Chapter Text
The first night, Bilbo doesn't notice. He would be ashamed, except by that time he has given up on being a good host. The dwarves pile into his guest beds and on his sofas and chairs. He barely knows their names, let alone which ones are family enough to notice who they keep near — who crams into each situation with who. And besides, he's got much more important things to fret about, thank you very much. Mainly, whether or not he will be signing that ridiculous contract. He'd told Gandalf he wouldn't, but well…
By the time the next night rolls around, there is some kind of ritual happening. Bilbo is very tired; he may have done his fair share of wanderings in his youth but he's hardly used to a full day's travel, so it takes him a minute to notice. All of the dwarves are in neat little groups and seem to be bunking down together — far closer than is very respectable by hobbit standards. Ori, Nori, and Dori. Bombur, Bofur, and Bifur. Dwalin and Balin, Óin and Glóin, and even Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli.
Thorin, set to take first watch, sits upright against a rock with Fíli, who is smoking his pipe. Kíli has fallen asleep nuzzled into his brother's shoulder, Fíli's free hand steadying his head, and Thorin doesn't seem to find this at all remarkable. Bifur and Bofur have set themselves up huddling close to either side of Bombur's large form, and are having no trouble sleeping through his snoring. Balin and Dwalin are lying together close to the fire. They don't touch but do share the same blanket. Óin and Glóin share a similar arrangement, only Glóin's arm is tossed over Óin's midsection haphazardly. Bilbo shoots Gandalf, sitting a ways away and also smoking, a confused look. Gandalf chuckles mysteriously and refuses eye contact. Bloody useless wizard. First he can't even produce a handkerchief for Bilbo and now this nonsense.
"Master Baggins?"
A tentative voice to his right shocks him straight. It's Ori. Ori has been pleasant today, he's even talked to Bilbo without calling him a grocer or teasing him. He's wringing his hands a bit and looking at the ground, poor blighter looks a sight younger than most of the rest of them, maybe similar to Fíli and Kíli's age, but Bilbo has previously met very few dwarves, and isn't sure looks are a good indicator. Either way, the impression of youth has endeared him to the fellow.
"Yes, Master Ori?"
"You can sleep with us."
He gestures toward Dori and Nori, setting up just past Balin and Dwalin. Dori is fussing over the arrangements of packs and blankets, and Nori snatches one of the blankets out from under his nose, just to get a rise out of him. He laughs when Dori hisses something at him in hushed tones and yanks the blanket back.
"With you?"
Clearly, this is something significant to the dwarves, but it tugs at his hobbit sensibilities. He recalls his father pulling him aside when he was freshly twenty-two one morning, after he'd crawled in bed next to his mother the previous night. His Uncle Bingo had been telling scary stories at a party and it had inspired some unsettling dreams.
"Now, see here lad, I understand it's a hard shift, but there comes a time in a young hobbit's life when he's too old for certain things, you understand?"
"That's quite alright Ori. I, er, appreciate the offer, but I'll be perfectly content alone."
Thorin scoffs derisively from his position against the boulder, Bilbo doesn't bother looking, he can tell it's Thorin as the dwarf has done little else all day and Bilbo recognizes the sound. It must be considered offensive to turn Ori down, but he's not comfortable sleeping with three strangers. He'd hardly be comfortable with other hobbits, let alone dwarves. Ori gets a look in his eyes, and stands a little taller.
"That won't do Master Baggins! It's barely mid-spring and still getting very cold at night, especially outside. We don't mind, Dori agrees, and you're only little."
Bilbo must not be able to keep the distaste off his face when Ori calls him little, because the young (?) dwarf follows up bravely.
"Meaning no offense of course, you're a very respectable height Master Baggins! I only mean it would be no trouble for us, none at all! You can't sleep alone; we all agree on that."
He says the word alone like it's a sour lemon slice being forced in his mouth. Thorin's eyes bore into his back. Dori looks on expectantly. Ori bounces on his heels, and Nori has already laid down and turned away from the whole affair. Gandalf is coughing loudly in what Bilbo bitterly knows is disguised laughter at whatever cultural more he is failing to understand.
Bilbo gives up.
"Alright, I will sleep with you, thank you Master Ori."
Ori beams. The young dwarf takes his hand and leads him over to where Dori and Nori are laying.
"There you are, we don't bite ya know. No need to sleep in the cold."
"Right. Of course," he replies to Dori tersely, uncomfortable.
"Smart of you to give in, two of them will have never left off if you hadn't."
Nori mutters this from below, eyes closed and words fuzzy, which is probably the only reason Dori doesn't kick him.
Swallowing down his apprehension at sleeping bedded down with three strange dwarves Bilbo sits, then lays, placing himself on the outskirts next to Ori, with Nori on the other side and Dori between them. He finds, that strangely, his hobbitish sensibilities about not wanting to offend those in his company make him a little braver. Though, Ori is still very close.
Then again, Ori was right, it is only April and it is very cold now that the sun has set.
He wakes even closer to Ori the next morning, and gratefully, nobody says anything about it. Though, Thorin sends him an appraising look he cannot read as he packs up his bedroll and blanket. Well, better than the endless scoffing at least.
He continues to bed down with the Ri's and as the shock wears off over the next few days, he starts to take note of the this habit of the dwarves. Is this something they only do on the road? Or is it done all the time? He notices that if one of a pair is on watch, the other one will find another group, and it seems to be the one they are closest to. If Balin or Dwalin are up in the roster, the other goes to sleep with Óin and Glóin. None of them ever sleep alone. He doesn't dare to ask about it, as other than teasing from Nori, begrudging mothering from Dori, and chattering from Ori he is not close to any of the dwarves.
The occasional dwarf passed through the Shire or stopped in Bree while he was wandering out that way in his wilder youth, but they were protective of their traditions, even more protective of their language. He cringes remembering asking a dwarf in Bree to teach him the language when he was a young hobbit and receiving such an aggressive response that the full story doesn't bear repeating in polite company. Bilbo, of course, considers his own head very polite company indeed.
Similarly, the dwarves of their small company are suspicious — despite being mostly friendly, if a little skeptical and teasing of his presence among them. They whisper in their own language, keep any information close to their chests, and yesterday, when he had told Ori about his family (a quite common topic of small talk among hobbits), the other dwarf had got a stricken look on his face and had not seemed to know how to respond.
He has found a little purchase with Ori, in the discussion of books and other academics. Hobbits being sociable creatures as a rule, these conversations make the days spent on the ponies much more bearable to Bilbo.
Though, he still aches something terrible every time he gets off of Myrtle at the end of the day.
Following the incident with the trolls, he is expecting for things to become even tenser with the company. Why he let Fíli and Kíli goad him into trying to burgle them is beyond him. They did at least make off with some things from the troll hoard.
Thorin is less relentless than he is expecting about moving forward the morning of the dawn that killed the trolls. Their sleep had been interrupted the previous night and Bilbo is covered in troll snot. Once the excitement of the whole affair wears off and most of the dwarves settle into resting, he goes to the river to clean himself off. The dwarves are secretive about all the wrong things. He has gathered it is terribly rude for him to watch any one of them do each others or their own hair, but they have no qualms at all about nudity and find it amusing that he does.
He mutters about the backwardness of dwarves as he scrubs and scrubs, especially at his face, to try and feel clean again, when he is rudely interrupted.
"Er, uh.. Master Baggins?"
He doesn't shriek as he turns and sees Fíli and Kíli, shifting from foot to foot at the riverbank. He most certainly doesn't.
"If you've come to tell me that the river water has a taste for hobbit blood, and that I should chirp four times like a finch and you'll come and rescue me, I'm afraid I'm not as naive as all that, and you'll have to find someone new to antagonize today!"
Bilbo snaps at them more than he intended to, but he's stripped to his smalls in a river scrubbing troll excretions off of his clothes and out of his hair thanks to the pair of them, and isn't in a magnanimous mood.
Shock and horror, he finds Fíli actually looks contrite, and Kíli seems to have taken to staring at what must be a particularly interesting rock by his feet.
"It wasn't very honorable of us, Master Baggins, Kee and I came to apologize."
"Yeah, sorry Mister Boggins."
Bilbo does wish Kíli would stop calling him that, but he feels himself soften at their apology. He is now sure that the brothers and Ori are the youngest of the company, with the way the others dote on them, and the way Thorin is simultaneously strict and protective with the brothers. The way they chafe at Thorin's protectiveness but crave his approval tells him maybe they are just past coming of age? Surely they would not have been allowed to come if they were below it. Perhaps, thirty-three or thirty-four by hobbit reckoning.
He sighs, and straightens up from the river.
"It's alright, boys. I shouldn't have snapped. Some burglar I am anyways, getting caught so quickly."
The dig at himself is meant to cut the tension, to give them both an out, but they have gotten serious now.
"Don't say that, Mister Boggins! Without you stalling for time, we all would have been cooked and eaten before Gandalf arrived."
"Well, not if you lot hadn't finally caught on to what I was doing," Bilbo snorts.
It's rather cold in the river, and his body shivers involuntarily. Miserably, he thinks about how wet and cold he'll be until most of his clothes are dry. He turns around to fish them out of the water.
"Oh," says Fíli, "that was all Uncle. He thumped us when we didn't get the idea right aw…"
Fíli trails off, which Bilbo barely notices. Aha! There's his second sock. What was that about Thorin? Oh, he apparently noticed and approved of Bilbo's plan. Interesting.
"Hmm," Bilbo intones, only half-believing this flattering story. He turns back around with his soaking clothing, and begins trying to wring it out.
Fíli and Kíli are staring at him with astonished looks.
"What, did I miss some troll bogies? Oh, honestly, you can't be all that shocked at my hairlessness at this point, you've seen me bathe, even if it was from farther away than the rest of you."
"Not that," Fíli says. "Where did you get that scar?"
"What scar?"
"The great big one on your back!" Kíli exclaims.
"Oh, I forget that's there. It's from the Fell Winter, you know the harsh season back some years ago. Shire became rather infested with wolves once the Brandywine River froze and they could cross over. Nasty business all around, and we were already staving off starvation from a poor harvest in the Fall. One of the little buggers carved those into my back while I was trying to cross Hobbiton for some medicine for my mother. Had to beat the thing off with a frying pan."
This anecdote does not seem to stop Fíli and Kíli's staring.
"You fought a wolf with a frying pan?" Kíli manages to say, but Fíli just continues to stare.
"Well, I was young back then, barely into my tweens. Not sure what that translates to in dwarf years. It still aches now and again, when it gets cold."
Bilbo scratches his cheek as he says this and steps out of the river to shake himself off a bit and continue to wring out his clothes. He flits his eyes over to the boys and sees them giving each other a look, they whisper a bit in their secret language and then Kíli darts off.
"Here," Fíli says quietly, as he takes Bilbo's clothes, "we can lay them out to dry."
Stopping Bilbo from applying further force to remove the water from his trousers, he spreads them out on a large flat and sunny rock by the riverbed.
"Oh, but that will take hours, even with the sun."
"Not to worry, Mister Boggins!" Kíli has returned with a dwarf sized tunic that looks miraculously clean and dry.
"You can borrow mine for a bit. Wouldn't want you to be all cold and wet."
"Well that's very generous, Master Kíli, thank you."
Kíli grins. Oh, thank Yavanna. He may actually be able to get some sleep even in the light if he's warm and dry.
"You can just call me and Fee by our names, everyone else does."
"Only if you call me Bilbo and not Mister Boggins," Bilbo replies, eyes narrowing at him.
Kíli just laughs as Bilbo pulls his tunic over his head. He was right, it does look like a dress on him, but the boys have the good sense not to make fun. Fíli assures him nothing is going to take his clothes while they rest for a few hours, and they return to their camp.
Bilbo is surprised to see all the company are asleep except Gandalf, who sits an earshot away from the sleeping dwarves and seems so lost in thought about something he doesn't even stop to laugh at Bilbo's attire.
Dori, Nori, and Ori are all asleep and practically on top of each other. He feels a rush of simultaneous guilt and affection for the trio: they have probably been less touchy feely to try and accommodate his presence. No matter, with everyone asleep there's no worry about dwarves fussing if he tries to sleep alone. He's looking forward to sleeping by himself for the first time in over a month.
But, just as he sets himself up and lays down, two bodies plop down on either side of him.
"Uncle has abandoned us, and is sleeping with Balin and Dwalin," Fíli whispers. His face is very close to Bilbo's, very close indeed.
"Say, Bilbo, will you tell us the story of the Fell Winter? Sounds like an excellent one."
Kíli is even closer on the other side, head practically nuzzled into Bilbo's shoulder, making him recall with exasperation that Kíli had adopted the exact same position with his brother only upright a month before on the first night of their journey.
He feels like squirming, but such a large gesture of friendship from the two members of the company who have been the most relentless in their teasing is hard to rebuff. Besides, Thorin might remove his toes or something equally horrible if Bilbo hurts his 'sister-sons' feelings.
"Well, I don't know about excellent, some of us didn't survive it. It was a very sad winter."
"Oh, but those kind of events make the best stories! You chop all the sad stuff away, and talk about all the triumphs, all the times you fought and came through, and the funny bits of course. Then you'll feel better for having told it."
Kíli looks impassioned, and has placed his hand on Bilbo's forearm. It's a very warm hand.
"Isn't that a touch dishonest?"
"Not dishonest," a mumble from his other side comes. Fíli's eyes are already shut.
"It's like… 'azgubuntanlâkh."
Bilbo's eyes widen. It's the most and clearest he's heard of the dwarves language. He looks back to Kíli who is nodding. Do the boys not realize what Fíli said? Surely they aren't so comfortable with Bilbo that they haven't noticed the transgression? The polite thing is to pretend he's heard nothing.
"Well then, I suppose it all started in late summer. The first indication something wasn't right should have been the thicker than normal onion skins."
"Onion skins?"
"They are a sign of a harsh winter coming. And if you want me to tell a story, Kíli, I'll thank you very kindly not to interrupt. "
Bilbo isn't sure when he drifts off, but it's after the boys have. They are very cozy on either side of him. He dreams of sleeping between his mother and father during the Fell Winter.
Thorin seems to be extra cross with Bilbo after his nap with his sister-sons. He shoots daggers at Bilbo with his gaze and traipses around camp like Bilbo has pissed in his water skin. He asks Kíli about it, and Kíli tells him Thorin is just jealous. Bilbo supposes dwarves are very possessive of their loved ones and resolves to try and stay away from Fíli and Kíli out of respect, but the two of them make it impossible.
They've taken a liking to him. They call him Bilbo just like he asked them to and ride next to him and Ori. As soon as the company sets out again, they ask him loudly to tell his 'Fell Winter Story' — both insisting that he must have left things out. (The truth is, they fell asleep almost right at the beginning and Bilbo had stopped.) This attracts the entire company, who pepper him with questions and laugh uproariously at the right times, and cheer when Bilbo describes himself beating back the wolf and finishing his journey to retrieve medicine despite the scratches in his back.
"Didn't think you had it in you, laddie!" Glóin exclaims.
"Well, I was very fond of my mother."
"Was?" Fíli asks.
"Yes, both my parents died rather young, even for hobbits. Mother lasted eight years longer than father, but I've been alone in Bag End, for… goodness, seven years now."
"Alone?" Ori seems horrified.
"Well, yes. It's not all that uncommon, amongst hobbits."
All at once, the three youngest of the company reach for Bilbo from their neighboring ponies.
"Ah! Get off of me! Confounded dwarves."
The rest of the company laughs.
"Ah, let them Master Baggins."
Bilbo looks up to see this comes from Bombur. Is he swiping at his eyes?
"My own striplings are the same, can't stand to see a dwarrow by himself."
"Aye, aye. My Gimli would no doubt join the pile if he were here," Glóin adds wistfully.
It is probably the wrong time to point out he is not a dwarf. He lets the boys cling to him a little longer, though. Until —
"Enough nonsense! We have ground to cover!"
Thorin has turned his pony around from the front to face the rest of the company. Properly scared, the company immediately falls silent. The boys release him and stand as straight as they can in their saddles. Miserable brooding dwarf with his stupid deep voice. (Pretty when he sings though, isn't it?)
The next few days until they make it to Rivendell pass joylessly and quietly. There's a tension in the air. Bilbo makes it through only because at night he takes comfort and companionship in the Ri's. This whole sleeping together thing really isn't so bad.
In Rivendell, they are given separate rooms. Most notably, the dwarves are separated by family, and Bilbo and Thorin are given rooms of their own. Bilbo supposes that dwarven kings may be more expected to sleep alone, if they are unattached.
(Is Thorin unattached? Certainly, it seems like he is. He guesses it doesn't matter anyways, if the retake the mountain, he is sure to become attached soon after. He's quite handsome, in Bilbo's estimation. Purely aesthetically, you understand. And Bilbo hasn't been looking too closely anyways so maybe he's actually ugly up close. Bilbo wouldn't know. Again, because he hasn't been looking.)
The idea of it makes Bilbo a bit sad. If sleeping together even off the road is normal for the dwarves but Thorin is expected to be solitary. At first he thinks maybe the elves are being rude to Thorin on purpose. After all, Thorin openly hates them. But even Fíli and Kíli do not seem surprised.
When they are led to their rooms, he's…disappointed. He expects the dwarves to kick up a bit of a fuss about him being alone. They do not. He lays in his bed alone that night. He closes his eyes and thinks about how nice it is, to sleep alone.
It's nice. It is.
Bilbo is outside a large, blurry mountain. Blurry? Maybe his vision is blurry. He tries to rub his eyes but his arms don't obey the instruction. There are dwarves all around him, but their faces are not quite right. They are all moving toward the mountain as if their feet are on wheels.
They stop in front of an enormous door, and Bilbo is shoved in by a dwarf that looks not-quite-like-Thorin.
"This is what we hired you for, burglar. Go kill the dragon."
"Kill it?!" he tries to cry, but it comes out gurgling, as if he's underwater.
He draws his little elven sword as the massive doors (there are two now?) swing open and Bilbo is drawn inside. The doors slam.
A big yellow eye is directly in front of his face.
"Hello, thief. Time to die."
Finally gaining control of his body, Bilbo turns tail and runs towards the doors. But the more he runs, the farther away they become. The thundering footsteps behind him become the howling of a pack of wolves, and right when he thinks he's getting closer to the exit (now a tiny hole to the outside, ever shrinking) there is a searing pain in his back as claws rip into it.
Bilbo sits up, breathing very hard. There is a spring breeze outside. Rivendell is utterly peaceful. The scars on his back scream with pain. He reaches back to check, but his hands come away free from blood. His heart is pounding in his chest though, and he turns his head around, looking for someone, but there is no one. He is alone in his room.
He definitely forgot something with the Ri's. He's sure of it. Best to go see them now, to get it back.
Their rooms are close enough together, the Ri's he thinks, are down the hall, three doors down on the left. He'll just, get whatever he forgot back, say hello, and then go back to his room to sleep alone again. Yes, perfectly normal interaction. As he walks down the hall, he thinks he sees someone in white with dark hair at the end of it, but he blinks and they are gone again.
Bilbo scolds himself for being so unsettled by a simple bad dream. He's not a fauntling. His heart is still hammering very fast in his chest, and when he closes his eyes, there is a big yellow one staring back at him, lying in wait on the underside of his eyelids. It's normal though, for the dwarves to sleep together. Why didn't they just insist he sleep with them again?
Raising his hand, he knocks on the Ri's door.
And Glóin opens it, hair unbraided and redder than Bilbo has ever seen it, contrasting against the white of elvish nightclothes they've all been given.
"Oh, I wasn't. I didn't—"
"Who's knocking at this hour?" another voice, Óin's, calls loudly from inside.
"Mahal, laddie, you look like you've seen a ghost."
Glóin turns around and shouts back at Óin —
"It's the hobbit, the guzgudushadâl has got im."
"Ehh! Bring him in here then! No need to wake up the the Ri's next door. Knew it was nonsense, all that halfling faff about being alone."
Bilbo feels himself blush deeply. His face and ears are very hot, and it's a wonder the curls on his head don't start to smoke.
"I, I don't —"
Glóin's large hand comes to rest on Bilbo's shoulder.
"Shosh, no shame in it, Master Baggins, guzgudushadâl comes for us all from time to time."
"The gusgadooshadal?"
"The dream monster, of course! She gets you easier when you sleep by yourself."
Glóin leads him inside and shuts the door behind him, he directs Bilbo to sit on the edge of the bed with him. Already, seeing someone, talking to them, has helped calm him a little. The elvish bed is too high, and both Bilbo and Glóin have to push themselves up onto it a little. Their feet dangle next to each other, and it highlights the comical difference in size, hair, and shape.
"Suppose hobbits wouldn't have the story of the guzgudushadâl, then?"
"No, we don't have any stories like that. Usually, if a fauntling has a nightmare, we tell them that its all in their head, and send them back to their bed, sometimes with a midnight snack, or a glass of warm milk."
Glóin looks confused, there's a wrinkle between his eyes.
"Your striplings sleep alone? Even the tiny ones?"
"Well, yes."
"Isn't that inconvenient, lad? Not to be crass, but what about when they're still, ah, reliant on their mother, as it were?"
"She gets up to feed them and then comes back to her own bed, of course."
Glóin doesn't look comforted by this knowledge. In fact, the wrinkle between his eyes grows deeper. He doesn't ask further questions though, and instead changes the subject.
"Us dwarrows have a story, or a belief if you like, in the guzgudushadâl."
He looks over to Óin, who is at least doing a reasonable impression of being asleep.
"In Khuzdul," he whispers, "that means monster of nightmares."
Bilbo blinks. He had more or less been told this a moment ago, but to have the knowledge of a Khuzdul word directly shared with him is something precious. He nods, and tries to impart some weight into it, to signal to Glóin he understands the significance of what has just been gifted him.
"She comes for the cracks in the stone of your mind. So, if you're worrying on something too much, drank or ate something that didn't agree with you, or if you're too cold or hot, she can sneak in while you sleep. The only way to get her out is to tell someone the vision she brought you and then seal the crack in your head."
He taps the side of his own skull meaningfully.
"Sleeping alone is the worst for the guzgudushadâl, if you already have cracks, it makes em bigger. Even worse for striplings, because the stone of their mind ain't so hard yet, makes it easier for her to sneak in. Same for a dwarrow who's seen too much battle, if he's got all those cracks in his head unsealed there's no doubt she'll work her evil magic on 'im."
"How are you meant to seal a crack then?"
"You've missed the first step there laddie, gotta tell me what you saw first. My word I won't tell anyone, bad luck to spread around her evil anyways."
Bilbo looks away. He supposes its only polite to share, after Glóin's gone to so much trouble to share the story and the word with him. And it'll make Glóin feel like he's helping too, if Bilbo engages with his cultural traditions. So he shares the sorry tale, about the dragon and the wolves, and Glóin nods solemnly and listens closely, as if what Bilbo's saying makes any sense in the conscious world when it barely made sense when he was dreaming it.
"Well, now that I've spouted the whole silly thing, how are we meant to seal the crack, if you please?"
"Do you still got the phantom pains, then? From the scars in your back?"
Bilbo thinks, directing his attention to the aforementioned scars.
"Oh, no. They are gone now."
"Good, good. Need anything? Water?"
"No, I'm quite alright."
"To answer your question, laddie, sounds like you've been thinking too much, about the future and the past. The solution is to stop."
Glóin picks Bilbo up then, by the waist, and plops him down on the floor. Bilbo squeaks indignantly at this, but Glóin roundly ignores him and pulls back the blankets on the bed, hauls himself in, and then lifts Bilbo into bed next to him on the inside, placing him again between two dwarves. He's making a habit of this.
Glóin shoves him into lying down with a flippant hand.
"I ever tell you about the time my Gimli nearly flooded most of Ered Luin?"
"What? Nearly flooded?"
Glóin chuckles, the sound deep in his throat, and begins to murmur about the Blue Mountains, what they look like, and his little home and his wife.
Bilbo turns onto his side, to get closer to Glóin's voice. He closes his eyes to focus better. Vaguely, he remembers thinking that Glóin is going on quite a lot about unimportant details if he really wants Bilbo to hear about this whole flooding business.
Dori, Nori, and Ori are outraged the next morning, when they learn Bilbo has been poached from them. Fíli and Kíli chime in quickly as well with their own protests. Óin resolutely pretends he hears none of it. The breakfast table is raucous with dwarves fighting over Bilbo. He is apparently making a habit of sleeping between dwarves and also blushing deeply.
"Ach, stand down, everyone! Bilbo went looking for you," Glóin gestures to the Ri's, "but he knocked on our door by mistake, I didn't see the sense in waking up both parties, we can all take turns looking after our burglar."
The arguing dwarves seem to see the sense in this, but Fíli and Kíli have stolen a piece of paper from Ori and are writing something down. Bilbo hopes it isn't a timetable but he isn't optimistic. He stares at his lap and chews on a piece of bread.
"I didn't hire a burglar so we could 'take care of him'," Thorin growls from across the table. Bilbo expects the table to go silent and tense at this, and indeed the other dwarves do, but Kíli's hands slam on the table as he stands.
"Stuff it, uncle! Everyone needs someone looking after them, and Bilbo doesn't have any family here, so its only decent of us to do it. I don't know why you're being such a — such a — Bilbo, what's a good word in Westron for someone who's being the way uncle is?"
Bilbo quickly swallows his bread.
"Uh, well, I suppose in Hobbiton we'd say a stick-in-the-mud."
"Yeah, what Bilbo said!"
Realizing that by answering Kíli's question he has indirectly called the rightful king of the dwarves a stick-in-the-mud, the horror sinks into him. It's enough to kill even a hobbit's appetite. He looks at Thorin, who's expression looks surprised for the first time since he's met him. Then, the dwarf king stands up from the table and stalks off.
Kíli sits back down, satisfied.
"Oh dear, oh dear."
Bilbo puts his head in his hand and babbles. A gentle voice at his side, Fíli.
"Don't worry about it, Bilbo. Uncle just needs to go cool his head, and realize that he's wrong."
Bilbo raises his head to give Fíli a doubtful look. Fíli laughs.
"He does do that occasionally, I promise."
"Never mind that Fee, we need to finish this timetable!" Kíli seems unbothered by his spat with his uncle.
He was right, there is a timetable. He should feel embarrassed, frustrated, any number of hobbitish emotions about it, but instead he feels oddly warm in his chest.
Bilbo needs to apologize to Thorin at some point, but now they've left Rivendell and it seems impossible. Before, Thorin and him would at least occasionally interact, but now it seems Thorin is deliberately ignoring him. The rest of the company is cross with Thorin for some reason, not Bilbo, with the exception of Dwalin, who is on Thorin's side in all things, and Bifur, who doesn't really seem to get mad at anyone (though its hard to tell as the axe in his head makes him a little…interesting), and Balin who is remaining neutral and detached, of course.
Thorin now exclusively sleeps with Balin and Dwalin, but when he mutters to Fíli and Kíli that they shouldn't stop sleeping with their uncle on his account, Fíli says something about learning to be independent as heir apparent, and Kíli talks at length about how their mother should have come, as according to him she would have 'smacked Thorin across his thick stony skull to stop him from being such a lulkh'.
Fíli neither objects to nor approves this outburst. Bilbo is starting to get the impression that Fíli has to be more careful with his words as an heir, but agrees with more or less everything Kíli says unless he expresses otherwise.
Kíli was not joking about the timetable. Bofur demands that their group of three is included and Bilbo finds even that is not so bad once he adjusts to Bombur's snoring. Bifur pats him on the head every time he comes to sleep with the Ur's and Bombur radiates heat. Bofur is friendly, he whistles quietly and carves toys when he can't sleep. When Bilbo stays up with him he asks about hobbit toys and games. He tries to carve Bilbo a conkers set out of soft wood, as horse chestnuts aren't in season, but its doesn't turn out quite right. They attempt to play anyways, and Bilbo forgets that he should be acting contrite around Thorin. He laughs and plays with the other dwarves. He beats them all terribly, and they are suitably impressed.
It actually all works quite well, as Ori has structured the timetable to correspond with watches in a way where the least number of dwarves are disturbed. Besides that, it gives family time to each group of dwarves when they aren't including him in their little groups. Which — though they are too polite to say — Bilbo knows is important.
Things are going so peachy, in fact, that when they encounter the fighting stone giants, and he slips and nearly dies, and Thorin has to save him, he's surprised that Thorin insults him and tells him he has no place amongst the dwarves before Bilbo has the chance to even catch his breath and say thank you.
Well… that apology was maybe more important than he thought. Its rather awful to be yelled at though, he hasn't felt so scolded since his parents were still alive. And really Thorin is right, what has he done for the dwarves, besides get them kidnapped by trolls and subsequently contribute to saving them, cause them all a lot of trouble, make halfway decent conversation, and teach them to play conkers? The answer, Bilbo is ashamed to say, is nothing at all. So, as they trudge into the cave Thorin has found, wet and cold, he's feeling rather dejected.
He lays on the frigid rock in the corner, and contemplates if he could make it home now by himself. Probably not. Oh, but wouldn't it be nice, to lie on his big comfy bed with his duvet and pillows? A crackling fire would be roaring in the hearth, and maybe he would wind down with a good book and a hot mug of tea, or mulled wine, to really warm him to the bones, before going to sleep.
"Bilbo!"
He's suddenly burdened with an armful of dwarf. A second impact gives him two armfuls.
"Are you alright?"
The question is whispered. It is Fíli and Kíli in his arms. Who else?
"Don't worry Bilbo, I managed to grab your little satchel, the one you keep your notebook in, before it fell!"
Ori comes next, close by.
"It's freezing, here, don't lay on just the bare stone, this blanket stayed mostly dry."
"Oi! and you're just going to give it to him, are you? Well, best go to sleep quickly, my friend, have a feeling you won't be waking up with it in the morning."
Dori smacks Nori on the arm with the backside of his hand before handing Bilbo the blanket.
"Alright there, laddie? Nasty shock, that is. Nasty shock for all of us of course, but no one cut it close like you."
Glóin is a little further off, settling in next to —
"Shout if you feel bruised or battered anywhere, won't be able to hear you if you don't and hobbits aren't made with as tough stuff as us dwarves I don't think."
Óin is louder than the rest of them, no doubt he can't hear his own volume.
"Good thing you didn't fall, Bilbo! You promised me your mother's seed cake recipe!"
It is a running joke now, between him and Bombur, that they must survive the dragon only so they can swap recipes.
"Not to mention, I'm still carvin' you a little wolf."
Ah, so that is what Bofur is carving. He smiles at all of dwarves and they smile back.
"I'm perfectly alright, thanks to Thorin. No need to worry, seed cake recipe sharing and future burglary is assured. Thank you Ori, for saving my notebook. Once we've retaken the mountain and I've gone back to the Shire, I was hoping to write a little something about the whole journey. And Master Dori, really, there's no need to give up your dry blanket on my account."
Having mollified most of the dwarves, he's able to turn his attention back to his armfuls. Fíli and Kíli have not let go. Bilbo guesses that he has them tonight. In the end, Dori refuses to back down and snatches the blanket back out of Bilbo's hands and drapes it over the three of them. Bilbo manages to wriggle his arms free to shed his soaked coat, coaxing the boys to do the same with their outermost layers.
"I told you to take my hand, Kee."
"I know, I couldn't reach in time, I'm sorry Fee."
"S'alright. Bilbo?"
Fíli looks very young, and very shaken. He's pushed himself up a little to stare at Bilbo with wide and trembling eyes. Glóin has informed Bilbo through conversations about his son that dwarves come of age at 75 compared to hobbits 33. Ori is 76, Kíli is 77, and Fíli 82. Fíli, being the older one, usually makes an effort to appear more mature. The pressure must be very high, for both of them. However, for Fíli especially, as heir apparent, Bilbo can tell it weighs heavily on him. They've both done exceptionally so far. Its clear to Bilbo they've never done anything like this before, and likely never done anything away from their mother this long either.
He shoots a look at Thorin's form, turned away and lying down across the cave. Bilbo had seen him give both the boys a short, passionate embrace when they entered the cave safely, which is good, but the boys are sensitive, and need a little more comfort (in his very professional opinion). He's not sure Thorin would approve, though.
"I'm alright, Fíli. So is your brother. Everyone is alright," he says, recalling and attempting to imitate the tone Belladonna Took would use when reassuring him.
At his words, Fíli sinks back down, still stiff with worry. Channeling his mother and forgetting he is soothing two technically adult dwarves, he starts to run his hand through Fíli's hair. It's thick and wavy, run through with little braids and intricate adornments. However, it's damp and dirty from the journey, appearing more tawny than golden as it was in Rivendell. It would be nice if they could wash it.
The reaction is immediate, Fíli completely melts into him. Bilbo, having entirely forgotten dwarves and their hair thing, just hums, pleased with himself for doing something useful for once and continues to run his hand through the boy's hair until they both fall asleep, Kíli still on Bilbo's other side.
"I have never been so wrong in all my life."
Thorin is in his arms.
(He smells incredible. He shouldn't. They were nearly roasted alive just now and have been on the road for weeks since Rivendell. But he does. Beneath the smell of smoke and pine trees is leather, the oil the dwarves carry to put in their hair and beards, and his arms are strong and he's very warm—)
Then he's gone, and Bilbo has to make coherent words come out of his mouth. He succeeds, he thinks.
That night, Balin and Dwalin confront Bilbo. Mostly Dwalin really, Balin flanking him on the left. The imposing dwarf stands above him as Bilbo sits on a rock, having just finished a nice meal of rabbit that the dwarves has scrounged up. A ways behind him, Fíli and Kíli are settling in with Thorin. It seems the family spat over Bilbo has resolved itself. Thorin looks, oh — he looks gentle, as he re-braids one of Fíli's braids and Kíli chatters away, leaning on his shoulder.
"Oi, halfling."
Bilbo snaps his head back towards Dwalin.
"You're with us tonight."
Balin smiles placidly.
Dwalin clears his throat and stalls several times. If Bilbo didn't just hear him speak, he'd have thought that the poor fellow was choking on a stray piece of coney. Finally, a gruff whisper emerges.
"You saved his life. I am grateful."
"Oh! It was nothing really. Please don't mention it." A hobbit dismissal: a signal of discomfort with heavy emotional topics. He realizes too late that this sort of nicety tends to be poorly received by the dwarves. The others have adjusted to it, more or less, but Dwalin is unfamiliar territory.
His eyebrows knit. Balin places a hand on his shoulder. He sighs.
"Come on then, you ridiculous creature."
Bilbo is not stupid enough to be unable to recognize acceptance when he sees it. Dwalin and Balin, by allowing him to sleep amongst them, as Thorin's closest protector and advisor, are showing that they accept him. That they appreciate him, and that he is under their protection. He says nothing, and simply follows them over to where they have set up their bedrolls, and settles into sleep.