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English
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Published:
2012-12-15
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990
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1/1
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Home is Where the Heart Is

Summary:

Bilbo contemplates the meaning of the word home. Thorin/Bilbo first time.
Some spoilers for the movie.

Notes:

Yeah, I went there. Mmm Richard Armitage.

Work Text:

Gandalf looked concerned as he prowled toward me, features twisted in a scowl. I fingered the ring nervously, but I’d made my decision and I would stick with it.

Thorin embraced me. He smelled earthy, like the warm peat fires I’d kindled in the familiar hearth of my hobbit hole. I was much younger then, and it stirred my blood as nothing else had. We do not indulge in liasons casually in the Shire, and until that moment I’d been less than nothing to him, he who was the leader of them all. There was no reason for my heart to pound like a sheep sensing the presence of a wolf.

When I tossed my bedroll on the cold stone plateau, Kili and Fili were there, staring at me as they shoveled their mouths full of stew.

“He is gruff.” Kili grinned.

“Yes,” Fili echoed. "But much beloved by this company, and in his anger at times incapable of putting his affections into words, though we suppose he did well enough today.”

“Aye.”

I scowled at them, “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“He is much taken with you.” Fili grinned.

I blushed to the roots of my hair. “I don’t appreciate your games.”

“Tis no game. He brushed your accomplishment aside the night you saved us from the petrified ones, writing it off as mere happenstance. He tried to push you away, and yet here you are.

“You think he hugs Kili like that?”

“Or Fili” Kili muttered. They both gave me sly looks over the edge of their bowls.

“It has been many a year since our leader has taken comfort in the warmth and flesh of another.”

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”

“Well of course it’s our business, little burglar, we are a fellowship,” Kili gave me a rough slap on my back and a toothy grin.

“Enough,” Thorin’s voice was deep and rough, like the scrape of sand against gravel. It was oddly comforting. They exchanged knowing looks and slunk off into the trees, melting into the shadows.

“I should apologize.”

“No need,” my hands fluttered dismissively. “Really, it’s quite alright.”

He watched me beneath hooded eyes, his hair a wild and untamed snarl, long and black in the shadows cast by the pale moonlight.

I stammered nervously, “they seem to be laboring under a bit of a misapprehension.”

“It’s not entirely a misapprehension.”

I startled, looking at him in surprise. “That’s hardly common practice amongst members of the Shire.”

“Nor is it common amongst my people. But you are attractive, for a Hobbit.” His mouth twisted sardonically.

“Thanks, I think.” I turned my back to him and began unpacking my kit.

He grumbled to himself, “Bilbo, I meant no insult by it, truly.”

“I know. I normally find myself reluctant to venture beyond my own doorstep, but this is a grand adventure, is it not? One I may not return from? As I would not deny you your home, nor would I deny us this fleeting chance at comfort.” I found it hard to look at him, and instead focused on my hands, taking a deep breath and shuffling my feet nervously.

He walked toward me, coat fluttering behind him as his sword and mail slid sinuously against his body. His eyes flashed as he cupped my chin, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “You are quite sure? I will not have it said that Thorin takes advantage of the innocent.”

I stared at him defiantly. When his lips began to quirk, showing the merest hint of challenge, and his thumb ran a soft path along my cheek, I buried my hands in his hair, pulling his mouth toward my own.

The camp was quiet as I helped him slide his great coat and mail free, unbuckling his swordbelt and letting it fall irreverently to the ground. He buried his face in my neck, inhaling sharply before he nipped the skin there. I could feel my pulse stuttering in his mouth and groaned, a sound I was startled to hear ripped from my mouth, unfamiliar and husky with a desire I would never admit being party to.

He stripped from me the walls of normality and compliance that I’d built up in my own mind. I marked him with my nails and mouth, until he writhed beneath me, because I would be damned if I would return to the mundane without that much. The memory of Thorin Oakenshield, leader of the Dwarves, melting beneath my mouth, gave me back the control that the miles separating me from anything I’d previously considered safe and warm had robbed me of. And I promised, as he curled into me, rasping my name in his deep rich baritone, convulsing against my sweat damp body, that I could create my own safety and security for a time, here with this man, and perhaps I would not be quite so homesick. With all the regal hauteur of one born to rule, he pulled away from my sticky body and knelt between my legs, engulfing me with his mouth. I cried out, burying my hands in his hair as I spent myself in the warm depths of his throat. That night I began another sort of adventure, one of the heart; and even now -- now that I have returned to my old home -- part of me is still there, a shadow of my former self that lingers at his side.

I found that night, that home is not just a physical dwelling, home can be anything or anyone that makes you feel secure.To this day I believe that, and while I am comfortable here in the Shire, my heart will always belong with Thorin and the others. It comforts me to think that the sweet song and gently fluttering wings of the Thrush were not the only omens Thorin took to heart that day.