Chapter Text
Once upon a time there was a hamster called Bilbo and a cat called Thorin. They both shared a human, who was called Ori.
Ori had two brothers and lots of friends, but this story is not about any of them. It's a little about Ori, but mostly about Bilbo and Thorin.
Ori was very clever and bright, for a human, but one of his biggest mistakes was that he'd somehow gotten the impression that it was he who owned Bilbo and Thorin, and not the other way around.
Fortunately the animals both knew better, because when someone brings you food, pets you and praises you, and cleans up after you, then there's not really much to discuss. To make Ori happy they didn't bother to tell him about this. It was better that he was allowed to go on as usual.
When Bilbo and Thorin first met they didn't really like each other much. This was mostly Thorin's fault as his instincts were rather insistent on that if something was small and furry and squeaked, then it was likely edible. And edible things should naturally be eaten.
Also, to be (purrfectly) honest, Thorin had also been a little upset that Ori was no longer happy with just him for company. Eating the competition seemed like a rather practical, and possibly delicious, idea.
There might have been more than a few... stressful mornings when Bilbo woke up to find intense blue eyes watching him. And more than one occasion when Thorin’s raspy pink tongue carelessly cleaned between his long claws.
Even if you had been sure that those eyes and claws didn't belong to someone who wanted to eat you, that sort of behaviour would still be fairly stressful for a hamster to observe, and as it were… let’s just say that Bilbo might have become the first hamster who learnt how to meditate in an effort to keep his blood pressure down.
But little by little they grew closer, and not because someone got eaten.
Thorin found himself with an obsession to try and figure out if he could lick Bilbo's fluffy fur into submission, because really, someone needed to groom that hamster and there weren't many other candidates around. Ori's tongue was just sad.
It turned into an almost physical itch for Thorin every time he saw a tuft of Bilbo’s fur flopping the wrong way, and he really wanted to fix it. He needed to fix it. Besides, with all that fur, eating the hamster wouldn’t be worth the resulting hairball anyway.
Sadly, the grooming had to stay a mental exercise, because when Ori left to go to his job, he always made sure that the door to Bilbo's cage was securely fastened. And more often than not he even closed the door into his bedroom; which was were the cage was, there by trapping Thorin outside.
You might think that this was good news for Bilbo. But... he actually found that he missed Thorin. The cat might want to eat him, but if you ignored that then he was actually very good company. Eventually Bilbo stopped being frightened every time those blue eyes would find him, and instead his heart beat faster for another reason entirely.
But they couldn't explain these changes to Ori, who still thought that Thorin lying next to Bilbo's cage meant that the cat was in the mood for a snack, and he also thought that Bilbo's trembling meant that he was afraid.
Thorin was most upset about being accused to scare Bilbo, so he threw up a hairball in Ori's favourite coffee cup in revenge. Never mind that he might once have entertained ideas about a hamster sized snack. It was still annoying that someone as bright as Ori could have these moments of complete stupidity.
One day Ori came home to find his bedroom door open, Bilbo's cage decidedly void of any hamsters, and Thorin lying outstretched on the couch; looking extremely pleased with himself.
For a moment the young man feared the worst, actually, he feared the worst for several moments, but then he noticed a flash of pale golden brown in the midst of Thorin's dark fur.
It was a relief to see that it wasn’t just a hairball.
Between the front legs of the softly purring cat lay a sleeping hamster, and for once the curly tufts of Bilbo's fur could be said to be arranged in something that at least reminded you of order.