forhobbitreasons:

“It’s a family sampler,” Bilbo explains, shuffling nervously on his feet as Thorin stares silently down at the gift. “Look–if you follow the branches? There’s your family, your father, your grandfather, Frerin and Dis and the boys, and here’s where mine starts, my parents–left off all eleven of my mother’s siblings, no need for all that, and here’s us, where the two sides meet.” 

“It’s a tree,” Thorin says. 

His voice is blank, which means … something, even if Bilbo’s not sure what yet. Bilbo’s known Thorin long enough to know that his voice, usually so lyrical and expressive, is never blank if he’s not trying to hide something. 

Bilbo shifts again, his trepidation growing heavy in his stomach. He puts his hands on his hips and tries to talk over it, to convince himself that it’s no matter whether Thorin really likes it or not. Unease makes him sarcastic, though, and he winces before he’s even finished saying, “Of course it’s a tree, Thorin Oakenshield.” 

Thorin runs his fingers over the stitching, feeling the imprint of the tiny crosses, rubbing at the edge of an emerald chip that’s serving as a leaf. A crease has appeared between his brows. “Your craft,” he says slowly, “with my materials.”

“Yes,” Bilbo says. He was especially proud of that feat, too: thin gold and copper wiring serve for the bark, and he’d chosen emeralds and peridots and malachites to serve as the leaves, carefully chipped and buffed into shape and attached with gold wiring through tiny holes in the each end. It had been no small trick to cross-stitch and embroider with metals and gems rather than threads and beads, but he’d hoped Thorin would like it.

He isn’t so sure, now.

“Fili taught me,” Bilbo confesses, trying to fill the silence. “And Kili helped to shape the gems. And Dis, of course, she gave me all the names.”

“Your family,” Thorin says, as if he hasn’t heard Bilbo at all, “your family with mine.” 

He finally looks up, and to Bilbo’s utter surprise, his eyes are wet. “Thorin,” Bilbo says, stepping forward and then drawing himself back, waving his hands a bit helplessly, “I–I’m sorry? I thought–if we are going to be married, I thought–”   

“Bilbo,” Thorin says, his voice thick, “Bilbo, come here.” He lays the careful stitching on his lap and holds out both his hands. Bilbo goes, and lets Thorin draw him in until their foreheads are touching. “You really would bind us together,” he says, and now behind the blankness in his voice Bilbo can hear awe, and wonder, and endless hope. “You would bind us together in everything.” 

“Of course I would,” Bilbo says, nudging his nose against Thorin’s. “My craft and yours, my family and yours. My life and yours, Thorin. That’s sort of why I said I’d marry you. Did you doubt me?” 

Thorin laughs, quiet and a bit breathless. “I have learnt better than to doubt you, ghivashel,” he says, and he kisses Bilbo with the shape of his smile still on his lips.