Work Text:
Thorin stepped out from the shadow of the mountain and turned his face to the sun, closing his eyes against the sharp glare. The warmth felt good on his face. It would be years yet for the interior of Erebor to regain the humid warmth of its heyday, when it would be pleasant even in the depths of winter. The rooms the Company had taken inside the mountain were warm enough with fires roaring in the grates but they would have to be careful with their firewood rationing since the winter seemed to be coming early this year.
Gandalf was at Erebor's main gates handling the mess of men and elves that had arrived and were about to arrive on their doorstep that morning. Thorin had been determined to be gracious, to be a better dwarf than his forefathers, to attempt to make peace between their peoples when it seemed as though whatever was going on in the world had something to do with Erebor itself, but when Thranduil had arrived...
Gandalf had been at Thorin's side when the king of the Greenwood had ridden up on his ridiculous moose. He was the only one mounted, surrounded by a number of his green-clad elven guards.
(And if, perhaps, Thorin had spotted Kíli's Tauriel, well. There had been a number of reasons why Thorin had promised both himself and his nephews to be on his best behavior that morning.)
Thranduil had already had his nose up in the air and an attitude to match. The elf king had swung down from that mount – where were they even going to stable the thing? – and stood before Thorin and Gandalf with a flourish that even the best midsummer mummers couldn't pull off. Thorin had found himself puffing out his chest before he could stop himself, raising his chin to meet that imperious gaze head on and refusing to back down.
“Well, if it isn't the King Under the Mountain,” Thranduil's mouth twisted, no doubt trying to smile but Thorin thought the pompous ass couldn't remember how to use those particular facial muscles. “How...gracious of you to meet me in person.”
Thorin swallowed down the many unpleasant words he wanted to say to Thranduil and instead gave the elf a short nod. “The strange affairs Arda is now facing seem to find their start here in Erebor. I am happy to host all those who wish to find out the cause of all these occurrences, should those who arrive be respectful and come in peace.”
Thranduil's lip had curled, those pale eyes looking Thorin up and down like he was little more than a clump of dirt beneath that elf king's boot. Then a sharp light had entered the elf's eyes and he'd opened his mouth to say, “Do tell, King Thorin. Where is that little ferret that was scurrying about in your shadow the last I saw? He was so generous to us. Unlike...you.”
Thorin had not – sadly – punched Thranduil in the face. The sting of the words hit a wound that was still sore and bloody from the sight of Bilbo falling from the battlements the day before. Gandalf had pushed forward then with a stern, “Thranduil ,” and had guided the smirking elf king away. Thorin had been trembling with the need to put his fist through something, though, so instead of creating more hurt he'd taken himself off to a walk instead, Dwalin a vibrating silent guard at his side.
Balin had promised to take care of the rest of the arriving elves and men. Thankfully they would not have to host the entire lot – no, Elrond had sent word that they would be bringing their own people to set up their own camp so that they did not stress Erebor's already creaking supplies. The leader of the men coming, this Aragorn, had also sent word that they would be setting up their own camps near Elrond, though there had been no word yet from Gondor or Rohan. So instead of dealing with that mess – and Thranduil's...everything – Thorin had let his feet take him where they may...until he realized that they were on a certain path, one that he had been avoiding for all these weeks.
Thorin had stopped just shy of breaking free of the mountain's shadow, looking out over the path that would take them to the tower where they seen Bilbo during Thorin's terrible fight with Azog. The area still bore scars of that battle, the broken buildings low on the list of things that needed to be repaired. If Thorin had his way he would have just razed the entire area to the ground and had a garden built there instead but Balin had talked him out of it. For now. Thorin was well aware that by retaking Erebor he had reentered the arena of politics in a way that he had not been in since he was a young prince watching his father and grandfather be eaten alive by the gold sickness that had seemed to swamp the mountain as a whole.
Ever since the destruction of Khazad-dûm their peoples had existed in their own small nations around Arda, with the Iron Hills being the largest of the lot after Erebor's demise. Many of Erebor's folk had gone to the Iron Hills, swelling their numbers and their artisan clans after the Calamity had driven them all out of their homes. The other bulk of Erebor's refugees had gone to the Blue Mountains and settled there, though the ore was difficult to mine and dealing with the Men of the area had been a constant struggle. Not that Thorin's father had paid much attention to that, so focused as he was on retaking Khazad-dûm and reestablishing a great kingdom for himself full of gold and silver and the ever elusive mithril.
Thorin had known he would owe his cousin Dáin a great favor for his aid in the Battle of Five Armies. Just what that favor would be, none of them knew. Thorin knew Balin feared that Dáin would ask for all of the artisan clans that had relocated to the Iron Hills be given over to Dáin's rule formally, which would cripple Erebor's rebirth mightily. Glóin thought Dáin might ask for what remained of the treasury. Thorin knew Nori feared that Dáin would try to force some of the Iron Hills nobles into Thorin's court to slowly take over, for they all knew that Thorin had no wife and would have no heir but his nephews. Already Thorin had heard whispers about dwarven maidens being on their way to Erebor to size up both Fíli and Kíli as potential spouses.
It was going to be a mess, Thorin knew it. So he had to pick his battles, even now, with an eye on politics and how it would play out to both his people and the ever-watching Iron Hills folk that still haunted their halls.
Which led him here, stepping out into the sunlight for what felt like the first time in an Age, feeling that warmth on his face, on his palms, which tingled faintly, just like they had when Bilbo's blood had vanished in that crackle of strange flame.
Thorin opened his eyes to look down at his palms, flexing his hands a few times. Perhaps it was his imagination but he thought for a moment he saw a flicker of blue flame between his fingers, there and gone.
“Thorin?”
He looked up to see Dwalin staring at him with dark eyes. His partner had held him so tight the entire night, the both of them staring out from their bed to their mourning box where the few trinkets they still had of Bilbo's remained. “It is going to be a long few weeks,” he said to Dwalin's tight expression.
Dwalin made a face, making Thorin smile at last. “That poncy...” Dwalin trailed off into incomprehensible mutters as he kicked at the stones on the path. Thorin turned, watching those stones bounce over the earth, to finally look at the place where his feet had taken them and where he had least wanted to be. The river had healed the cracks that had been made in its icy surface but the desolation of the ruined towers remained. The broken buildings were still blackened with soot, though whether it was from dragon fire or orcs, Thorin did not know. The patches of snow about the towers and hills were growing from the occasional flurries that swept across the mountain from time to time. The tiny white flowers that had popped up all over the battlefields remained, still flourishing despite the dropping temperatures and the creeping line of snow growing ever lower and lower.
Thorin gazed over the ruined structures, picking out the spot where they'd found Fíli and Kíli, laid out like they were dead and ready to return to the stone from which their people had come. Where he himself had been laying in Dwalin's arms after his partner had rolled the body of Azog off of Thorin, fearing they were both dead. Where they had both looked to the horizon, seeing the eagles sweeping in from the storm-gray clouds like the miracle they were...only to realize that they were also seeing Bilbo there, indistinct against that angry sky.
Thorin let his feet take him forward, across that scarred ice, to the black and pitted courtyard that had once been a tower of their people. Dwalin was a silent specter at his side. Neither of them spoke as Thorin came to a stop where his boys had been laid out. Their hands had been folded on their chests, expressions so peaceful and calm. It was still a mystery as to how they had gotten there. The last Thorin knew of the two of them, Azog's orcs were stalking them through the ruins, trying to flush them out to torment Thorin with killing them before his very eyes. Of the orcs that had come with Azog, no bodies had been found. It was as if they had vanished. It had unsettled them all.
“Do you think...” Thorin had to stop and swallow against a painful knot in his throat. “Do you think it worked? Do you think that Bilbo is at peace, now? That he is no longer...” He could not face Dwalin. Not here. Not now.
"I hope it did,” he heard Dwalin sigh. “It was...Thorin, you weren't in your right mind. None of us were. You never would have said such things to him, done such things, if you...”
“Were not gold-mad,” Thorin finished for him when the words did not come.
“If we all were not gold-mad,” Dwalin's hands turned Thorin so he had to look up into Dwalin's eyes. “We all carry the blame in that, Thorin, not you alone.”
“But I...”
“Thorin,” Dwalin gave him a small shake. “Tell me now, then. Do you dream of the gold in our treasury? Do you dream of the gems and riches Erebor will grace us with again? Do you –”
“No,” the word tore out of his throat. “You know I don't. Why would you –”
“Then you see?” Dwalin gave him another shake. “The gold-sickness had its hooks in you – in us – for far longer than we knew. Perhaps it had something to do with whatever nonsense these elves think is going on. Who knows? But you, in your right mind, would have never hurt Bilbo. Never. I know this to be true, Thorin. For just as you would not hurt him now, nor would I. And we...” Dwalin stopped and blinked fast but the tears in his eyes did not fall. “We have to hope that Bilbo hears our sincerity. That we never blamed him for anything and that he and all his people are welcome here, for all the days of all their lives, had they lived and even now...wherever they might be.”
Thorin stared at his partner, his lover, his friend. They had been bound together with the knowledge that they would share a One for as long as Thorin could remember. They had dreamed about it as youths, here in this same mountain, whispering how they would Court their One with all the honors they were due. How they would cherish their One and put them first, before all the gold in Erebor and even the mithril in Khazad-dûm. Then the Calamity had come and all those dreams had gone up in dragon fire and the grind of the wheel of time moving on and no sight of their One to be seen.
A part of Thorin had feared their One had died in the destruction of Erebor. A part of him had selfishly hoped that their One had survived, was marching with them even as their people were searching across Arda's vast lands, looking for a new home. To think that their One had been one Bilbo Baggins of the Shire, a hobbit of those fertile lands that few ever even saw...even now it seemed like a strange dream.
“I want him to be at peace,” Thorin whispered, not daring to say the words louder. It felt like a secret he could only share with Dwalin. “For if Bilbo is at peace, then...then maybe he would visit us again. That...that if he is at peace then he won't be so scared of us anymore.”
“Thorin, you...”
Thorin didn't hear the rest of Dwalin's words, for just as Dwalin began to speak something hot and wet splashed onto his cheek. It made Thorin flinch back, startled at the sensation. One hand came up, brushing at it. Was he crying? But his vision had not blurred and it did not feel as though his eyes were burning. But when he looked down at his fingertips, expecting something clear, he did not expect to see bright crimson blood staining his skin.
“What...”
“Thorin? Thorin?”
Thorin looked up at Dwalin, seeing his partner take in the streak of blood on his face, on his fingers. Then, as one, they both looked up.
To see one Bilbo Baggins staring back at them. Their One was seated on the edge of a broken upper floor to the tower, pale and wan, with deep circles under his eyes. And, worst of all, were the deep cuts on the soles of Bilbo's feet, the wounds that had dripped blood onto Thorin's face. That were still dripping blood onto Thorin and now onto Dwalin's hand and arm where he had grabbed at Thorin's shoulders. Then, as Thorin was staring, he could pick out even more details. The thinness to Bilbo's cheeks. The paleness of his complexion. The way his arm was broken and strapped across his chest in a rough splint.
The wizard's words about the wounds hobbits would bear due to the judgments cast down on them rang in Thorin's ears. All he could do was stare up at Bilbo, at their One, all the words he wanted to say drying up in his throat.
Then Bilbo, their One, opened his mouth and said in the smallest voice Thorin had ever heard, “You don't hate me?”
Thorin heard his throat make some strange noise before he found his voice. “No,” he croaked out, needing Bilbo to hear and understand him. “Never. I swear it. Bilbo, I am so, so sorry. I never...” He shook his head, feeling his heart hammering in his chest. He could not bungle this. Not now. Not again. “I will swear upon whatever you wish. I do not hate you. I could never hate you.”
Then Bilbo's gaze moved to Dwalin and Thorin felt his partner start to tremble from where they were connected. “Never,” Dwalin breathed. Thorin saw the way the words reached their Bilbo, the way his eyes went wide, how he rocked back, as if the words were physical things that could hit him. “I could never hate you Bilbo. I swear it.”
“But you...” Their Bilbo shook his head, lips pressed tight together for a moment. “I saw you,” he whispered. “On the – the battlements. You were so angry .” He pulled his legs up and the movement caused more blood to splatter down over Thorin's arms and chest. “I'm sorry –”
“Bilbo, wait –”
“I betrayed you –”
“You didn't – Bilbo, I will swear to it, you didn't –”
“I was just so scared,” Bilbo whispered. It felt like a punch to the chest. All the air left Thorin in a rush. “You had all turned so strange and I couldn't stop it and I –”
“Bilbo, no, it wasn't your fault –”
Those blue eyes focused on them once more. “But you're better now. I fixed it. We all did. At least a little. At least a bit. But now...now we – I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to –”
“Bilbo, wait –,” but just then the tower Bilbo was sitting on gave a thunderous crack and time seemed to slow. It was all Thorin could do to watch as Bilbo's eyes went wide. As he said something Thorin could not hear as the floor Bilbo was sitting on sagged, as the walls of the very tower Bilbo was sitting in started to cave in on themselves. As Bilbo threw himself back, like he had on the battlements, into the collapse of the building, away from them.
Thorin did not know how he ended up on his knees, Dwalin at his back with his partner's strong arms wrapped about his chest, screaming Bilbo's name at the top of his lungs as the tower crumpled to dust in front of them. Not a single stone hit them. It all just piled up into a hill of rubble that would be Bilbo's grave...if he had been alive.
“No,” Thorin whispered, tasting metal on the back of his tongue. Dwalin's chest was heaving at his back, great sobs shuddering out of him. “No, Bilbo. Bilbo, please.”
But nothing answered him. Just the sound of the wind coming off the side of the mountain, sounding like a scream.