Chapter Text
“He’s getting what?” Bilbo sputters. “To whom?”
Kíli exchanges puzzled glances with Fíli, whose shoulder he has one elbow comfortably propped on; his face clears up in a moment, however, and he chortles. “Aah, you’re pulling one over us. Didn’t know you had it in you, Bilbo. That’s a funny one.” He crunches into the apple he’s holding and gestures vaguely behind him. “Don’t say that to Dori, though. Might mess with his nerves.”
“What?” Bilbo repeats, feeling increasingly more lost. “Why can’t I ask Dori?”
Fíli’s eyebrows arch until they very nearly flirt with his hairline. “Hit your head a little too hard during training, eh Bilbo?” he queries, not unkindly. “He’s the wedding planner, of course. He’ll get his underthings all tied up in knots if you’ve gone and lost your memories.” With a broad grin and a wink, he adds, “and so will Thorin, since you’re a guest of honor.”
“A guest of honor. Right. Of course.”
It must be a Dwarvish thing, Bilbo thinks. Thorin is a king who has just reclaimed his kingdom: maybe he needs a wife. Or husband. Bilbo’s not really sure how these things tend to go with the dwarves, and at this point, he’s a little afraid to ask.
Once he’s ambled off, Fíli turns to Kíli, who’s still crunching away at his apple unconcernedly. “… He was just joking, right?”
“Of course he was,” Kíli dismisses. “He’s Bilbo, the sharpest mind in the entire Company. It’s not like he could have missed the fact that Uncle’s been courting him since the end of the Battle. He’s just having us on!”
~*~*~*~
Bilbo quite likes Erebor. It’s very different from Bag End, of course, and the dwarves are nothing like his nosey relatives up in the Shire, although they also have a habit of poking their (rather large) noses in his personal business anyway. It’s endearing, in a way, the efforts they have made to make Bilbo feel more at home.
Thorin especially has gone beyond anything that could be expected of him. Bilbo didn’t necessarily need two caskets of gold and pockets full of diamonds, but he rather liked the garden that he has on the greener patches on the slope of the Mountain. It’s a good place for sitting with a pipe and thinking without the constant noise of the boisterous dwarves around him.
Thorin joins him from time to time. Bilbo can hardly tell him not to, of course, this being his kingdom. Besides, he rather enjoys spending time with a friend who is increasingly busy running his kingdom. And apparently planning a wedding.
“So,” Bilbo winds his hands behind his back, watching Thorin examine one of the many wedding gifts he’s received within the last day. Among the pile is an unnecessarily fancy bathtub made of what looks like sheer gold, a basket of misshapen rocks (he’s pretty sure that comes with regards from Thranduil), and lots (and lots… and lots) of jewelry. So much jewelry that Bilbo is more or less wading in chunky, tangled up necklaces by the time everything is unpacked. He feels somehow that they are too short for this. “Erm. How are preparations coming along, Thorin?”
Thorin angles his head slightly toward the hobbit, hand paused where it had been absently stroking his beard. “You tell me, Master Burglar,” he responds unhelpfully. Belatedly, Bilbo wonders if he’d actually had some kind of responsibility that he’d been unknowingly shirking thus far. Was he too one of the wedding planners? No wonder Dori would be distressed if Bilbo wandered around asking questions this late into the wedding preparations.
“Well,” Bilbo says, and blinks at the pile of gifts surrounding them. “Well.” It bears repeating, because he has a hard time thinking of what else to say.
Thorin narrows his eyes at him. “Are the gifts not to your liking?” he asks. “Thranduil has insulted you, has he not? That tree-shagging bastard-”
“No, no,” Bilbo hastens to reassure him. The last thing Erebor needs is for its king to get into another argument with the elves of Mirkwood. Thorin’s strength is not diplomacy. “The gifts are - erm, mightily fine, really, I wouldn’t know, really? I suppose it all depends on, well, that’s to say, gifts should of course be appreciated by the ones that they are for. Which suggests a level of involvement that I’m not sure I can be said to have, truthfully, Thorin.”
Thorin blinks at him, looking a mite more baffled than usual. “Alright. I shall take that in stride,” he concedes, though he does not look like he’s taking it in stride. He rather looks like he still wants to go clobber Thranduil with the very rocks he sent him. “Is that to say that you don’t feel involvement due to not being materialistic, Master Burglar?”
“No, that’s not - why? Oh, never mind that, Thorin. I just feel a little out of my depth here, that’s all this is. I’ve never been to a dwarvish wedding, you know, and I’m a little - unaware of what these gifts are meant to signify, and why you need me here for all of it in the first place. In the Shire, we just give flowers to whomever we are supposed to marry.”
“Flowers,” Thorin repeats.
“Yes.” Bilbo smiles wistfully. Sometimes, he misses the simplicity of his home country. These confounded dwarves have a way of complicating even things that should be simple, like love and marriage. “Nothing as precious as gold or - whatever shiny rock you’re fancying otherwise. Flowers, and baked goods, and that’s all. Simple things.”
“Simple things,” Thorin repeats. He seems to be doing that a lot lately. Bilbo wonders vaguely if he’s the one who hit his head.
“Y… Yes,” Bilbo idly rubs the back of his head, feeling suddenly awkward after rambling about hobbit wedding traditions and how much seemingly better they are than dwarvish ones. “Er, though… well, I may not have a taste for them, but that hardly matters at all, does it.”
Thorin suddenly seems to rear up in size, foreboding stature looming over the pile of dazzling jewels and riches.
“It. Matters,” he booms thunderously.
“Right,” Bilbo says nervously. “Because I am - part of this wedding?”
Thorin just casts him a look of disbelief before striding off, likely to go wring Thranduil’s neck.
Splendid.
~*~*~*~
“Master Baggins! Master Baggins!”
Bilbo turns to see Dori jogging towards him. The hallways of Erebor are always beautifully lit, barely a shadow left in the crevices of the Mountain, so he can recognize the dwarf even from further away. Dori is panting by the time he reaches Bilbo, and glares at him.
“How can I help you, Dori?” Bilbo asks, a little concerned about the venom in Dori’s eyes. He doesn’t know the dwarf as the particularly vicious sort; he worries if he missed some sort of wedding planner meeting. It sounds like something the dwarves would do.
“Well, Master Baggins.” Dori brandishes two squares of cloth in Bilbo’s direction, both made of what appears to be fine silk. “I need your opinion on the color for the tablecloth. Left or right?”
Bilbo hastens a glance, not daring to answer that they both look exactly the same shade of day-old porridge to him.
“Erm… well… left. I suppose.”
Dori glares at him skeptically. “We can’t have you supposing for such a big occasion, Master Baggins.” He bristles. “Ivory or light taupe?”
“Left. Ivory,” Bilbo clarifies, this time with more certainty. This certainty is soon to be rather misplaced, as Dori looks between them with consternation.
“That’s the one on the right, Master Baggins,’’ he says through his teeth. Bilbo thinks he sees sweat starting to bead up along the dwarf’s greyed hairline. “Right. I’ll make the decision for you, then, but don’t complain about it later!” He sweeps past Bilbo, leaving the hobbit utterly bewildered.
“Wait!” Bilbo calls out, grabbing Dori’s arm. “I’m sorry, I am. I just - I don’t know what you want me to do, Dori. I don’t know what my role is supposed to be in this event!”
“Sit and look pretty, for the most part,” Dori grumbles, pulling his arm back. “And when I tell you to pick something, you damn well pick it!” Then he’s off in a huff, muttering something about ‘damn hobbits’ under his breath.
Bilbo feels a little lost as he’s standing there. He’s not sure why he is supposed to pick the color of the tablecloth for Thorin’s wedding; it seems like the thing Thorin or his as-of-yet mysterious partner should be picking, although the lack of a spouse does not seem to be concerning the dwarves nearly as much.
Maybe it’s someone from before the Quest? And all the dwarves may have known about Thorin’s partner for ages, although Bilbo has never yet heard their name spoken. Is he just missing something here?
“Damn these ridiculous dwarves,” Bilbo mutters, and stalks off.
~*~*~*~
It is in Laketown that Bilbo finally figures out the name of Thorin’s betrothed.
“They are really in love,” the girl whispers. She can’t be more than eight years old, being around Bilbo’s height, but no one else had time to indulge in Bilbo’s need for gossip. The city is still rebuilding, but Bilbo knows that if he wants any questions answered, he needs to be where the gossip is. The Company may be too loyal to mention Erebor’s consort-to-be, but Bilbo will find out, one way or another.
“They are?” he asks, and furrows his brow. Thorin had never seemed that focused on romance, to him. Indeed, if at any point Thorin’s looks had softened, it was in the late nights he spent with Bilbo. It means nothing, of course, Bilbo’s soft little heart be damned, but he’d just never expected Thorin to be a romantic, even if it’s just a side that was never meant for Bilbo to be seen. Apparently, he’d somehow missed this other fellow, however.
The girl nods vigorously. “Master Durger will be an amazing husband to the king, my Mum says,” she says conspiratorially. “Everyone loves him, and that’s really important, ‘cause he’s going to be co-king.”
“Consort,” Bilbo corrects absentmindedly. How do the people of Laketown know who this Master Durger is when no one had been in the Mountain for decades? It must have been the dwarves talking about Master Durger when Bilbo had not been there. Bilbo’s heart clenches a bit at the thought. Maybe they had never mentioned him to Bilbo because they had noticed how Bilbo had started to feel about Thorin, and had wanted to save him some heart ache.
A lot of pain he’s being saved, helping in the wedding planning for the King he’s given his heart to and the loveable partner he’s going to be marrying.
~*~*~*~
It’s unusual to see Balin looking so exhausted, Bilbo thinks to himself as he watches the elderly dwarf pace back and forth while examining the parchment he’s holding. He thinks this wedding has perhaps given Balin several new sets of wrinkles; maybe he disapproves of the betrothed? Bilbo takes the opportunity to innocently prod around for some semblance of an answer from one of the wretched dwarves.
“Balin,” he begins hesitantly, waiting for Balin to blearily tear his eyes away from the parchment. “Will Master Durger arrive in time to see Thorin before the wedding?”
“Hm?” Balin blinks for a moment, then startles. “Oh! Oh, yes, Bilbo, thank you for reminding me. I must talk to Master Durger about his plans for the dining room.”
Bilbo’s heart sinks ever so slightly, but he takes this to be an issue with the chicken he’d eaten earlier and dismisses it. Of course Master Durger would likely have a say in redecorating the dining room, seeing as soon it would be his own dining room. It’s a shame; Bilbo was quite fond of sitting at the head of the table opposite Thorin, laughing and clapping along as the dwarves spun tales of food into song. Then again, there would be no time for trivial festivities once Master Durger took his rightful place across Thorin at the table.
“He should be coming some time today, actually,” Balin mutters, bustling around for a moment as he picks up more scrolls with several drawings on them. “Very good, Bilbo. Though… shouldn’t you be with Thorin now, looking over the gifts?”
“O-Oh, right,” Bilbo still has no idea why his opinion is at all necessary for the gifts, but he rather thinks it wiser not to ask as it may be one of those aforementioned traditions. “I did, already. Thorin didn’t seem too pleased with Thranduil’s gift.”
Balin chuckles absently. “Perhaps he is more concerned with what you think, Bilbo.” Before Bilbo can question this, Balin continues. “Right, but… how do you know Master Durger, Bilbo? I rather doubt… er…”
“What?” Bilbo responds, crossing his arms as a sudden prickle of defensiveness spikes fiercely in his throat. “Was I not supposed to know of this Master Durger, Balin? Was it to be a well-kept secret amongst the dwarves, far from my delicate hobbit sensibilities? Well, I’ll have you know that…” he hesitates, noticing Balin’s apparent bafflement. “Er… well, I’ll have you know that I’m fine,” he finishes, with far less bluster than he’d begun with.
“Well, I certainly hope you’re fine,” Balin responds, eyeing him with no small amount of concern. “The wedding is in less than a day’s time, after all. As for Master Durger, I see no reason why you shouldn’t know about him. He’s a fine lad with an excellent eye for design. Thorin trusts him greatly.” With that, yet another dwarf escapes Bilbo’s clutches, leaving the hobbit with less information and even more questions than he’d had at the beginning of this wedding debacle.
~*~*~*~
For the first time since he settled in Erebor after the Battle of the Five Armies, Bilbo thinks about packing his bags and returning to Bag End.
It’s not really the first time, of course, but there is something carved in his chest that aches with every step he takes. He feels almost numb, trotting past the dwarves that incline their heads at him, almost mindlessly wandering Erebor without a thought of where to go. It will be hard to stay when Thorin is married to someone else. A dwarf that the entire Company loves, and that even the humans look favorably upon. Bilbo cannot compete with that, and he shouldn’t even be thinking about it.
If this Master Durger makes Thorin happy, then that should be enough. If Bilbo were any bit the hobbit he would like to be, he would smile at Thorin’s wedding and never look at the dwarf king again. He can’t, and it isn’t enough. It never quite will be.
Leaving for Bag End. At the thought, he already feels the homesickness for Erebor settle in his belly. He will go, because he must.
“Master burglar.”
Bilbo looks up, quickly moving around. “Did you say Durger?” he says, peering at Dwalin, the apparent source of noise.
Dwalin snorts. “Why’d I call out for a second-rate sculpture maker, laddie?” he asks. Bilbo blinks at him blankly, wondering if Dwalin takes issue with the wedding. “You’d lose your head walking around like this. I’ve been calling out your name for a full minute and you didn’t even respond. Can’t have you wandering off and falling down a pit a day before the wedding, now can we?”
“I suppose not,” Bilbo says ruefully, although falling into a dark pit feels like just the thing to do, right at this very moment.
“About why I called you out, laddie,” Dwalin continues, “I’ve been noticin’ a distinct lack of hobbits around here, if you catch my drift.”
Bilbo, in fact, did not catch said drift. “What?”
“Your hobbit relatives,” Dwalin gestures toward Bilbo vaguely. “Thorin told me I oughtta be looking out for them, but I’ve seen nary a hairy foot around. Didn’t you invite any of your family?”
For a dastardly moment, Bilbo imagines inviting Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, just to set her on the wedding and surely leave it in ruins. He feels remorseful for the very thought just a moment after. No event is so dreadful that there should ever be a need to invite Lobelia.
“Er - I didn’t see a need to, really,” he answers, leaning against the rocky wall. “Because, erm… well… they don’t really know Thorin at all, and they never venture much out of the Shire.”
Dwalin actually seems to take great offense to this statement, bushy eyebrows drawing together in fierce disbelief. “Even for such an important event, they wouldn’t travel so far?”
Well, it’s not like it’s my wedding, Bilbo thinks bitterly, but he manages to dredge up an unconvincing smile. “‘Fraid not. They’re probably selling all my belongings as we speak, honestly.”
Dwalin makes a deeply unimpressed rumble of a sound, then unfolds his arms and claps a hand on Bilbo’s shoulder with such intensity that the hobbit actually crumples for a moment.
“Aye, laddie, perhaps that’s the case.” Piercing eyes study him from under Dwalin’s heavyset brow. “But I know a good buncha fools that’d travel that distance and more.”
With that, he’s off as well, and Bilbo watches him go with an unexpected lump in his throat. Hm.
~*~*~*~
The day of the wedding, Bilbo can’t quite stop himself from pacing in his room and wishes he had something to do, other than fret over the thought of Thorin’s upcoming nuptials. He might not be of much use, but there is one affair in which there is always a shortage of hands during a wedding: food.
Hobbit weddings are a relatively simple affair. If you like someone, you court them for a while. Once both parties have their minds settled on a relationship, marriage is proposed. Weddings are large feasts, of course, with fireworks and cakes and dancing. Especially the cakes are of utmost importance.
Dwarven weddings are, as far as Bilbo’s managed to glean from his friends, nothing like that. One thing that they do have in common, however, is cake. And a glorious cake it is, Bilbo finds as he enters the kitchens: it stands at over five feet tall, towering over Bilbo, similarly to the thought of this wedding.
“Bilbo,” Bombur says, appearing from behind him. He’s frowning, but that’s probably just because he’s so busy. As head cook, the preparation of the wedding meal must have taken a lot of his time.
“Hullo,” Bilbo says with a small smile. “I’m feeling a bit anxious about today, if you can believe that. Is there any way you’d let me help you with the appetizers, Bombur?”
Bombur, much like the several other dwarves that Bilbo’s managed to rub wrong somehow, glares at him. “Bilbo, I know it seems like all I do is eat, but I think you’ll be very pleased with my food preparations.”
Bilbo balks. “Er - no, sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that - I just wanted to help -“
Some of the tension leaks out of Bombur’s shoulders. “No, I’m at fault as well,” he says gruffly, letting his arms fall at his sides. “There’s quite a lot to do still, especially with the number of guests. But I don’t doubt that you have much on your plate as well, Bilbo. Go find Bofur - I think he needed you for something -and don’t worry about us in the kitchen.” He - gently, to his credit - shoos a puzzled Bilbo from the kitchen with his ladle before shutting the door.
“Alright,” Bilbo says to himself, now standing on the outside and feeling like he somehow managed to miss a chapter of his own existence. “Bofur it is.”
~*~*~*~
“Bilbo! There you are!”
“Good morning, Bofur,” Bilbo says, even as his friend steers him inside his humble abode and towards the nearest chair. “Bombur said you were looking for me?”
Bofur brightens, his smile cheeky. “Indeed I was! And you came just in time. Thorin’ll be looking for you, no doubt, and right he is! I shouldn’t be keeping you away for too long, anyway, but I had something for you.”
With that, the dwarf starts rummaging around his belongings. There is clutter all over the floor, and Bilbo watches in some amusement as Bofur whistles under his breath as he throws trinkets behind his back, until he’s found what he is looking for.
“What is it?” Bilbo asks, as Bofur turns to him.
“Well,” Bofur says, and softens a bit. “I hope you don’t mind, of course, it being in good nature and all, but Dwalin told the rest of us, you know, about your family. That they wouldn’t come for you. And it’s bad luck, attending a wedding without a token of acceptance from your family. It’s a dwarven tradition, you know! Very important, that is. And we all thought that the hobbits would give you something, but since they’re not here…”
He holds out a brooch to Bilbo. It’s beautifully made, intricate but not so ostentatious that Bilbo would feel uncomfortable wearing it. His initials are carved into it by someone who has clearly spent some time and effort on the entire endeavour.
“Bofur,” he says, and feels at a loss of words. “This is - I can’t -”
“You’re part of the Company, Bilbo. The family you were born to might not be anywhere near Erebor, and they might not be on their way, but there’s more important things than blood relations. We owe you our home. It’s yours now, too.”
The lump from earlier is back, and even pricklier than before in his throat. Bilbo swallows and squints at the light, before immediately pinning the tree-shaped piece over his cloak. It’s light but noticeable, and he wears it with pride.
Even one dwarf is ten times better than Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. He’s lucky enough to have thirteen.
“I’m honored,” he says a little roughly, not for the first time glad that he chose not to return home, “to call all of you my family.”
“Well, now,” Bofur laughs, “don’t say that too loudly to Kíli and Fíli. They’ll be calling you Uncle Bilbo, before the day is over.”
Something in Bilbo’s chest flutters a little at the thought of both he and Thorin being titled ‘Uncle’ to his nephews.
“Wouldn’t that be something,” he laughs, hoping it’s not too high-pitched and nervous. “Anyway, Bofur, I-”
“Now, that’s quite enough,” Bofur cuts off any forthcoming thanks with a fond, stern look. “You have much to be doing, Bilbo. Go find Thorin- I think I saw him stomping around earlier, complaining about the gifts. You’d better go help him out.”
Bilbo sighs, but concedes that this information is all he’s going to get from Bofur. “Right. Better go quash his fears. Though I can’t imagine why he would want me to give my opinion, it’s not like I’m the one marrying him.” He wanders for the door, not noticing Bofur going whiter than the pale orc. The dwarf laughs, though it sounds strangled.
“Mighty funny, you, Bilbo,” Bofur jokes halfheartedly, and Bilbo just sighs.
“Not you too, I’ve had enough with the jokes.” He groans, still with his back to Bofur. “I just wish someone would tell me what’s going on around here.”
Before Bofur can say another word, Thorin comes barreling, barking out a “with me, Master Burglar,” toward Bilbo before hauling him off. “You’ll see him at the wedding,” he adds to a shellshocked Bofur before the two of them promptly vanish.
“Will I?” Bofur asks aloud, weakly.