Chapter Text
“I gave it to them!” squeaked Bilbo, who was peering over the wall, by now in a dreadful fright.
“You! You!” cried Thorin, turning upon him and grasping him with both hands. “You miserable hobbit! You undersized – burglar!”
The betrayal had been too great for words. In the end the only thing that had prevented Thorin from killing the hobbit just there and then had been the memories of past deeds and of good moments shared together. But maybe that should have been one more reason to hate him. The dwarf king didn't trust easily, but after all they had been through, he could have given the hobbit his life and felt safe.
And what had he gained for all that? The worst of all thefts. That hobbit, that creature had dared to take his Arkenstone, his heart of the mountain, and to give it away to his enemies. Worse even, he had made his company doubt him. The fools liked the hobbit, appreciated his cleverness, and now more than one of them was wondering if the little traitor hadn't done the right thing.
But Thorin wasn't one to feel sorry for himself. Since he had been forced to agree to the thieves' conditions, he had exchanged many messages with Dain, thanks to the ravens, and he hoped to see his cousin's army by the following dawn.
Night had started falling, and Roäc the raven had just left again, when Bofur came to bring the king his portion of cram to eat. Thorin, for the first time in hours, decided to allow himself a few moment of rest and sat on a stone chair, looking expectantly at the toy-maker. Some words of comfort would have been welcomed in such a dark hour, and hadn't the hobbit betrayed the both of them?
But Bofur only gave him the food and, without a single look to his face, turned back and made for the door.
“Aren't you going to sit with me?” Thorin asked. “Or were you really there only for the halfling?”
“I was involved with a kind king and a loyal hobbit,” came Bofur's answer. “Seems now I have neither. But I'll sit with you if you wish it, my king.”
“Are you calling me a bad king?”
“Maybe. What does it matter? Ye don't really listen to anyone anymore, do ye? Even yer nephews don't like what's happening here, and ye're their hero, their father! And Bilbo...”
Thorin jumped out of his chair.
“Do not say that name in front of me,” he all but screamed. “That... creature betrayed us! He took away my Arkenstone, he allied himself to elves and men, he...”
“He did what he thought right, as he always did! Isn't that what ye liked 'bout him? Isn't that why ye first courted him, why we both did?”
“Silence! We shall not speak of that. I do not wish to be reminded of what I allowed from that miserable creature.”
And then, there was that look on Bofur's face, with the fake smile that never reached his eyes. Thorin hated that smile, and the impact it had on him. He hated the memories it brought back, of days past when he had started showing interest to the halfling, only to realize that the toy-maker had been doing the same for weeks already. And it had been with that same fake smile that Bofur had told his king that he he was ready to give up on the hobbit if Thorin promised to make him happy. But things hadn't quite worked like that, and they'd found a way to make things work, the three of them, and they'd been happy, as happy as they could be on such a dangerous quest, and it would all have been perfect If only Bilbo hadn't decided to join the other side.
Strong arms encircled Thorin, and for a moment he decided to allow it, though he did not return the embrace.
“I won't change my mind,” he said stubbornly. “The Arkenstone is mine, and so is the gold. I've fought too hard for all this, I can't give it up already.”
“It's yer choice as a king, and as a dwarf,” Bofur sighed. “Don't 'xpect me pretend to agree or to s'pport it though, 'cause I don't.”
“Will you leave too, then? Follow him to fight along elves and humans?”
And that idea was too much for him. He had wanted to be strong, because he couldn't afford to let this affect him, not on the eve of battle, but losing both Bilbo and Bofur on the same day, when he needed them so much, was more than he could bear. He could not allow it.
“Do not leave,” he said -begged pleaded ordered hoped- as he finally put his hands on Bofur's back and held him as close as he could, as if that could make him stay.
“I won't go,” the other dwarf promised. “I don't agree with what's going on, and I think ye're wrong. But I'll stay with ye, till the end.”
That was better than nothing, Thorin decided. Pity, just this once, was better than being left behind.
When, as the battle was just starting, news arrived of an army of orcs and wargs, Thorin joined the other leaders to decide what was to be done. He thought he spotted his hobbit as he walked through the elves' ranks, but he dared not look back. It was too late now, and all he could do was hope his burglar would somehow survive what was to come.
Killing Azog gave him more satisfaction than he would have admitted. It brought him closure, in a sense, thought he had but a few seconds to enjoy the feeling before more orcs arrived, riding their wargs. One of the creature tried to attack Fili while he was struggling with a Wild Wolf, and Thorin's heir was only saved because his other nephew threw himself between his brother and the blade, earning a deep wound on the side of his head. Fili saw it, and tried to go to his fallen brother, but the warg he had been fighting was not quite dead yet, and found the strength to bite into Fili's arm, all but tearing it away before Thorin managed to kill it. But it was too late.
As far as he was concerned, the war was lost, and though he went back to killing the monsters trying to invade his lands, he had given up on protecting his own life. When he finally fell, Bofur was the first one to arrive and defend his body.
After all, he had promised he would remain, till the end.
Once the battle was over, they brought the dead, the dying and the wounded inside the great halls of the Lonely Mountain, elves and dwarves and humans all together. Bofur tried to find something positive to make of it, but the whole pointlessness of it all pained him too much. Optimism was impossible when one of his lovers was on his death bed and the other missing, when Fili, always so full of life, had to be drugged constantly to endure the pain in what had been his arm, when Kili was as good as dead.
“He's not dead!” little Ori had yelled when two elves had wanted to put the dark haired prince among the fallen. “He's alive, he's breathing! He's alive, and I'll make sure he stays so if it's the last thing I do!”
And they had allowed it, of course, because there was no point in refusing the child whatever hope he could find. He would learn only too soon that wars could claim even the lives of those you loved. Bofur knew that only too well.
The worse thing, in his opinion, was that unlike Ori, he probably wouldn't get to be with his lover when he would died. As far as the others where concerned, he had no claims on Thorin, whose only known lover was Bilbo. It had seemed so logical at the time to hide what was going on: the king was already courting a halfling, which was unheard of, so having two lovers at once? That would have been scandalous, and so Bofur had agreed to hide, to pretend he was only Bilbo's friend. It had made sense at the time, but now it meant they would not let him see his king, and he didn't have the strength to make a scandal now.
And, at least, Gandalf did his best to inform him of every changes. Technically, the wizard didn't have any more right to being around Thorin, but most people were wise enough to let him do as he pleased.
“He's asked for Bilbo,” the old man said as a bloody dawn started rising. “Several time.”
“Only Bilbo?”
There was a moment of silence, and Bofur could practically hear the wizard looking for something nice to say. Of course Gandalf would have known the entire truth. Blasted man always knew everything.
“Of course, it's only Bilbo that he threatened to kill,”Gandalg eventually said. “He must greatly feel the need to make peace with him before... well, you've seen his wounds.”
“I've seen them, yes. And I don't blame him. I s'ppose Bilbo was the reason we kept together, in the end.”
And oh, didn't that hurt, knowing Thorin only cared for him because it made it easier to care for their hobbit. But it wasn't like he never knew, and he had no right to ask for more than that.
“Still no news of our burglar then?” he asked.
“None yet, but they are still bringing people in. Have no fear, master dwarf, I am sure he is well and will soon be back with us.”
But the wizard sounded anything but confident, as if he were lying to himself as much as to the dwarf. And that, for Bofur, decided it. He couldn't help the wounded, and they wouldn't allow him near Thorin, but there was still one thing he could do, and that was finding Bilbo and bringing him to the dying king before it was too late.