#arrkenshield

"Dwalin, can I come into the kitchen now?"

"No, you can't, Thorin."

"Oh come on!" Thorin stood in front of the closed kitchen door trying to discern by the noises alone what was going on inside.

A small hand tugged at his shirt and he looked down, only to have Marcella grinning up at him. Dwalin's daughter had inherited her father's grey eyes and they were glancing at him now, with all the earnesty that seven year old girls are capable of which was an awful lot, really.

"You won't get in there. Da is pretty strict about these sort of things."

"Is he, now." Thorin found it hard to keep the amusement out of his voice, knowing that Dwalin would do pretty much anything for his daughter if it just made her smile.

"Yes." Marcella sounded more than convinced and with a smile Thorin took the hand she was holding out towards him. "Can you help me set up my castle instead of standing here?"

"Of course." With one last longing look at the kitchen door Thorin followed Marcella into her room where the various building blocks that would hopefully soon form a castle were already waiting for them.

He still wasn't entirely used to spending his evenings in so much company outside of performances. It had only been a good month since he had moved in with Dwalin and Marcella and his long years of bachelorhood had left their traces. Marcella seemed to have adapted to the new situation faster than him, much to both Dwalin's and Thorin's joy. One evening Dwalin had told him about the two other, rather fruitless attempts at a relationship since his divorce: one of them had left him as soon as they had found out he had a daughter - and the other one seemed to have tolerated Marcella, but not much more than that. From what Thorin could gather, the dislike had been mutual.

It had probably been to his advantage for him that he had known Marcella before he had met Dwalin. He could still only shake his head when he thought about the amount of luck that had been involved - Tara, one of his friends at the theatre had asked him to fill in for a teacher during her maternity leave at the ballet school she was running and he had agreed, albeit reluctantly at first. Then, however, he had found out just how much joy teaching especially the younger children gave him, so much more than he had expected. Teaching the moves made him go consciously through everything that his body had internalised as routine already and as such he had been able to discover the little flaws that had found their way into his movements over the years of dancing.

He still remembers how his breath had caught slightly in his throat when he had seen Dwalin coming to get his daughter from her ballet lessons for the first time - tall, broad shoulders, bald head and tattoos everywhere, an image almost out of place at the school, especially amongst all the mothers. Hadn't Marcella actually one day told him that 'dad wants to ask you out for a coffee but he's too shy to do so, please say yes' he probably never would've taken the first step despite having noticed that Dwalin wasn't wearing a wedding ring.

Marcella is chatting away happily when he helps her to set up the castle, directing his hands with a clear idea of what it should look like in the end in her mind. Thorin is only too happy to oblige, fascinated by how complex her vision of what she wants to build already is. Under her instructions a castle grows under their hands, complete with its inhabitants and surprisingly elaborate defence structures that tell Thorin that Dwalin has already started to hand down his obsession with medieval and fantasy TV shows and movies to her.

"No, the knight goes there, not there." Marcella grips Thorin's wrist and directs him towards where she wants the little figurine positioned.

"Sorry." Thorin smiles at her and positions the tiny knight where she wants it. They add a few more things to the setup and then it seems like they are done - Marcella's face is beaming with obvious pride when she looks over their construction. She grins at Thorin who smiles back encouragingly and then comes over to him, settling against his legs. Thorin feels a wave of warmth rush through him. Marcella likes him and he knows it but she is naturally still shy when it comes to physical affection. Her snuggling up against him like she does now is a first and Thorin is more than glad for it.

"So what are we doing now?" he asks her, shifting his knees slightly as he's lying on the side so that she can sit more comfortably.

Marcella reaches into the box next to her and pulls out a rather large figurine of a dragon.

"Now I'm attacking the castle and you need to defend it!" She grabs the dragon with both hands and starts to approach the castle with it, all the while making roaring noises. Thorin tries to defend everything as best as he can, but of course he doesn't stand a chance against Marcella's determined assault in the end.

When he finally looks up from their game he sees Dwalin leaning against the doorframe, watching them both with a smile on his lips. A grin splits Marella's face when she catches sight of her father, raising her hand immediately and waving at him to come closer.

"Da, look!" she cries out in delight, grabbing his arm when he's close enough. She points out the castle in front of them that's slightly destroyed now by the valiant efforts of Marcella the dragon. Dwalin obediently lowers himself into a crouch next to her and listens attentively when his daughter explains to him the exact manoeuvres of the dragon attack and the defenses Thorin has set up that, of course, proved ultimately useless against her. Thorin exchanges a glance with him throughout Marcella's story and mirrors Dwalin's grin, his heart growing warm when he notices the proud glint of a father in Dwalin's eyes as he looks down at his daughter.

Dwalin seats himself on the floor and shifts slightly so that he's leaning against Thorin's shoulder. Thorin smiles and presses a quick kiss against his cheek which prompts Marcella to interrupt her own stream of words and frown slightly at them.

"Da, are you listening? You can do your adult-y things with Thorin later. Look, here comes the dragon again!" She grabs the toy and with a mighty roar the best comes down on the castle and the two adults sitting next to it.

Thorin obediently shrieks as high as he can possibly manage when he takes on the role of the attacked soldiers again, much to Dwalin's amusement. However, Thorin doesn't neglect to send his partner a glance from under raised eyebrows at Marcella's words - 'adult-y things?'. Maybe Dwalin's bed room walls aren't quite as soundproof as Dwalin had always claimed.

The defence of his toy soldiers is soon strengthened by Dwalin but of course, they can't resist the attack of Marcella's dragon for very long. Just when she swoops down for a final attack the alarm of Dwalin's trusty old dog-shaped timer goes off in the kitchen and he jumps to his feet with an apologetic expression.

"Sorry, I need to go get that out of the oven..." he mumbles and Thorin raises his eyebrows, amused at his sudden bashfulness.

"Can I help you with anything?" he asks innocently and laughs when Dwalin throws him a playfully angry glance and cuffs him over the head.

"You know exactly that you can't. Stay here and defend those soldiers from my daughter's wrath instead." Dwalin ruffles Marcella's hair when he gets up and she grins up at him.

"You keep him here and don't let him into the kitchen under any circumstance, okay?" he asks his daughter and gives her a conspiratorial wink.

"Yes!" Marcella has a little too much enthusiasm for Thorin's taste, but he smiles when she settles back against his legs more firmly, gathering her dragon for one last attack against the castle that will presumably destroy the entire structure in the course of it. Dwalin disappears into the kitchen again and Thorin finds it harder and harder not to try and go after him, what with the delicious smells wafting in through the door by now.

The evening passes with Dwalin bustling in and out of the kitchen and Thorin being occupied with keeping Marcella busy - or the other way around, he doesn't quite know either. When they have tucked the little girl into bed and Dwalin has read her the story she still insists on hearing from her father every night Thorin starts cleaning up the floor after the trail of destruction his earlier game with Marcella has left there. Dwalin joins him after a while and they pick up the pieces from the floor one by one in companionable silence.

Thorin is tired after having had two rehearsals that day but thankfully, Dwalin doesn't seem to mind him going to bed early that night - after half an hour that Thorin spends reading his favourite book he even joins him, wrapping himself around him from behind and nuzzling his hair and neck with his nose until Thorin laughs and puts the book away, switching off the lights, thus giving Dwalin the permission to continue in the wordless language that is already theirs now.

His fingers intertwine with Dwalin's on top of his chest and he pulls his partner closer, humming softly in delight as Dwalin begins to kiss the back of his neck and starts to move down his back, peppering his skin with kisses all the way. He turns around to Dwalin midway, taking his face between his hands and pulling him up to kiss him, smiling into their meeting lips when he can feel the quiet rumble of laughter deep inside Dwalin's throat.

Despite his tiredness he doesn't sleep early that night, his fingers trailing lazily across Dwalin's heated skin when their naked bodies lie intertwined in the darkness.

"Happy Birthday." Dwalin whispers against the bare skin of Thorin's shoulder that he has put his head upon and Thorin chuckles.

"You kept me awake for so long just to be the first to tell me that?"

"Hmmmm." Dwalin acknowledges, still pressed tightly against him.

Thorin chuckles again and this time it's almost a full-blown laugh, making his chest vibrate.

"You're impossible." he murmurs but the affectionate squeeze he gives his arm reveals the teasing beneath the words. Dwalin grins and just shuffles more closely towards him. They fall asleep in their current positions, Dwalin's head pillowed on Thorin's shoulder and Thorin's arm slung around him, their bodies so close that their heat combines and seems to build its own cocoon of warmth around them.

*

Thorin gets woken up the next morning by singing. Marcella's voice is much louder than Dwalin's and even though the tone is slightly off there is no mistaking her enthusiasm and honest joy in what she's doing, the words to "Happy Birthday to you" tumbling out of her at great speed as she marches through the door in front of her dad, holding a little wrapped present. Dwalin comes in behind her, his deeper voice joining in with his daughter's singing and carrying a large cake in his hands with several burning candles on it.

Thorin thinks for a moment that maybe this is still part of his dream because it seems so surreal for a moment, so unlikely that someone would ever do anything like this for him. But Dwalin and Marcella are both real and the realisation that they just woke him up on the morning of his 32nd birthday with coffee and cake in bed starts to sink in when Marcella jumps on the bed, making Dwalin laugh out loud as he carefully puts down the tray he has been holding on the night stand next to Thorin.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY THORIN!" Marcella yells so loudly that Thorin feels like he's gone deaf for a few minutes after. She keeps bouncing up and down on his legs as he is slowly bringing himself in an upright position. Dwalin puts a hand on Marcella's shoulder to calm her down a little and bends over to press a quick kiss to Thorin's lips before his daughter demands all their attention again.

"I made you something!" she says and waves the little package in her hands in front of Thorin's face, holding her arms still only long enough to give her gift to Thorin before she starts flailing again. Thorin shakes his head, defeated by the boundless energy of the young girl. His nephews, not so much older than her, have been the same at her age and he wonders how on earth Dís survived those years.

With careful movements he frees the roll of paper from its wrapping and unrolls it on his knees that are still hidden under the bedcovers. Marcella sits on his legs whilst Dwalin is guarding the cake and hot drinks from her flailing arms, her attention focused on Thorin and his reaction to her present.

Thorin smiles as soon as he looks at the sheet of paper in his hands - it's a drawing of him dancing and Marcella doing the same movements next to him whilst Dwalin is standing at the side with a wide smile on his face. Marcella has tried to capture their features and the typical poses as well as possible - Thorin's hair is tied back as is her own, although quite a few strands of her locks are already escaping the knot at the back of her head and seem to lie like a halo around her face, just like they do in real life. Dwalin has his arms crossed in front of his chest and some black scribbles clearly denote his tattoos.

"Do you like it?" Marcella asks him anxiously and Thorin realises he has been staring at the paper for too long without saying a word, too touched to react.

"Yes." he smiles at her and Marcella's face lights up as she starts bouncing on his legs again. "It's really beautiful."

Thorin leans forward to hug her and Marcella throws her arms around him, shouting 'Happy Birthday' again as he thanks her for her gift.

"Thorin, I think your cake is about to burn." Dwalin says dryly and both Thorin and Marcella almost jump, turning around as one to look at where Dwalin is pointing at the cake on the tray.

"You need to blow out the candles!" Marcella's eyes are wide with excitement and Thorin changes his position, turning around slightly so that he can face the cake more comfortably. He takes a deep breath and tries his best to blow out all 32 candles at once (how Dwalin even managed to find space for so many on the cake is a mystery to him). Marcella makes a disappointed sound when he doesn't quite manage to do so, with five candles still left burning in the end that he quickly extinguishes with a second breath.

Marcella claps her hands and Dwalin smiles, leaning over to kiss Thorin softly on his lips.

"Happy Birthday." His voice is quiet as he congratulates his partner, their foreheads leaning against each other for a moment be he moves away again.

Thorin is lucky that his birthday this year is falling on a Sunday, so the three of them can have a lazy morning together in his and Dwalin's bed, eating the cake that Dwalin had so painstakingly been baking the night before and drinking the first cup of morning coffee in Dwalin's and Thorin's case and hot chocolate in Marcella's. Thorin marvels at the cake that Dwalin has made - several different layers and a complicated looking frosting that looks like it comes out of a professional bakery. It emerges that Dwalin's birthday cakes are subject to admiration throughout Marcella's circle of friends and he's been asked repeatedly if he would take commissions for cakes although most of the time he declines since his job as a construction worker often takes up too much time to do so.