Chapter Text
Bilbo was just about fed up.
His hair had reached an unreasonable length- coiling down to his eyelids, brushing the back of his neck, and tickling his ears like a ditsy woodland sprite. And that was excusing how messy and improper it must have looked!
The worst part was: Bilbo was entirely and helplessly underprepared.
In his race to catch this band of kooks on the far reaches of the Shire, the hobbit had made an absolutely miserable pack- no cotton sheets, no dinner mats, no spices, no scissors- which would be very nice at that moment.
Bilbo carded a (too grimy, if you asked him) hand through his amber locks.
Too long.
Much too long.
He lamented his armchair and his hobbit hole and cheese wheels and his fireplace and his reputation; not for the first time, and certainly not for the last.
Bilbo himself had said it, and he always did think he should listen to himself more.
Past Bilbo (as he was so longingly dubbed by Current Bilbo) was a hobbit of sense; of propriety; and of a stash of fine crochet doilies passed on by his dear father, Bungo Baggins, who saw adventures as little more than uncomfortable, detestable nuisances.
He still believed those things, but it was much too late to turn back now.
Hindsight was a cruel, cruel thing, Bilbo thought, particularly when he could barely see through his mat of curls.
But Bilbo was more than a hobbit of yearning and fruitless longing: He was a hobbit of resource and initiative.
Thus, he decided that he would cut his hair the first chance he got.
Maybe if he found a knife- arrowhead, perhaps? Or a particularly sharp rock…?
After a day of what felt like unending steps, Thorin finally stopped the group in a woodland clearing- nice enough, Bilbo supposed. The hobbit was unsure why they still allowed Thorin to do the leading, for while he was royalty, he was also a worse directionalist than a compass that solely points south. At the very least, they had the Great East Road to follow for a time, and to stray from that path, you would have to be a blind man.
Which Thorin was… legally.
While the caravan of tomfoolery set to making camp, Bilbo hoisted himself upon a great log and began sifting through his belongings. He thought, perhaps, that Past Bilbo had had the sense back in Bag-End to pack a pair of scissors so that he might find a pond or lagoon or such and use it to trim these infernal curls. Alas and alack- his past self was just as scatterbrained as he was now.
“Oh, pumpernickel!” Bilbo hissed and then chided himself, for a respectable hobbit would never utter such a filthy swear in the ears of company. This was, of course, disregarding the fact that his dwarves said vastly more foul things in Khuzdŭl, unbeknownst to his ears.
“Where are you, little bugger?!” whispered Bilbo, finally scratching at the bottom of his fleece pack with naught but a few extra tunics and parchment to his name.
Then, clutching at his side, Bilbo had a thought. Not an excellent one, but a thought.
He patted the sword (or ‘letter-opener,’ depending on loyalties) strapped to his hip. It smelled remnantly of troll, and suffered a little bluntness in its unuse, but perhaps it would be a viable substitute. Anything, really, to rid himself of the untamed vines he called hair.
At this point, Bilbo would even risk looking like a backwater hobbit- the kind from Over, Over the Hill that smelled of flaxen seeds and skunky beer.
He shivered at the thought.
Amid his ministration, a taunting, inviting aroma wafted to him from across the camp. The ones who were capable on foot had gone and hunted a few rabbits earlier that day, so Bombur was able to cook up a proper, hearty stew. Bilbo’s poor hobbit stomach longed for it like an old friend.
But the itchiness of the hair on his ears brought him right back.
Bilbo jumped down from the log, his bare feet making little sound on the forest’s underbrush and dappled leaves. Regardless, he scarcely made it three steps before the dwarves took notice.
Whetstones stilled.
“Where’re you off to, Mister Boggins?” asked Kíli, no matter the fact that Bilbo had taken to profuse correction on the desecration of his family name. The Durin son was seated with his brother, both sharpening their chosen weapons.
“Uhm, nowhere of worry,” Bilbo replied, unappreciative of the way he suddenly became an unwilling attentionmonger. “Just… a ways into the wood, is all.”
“I wouldn’t risk going off all by your lonesome like that. Especially after the troll incident,” Fíli noted, rather hypocritically, if you asked Bilbo. He was inadvertently responsible for the whole snotty conundrum, having sent the hobbit to begin with.
“My sister-sons are right,” said that infuriatingly majestic baritone. Sigh. Thorin somehow occupied both his best daydreams and worst nightmares. “You have proven your worth to our cause, Master Baggins, and I wouldn’t have you flaunting off unarmed.”
He scoffed. “I’m hardly unarmed. I have my sword.”
“And can you wield it?”
Bilbo opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
Fiddlesticks.
“You know what, Thorin? If you are so intent on my not getting hurt, you may tag along yourself. It is but a short way.”
Thorin narrowed his eyes, and it was as if even the birds in the trees had quieted to hear their quarrel.
“But a short way to where?” piped another dwarf. It was one of the Oris, but Bilbo was too focused on glaring back at those icy eyes to check.
“To the pond we passed along the way, dear Oris. I simply wanted to see my reflection so I could cut my hair in a semi-respectable fashion.”
And the reaction was nothing short of unexpected. Dori and Nori looked confused, Oín and Gloín were an angrier sort of confused, Ori and Bofur looked saddened, Bifur and Bombur were unreadable, Fíli and Kíli were staring at him as if he had just drove a sword through their hearts, and Thorin…
Thorin’s face was so solemnly set in stone one might mistake him for a statue.
Now, what on Arda's green earth could possibly constitute such a reaction?