heard there was going to be a visit to Bilbo,” the spy says with a tone Fili cannot quite place, but when he looks over he sees the faint furrow of Thranduil’s annoyed brow and a barely restrained smirk on his mother’s face. “I figured I'd drop by, make it a proper occasion.”

“Charming,” Thranduil drawls but is still ignored by the unexpected, extra dwarf in their company.

Dis, unbothered by having an extra friend there- and, Fili theorizes, something she counted on. Nori is well known for his sneaking ways and Fili isn't against imaging she sent a silent message to Erebor’s favorite spy sometime during their meeting in the council room- and opens the chamber doors.

Back straight, hands behind him, and looking just barely down his nose at the room, the Elvenking drifts into Bilbo’s chambers. He does not wait for any of the dwarrow but does pause some space away from the currently sleeping hobbit on his bed.

But just as Fili steps past him, intent on waking his uncle so they can all discuss what’s going on, Thranduil stops him.

“Wait,” is all the Elvenking has to say, turning to face the three dwarrow behind him with a serious expression on his face.

“If it would be possible,” he starts, “to get the ring the Halfling is so enthralled by before waking him, it would work in our favor. Should I be able to examine it without being attacked, as I’ve been told of happening, I could see if it is some magic or curse which ails your Hobbit.”

That, admittedly, is a good point Thranduil makes, Fili realizes. He knows very well how his uncle has reacted when his ring was touched by someone else or not within his own hands. It being obvious that the ring is the cause of Bilbo’s gold-sickness-like behaviour, giving the Elvenking a chance to inspect it without a manic hobbit attempting to tear it away from him could prove useful.

“Nori,” his mother says, seeming to have reached the same conclusion regarding Thranduil’s idea as Fili has.

Not needing any further prompting, the spy moves silently towards the sleeping hobbit lying on his bed. Fili feels a little guilty about having to steal something off his uncle while he sleeps, but he knows it’s for the best.

Nori is good at what he does, and Bilbo does not show any signs of stirring awake as a dwarf slowly reaches into his trouser pocket and steals out the ring within it. Prize secured, Nori turns around and heads back towards the group near the chamber’s doors.

“Looks like a plain, gold ring.” He says, holding up the piece of jewelry between two fingers and displaying it to the Elvenking and two dwarrow. And while Fili agrees with Nori’s statement, when he looks up to Thranduil he sees something distinctly uncomfortable on the elf’s face.

“Plain indeed.” Thranduil says quietly, staring at the ring in Nori’s hand before eventually holding his palm out flat. As expected, the spy moves to drop the gold band into the elf’s hand, but two things happen at once.

Dis, from the back of their group, gives a low and warning “Bilbo,” and the ring makes contact with the Elvenking’s hand.

What Fili does not expect to happen is for Thranduil to gasp suddenly and stagger as if he had been struck in the chest by some invisible force, all but throwing the ring down onto the floor as he backs away with none of his usual elven grace.

The sound of the golden band hitting the floor near echoes in the large room, as does the sound of something moving by the bed.

Bilbo, half awake when Thranduil was first handed the ring and now fully aware upon hearing the metal clatter on his floor, is thrown into a fit.

Fili sees the mindless, burning intent in his uncle’s eyes as he stares at all of them, mainly himself and Nori as they are closest to the dropped ring on the floor. He also sees Bilbo look brief to the side, and when he follows his gaze something cold and sudden seeps into every bone.

It’s a race, seeing whether Bilbo or Fili will get to the stand Sting is carefully housed in; even though the dwarf prince gets there first, grabbing the sword away from his uncle, the hobbit is not so easily deterred.

“It’s-” Bilbo hisses as he knocks Fili to the floor, Sting flying from his grip and landing loudly on the floor and out of reach- “mine!”

The hobbit lands half atop the dwarf but quickly scrambles up to straddle him, wasting no time throwing his hands forward to Fili’s neck. Shocked and acting purely on instinct, the dwarf prince raises an arm to block the incoming attack.

Bilbo latches onto Fili’s arm, too busy being fueled by this unnatural rage of his to really register when he’s flung off his victim until he hits the floor. Even then, however, the hobbit breathes heavily through bared teeth and pushes himself up to again launch at his nephew.

Dis, moving from her spot by the door, manages to grab Bilbo’s arms from behind before the hobbit can leap upon her son once more, struggling even with her strength to control the hissing, kicking form of her brother-in-law.

It’s only when Thranduil places a sword’s edge against Bilbo’s throat- Fili hadn’t seen the Elvenking’s weapon as of yet, and assumes it must have been hidden under all the long, flowy fabrics the elf dresses himself in- does the hobbit stop struggling so much.

He’s furious still but it seems even in his gold-sick rage he will stop himself from being slashed in the throat. Fili sees the anger, the pure need for bloody violence, in his uncle’s eyes that stare up at the Elvenking.

The elf who, while his hand is steady and blade unwavering from Bilbo’s throat, has an expression more grim than the dwarf prince thought an elf capable of displaying before.

Bilbo stares up at Thranduil, still occasionally giving a harsh tug against the restraint Dis holds him in, but eventually Fili can see the hobbit begin to come back to himself. Pants of exertion turn instead to shaky pants and the hobbit’s overly tense posture drops suddenly.

“Bilbo?” Dis questions when she feels the hobbit give up his fighting spirit. Fili’s uncle responds with a small, confused and fearful noise, swallowing nervously at the blade still held to his throat. When it is not removed some long moment later, Dis looks up to the one wielding it.

“Thranduil,” she says sharply, to which the elf does not stop staring at the hobbit beneath his blade but retracts it all the same.

Still in her hold and now no longer under the threat of having his throat slashed, Bilbo begins to wriggle in Dis’ hold once more.

“Just let me- let me go. It’s mine just let me have it, let go-” the hobbit pants, not quite angry but his actions still not his own.

Unsure of what else to do, the dwarf releases her brother-in-law and watches as he almost falls to his knees in his haste to reclaim his beloved- and mind bewitching- ring from the floor.

Bilbo says nothing once the ring is back in his possession, simply standing with it in his hand, slightly hunched over it and staring at the golden jewelry as if it were under some hypnotic spell.

Nobody says anything or moves for a long minute, everyone watching the hobbit while he watches his ring. But then Thranduil is turning, moving with a worried pace that almost makes it feel as if the Elvenking is fleeing, and exiting the room.

“Thranduil!” Dis calls out, following the elf out of the room with a matched pace with her son, scrambling up from the floor, chasing after them both. “Where do you think you’re going! What’s going on?”

The Elvenking ignores the dwarf, making haste down the halls of Erebor and meaning to escape the mountain all together. He doesn’t even when Dis and Fili call out to him many times, and the confused, raising voices of both dwarrow fade in the distance of the halls.

Not that Nori thinks Bilbo notices that, transfixed as he is on the golden ring he holds.

The only thing the hobbit does besides stare at the object of his obsession is take small steps back until his hand finds the edge of his bed, in which he then slides himself down to the floor and holds his ring even closer to his face.

It’s an unsettling thing, seeing a normal put together Bilbo turn into something mindless and violent for a simple golden ring. Nori doesn’t know how to respond to it fully and does little but shift on his feet and cross his arms as he stares at the hobbit on the floor.

He’s not coming back to himself nearly as quickly as he had in the hall, during his first outburst. Instead Nori watches as a pure, single minded adoration clouds Bilbo’s eyes and no scrap of the usual fretting hobbit to be seen.

There’s no yelling voices of Dis, Fili, or even Thranduil, from down the hall which Nori doesn’t know if it is a good or bad thing at this point. But one thing the dwarf does know is that if a ring can make Bilbo look more gold-sick than even Thorin did, if a simple golden band can make even the great Thranduil, Elvenking of Mirkwood, stumble with pure fear, the answer to their problem was going to be very, very complicated.

What had Bilbo gotten himself into?

Chapter Text

Thorin had assumed that the source of his husband’s illness would be found and cured within a reasonable time frame, considering how committed he and everyone else were to helping the hobbit. But nearly two weeks later and their only other hope for answers another day away in his travels, there had been nothing good that had come from Bilbo’s condition.

The initial outburst had exhausted everyone, including the hobbit which caused the whole thing, so Thorin hadn’t even been able to see his husband until late the following afternoon. And by then he had been so wound up with worry and protective urges that he nearly collapsed upon finally seeing Bilbo.

When they finally were able to see each other again after all the chaotic events, Bilbo had broken out in sobs while whimpering out unending, near manic apologies to his husband. Not that Thorin needed them, and not that he didn’t try to console his hobbit on the matter, but Bilbo wouldn’t stop repeating them for nearly half an hour straight.

That night had seen Thorin lying in his bed, holding Bilbo close and trying to soothe the quiet tears that did not seem to have an end; he thought it was to be much the same for the following days, hoping that somewhere along the way there’d be improvement.

Yet when Thorin woke up the next morning, his arms were still wrapped around Bilbo, the hobbit was already awake. Exhausted and looking half a breath away from collapsing, Thorin comes to find that after he had fallen asleep Bilbo had remained awake; all throughout the night, refusing to sleep, his husband cradled his ring.

Concerned, Thorin had tried coaxing Bilbo to put the thing away or perhaps even give it to him for safe keeping, seeing how much it was bothering his husband.

Oin was not too pleased to be re-stitching half of Thorin’s shoulder later that day after the hobbit had thrown him off the bed in a fit of rage and attempted to strangle him for even daring to suggest the ring be turned over to anyone else’s hands.

From then on the situation only got worse.

No matter what any of them, especially Thorin, try doing to bring their hobbit back to his senses, Bilbo only further recedes into the illness of his mind.

He first starts to avoid looking at any who visit his room before shying away from their presence all together; Bilbo doesn’t allow any into the room at all a few days past that, only getting food through the key Thorin used to open the locked chamber doors to place a plate on the floor- they all learned quite quickly that attempting to coax Bilbo out to eat would only end in screaming about going away.

After nearly a week of worsening behaviour, most of them give up and decide the only other thing they can do now is wait for Gandalf to arrive in Erebor to cure their ill-minded hobbit.

Thorin, no matter how badly he wishes he didn’t, can do nothing but follow such a decision.

No longer was Bilbo the kind, fretting husband Thorin had fallen in love with. Instead there was only a husk of what the hobbit once was, having spiralled quickly into a creature which hid in the dark of his locked room and whispered to his beloved ring as if it were another person.

The days after coming to the realization that nothing can be done to help Bilbo, Thorin is nothing but completely miserable.

Every hour that brings the wizard closer- and with him the hope for some real answers, maybe even a cure for Erebor’s beloved hobbit- drags out Bilbo’s suffering only longer. The whole of the mountain seems to be holding its breath, anxious and hoping Gandalf would show up sooner if they only wished it to happen hard enough.

And the night before the wizard’s expected arrival seems to be the worst of it so far, Thorin being sure he’s going to have nightmares about the manic giggling and half-laughs he heard Bilbo making while alone in what used to be their shared bedchambers, locked up and in the dark.

After hearing the unnerving sounds while passing by, Thorin walks himself to a rather unused room, sits down, and holds his face in his hands while trying to ignore the sting of tears begging to rise; by the Valar it all felt so pointless.

It felt as though curing Bilbo was the same momentous task as slaying Smaug while being a poorly armed, exhausted group of dwarrow had been. But there was no black arrow Bard could fire this time to fix the problem, nor any armies to fend off his husband’s madness.

Erebor’s hobbit was entirely, unfixable by their own and current means, bewitched.

It did not help that on his rushed way out of the Dwarven kingdom, Thranduil had stopped to speak directly to Thorin in the matter of the ill-minded hobbit contained within the mountain.

“Do not let the Halfling leave Erebor under any circumstance, Thorin Oakenshield.” The Elvenking had told him with such a seriousness and lack of usual petty hate that the dwarf king had been stunned into silence.

Thranduil looked worried in that moment, more so than any of them had ever seen on an elf before. And the tone he held when speaking his next warning had haunted Thorin for the near two weeks it took before the wizard was set to arrive.

“The cause of his illness is something only Mithrandir will have the knowledge to cure, and you will do best to keep Bilbo Baggins contained within your mountain.”

For such a being as the Elvenking- one who had been burned by dragonfire and knew all too well the horrors and dark corners Middle Earth had to offer- to be so fearful of what they assumed to simply be Smaug’s gold-sickness making Bilbo ill, an unsettling feeling had befallen Erebor as a whole.

Word had even reached Dale, through what means or persons, Thorin was not exactly sure, and King Bard had sent a letter the day after Thranduil had left. The dragonslayer had expressed his concerns for Bilbo’s poor health and offered anything his city had if it was needed in helping Thorin’s husband.

While the concern was well meaning it only served to make Thorin feel more and more useless. Letter upon letter from Erebor’s sister kingdoms, worried glances and muttered rumors about possession and dragon’s curse from the dwarrow in the mountain made the dwarf king feel as though Bilbo’s condition was all the more incurable.

So deep had his concerns for Bilbo run, Thorin can not even find himself feeling as relieved as he expected when word of the wizard’s arrival reaches him.

“Gandalf,” Dis greets their anxiously awaited guest seeing as Thorin is too busy staring darkly at the wizard; worry shadows his whole presence and he finds no will to speak unless it is about the cure for Bilbo, something Gandalf gives him an odd but almost knowing look for.

“Lady Dis,” he greets in kind, but scans the group that had been waiting for him in the front halls with a certain worry. “There’s only about half of the company here- where are the others? And where is Bilbo?”

“Fili and Kili are riding to Mirkwood to bring the Elvenking over since he was the one who insisted very strongly you be the one to deal with our hobbit’s problem.”

The wizard raises a brow at that, looking over to Thorin in what he assumes to get confirmation for such a claim. But the dwarf king continues staring, his weeks-long sorrow part of his very body now and visible in clear detail to Gandalf; he turns back to Dis, shifting his grip on his staff.

“And the others?” The wizard pushes. Dis sighs, and her serious expression breaks into something else when she looks off to one side, voice lowering somewhat as if she hated the words she planned to speak.

“Preparing to remove Bilbo from his hidings.”

“Bilbo?” Gandalf clarifies despite such thing not being needed. “Hiding? Where exactly is the Hobbit hiding? Surely it’s not somewh-”

“In the room we once shared,” Thorin interrupts, finding the nerve to speak for the first time since the wizard’s arrival. “He’s locked himself in the dark for a fortnight and refuses to speak to anything but that accursed ring.”

Gandalf is a creature entirely unique, unlike any other living thing that ever has or will walk Middle Earth. There’s an air about the wizard that is powerful but familiar seeing as Thorin and his people have known him for many years.

But the near physical coldness that flows from Gandalf, mirroring his face as it falls into a serious, grim expression, is something the dwarf king cannot remember feeling from the wizard ever before.

“A ring, you say.” Gandalf says, voice lowered than what it was before. And the way his hand curls tighter around his staff has Thorin feeling deeply uncomfortable. Then he turns back to Dis, the odd and chilling feeling fading away as suddenly as it had appeared. “When will your sons be back?”

“In no more than an hour,” Thorin’s sister replies and motions to another hall, towards the council room. “But while we wait for their return with the Elvenking we can explain everything that’s been going on as of late.”

Thorin watches his sister and the wizard walk off, trailing behind with a delay he developed sometime in the past few days due to the sheer amount of worry he has for Bilbo. He counts the heads that join them in the council room.

The wizard had been correct in noting the lack of many of the company, seeing as only five of its members were a part in Gandalf’s welcoming party.

The only family group not split up between Thorin and his husband were Oin and Gloin, who had both gone to the royal chambers with the group meant to flush Bilbo out of hiding. But the cousins Bifur and Bombur had lost Bofur and Nori was missing from the brothers Ri; even Balin had been left without his brother, Dwalin, when they had separated into their two groups.

Thorin has a certain, nauseating feeling as he thinks about just how many of the company had gone to go deal with his husband; for his fretful, small hobbit it seemed too much, having to send five dwarrow his way.

But then he looks at Dis as she takes her seat in the council room, at the still dark half-ring bruises on her hand and the haunted look in her eyes, Thorin remembers.

They had all decided that they would try and take Bilbo’s ring once last time, before Gandalf arrived in Erebor, in hopes that the hobbit would be at least a little more in his own mind and able to speak to the wizard himself instead of the furious, half-mad screaming he seemed to resort to now.

It had been a decently sized group that consisted of himself, Dis, both of his nephews, Dwalin, and Bofur.

The plan had been for Thorin and Bofur, his husband’s best friend and someone the dwarf king admitted may be as likely to get through to Bilbo as he was, to go into the room first. They would find Bilbo then try and convince the hobbit to give up his ring peacefully. And when he inevitably became enraged by such a demand- it’s mine! You can’t have it! It’s my precious! - that’s when the others would come in.

And it had happened exactly as they expected. Neither Thorin nor Bofur could convince Bilbo to hand over his beloved ring, not even managing to get the hobbit to cross the far end of the room to speak with them at a more reasonable distance.

When Bofur had said in his sad, desperate voice “don’t make us take it from you, lad,” their hobbit had snapped.

Bilbo shoved the ring into his trouser pocket and charged at the miner, all the while screeching about his precious and how they were both nasty thieves. Thorin and Bofur both dodged out of the way and the hobbit’s stumbling to correct his unsuccessful attack had been the moment the other four dwarrow rushed in.

Dwalin had come up from behind Bilbo, restraining his arms and wincing as the furious kicking of the hobbit’s heels hit his shins. With him contained, Dis had come over and with every intent of taking the ring out of the struggling hobbit’s pocket.

But the moment she had gotten too close, Bilbo lurched as far forward as he could from Dwalin’s hold- something that the dwarf later told Thorin was a move he was surprised didn’t rip the hobbit’s shoulder from its socket- and bit.

It was something so outlandish and animalistic that Thorin didn’t know how to react when it happened. It was only when his husband raised one leg to kick his sister in the gut, still not releasing his teeth from her hand, that the dwarf king rushed forward.

It had taken Dwalin pulling the hobbit away while Thorin and Bofur pried at Bilbo’s face and Dis’ hand to finally separate them.

Plan having gone to complete failure- and all too shocked after Bilbo’s rabid attack- they had all decided it was not the route to go and after all but throwing him away, Dwalin released the hobbit.

Fili and Kili had been at the door, in the case that their uncle tried escaping, and had begun to fret over the mess that was their mother’s hand.

They were lucky Hobbits weren’t a meaner built creature because had Bilbo had sharp teeth instead of blunt ones he had he surely would have bitten a rough chunk from his sister-in-law’s hand. Even with how quickly they had removed his teeth from Dis there was an angry redness to the area and the hobbit even managed to scrape some of her skin off in his brief attack.

Thorin shakes his head, forcing his eyes away from the bruises on his sister’s hand and instead at Gandalf who towers above them all even when sitting.

The dwarf king zones out for most of the conversation his kin have with the wizard. Thorin will occasionally add a gruff word or two but he remains almost entirely silent throughout it all. It isn’t until nearly half an hour later when his nephews come in that he speaks without prompting.

“Thranduil,” he says flatly, staring up at the Elvenking.

The elf gives him a fairly disgruntled look before giving him a small nod of acknowledgement. “Mithrandir,” he says to the wizard, who stands up from his seat and holds tightly to his staff.

“Ah, King Thranduil,” he replies, trying to keep his voice friendly but the tense air that hangs over everyone present works to quite the opposite effect. “According to Lady Dis’ account, you seem to have a clear and worrying idea as to what Bilbo Baggins has been infected by. Is this so?”

Thorin watches the elf look over to his sister, eyes drifting to multiple of the room’s occupants and oddly enough lingering on Thorin himself for a moment, before looking back at the wizard.

“The Halfling suffers no such curse as gold-sickness,” Thranduil states confidently, though there’s still an air of fear in the undercurrent of his tone. “It is a dark magic that corrupts his mind.”

Thorin and his kin had assumed as much, what with how drastically Bilbo had been changing over the past two weeks- and truly, months. He berates himself for not pushing his husband’s claim of winter bringing up all these dreadful feelings as he reasoned it to be when this all first started some time ago- and the wizard seems to know it too.

“What kind of dark magic?”

Had he not been Thranduil the Elvenking of Mirkwood itself, Thorin would claim that the elf’s wavering gaze that darts away from the wizard’s face is from a place of deep and festering fear.

“The One Ring, Mithrandir.” The room makes various noises of confusion, alarm, and disagreement all at once; the wizard’s face drops and he seems to go a little pale. “The Halfling is in possession and under the control of The One Ring.”

Thorin knows what that accursed relic is, most who have heard the history of their age have.

Something that was supposed to be destroyed long ago, a dangerous object which held the will of Sauron himself and saturated with his dark magic. It was said that any who even touched it could feel the burn of Sauron's power and using The One Ring would drive its wearer mad.

Bilbo, covered in blood and fury in his eye, hissing in a raspy voice not his own; deranged giggling in the darkness of his room, whispering things to the thing in his hand. No longer the quiet, fussy hobbit he used to be and instead an obsessed and wild creature that was fueled by paranoia, aggression, and the twisted love for an evil relic.

So, in every meaning of the word, a hobbit gone mad.

“You are certain?” The wizard demands, staring at the Elvenking. “You are absolutely certain that Bilbo Baggins has The Ring?”

“I held The Ring myself, Mithrandir,” Thranduil hisses, either frustrated by the wizard’s words or his well controlled nerves getting the best of him in the moment. “I felt its dark power, there is no mistaking it for anything but what it is.”

“Where would he even have found such a thing?” Balin interrupts, drawing everyone’s attention and looking deeply troubled himself. “Surely not in Erebor.”

“Aye,” Bombur chimes in, Ori right on his heels. “Bilbo found it on the journey, he did! It’s his magic ring, isn’t it?”

Thorin pales when he connects the dots and both the Elvenking and wizard turn to face the young dwarf sharply.

“Impossible,” one voice hisses while the other questions “for so long? Bilbo has had this ring for many years now?”

Ori shrinks under the sharp gazes of the much taller beings in the room, and his older brother continues on for him.

“Yes,” Dori explains, “Bilbo’s had that ring since our run in with goblins during the journey. He’s only used it a few times since, even with how many years he’s had it, and it’s only recently he’s begun to take it out so often.”

“How long ago did this change?” The wizard demands, and a still shocked Thorin- of course his husband’s magic ring was the source of this all, how did he not see it sooner? What great magic could turn one invisible upon wearing it? Where else would Bilbo’s manic obsession with a jewelry come from if not dark magic?- finally gathers his voice.

“Months,” he says softly, staring down at the table and missing all the looks he’s given from the rest of the room’s occupants. “Bilbo’s been acting unlike himself for months. He claimed it due to the harsh winter season but I should have known something was not-”

“It is no compliment when I tell you there was no reason you could have figured out the Halfling’s true problem, Oakenshield.” Thranduil interrupts, and when Thorin looks up at the elf there’s a seriousness in his eyes.

“The One Ring has nearly a mind of its own, and had it wished to take Bilbo Baggins’ mind entirely it would have done so before any being in Middle Earth could stop it.”

A statement, not meant to make Thorin feel better but simply inform him of the truth; he had not seen the connection between his husband’s ring and his worsening mind and nor could any other done such a thing.

The dwarf king stares at Thranduil for a long moment, searching for any kind of trick or lie but finds none. Not exactly satisfied but content to accept the elf’s words, Thorin looks away and back at the table.

There’s a stretch of silence before it’s interrupted again.

“So how do we go about taking The Ring from Bilbo? And once it’s gone will his mind be his own again?” Dis questions, looking between the Elvenking and the wizard; Thranduil gives no form of response, but Gandalf shakes his head.

“I cannot guarantee Bilbo will be all himself any time soon, or even at all, after this.”

Perhaps a kinder fate would have been to die on Ravenhill, bloodied and freezing. Maybe the fight after escaping the goblin mountains had meant to be his final stand; killed in Smaug’s invasion from decades ago like so many of his kin.

No matter where in his life Thorin was meant to die, it was certainly supposed to be before this. The dwarf cannot stand to live knowing his beloved Bilbo may never come back from his deranged state, forever an addle-minded, whispering creature which canted about in the darkness and eyed even his closest friends with a furious paranoia.

“But,” Gandalf’s voice continues, barely making it over the rising numbness in Thorin’s whole body. “If Bilbo’s truly had The Ring for so long and is only now feeling its ill effects, I have hope he will regain his mind with the proper rest and time he needs.”

The room grows quiet again at the wizard’s statement, even when he moves towards the door. Thranduil watches him walk past, ignoring the dwarrow who rush out of their seats to follow; when Gandalf either doesn’t notice or acknowledge the elf’s silent words, he narrows his eyes.

“Mithrandir,” the Elvenking says, turning just enough to look over his shoulder at the wizard. “What exactly do you plan to do with The Ring once you remove it from the Halfling’s possession?”

Thorin halts his steps towards the door, looking directly at the wizard and waiting for the answer they all want to hear. And despite the gravity of all their recent events, Gandalf has the glimmer of humor and a certain lightness in his eyes when he gives the elf a small smile.

“I’m on quite good standings with the Eagles of Manwe,” the wizard says as his answer, enough for the Elvenking who nods but leaving the rest of them confused.

“Come along Master Oakenshield,” Gandalf says as he turns back around and walking out of the council room entirely. The whole group- including Thranduil, who trails behind the many dwarrow- follows behind him aside from Thorin, who makes his way up to the front and leading them through Erebor.

“Show me where our Hobbit is.”

—

It takes only the threatening, creeping shadows of Gandalf’s powers to scare even the deranged hobbit into giving up his most beloved and accursed ring. But what isn’t so easily resolved is Bilbo himself.

After Gandalf had taken it from him, Bilbo had flown into a fit- screaming and crying and attempting to break everything in the room until Thorin wrapped him in a restraining hug. Then the hobbit began to cry, despair replacing anger and he begged to be given The Ring back.

Thorin and the rest of the company had been able to provide little support for the hobbit in the week after his ring was taken- Gandalf finally explaining why his friendship with the Great Eagles was worth note and promising to be back from his flight to destroy The One Ring as soon as he could- and acted nearly the same as when he was still enthralled.

Near the middle of the second week Bilbo began to act a little more himself but was still struggling greatly in the depths of his melancholy. The first smile they got out of him since the whole thing started was, surprisingly, the work of Dis. And though the hobbit began crying almost right after showing a hint of his old, cheerful self, Thorin counted it as progress.

Everyday was progress for him, and though his husband would remain scarred by his period of madness for the rest of years- something he loathes he cannot fix- Thorin was glad to see Bilbo come back.

It took just over a month before Bilbo ventured further than the royal wing of Erebor, but when Bofur had brought his cousin up to the hobbit, explaining that Bifur had wanted someone to go on a walk with him in the recently melted grounds outside the mountain, Bilbo agreed.

Thorin remembers the night after his day out, a lightness in his eyes as if some of his burden had been lifted and with it some fragment of his lingering melancholy.

“Did you have a good day, Bilbo?” He had asked, his heart singing when his husband’s slight frown turned upwards at the corners and he replied in a soft voice with, “yes. Yes, I think I really did have a good day.”

Thorin saw massive improvements in his hobbit’s mood the more time he spent outside in the beginnings of Erebor’s spring season, something he and his nephews took advantage of.

Some mornings Bilbo would all but be dragged out of his bed and mountain by Fili and Kili who insisted their uncle come pick flowers with them or go visit Dale for the day. And in the evenings Thorin and his hobbit would spend time on a forgotten section of ramparts, watching the setting sun and stars that rose to take its place.

But tonight was different and Thorin feels an almost childish sense of giddy in his heart as he leads Bilbo by the arm down yet another hall.

“Thorin,” his hobbit says, and only recently had his lively, exasperated humor fully come back to his voice after being drowned by melancholy for so long. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going yet or are you going to keep dragging me around the mountain?”

Thorin smiles, looking down at Bilbo- he’s beautiful, just as he always is; golden curls and twitching nose, bright eyes that are exactly what the dwarf king had fallen for along his journey to reclaim home.

“Peace, Master Baggins, you will see soon enough what I have planned.”

A small huff. “Master Baggins? Have I lost the right of being called my first name? And might I remind you I am your husband Mister Oakenshield.”

Laughing lightly, Thorin shakes his head at his husband’s bickering but doesn’t further it with another comment. They’re nearly there and the nervous bubble in his chest is beginning to make his adrenaline rush.

Bilbo seems to find no difference between the doors they finally stop in front of and all the other ones in Erebor, giving his husband an odd look when Thorin unhooks their arms and moves to touch the door on the right of the pair.

“If this is you showing me where Fili and Kili’s new chambers are, I must compliment you.” The hobbit offers, raising a brow when Thorin gives him a nervous- nervous! King Under the Mountain looking flustered for him!- smile. “It’s a good spot- they won’t wake us in the middle of the night with another one of their antics all the way out here.”

“I think you underestimate your nephews-”

“Oh they’re my nephews, are they? It seems like that’s only so when they’re causing trouble but if you say so Mister Oake-”

“-our,” Thorin amends with a wide grin. The teasing between them is easy and something the dwarf is glad to see after Bilbo’s spent so much time on the mend from his dark state. “You do not know our nephews as well as I thought you did if you assume they couldn’t wake you even from here, a floor up from our chambers and nearly halfway across the mountain in the other direction.”

Bilbo smiles and the real, genuine happiness on his face makes brushing the memories of him blood soaked and rabid all that easier to brush away in Thorin’s mind. He crosses his arms, looking at his dwarf and raising a brow at the hand still pressed against one of the side-by-side doors that lay in front of him.

“Well, if you’re not showing me where the princes were relocated to, what is it you brought me here for?”

Thorin’s grin melts into something smaller but no less love sick and happy. Before Bilbo can question why he’s acting so oddly, the dwarf begins to push the door open, using his other arm to wave the hobbit in.

“A gift for my loving husband.” He says as if he hasn’t just stolen all of Bilbo’s breath away.

The room is massive and its ceiling isn’t stone as all the other places in Erebor are, replaced instead with stained glass panels. Its floor is soft with soil and while they’re small in number and size, sprouts of various plants greet the stunned hobbit’s eyes.

Various parts of the room have raised sections, like large planters, and as Bilbo looks slowly around, he spies a bench just off to one side of the center of the room.

“Do you-” Thorin says after his husband does nothing but take half steps inside the room, staring wide eyed and silent at it all- “not like it?”

Bilbo says nothing, mouth slightly parted as he continues to turn and take everything in; the image of a great, flying dragon created by red and yellow-gold stained glass pieces that makes up the ceiling seem to keep the hobbit’s attention the longest.

Assuming his hobbit may need another minute to process, Thorin gently links their arms again and guides them to the bench near the middle of the room. When they sit, Bilbo leans against him and continues to gaze at the glass ceiling, marveling at the way the full moon’s light beams through the clear and colored glass bits in different ways.

“If you do not like it, you do not have to find use of it.” Thorin says to Bilbo.

It’s true; if his hobbit truly found no reason to use the room it would be fine. And though he doubts his husband will turn such a gift down, Thorin can’t help but have some self-doubting part of himself become more tangled with nerves the longer the hobbit remains quiet.

“Ori helped me look through the library for books about all those plants you love so much.” Thorin begins to ramble, though his voice remains low and steady, the only tell he’s nervous being the glimmer in his eye. “He stumbled upon a book by elves, an old one. It explained buildings made for green things with walls and ceilings of glass. And while I could not replace these walls with such things, I hope the glass ceiling will suffice.”

Still not a word from the hobbit leaning against his side. When Thorin leans forward, worried perhaps he’s overwhelmed his husband with his gift, he’s startled to find tears in his eyes.

“Bilbo-” he breathes out and pulls the hobbit in closer, hugging him tight to his side and ducking his head to rest his nose in golden curls. “I did not mean to upset you Ghivashel. I only meant-”

“Oh Thorin,” his hobbit finally speaks and voice nothing but an awed whisper; he curls into his dwarf’s side, bringing his feet up onto the bench and bending his knees near his chest. “Thorin, dear, it- it’s beautiful.”

He breathes a sigh of relief, giving his husband a gentle squeeze with his arms. Thorin opens his eyes, moving to instead rest his chin on the top of Bilbo’s head, feeling a faint confusion when the hobbit sniffles back tears.

“Why do you cry then, Bilbo, if it is not because you are displeased?”

“You silly dwarf,” Bilbo laughs lightly, a sound that’s both melancholic and happy at different points. “It’s because, well- this is a wonderful gift. I fear I’m already in love with it far too much.”

Thorin smiles into his hobbit’s hair, feeling the nervous and self-doubting part of himself rush away in the face of a content joy that bubbles up. “It is not a bad thing to enjoy my gift, Bilbo,” the dwarf says quietly and lets himself breathe in rhythm with his husband.

“I commissioned its making, your greenhouse, the night you came home from your trip with Bifur.” Thorin confesses after a long, quiet moment. His husband doesn’t respond, but the dwarf knows it's not for a bad reason. “While you still have the whole of Erebor and Dale outside to travel, I thought you’d enjoy a place to enjoy your beloved nature in peace.”

“It’s wonderful,” is all Bilbo repeats, voice quiet.

The dwarf allows his words to linger, settling into an enjoyable silence with his husband. There’s no urge for words between them nor any faint mumblings of mountain life echoing through the walls like most places in Erebor. This place is a safe space for Bilbo, one Thorin created himself and with all the love he could.

Bilbo’s breathing remains steady and even, surprising Thorin when he suddenly speaks.

“Sometimes-” the hobbit starts quietly and with a purposefully flat tone, “sometimes I wish I could have held it again. Just one last time.”

He doesn’t need to say what it is, Thorin and their close friends know all too well the longing for The Ring that pulls at Bilbo’s mind some days. Unease and a faint feeling of disappointment raised within the dwarf king, but before he can voice such concerns with his hobbit, Bilbo continues on.

“But all the other times I’m glad it's gone- I don’t know what I’d do without you silly dwarrow in my life. You’re much better than some nasty old ring.”

“I compliment I take happily,” Thorin says quietly, in a near whisper. “Though I hope I am not so terrible as to be a close comparison to that accursed relic.”

He feels Bilbo shake his head beneath his chin. “Of course not Thorin,” his hobbit says with all the love his voice can express. “I dare say you’re in fact quite a lot better than every other thing in my life.”

There’s another soft and silent break between their words.

“It’ll look just like my garden in Bag End,” Bilbo whispers. “A little piece of the Shire, right here in Erebor.”

Thorin thinks back to the beginning of his journey, standing in the cozy home of one special hobbit. He thinks of glances that grew longer as they spent more time on the road together, of a growing feeling in his chest.

He thinks of lying in bed after the great battle, pained everywhere but comforted by the soft voice he was far too fond of that remained by his bedside, ever vigilant. Thorin thinks of letters sent to far away lands in the West, of secret plannings and a blooming courtship; he thinks of a grand wedding and quiet mornings spent in bed with a familiar figure wrapped in his arms.

The dwarf also thinks of pain and misery, of what he thought were to be his final moments up on Ravenhill. He thinks of an encounter with trolls that nearly got his fourteenth member’s limbs pulled off and a hug shared atop a carrock. Memories that are not too distant, of a dark fury burning in the eyes of someone usually happy and bloodied hands, of new scars he bears on both his shoulder and face.

Thorin thinks of the time he’s spent with Bilbo, the good and the bad, and finds it all completely, utterly worth every second.

“I would not trade you for all the riches in Erebor,” Thorin says and means every word of it. “The Arkenstone itself is dull in comparison to you, Bilbo.”

A tiny, faint laugh. “Now I feel bad for comparing you to that dreadful ring,” the hobbit says, the teasing between him and his dwarf something he falls into readily. He sighs though, not pushing the ribbing any more and relaxes into Thorin’s hold.

They both stare at the moonlit floor for a moment, peaceful and minds at rest.

“You know,” Bilbo says, “I don’t think adventures are as dreadful as people say they are, if they all end like this.”

“End like what, Ghivashel?” Thorin asks quietly and smiles when Bilbo responds with the most loving, content tone the dwarf has ever had the pleasure of hearing.

“With you and me.”