Archive of Our Own ^beta

Just tell me you weren’t hungry that day
Just tell me I’m the reason you stay

— Hades to Persephone, Lee Ann Schaffer

***

The Titanomachy concluded, as all wars eventually did, at the coming of the new century. Good riddance, Thorin thought, because he had ten whole years of fighting and spilling immortal blood and that was ten years more than anyone could possibly need. He didn’t dislike fighting, but he did dislike losing, and that was reason enough to slog it through the whole decade without having any second thoughts whatsoever. At the very least, he’d truly avenged his grandfather by slicing up the rest of Azog and sending whatever remained to the Underworld to join the orc’s severed arm, and that was something which Thorin could readily find closure in.

Of course, the conclusion of the battle was merely the beginning of other things. There were missing combatants to find and the injured to see to and prisoners to jail, all on top of an entire world order left in ruin. Thorin did what he could to help. He gave speeches and oversaw head counts and spearheaded search parties, and was reminded of the fact that he could sooner read hieroglyphics than parse a map. After word had come out that he led three parties led astray on five different continents, Dain and Frerin sat him down to speak among themselves, and Thorin was really much too mortified to be disagreeable when the topic changed to separating and governing the territories of the world they had just won.

There were three of them and three key territories. An hour of deliberation made it clear that none of them wanted to go down in history as the first chooser. Everything was about parity nowadays, and while Thorin really was all for the idea, he blamed it for having to come down to debating who deserved Mount Erebor because you had it worse than me. Yes, Thorin and Frerin had lost their father and grandfather in the war, but everyone had lost something; by that metric they weren’t gaining much ground on coming to a decision, and it did absolutely nothing for their moods besides.

By the end of the second hour, no one had the heart nor the patience to argue any further. Quite out of nowhere, Frerin jokingly suggested picking their names out of a hat and stopped grinning when Dain and Thorin looked at him, dead serious, and then at each other.

A fistful of straws later, Dain had Erebor, the oceans were Frerin's, and Thorin was crowned the first and only King of the Underworld. He looked down at the very, very short straw pinched between his fingers, and told himself that the length of it didn’t necessarily have to mean anything.

***

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Dis mused, looking around.

Thorin bit his lower lip and hooked the key back onto his belt, turning away from the gates. It wasn’t in his nature to be cynical, but second-guessing everything Dis had to say about him — well-intended or otherwise — was pretty much ingrained by habit. If anything, she was probably incapable of not holding the Underworld over his head for the rest of eternity. “Are you going to stay long?” he asked, expecting the jibes to begin immediately.

She shrugged and kicked at a stray pile of rubble. “Just checking on you is all. Thought you might appreciate the company.”

“Touching. I didn’t know you cared.”

Dis paused and gave him a considering look. It almost looked as though she was pitying him, and Thorin hated that, almost hated her. “It really isn’t all that bad down here, you know.”

“You’re welcome to swap places any time.” He didn’t really mean that, but it got the message across. Being the God of Death was unenviable in more ways than it wasn’t, he could already hear the murmurings up on the surface world, and Thorin didn’t have time to try fooling either of them into thinking that any of those were compliments. Ori had already started to bring in the first few souls and between that and chaining up fallen gods and and checking orc after goblin after troll into Tartarus, applying himself to anything other than his work would be a luxury.

His sister smiled faintly and tossed her hair at him. It was how they always were with each other even as young immortals dreaming of godshood, and not much had changed since then. Thorin would say that they had a complicated relationship, only there was nothing too abstract about a brother and sister trading bugger offs between each other; considering that, it was a miracle her sons didn’t take after her.

“Fili and Kili say hi,” Dis informed him. “They think you’re going to be fantastic at this, by the way.”

Thorin studied the toes of his boots, feeling just the tiniest bit better. He could respect Dis for letting him have that, even if playing the nephews card was the oldest trick in her book. There wasn’t anyone who really meant the world to him in his life, but Thorin had to admit that his nephews did come close. If he would give this God of Death thing a shot for anyone, it would probably be for them. They would always be the best of a bad situation, and he didn’t see how this one would be any different.

“Tell them they’re welcome here any time,” Thorin said, “and that I said hi too.”

“Only if I am as well.” Dis leaned over and punched his elbow playfully, and Thorin raised his eyebrows, biting back a grin.

***

Another decade passed with the whole godshood thing before everything fell into place. The Underworld finally stopped smelling of rotting corpse about two years in and started to smell more like abandoned graveyard, and that was probably as benign as it was ever going to get given the nature of the location and its residents.

Thorin sort of liked it that way. Nothing spelled death more clearly than coffin dust in the air and sulphur on dry earth, and adding a theatrical touch to the whole business made it a whole lot easier to go along with.

He worked out a system early and got it up and running by the third month of his reign. Thorin sent his monthly reports and statistics to Mount Erebor and wrote to his nephews regularly, asked them to come see his new three-headed dragon guardian, and they did on the next weekend, hauling in an entire cow between them presumably to get off on the right foot with Smaug. Thorin chuckled at the sight and ruffled Fili’s hair and told Kili to take the poor animal with them when they left, and absolutely one-hundred percent did not lose any of his resolve in the face of two pairs of wide, pleading eyes.

Okay, maybe just a little bit. But he still made them put the cow back at the end of the day.

Year seven rolled around and Dain popped down from Mount Erebor claiming an audit, but Thorin knew better than to fall for that. And he never missed a single memo from Erebor; if anything, Erebor missed memos from the Underworld, and Thorin suspected that happened a lot more often than Dain let on judging by the frequency of the replies he got. Thorin was alright with that, it didn’t really matter most of the time, and as it left significantly much less work on his end more often than not, he wasn’t going to start filing complaints any time soon.

The audit facade peeled away after ten minutes of bringing Dain around to look at rivers and pavilions and whatever else would constitute an actual administrative visit. They joked around and behaved as though they hadn’t seen each other in days rather than years, which was nice. Neither of them mentioned the war, although Thorin did offer to take Dain down to Tartarus to inspect the prisoner barracks, and was thankful that he declined. As far as Thorin knew, Dain didn’t want to see another orc or goblin for the rest of his life, and he could understand that.

“How’s Dis?” Thorin asked.

Dain grimaced and tugged on his beard, which really was all the answer Thorin needed. “Sometimes I get the feeling like she’s the one running Erebor. Which. You know. It’s all fine. I don’t know what I’d do without her; she’s been helping me with my letters.”

“That would explain why I’ve been getting more memos as of late,” Thorin noted.

Dain smiled guiltily, a blush creeping under his beard. “Perhaps you should start looking for someone to settle down with as well, eh? Must get lonely down here.”

“I’m never lonely.” Thorin nodded at a moaning, translucent soul floating above their heads.

“There is a difference between being alone and being lonely, you know,” Dain added, brushing the soul away with an impatient wave.

“And I am neither of those things.”

Dain sighed. It was a pretty worrying sigh, speaking volumes more than it should have.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Dain said. Thorin had half a mind to believe him, but kept his mouth shut and felt very mature about himself indeed.

***

Entering year twenty-three in the Underworld, Thorin got invited to a party.

The invitation arrived a few minutes before breakfast in the form of a piece of rolled up vellum secured with silver twine. When he opened it, the glint of gilded edges and tastefully-written text requesting his attendance shrilled out at him from beneath his name, bracketed with a pair of embossed laurels. A light scent of cloves rose from the surface of the parchment. As if that weren’t enough, there was a postscript at the bottom bearing a dress code, of all things: light colours, beige and yellow preferred.

He considered ignoring the letter altogether. No one would even miss him, not really, now that he would be the death of…well, just about anything, actually. It wasn’t his fault that he had the weirdest cults of all the gods and got laughed at for it, nor that mortals had gotten accustomed to using his name to wish ill on others; he tried to take all of that in his stride, and lived his life as per normal. He cleaned up after mortal wars and kept his records straight, and nobody ever bothered to mention who it was that kept the earth’s metals in abundant supply and passed retribution on the most wicked of mortals in the afterlife.

Not that he let it eat at him, of course. Thorin didn’t take the job up expecting credit in the first place.

Anyway, Thorin had a party invitation to respond to and about a hundred reasons as to why he’d rather stay in his Underworld, so no thanks but cheers for asking, and that was the reply he had in mind until he read it all the way to the end and groaned when he saw Dain’s seal of office stamped neatly at the corner. Dain wouldn’t be insulted or hurt if Thorin declined, but all the same they were best friends, and best friends made these kinds of sacrifices for each other, or so Thorin had been brought to think. All the same, it wouldn’t reflect well to say no, and Thorin normally wouldn’t care about that if it were anybody else, especially since trips to Erebor always made his vertigo act up, but this was Dain and that made it different somehow.

Sometimes Thorin hated how the world worked.

Yes, he wrote in the return column, and sent it back the next morning.

***

On the day of the party, Dain took a long, lasting look at Thorin, shook his head, and said in a voice torn between exasperation and the urge to groan, “There was a dress code enclosed, in case you didn’t notice.”

“I noticed it. I just chose to ignore it.” Because damn being told what to wear; Thorin was the God of Death, and for all the pestilence he had to wade through in the name of his appointment he was wholly and rightfully self-entitled to making his own wardrobe decisions. Thorin very much liked his dark blue robes and epaulets — that was his standard manner of dress, thank you very much — and for his first time out of the Underworld in over two decades, he wanted to leave an impression and had thought of the most efficient means to that end, which Dain was now staring at with considerable resignation.

“Please tell me you’re going to lose the mask when we’re indoors.”

“I can’t imagine what gave you that idea,” Thorin returned in all smugness, tapping on the tip of his raven’s-beak mask. He’d designed it himself out of a lightweight mineral he dreamt up one day, an accessory that hid his face unless if Thorin took it off or raised his head at an angle when speaking.

“People aren’t going to want to talk to you like that, Thorin.”

“Maybe that’s the whole point.”

“Be nice,” Dain warned him. “Trust me, it would do you a world of good if you used this opportunity to make friends. You never know when you might need a favour called in.”

“I have friends,” Thorin said stubbornly. It occurred to him that he wasn’t sure if Balin was attending, and he made a mental note to look out for him. The God of Time was one of the busier gods, but also a god Thorin actually liked, and that was saying something.

“It wouldn’t kill you to make some more.”

Easier said than done. Thorin did try not to be a buzzkill, but injecting hello, I’m the God of Death into conversation tended to spoil the mood, ending in uneasy smiles at best and frightened expressions at worst. Even when he consciously steered away from that, talking to people without knowing their names made him jumpy, and it was hardly the most polite thing to do to ask after declining to give his own. They always found out in the end anyway; soon enough about half of the attendees knew to stay away from the strange god in the dark blue robes and beaked mask by induction, by which time all Thorin had to show for a couple hours of socialising was a number of passes at the food table and a quarter-full goblet of red wine.

In all fairness, it was quite a happening party. Gods were getting piss drunk on hundred-year old wine left and right, and becoming louder and more ruddy in the face by the minute. A lyre quartet played a serenade at the front of the hall. There was even a massive punch bowl in the middle of the hall that Thorin regarded with utmost suspicion — the punch had been clear when he stepped in, and now it had turned red. If it weren’t for the whole social outcast and complete lack of participating in chatter bit, Thorin could see himself actually having a good time.

Fili and Kili were there, and Thorin was inclined to spend the rest of the party with them, only to be thwarted by Dis, who cut in at the second hour to drag Thorin away from them. “What’s the point of coming to a party if you don’t talk to anyone but the people you know?” she tutted, pulling at him by his arm.

“No one wants to talk to me,” Thorin muttered, throwing a helpless look back at his nephews.

“Exactly my point.”

“Dis, please.”

“You’ll thank me for this someday,” she said, sweeping them over to a small circle of gods and goddesses and depositing Thorin in their midst. “Have any of you met my brother yet?”

Of the five gods and goddesses there, Thorin had managed to scare away three of them previously, all of whom simultaneously fixed him with a glare. The remaining two blinked at him, looked around at the rest, and joined in.

It was going to be a long party.

***

The afternoon dragged on into the evening and the function still showed no sign of dying down. Thorin had walked in promising himself that he wasn’t going to leave drunk out of his mind, but felt himself slipping with each passing minute. The taste of alcohol burned in his throat, and he found that didn’t care about that whatsoever. He felt quite at ease now that a pleasant amount of heat had found its way between his eyeballs, making him confident enough to smile like a goof at every other immortal who walked past him and feel absolutely nothing for the scandalised looks he got in return.

What? He could be nice when he wanted to. No reason to keep his contentment under wraps, anyway; he was finally enjoying himself, he was comfortable with where he was, and that was what mattered the most even if he couldn’t walk straight anymore.

When his cup ran dry for the umpteenth time, Thorin stumbled over to the drinks table and reached for the Thasos gold. He was fairly certain that he’d had a helping right after chasing his way through each of the reds, but that specific vintage did funny things to the corners of his eyes and he wanted another go at it. He poured another goblet of it, took a generous sip and relished how it felt in his mouth, rolling it over his tongue a few times to bring out the taste before swallowing. A hiccough escaped him, followed by a giggle, and then as if right on cue his eyelashes started to tingle.

Yeah, parties weren’t so bad, after all.

He trailed aimlessly through the crowd, looking for Dis. A feeling at the back of his mind told him that he was rather lost, but was overrun by his firm resolution to find his sister and admit that she’d been right. Okay, so people still weren’t speaking to him, but he’d spoken to them loads and he had Dis to thank for helping him get past that barrier. He wasn’t above giving credit where it was due, and boy, did he owe his sister a big one for this.

Which reminded him: Dain deserved some of his gratitude, too. Thorin thought about how he had almost turned him down back then, and stopped short of kicking himself for that. Self-flagellation could wait, thanks and apologies first. He was a god of priorities, always had been, and he knew what he was doing. Most of the time. Admittedly, he wasn’t sure if this was one of those times, but who was keeping count, really?

Thorin sidestepped several gods, made sure to grin at them, and lifted his goblet to drink the rest of his wine. He contemplated returning to the drinks table to get another refill, and was thinking that course of action through with fuzzy diligence when he glimpsed the littlest deity he had ever seen standing behind the Goddess of Harvest.

Littlest, and handsomest.

Thorin had a better memory than many gods — having twenty-odd billion subjects tended to demand that — and he knew that he certainly would have remembered seeing anyone as charming as the person who was skirting shyly around the dress of the Goddess of Harvest, and no, it was most certainly not the inebriation talking. The little deity had a head of brown, curly hair and pale, pointed ears and features that should have been modest as far as gods went, only Thorin couldn’t tear his eyes away from him. The chiton he was wearing would have been stunning on its own, but it was accompanied by a green chlamys that draped him from back to shoulder to the red sash around his waist. An earth god? Thorin didn’t know too many of them and what few he did he only knew by name and appearance, like the Goddess of Harvest, only none of them had ever been as transfixing as this particular one, and he wondered about making an approach before something caught his elbow.

“Good grief, how much have you had?” Dis’s voice floated into his ear. Thorin was distantly aware that he was no longer holding a cup, but he could hardly pay that any heed whilst taking in the sight of the deity, who was now inspecting a fig between his fingers with an enchantingly curious expression on his boyish face. The deity popped it into his mouth and started to chew, looking around the hall with his hands clasped in front of him, and his gaze glassed over Thorin without stopping.

“Thorin? Thorin!”

He registered being shaken by the shoulders, and blinked in readjustment. “Um — er, hm?”

“If you start singing, I swear I’m sending you home,” Dis cautioned him, gesturing with the cup he had been holding just moments ago.

“Mm.” Thorin kept looking, and couldn’t tell if his face was hot from the alcohol or from the way his heart was cantering about inside his chest like an excited animal. He tried to tamp down on it by wondering how he would go about paying him tribute, maybe ask his name, but all that only had the effect of his tongue gluing itself to the top of his mouth. Then, as he was thinking on the words, he realised that Dis was speaking to him.

“— looking like a drunk and if you’re anything like Dain when he’s all tipsy, I’m going to have to order you to cease right this instant before you do anything you’ll regret tomorrow,” Dis finished, putting her hands on her hips.

Thorin didn’t reply. He was much too busy observing the deity rubbing his nose, which was somehow equally, if not more riveting than watching him eat.

“Hey.” Dis cut in front of him, blocking his view, and Thorin frowned at her. All things considered, it was a nice view of him indeed. “Are you even listening to me?”

“Mm,” Thorin grunted again, drawing his eyes to Dis and flicking a casual glance over her shoulder.

“What are you —” she turned around, “— looking…at? Ah.” Dis looked back at him and smirked. “See something you like, Thorin?”

“Mm, oh, what?” The words finally started to process, and Thorin narrowed his eyes and looked away, feeling the flush in his face intensify.

“Nothing to be shy about, Bella’s son does that to loads of other people too. Although I must say you’ve gotten it a bit worse than what I’ve seen —”

“Belladonna has a son?” Thorin mumbled, feeling foolish for even asking.

Dis made a tutting noise and shook her head.

“Dis, please.”

She considered him, sighed with the ironic patience of an older sibling, then handed the goblet to a passing steward, brushing down her robes. “Alright. What do you want to know?”

***

Thorin found Dain half an hour later. The King of the Gods was in a handstand, trying to drink a tankard of beer upside down, and he toppled over when his friends released their hold on his ankles. Thorin stepped out of the way as Dain fell flat on the floor, squirting froth out his nose and groaning into the marble.

“I need to ask you something,” Thorin said, helping him up.

“Ah, Thorin!” Dain beamed at him, hiccoughing and bending over to let Thorin thump him on his back. “I was wondering where you’d gone to.” He chuckled and poked Thorin’s chest, leaving a shiny spot of beer where his fingertip was. “Enjoying yourself so far?”

“I — er, yes, but —”

“I see you’ve been acquainting yourself with my collection of fine wines. How about that Thasos gold, eh?”

“That — is it supposed to have that effect?”

Dain looked confused. “I don’t know. What does it do to you?”

“Well, it makes my eyes all…oh, never mind that,” Thorin said, steadying Dain with an arm. “Listen, there’s something I need your help with.”

“Sure, what is it?”

Thorin took a deep breath. “Will you talk to Belladonna on my behalf?”

“Talk to Bella? Whatever for?”

“I don’t know her well, and I have a request to ask of her,” Thorin explained. “Dis has told me that she’s not likely to grant it to me, or anyone for that matter, but I believe that Belladonna will listen to you. She respects you.”

“Thorin,” Dain said, sounding incredulous, eyebrows raised. “What do you want to ask her?”

“It’s about her son,” Thorin replied, and suddenly he was back on the spot again, an uncomfortable tightness welling up in his chest that had nothing to do with all the alcohol he had ingested. He imagined the God of Spring — Bilbo, his name was — in detail, thought about the way the corners of his eyes crinkled whenever he had smiled, and the feeling dissipated somewhat, making it easier to breathe.

“What about him?”

A moment of hesitation, then Thorin decided that there wasn’t really any point in beating around the bush. He steeled himself with another heavy breath, and let it all tumble out in a rush. “I wish to obtain her permission to court him.”

Dain stared unblinkingly at him. Perhaps it was Thorin’s imagination, but some of the redness appeared to recede from Dain’s face. They were quiet for some time, a small silence surrounded by the rest of the party milling around them. “Oh, Thorin,” he finally murmured.

“Will you do it? Will you ask her for me?”

Dain shifted a little, looking uncomfortable, and then he gave a sad, apologetic smile. “Thorin, you of all people should know that there is only so much that gods can do. I…well, let’s just say that it isn’t that easy. I assume Dis has already explained it to you?”

“She did,” Thorin admitted, experiencing the same surge of boldness he’d felt when he threw every last platitude back at her, refusing to listen. “And I did not believe her, not until I sought your counsel…surely you aren’t saying that you agree with what she told me?”

Dain’s smile slid away, and a thin-lipped expression took its place. His eyes were sympathetic, which boded even worse than everything else Thorin had expected. Dain opened his mouth, and by pure instinct Thorin just knew that he didn’t want to hear what was about to be said.

“Why not?” Thorin demanded before Dain could reply. “Surely your word must hold significant weight, if you could just talk to Belladonna, make her see reason —”

“I’m flattered you think that I have that much influence, Thorin, I really do,” Dain said, stretching out his hands in a gesture obviously meant to reconcile. “What Bella deems best for little Bilbo is out of my hands, I’m afraid. As his mother she has that right, and she’s made it abundantly clear that she won’t have anything of that nature for a very long time.”

Not a chance in hell, Dis had told Thorin, and her voice echoed in his ears, mocking him over and over.

“There has to be something you can do,” Thorin said, desperate. He’d expected maybe a slow workaround, or a painful sacrifice of some sort, an arm and a leg type scenario at worst. Not being told the same thing that had led him to stalk away from Dis, looking for someone who could actually help him. And Dain was the King of the Gods, for crying out loud — if he couldn’t help, then who could?

Dain shook his head and shrugged. “I’m sorry, Thorin.” He looked around, then leaned closer, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Look, you want my counsel? If you really want him, the moment you have the chance, take the lad, no questions asked, and scoot back to your Underworld before Bella gets wind of what’s happening.”

It took several long seconds for the pieces to click together. “You’re telling me I should kidnap him?” Thorin translated, turning the words over in his mouth like there was something to misunderstand about the suggestion. It sounded excessive and unconscionable and heavy-handed, and the most frightful part was that Thorin could somehow still wrap his head around it, like it wasn't a non-option.

“I’m telling you to do whatever you want,” Dain said, taking a step back and another quick, almost nervous, look around them. “I’m not going to tell you what I think you should do, because you’re not likely to listen, and you just might end up disliking me for it. Either way, I’d rather not have any part in this, so if anyone asks, you didn’t get it from me.”

“You fear the Goddess of Harvest,” Thorin muttered, meaning to have kept the observation to himself. He immediately regretted saying it out loud, but didn’t retract the statement, choosing not to press his point either.

Dain smiled faintly. “If you know what’s good for you, you would too. Probably best if you remember that.”

***

For the rest of the party, Thorin moped about with his mask pushed up, drank wine, looked out for the God of Spring, and if he caught a glimpse of him Thorin stared as long as he could before he lost sight of Bilbo, and if he didn’t he returned to moping and drank some more wine.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

By the time the party drew to a close, Thorin was more drunk than he ever remembered being in his entire life, all eight hundred years and then some. He wasn’t even pointlessly happy anymore like the first time round; rather, he sat in a corner swirling an empty goblet in his hand, feeling pathetic and useless for things which were technically out of his control, and yet all he wanted to do was crawl back into the Underworld and lock himself up where he could be alone and nobody would be able to look at him. He knew that it was probably a bad idea to keep drinking in that state he was in, but didn’t have a viable alternative that involved being a) shut down on the spot or b) ridiculed out of the party, and it made him want to vent and hit something hard and leave a mark of his self-loathing.

He’d pick alcohol poisoning over all of that by a long shot. It’s not like he could die from it, anyway.

Just as he finished what felt like his twentieth goblet of wine, another goblet was thrust into his face. Thorin slid his gaze up the arm connected to the hand around the cup and looked at Dis, and he scowled. After everything that had happened, she was one of the last people he wanted to see at the moment, just a few places above Bolg down in Tartarus.

“You look terrible,” Dis noted. She gestured for Thorin to take the goblet from her.

“No thanks to you,” Thorin muttered, throwing aside his own goblet with a clang and accepting Dis’s offering without thanking her.

“Well, don’t take it out on the cups.” She pulled up a chair and sat down next to him, crossing her legs. “It’ll be a nightmare to get them polished back up again.”

“Ugh,” Thorin grumbled as he took a sip. His tongue, readied for the sharp sting of alcohol, smarted from blandness. He looked peevishly into the contents of the goblet, then glared at Dis. “This is water.”

“You’re cut off,” Dis announced. “At least until I get you to sober up again, then I don’t care if you drink yourself into a coma, and when that happens we get to do this all over again. I know, I know.” She rolled her eyes. “Hey, it’s not like I planned to spend half the party babysitting my older brother.”

“You’ll forgive me if I’m not tripping over myself to thank you.”

“What can I say? It’s a thankless job.”

Thorin made a face and handed the goblet back to Dis. “Pass,” he mumbled.

She ignored him. “Still upset about the God of Spring, I take it?”

Thorin wasn’t about to dignify that question with an answer, so he forced himself to take another mouthful of water and tried not to gag on the sensation of tastelessness rushing down his throat. Somehow, the only thing it did was make him feel a lot sicker than all of the alcohol combined. Hollow, even. He tilted the goblet and let the rest of the water trickle out, splattering it all over the floor.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Dis chided, sounding distantly amused. “Throwing a tantrum’s not going to get you anywhere, you’re eight hundred and forty six, not six.”

“I’m not throwing a tantrum,” Thorin replied, immediate and automatic, and wished he could have thought of a better comeback.

“So the floor was just thirsty, then. Fess up, Thorin. You can’t hanker after him forever, you know. And hold up, no, that’s not a challenge; please tell me you’re not actually going to do that.”

Well, she couldn’t blame him if he tried, could she? Or maybe she could. He wouldn’t put anything past Dis if it entailed basking in his misery, and where he would end up if they kept this going would be nothing short of a bloody field day for her.

“So what did Dain say?”

From the passive smugness in her tone, there was no way she didn’t know already. Thorin just muttered inarticulately into his empty cup and wished death on water everywhere, which didn’t really make sense, but he was still partly drunk and wasn’t exactly in the mood to dissect every single thing that ran through his mind.

“Told you. Look, it’s probably for the best, if you ask me. Now that we know you’re not sitting out of the whole romance gig, what say you let me set you up sometime? At least try getting it on with someone you actually stand a chance with.”

“No.”

“Spoilsport. Oh, look!” Dis waved to someone and leaned over to slap Thorin on the arm. “Perk up for your brother, alright?”

Thorin scowled and briefly thought about making his escape to avoid being laughed at by a second person before Frerin ambled over, red-faced and clutching a goblet sloshing with wine. “Tho-rin! Dis!” He sounded way too happy to have not come into contact with the Thasos gold already, and a few other reds on the side.

“Hello, Frerin,” Dis greeted levelly. Thorin just nodded at him, wondering if it was too late to slink away.

“Ooh, Thorin, nice mask, by the way,” Frerin chirped. “Party’s not over yet, why’re you two cooped up here?” He grinned, and made the water Thorin had spilled shoot several feet into the air like a fireworks display in miniature with a flick of his finger. Definitely drunk, then.

Without blinking, Dis immediately said, “Thorin’s having issues.”

“I am not having issues,” Thorin retorted, quick as a spring snapping back into place. Perhaps too quick; that Frerin raised both eyebrows and managed to look surprised in all his drunkenness made Thorin wish he’d timed his reply with a little bit of strategy.

At that, Dis rolled her eyes, looking terribly bored, damn her. “Long story short, Thorin wants to get it on with the God of Spring. Only, well. That doesn’t need any further explaining, does it?”

“Durin’s beard, really?” As if enlightened to the existence of a second Golden Fleece, Frerin let out a long whistle. “Wow, Thorin. Knew you liked a challenge, but this, just…wow.”

“Tell me about it,” Dis muttered.

“Does Bella know?” Frerin asked.

“Like hell she does. The moment she finds out, though,” Dis looked pointedly at Thorin and sighed, long and unsympathetic.

“What exactly do you mean by that?” Thorin cut in coldly.

Dis put both of her hands up in surrender, but Thorin wasn’t naive enough to count that as an admission of defeat. “Frerin, please talk some sense into your brother.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Frerin said, his forehead creasing with worry. “I don’t want to get involved. But to be frank, it’s not the best idea, though,” he added, turning to Thorin. So much for not getting involved, the traitor. “He’s way out of bounds, her son. I mean, she won’t even let other goddesses near him — I’d say you’ve probably got a better shot at Bella herself.”

“He’s got about a foot of height on her,” Dis quipped, sailing right over the glare Thorin was levelling at Frerin. “There’s no way —”

“I’m just saying she’d sooner let that happen than, well, you know,” Frerin concluded lamely.

“Never plus one is still never, Frerin.”

“You’re terrible,” Frerin remarked, to which Dis pulled out a smirk, multiplying Thorin’s infuriation.

“Dear brother, I notice you don’t refute that, though,” she sighed, and Frerin smiled guiltily, saying nothing.

And that was the last offence Thorin could bear to take, really; with that, Thorin saw red for the first time in an exceedingly long while, because who were they — in fact, who the bloody hell was anyone to make a fool out of him for something like this, and that they were his family didn’t cut any quarters, in fact made it even worse because that meant that he really shouldn’t be caring this much about what they were saying, but fury was building up in him like a thunderstorm, and it wasn’t like he asked to be put in this situation from the beginning.

“Stop it! Just stop it!” Thorin snapped, letting his anger seep into every word, and by the gods it was fortunate that they were all immortal; he was furious enough to kill something right there and then. “I will not sit here and be ridiculed by either of you any longer! I take my leave from this accursed party, good night!”

He got up and thrust his mask back over his face and stalked past Frerin, brusquely clipping his shoulder, and he didn’t even care that they called after him, because apology or not he was so done with just about everything in the world that he’d rather have an arm cut off than listen to another word they had to say. It was only after he had abandoned the party and returned to the Underworld to nurse his wounded pride that Thorin let his thoughts drift back to the God of Spring. Bilbo, he tested on his lips, in an inflection that he’d never used before for want of anything which could astound him up until now.

***

A week after the party, Frerin came knocking at the gates to the Underworld wearing the most sober, penitent expression Thorin had ever seen on anybody. That in itself made him rethink telling his brother to go stick his head in a furnace somewhere, although Thorin was leaning against letting him in for the time being.

“Thorin, I came to apologise,” Frerin said on the other side of the gates.

Well, Thorin kind of expected that. Unlike Dis, his relationship with Frerin wasn’t adversarial in the slightest — before the standoff at the party, the longest fight they ever started had the approximate shelf life of a bucket of warm milk in the sun. Normally Thorin would be hard-pressed to stay angry at Frerin for long, but he folded his arms and waited to hear the rest of his pitch; forgiveness wasn’t going to come easy this time round, and Thorin was all for bearing a grudge even if Frerin thought him an obstinate clot for it.

“I’m sorry for what I said at the party,” Frerin continued in Thorin’s silence. “Really, I am. That was…out of line, and I was being an idiot going along with Dis, but you probably should know that I blame the wine a little bit, it was making my face all fuzzy. Which isn’t really an excuse, but. Um. So, what I’m saying is that I’d be angry too, if I were you.”

Thorin kept quiet for a long while, thinking on it. “I don’t expect you to understand,” he said quietly, and Frerin looked at him, uncertainty in his expression.

“I guess not,” Frerin admitted. “He means that much to you, huh?”

To be honest, Thorin had absolutely no idea how to reply to that. He wanted to answer in the affirmative, but that wouldn’t be quite true, would it; he knew next to nothing about the God of Spring, and that made them little more than strangers by any reasonable measure, yet on the other hand denying it made no sense given all that had happened. The sleepless nights he’d been having were real, ridiculous as it was, and for decades of living in the Underworld he never once admitted to being lonely, even to himself. He’d always been able to pass off the empty feeling in his gut as hunger whenever it acted up, an excuse which was inadequate in far too many ways to enumerate now that the same hollowness had spidered outward to the extent where his whole body was constantly aching with it through the day.

“I…cannot explain it either,” Thorin said, studying the wall adjacent to him. Good grief, he didn’t understand it himself, probably couldn’t put it into words to save his life, and that was…disgraceful. Humiliating, when he’d spent all week riding what felt like an edge that threatened to tip over into obsession, managing to crowd out even the vastness of death. He knew it wasn’t a healthy way of thinking but couldn’t help himself, and he saw that as a failure, too. It made him feel like an idiot, lost and vulnerable and powerless to do anything, as though knowing what to say was a validation of everything that he had been happening to him over the course of that week, like it would mean he wasn’t going insane for feeling that way.

“You don’t have to.” Frerin gave a weak smile that Thorin returned, and just as simple as that, they were on good terms once more. Thorin would have been fine with the two of them leaving it there, but instead of turning around to go, Frerin reached inside his robes and pulled out a scroll and poked it at Thorin through the bars.

“What’s this?” Thorin asked, accepting the scroll and examining it.

“A gift,” Frerin replied. “I think you’ll appreciate it.”

Curious, Thorin unrolled it and saw that it was a map, and just as he was about to lose it at Frerin all over again for what appeared to be a fresh go at another equally chafing issue — it really wasn’t like Frerin to be so impudent — he noticed the annotations around a circled-off region on the document. A small village, part of a larger province, and on its outskirts, the shaded contours of a field, around which were a couple of notes written in dark, inky letters. He recognised the addendum in Frerin’s hand, but couldn’t place the instructions scrawled at the top of the map in clumsy, spiky script. He skipped that, choosing to read what Frerin had written, and…oh. Oh. “Is this —”

Frerin’s smile turned cryptic. “Wasn’t easy to get, I’ll tell you that. You won’t believe the things I had to do for Beorn to get this.”

“Eleusis?” Thorin read out loud, backpedaling a little at the mention of the mountain god and looking at Frerin in disbelief. He knew Beorn as a ferocious warrior in the battle, but also that he was a massive grouch and a hermit through and through. It was why Thorin hadn’t even considered asking his assistance in the matter, having learnt his lesson from when both he and Dain went to recruit Beorn for their cause and ended up being thrown unceremoniously off his mountain for not wiping their feet before entering his home.

“No guarantees,” Frerin said, shrugging a shoulder in a gesture of unconvincing nonchalance, “but, um. Beorn seemed pretty sure that you’d find something there, if you follow the directions he gave me…they were a bit complicated, so I made them easier to read the best I could, if that’s all right. I mean, you can just ignore it if it doesn’t make sense to you, but I didn’t really understand what he was writing at first —”

“Frerin.”

“Yeah?”

There was a long moment of silence, in which they exchanged an understanding look. “Thank you,” Thorin finally said, and meant it with utmost sincerity.

The relief that wiped across Frerin’s face was fleeting, and then his smile was back, quickly morphing into the mischievous grin Thorin had learned to associate with brotherly affection rather than cheekiness. “Oh, um, you’re welcome, just. You know. It’s not much, not really, and I think I owe it to you anyway.”

Being the only lead on the whereabouts of the God of Spring he had received in a week, it was more than Thorin could have asked of anyone. “Consider the ledger cleared, then.”

“Alright, I will,” Frerin said, laughing. Then, in a tone equal parts warm and serious, he added, “I’m happy for you, Thorin. You deserve this. Really.”

Without meaning to, Thorin thought fleetingly of what Dain told him at the party, wondered whether Frerin would have done him this kindness if he knew that Thorin still had that option on the table, and he decided against making any mention of it. Not that it mattered, since he wasn’t going to do it anyway. “Thank you, Frerin,” Thorin repeated, folding up the map and tucking it securely into his belt.

***

En route to Eleusis, Thorin had to stuff his hands into the folds of his robes to stop them from shaking.

The most convenient bit about living in the Underworld was being able to pop up just about anywhere on the face of the Earth and vice versa, so long as a god knew his way from the front gates and Thorin permitted entry. Even so, he didn’t surface directly in Eleusis, choosing to detour up from Corinth and eastward through Megara — he needed the space to think. He had never been one for doing anything without a plan of sorts, and he’d spent all week fretting about how he was going to find Bilbo instead of thinking one up. Now that Frerin had solved the former problem, Thorin realised not long after leaving the Underworld that he was essentially going in blind, having impulsively given in to the excitement of seeing the God of Spring again.

A few miles short of Eleusis, Thorin stopped over in Mandra and got a drink to calm his nerves. It was the middle of summer, the air brisk and cool, heralding the coming of spring in about a month’s time. Thinking about that drew his thoughts back to Bilbo, and how he still hadn’t figured out what he was going to do if they did end up meeting face-to-face; what if he got a gift for Bilbo? Flowers? Thorin always thought such gestures distasteful and maudlin, but they were what people seemed to like, earth gods in particular for obvious reasons, and he wasn’t going to take chances.

An hour later spent in Mandra trying to assemble a bouquet with whatever flowers that grew in the countryside, Thorin had a cluster of asphodels and…well, that was about it, really. Better than nothing — at least he wasn’t empty-handed anymore, so to speak.

He arrived in Eleusis at dusk and stopped to survey his surroundings. What seemed like miles of golden barley stretched out over the country, and there was a village in the distance. He double-checked the map, realised that he had it upside down, and cursed himself while turning it right side up and checking it a third time, and by some miracle he was still in the correct place after all that. So it was going quite well thus far, and since Thorin wasn’t one for looking a gift horse in the mouth, he didn’t hesitate at all when he observed movement in the fields, plunging in head-first without stopping to assess the situation.

Maybe it was the not-so-long-gone decade of warfare on undulating but otherwise empty terrain, but exploring the vegetation without bushwhacking a path or wilting everything in his way was hard. Getting in was the easy part, it was moving around that ground at Thorin’s nerves like a whetstone, because getting slapped in the face repeatedly by bushels of prickly, scratchy barley was one thing, and it was another to lose a boot after getting his foot stuck in a particularly stubborn cluster of weeds.

He got it back in the end, but not without receiving a few more facefuls of barley for his efforts and losing his flowers completely. Those, he did not attempt to recover.

What seemed like an hour of fighting off a horde of grass fiends later, he was hot and itchy all over and had no doubt that he looked an utter mess from the visible bits of straw caught in his beard, but he forged ahead, pushing it a bit too hard, and stumbled right out of the field. Thorin’s inertia forced him forward and he lost his footing, tripping and coming down on his front and banging his jaw on the ground hard enough to see stars, sending a fission of pain through his skull.

Someone gasped in front of him, a light, concerned sound, and then Thorin was being slowly helped to his feet with exceeding care. “Good heavens, are you alright?”

“Uh,” Thorin mumbled, still stunned from the impact. He shook his head and looked up, blinking to refocus and grinding his jaw where he’d smacked it in the dirt. At least he didn’t land on his face or bite his tongue in two, although there was an aching in his molars which convinced him that he’d chipped a tooth. “I am uninjured…”

Thorin’s vision cleared, and he gaped into the face of the God of Spring.

Bilbo frowned, looking unconvinced. He stood up on his tiptoes and felt at Thorin’s jawline with his fingers without any reservation. “You sure? Looked like a pretty bad fall to me.”

Completely stymied, all Thorin could do was nod mutely and let Bilbo inspect his face. Goodness, he had a delicate touch. Such soft, soft hands. It didn’t really fit in with the gardenwork Thorin had come to expect of all earth gods, but what did he know, it was fascinating anyhow. If Bilbo was about to pat him down to check for injury right there and then, Thorin probably wouldn’t be able to stop him even if he wanted to.

Disappointingly, Bilbo did no such thing. When he took his hands away, Thorin felt himself stiffen, missing the warmth of his touch instantly. “Well, doesn’t look like you’ve broken anything, lucky you,” Bilbo told him. “Except, um. You’re a god too, aren’t you?”

“I — er, you can tell?”

“You look familiar,” Bilbo said, squinting at Thorin with curiosity contained in his eyes. “We…haven’t met before, have we?”

“No,” breathed Thorin. “Not officially.”

“I see. So…that would be now, then?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Now. Our official meeting.” Bilbo smiled mildly. Thorin felt his heart melt a little.

“Why, yes. I suppose so.”

“Oh, where are my manners? I’m Bilbo, the God of Spring,” he said, and extended a hand.

“Thorin.” Thorin grasped it, thankful for the second chance to marvel privately at the softness of his skin. “I’m Thorin.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Thorin.”

Pleasure was a bit of an understatement, but Thorin replied, “Likewise.” He was looking over Bilbo eagerly, absorbed in his appearance now that he was close to him. Everything about him held Thorin rapt, his cheeks and chin so hairless and smooth-looking that Thorin pondered the exact texture of it, drawing up comparison after comparison and deciding that nothing was likely to compare. He smelled of sun on grass and dry soil and warm manna, and it really should have been impossible for anyone to smell like so many things at once, but there you go, and Thorin hungered to know more about him.

He wanted to know all there was to know about the God of Spring.

“So what are you a god of, anyway?” Bilbo asked, making no move to retrieve his hand. “If you’ll pardon my asking. It’s just that I’m not let out much, and I hardly get to see anyone else.”

“The oceans,” Thorin replied, unsure what had possessed him to think it a wise move to impersonate Frerin. Already committed to the lie, he continued with, “King Dain is a distant cousin of mine, and my brother-by-marriage through my sister,” to smother it somewhat, because that was what Frerin would say, and it wasn’t like it was untrue.

“You’re the God of the Oceans?”

Thorin nodded, letting Bilbo’s hand slip from his and wondering if the lie was written naked and plain all over his face.

“Oh!” Bilbo giggled, covering his mouth with a hand, and even in his bemusement Thorin allowed a small smile to rise to the surface.

“What do you find amusing?”

“I should have guessed it,” Bilbo explained. “The…your clothes. All the blue in it. Forgive my obtuseness.”

Wait, what? Thorin quickly looked down at himself, half-expecting to see a skull and crossbones across his chest and panicking for a split second before realising that…oh, Bilbo was right, he really did pass off well as an ocean deity, how very convenient. Good thing gods were a conceited enough bunch to colour-code themselves. It occurred to him that if there were ever a time to come clean, though, it was probably now, so naturally the next thing Thorin blurted was, “Many people believe me to be the God of Death at first glance,” and he winced, wishing he was self-enabled enough to trod on his own toes.

“I get that too, sometimes,” Bilbo said with a sympathetic grimace. “The being mistaken for another person, I mean. Not that anyone has ever thought that I was the God of Death, I’m definitely not imposing enough, but there was one time —”

“Imposing?”

Bilbo stopped mid-sentence, blinked at Thorin, and said, “Well, yes.”

Imposing — that was definitely a new one. Not macabre, or odious, or intimidating, or any of the other unflattering descriptors he’d accumulated to his name over the years, and he wasn’t even including those which he thought it best to keep out of polite discourse. Him, imposing? He never really thought about it that way, and it was…flattering. No one ever flattered him, at least not wittingly. “That…it isn’t what most people think of me — I mean, the God of Death,” he corrected hastily.

“What do most people think of him?”

What do most people think? Thorin forced down on the multitude of answers teeming up to meet him, wondering where he was supposed to start with answering that. If Bilbo didn’t know — incredibly likely, given that he’d said it with a straight face — Thorin wanted to get off on the right foot with him, only he wasn’t sure if he knew how. Generally people made mention of the God of Death and left it at that; it had never needed any explanation or elaboration above and beyond that, like a curse word tossed into conversation to accompany insult.

“They find him…let’s say, unearthly,” Thorin said, settling on the most extenuative term he could dredge up from memory. He’d thought of it as a compliment up until the utterer in question went on to apply the same word to curse gorgons and harpies, and that had effectively brought all the wind out of Thorin’s sails.

“Okay.” Clearly Bilbo did not share that person’s definition of unearthly.

“People misunderstand,” Thorin said after a moment’s hesitation, deciding to press it a bit further. “Mortals and gods — they despise the idea of death, and by induction the god who governs it.”

“Oh…um. I see. That’s unfortunate.”

“Yes, it is,” Thorin agreed, and it was already more than he meant to say, but he couldn’t stop himself, had to keep going. “If one knew him well enough — such as I do — they would think otherwise.”

“Is that so?” Bilbo tilted his head and grinned. “Maybe you could introduce us someday!”

“I…I will try.”

What he just agreed to sank in, and Thorin swallowed around the lump in his throat. Oh, no.

“Tell you what,” Bilbo said, “why don’t you wait around and I’ll introduce you to my mother, if you do not know her already? Surely you must, she has made mention of you once or twice.”

Oh, no. “Your mother?” Thorin said tightly, and Bilbo nodded.

“Yes, I was helping her out with a small errand here — she’ll be here to get me in five minutes or so.”

Five minutes? “Th — I…it might not be the best time.” Thorin took a quick look around, trying to control the panic surging in his chest, and said, “Will you be returning here any time soon?”

“Can’t say for certain, but I don’t think so,” Bilbo chirped. “Not for the next few years, at least, unless some idiot puts the weevils back where they don’t belong. Or, tell you what, maybe you can drop by ours one of these days, have some tea and a seed-cake, and if you can get the God of Death to come too —”

“Bilbo,” Thorin said.

“Hm?”

Four minutes left, perhaps shorter than that. On realising what he was about to do, Thorin had a singular moment to hate Dain for making the suggestion, and himself for acting on it. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, and snapped his fingers, materialising a number of chains around Bilbo to bind him from shoulder to foot. Bilbo cried out, teetered, and Thorin stepped forward to steady him and keep him from falling over.

“What is the meaning of this?” Bilbo demanded, struggling against his bonds to little clinking noises as the chains held him dutifully. “Release me this instant!”

The order came with such gravitas that Thorin was confused for a moment — how on earth did a deity so small do that with his voice? Plus the fact that Bilbo was glaring up at him with narrowed eyes and angry colour in his cheeks, and his eyes held no fear at all, still managing to look as innocent as those of a fawn’s — what a plucky little god he was! Nevertheless, Thorin did not wave the chains away and continued to hold on to Bilbo, wondering if there was still any room to explain himself.

Oh, to hell with explaining.

Thorin took a deep breath and blew it out through his nose, patting Bilbo on his shoulder. “You will be coming with me.”

“I see.” Bilbo made a face, displaying more irritation than comprehension. “So I’m to be your captive.”

“Guest,” Thorin corrected him, neither proving to be the word he would have liked the most.

Bilbo’s response was a disbelieving snort. “Correct me if I should be mistaken with what I know about hospitality, but a guest is not treated as such by his host. A captive, on the other hand…” He tried to move his arms again to no avail, proving his point.

“You will be bound no longer once we are in my kingdom,” Thorin said quickly. “I will grant you freedom to move at your leisure…to explore wherever you may desire. A captive would not enjoy such a luxury, would he?”

“Will I be allowed to leave your kingdom?”

It took Thorin less than a second to process his reply, and several more to gather the courage to throw it out. “No.”

A wry smile stretched Bilbo’s lips taut. “Then I was not incorrect in presuming that I am to be your captive.”

“I —” Thorin began, and then he clamped his mouth shut, frowning and shaking his head. There was a time and place for this, and he wasn’t looking forward to debating two angry earth deities instead of just the one; warrior or no, he couldn’t see himself walking away from that victorious in any manner or form. Considering the size of Bilbo, Thorin scooped him up in one motion — he fitted so nicely against Thorin, like it really was meant to be — and rent open the earth with a stamp, producing a winding helix of stone stairs that spiralled down into the dark.

Bilbo’s eyes flew to his face, holding suspicion for the first time since speaking with Thorin. “What did you say you were a god of, again?”

And that — that would be the first thing Thorin would explain once when they were safe in the Underworld.

***

The boat ride into the Underworld was the most awkward one Thorin had ever taken in his entire life. Normally, he steered his own boat through the Acheron whenever he needed to enter or leave, but he soon found himself wondering if he should have gotten a ferryman just like everyone else after fifteen minutes of being side-eyed continuously by all three feet of comely, chained-up spring god.

It wasn’t that the scrutiny made him uncomfortable — having endured just over two decades of contemptuous looks and whispering behind his back, Thorin had stopped caring years ago — quite the opposite, really. Every time Bilbo threw him a mutinous glare, heat flared in Thorin’s cheeks and he fumbled with the oar absently, acting as though he hadn’t been looking at Bilbo all the while. It was difficult to focus on rowing in the midst of constantly shifting his attention between observing Bilbo and the motions of steering, and that resulted in them reaching the main body of the Acheron in half an hour where a regular trip would take just ten minutes.

Well, that left more time to look over Bilbo; if Thorin thought of it like that, there wasn’t much to complain about.

The current sped things up considerably from there, and with that burden lightened Thorin started to come clean — he was the God of Death, he ruled over the Underworld, and he was sorry for deceiving Bilbo and tying him up. Apart from a glower at the mention of being restrained, Bilbo did not reply at all, maintaining the silence he’d slipped into from the moment the earth had closed in over their heads. When they passed Smaug, Thorin slowed the boat, and it was about making Bilbo feel safe as much as it was the pride Thorin had for taming one of the universe’s most ferocious creatures into guarding his kingdom.

The dragon peered curiously at them with all three of his heads, smoke billowing out from his nostrils. Thorin couldn’t keep the grin off his face when Smaug lowered his middle head to the boat to fix one large amber eye on Bilbo, making him gulp visibly.

“You will be well-protected here,” Thorin told Bilbo. “No harm shall come to you so long as you are in my care.”

Bilbo trembled, but he said nothing and stared steadfastly back into Smaug’s eye, shifting a little in his chains.

The boat followed the Acheron into the heart of the Underworld, coming to a halt on the banks of Thorin’s residence. He set down the steering pole and lifted Bilbo out of the boat, walking through his gardens and up a short flight of steps to his abode. In his room, he laid Bilbo down on his bed and unchained him carefully, holding Bilbo’s eyes and murmuring apologies under his breath.

Bilbo sat up, looking around at the shelves and rubbing his arms. Thorin stood by his bed and looked at him, uncertain of what to do next. He wanted to put his fingers to the red marks the chains had left on Bilbo’s arms to eradicate them with a simple healing orison, but Bilbo was already far ahead of him on that. “Are you hungry?” Thorin asked, because the courting had to start somewhere, and binding Bilbo to the Underworld would be helpful start.

Bilbo stared at his hands, which he had clenched in his lap. “I want to go home,” he said, his voice heavy and tired.

“You are home,” Thorin said gently, sitting next to Bilbo and thinking about taking his hands to reassure him. “I know that it isn’t much…you may think it poorer than the world above, but — you could give it a chance, as I once did. Now I name it my home, and know nothing less.”

Bilbo made a noise caught between a snort and a laugh, and shook his head.

“Are you hungry?” Thorin asked again. “I can have some food brought to you, if it pleases you.”

A beat of silence, then Bilbo lay down and curled up on his side, facing away from Thorin. He sniffed once and went still, wedging a palm under his cheek.

Thorin joined him, moving close but not touching just yet, their only point of contact being Thorin’s hand on his shoulder. “Bilbo?” he whispered. Tension in Bilbo’s back spoke measures of no desire to speak and every desire to be left alone, but Thorin stayed, rubbing his shoulder slowly and purposefully. “Bilbo?” he tried again.

No response, save for a shudder.

Maybe later.

“You will like it here, I promise,” Thorin said quietly, believing it to be true with all his heart.

Bilbo persisted in his silence, saying nothing at all through being informed that the pomegranates were particularly sweet that time of the year. Even when Thorin had gotten up and left to gather some for him, Bilbo still had not said anything.

***

In the garden, a third pomegranate fell at Thorin’s feet, along with a letter.

He waved at Ori as the messenger god saluted and flew back up the Acheron to the gates, then bent over to collect his mail. There wasn’t a seal or a sender’s address, but the shorthand was easy enough to recognise as Dain’s:

Treat him well, Thorin.

That nosy, brotherly tosser; how did he find out? Thorin entertained replying with a statement along the lines of elegantly feigned ignorance, and then ultimately decided that it wasn’t necessary. He did, however, set aside a whole, ripe pomegranate as a gift to be sent up to Erebor for Dain, because Thorin knew that if there were ever a food that the King of the Gods couldn’t stand, it was pomegranate. The joys of having a garden bountiful with the fruit in the Underworld were never-ending.

Chuckling, Thorin hoisted up his basket and began the short walk back to his room.

***

The room was empty — save for a few creases in the bedspread and the chains that had held Bilbo piled in one corner, it was like nobody had been there.. Thorin closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose and let none of the profanity in his thoughts graduate to his lips.

He guessed he should have seen this coming, but moments like these were what scrying spells were made for.

***

The kingdom of the Underworld was a vast one, and as it was remarkably easy for one to get lost in its bowels without anyone to point the way, Thorin was more concerned about Bilbo injuring himself than actually being able to escape — there was one exit, anyway, and Thorin had the only key, but cliffs and sulphur pits were great in number and pretty much all over the place. Nonetheless, fifteen minutes later of staring into a crucible of water, he located Bilbo trying to untie one of the boats moored by the front banks of the Acheron.

Teleporting to him, grabbing his wrist, and teleporting them both back to his room in a puff of dark smoke took considerably less time than that.

“You were trying to leave,” Thorin growled, shaking him by his wrist.

Bilbo scowled at him, tugging his hand back. “I wasn’t. Let go of me.”

“Do you take me to be a fool?”

“I’m still trying to work it out,” Bilbo muttered.

“I could chain you up here like a dog,” Thorin pointed out. He didn’t really mean it, although it was the least of what he often did to restless souls who thought some fresh air wouldn’t be that large a transgression in Thorin’s books. Oh, how he proved all of them wrong. “Then you wouldn’t be able to run away again.”

The dirty look Bilbo threw at him did nothing to dampen Thorin’s mounting rage. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Alright, so that much was true, but it probably wasn’t in his favour to admit to that. “Try me,” he said instead, releasing Bilbo abruptly and storming over to the bedside table, where he had deposited the pomegranates. He picked up the basket and shoved it at Bilbo, not quite managing to keep the irritation out of his expression. “There. For you.”

Massaging his wrist, Bilbo took a glance at the fruits, narrowed his eyes and stared daggers at the bookshelf opposite. “I’m not hungry.”

Thorin wasn’t in the mood to deal with tetchiness, his patience worn thin by fifteen minutes of worrying that Bilbo had lost his way, or worse, injured himself. He only managed to keep his temper in check by virtue of the fact that this was Bilbo, and somehow or another he knew that shouting at him would go nowhere. So he breathed in, counted to five, exhaled on six, and then he didn’t feel like punching a wall as much as before. Only by a hair, but that was something, at least. “Just a taste,” he insisted.

The sound that burst out of Bilbo was harsh, a mirthless bark of laughter that startled Thorin still. “It appears that you are the one who takes me to be a fool,” Bilbo said, a bitter edge in his tone. “I am not the brightest of gods, but that does not mean that my knowledge of lore is in any way shoddy. Tell me this: is it not law that any being who tastes food or drink in the Underworld is doomed to stay here for the rest of his existence?”

Thorin opened his mouth, the words already lined up on his tongue in the sequence of a vehement denial, but then he froze, seeing the defeated set to Bilbo’s shoulders and the resignation all over his face, and he didn’t say anything.

Appearing to read the answer in Thorin’s silence, Bilbo sighed and pushed the bowl away from him. “Then it would seem that I was not remiss in assuming that you really do intend for me to be your captive. If I am to be bound to the Underworld forever, it will not be by my own hand. I shall starve before that happens.”

Starve? Thorin bit his lip, fighting a brief surge of panic before he remembered. “That’s impossible. You…we cannot die.”

And, well. That should have been a reassurance, but Bilbo gave a doleful smile and said, “Being immortal doesn’t mean I cannot suffer, does it?”

Thorin kept a fair number of immortals prisoner in the Underworld to know that better than most, but none of that had ever lined up with how he envisioned keeping Bilbo by his side. He thought about Azog, dismembered and scattered through Tartarus like a gory jigsaw, and had to fight juxtaposing that against images of Bilbo, lying thin and weak from hunger. “You don’t have to do this,” he said softly, his anger all but defused.

Bilbo raised an eyebrow, then turned around to clamber back onto the bed, crossing his legs and collecting his hands in his lap. He looked sad for a long minute, then his face went hard and Thorin felt his heart sink. “Funny,” Bilbo murmured. “I could say the exact same thing about you.”

***

Thorin woke up in his study the next day, an ache in his back from having slept over his desk through the night. He’d left his room to Bilbo after trying and failing to speak with him, intending to try again in the morning once they had both gotten some sleep. Now, as he stretched himself out and winced from the pain curving up his spine, he wasn’t too sure if that was going to work out any better than it did the day before.

He trudged to his room and stopped at the doorway, peeking inside. Bilbo wasn’t there, and it was much too early to handle being angry all over again, so Thorin just sighed and made for his crucible, reminding himself that he’d sealed off all the sulphur pits in the vicinity before going to sleep as a precautionary measure.

After a stint of teeth-gnashing and scrying, Thorin ventured down to the back gardens and found Bilbo kneeling in a thick patch of deathbells. His eyes were turned down and there were telltale signs of restless sleep in his face, but there he was; inert, stock-still, his hands cupped around a single, purple deathbell.

“What are you doing?” Thorin asked when he was close enough.

Bilbo looked over his shoulder and glassed Thorin, nodding curtly as if to acknowledge his presence. Then he took his hands away and rose, dusting his knees off. “It’s not good to grow deathbells here,” he said informatively, pointing at the flowers. “They say they’d do much better in a swamp, or anywhere else with brackish water.”

“There are no swamps in the Underworld.”

“You could make one,” Bilbo suggested. “I don’t suppose that’s beyond your abilities.”

“It…will take time. But it can be done.”

“That’s good.”

“Do you…” Thorin gulped, “is it your wish that I do so?”

Bilbo furrowed his brows, staring at Thorin with a mixture of confusion and surprise. “Why do you care what I think? Since when does a captor ask about these things?”

“For the last time, you are not my captive,” Thorin sighed.

“Hostage, then. If you like that better, or if you seek ransom.”

“Neither are you my hostage.”

The expression Bilbo was wearing shifted to one of annoyance. “Why are you doing this, then? What do you want with me? If I am not your captive, or hostage, or prisoner, then how come you’re keeping me here? And please, spare calling me your guest, you’re not fooling anyone here.”

“But you are,” Thorin said, momentarily blindsided by his own audacity, and he cringed before he could get a hold of himself. He was usually so much more than what he projecting at the moment; he was, well, imposing, and he knew that, but couldn’t summon any of it for some reason. Gods, he hated what he’d been turned into, this meek, cowering creature, unsure of the things he was saying, and hated that he was failing dismally at living up to the first nice thing Bilbo — actually anyone, as a matter of fact — had said about him.

Another minute of staring wordlessly, and then Bilbo looked down at the ground. “Guest,” he muttered, like he was being forced to say it. He folded his pale arms across his chest, scraping his feet idly through the dirt. “Let’s go with that for a moment, then. You still haven’t told me why you have brought me here. I take it that a party is out of the question?”

“No party,” Thorin confirmed. “Promise.”

“Ah.” Bilbo pursed his lips, shifting his gaze back up. “A home visit?”

“Of sorts. You could say that.”

“And yet you won’t let me leave.”

“It’s complicated,” Thorin said, starting to wish that he’d come up with an excuse beforehand, if only to sound more like he had actually given some degree of thought to this and less like he was making it up as he went along. Which was true to some extent, but that was besides the point.

Bilbo snorted disbelievingly. “You don’t get to say ‘it’s complicated’ and then behave like it gets you out of explaining what’s going on here.”

Thorin opened his mouth, realised that he had nothing to say to that, and bit down on his lower lip to make up for the lack of a reply. What was he supposed to say to that? Of course, there was always the option to drop all pretenses with you’re the most beautiful person I have ever known, and not that it absolutely has to be you, but there’s room for a consort in my Underworld, but he held off on that for various reasons, the most prominent of which was the unlikelihood that it would actually work.

What he eventually came up with was more nuanced and closer to that actual truth: “I would consider it a great honour and a personal favour if you graced the Underworld with your presence for the time being.”

“Putting laurels on the head of a god doesn’t make the manacles on his wrists any less unreal,” Bilbo recited promptly.

“I removed your chains yesterday,” Thorin said with genuine perplexity. “You are unrestrained, are you not?”

“That was metaphorical!” Bilbo rolled his eyes and rubbed a hand across his forehead, looking exasperated. “Oh, heavens, what am I to do with you?”

It was an expression that should have, in all proper standard, whirled Thorin up into a frenzy and had the offending speaker back in irons before either of them could blink. Thorin despised spoken down to and he despised being patronised, but found himself blushing madly and he dropped his gaze to his shuffling feet, fighting the urge to sulk like a child. It defied everything Thorin thought he knew about himself and what he thought of what others thought of him. He ought to have been furious. There ought to have been shouting, and ordering, and demands for groveling apologies to be delivered to the toes of his boots, and then varied threats of very bad things happening in the immediate to near future.

Thorin was only mortified, like a king who had been caught out in the open without any clothes on. The imagery flashed vivid in his mind, and he decided that it would probably be preferable to this.

“Um, hey?” A warm weight settled on Thorin’s shoulder, and he felt the flush on his face spread to the roots of every hair in his beard. “Are…are you alright there?”

Thorin looked up tentatively and got an eyeful of the expression Bilbo was sporting, concern in his thin eyebrows and amusement curling the lines of his face. Bilbo had the most charming dimples, Thorin realised. Charming, beautiful dimples that danced in and out of his cheeks when he smiled. “Don’t…space out or anything, yeah?” Bilbo continued. “I was kidding — it was a joke.”

"Erm, yes, I knew that,” Thorin mumbled, finding his words again.

When Bilbo took his hand off Thorin’s shoulder, Thorin felt himself deflate a little bit at the sudden loss of contact. It gave him room to breathe, thankfully, not that any measure of air would replace the feeling of having Bilbo’s touch on him. “So,” Bilbo said.

“So,” Thorin parroted, just in fulfilment of the need to say something in return.

“It isn’t a party, and it’s like a home visit but not quite,” Bilbo mused, indicating this with the fingers on one of his hands. He held out a third and squinted at it in confusion, then waved all of them away and pushed that same hand through his hair. “I’m out of ideas, so you may as well tell me. What is this, really?”

It was a good question with too many answers but none of them fitted exactly what Thorin wanted to express, so he discarded them all in one fell swoop and let measured honesty guide his words. “What I said to you in Attica,” Thorin mumbled, fidgeting clumsily with his hands, “when I was pretending to be…not me. About how it was to be the God of Death — I spoke true of how men and gods saw and perceived me.”

Bilbo watched him, his expression inscrutable.

“I did not expect you to react the way you did,” Thorin continued, playing it entirely by ear and berating himself internally for the sheer detachment in his response, not trusting himself to wield anything else without coming clean. “I feared that you would speak ill like most others are oft to do, but you did not. I was taken aback with astonishment, very much so. It was…very pleasing to be spoken of in such a manner. Few people would, and even fewer have, and none ever had as you did, and I thought it very good of you to say so. No, not just good, wonderful. It was wonderful and I didn’t expect it and it made me feel…appreciated. It made me feel wanted for once in my life when everyone else would run away as quickly as they could once they knew who I was, and they always did, always, even some of the other gods, which is why I wasn’t fully honest with you from the start, but you didn’t. At least, I knew you wouldn’t, not from what you said about me. I wanted to repay you, and do you credit for your kind words, so I…I…”

Thorin stopped speaking and willed himself not to continue, because with one well-placed answer, Bilbo could tear down everything he just said. It sounded pathetic, really, all of it, he was rambling like an idiot, like an automaton, and he wasn’t even remotely addressing the cruxes of the issue or telling Bilbo what he wanted to know, going in wide, looping circles around the fact that he was at a loss at how to make sense of his words to Bilbo, and if that was what honesty rewarded him with then Thorin was wont to do without it for the rest of his life, not that he could see himself lasting that long, but he wouldn’t tell Bilbo that, only that he would row out to the Lethe and sling himself to the bottom of that river after releasing Bilbo back into the world, because he’d very much rather relinquish everything he knew of himself and the universe to vast and emptying oblivion rather than retain even a shred of memory of the god he had to live on without, which was a fate worse than eternity in Tartarus and already Thorin was beginning to despair —

Bilbo giggled.

He giggled.

Thorin went very still, thinking that perhaps he misheard, but there was evidence of laughter in the tiny smile peeking out from around Bilbo’s fingers. There, those dimples again, doing impossible things to Thorin’s heart — he would build whole shrines around them for the extent reason of ogling his cheekbones.

“Oh, um. That clears things up a bit,” Bilbo said importantly. “I must say — should say, actually — thank you, I think. No, no, wait, not that, goodness no. Could I try that again? I meant to say that you’re welcome. My pleasure. Always a delight to dish out some goodwill, you know? Nothing like a pick-me-up such as you look great today or…or I don’t think you’re as horrible as everyone else seems to believe, but that’s usually all there is to it, really.”

“I know,” Thorin admitted. “I wasn’t thinking straight at the time.”

“I should hope not. Oh! Erm, you know what I mean by that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” He smiled to shore up his wounded pride; it was worth it.

“Because the chains were bang out of order, yeah? And the lying, though I can understand why you did that. I’d probably do the same thing if I were in your boots.”

“You wouldn’t fit,” Thorin said, feeling lost, but also amazed.

“For the love of — never mind,” Bilbo chuckled, and Thorin was immediately proud of himself for having drawn that reaction from him, like he had managed to do something indisputably right. “Just for future reference, am I going to have to be literal whenever I’m speaking with you?”

“It would help,” Thorin said, wondering what it would take to replicate the exact same reaction he’d managed to elicit not moments ago. “But no, you don’t have to — I normally don’t have problems with understanding figure of speech.” Not in relation to Bilbo, he didn’t.

“Good to hear. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t tell you to piss off without having to hold your robes down.”

“I know what that means,” Thorin said, irritation in his voice. Only him. Only Bilbo would have the gumption to look death in the eye and suggest such a thing. And only Thorin would let him get away with it. The thought of Bilbo handling him in his clothes, however… “And so you know, I also know what people mean when they tell me to go to hell, it just so happens that I do little else on a daily basis.”

Bilbo laughed again. Thorin put a hand to the base of his throat, smiling moderately, and wondered if the sensation rising up his throat was glee; if it was, it had to be ten times worth the mortification.

“That’s fine, it means we’re getting somewhere,” Bilbo told him, touching his arm. “I realise you still haven’t told me what you intend to do, now.”

Thorin came down into the companionable touch of Bilbo’s hand, covering it with his own and fixed his eyes on him, half-yearning for him to read the affection that surely had to be displayed in his eyes. “I’ve decided,” he replied. “I am obliged to make it up to you.”

“Make it up to me?”

Thorin nodded. His mind was ridiculously clear for all the things that he wanted to do for Bilbo. He wanted to hold Bilbo’s hand in his own and wash it with spice and perfumes and kiss it until it dried. He wanted to take said hand and move it over his heart to speak to Bilbo in beats and thumps what his voice could not shape into words. He wanted to trace Bilbo’s shadow into the map of the night sky, because there had never been anyone more deserving of a place among the stars.

He wanted to kiss him, to see what he tasted like. And to be kissed and loved in kind.

“If there is anything that you desire, anything at all,” Thorin said, taking a step closer to be able to smell him again. “If it is within my power, tell me, and I will grant it to you.”

“Anything, eh?” Bilbo raised an eyebrow at him. “If it’s alright, I’d very much like to go home, as a matter of fact.”

Well, Thorin hadn’t considered that. “You want to leave?”

“You did say anything,” Bilbo reminded him.

So he did, but Thorin wasn’t considering the dragon in that particular room. “You won’t come back,” he said, and instantly wished he hadn’t made it sound like an accusation. There wasn’t any question about it, though, because Thorin might be overbearing and robotic and a tad clumsy with metaphors, but he was also a realist, and the reality of it was that everyone had only ever wanted to get out of the Underworld, a fact that hadn’t changed in just over two decades on the job.

But instead of agreeing and proceeding to insist on it, Bilbo cocked his head, giving Thorin a puzzled look. “I never said that.”

He —

Oh.

Oh.

"You,” Thorin started, not sure at all how he was going to finish that. “You…want to come back?”

"I, er. I don’t see why not. Unless if you’re going to put me in chains again, of course, because then I'll have to think about it.”

There were about a hundred reasons as to why nobody would ever want to come down to the Underworld, and none of them applied to Bilbo? Now that was a surprise. “You wouldn’t be able to,” Thorin said immediately, trying to disguise the hope in his tone, “even if you were willing — your mother would disallow it.”

“How did you know — never mind. Mother’s one thing, but it’s quite horrid of you to think you know what I’d be willing to do when you don’t.”

It was much too good to be true, to even think about believing for a second. Thorin drew in a breath and took a moment. “But why would you? Be willing to return, I mean,” he asked. When everyone else just couldn’t wait to leave, not that they could, because Thorin would stop them all or die trying; he hated the thought of having people parading out his front gates willy-nilly like his authority meant nothing, like death was little less than mere transport when it was meant to encapsulate anything and everything at its end, inevitable, inescapable, but the worst part was that he was a hypocrite for letting Fili and Kili and Dis and Ori come and go as they pleased, wasn’t he, although it wasn’t the exact same thing because Thorin needed the company and would go mad if it weren’t for them, but in fact he would give it all up if only he could have Bilbo with him, and then he’d gladly spent the rest of forever alone but for the saving grace of Bilbo’s presence.

Fingers brushing his beard snapped Thorin right back into reality and a fresh state of surprise, the feeling intimate on so many levels that he could hardly begin to process, that Bilbo’s fingers were pressing softly against his face and smoothing over the coarse hairs at his cheek. “You know, I’m not quite sure myself,” Bilbo admitted, not seeming to notice as Thorin moved towards him to lean into his touch, almost close enough to kiss him but not quite. “In all honesty it isn’t that bad of a place, now that I’m here and I can safely say that most of what people claim about the Underworld is gunk. Apart from what you told me, of course, but I suppose that it to be expected. Your dragon, the one at the gate? He’s, um. I’ve never seen anything quite like him.”

“You could take him out for a flight sometime,” Thorin offered. He’d never tried it himself, not out on the surface world, but the theory was sound enough that he often thought about testing it out himself, someday.

“Probably a bad idea.”

“Probably, but you still could.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Thorin was going to count that as a yes for the time being.

"So,” Bilbo said, taking his hand back to scratch at his own chin. “I’m still not sure how this is going to work. You want me to stay, and I want to stay sometimes; there’s a common goal in that. We could meddle something up. Never mind what Mother says for now, alright? You know the saying about bridges and such.”

“Alright. I…I’ll think about it.”

“Right, then.” Bilbo smiled, touched Thorin on the shoulder and nodded, all bad blood between them cleared away. “That’s settled, we can talk it out, there’s no rush. Not now, anyway, if you need some time to chew it over. Whenever you’re ready. I’ll just…be around, okay? I’m not about to go anywhere. Don’t take too long, though.”

“I won’t,” Thorin promised, and he stayed rooted to his spot after Bilbo had peeled away from him and traipsed back up the garden to the corridor, leaving Thorin standing where he was. He turned back to the deathbell patch and stepped into it, feeling something lighten considerably in the region of his chest.

***

Belladonna raising high hell on Erebor. Don’t move a muscle until I get this whole thing straightened out.

Thorin read through the hastily-scrawled letter and conjured up an inkwell and a kalamos to pen his reply on the spot:

Indebted to you. Guest comfortable. My deepest thanks for your assistance.

He rolled up the parchment and picked up a pomegranate and handed both to Ori, who regarded the fruit with bafflement until Thorin explained, “A gift for Dain,” and sent him on his way.

That done, Thorin trudged back into the gardens and flopped down on his bum and considered the tangle that his life had wound up into. It was going…much better than he thought it would, but not as well as he wanted it to. At least Bilbo had stopped the glaring, and that was a significant step in the direction he’d wanted to take from the start.

Bilbo had mentioned a compromise, and Thorin had instinctively pushed it off the table because it included the precondition that there would be periods of time where he and Bilbo would be apart, and he wasn’t inclined to accept anything less than whole and unadulterated inseparability. If the conversation they just had proved anything, it was that the two of them could turn distrust into friendship in a matter of minutes. Give it an hour with friendship — who knew? The courting could be settled by the next day. The betrothal and subsequent solemnisation, a week at most, a week and a half, tops.

Another letter dropped on his head. Thorin looked up in time to catch a wink from a red-faced Ori, who fluttered to the ground and stooped over, catching his breath. The letter bore an unfamiliar seal in the shape of a feather, but the wax was plainly the same as the one favoured by Dain’s office. Thorin groaned, already having a rather good guess as to the identity of the sender, and perforated the seal.

You’ve really done it this time, brother. I do believe the expression goes, ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’? You probably can ascertain that better than I, but you should know that Bella isn’t going to let this go. It would be wise if you returned the boy before things get out of hand.

Gritting his teeth, Thorin turned the parchment over, because he wasn’t about to waste more of his own stationery than was necessary on a rebuttal, and scribbled:

Your concern is appreciated but entirely misplaced. Nevertheless, it has been duly noted and catalogued among other things of which I have more than a fair share of disdain for, one of which happens to be referring to my consort as a ‘boy’ and a great number of which revolve around your inability to mind your own affairs. Kind regards, etc.

Watching Ori flit back up to the entrance of the Underworld was somehow a lot more cathartic while imagining the look on Dis’s face when she received his reply; Thorin gave it maybe half a year before she would cool off adequately for it to be safe to meet her face-to-face again, and decided that it would be worth the self-imposed banishment if the rise it got from her turned out to be as spectacular as he predicted.

***

“Your mother knows,” Thorin said from the doorway.

On the bed, Bilbo was lying on his stomach, legs in the air and his knees on the corner, his nose stuck in one of the scrolls Thorin had stacked up on the shelf. He made a grunting noise and nodded, eyes trained on the unfurled scroll in front of him. “This is fascinating,” he said, never once looking away from the text. “Who knew there were so many ways to pickle and juice grapes for winemaking?”

Thorin shuffled over to him and threw a glance at the writing. “Dain loves his wines, but unfortunately his knowledge of what occurs before what you get in the cup is scarce in that regard. I decided to make up for that on his behalf.” He plonked himself down by Bilbo’s side and rested his hand between his shoulder blades. Bilbo seemed to take no notice, and Thorin left it there with a smile.

“Hm. It doesn’t say too much about viticulture, though. You wouldn’t happen to have an accompaniment to this, would you?” He coiled the scroll shut and gestured in the air with it.

“I’m not sure, but I can search it out for you.”

“Thanks.” Bilbo turned over onto his back and stretched himself out like a cat soaking up sunshine. Thorin plucked the scroll from his hand and set it back on the shelf, taking off his boots and returning to sit next to Bilbo on the bed, stroking his hair with tender fingers. There was nothing to misinterpret about the contented noises which Bilbo gave off at that, nor how he huddled closer to Thorin and nuzzled his thigh. Just a day before Bilbo had kept away from him, letting himself be touched but never accepting it, and it was wonderful that it had all turned around so quickly. Thorin would never again doubt the advantages of time spent in his garden and a good piece of literature ever again.

“So your mother knows,” he said softly, orienting himself into position to let Bilbo use his thigh as a pillow.

Bilbo opened his eyes and shrugged. “There goes the next century and a half, at least.”

“A century and a half of what?”

“Being let out,” Bilbo said tonelessly. His hand moved in oblivious circles over his stomach, rumpling creases into his chiton. “Mother gets sticky with where I’m allowed to go, if at all.”

“She must be very concerned about you.”

“Very,” Bilbo demurred. “I always thought she was being unreasonable, or paranoid, like if I got to leave the house more than a few times per decade, I’d end up getting kidnapped or something to that effect.” He looked up at Thorin with wide, meaningful eyes, his expression a wry facade of innocence.

Thorin felt his cheeks twinge and restrained a guilty smile. He covered that up by combing his fingers through Bilbo’s hair a couple more times, pretending to scratch an itch on the side of his throat.

“To tell the truth, it’s actually sort of nice to be out for so long,” Bilbo said after a while. “Under different circumstances, I actually might thank you for dragging me down here. Home was starting to become a dreadful bore.”

“And what might those circumstances be?” Thorin asked with anticipation, speculating the possibility of still being able to meet them even now.

“Well, I didn’t know who you were, for one. We’d only just met.”

“How about now?”

Lips pursed in thought, Bilbo gazed ponderously at him. “I still don’t get what your deal is,” he said, shifting a bit higher up on Thorin’s leg and putting a hand behind his head before lying back down. “All the stuff about being flattered and wanting to repay me and everything — that’s not all there is to it, it there?”

Thorin avoided his eyes, thinking that a repeat of the fiasco with the pomegranates wasn’t too far off. “What makes you believe so?”

“Just a hunch.” Bilbo yawned widely, a hand flung up to cover his open mouth. He looked sleepy and bed-mussed gorgeous stretched out on Thorin’s lap, and before Thorin knew what he was doing he had a hand in Bilbo’s hair again, stroking gently, and Bilbo didn’t appear to mind one bit. As they were, Thorin contemplated undressing him and putting him to bed, whether it would be crossing boundaries to crawl right in beside him and gather him into his arms, to keep him safe and warm and close.

“So I’m right, then?” Bilbo said after a while. “There is something else, isn’t there?”

Yes, I’m in love with you, Thorin thought, and if it sounded maudlin even in his head, it was going to be gut-clenching if he actually said it out loud. “I don’t deny that,” he mumbled, going for ambiguity.

“Right. Are you just periodically seized with the desire to abduct gods every now and then?”

“No,” Thorin answered, the feeling in his face distinct of the fact that he was probably turning rather red.

“Just those who compliment you, then?”

“Those who complement me,” Thorin sniped back, a bit more sharp than he'd intended.

It was Bilbo’s turn to blush. “Oh,” he mumbled.

Thorin bit his lip, afraid that he may have just given himself away. He wasn’t very sure why he was dawdling about in getting his point through, and supposed that he was mired irretrievably in the notion that he had but one shot at this. Which could very well be untrue given all that he had learned about Bilbo thus far, but there was every reason for Thorin to believe otherwise.

“I’m sorry,” Thorin said finally, humbling himself willingly to break the silence. “That was…out of line.”

“No, it’s fine.” Bilbo’s voice had gone very small, but he was still looking at Thorin with soft, sympathetic eyes. He reached a hand up and ran it over the curve of Thorin’s bearded jaw. “You’re lonely, aren’t you?”

Thorin stopped dead. He was aware that he had opened his mouth slightly to answer but the words had gotten stuck in his throat, which was in essence a good thing because he was sure that neither of them would be able to make much sense of no, I wasn’t, not for the longest time, only alone, and you can be that without being lonely, I know, because that was what I’d felt like, but then suddenly it was both when you walked into my life, only you were just there and not there with me, so yes, I was alone and lonely, but now it’s neither of those now that you’re here in my lap letting me touch you and comfort you and hold you, so it’s fine, I’m not lonely, I never could be so long as I get to have this.

He let his eyes fall downcast and distilled his answer to the safest possible choice out of all those: “Yes.” The pity he was met with for having said that made him want to cringe, but Thorin took Bilbo’s wrist and rubbed the base of his palm with his thumb and looked down into his eyes, blue flecked with green, and weathered it out by the skin of his teeth.

“You’re sort of a nit, you know?” Bilbo said softly, almost affectionately. He sounded ridiculously good when speaking as though he were in love with Thorin, even if he wasn’t. “Haven’t you heard of asking someone out for a drink, or a walk, or…or, whatever it is that you’d think would be nice to do with someone else?”

“Transplanting my deathbells,” Thorin whispered.

“Yeah, things like that.” Bilbo grinned up at him. “See? No kidnapping required.”

Well, it sort of made perfect sense when Bilbo explained it like that. “Perhaps I was a bit hasty,” Thorin mumbled, giving in a little.

“Perhaps.” Bilbo arched an eyebrow at him, the word stretched out much too long for all the two syllables it comprised.

“Perhaps,” Thorin reemphasized, because that was the only concession Bilbo was going to get out of him, no matter how many times he succeeded in warming Thorin’s heart.

A wry smile and a sniff, then Bilbo made to yawn again. Thorin covered his mouth for him before he could catch it himself, smiling at the warmth of Bilbo’s breath pluming across his palm. Perhaps not the only concession, after all.

“Thanks,” Bilbo drowsed, patting Thorin’s knee and letting his eyes fall shut. He turned over to snuggle closer to Thorin’s body, bringing his knees up and tucking both hands under his chin. Implicitly permitted, Thorin relocated his hand to the side of Bilbo’s hair, resting it there and tangling his fingers gently through his brown curls. It felt unbelievably nice, as though they were existing in a pocket universe created by the walls of Bilbo’s room, snug and comfortable and warm against each other with nothing that could possibly come between them.

“Slept little last night?” Thorin asked.

“Mm, had a bit of an eventful day.”

Ah. “Yes, er…I apologise for that. Deeply.”

“You still haven’t told me what you’re going to do,” Bilbo said conversationally, sleep encroaching into his voice. “Or are you thinking about it, still?”

Manoeuvring himself to lie next to Bilbo without disturbing him still a conundrum far beyond resolution, Thorin let his thoughts drift back to the promise of discussion. “Tomorrow, maybe,” he said, not bothering to specify. “I’ve an…idea.”

Bilbo smiled at his belly sleepily. “I look forward to it.”

Conversation ending there, the following silence filled the room up quickly. Waiting for Bilbo’s breathing to assume depth and a steady rhythm took a spectacularly short amount of time, leaving Thorin sitting upright with Bilbo fast asleep in his lap. It was flabbergasting how easily he dropped off, and Thorin wondered if he was always like that or if his company had anything to do with it. Contemplations of sleeping as he was were superseded by Thorin’s concerns for the health of his back, and he carefully moved Bilbo from his lap to lay properly on the bed, lying down by his side to look upon him in sleep. His forehead was relaxed and his mouth lay soft and there were little lines at the corners of his eyes that betrayed the extent of his youthful appearance. This wonderful, unbelievable god, Thorin thought. Unbelievable to think that he could ever end up deserving someone like him.

Thorin wasn’t tired enough to sleep, but was gratified to just rest in bed with Bilbo through the remainder of the day, lying in proximity and studying him with fond appreciation, from the pointed tips of his ears to the smoothness of his chin down to each golden, drooping eyelash. He petted his temple and adjusted the sheets covering him and dared himself to kiss him, but he did not. Instead, Thorin brushed the hair at the back of Bilbo’s neck with his fingers, silently amazed by the downy feel of it. The smell of him in bed was rapturous, his profile in sleep a small miracle.

He lay beside Bilbo with an arm over him, holding him secure against his chest upon which Bilbo breathed easy, close enough for Thorin to touch his lips to his forehead and whisper over his skin and know contentment in the warmth of his presence, something else which Thorin hadn’t even known he’d wanted until it had happened, just like everything else about him.

***

As he awoke in the invisible dawn Thorin became starkly aware of a light pressure encircling his midsection, submerged in warm blankets and the haze of sleep, clearing to a tender forehead under his chin and a soft weight on his chest and a body aligned perfectly along the length of his front. A small, breathing body, with small hands and small feet and an incongruously large presence that curved into him like an ocean sprawling the skin of the earth.

Oh, Thorin thought, keeping his eyes shut. It couldn’t be a dream, he never had those, so it had to be —

A snuffling noise broke the barrier of early-morning disorientation and upper Underworld tranquility. Thorin blinked, acclimatizing his vision, and watched Bilbo snuggle tighter against his chest. Bilbo had one hand crooked up to his jaw and his other arm was wrapped across Thorin, fingers limply brushing his shoulder blades. His curls brushed Thorin’s beard as Thorin looked down at him in awe and tucked his hair out of the way, exposing his dormant face. A morning like none other, it was suddenly entirely possible that Thorin would never be able to enjoy another moment of his life from then on if it didn’t mean that he had Bilbo to share it with.

Proving himself further to be the heaviest of sleepers, Bilbo did not stir through Thorin easing away and slipping out from under him and from the bed, making minimal sound and retaining as much heat beneath the covers as he could. Thorin stood on the other side of the bed and scrubbed the sleep from his face, stretching his arms high above his head to feel and listen to the immensely satisfying pop of tendons snapping back into place.

He walked barefooted to the pantry and poured himself some water and cut a grapefruit into quarters for his breakfast. He thought about what Bilbo would like to have before remembering that his dietary preferences in the Underworld amounted to nil, a flashback which occurred to him with a start in the middle of pawing through his stores for menu possibilities, after which he hadn’t too much an appetite for anything citrus and opted for the switch to a crust of bread swiped with hard cheese. Thorin didn’t think he had the stomach for anything more complicated than that, but then again he often didn’t even when he wasn’t slowly starving the love of his life.

When he returned to the room with his food and drink, Bilbo was sitting upright in bed and rubbing at his dozy eyes, his sulky mouth sagging in the muzzy expression of the recently-wakened. The sheet was draped around him and hung from his shoulders like a shed cocoon, giving him the appearance of a creature at the final stages of its metamorphosis. His curly hair was ruffled and unrulier than ever and he let out a wistful groan when he saw that Thorin had food in his hands, and mumbled dully in a tone which had Thorin warming to a smile, “Now that’s just not fair.”

A morning like none other indeed, Thorin thought with some elation, caught up in the homeliness of the moment, and loving most of all how Bilbo completed it masterfully like a centrepiece.

***

The appearance of Dain in the Underworld was the first time Thorin stopped to consider that maybe, just maybe, he was in a little over his head, even after the chaining incident and the fiasco with the pomegranates. Dain never left Mount Erebor for anything and exercised his rule from his seat high atop the mountain, engineering presence mainly through royal decree and by proxy. It was a splendidly centralised way of lording it over them all, though it also had the effect of giving a disproportionate amount of gravity to his physical presence in any non-Ereborian matter demanding amelioration or resolution.

Such as this one.

“Open. The gates,” said Dain, patience forced into every word. The King of the Gods was brushing melting snow off his robes and out of his greying hair, tracking in bits of dead grass and ice below the sandals on his feet. He was shivering a little and there was a bluish tint in his lips, and Thorin let himself worry a bit for Dain’s health before berating himself internally for forgetting a second time that the thing about being a god was that mortality by hypothermia or frostbite was completely off the table.

His concern extinguished, Thorin crossed his arms and drew himself up grandiloquently, considering Dain through the bars of the gates with guarded eyes. “No.” Dain’s visit hadn’t come as a surprise, not with the letter he had sent an hour prior to his arrival, only within the very first line was the written order return Bilbo and after that Thorin hadn’t bothered to read the rest, incinerating it broken seal and all in deepest part of the Phlegethon. “Tell me something, Dain; since when had you sworn fealty to the Goddess of Harvest? It’s not like you, playing envoy to someone else.”

“Don’t be unreasonable, Thorin.” Dain huffed and fixed his askew crown with shivering fingers. “I haven’t been coerced into anything, nor am I servile to anyone, and I’m most definitely not playing envoy. I’m here on my own accord.”

“You said I could have him,” Thorin snapped, cutting straight to the chase. “Isn’t this what you told me to do? You told me to take Bilbo, and I did. That was your instruction.”

“I put too much faith in my ability to placate Bella,” explained Dain, arms spread beseechingly in an signal of good faith. “It was an oversight. The consequences were…much more dire than I’d imagined they would be.”

Thorin remained unmoved. “Not my problem.”

“You know that isn’t true.”

“It is,” Thorin insisted, hating Dain for his tendency to be right about these things. The first deaths had already come in, bringing with them stories of dead lands and a sky without sun and the brutal, unbearable cold. Even at the entrance to the Underworld, he could feel the blizzard creeping in from the outside world, sucking moisture out of the air and silvering his breath faintly. The Underworld was a chilly place by itself, and it gave Thorin pause to think about what the surface world had to be like in comparison.

Dain stepped closer to the gates, his eyes dark and serious. “The early reports are in, Thorin. Twelve thousand people already just from the cold, but you probably already knew that. What when the food gives out and everyone is either freezing or starving to death, or both?”

Maintaining his distance from the gates, Thorin made eye contact with Dain for the first time since his arrival, and he felt his equilibrium shift. This was Dain as he’d seen only once in full, mind-numbing regalia at the battlefront, when he had turned back to tell Thorin quietly where he would have liked to be buried if he didn’t make it out of the Titanomachy. An immortal discussing his unthinkable but wholly possible demise — it had frightened Thorin as much as it had bolstered him to fight his hardest, if for all of them to live in the world that they had envisioned together, the dream that had given them common cause to rebel. In many ways it had paid off with minimal fatalities in the aftermath, with the universe theirs to divide and rule, and since then there had never been a situation that had warranted a conversation between Dain and him with a similar, if not identical, atmosphere.

Until now, apparently.

“If this is your way of getting me to work double shift, you’ll be happy to know that it’s already under way,” Thorin replied testily, standing firm. “The Underworld is being expanded as we speak; there will be no shortage of space in the near future even in the event of mass casualties.” Even, like it wasn’t a certainty, like there was a remote chance that it wouldn’t happen. No matter — he’d done a couple of mortal wars already, and those hadn’t been too difficult. What was one long famine, really? Strong-arming Dain into submission wasn’t something Thorin had thought Belladonna was capable of, but his plans were adaptable; two could play at that game.

“This isn’t about you,” Dain growled. “I can’t believe — look, I understand your position. Really, I do. I don’t know anyone more selfless than you, Thorin; you’ve never demanded anything from me, or anyone else for that matter, and it pains me that I’m asking this of you. You have the right to be happy, no one’s denying that, but we all have to make sacrifices for the greater good.”

“Greater good!” Thorin burst out, all self-control forgotten. “Unbelievable! How grand and magnanimous you must think you sound! You think you can guilt me into handing him over? You don’t understand, don’t say you do, not when I’m the one who has to give him up to be locked away from the world like an animal!”

“As opposed to being locked in the Underworld?” Dain shook his head. “Are you listening to your own words, Thorin?”

“You know what I mean,” Thorin snarled, but knew he had lost that round. He chose his next words carefully, phrasing and rephrasing until it was close to something which might remotely help his failing case. “He is everything, Dain, and I mean everything. All that I have ever known that is good, that’s what he is. All of it. There’s no one else like him, no one else I’ve ever loved more. I would gladly live a mortal life with him if that’s what it took. If you take him away from me, I’ll — I’ll…” He trailed off, unable to commit himself to make threats he wasn’t confident of being able to keep.

“If I do not, the price of my inaction will be the life of every mortal on Earth,” Dain said severely. “What have any of them ever done to deserve this, Thorin? Please don’t do this.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

Pity threaded with cold fury flared across Dain’s face. “Playing with words is beneath you.”

“Oh, good. So we agree on something,” Thorin said nastily, refusing to be fazed. “For the last time, no. I will not be bullied into compliance like you seem to have been; the Underworld is my sovereign realm and so long as I am King, all whom reside within its boundaries are under my responsibility. Bilbo stays.”

“For goodness’ sake, Thorin!” Dain boomed. “The fate of the entire world hangs in the balance, and with the scales in your hands you choose to behave like a petulant child! By Durin’s beard, I knew you better than this!”

Stunned momentarily by the castigation, Thorin pieced together a reply just as he consciously regained the ability to speak. “I guess you didn’t know me as well as you thought you did,” he whispered, choosing vengefulness in vulnerability.

This visibly brought down some of Dain’s anger, though remnants of his fury were still there. “I…I’m sorry, Thorin. I didn’t mean anything by that.”

Thorin kept his silence and tried to believe what Dain had said. He wanted to say the same of himself, but between the events of the kidnapping and the arrival of the letters, he had enough of lying blatantly through his teeth.

“It’s just that — you must know that I’ve always looked up to you, you know?” Dain said, sincerity in his undertone. “Blow that distant cousins crud. For the longest time you were like a sibling to me, closest thing to a brother I had. Best buds, mates for life, joined at the hip they used to call us, remember? And we sort of still are, aren’t we? Because to tell the truth, I think you were better cut out for this god business than most of us, me included. You’re kind and wise and hardworking, and frankly a bit of a clot sometimes, but you’re also hands-down the best damn fighter I’ve ever known. I’d have given up Erebor to you if you’d wanted me to, you would have deserved it. You still do.”

“I’d get sick,” Thorin murmured, already feeling quite ill on his feet. His throat was burning and his tongue felt too large in his mouth, too awkward. The words had to be forced out, each one risking the accompaniment of whatever Thorin had in his stomach, and he told himself it had everything to do with the memory of altitude sickness and nothing to do with the dawning knowledge of what he was about to do.

“That’s not the point. The point is that I know you’re much too good to let something like this happen when you can stop it. That’s not you. You’ve never cursed mercy once.”

There it was, the heart of the beast over his Achilles’ heel; the gambit of being built up into something he had no choice but to live up to at the risk of tearing it all down and never being able to face himself again. “Bleeding heart,” Thorin spat bitterly.

“Compassion isn’t weakness, Thorin. You of all people know that.”

“You can’t make me,” Thorin said softly, the war of words already thrown in the inadequacy of his reply, and he couldn’t look at Dain any longer, couldn’t bear it if he wanted to. He could prolong this conversation as long as he could, spend hours debating with Dain with the tenacity of philosophers fathoming things larger and greater than themselves, but what was the delay of a day to beings doomed to infinity?

“No,” Dain agreed softly, a deadly kindness. “I can’t. The choice is ultimately yours, but I can only hope that you will make the right one.”

The right one, Dain said, and how Thorin loathed the way he had put it. Making it seem as though he had an option when it was loaded entirely against him — a heartbreak in one direction, a condemnation in the other, unable to win either way he went. It was as though he was being torn apart from the inside out, caught in the opposing currents of equally savage undertows; walking across the bottom of an ocean, an impossible task, with too little air and far too much space around his clenching heart, and yes, that was it, the pain in his chest, hissing, flicking like an animal nursing a wound. He swallowed painfully and thought about Bilbo. He brushed at his eyes and thought about love.

“If I let him go,” Thorin said, his voice low and steady. “If…if he is permitted to leave, will I ever see him again?”

The answer was plain enough in the lull before Dain's answer. “Bella’s demanded your impeachment, among other things…I told her that it wasn’t an option.”

“Dain.” In that exact moment, Thorin was grateful for the limits of his voice, an instrument hedged in by pride, making it impossible to reveal any more of his heart than he already had.

Dain's face twisted up with sympathy. “No. You will not.”

Shoulders slumped in, all the fight deserting him, Thorin was aware of how small he looked in desolation. It was pathetic, which was just as well for how it felt to have his heart pulled from his body and trawled through the dirt.

“I’m so sorry, Thorin.”

Blinking, Thorin tilted his head back and contemplated the ceiling above him. He wasn’t going to cry there, not even with his eyes brimming over and so much misery coming up inside him, threatening to swell his heart and make it burst in a blinding crash of pain. He bowed his head, looking down into the endless black horror of the floor of the Underworld, and compelled himself to keep looking. If he closed his eyes he would envision Bilbo, and the sight of him would be all it took for Thorin to change his mind on the spot. There wasn’t any doubt about that. Thorin turned to leave, feet scuffing brimstone from the floor in grey, dusty clouds.

“I’ve told Ori to come tonight — will you entrust Bilbo to his care?” Dain asked from behind him.

Without turning around, the nod was level and distinct, because the least he owed to himself was riding it out with whatever dignity he had left.

“Thank you, Thorin. Dis sends her regards,” Dain added lamely, his voice a monotone.

Now that, Thorin had to laugh at, his voice echoing off the walls and warping into something wholly unrecognisable, and he shook his head in surrender to a hollow sense of calm as the sound of his footsteps dogged him all the way home to Bilbo.

***

Bilbo was reading in his room when Thorin returned. He was leaning against the headboard of the bed with scrolls piled around him, an open scroll concealing his face. He had one knee drawn up and the other lay straight on the bed, his bare toes curling and uncurling absently on the sheets. His hair was visible over the top of the scroll, wrestled back into some semblance of order, though there was still odd stray curl or two that threatened to enhance Thorin’s throbbing heartache.

Thorin stepped inside, a knot at the back of his throat. When he cleared it away, the sound drew Bilbo’s attention to him and he froze in the doorway. “You’re back,” Bilbo said, returning his eyes to the contents of the scroll. “Where did you go?”

“I had matters to attend to,” Thorin said, trying to disguise the raw quality of his voice. It took two full minutes of looking askance for him to realise that he’d been waiting for Bilbo to say something in reply. “What’re you reading?”

“This Homer guy is a genius,” Bilbo replied thoughtfully from behind a screen of yellowing parchment. “Wish I could write half as well as he does.”

Was, Thorin corrected mentally, the offer to introduce Bilbo to the poet himself on the Asphodel Fields dying in his rough and scratchy throat. His eyes were burning, his stomach kicking up a fuss. He wanted to lie down and curl in on himself and never get up in time to hand Bilbo over to Ori, to sleep straight through the night and into the early morn.

And then, perhaps, wake up with Bilbo still next to him.

“There’s been a change of plans,” Thorin croaked, and it had to be the jagged edge to it that raised a red flag, as Bilbo looked at him and set the scroll down and leaped off the bed to stride over, peering up at him in concern.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

Kind, wonderful, marvellous Bilbo. Thorin hadn’t shed any tears on the way back and he wasn’t about to cry now, but could feel himself slipping. Everything was wrong, though he couldn't put it like that, not if he was going to do this right and without making it more difficult for either of them. He'd never been good at explaining things, was even worse when it came to any matter concerning his emotions, and didn't trust himself to pull it off without leaving a bad final impression on Bilbo, even if he amounted to little in his regard as it stood. “I…you will be leaving tonight.”

“Leaving?” Bilbo’s stare was one of confusion, and some disappointment, but he smiled gratefully. “Er, alright — it’s just that, well. Tonight, wow. It’s a lot sooner than I expected. I thought that we agreed I could stay a while, at least until I got really, really hungry or when I wanted to go. We were supposed to negotiate that, remember?”

“Yes, I…I’m very sorry I didn’t get back to you on that.” Shaking his head, Thorin kept his voice measured, weighing his words. Bilbo looked tryingly at him, good humour and an absolution in his smile, and Thorin made himself keep looking. He deserved the honesty which Thorin had refrained from giving him all along, and if Thorin couldn’t even hold his eyes, well, then. Talk about insincerity. “Nevertheless, it is decided. Tonight, someone will come and take you back to the surface. You’ll be free.”

“Just a little more than I am now, but I suppose, if you insist. It’d be nice to get some sun.” It wasn’t the joyous response that Thorin had been dreading, but Bilbo was frowning a little, and Thorin had no clue how to parse that. “I’m still a bit miffed you didn’t ask me first.”

“Like I said, I’m sorry.” He had never apologised to a singular being that many times as he had with Bilbo. It was an indication that Bilbo made him better, more humble, and Thorin despaired to think what kind of god he'd been before him, and what would follow once Bilbo was gone from his life forever. Would he go back to the way he was, sterile and insular, existing forever in a vacuum? Or something else entirely, finally living up to the vilification he’d endured since the start of godshood? Madness was not the only outcome Thorin had considered being the result of being exposed to so much death for so long, among others.

Still a zero-sum game, the bottom line remained the same. He just didn’t know if he could ever bring himself to say goodbye.

A saint in every sense of the word, Bilbo shook his head and grinned. “No, it’s alright. You don’t have to apologise. Thank you for doing this.”

It made just as much sense as it would if Thorin had been thanked for ruling the Underworld, having had little choice in the matter, but he nodded.

“So…when can I come back?”

Thorin felt his knees shake, felt his hands shake, and tried very hard not to keep the rest of himself from going to pieces.

“Hey — hey,” Bilbo was saying worriedly, both hands on Thorin now. “Don’t — are you sure you’re feeling okay? I was just — come on, let’s sit down. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

Then, Thorin was being guided to the bed, tugged along by Bilbo, who sat him on the edge and joined him and settled a reassuring hand on his thigh. “Come on, you can tell me,” Bilbo said, his voice kind. “What’s the matter?”

Thorin had it all inside his mind, and it threatened to consume him whole, burn its way out of his skull, and he had to consciously press down on it. There was a muffled pounding in his ears that held synchrony with his pulse at his temples and he was gripped with the sensation of endless sinking even with the bed beneath him and his feet flat on the ground, and he folded his fingers into his palms, letting nails bite flesh.

“Thorin? Thorin!”

“Bilbo,” Thorin finally managed, the only thing which was safe to say, running counter to the bitter rise in his throat.

“You’re scaring me a bit; do…do you want me to get anything for you? Some water, or food?”

“No, thank you,” Thorin said thickly, making an effort to pull himself together. At least he was speaking again, a small victory, but it was still too much to bear, and he let his own hand come over Bilbo’s in an attempt to buoy himself through without breaking down completely.

“Are you sure? Eating always make me feel better. Might explain why I’ve been feeling a bit crummy these past few days, but I’ll live through it.”

Thorin fixed his eyes on Bilbo, taking in the level, easy humour. It was a joke, but it hurt to think about the context all the same. “You must know that I would sooner spend an eternity in the abyss rather than cause you any pain or suffering.”

Bilbo canted his head, obviously lost as to where that had come from. “Right, that’s fine and all, but I still don’t see what that has to do with —”

“You won’t be coming back to the Underworld.” It came out in a gush, a rapid outpouring of words that could be glossed over without consequence, and Thorin spent long seconds attempting to convince himself that he hadn’t in fact said it, but Bilbo was already raising his eyebrows at him and looking confused and the whole package deal that made Thorin want to take it all back and swallow it down, pretend that it had never so much as crossed his mind.

“What?” Bilbo said sharply. “Why not? First I can’t leave, and now I can’t come back? What are you playing at, exactly?”

“Nothing.” Their fingers woven together, Thorin was startled at the contrast of thick fingers through thin, rough skin on smooth. Just one more thing he would miss about Bilbo, he supposed, and the thought added another blow to the rupture already deep within him.

“Thorin, tell me what’s wrong. If I can do something, or help in any way, I promise you I will.”

“You can’t do anything,” Thorin whispered. “You can’t help.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” Bilbo said, leaning closer.

Dignity long forgone, Thorin began to cry silently. Because the worst part about all this wasn’t baiting Bilbo into remotely believing himself to be able to help or fix any of it, but that he was willing to try for Thorin even without knowing what it was. How could anyone expect Thorin to relinquish him after that? Above all else, even his extraordinary pluckiness, Bilbo’s compassion was what he cherished the most about loving him.

“Thorin,” Bilbo said, sounding dismayed.

“Sorry,” Thorin rasped, hanging on to his breath to staunch the flow of his tears. It succeeded, but only to the point of the overflow stinging the top of his nose. “Being…I’m being silly.”

“Come on. I’m still here, aren’t I? Now what’s all this about me not ever coming back? Who said anything about that?”

“Your mother,” Thorin whispered, blinking.

“Oh.” The mention of Belladonna made Bilbo look slightly uncertain, but a quantity of his confidence still remained in the way his thin eyebrows joined in the centre of his forehead. “Oh. Um. I see. Was that what you were dealing with just now? Were you speaking with her?”

“Dain brought word down from Mount Erebor. She…isn't happy, not at all, and. There's a famine, now. A terrible, terrible famine. That’s why you’re going, tonight.” It all came out flat and tight, and Thorin smiled at him shakily, clasping the hand Bilbo had placed on his thigh with both of his own, kneading slowly. Underneath Thorin’s hand, he moved his fingers gently, his skin smooth as vellum. “Spring returns to bring an end to the famine. No more suffering. No more dying.”

“On the condition that I never come back,” Bilbo translated, completing it for him.

“Yes.”

Bilbo’s face fell. Between Thorin’s hands he clasped his calloused fingers, a flash of determination in his eyes. “I’ll speak with her when I get back, she’ll listen to me, you’ll see.”

Recognising the hope in the heartfelt promise, Thorin held back from nodding. He closed his eyes, already past the point of feigning belief.

A gentle nudge at his shoulder — that was Bilbo’s head, resting lightly on him. “It’s just that, well. I think it’s about time that I get to make some of my own decisions, now that I’m grown up. More or less. Starting with when I get to go out, and where I get to go, and the people I want to meet — I didn’t even know who you were, for crying out loud, and I don’t know loads of other gods, which is a bit sad seeing as I’m at least eight hundred years old already, and. You get the picture. No more, eh? Tonight, I’m going to make a stand for myself. Time to be independent and all that.”

Opening his eyes, Thorin slid his gaze to Bilbo on a reserve of affection, tentatively reveling in the way he slanted against his body. He had grown to know what to expect of Bilbo’s actions towards him, but couldn’t say the same for himself. It was harrowing to think that any relationship that formed between them would lack stability, and even more jarring was the certainty that Bilbo would not be able to derive any happiness from it. Knowing this, he gulped air and murmured, “I’m not good for you.”

“I’m sorry?”

Another bite of air, and Thorin repeated, a bit louder, “I’m not good for you.” In no haste to explain, he checked his words and wrangled an explanation for something which hardly demanded it, not when his actions had already spoken volumes. “It’s no place for you, the Underworld. I was wrong to bring you down here against your will. It’s dark, and treacherous, and you can’t eat without sentencing yourself to further imprisonment with every bite. I was rough, and selfish, and despicable — you deserved none of that. You deserve better than all this.”

“Thorin,” Bilbo said, his voice slipping a notch lower.

“Don’t tell me that’s not the case — you’re unhappy here. And why wouldn’t you be, when you could have so much more up there? Everyone, everyone knows that there’s nothing in the Underworld, because it’s true, there’s nothing but ghosts and fires and death and everything else nobody would want to have. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Thorin shook his head, failing to feel any better with the humiliation spiking through him. “It’s better this way, if you never returned.”

“Now hold on just a moment,” Bilbo said firmly, moving to kneel between Thorin’s legs, looking straight up at him. “You need to stop that, alright? Right after I just finished rambling on and on about how I need to start standing up for myself, you dump this whole load onto me and expect me to go along with it — well, cheers, and thanks, but no thanks, though you get points for intent. Mother’s the same way all the time with me, if you can believe it, and frankly it’s getting old. Even though she never put it the way you just did, but I’d wager that the principle’s kind of the same. I’ve a brain, I can think. How about letting me decide whether you’re being a jerk to me or not for a change?”

“It’s not the same,” Thorin insisted.

“How?” Bilbo demanded. “She loves me, and you love me, so that puts it into roughly the same territory, doesn’t it?”

Thorin froze. It was a while before he found his voice again, a stumbling, flimsy thing in the recesses of his throat. “What did you say?”

“I said you love me, you clot. Heavens, Thorin — even if I’m a fool, I’m hardly blind.” Giggling and grinning, Bilbo reached for his face and thumbed gently at his jawline.

“How —”

Bilbo sighed, continuing to stroke Thorin’s beard. “I was only sure after you decided to share my bed last night, but. Um, I was sure only just now, everything that you’ve been saying. I’d been considering that for a while, once I’d reached the end of my rope figuring out why you took me down here in the first place. There’s not much left after ransoming and boredom and things done just for the heck of it, and I didn’t think you’d indirectly starve the whole world to death for anything as simple as companionship, so. Yeah. A bit of a leap, but a good one.”

Long seconds passed. Nothing went back to normal. Now out in the open, Thorin’s heart shuddered and squeezed in on itself like a creature craving self-oblivion. “It doesn’t change what I said,” he mumbled after a while, still not brave enough to look at Bilbo.

“It changes everything,” Bilbo breathed, so earnest and expressive that Thorin lost track of his doubt, spilt like pocket change all over the floor. “You keep talking about what a horrible, horrible place the Underworld is, and how no one in their right mind would want to live here — well, I resent that. Because first of all, I think we both know that you’re blowing things a bit out of proportion, just as bad as anyone else, and second, you didn’t even stop to consider that…that maybe I’d want to stay regardless of all that!”

Thorin felt his jaw drop, baffled to insensateness.

“You said there was nothing in the Underworld,” Bilbo continued, straightening his back and pushing himself up, moving his face close to Thorin’s, close enough for his breath to billow against his lips and seep into his mouth. “I don’t believe that.”

Mouth closing, heart quickening, Thorin had a second to think about what he was doing before he took Bilbo’s face in his hands and pressed their lips together. Bilbo was warm, his mouth small and soft, and for not having and food pass his lips for three whole days he still managed to taste faintly sweet, like fruit orchards and a bit of almond, the harvest of spring. He put a hand on Thorin’s body and pushed another into his long hair and kept leaning upward in a slow, graceful motion. He was breathing noisily through his nose where Thorin wasn’t breathing at all, paralyzed by the fear of ruining this moment that was unfolding between them.

Thorin kissed Bilbo hard and firm, having yearned for it for far too long, and could even ignore the rush of incredulity through his thoughts, or rather the lack of them, because kissing Bilbo was numbing and sensual all at once, like stars expanding and exploding inside his head into gases and dust swirling around to compact into new ones before growing and exploding all over again in a loop of emotion, neverending, encompassing, altogether spectacular and more beautiful than anything he could imagine.

He wasn’t aware of when they had broken the kiss, but suddenly Bilbo was gazing into his eyes with his lips slightly parted and Thorin was looking back, lost for words and his mind a blank. He was infuriatingly close to it, but if he started crying again, it would feel so inadequate, and was the poorest way he could ever repay Bilbo; Thorin forced himself away from it. He choked on a breath and touched Bilbo’s lips with his fingers and let himself believe what had just happened, if only until the rest of the day had passed.

“Thorin,” Bilbo admonished.

It was the only thing Thorin needed to hear. He lifted Bilbo into his arms, wrapped his arms around him and refused to let go. He was gasping into Bilbo’s hair, mouthing don’t leave over and over again at the shell of his ear, breathing him in and grasping his back and crushing Bilbo against him. “Please don’t leave,” he finally managed. “Don’t…please —”

A smaller being than he, Bilbo putting his chin on Thorin’s shoulder was an awkward feeling, but it only made Thorin tighten his hold on Bilbo, and there just wasn’t enough time. He’d harboured similar thoughts since coming back from the gate, negotiating with himself countless times that having Bilbo in exchange for the rest of the world was worth the sacrifice. In many ways, he thought that it still probably was. It just wasn’t one he could make, or would ever forgive himself over, and nor would Bilbo, for that matter.

So considered, Thorin still felt his heart strain, fracturing before it finally broke open inside his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Bilbo whispered into his ear. His palm slipped down Thorin’s shoulder, fleeting and considering, and circled meaninglessly over and over his back.

***

At the pinnacle of stretching definition, Ori arrived just as the clepsydra clocked five minutes to midnight. Thorin received him at the gates, bidding them open and standing on the other side with his hands together at his waist and a set to his shoulders. “Hello, King Thorin,” Ori greeted him with a tip of his winged helmet. “Where’s Bilbo?”

“He’s coming,” Thorin murmured, not making eye contact with him. “He wanted to do something before he left.” Bilbo hadn’t told him exactly what, but it wasn’t within Thorin’s capacity to decline him anything at that point.

“Oh, alright then.” Eyes kind, Ori scrutinised him with utmost sympathy. “Thorin, I…I’m so sorry it had to be like this.”

Thorin looked down at the toes of his boots. “As am I.”

They stood in an uncomfortable silence which stretched into minutes, each one more agonising than the last. Fidgeting, Ori was clearly debating asking if either of them should go looking for Bilbo, but after he caught sight of Thorin’s face he shifted listlessly on his feet, his lips pursed in a thin and inexpressive line. Thorin felt a wave of guilt for him — if they were meeting for any other occasion, it would be wholly different. He thought of Ori as one of his closest friends, very nearly his family, and it pained him to have put Ori on the spot like this.

“I —” he began, biting his tongue as he realised that a lashing of apologising all around would help nobody, would only make this more deplorable than it already was. “I should…I’ll go see —”

“Oh, there,” Ori called, pointing over his shoulder.

Thorin turned around, and there Bilbo was, shambling up the path to the gates with a forlorn look and a slog in his step, all in the manner of an unwilling child brought to the point of brinkmanship. When he reached them, he lifted his eyes to Thorin and his lips twisted into misalignment, making his mouth into a shape not meant for words.

Wordlessly, Thorin embraced Bilbo and felt arms winding around him, and he closed his eyes against Bilbo’s cheek. He let himself forget for a fleeting moment that he couldn’t ever have this again, that after that night there would be no more of this, and that it wasn’t as though life as he knew it was going to fall apart when he woke up alone the next morning. It was ridiculous that he couldn’t envision being able to endure that any longer after only one night with Bilbo, and yet the thought was stuttering in his head like a chariot on broken wheels.

Much too soon, Thorin pulled off him and collected himself and studied Bilbo’s face. Bilbo was smiling as though he was harbouring a secret, an upward quirk at the corner of his mouth which only Thorin could see. A peculiar sight, it stirred something in Thorin, insignificant and flickering enough to resemble hope.

“We should go,” Ori said uneasily. “Everyone’s waiting.”

“Yeah, just…one moment,” Bilbo said, making no move to free himself of Thorin’s hold. The smile widened slightly. “I wanted to thank you, Thorin. For everything. You were very hospitable to me; I couldn’t have asked for more from you. It’s been amazing in the Underworld, just amazing. The boarding, the sights, everything.”

“My pleasure,” Thorin mumbled. “It was —”

“Even the food’s been wonderful.”

“Food?” Thorin whispered, eyes widening in shocked split-second realisation — a translucent stain at the corner of Bilbo’s lip to which he put the tip of a finger, bringing it away red as the centres of his best and sweetest pomegranates.

“Food?” Ori repeated nervously, flitting close to the two of them.

Bilbo reached into the folds of his chiton and pulled something out, placing it in Thorin’s hand. Together with Ori, Thorin peered down at a small crimp of pomegranate, all skin and membrane and missing its ruby red seeds. Dizzied, Thorin felt a roaring crash of disbelief and blindly drew up a rough estimate of four, maybe six seeds at most judging by its size, and his gaze flew to Bilbo, who was now sucking his forefinger and thumb appreciatively around the unmistakable smirk he was wearing.

“Well, what do you know,” Bilbo purred. “The pomegranates here really are particularly sweet this time of year.”

***

 

 

 

Epilogue

At the turn of the seasons, a figure waits at the gates to the Underworld, and watches.

The year has been a remarkably eventful one thus far, peppered with accounts of labyrinths and sea monsters and a winged steed ascending Mount Erebor only for its rider to be cast back down to Earth in disgrace. Mortal men have conquered the skies on wings of feathers and wax, crossed the oceans and slain Gorgons, throwing themselves into holy wars in the bellies of wooden horses and to death, the only true constant, the kingdom of the Underworld.

The figure raises its head, the long shadow of a beak lifts; a hand comes up and pulls the garish mask away. The God of Death scans the entrance to no avail but continues to linger, looking to the clepsydra expectantly and knowing that to arrive early is to tempt a long wait, but also that the night could hardly be spent doing anything else. Spring is long gone, the harvest is past, and summer is ending. He feels it in the aether and the lengthening of nights and the hushed voices above, in marks on his wall scratching off a countdown and the gradual tilt of the planet beneath his feet into equinox.

They call it autumn, now, and it has come, along with the God of Spring.

The sound of wings, a low fluttering, and then footsteps indicate Bilbo’s midnight arrival. Thorin holds his breath, and there Bilbo is, walking to the gates. Six months gone, the sight of him is grounding, a reconnection into the experience that had linked them together in millenia past. When they are close enough, Thorin reaches for Bilbo and hauls him brazenly into an embrace, breathing the scent of his hair — cedar bark dust, dry leaves, cornfields bereft of produce at the fragrant nape of his neck. He doesn’t allow himself to say anything just yet, because he needs to feel that this is real, having called to Bilbo in his dreams for months and been answered by absence on waking. When there is no doubt about it, he shivers and holds him tighter. “I’ve missed you,” Thorin says.

Bilbo —

“It’s been a while,” Bilbo tells him. “Crazy year, huh?”

A while, yes. Far too long, just like when the Underworld is empty and the rest of the world rejoices. Thorin buries his face in the chlamys over Bilbo’s shoulder and thinks about the last time he held Bilbo half a year ago, when he felt the earthly thump of his heart and the rise and fall of his ribs, coaxing himself into thinking he could hear the whirr and buzz of Bilbo’s thoughts inside his head and wondering if they contained him. If they had all along.

“Bilbo,” Thorin groans, which is the only word that he makes room for on his breath, and then he kisses him and Bilbo kisses back, carding his fingers through Thorin’s long, dark hair. He is the best of the Underworld and its peace, bound to the realm on a promise of pomegranate seeds, a month a seed, and he is all that Thorin has loved and ever will.

“Thorin,” Bilbo agrees, turning his face against Thorin’s chest, words a low buzz directly over his heart. “I missed you too.”

“I know.” He curls an arm around Bilbo’s waist and holds him in the cradle of his arms and kisses him again, caressing his cheek and smoothening the hair at his temple, patting down the crown of his head and breathing in cadence with him. The clepsydra drips, a minute past midnight, and Bilbo is finally here again and Thorin is complete once more. “Welcome back.”