Bilbo’s not sure how Fili and Kili managed to worm that old story out of him.
He normally has a stronger head for drink than that. But perhaps it was because they were Dwarves and Kili looks enough to be his son that it loosens Bilbo’s tongue.
So he tells them about that Dwarf Smith, long ago, who came to the Shire when Bilbo had just reached his coming of age. That he’d been strange because his hair had been shorn and that he had barely a beard. That he had been grim and gruff and had the saddest eyes that Bilbo had ever seen.
He was in deepest mourning, Bilbo knew that much, for it had been confided to him. But the Smith admitted that it was Bilbo who had first drawn out his first real smile, which was the most beautiful thing that Bilbo had ever seen. And it was Bilbo who had coaxed him into laughter, made him feel the first stirrings of joy in so many long years of grief and pain.
What Bilbo does not tell the brothers, for this is a private thing and that he would never share, was how gentle his Smith had been when he’d first kissed Bilbo, how the touch of his rough hands on his skin set his every nerve on fire. How he’d coaxed out of Bilbo the sweetest sounds imaginable and so Bilbo could never, ever regret that first morning when he’d woken in his Smith’s arms and thought, believed he could stay like this forever.
Bilbo does not tell the brothers how much he still misses his first, truest love and still greets each morning with a prayer to Mahal that he is well, that perhaps he has grown back his beard and his hair and that he has stopped grieving.
Of course, that night at the Toothless Dragon ended with Thorin acting rather strangely, having crumpled what should have been two sturdy tin mugs as easily as if they were paper and Balin wasn’t much better, staring at Bilbo in absolute disbelief, while Dwalin kept choking on his ale. Honestly, one would think those three would be better behaved than Fili and Kili…
***