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It starts slow, really. A ring here, a pendant there, a new, jeweled scabbard for his sword (his letter-opener, Thorin still called it affectionately). Then, before Bilbo knows it, he’s wearing ropes of gold necklaces and coats of rich fabric and furs.
Thorin showers him with gifts of great value, metalcraft unlike any seen outside of Erebor. He plies Bilbo with shining shirts of mithril, which Thorin smiles with pride to see him wear.
“Crafted by my own hand.” He’d whisper, “For my own personal treasure.” Which honestly embarrassed Bilbo a bit. Hobbits were by nature shy and modest creatures. While it was true that Hobbits loved to give and receive gifts, they didn’t give so richly, and especially to one whom they knew couldn’t reciprocate in kind.
Romantic affection for Hobbits was more of a private thing; soft, lazy kisses under cotton blankets on a cold morning. Slow smiles against Thorin’s mouth. Snuggling down in the sun-dappled shade of an oak tree while Bilbo read to Thorin from his favorite books (all of which had been brought over from Bag End). Hobbit love was warm bread and fresh apples and the smell of grass after rain.
Dwarf love was greedy, possessive. The same way dwarves lusted after gold was the same way they lusted after their mates. Thorin’s way of showing affection was heaping Bilbo with gold and furs until he was suffocating under the weight of it. It was grasping his hips tightly until there were bruises, and biting his neck until Bilbo was whining desperately and clawing at Thorin’s shoulders. It was feeling claimed and owned by Thorin, a feeling Bilbo loved and disliked alternately.
So Bilbo started hiding things. He’d get more and more gifts until he was crushed under the weight, and then he’d put them in trunks and tuck them into drawers. He hid the furs wrapped in cloth under the bed. He put the rings and circlets and chains on the statues that line the King’s halls.
He couldn’t bring himself to get rid of the gifts completely because, well, they were from Thorin after all.
He did understand that this was the King’s way of showing affection, but honestly, Bilbo felt more like an ornament, more like a bauble meant to decorate the King’s halls than a companion or consort. More like a knick-knack than a Hobbit.
So he stopped wearing all the gold and jewels and leathers and velvets and instead took to packing a picnic basket and going outside when Thorin was busy with his Kingly duties. He’d eat and read and take naps in the sunshine, had even started a garden after he’d told Thorin how much he missed that part of the Shire and Thorin showed up the next day with an obviously new-made set of iron gardening tools for the Hobbit.
He didn’t count on being found by Thorin late in the evening, having fallen asleep in the warm air of the pleasant day outside. He also didn’t count on Thorin sitting down next to him, looking at him very seriously, and asking if he wanted to be released from his duties as Consort Under the Mountain.
“I- I’m sorry, what was that?” Stammered Bilbo, stomach sinking. Oh no, Thorin had found all the gifts he’d hidden. He was horribly offended and he was going to send Bilbo away. He had ruined their entire fucking relationship because of a little unnecessary embarrassment, how stupid can you get, Baggins-
“You no longer wear my symbol, nor do my gifts seem to have pleased you. I have not pleased you, my-“ Thorin cleared his throat, seemingly trying quite hard to remain dignified.
“I understand that you made your promise to me on my sick-bed, in the glow of recent victory. It is not an oath I took from you lightly, and should you have decided that I am no longer desirable to you, I shall be happy to assign you an escort back to the Shire with all your things. I shall not keep you here unhappily out of a sense of duty.”
Thorin sat back, solemn, prepared for the words that didn’t come. Instead, he got an angry, shocked Bilbo.
“Oh, for goodness’- you can’t really believe that, Thorin, you can’t. To think that I could ever leave you, and over something so petty! You oughtn’t to be King, Thorin, if that’s the best your deductive skills can manage. So dramatic, you always have been.” Bilbo was absolutely exasperated, even as Thorin was beginning to smile.
“You won’t leave, then, my jewel?”
“No, you idiot, I won’t leave. I love you. I am yours, my King.”
And Thorin leaned in, closing his eyes and meeting Bilbo’s lips with his own. Bilbo swore he could hear Thorin’s heartbeat and he smiled, breaking the kiss.
“This? This is perfect. This is what I like. Hobbits are simple creatures, Thorin, we don’t need gold or jewels. We like small things.”
“I like some small things.” Thorin grinned, tasting Bilbo’s lips again.
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The next day, and every day after, when Bilbo woke up, though Thorin was already gone down to the Mines, a single red flower lay on his pillow. And every evening, when he came back from the sunlight, Thorin was waiting at the door for him with a sooty face and a kiss.
Bilbo would sit down in their chamber in his favorite chair, also imported from Bag End, hot cup of his favorite tea in hand, and read to his dwarf in the light of the fire, marveling at how he got so lucky as to keep this man, whom he’d fallen in love with on their first adventure, so many years ago.