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It had been a good morning, Bilbo thinks. ‘Had been’ being the key wording there. He’d spent a few hours helping Ori sort through the libraries and forced Bombur to (begrudgingly) include a few varieties of hearty vegetables in their next exchange order sent down to the men rebuilding Dale. He’d even had the time to finish unraveling that old moth-bitten sweater Dori had gifted him - a marked progress toward storing up enough material to start weaving replacements for his crocheted comforts he’d left back home in the Shire.
And then (at just about noon, he thinks, because his stomach had begun to growl at him for not taking an early lunch), Thorin had knocked on the door to his chambers and thrust a bouquet of roses into his hands so quickly that Bilbo had no choice but to take them!
So now, here he is. Morning, or afternoon now, disrupted and ruined by a…a troubling bouquet of clean, healthy roses. Out of place in the mountain, but so carefully arranged in a soft layer of wrapped cotton. Their thorns cut from their stems, their petals open and blossoming. Half of them a fond, bright yellow - the color of friendship and gratitude - and the other half? A deep midnight blue. Unrequited love, wilting here in Bilbo’s own hands.
When he looks up at Thorin’s face, he can see the clear lines of tension that have made themselves home between his brow, and the soft pull of his lip worrying between his teeth. He’s seen Thorin face down a dragon without a fault in his step, but this is apparently too much, it seems.
He wonders if one of the Company had spoken to him of it, or if his love had been so plain to see that Thorin had figured it out on his own. Bilbo’s mouth twists into a small, wry smile.
It is like a punch to the gut, in some ways. Painful, and unwelcome, and…certainly not how he’d expected his day to go when he’d gotten out of bed this morning.
It is a hurt that hits close to his heart, with all of the trouble Thorin must have gone through to tell him like this. A hurt that…is very swiftly stymied when he spies a familiar green-flecked cover peeking out from Thorin's overcoat pocket.
Bilbo stares at it for a moment, his brow pinching. He has to stop himself from forcibly crushing the bouquet in his hands - it is, after all, almost certainly not meant to actually snub him in the slightest.
When his gaze flicks back to Thorin's, the king looks startled - nervous even. Distracted, off-kilter. It is enough that when Bilbo darts close to snatch the book from his coat, Thorin does not catch him in time.
And just as he'd thought, Byrne Caulder’s Guide to Halfling Culture & Customs stares back at him, mocking him with its presence. He remembers keenly when this had first made its way to the Shire - these half-truths and misappropriations penned by a man who fancied himself a historian in Bree. Bilbo had spent the better part of a year critiquing it back then, but it hadn't quite mattered in the end. Hobbits mostly liked to keep to themselves. At the end of the day, this would likely be one of the very few written resources about them Bilbo supposes would exist east of Rivendell.
So, yes, he'd know this damned book anywhere.
He hears Thorin clear his throat, watches as his cheeks paint themselves a lovely dusted pink. And he thinks, keenly, of the chapter on Courting that he'd criticized so thoroughly that he'd seriously considered making the trip to Bree to have it out with the author himself.
Roses are traditional Courting gifts for Halflings. He recalls it saying, with no further inquiry into kinds of roses - a detail that was very important!
"If you do not like them-" Thorin starts, but Bilbo cuts him off with a raised hand and meets his eye.
"Why did you choose yellow and blue?" He asks, and he waits, because this answer, too, is very important.
Thorin smiles down at him, "the blue was close to the colors of my banner, and the yellow...reminded me of you. Back in Beorn's garden I had seen you lay among that patch of..." He pauses, reaching for the right word - the right flower, Bilbo notes, and he feels a bit warm at the thought that perhaps this whole misunderstanding might have been born from the fact that Bilbo had lectured Thorin at length a few weeks ago about the different meanings of flowers, of their significance to him and his kin.
"Daisies," Bilbo says, and he feels a knot untangle itself in his stomach, “Beorn had a very nice bed of daisies.”
Thorin nods, and reaches a careful hand forward to brush against the yellow rose petals.
"Daises, yes.” Thorin says, and he smiles, looking distinctly at the wall beside Bilbo instead of at Bilbo himself, “I had thought...well. I found these in a clearing on the west side of the mountain. And you speak so fondly of the meadows in the Shire. I thought, perhaps, you might like them. And I thought, if you did, you might accompany me to see the clearing.”
Thorin pauses, his gaze flickering back to Bilbo’s own. It is wondrously endearing, how nervous he seems to be - about something so trivial, too.
“If you’d like, of course, Master Baggins.” Thorin adds.
Bilbo holds his (lovingly picked and shorn and arranged, in colors that Thorin chose for him and him alone, Shire courting customs be damned) bouquet close to his chest and says, with a fond smile, “Only if you’ll let me burn this awful book, Thorin. Really, where did you get this damned thing, hm? Not anywhere reputable, I’d imagine.”
Thorin turns an even deeper shade of red, one that Bilbo has never quite seen before, and as his king sputters out some wandering accusation aimed toward meddling nephews, well, Bilbo thinks that perhaps today will turn out to be a good day after all.