forhobbitreasons:

“I don’t remember ever doing this,” Thorin says quietly, his voice strange and maybe wistful as the afternoon breeze carries it away. “Just taking a minute to do nothing. I can’t remember if we ever had moments like these, before the dragon.” 

Bilbo hums, reaching for Thorin’s hand to squeeze a reassurance into it, though he doesn’t turn to look – he’ll allow Thorin that small privacy at least. That’s what they come up here for, after all: the privacy and the solitude, the quiet moments that these days can only be found by secreting themselves out of the mountain through a once-hidden door. 

Erebor is growing every day, and their duties and obligations with it. 

“I think we must’ve done,” Thorin goes on. “We must have had the quiet moments, along with everything else. But I don’t remember it anymore.”

He stares into the distance and sighs, a shade of melancholy coming over his eyes. His grip on Bilbo’s hand lessens as the nostalgia threatens to carry him away, back into the memories of all that has been lost.

Bilbo would rather keep him here: the grief and the mourning has already held onto Thorin too long. 

“You’re just getting old,” he says flatly, a chuckle sliding into the back of his throat at the look Thorin shoots him, but it’s fine: there’s a smile starting at the corner of his glare. “Don’t worry, love. You’ve a hobbit now, and we specialise in things such as this. I’ll show you the way in no time.”

“What, to sneaking away? Aye, that I can imagine. You’re always gone somewhere when there’s a trade negotiation underway.” 

“Your mountain, your problems,” Bilbo waves away offhandedly. “I’m only here for the food.” 

Thorin laughs at such a blatant untruth – Bilbo had been wringing himself nearly dry with the preparations for the diplomatic envoys coming to the mountain for the Durin’s Day celebrations. He works as hard as any dwarrow, and harder than some of them too. “To the quietness, then?”

“Of course not. We hobbits are experts at laughter, after all, and I think our drinking songs are as carousing as any of yours.”

“What, then? To sitting on ledges? Avoiding duties?” Thorin leans in a little closer for the next, just to be sure his voice doesn’t carry as he says, rather more as a suggestion than an observable guess, “To stealing a moment of pleasure with your lover?”

“No, no, and no,” Bilbo says, elbowing him back from an advance that clearly intends to nibble on his ear; Thorin takes it good-naturedly though, settling instead for pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “Though we are good at all those things. But that’s not what I mean.”

“Things hobbits specialise in,” Thorin repeats slowly, musing, pretending to think on it even as he nuzzles a bit closer, his cold nose sneaking into the curve of Bilbo’s neck. “In laziness?”

Bilbo laughs and shakes his head, and finally turns and gives Thorin the kiss he’s clearly angling for, sweet and slow and warm in the afternoon light. 

“In happiness,” he says finally.

Thorin studies him for a moment, then he dips in for another kiss. “Aye, all right,” he agrees. “You’ve lead me right this far, Bilbo Baggins. I think I can follow you a bit further.”