#post bofa

After the incident at the ramparts, Thorin is terrified that he will hurt his beloved once again but he's even more scared that he made Bilbo fear him. So he avoids him as much as he can even if it hurt him but Bilbo will have none of that and begs Thorin to talk to him. They both discover that they had nothing to fear and that they are both quite blind to each other's feelings.

Thorin working late, nips into Balins office to ask an opinion on the trade deal with Dale. As he opens the door he finds Balins assistant, a beautiful but serious darrowdam. (Even thorin thinks she's serious! But she's a dam in a high office position of course shes serious)

Under the impression she was the only one still working, she'd taken the chance to let down her hair and massage her scalp. (Dwarven equivalent of taking restrictive clothing after a long day)

Thorin walks in and sees her, head tilted back, hands massaging her head with her long red curls hanging down the back of the chair. And completely freezes.

Mine

Fandom: The Hobbit (The Movies)

Rating: General Audiences

Category: Gen, F/M

Relationship: Fili & Kili (Tauriel/Kili but it doesn't focus on it)

Chapters: One-Shot

Words: 4,087

Summary: Fili can't stand it.

Now Fili can't sleep.

He lost something because he didn't want to lose it. He may not ever have it again, and he knows it's his fault.

He does not want Balin to worry, but he cannot tell him either. He is going to hold him back; he is going to insist on talking. Talking does not help. Maybe this will.

Bofur opens the door and greets him joyously.

“I’m going to Dale, won’t be back tonight,” Dwalin says without preamble.

“Has something happened?” Bofur asks, a slight frown on his face.

“Naw,” Dwalin says impatiently, turning away from him. He wants to leave before his resolve leaves him. “Just going to the tavern.”

“Alright, let me grab my coat,” Bofur replies, waggling his eyebrows. “I quite fancy a pint or two myself.”

“I’m going alone,” Dwalin growls and regrets his tone immediately as he watches his friend’s face fall. “I just need to...” He stops, then raises his fist as he tips his head back slightly.

“Ah, fair enough,” the former miner replies reasonably, nodding his head in understanding. “You need to get shit-faced.”

“If Balin... just...” Dwalin cannot find the words and curses himself. He is no dwarfling who needs to make excuses to his older brother.

“Don’t you worry, mate, I’ll take care of things here. You go and do what you’ve got to do,” Bofur says earnestly. He is trustworthy.

This has been in the WIP folder for a while now, but I was struck by sudden inspiration today, so here goes. It’s an experiment, the first time I’m writing something in present tense, so if it goes horribly belly up, that shall be my excuse. Multi-chapter fic, but I’ll keep it short and sweet, just a couple of vignettes from post-Botfa (yes, canon Botfa) Erebor.

~Before the entire fandom murders me: I know what the stone giants are. Trust me, I do, and even if I didn’t, I would have found out today. I just decided that seeing as I have written the famous stone giant scene before (more than once, I think) I’d take the term ‘Stone Giants’ a little less literally and see what happened.

This is what happened.

~~~

Kili shifted in his place next to Fili, listening impatiently as a Councilman droned on and on about 'honour' and 'tradition' and 'future of peace and prosperity'. His cloak and ceremonial armour hung heavy off his shoulders. A human would have collapsed from the weight long ago, and even for Kili, who after all possessed the strength of dwarves, it was uncomfortable. The narrow circlet that marked him as the prince and Fili's husband pressed against his forehead uncomfortably. His hair was braided just a bit too tightly, and he could feel a headache beginning to build up. He usually preferred to keep his hair loose, even though he was technically too old and prestigious for such a simple style, but today was special, and Balin had forced him to get his hair braided properly. Kili wished Fili could have done it, at least, but the King had been busy, and so Kili had been left to prepare by himself.

Dwalin glared at him as Kili shifted again, the noise of his armour was drowned out by that of the crowd below the dais, but all eyes were resting on the King and his husband and Kili knew he should stay as still as possible. Still, he glared right back at the old dwarf, mouthing an angry 'what?' as Dwalin scowled.

Fili's fingers brushed against his and the older twined their fingers together, the gold of his signet ring warm against Kili's hand. Kili turned towards his husband to find Fili smiling at him, gentle amusement and love shining in his eyes. Kili smiled back before turning towards the speaker again, trying to school his features into an expression of polite interest. Their hands were still entwined when the speaker finally finished his speech.

Cagamosis - An unhappy marriage.

The problem, Bilbo thinks, is that Thorin is at something of a loose end. He’s never had the indulgence of free time. Thorin has dolled out free time to fighting, to working, to clawing his way across maps and through mountains. To sweat and blood and the chill of inferior forges and noise of battle and the silence of grand meetings after a plea has been made and before assistance has been denied.

Thorin doesn’t know how to sleep in late. Doesn’t know that a bath can be more than a sullen, hurried scrub of cold water over the worst of the days damage. 

Thorin eats like every meal is a delay that makes him vulnerable to attack. Every meal is eaten with him hunched over and hyper-aware. And Thorin doesn’t eat nearly enough meals, Bilbo is sure. Even by dwarf standards, there is a lean and hungry look about him. When they had been travelling Thorin had a habit of pushing his unfinished meals into the hands of someone else as something more pressing demanded his attention. And the food had always been eaten, because times were tough and meals were infrequent and naught went to waste. At the time, Bilbo had attributed it to Thorin’s single-mindedness, a refusal to disrespect important matters by shoving stale bread and thin soup into his mouth while addressing them. 

But now, with easier times, Thorin is simply at a loss with how to deal with plenty. He pushes his food onto Bilbo. He scrapes stew back into the pot. He stuffs anything dry that will keep into his coat for later. He simply doesn’t attend, leaving Bilbo to eat all but the occasional meal without company. 

(And Bilbo has spent many long, happy days keeping himself occupied. But, it’s only since being dragged across Middle Earth and back with no moments of solitude or privacy that he has started to feel that being alone is a little... lonely.)

And it might just be that Thorin is lost without something to work towards. And it might just be that Bilbo has been anticipating things that were never actually being offered. And it might just be that these things take time, that the point of settling down was that so many little things must shift and change and compromise for a new thing to become sturdy, secure, safe. Thorin’s never had that. Has only vague memories of something resembling peace, and all of his life beyond that has been stretches of necessity and ambition leading towards something else. 

jamorio this is what came to mind:

At first it had been a balm on his soul to have duties again. Official, proper duties that were not ‘stare down the Men, so that we might not be cheated’ or 'circle the wagons at night to ward off the wolves’ or anything else in the hardscrabble lot of a once-was-prince. Still, the full load of a king was a hard thing to balance no matter how comfortingly it settled around his shoulders.

Thorin Oakenshield - husband, had other demands on his time.

But apparently not today because Nori had scheduled a meeting of the Security  Council from now until sunset. Thorin looked at the daily planner on the wall, a masterwork of the Artificer’s guild - a cunning thing of little metal letters that hooked together on a series of copper rails, and sighed even as he fondly remembered that it had once been his father’s.

This meeting was not something he had looked forward to but it was best to get it done. It was nearly three years since the reclaiming of the Mountain and the city had regained its craftsmen, its scholars, it’s artists… and a small but persistent band of malcontents.

Honestly, if there were those who would rather not suffer my rule they should not have come back to Erebor.

It was a childish thought and his mother the accomplished stateswoman would surely have scolded him for it but she was not here and Dis was off charming the court of Dale and he would have to get through this on his own meager supply of wisdom.

But perhaps that quantity had also increased. Stranger things had happened. For example he would rather watch the sunset now from a little wooden bench in a balcony garden that from the proud cut-crystal windows of the upper meeting halls.

The doors swung lightly open at his touch and then found himself rooted in the doorway at the sight within. The chamber was empty except for Nori and his burglar, chatting as they sat jauntily on the edge of the enormous meeting table next to a plate of scones and a bowl of clotted cream.

“Oh! You’re here…” he said, smiling perhaps a little more foolishly than dignity allowed and magnanimously ignoring his Spymaster rolling his eyes in the background.

“Thorin, there you are! Here, these were left over from breakfast.’

Bilbo palmed a scone and then hopped off his perch to present it to him. Thorin’s stomach saw fit to remind him that luncheon was too long ago.

"My thanks” he said a few seconds later around the crumbs in his beard. “Though I missed you today, at breakfast.”

“Ah, well.” His beloved suddenly looked shifty, the way Fili and Kili did when a pie disappeared from the kitchen racks. “Schedules, eh? Troublesome things aren’t they… But I suppose it would be rude to be late for my own kidnapping.”

Thorin’s hand switched effortlessly from the scone to the hilt of his sword.

“What?! Kidnapping!?”

“No, no, don’t puff up! It was safe as houses; Nori and I arranged the whole thing. I had the ropes off and my little magic ring on by midmorning and Dwalin’s giving everyone involved a tour of the cells as we speak. And we found an unmarked tunnel that might lead to a library copy room. The scribes are happier than skylarks in spring…”

He trailed off. Thorin hand had just begun to let go of Orcrist’s hilt, finger by finger.