Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bilbo doesn’t know how to mend a broken heart, so instead when Kili shows up at his door with tear stained cheeks and knotted hair he let’s him cry into the crook of his neck, traces patterns on his back like he would for Frodo after a mid-winter nightmare, and tells him everything will be okay. Kili doesn’t believe him, he even tells him so, but Bilbo says it anyway. He keeps saying it until he falls asleep on the couch, his eyes swollen and red and his hands tucked beneath his cheek.

They spend the weekend watching University Challenge, distracting themselves with trivia on chemical discoveries and Roman military history. Bilbo cooks a full roast with his mother’s recipe and makes Kili help him chop carrots into haphazard little pieces. The taste of rosemary reminds him of rainy afternoons and blanket forts, but Kili has no memories of his own mother’s cooking.

“How’re you so okay with this?” Kili asks. His frequent crying spells have been replaced with stony silence and distant stares and Bilbo isn’t sure which is worse. “You’ve not asked me a single question about it.”

“I don’t know,” Bilbo says. “Maybe if the circumstances were different, I’d be more concerned.” He’s not sure what exactly those circumstances would be. Maybe if he hadn’t seen Kili that morning, crying into his hands outside a mausoleum door, or if he hadn’t found them asleep, curled against each other with their breathing timed to a metronome’s beat. Maybe if Bilbo had siblings of his own, if he had some basis for comparison, or if he’d known them as children, if Kili didn’t look at his brother like he swallowed the sun.

“How old were you?” He asks, dreading the answer.

“When we fell in love? We always, it’s not - if you mean sex I didn’t even consider bringing it up until my eighteenth birthday. I knew he’d fight me on it, so I just waited until he didn’t have an excuse.”

“Well,” Bilbo begins and Kili laughs.

“You know what I mean. A proper excuse.”

“Weren’t you afraid of what would happen with your family, if they found out?”

“No,” Kili answers, immediate and certain. “I could do without the lot, to be perfectly honest. Fili has always been closer with them than I have, he talks to Dis more often, was always Thorin’s golden boy. He gets on with our cousins and uncles. But I don’t need them, not really.”

“You need someone,” Bilbo says, frowning. He thinks of Kili, alone on the beach of Majorca while snow fell outside his window in Yorkshire.

“Well,” he mumbles, reaching for the remote. “I’ve got you, haven’t I?”

“You know you do.” Bilbo stands and shuffles into the kitchen to make them both tea as Bamber Gascoigne’s voice echoes from the living room.
 
—

They lay with their feet entwined along opposite ends of the couch while Bilbo reads printed proposals on stapled sheets of white paper and Kili reads his own on a computer screen. “Kili,” he says and he looks up, watching up.

“Yeah?”

“Your uncle was the one leaving flowers at my parent’s grave. Did you know?”

Kili frowns, slowly reaching out to close the lid of his laptop. “No,” he says, his voice still hoarse, not quite natural. “You’re sure?”

“I spent a good deal of time there last Friday and a young man named Ori came by with flowers from Thorin Durin.”

“What a bastard,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Should’ve known the second you said it. No way he’d venture out to do any work on his own. It had to be Ori. Did he say why?”

“No. I’ve never met your uncle, have I?”

“Not that I know of. He hasn’t been to any of our events. I’ll ask what the deal with the flowers is.”

“Don’t ask your uncle,” he says, suddenly quite flustered.

“I’ll ask Ori. He’s a better listener than he’s generally given credit for. I’ll report back.” He pauses to run a hand through his greasy hair. “Sorry about all this, he’s so weird. He probably recognised the names, to be honest. He knows I’ve been spending all this time with you and he probably saw the graves and did the math. How that equation came out to stalking you with his creepy flowers, I can’t say.”

“What would your uncle be doing at Saint Patrick’s?”

“Oh, he owns it now. Because when Thorin doesn’t know what to do he throws money at things. His grandfather asked to be buried in a place he’s never heard of, so he reserves the plot and then buys the whole damn cemetery.”

“Oh,” he begins, softly. “Well, I suppose I have met your uncle then.”

Kili frowns. “Really?”

“He told me off for taking photographs. After proving to him that I was indeed visiting family he just kind of stormed off, but not before shouting over his shoulder that the place was under new management.”

“Oh yeah,” Kili says with a snort. “You definitely met Thorin.”

“Well he did apologise, in the end. Not that I would’ve needed one, mind.”

Kili’s eyes are wide. “That - no, did he really? Like just on his own or did you have to badger him for it?”

“He came out in the pouring rain mid-February to do it. He told me about his grandfather and that he had no kin in Leyton, but then I forgot to ask his name.”

“Huh. Well that’s weird.”

“Is it?”

“Trust me,” he says, with the barest hint of a smile. “If you knew him like I do, you’d think so as well.”

—

“He visits on Friday’s, you know.” Kili hasn’t left his flat for more than two days at a time and Bilbo thinks he ought to be setting some ground rules. But Kili’s been improving, bit by bit, he’s seen the light return to his eyes and he can’t quite bring himself to make him leave. So he allows him to fill the wardrobe in his guest bedroom with clothes, allows him to buy groceries and leave his dirty dishes on the coffee table and commandeer the television remote with his quick fingers.

“Who visits?”

“Thorin. Ori told me the times vary because he never really leaves the office willingly, but it’s always Friday.”

“Ah.” He pretends to be engrossed in his book.

“So? Are you going to try and catch him in the act?”

“You’re rather nosey.” Bilbo tells him and when Kili laughs it doesn’t sound quite right.

That night he listens through the door as he calls his brother on Skype. “The connection isn’t any good here, Fee. Just turn off your camera, otherwise you’ll break up.” It’s a lie and Bilbo imagines Fili knows it. But Kili is trying, and that has to count for something.

He stands with his ear against the wood as Fili does the heavy lifting and describes his day with a false note of cheer to his voice. He trudges through descriptions of the weather, balmy and warm, the humidity that comes from a storm at sea. He talks about his daily breakfast of manousheh bought from an old women with arthritis ridden fingers who works on the street side just below his building. It isn’t until he recounts his recent faux pas with an American diplomat that the static between them finally breaks. They both laugh and laugh and when Kili responds, he almost sounds normal again.

Bilbo falls asleep that night to the distant hum of Kili’s voice and he dreams of rocky coasts and the rising tide.

—

Bilbo sees Thorin the second he walks through the cemetery gate, his shoulders hunched and his fingers clutching a bouquet of asters and daisies. Thorin looks up and sees him a few moments later and immediately turns on his heel, his head bent, and tries to leave without being spotted. Bilbo laughs and his voice carries across the field.

“I’m afraid I’ve already seen you, Mr. Durin. No sense in wasting perfectly good flowers.” He calls, grinning. Thorin pauses, his collar turned up against his neck, but eventually he gives in, walking at a gallows pace to Bilbo’s side. He holds out the bouquet and Bilbo takes them, running his fingers along purple petals.

“Thank you,” he says. “My parents would’ve loved them.” Thorin nods, looking away as Bilbo grins up at him. He shifts to the side, creating room on his blanket and motions for him to sit. “Well come on. You came all the way out here.” Thorin seems to hesitate so Bilbo pats the spot beside him and says, “Don’t overthink it.”

Thorin sighs but he sits all the same. His long legs fold awkwardly in front of him and Bilbo smiles as the hem of his trench coat trails in the mud. His hands rest splayed across his knees and they sit in silence while Bilbo plucks a petal to tuck into his pocket, humming a few bars to a Cornish lullaby.

“Kili’s doing alright,” he says, after a while. “He’s slowly getting back into a schedule and he even calls Fili most nights. He doesn’t worry about him you know, but goodness, I do. I can hardly watch the news these days.”

“Beirut is not the war zone it was in the eighties.” He still hasn’t quite met his eye and Bilbo allows him his distance.

“No, I suppose not. But I still worry.”

“So do I,” he says, his voice soft.

“I visit every Sunday, you know.” Bilbo tells him. “And I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“I’m not always in London.”

Thorin looks like a man who has had very few opportunities to speak, so Bilbo pats his arm and says, “Well I am. I’ll be here if you ever have the time. If you ever need it, rather. There’s something relaxing about Leyton, you know.”

“Yes,” he says quietly. “There certainly is.”

—

Most days they don’t speak. Thorin arrives with flowers and sits at his side, looking out over the graveyard as Bilbo plucks a petal to press into his collection. Sometimes Thorin closes his eyes to the glare of the spring skies and Bilbo takes the time to look at him. He sees a bit of Kili, on those days, in the way his lashes fan against his skin and how his hair falls to the side, brushing against his temples. But there are lines at his eyes that Kili lacks, his beard is flecked with grey and Bilbo thinks it’s all rather ridiculous but he usually can't bring himself to look away. His eyes are all he has of Fili, stormy and sharp, their shared intelligence held in line by the filter that Kili so apparently lacks. He doesn’t mind Thorin’s silence, but when he speaks, Bilbo hears his voice for days.

“Is he still staying with you?” He sounds tired, worn, and his eyes remain closed to the setting sun.

“Weekends,” he says. “And Tuesday nights, often stays through Wednesday as well. I’m trying to set boundaries but your nephew is a rather talented negotiator.”

“He is.” There is a twitch of movement at the corner of his lip. “If you want him to leave-“

“Oh no,” Bilbo says. “I’m afraid I’m rather fond of him. Even if he never does the washing up.”

“He’s very fond of you too,” he says. “And I can never thank you enough.”

“I don’t know about that. I’ve received a rather startling amount of flowers from you, Mr. Durin.” He does smile then and Bilbo laughs, his head tiled back. “Did you know, that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile?”

He looks startled, his eyes wide and reflected blue, and then he laughs as well.

—

“You’re right, I don’t understand.” Kili is not quiet on the best of days but now his voice carries, heavy with bitter desperation, through the halls of his flat. “You know they’d give you a properly good job here, maybe they’d even pay you more-“

“It’s not about money.” His voice sighs static from Kili’s laptop and Bilbo moves closer to the guest bedroom, cup of tea in hand, but thinks better of interrupting. “You’re so young, Kee. Isn’t there stuff you want to do before you get stuck with me? We have the rest of our lives to be the antisocial old men that everyone knows in their apartment block for keeping cats and shouting over copies of the Guardian.”

“I don’t,” Kili says. “I never wanted anything but to stay with you. And had you gone off to a normal country-“

“Lebanon is normal.”

“You know what I mean,” he snaps. “A country I could actually follow you to then fine, I wouldn’t mind a single second of it. But you’ve gone FCO, Fili, and unless we were fucking married there’s no way you could take me with you.”

Fili is silent for a moment and Bilbo wonders if perhaps it’s down to his age. After all, Fili can still remember life before his brother came along. Kili has no such anaesthetic. “I can’t promise anything.”

“I have to go,” Kili says and his voice cracks as Fili calls for him to wait but he snaps the lid of his laptop closed before he can get another word in. Bilbo leans in the doorway, watching as he weaves his fingers into the roots of his hair, hunched over his duvet.

“You need a haircut,” Bilbo says.

“He always liked it long.” Kili looks up at him with glass blown eyes. “I love him so much, you know, that one of these days I’m going to end up hating him.”

—

“Well,” Bilbo begins. “I think we should reevaluate our plans, today.” He stands before his father’s grave while rain falls like running water and he can hear Thorin’s soggy steps behind him, the splash of mud and poorly dodged puddles. He raises his umbrella enough for him to duck underneath, murmuring his thanks as he runs a hand through his hair, pushing it all back into place.

“Could I tempt you with a coffee? There’s a lovely place just a few streets down from here. I would offer to bring you back to my flat but I’m afraid Kili has commandeered my sitting room.”

Thorin glances at him from the corner of his eye. “You haven’t had any luck in getting him to return home?”

“He and Fili have been fighting,” he says. “Now come along, I’m taking your silence as a yes to coffee. Follow me.”

Thorin walks with his shoulders hunched below his umbrella, struggling to keep in line with Bilbo’s footsteps. “What are they fighting over?” He asks, finally.

“The only thing those two would fight over,” he says, hopping up onto the sidewalk. “When Fili’s coming home. Here,” he says, handing the umbrella to Thorin. “You take this. That way you don’t have to bend over quite so often. Kili wants him to transfer to domestic after his contract is up in Beirut. Fili, understandably, does’t want to make any promises.” Bilbo leads him down a side street with broken cobblestone and empty bike racks and into a small, shabby cafe with linoleum floors and cracked drywall.

Thorin, to his credit, doesn’t say a word. Instead he shrugs off his coat and lays it over the back of one of the many empty chairs, before offering to take Bilbo’s as well. “What would you like?”

“I’ll pay-“ Thorin begins but Bilbo smiles and shakes his head.

“I offered. I do believe that means it’s my treat. Now what is it you’d like to drink? Or shall I guess?”

Thorin pauses, briefly, before saying, “I trust your judgment.”

“Oh you shouldn’t,” he says, turning towards the young woman at the counter. He resists the urge to order something rich and sprinkled with chocolate and instead goes for two cappuccinos, served in their colourful mismatched china, and takes the seat across from him. “Nothing fancy,” he tells him. “Mainly because this place sticks to the basics. But if we’d been at Starbucks I would’ve ordered you something terrible.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says. He still barely smiles, but Bilbo has learned to watch for the twitch in the corner of his mouth, the way he looks down at his hands, his lids lowered.

“Perhaps you should come for dinner,” Bilbo says. “I force Kili to play kitchen assistant and I imagine you’d find it quite amusing.”

Thorin frowns and looks away and Bilbo knows exactly what he’ll say next. “I’d rather not ruin his evening.”

“You wouldn’t-“ he begins, but Thorin shakes his head.

“I didn’t do a particularly good job of raising him, but at the very least I do not harbour any delusions.”

“I’m sure you didn’t-“

“Please,” he says. “It’s quite alright. You don’t need to reassure me. To be perfectly honest, I’d rather hear about your week, my nephew included or not.”

Bilbo wonders if he knows. He wonders if he’s seen the way they look at each other, if he’s heard Kili say his brother’s name like it means something divine. He wonders if he thinks it’s his fault, or if he knows them better than that. “It’s been a slow week,” he says. “But you know me. I can chat about anything at all.”

—

Kili lays with his head resting on Bilbo’s thigh, his hair unwashed, wrapped in a knit blanket pulled up to his chin. “Would you mind telling me what your problem is with your uncle?”

“Do you have twenty years to spare?” Kili mumbles into his pant leg. “Because that’s how long it will take.”

“Footnotes,” Bilbo says, a familiar phrase to them both, usually murmured over paperwork in the office.

“He pushed Fili all his life, made him become a little civil service clone. He takes pictures, you know. Beautiful pictures, he could be an artist. But now he lives in fucking Lebanon because Thorin wanted him to be a proper establishment man.” Kili sits up, running a hand through his hair. “Of course, that was when he was actually around, we saw him maybe three months out of the year when we were kids. The rest of the time he was paying someone else to give a damn about us. Whatever time he had was spent moulding Fili into something he wasn't, just like his fucked up grandfather did to him.”

Bilbo watches him as he scrubs his hands over his face, his cheeks flushed and his speech quick with pent up anger and finally he asks, “And what about your mother?”

“She didn’t want kids, she never wanted kids. It was my father that convinced her, assuming he’d do all the work but then he went and got himself killed and you know, I don’t blame her one bit. We saw her every Christmas and during summer and Easter holidays. She was great fun, but she never pretended to be something she wasn’t.”

Bilbo thinks of his own mother, of her recipe books and her love of crosswords and her distant off-key singing, and he thinks that might be the saddest thing he’s ever heard him say. “We love her, don’t get me wrong,” Kili says. “And she loves us. But she was never going to raise us, not as kids. It was Thorin who stepped up and he went and did a shit job of it.”

“Did Thorin want kids?” Bilbo asks and Kili pauses, looking away like he’d never thought to ask.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “It was his job. And all he did was repeat his grandfather’s mistakes.”

Bilbo doesn’t argue, he doesn’t ask anymore questions. Instead he makes a pot of tea and while the kettle boils he thinks about Thorin, young and unprepared for the children left at his feet, and wonders what it was he wanted.

—

Thorin is late and Bilbo watches as a hazy dusk begins to fall over the hills of Saint Patrick’s, wondering if perhaps he won’t come at all. There is no sunset to admire, no orange skies, just grey transitioning to black and most days Bilbo prefers it that way. His phone buzzes against his hip and Bilbo digs his mobile out of his pocket to a ridiculous photo of Kili, cross-eyed and grinning, splayed across the screen.

“You meeting Thorin today?” Kili asks without any introduction.

“I should be, yes.”

“Right, so we may have had a bit of a row over the phone.”

Bilbo sighs. “Why am I not surprised? What were you even talking about?”

“My fucking flat. It was just supposed to be a call about the damp in the one of the bedrooms, I thought it might spread to his favourite china cabinet if we didn’t seal the windows a little better before autumn. And it may have devolved into, you know, not that.”

“Are you alright?” He asks pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, I mean it’s nothing new. I just thought - if you’re seeing him tonight you ought to know. He’s moody on the best of days, so.”

A train passes with fluorescent lights illuminating the distant faces of rush hour commuters. Bilbo watches the windows flicker by and murmurs, “Well at least you’ve warned me. Have you eaten yet?”

“No, Dad.” Kili says with a laugh. “But I’ll eat.”

“There’s baked ziti in the fridge. It just needs heating. Ah-”  he stops as he sees Thorin’s car pull into the gates. “He’s here. I’ll see you soon.” He hangs up and watches as Thorin trudges across the field, uncharacteristically empty handed.

“The flower shop was closed,” he says.

Bilbo looks up at him and pats the spot at his side. “I’m sure they’ll forgive you.” Thorin smiles in response, stretching out his legs across the damp grass, but Bilbo sees the tension in his shoulders and he wonders if there isn’t a hint of heartbreak around the corners of his mouth. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Thorin is silent for a long time. “I’m not very good at that,” he says, finally.

“You don’t need to be. And it’s an offer, not a demand.” He brushes their shoulders together and Thorin sighs like his lungs are collapsing.

“I imagine you’ve spoken to Kili.”

“Briefly,” he admits. “He said you fought.”

“It’s nothing new.” Thorin tilts his head back as if he’s looking for stars, though they both know he’ll see nothing out here but haze. He closes his eyes and parts his lips and Bilbo thinks he’s never looked so beautiful. “Can I tell you why I started to leave the flowers?” He asks.

“You can tell me whatever you'd like.”

“It’s because - our family, we are made up of generations of terrible parents. Not a single one of us knew how to raise a child, except for maybe the boys’ father, though he didn’t get much of a chance. My grandfather was not anything close to perfect, my father barely knew me at all, and sometimes I think I’ve been even worse.”

Bilbo frowns, but doesn’t interrupt. Instead, he squeezes Thorin’s hand in his and feels a pleasant jolt of surprise when he tightens his grip. He realises that he must know, he must have seen them together, the sparks between their fingertips and the shared pull of their heartstrings. He wants to tell him that it’s not his fault, it may not be anybody’s fault, but he holds his tongue.

“I recognised your name the second my cousin mentioned it. Kili might think I’m oblivious to what he gets up to but I do keep rather close tabs on him and I watched as you so naturally managed what I was never able to do. When I visit my grandfather’s grave it feels half way between obligation and regret.” His eyes are open now, staring up at the spring sky.

“But you seemed so at peace here and I thought you must have had wonderful parents, to have raised someone like you, who keeps coming back and has love left to spare.” He takes an uncharacteristically shaky breath. “I wanted to thank them and to thank you. Sometimes I stayed here longer than I should have, hoping that something would click and suddenly I would understand, that somehow I could make amends.”

“Oh Thorin,” Bilbo says, unable to keep quiet any longer. “No one’s perfect, you know. You did the best you could and you loved them dearly and really that’s all anyone can ask for. Kili is young and he’s difficult. He often says things he doesn’t mean.”

Thorin smiles at him. “You’re too kind, you know. Sometimes I fear my family has been more trouble to you than we’re worth.”

“Nonsense,” Bilbo tells him, resting his head gently against Thorin’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t trade you lot for anything.”

“And how lucky we are for it.” Another train passes by, clattering along the tracks, and they watch it go in silence, their fingers still entwined.

—

Bilbo wakes to someone crawling into bed beside him, whispering his name. It’s an hour before dawn, the windows are glazed in hazy blue light, and Kili is crying. “Bilbo,” he says again, his voice cracking. “There was an explosion, Fili’s phone goes straight to voice mail.” He sits up, his stomach turning with sudden, gripping nausea as Kili begins sobbing into his hands.   

“Come now,” he says, pulling him into his arms. His hair is a mess of knots and Bilbo tries to untangle them with unsteady fingers. “Whenever something like this happens, the cell towers are the first to go with everyone trying to contact their loved ones. It was the same in London, though you’ll be too young to remember. It’s hard to call down the street, you know, and I can’t imagine you’d have a chance of international calls going through. I’m sure that’s all. Was it near the embassy?”

“No,” he whispers, his voice choked. “But what if he wasn’t at work? There was a bus-”

“Why wouldn’t he be at work? You know better than that.” Bilbo reaches for his glasses, one arm still wrapped around Kili’s shoulders and feels around for his phone. News about Beirut is rarely a headline and it takes a moment before he can find any information at all. He catches sight of a generic photo of ambulances parked along dust covered streets and Bilbo sets it down.

“Well come on,” he says. “Get your phone and your computer. Make sure Skype is on, he may call at any time.”

He makes them tea as Kili lays on the couch, one of his mother’s knitted afghans wrapped around his shoulders as BBC News plays on the television. He watches with lifeless, red rimmed eyes and Bilbo wonders if he even hears a single thing. His tea goes untouched and eventually Bilbo drains it down the sink and makes another cup.

When Kili’s phone does ring, it isn’t Fili on the other line. “Have you heard from him?” He asks, in a rush of words that leaves him nearly breathless. Bilbo hears the soft chatter of sound from the receiver before Kili his doubling over, clutching at his chest.

Bilbo rushes forward, despite himself. “What’d they say, Kili? What’s going on?”

He doesn’t answer, so Bilbo plucks the phone from his hand. “Hello?”

“Bilbo.” Thorin sounds tired but calm. “The embassy has reported all staff accounted for. Fili is fine, but cellular will be down for a few hours yet.”

He let’s out a shaky breath, pulling Kili closer. “I let him get to me,” he says. “I figured that was the case. Kili’s been on edge all morning and I suppose it rubbed off. Honestly what were the odds.”

“It’s not the first time,” Thorin says. “Though I think it’s the first Kili knew about. Thank you for being there for him.”

“Of course,” he says softly. “Are you in the office?”

“I am.”

“Kili and I have taken the day off. Why don’t you come by for lunch?” Thorin is silent and Bilbo sighs. “It’ll be good for you both. I simply won’t take no for an answer. I do believe you two owe me this much. I did wake before the sun this morning and have been making tea for hours since.”

“We do owe you,” Thorin agrees. “I’ll see you at one.”     

Bilbo hangs up the phone and sets about wiping the tears from Kili’s eyes, his lecture settling on his tongue. “This cannot happen every time something horrible occurs in Beirut. Your uncle assures me it’s a relatively rare occurrence these days but I’m now initiating a no meltdown rule for anything that’s not happening within ten feet of either his flat or the embassy.”

“You invited him for lunch,” Kili says, his voice hoarse. “Did you really just invite him for lunch?”

“Yes. We’re going to make a lovely chili because I have mince that’s about to go off and you’re not going to complain about a single thing.”

He laughs, a sudden, hysterical sound until finally he says, “You know very well that’s just impossible.”

“I can dream though, can’t I?” Bilbo tells him. “Now take a nap. I’ll wake you soon. And when I do, I’m putting you to work.”

—

Thorin looks distinctly out of place, sitting with rigid shoulders against the soft carved wood of his kitchen table. His wrists rest delicately against the edge as he tears up a slice of ciabatta bread to splay in even little sections across his bowl. Kili, for his part, plays off the entire ordeal like a lunch meeting. He tells his stories, explains their work with words Bilbo has heard echoed to potential donors at events and in conference rooms. His voice sounds off, a note too high and entirely too guarded, but if Thorin notices anything at all he certainly never lets on. He asks polite questions which they take turns answering as Bilbo attempts to nudge Kili’s foot under the table.

“Well I’m not surprised,” Thorin says, looking down at his bowl. “Not like the rest of the family, I imagine.” He looks up at Bilbo then, a ghost of a smile at his lips. “When he was six years-old a charity came to his school to collect old winter clothes for children in Bosnia and Serbia, right when the refugee crisis was starting. He called me that night and demanded that I buy coats for every child we could afford, even if it meant that he and Fili would go without Christmas presents that year.”

Kili frowns. “I don’t really remember that,” he says.

“Ask your brother, I’m certain he does. You were absolutely insistent. I thought you may forget within a week or so but you did no such thing.”

“Did you really send coats then?” Bilbo asks.

“Money,” he says.”Towards a number of children’s funds. I thought it might go a tad farther than winter clothes. I find that most charities know what it is people need, what they’re short on and what is in high demand.”

“Baby formula,” Kili says, absentmindedly.  

When Thorin looks at him, Bilbo thinks his heart may break for them both. “I was ready to trust the experts. Which it seems you have become. I couldn’t be more delighted with your choice, Kili.”

He murmurs his thanks and Bilbo breaks their silence with offers of tea. “I can’t imagine you take sugar,” he says to Thorin and Kili snorts as he clears away dishes.

“You know him so well already. A splash of milk, leave the bag in. Thorin’s signature over brewed tea.” Before he can even set the bowls in the sink, Kili’s computer rings from the guest bedroom and his eyes go wide. “Fili’s home,” he says and Bilbo gestures in the direction of the hall.

“Well go on. I’ll keep your uncle company. Though I don’t imagine you’ll be around to see him out.”

“That’s quite alright,” Thorin says, “Tell Fili I said hello.” Kili nods his head all but runs to the bedroom.

—

“Do you like Thorin?” Kili asks. The weather has finally turned, breathing summer heat into London’s palms, so they spend their lunch break sitting at the edge of the water in Regent’s Park with a takeaway tucked between them.

Bilbo picks around lo mien with a plastic fork. “I do,” he says. “Though I imagine you’re asking something else altogether.” Kili swings his feet, looking entirely innocent but Bilbo knows better than that. “And as I’m happily no longer a teenager, I can tell you with absolutely no embarrassment that I am both interested in and attracted to Thorin. And because I’m far older than you are I can also remind you that it’s none of your business.”

“He is my uncle,” he points out.

“Alas, still not your business.”

Kili slurps loudly over his noodles and Bilbo resists the urge to scold him for it. “You know, if you two got together, you’d be my uncle too.”

“Which would change very little, you know. And you are thinking rather far ahead.”

“Though I’m not sure how I feel about this just yet,” he continues. “I wouldn’t be able to crash at your flat half as often if my uncle was there all the time.”

“Very, very far ahead.”

“Yeah, except I've seen him look at you. But I know Thorin, and he won’t do a single thing about it.” Kili turns to him with hard set eyes, an expression he so rarely sees. “He’ll keep leaving you flowers, he’ll meet you for coffee, he’ll do everything you want him to do but Thorin will never, ever, make the first move. He never has, he never will. I’m telling you this because I love you and I want you to be happy.” He sighs, nudging Bilbo’s side. “Thorin is a fucking mess when it comes to love of any kind. You’ll need all the help you can get.”

“Well thank you for your concern,” Bilbo says, packing away the styrofoam containers. “And I love you too.”

—

“I’d like your help,” Thorin says, sipping at his tea. “Kili tells me you have an eye for antiques.”

“Through no fault of my own,” Bilbo assures him. “My grandmother was a collector, like you I suppose. What do you need help with?”

“I’ve bought a house,” he says. “Which is to say, I finally have room for all the furniture I’ve forced the boys to share a flat with over the years. I’d like you to help me place them, which pieces go where. It was Kili’s idea, actually. I’ve always been fond of antiques but I’m rather useless with interior design.”

Bilbo laughs. “Of course,” he says. “Though I should warn you, I hardly have experience. But between the two of us, we’ll work it out. Where’s your new house and why haven’t I gotten an invite yet?” He asks with a grin.

“This is your invitation,” Thorin tells him. “But you won’t have to travel far. It’s in Leyton.”

“Leyton,” he repeats, eyebrows raised. “You bought a house in Leyton even though you could definitely afford something gorgeous in Wimbledon?”

“You were right,” Thorin says. “There’s something about this place. I’ve spent most of my life traveling and this is the first time I’ve ever been certain about staying put.”

Bilbo laughs, shaking his head. “You lot,” he says. “Soon I’ll have you all living here. You know Kili’s threatening to rent down in Leytonstone. He’s not fifteen minutes away on the tube and still he calls it too much of a hassle.”

Thorin watches him with a smile he can’t quite place. “It would be a shock to the system for him to actually have to pay rent.”

Bilbo snorts into his tea. “Well he certainly could use it, couldn’t he, that brat. Though he did seem rather adamant.”

“If Kili actually manages to move, I’ll cook for you every night for a week.”

Bllbo laughs because suddenly, in a trick of light, Thorin’s mischievous little grin is a mirror image of his nephew’s. “I’ll hold you to that, you know.”

“I’m certain you will.”

—

“I’m tired, Bilbo. Can’t we just go home?” Kili has been complaining since they stepped out of the station, turning towards the cemetery instead of Bilbo’s flat.

“We’ll be quick,” Bilbo promises. They stop at the fruit vendor off of the high street where summer wild flowers sit in twined bundles alongside oranges and green apples. Kili murmurs in disbelief as he picks out two sets of poppies mixed with chamomile and sets them on the till. “Shut up,” he says. “It’s father’s day.”  

“Fili said father’s day was made by protestants in the States using loads of misogynistic rhetoric and a touch of capitalist fervour.” Kili says, hands in his pockets as he follows him out the door and down the street.

“He’s probably right,” Bilbo says. “But my mother left them every year.” Like her gaudy poinsettias, she always bought summer grown wildflowers just in time for father’s day, leaving them at his grave like an inside joke that Bilbo was never quite privy to. He leads Kili through Saint Andrew’s and sets the flowers down with a tap to his father’s headstone.

“Why’re there two?” Kili asks, watching him.

Bilbo leads him to Thror’s grave, the only emerald stone against a sea of granite grey, and hands the flowers to Kili. “No way,” he says, pushing them back into Bilbo’s hands. “I’m having nothing to do with this.”

“Why?”

“Because he was a fucking sociopath, that’s why. I’m not laying fucking flowers at his grave.” Kili stands with his arms folded until finally he seems to cave under the weight of Bilbo's silence and begins chewing on the sides of his nails.

Bilbo sighs and sets the bouquet down on the flat edge of the stone, motioning for Kili to follow him towards the cemetery gates. “Do you want to elaborate?”

“He was the world’s actual largest prick. He hated Fili for no reason, he was horrible to him, ever since he was a kid.”

“Why?” Bilbo asks, frowning.

“I already told you. He was crazy. We just tried to avoid him, which considering the whole boarding school set up wasn’t actually that hard to manage.”

“And Thorin knew about this?”

“Fuck knows,” Kili says. “Thorin was happy to turn a blind eye to most things. He probably thought Thror was all tough love or something. But he was just crazy, Bilbo. Don’t let him trick you into thinking he was a great guy.”

He thinks of the golden child that Thorin always describes and the loving brother with silk heartstrings to Kili’s eyes, and he wonders what it was that Thror saw in him. “I form my own opinions, Kili,” he says. “Don’t you worry.”

“Thorin’s not going to see them, you know. The flowers,” he says, gesturing behind them.

“That’s not the point.” He assures him. “Now what’re your dinner requests? I’m tired of pasta bakes.”

—

The house is beautiful. It’s not a five minute walk from his front door, situated along a shady little street tucked back between branches of oak trees and wide reaching firs. They walk up the steps to the pale moss green door with its stained glass frames and already Bilbo thinks he may be just a little bit in love.

Thorin pulls out a set of keys and unlocks the door, opening it to a high arched entranceway and shining hardwood floors. “How did you find it?” He asks, slipping off his shoes and turning into a sunlit dining room.

“I got lost once,” he admits. “I passed it about three times before I finally noticed it was for sale. When I came back two months ago and saw it was still on offer, I bought it.” Bilbo watches him run his hand along the banister. “It felt right.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” he says with a smile. “You’d love my grandparent’s house in Yorkshire.” He follows Thorin up the stairs, glancing around at the long, empty hall. “It’s old and beautiful and absolutely full of antiques.” Many of Bilbo’s fondest memories are stored in the walls of that house. He still dreams of it, sometimes, in the haze of the morning. He dreams of running through the carpeted halls, climbing crab apple trees, an out of tune piano with dusty ivory keys. “Maybe you’d like to visit it sometime,” he says.

Thorin turns to look at him, his eyes wide and dark in the shadow of the hall. “Yes,” he says finally, hesitantly. “I would like that.”

Bilbo smiles and thinks that Kili was right, Thorin is rather lost when it comes to love.

—

Kili doesn’t attend his graduation ceremony, despite Bilbo’s protests and Thorin’s silent disapproval. Instead, while students crowd the streets of Barbican in their caps and gowns, they climb to Primrose Hill and lay out on the grass to gaze at the sky. He can see a perfect span of blue just beyond the darkening stretch of clouds, like the edge of the world against the horizon line. “It’s going to rain,” he warns him as Kili stretches out on the grass and folds his arms behind his head.

“I could use a little rain.”

“I’m not too sure I could.”

“You told me it was my day to make the plans,” Kili says. “And my plans consist of watching it pour from the top of London. Don’t worry, it’ll be quick.”

It is quick - a proper summer downpour that soaks them both through and turns the park to muddy puddles, sends tourists running for shelter under ancient oak trees. They stay where they are, eyes closed, until the rain drifts into a lazy mist and the clouds break overhead. He turns to look at Kili, his hair plastered to his cheeks. He is pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, biting his trembling lower lip.

“Kili,” he murmurs, but he just shakes his head, mud splattered against his neck, and tries to steady his breathing. “I’m sure he-"

“Don’t,” Kili rasps. He sits up, a mess of mud and wet clothing that hides his tear stained cheeks. He looks out over the city and whispers, “Maybe I love him more than he loves me.”

“Or it’s just different,” Bilbo offers. Perhaps Fili’s love is one that can survive along telephone wires while Kili stays preserved, desiccated. His chest aches for the way Kili shakes his head, like he doesn’t trust his voice to speak.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, eventually, like it’s self reassurance. “I’ll be fine.”

—

They start in the living room with Kili sprawled half naked across the chaise, watching as Thorin inspects his furniture in the dusty half light. “You’re not taking the couch,” Kili says, yawning. “It is permanently me-shaped, and I shan’t have you ruining my movie nights.”

“Any other requests?” Thorin asks as Bilbo bends down to look at a rather beautiful old drinks cabinet. He expects rings on the finish left by Kili’s hastily poured tequila or water marks like fingerprints, but it is clean and smooth, surprisingly intact.

“Take the rest.” Kili says with a wave of his hand. “But the couch is mine.”

“You know,” Bilbo begins, tracing the edge of a French side table. “I’m a little shocked you’ve kept all this in such good condition.”

“Ikea,” Kili says with a grin. “Thorin replaced everything we actually used with flimsy cardboard to limit my interactions with anything particularly pricey.”

“Did you really?” He asks. Thorin smiles at him, eyes lowered and Kili hangs over the back of the chaise, making gagging noises at them both.

“I’m going to leave you two to do all the work yourselves if you keep making doe eyes at each other.”

Bilbo snorts. “Don’t act like you’ll be any help at all. Besides, you’re the one who wanted to be here.”

“See?” Kili says, waving an arm dramatically. “I knew this would happen. You two ganging up on me. I’m perpetually outnumbered now.”

“I haven’t said a word,” Thorin murmurs, sticking an orange tag to a glass enclosed bookshelf in the corner so the movers know to pick it up.

“You’re silently agreeing with him,” Kili says, flopping back against the cushions. “Now hurry up. I can’t have you here all day. I am a young person with a life you know. I need my privacy and that.”

“You practically live with Bilbo,” Thorin says and Kili tosses a cushion at him, shouting his victory when it hits his shoulder.

“You’re a bad influence on each other.”

“Oh that reminds me,” Bilbo begins, sticking a tag to a leather travelling chest. “Thorin’s staying the night at mine so we can get up early and meet the movers in the morning.”

“This is outrageous,” he mumbles into his cushion. Bilbo pats his head as he passes.

“You’ll get over it.”

—

“I need paper,” Kili says, tying his hair back with a thick rubber band. “Like real paper, nice paper.”

Bilbo glances up at him, pushing down his reading glasses to watch him fiddle with a leaky ink pen. “Why?”

“I’m going to write him a letter. A proper letter.”

“You have terrible hand writing.”

“Fili can read it,” he assures him. “He’ll figure it out. Come on, Bilbo. I know you’re old fashioned enough to have card stock or something fancy lying around.”

“What’s going to be in this letter?” He takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose with the tips of his fingers.

“I’m going to explain how I feel about all of this.”

Bilbo looks at him and imagines he has it all written out in his head, every word carved into his tongue after so many sleepless, bitter nights. “Surely you’ve talked about this before.”

“I’m no good at conversations with him. He makes me feel daft - he doesn’t mean to,” Kili adds, quickly. “He doesn’t do it on purpose. It’s like I go to him knowing what I want to say and seconds later everything’s just turns to mush and whatever he wants always sounds so reasonable and-”

“The letter desk in my bedroom.”

Kili frowns. “What?”

“There’s paper in the letter desk.”

—

You told me I wasn’t romantic, which, by the way, I still dispute. If surprising you with coffee and hobnobs after your mock exams isn’t romance, I don’t know what is. But this will serve as evidence, settling the matter once and for all. I, like many hopeless stereotypes to come before me, have written you a love letter.

You never asked why I took to classics but I always thought you’d probably guessed it. Our grandmother bookmarked Homer’s Hymn to the Dioscuri in that little red leather bound that I loved so much. I found out later that she was a gemini, reliant on her daily horoscope, but at the time I thought it was like a sign. The Greeks always said it better, you know, the things I couldn’t. And when you bought me those books each year I read them and imagined your voice because it all made so much more sense coming from you.

So I lied, this isn’t exactly a love letter. I can’t ever hold my own in an argument with you. I inevitably either crack under the pressure or get bored about four minutes in and start taking my clothes off. This time though, I get the first and last word and you have to sit on your tiny little balcony and read what I have to say.

You’ve given me a lot of reasons for why you decided to take the job, but I have my own theory. I think you realised somewhere around your second year in uni that you want two things that are incompatible. You want what Thorin raised you to want, the airport terminals and the foreign currency and the black tie embassy do’s. You also, inexplicably, want me. But a shining career in civil service does not tie in well to accusations of the sort we would tempt. So you thought that through and you came to the conclusion that while a job offer wouldn’t wait, I would.

And you’re right, just like you always have been. I will wait. I’ll keep working and occasionally I’ll get wasted and lure someone home from Brixton. I’ll read the Iliad when I can’t sleep and I’ll likely spend more time than is reasonably appropriate in Bilbo’s kitchen. I’ll answer your calls and listen to your stories and I’ll tell some of my own. I’ll do all of it, I’ll stay out of mind until you need me, pretend that I can function as a reasonably independent person.

I’ll do it because I love you and I want you to be happy, but I cannot promise everything will be the same when you do come back. I’m in love with you, but I can imagine hating you as well, resenting you. I can imagine tearing us both to pieces. I’ll do my best, I really will, to play my role in your scripted life but promise you won’t blame me if I can’t keep it up. If you can promise me that much, I won’t ask for anything else.

It’s a question that requires an answer, you know, but I’ll actually fly to Beirut myself if you send me a fucking letter in response. It’s not cute and ironic coming from you. We have computers for a reason. Just promise me you won’t come back to me in five years and tell me it’s all my fault. Preemptive forgiveness, the Greeks loved all that.

—

Kili sends his letter from a postbox off of Camden High Street and spends the evening curled at Bilbo’s side with classics night playing on the television. “Do you think he’ll be angry with me for all the things I said?” Bilbo glances down at him and Kili stares back. “I know you read it.”

“I only read some,” he admits. “The first page, then I stopped.” He knew it was left for him, open on the table with dry ink and crisp pages, but Bilbo couldn’t bring himself to finish it. “It’ll be fine, but you have to do more than wait, okay? Promise me you’ll try. You’re so young, there has to be more to your life than just that.”

“I have you,” Kili says.

Of course that’s not what he meant and Kili knows it, but Bilbo let’s him be, let’s him sigh over Clark Gable in uniform, and stretch out his legs, and set his cup down without a coaster. “You’ll be fine,” Bilbo tells him.

“Does this film feel vaguely racist to you?”

He runs his fingers through his hair. “It’s Victor Fleming, Kili, there’s nothing vague about it.”  

—

Half the rooms are empty still, hardwood floors stretched long, edging against exposed brick walls and crown moulding. But the kitchen is fully stocked, with a beautiful dining table of carved maple and granite counters with a white backsplash, and even if it weren’t for the man who stands over the stovetop Bilbo would have fallen for every brass knob and window pane.

Thorin never talks about his day, never alludes to glass sky scrapers and the suits that reside in them. Instead he tells him about Cornwall, the cloudy grey beaches that will always sit so much higher in his heart than the sunlight in the South of France.

“My mother loved Cornwall,” Bilbo says, sipping his tea and inching around Thorin’s shoulder to get a glimpse at the pan.

Thorin absentmindedly pulls him closer, fingers lingering at the the seams of his shirt, and asks, “Is that where she’s buried?”

“Cremated,” Bilbo says. “But yes. It had to be Cornwall. Sometimes I think she hated Leyton, always had a heart for the sea and the Thames would never be good enough.”

“That much I can understand,” Thorin says. “Though I could never hate Leyton.”

—

When Bilbo was seventeen, he spent the summer in North Yorkshire at his aunt’s cozy suburban home. Ripon was sleepy and quiet and it rained for days on end. There were no rattling trains and the air felt clean and the clouds didn’t hang quite so low. Bilbo spent his afternoons laying with Drogo under shaded trees, inhaling humidity and exhaling cigarette smoke. Drogo had a girlfriend who loved chewing gum and pulled her dark hair back into braids and he spouted his wisdom with nicotine stained fingers.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just like having a best friend, but also you really want to shag them. But instead of becoming friends over a few months it’s sudden, it’s real sudden.”

“There has to be more to it than that,” he’d said. But Bilbo had never been in love before and after a while he began to wonder if he’d been wrong all along. He’s had first dates and shared flats and arguments over the telephone, but nothing felt the way he imagined it was meant to.

It took fifteen years before he finally glimpsed the silver line that separates love and affection. It wasn’t sudden though, not like Drogo’s whirlwind romance at seventeen. Instead it grew with each flower petal pressed between book pages, with every half smile and exasperated look.

“I still can’t believe he bought a fucking house here,” Kili says. He flings himself across the sofa, watching as Bilbo fills out his crossword. “Eight down is-”

“I will kick you out if you give me a single answer.” Bilbo says, nudging him away until he finally seeks refuge on the opposite end of the couch. “It is a lovely house, by the way, you should visit. And don’t be a hypocrite, I know exactly what flats you’ve been eyeing.”

“Well at least I’m up front about it,” Kili says, shoving his feet into Bilbo’s lap. “Whereas Thorin is claiming to love sleepy little Leyton when really he’s just head over heels and is hoping that if he forces himself into your life often enough you’ll feel just the same.”

“Who’s to say I don’t?” Bilbo asks, scribbling at the corner of his page in blue ink pen. Kili stops his squirming.

“You don’t though, do you?” He asks. He sounds hurt, disbelieving, and Bilbo rests his hand against his ankle.

“Yes,” he says. “I think I might.” Eleven down is nigh, but he doesn’t write it.

“You’re joking.” Kili is watching him with wide eyes and parted lips and Bilbo holds his gaze. “Jesus, you’re not. Love is so fucking easy for you, isn’t it?” It hasn’t been easy, it’s taken a lifetime, but Bilbo knows this isn’t about him anymore. “You just met a fucking stranger in a graveyard and that was it? Soulmates?”

“You’re being dramatic,” Bilbo tells him. “And besides, I didn’t just meet him and hit it off. I met you first.”

Kili sighs into his hands. “Why can’t you just let me be angry with you?”   

“Because there’s nothing for you to be angry about, you brat.”

“He’s stealing you away from me.” Kili mumbles.

“You’re a brat.”

“And he’s old, Bilbo. And he doesn’t like music. No one doesn’t like music. He’s a total freak.”

“I think he's rather wonderful,” Bilbo assures him, patting his leg. He stands, leaving his unfinished crossword on the coffee table and shuffles into the kitchen.

“I don’t approve.” Kili shouts after him.

“Oh my darling, I don’t need you to.”

—

Thorin chops bell peppers into consistent little cubes that puts Kili’s usual attempts to shame. He works with straight shoulders, standing with a piano player’s ridge to his spine even when they’re alone in the kitchen with the radio playing static ridden fifties pop from above the stove. “Kili came to my office today,” he says, wiping his hands on the dish towel at Bilbo’s side and leaning back against the countertop.

Bilbo stops stirring. “What did he do this time?”

Thorin smiles, his blue eyes bright. “I think he gave me the talk.”

“What talk?”

“About my intentions towards you.”

Bilbo nearly drops the wooden spoon into his half formed red sauce and turns to stare at him. “You’re joking.”

“Not at all. He was very insistent. I’ve rarely seen him so determined, you know.”

“I am going to have to kill your nephew,” Bilbo tells him, reaching for his hand. “And you’ll need to help me hide the body. I always knew it would come to this.” Thorin kisses each knuckle in turn and it makes his stomach roll, two parts unpleasant with just a dash of anticipation.

“He threatened me with something very similar, should I do anything to hurt you.”

“Kili watches far too much television.” He leans against the counter and gives the bottom of the pan a halfhearted stir. “What did you say?” He asks finally, unable to help himself.

“I told him I intend stay with you for as long as you’ll allow it.” Thorin’s fingertips brush the curve of his shoulder blade and Bilbo’s breath catches. “And he told me things I already knew. That you are kind and generous and how neither of us deserve you.”

“Thorin-” he snaps, turning to face him, but Thorin is already reaching forward, bending down to press their lips together in a chaste, dry kiss. “Oh,” Bilbo murmurs, as he pulls back. “Oh good, does that mean I can kiss you now?” Thorin tilts his head to the side, looking slightly bemused. “It’s just that you’re very old fashioned and we hadn’t exactly talked about this,” he gestures between them. “I didn’t want to push and make you feel uncomfortable so-”

“Yes,” Thorin says, cutting him off with a hand to his cheek. “To answer your question, you can most definitely kiss me.”

—

Bilbo visits Thorin’s office building in Bank with lunch packed for two and a thermos of tea, aided by Kili’s devious text messages to Thorin’s assistant and the promise of a clear schedule. “He thinks it’s a lunch meeting,” Ori tells him, grinning through splayed fingers and leading him down the glass encased hallways to Thorin’s office.

Ori scampers back towards his desk as Bilbo knocks twice and opens the door. “Oh,” Thorin begins, looking up at him. He smiles and stands to greet him but pauses with his hands still on his desk as he says, “Is there something wrong with-“

“No,” Bilbo assures him, pressing a kiss to his parted lips. “Kili’s fine. I’m here for you.”

“You’ve been conspiring with Ori, haven’t you?” Thorin’s thumb brushes the line of his jaw and Bilbo is momentarily distracted by the cut of his suit and the smell of his aftershave.

“This was supposed to be a perfectly innocent picnic,” he groans, pressing his cheek to Thorin’s chest as he laughs into his hair. “And look what you’ve done.”

“I imagine I can make it up to you later.”

“You’d better,” Bilbo says, with one last lingering kiss. “Now come on. The weather’s shit but at least it’s not raining yet.” He leads him down Cheapside, following the domes of the cathedral in the distance.

“Where are we going?” He asks.

“The churchyard at St. Paul’s. Then we can lie on the grass and pretend we can see the sun.”

“Can you do that?”

“I haven’t been told otherwise,” Bilbo assures him. “And I’ve spent a significant amount of time admiring their lawn.”

There are a smattering of people in black and navy suits pressed against each other on park benches, eating from tupperware containers balanced on their knees. Bilbo leads Thorin towards the back entrance where an ancient willow tree grows with trimmed branches, creaking in the wind. “Come on,” he says, sitting down and digging through his bag for their lunch. “This is the perfect spot.”

Bilbo thinks he hasn’t seen anything nearly as beautiful as Thorin laying back against the grass, his suit jacket thrown over Bilbo’s bag and arms folded behind his head. “I think I’ll have to kick Kili out tonight,” he tells him.

“Then do it over text. Otherwise he’ll guilt you into letting him stay.” He loves afternoons like these, when Thorin tells him stories of the boys when they were children, memories that he lets go one by one, up into the treetops. “When they were little, Kili learned to fake cry. He would burst into tears at the drop of a hat when it suited him, but when he fell from a tree and broke his arm he didn’t shed a tear. I never once saw him cry after the age of about twelve, not in earnest anyway. Fili though would never fail to tear up over Lion King.”

Bilbo lays beside him, their fingers entwined, but despite Thorin’s beautiful smile in the shadow of the cathedral, for a moment all he can think of is how many times he’s seen Kili brought to tears. It passes quickly, as Thorin rolls to his side and tells him that he once got himself locked in the cellar of his cousin’s home in an attempt to beat Fili at hide and seek.

“You must have a special talent for that game,” he says, grinning.

“Don’t breathe a word of that to the boys. I’ve kept it under wraps for the better part of fifteen years. I have to keep some form of dignity in tact.”  

—

Kili stops answering the door when he knocks, instead he’ll shout “Use your damn key,” from a second story window as Bilbo rolls his eyes and digs through his pockets. He pushes the door open, nearly slipping on a pile of mail left spread under the entryway. He sighs and collects them into a stack, flipping through the envelopes as he heads towards the kitchen.

“Do you ever even look at these?” He calls up the stairs as he passes. There are a decent amount of bank statements and itemised phone bills left alongside takeaway menus and colourful adverts.

Kili materialises in the kitchen doorway, still in sweatpants at half past four in the afternoon. “It’s all junk anyway.”

“So you’re just going to let it pile up at the door?”

“I told Thorin he should hire a cleaner.”

“He is not hiring a cleaner for a flat you’re never in.” He stares down at an envelope stamped with olive trees, Kili’s name written in neat script with no return address. “Here,” he says, handing it back over his shoulder. “This one is actually for you.” Kili takes it, sitting at the kitchen table and tearing at the edge as Bilbo finishes sorting the rest of his mail, tipping all but the bills into the trash.

He turns when Kili fails to respond after the third attempt at saying his name, and watches as he clutches heavy woven paper, naturally pale, almost yellow in the late afternoon light. He reads quickly, swapping out pages until finally he smiles, holding up the last sheet for Bilbo to see. It looks like music notes, written along shaky bars, and Bilbo recognises it as a piano piece.

“He responded with a letter after all?” He asks with a smile.

“No,” Kili whispers, setting the sheet music aside. “We already talked, the day he received it.” He laughs then and Bilbo smiles along with him. “That bastard wrote me a love letter. A proper one. He added the music at the end, said to leave it at the piano and he’d play it for me when he’s home.” Bilbo collects Fili’s impromptu music sheets and sets them in a row along the piano stand.

Kili watches him, biting at his lip. “I spent my entire life coming home to the sound of music.” He hears now what has always gone unsaid, the unknown tremor in Kili’s restless hands, the television left blaring with the volume far too high, the constant stream of movement and sound that comprise his daily routine. He starts reading again, shifting through each page, slower this time and Bilbo looks away, unwilling to catch sight of the words written just for him, unfathomable and complete.

—

They have a dinner reservation to keep at a French restaurant in Soho. Thorin spent most of their walk to Saint Patrick’s assuring him multiple times that no dish even closely resembling snails would be found on the menu but Bilbo remains skeptical. They keep their visit short and Bilbo takes a photo of Thorin’s shoulders as he walks behind him along the path.

“Wait,” Bilbo says, reaching into his bag for the bouquet of late summer wildflowers tied with twine. “I almost forgot.” He leads Thorin to the emerald granite marker with Thror’s name written in black letters, and lays the flowers at his feet.

“There’s no right way to raise a child,” he tells the stone. “There’s no easy way, either. But you should know that your grandson is a wonderful person. I’m not sure how much can be attributed to you, but I imagine you don’t particularly care, because parents tend not to. But I wanted to thank you regardless.” He taps the gravestone with his fingertips and Thorin watches with glassy, red rimmed eyes.

“Thank you,” Thorin whispers.

“Hush,” Bilbo says. “Now come on. We can’t be late for your fancy dinner.”

“It’s not fancy,” Thorin repeats, his voice soft as he follows Bilbo towards the gates. “It’s really quite low key.”

“I will never trust a Durin on what does or does not constitute low key. Come on, keep up. You’d think with those long legs of yours you wouldn’t always be a mile behind me.”  

—

“If you two are going to be slow as fuck about this I’m not coming with you anymore.” He skips along the sidewalk, dodging puddles with infuriating consistency.

“We never asked,” Bilbo says, watching him. “In fact, I’m fairly certain Thorin would prefer it if you weren’t laying on the sofa shouting abuse at him the whole time.” Kili decides to ignore him in favour of hopping over the small pool of water that seems to perpetually swamp the edges of Bethnal Green station. “Besides,” he continues. “We’re nearly finished. I think we have two rooms to go, the rest will go into storage.”

“It’s going to be weird, not having so much furniture around.”

“You can buy your own,” Bilbo suggests.

Kili snorts, shaking his head. “I’m happy with a sofa and a television.”

“And my flat,” he says, digging in his back pocket for his Oyster card.

“And your flat. Which reminds me, Thorin doesn’t actually have keys to my place so,” he gestures awkwardly in front of him. “You’ll have to let him in if you two go this weekend.”

“How does Thorin not have keys to the flat he owns?”

Kili shrugs. “He never asked,” he says. “And don’t go giving him your set. I prefer it this way.”

Bilbo knows when to choose his battles so he agrees, reluctantly, with an added, “We’ll be revisiting this topic later.”

“Yeah,” Kili mumbles, following him through the gates. “I don’t doubt it.”

—

He finishes marking the last piece of furniture with a little orange tag and glances around the room. “Thorin,” he calls down the stairs. “How high is the slant in the ceiling? I’m not sure about this wardrobe.” He doesn’t answer, so Bilbo huffs and holds up his fingers to estimate the length of the trim before returning to the kitchen.

“Thorin,” he calls again, peaking around the doorway. “Did you hear me?”

Thorin is sitting at the table, pages of heavy, yellowing paper spread out around him. He sees the distant scratch of handwriting, lines in black ink pen. Thorin looks up at him with wide eyes, his head tilted. “Did you know about this?”

He sees it then, the silver lining, he sees how fragile the threads are. “Yes.”

“Get out,” he says, his voice level, but he swallows hard and the pages crumple in his hand.

Bilbo turns but hesitates in the doorway. He reaches into his pocket and tosses Kili’s key ring into the kitchen, watching as it hits the floor and skids to Thorin’s feet. “He said you didn’t have a set. Remember to lock up.” He knows Thorin will not come after him. He won’t run to the station, he won’t show up at his flat, so he walks quickly and doesn’t look back because he cannot bare the sight of the empty sidewalk.

The train ride to Leyton is hazy and far too warm and when he finally arrives, he turns towards the cemetery without so much as a thought. It seems natural, arriving at the gates to the sound of his own heartbeat, deafening in his ears. He never speaks to his father’s grave. He did once, as a child, only to see his mother turn away with a whisper of, “Oh Bilbo. He can’t hear you anymore.” So he doesn’t walk the familiar path to his father’s headstone, instead he returns to Thror’s simple epitaph and sinks to his knees.

“I don’t think I can fix this,” he tells the stone. He knows what his mother would say, her advice builtin like a phonograph recording, scratchy and static but clear enough to hear. She would tell him that he cannot take responsibility for another person’s heart, and it would be too late because he’s already taken three.

His phone vibrates in his pocket just as a train passes by and Bilbo stares down at Kili’s photograph. He’d changed it the day before from his usual exaggerated selfies to one Bilbo took of him sitting cross-legged on the couch, reading a book about Pompeii as he twirls a stray curl of hair around and around his finger. He looks beautiful and deceptively content and Bilbo smiles when he answers the phone.

“If you two are having sex in my flat I’ll refuse to speak to you ever again.”

“You wouldn’t last an hour,” Bilbo says. “Who would feed you?”

“Nando’s would. And that would drive you absolutely crazy, wouldn’t it?”

Bilbo looks out over the graveyard and for a moment he finds himself unable to respond. His throat closes in around itself and he presses a hand to his mouth, attempting to settle his breathing.

“Seriously though,” Kili continues. “Where are you? Are you getting dinner with Thorin or what, because I’m going to order out and I’m certainly not staying up for you.”

“I’m coming home,” he manages, his voice low to keep from breaking.

Kili pauses, an unusual breath of silence. “Bilbo? Is everything alright?”

He exhales slowly, looking up at the light pollution reflected off the clouds. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Alright,” Kili says. “See you.”

He hangs up and stretches his legs out thinking that he’ll give Kili this small grace, the time it takes him to walk home, before he has to tell him everything. “You must’ve known him well,” Bilbo whispers to the stone. “Do you think he’d ever forgive this?” It doesn’t answer and tears prick at the corners of his eyes before he finally pulls himself up and turns towards the gates.

He walks home slowly, keeping his breath even, thinking of very little except for the cracks in the sidewalk and the electric hum of the street lamps. When he finally reaches his front door he hesitates, his keys clenched in his hands. His mother’s voice spins and crackles, telling him not to delay the inevitable. He opens the door to Kili sitting in the living room, a cushion clutched to his chest.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, his eyes wide, chewing at his lower lip. Bilbo takes a seat beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, and wishes for just a moment that Kili didn’t catch every shift in tone, every expression and nervous tic. “Has Thorin done something stupid?”

Bilbo rubs his thumb up and down his shoulder before finally he says, “He found your letter. You left it on the kitchen table.”

Kili sits up, pulling away to look at him. “Oh no,” he whispers. “No, no. I need to- he’s not upset with you is he?” He smiles sadly and Kili shakes his head. “He’s can’t be, Bilbo, he’s just in shock, you haven’t done anything wrong. Okay, okay.” He puts a hand to his chest. “Remember how I said I wouldn’t care if he found out? Turns out I do care a bit. I feel slightly ill.”

“Maybe you should go call Fili,” he suggests.

Kili looks up at him with glassy eyes. “Have I ruined this for you?” He whispers.

“No,” he says, tucking Kili’s unruly hair back behind his ears. “None of this is your fault. Go on, call-” Kili cuts him off, throwing his arms around Bilbo’s shoulders and holding him tightly.

“I’ll fix it,” he says. “I promise I’ll fix it.” Bilbo hugs him back but can’t bring himself to believe him.

—

“That fucking bastard has no right to be-”

“Kili,” Fili says, his voice distant. “Calm down.”

Bilbo sips at his tea, gazing at the coffee table where Kili’s laptop sits displaying a grainy picture of Fili’s flat. He can make out pink tinted walls and stacks of dishes in a wooden drying rack. Fili swims back into focus, a smart phone in hand. He looks exhausted with his hair still mussed from sleep and every few minutes he rubs at his eyes with the backs of his hands.  

“We’ll just call and explain that Bilbo-”

“One battle at a time, love. First, we have to get him to even answer his mobile.” For the first time, Bilbo realises that Fili lacks the pitch of Leicester that his brother and uncle both share and he spares a moment to wonder why. “I’ve called him nearly a dozen times and he’s finally just turned it off altogether.”

“I’ll kill him.”

Fili smiles then, a slight quirk of his lips. Then he looks up, gazing at his monitor. “Bilbo, I am sorry. We were never very careful, partly because to be honest I assumed he knew.”

“Really?” He asks, just as Kili snaps, “you never told me that.”

“Well we weren’t particularly subtle, Kee,” he says. “I thought he must’ve known, or at least considered it. But clearly I gave him slightly more credit than he is due.”

“To be fair, it’s not often an obvious conclusion to draw,” Bilbo says. But then he thinks of his own suspicions, he thinks of their shared bedroom, the one Kili has never let him enter, left like a shrine of photographs and old clothes with shoes lined along the door. He thinks of the room Kili sleeps in, filled with nothing but books. He thinks of their lingering touches and Kili’s broken heart and he begins to wonder if perhaps it should’ve been.

“You’re right,” Fili says. “I just hope he has the sense not to confide in anyone else.”

Kili suddenly looks quite ill. “You think he would?”

“I don’t know, Kee.”   

Bilbo can see the panic begin to set in so he reaches for Kili’s shoulder and says, “He won’t. Not yet, anyway. And we’ll get to him before then.”

“How?” He gasps. “He’s not answering his phone.”

“He lives five minutes from Bilbo’s flat, Kee. I’m in Beirut, but you’re still in Leyton.”

“I can’t just- I’m not going to-”

“Don’t worry,” Bilbo says. “I’ll go see him tomorrow morning. You can stay here.”

“Bilbo,” Fili begins, frowning.

“It’s quite alright, Fili. I have my own business to settle with him.” Kili mumbles a miserable apology through the gaps in his fingers until Bilbo sighs and gives him a light shove. “Stop apologising. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Neither have you,” Fili says.

“Neither has Thorin.” Kili looks away and Fili bites at the edges of his fingernails, a nervous habit that they seem to share. “Sleep, Fili. I know we woke you. I’ll speak to Thorin tomorrow and we’ll call you straight after.”

He reluctantly agrees, eyeing the screen like he wants to say something else, words he imagines would be for his brother only. “Good night,” he says instead. “I’ll speak to you both tomorrow.”

—

He knocks on the door with his mother’s courage clasped in his fist. It’s the way Bilbo has been dealing with fear for the better part of thirty years; he pretends, for a few seconds at a time, that he inherited his mother’s iron heart. When Thorin answers the door he opens it wide enough to see through and Bilbo stakes a step back, seeing the gesture for what it is.

“Fili left me a voice message,” he says. His eyes look dull in the London overhang.

“I imagine he left many.”

“About you,” he says after a moment. “He explained what happened.”

“Would you like to let me in, Thorin?” For a moment he looks ready to refuse but eventually he steps back and allows Bilbo through the door. He doesn’t take off his coat or toss his shoes into the entryway or settle into the kitchen to make tea. Suddenly this house feels foreign and Bilbo stands with his hands in his pockets until Thorin finally looks away. “You can yell at me if you’d like.”

“Fili said you tried to keep them apart,” he says in a tumble of words that he appears to have kept behind clenched teeth. “That’s why Kili stays with you so much. And he made you promise not to tell.”

Bilbo smiles. He knows from Thorin’s stories that Kili was the difficult child, the one he had to pull from tree branches and send to bed early. But he imagines Fili must have gotten away with far more than Thorin was ever privy to. “Unfortunately for you, Fili is a wonderful liar.” Thorin’s hands clench into fists and his shoulders straighten like a piano player poised. “Come on,” Bilbo says, taking a few cautious steps into the living room. “Let me explain.”

Thorin sits, a reasonable amount of distance set between them, and looks straight ahead. Bilbo watches him for just a moment, long enough to take in the cut of his cheekbones, the shadow of his lashes, before he begins to speak.

“The first time I met Kili, he was crying.” He looks up, frowning, and Bilbo continues. “It was in the cemetary. I thought he may have been there to visit someone, and I know a thing or two about grief. So I tried to talk to him and he never told me why he was crying or why he was there but I was able to guess. I knew since the day I met him that he was nursing a broken heart, as young people are wont to do. So I suppose, maybe that’s why I wasn’t that surprised when I did find out about Fili. The pieces were always there, I just hadn’t put them together yet.”

“Do you know how long?” He asks. “How long it’s been?”

“I asked the same thing and Kili says they’ve loved each other for as long as either of them can remember.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

Bilbo shrugs. “Sometimes,” he says. “And sometimes I think Kili might love a little too much. He doesn’t leave room for anything else.” Sometimes he wishes he knew Fili through more than just stories, that the easy tone of his voice didn’t set him on edge.

“He was always that way.” Thorin is staring at the ground, his elbows resting on his knees. “He would play football until he collapsed from exhaustion, he would swim until his lips turned blue. When he decided on something, he would never budge.”

“Like the coats,” Bilbo says.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Like the coats. It’s Fili I’m disappointed with.”

“From the sounds of it, it was usually Fili you were disappointed with.”

Thorin looks up, staring at him. “Talk to them,” he says, reaching for his forearm. “Just call them, let them explain. I cannot speak for either but please, just give them this chance.” He doesn’t respond so Bilbo lets go, allows him to look away, to watch the whitewashed walls, and he heads for the door.

Kili is waiting for him around the corner, leaning back against a street sign, glancing down at this phone. “He might be willing to speak to Fili,” Bilbo says. “But it’s no guarantee.”

“What about you?” he asks, hooking their arms together, leaning down to rest his temple against the top of Bilbo’s head.  

“Nothing lasts forever.” He tries not to think that it’s barely been a season, a handful of months with Thorin at his side.

“I don’t believe that,” Kili says and Bilbo smiles, tugging him down the street. Kili believes in the Greek fates, in threads that align from birth, in the beautiful shine of his brother’s eyes.

“I know. And that’s what I love about you.”

—

Bilbo’s mobile buzzes, the number marked as unlisted against the black screen of his mobile. He considers letting it ring, tapping his fingers against his desk until the incessant noise gets the better of him. “Hello?”

“Hello, Bilbo. It’s Fili.”

“Oh,” he begins. “Is everything alright?” He glances at the clock and tries to remember Kili’s constant murmuring over timezones.

“I’m sorry to call you while you’re at work, but Kili gave me your number and I have a favour to ask.” He can hear a hum of movement in the background, motorbikes and city chatter.

“Of course. What can I do?”

“Less of a favour, more of a warning, I suppose. I’m coming back for the week, I’ll fly in on Monday morning. Thorin might be willing to speak with me but this isn’t a conversation I should be having from half a world away.”

“Oh,” Bilbo says. “Well that sounds like a decent plan. But can you afford to just take the week off?”

“I have some leave saved up after missing Christmas holidays.” He hears him chuckle against the distant sound of traffic. “Twice. Anyway, I was hoping you could keep Kili out of our flat for just a few hours on Monday morning. I’m planning on dropping my things off and then taking a cab straight to his office.”

Bilbo frowns, holding his palm against his mouth. “I can’t say I understand why you don’t want him to know.”

“He’d want to go with me. But I think we both know that it’d be best for him to stay at work.” When Bilbo doesn’t respond, Fili continues with, “I’ll tell him the second I’m done, or better yet, you can. We wouldn’t want a repeat of last time.”

“You picked up on that did you?” Bilbo asks, tapping his pen against the desk.

“Immediately.”

Bilbo remembers Fili’s bright eyes and wide set grin, how happy he looked in the low light of the Barbican Centre. He thinks of the boy from Thorin’s stories, quiet and competent and endlessly responsible, the golden child to Kili’s wayward shadow. To Kili’s eyes, his brother is kind and clever and quick to laugh. He calls him Hyperion, reads the words from Homer’s Odyssey as if they’re written just for him, the Titan of diligence and light. Bilbo wonders if he wouldn’t be better suited to Prometheus, manipulative and cunning but without the ambition to quicken his fall.  

“Kili may be an excellent host but he’s certainly far from the world’s best actor.”

Bilbo smiles despite himself. “Send me your flight details, and I’ll make sure he stays at my flat Sunday night. Mind you, he likely would anyway.”

“Thank you,” Fili sighs into the receiver. “I appreciate it.”

“Good luck, Fili,” he says, and they hang up without saying goodbye.

—

He receives consistent texts from Fili, updating him on his progress through central London. He’s mindful and efficient and Bilbo hates himself for the alarm bells that haven’t quite stopped ringing since Thorin found his letter the week before. Fili’s most recent message reads ‘Just arrived in Bank.’ Bilbo sighs, steadying himself and makes his way into Kili’s office.

It’s littered with papers and half empty cardboard boxes and for once he finds the mess rather endearing. Kili glances up at him, his sleeves rolled back and his hair tied out of his eyes, before returning his attention to his monitor. “I don’t have the addresses yet,” he says. “Nori’s working on it.” He doesn’t answer, instead he takes a seat across from Kili’s desk, his hands folded in his lap.

This appears to get his attention as he tears his eyes away from the screen, watching him. “What’s going on?” He asks, finally.

“Fili’s meeting with Thorin right now in Bankside.”

He stares for a moment, expression unchanging, before his face breaks out in a wide, childish grin. “He’s home?”

“Yes, for the week. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. It’s just-“

“I understand,” Kili says, still smiling as he begins closing out windows on his computer. “I know you think I’m hard on Thorin for how he was with me, and maybe I am. But I know my brother and he has just as many bones to pick. They need this,” he says.

“Yes,” Bilbo agrees. “I think they do. Anyway,” he stands, idly tapping the edge of Kili’s desk. “I’m sure you’ve already guessed.”

“I have day day off,” he says, reaching down to switch off his computer.

“You’re in a rush. He did just arrive in Bank, you know. And I’m giving you a half week, by the way. I expect gratitude.”

“And you have it, nothing but. And anyway it takes ages to get to Bethnal Green from here,” Kili says, reaching for his coat. “We’ll call you when he gets home and I’ll make him tell you everything.”

“You won’t,” Bilbo says as Kili bends down to kiss him on the cheek. “I know you won’t.”

“Well we’ll call eventually,” he amends. “He’ll definitely text you, anyway.”

“Go home,” Bilbo shouts after him, but Kili is already at the lift, jabbing the button repeatedly and waving with his back turned.

—

Thorin sits with folded legs in front of his father’s grave, facing the stone. He appears to hear Bilbo coming, sitting up straighter as he wanders down the path. “It’s my fault, isn’t it,” he says without turning. The tips of his ears are pink from the chilly evening air and Bilbo wonders how long he’s been out here.

“I’m not sure it’s anybody’s fault,” he says, taking a seat beside him, resting back against his great-aunt’s headstone. “They’re in love.”

“And what happens when they fall out of it?” Bilbo plucks blades of grass from the sodden ground, unable to answer. “Or worse, when just one of them does?”

It’s the question Bilbo has spent a year unable to answer. He wishes that Kili’s books were right, that humans were made with two heads and two hearts. But Bilbo’s old enough to know that Plato only just missed the mark. “Then we’ll cross that bridge, won’t we?” He asks. “What else are you going to do? Refuse to speak to them whilst they continue on regardless?”

Thorin stares resolutely at his father’s gravestone. “What would your parents have done?” He asks.

“I didn’t know my father well enough to guess, but my mother was a stringent libertarian.” He sees the slightest hint of a smile at Thorin’s lips. “This isn’t anything new,” he reminds him. “You may have just found out about it, but they’ve been this way for years.”

“Kili is so young,” Thorin whispers. “They both are.”

Bilbo hums in agreement. “We never feel young at the time, do we though?” Thorin doesn’t answer. “How old were you when you took in two boys that weren’t yours?” He asks, instead.

“Old enough,” he answers, and Bilbo smiles.

“I’m sure it feels like you were born at the ripe age of forty. But I promise, you were young once too,” he says, pausing to trace his aunt’s name with the tip of his finger. “What did Fili tell you?”

“Things he should’ve told me years ago,” Thorin whispers. “The answers to questions I should have been asking.” Bilbo shifts in the grass, moving towards him and taking Thorin’s hand, interlacing his fingers over his palm. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What you’ve always done,” Bilbo says.

Thorin uses his free hand to pry up handfuls of grass in quiet desperation as he squeezes Bilbo’s fingertips. “Did you read it? His letter?”

“No,” Bilbo says, after a moment. “It wasn’t mine to read.”

“It’s dangerous,” Thorin whispers. “Feeling like that.”

Bilbo thinks of his mother, laying her flowers each week, touching her hand to the granite headstone, the only thing left of the man she loved. “Isn’t it always, though?” He asks.

Thorin watches him like he knows exactly what he’s thinking and Bilbo can imagine what that letter said, what love Pollux must have had for his brother to bargain with death. “Have I ruined this?” Thorin’s whispered voice mirrors Kili’s, asking the very same question just a note too low.

His mother’s voice begins to spin. “There’s no sense in trying to walk against a storm when you can just as easily wait for it to pass.”  

“I was angry,” Thorin says. “And scared and guilty.”

“I know,” Bilbo tells him.

“And when you came by the next morning, I realised that out of everything I’ve ruined in my lifetime, this may be the the most important.” He talks as if it’s a novelty, the geyser of words that fall from his teeth. “And I needed to know if you felt the same, if I’ve ruined it.”

“Well,” Bilbo says with a smile. “We all know where Kili got it from, don’t we?”

“Is he okay?” He asks, clearing his throat.

“He’s with Fili, so I’m sure he’s fine.” Bilbo stands, brushing himself off and holds out a hand to Thorin. “It’s freezing out here,” he says. “I can see you shivering. Go home, soak in the bath, and maybe if you’re feeling up for it I’ll see you on Sunday.”

“Yes,” Thorin says, a tad too quickly. “I’ll be here.”

Bilbo grips his hand for a moment longer than he really needs to before he finally lets go.
 
—

They call him after dinner, breathless as they fight over the settings on Kili’s mobile. “Jesus, can you just let me do it, please? Sorry Bilbo. We can hear you now.”

“Hello Kili, hello Fili,” he says as he bends down to look through the oven door, checking the tops of his scones with a worried frown. “I imagine you have some news?”

“Not much,” Kili says.

“Yes that was actually directed at your brother.” He hears Fili’s snort of laughter and the shuffle of movement between them.

“Honestly, I don’t have much to say. We talked more about my career and his relative benevolence towards it than we did our relationship. He’s not angry, that much I’ve gathered.”

“No,” Bilbo agrees. “I didn’t think he would be.”

“When I was leaving he told me that he only ever wanted us to be happy, and the details are just that. I don’t know if it’s acceptance or forgiveness, but I think it’s a good sign.” Fili’s voice is light and distant and Kili remains notably silent.

“Kili?” Bilbo asks.

“He doesn’t have anything to forgive us for,” Kili snaps and Fili sighs in the background.

“Kee, let’s just-“

“No, fuck it. I mean, he has no right to act all high and mighty about this whole thing.”

“He’s really not,” Fili says. “He’s just trying to understand.”

“Or you’re giving him way too much credit.”

Bilbo sits and listens with his palm to his mouth as Fili tries to placate his brother, a conversation they’ve clearly had once already. “Well it sounds like progress to me,” he says, interrupting them with a murmur of finality in his voice. “I’m glad you went to speak with him.”

“Me too,” Fili admits. “Did he happen to call you? I thought he might, afterwards.”

“No,” he says, not yet willing to spill any more of his heart. So he hangs up, telling them to enjoy their week, and keeps the memory of Thorin’s voice tucked firmly to his chest.

—

“Come in,” Bilbo calls, glancing up as his office door swings open to Fili dressed in black jeans and a light knit sweater.

“I’m sorry to bother you at work,” he says, smiling. “But Kili told me you generally take your lunch around this time.”

Bilbo glances at the clock. “Well, he’s certainly correct. Is this an invite?”

“It is,” Fili says with a smile, reaching for Bilbo’s jacket left draped across a filing cabinet and holding it out for him to take. “We have a reservation for one o’clock, if you have no objections to Japanese.”

“None at all,” he says. “Is Kili already at the locks?”

“He’s in bed, actually. Having the world’s longest lie in. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind just me for company.”

“Oh no, of course not,” Bilbo says, hoping his little moment of hesitation didn’t come across as rude. He reaches for his office keys and follows Fili out the door, walking quickly to keep up with his measured pace.  

“I’m sorry to surprise you like this,” Fili says. “But you don’t know me very well.”

“No, I don’t,” Bilbo agrees.

“And I can tell that it makes you uncomfortable.”

He tucks his nose into the collar of his jacket. It still smells faintly of Kili’s aftershave and his own breezy detergent. “Not uncomfortable,” he assures him, but Fili smiles kindly as he shakes his head.

“I’d be worried if you took this all with as much ease as Kili seems to think you have.”

“You’re very considerate,” Bilbo says. It’s not the word he meant to use, and they both appear to know it.

“Balin always told me I would make a decent MP,” Fili tells him. “If it weren’t for my politics.”

They walk to the locks in comfortable silence, dodging the afternoon crowds and heading towards the sushi restaurant situated alongside the water. They pick a table in the back and Fili sits against the wall, eyeing the menu as Bilbo takes a seat across from him. “I’d like to get to know you,” Fili says, as he runs an idle finger down a list of appetisers. “If nothing else, we have Kili and Thorin in common, and as far as starting points go, that’s rather hard to beat.”

Bilbo expects them to exchange stories, to share exasperated sighs at Kili’s expense like he and Thorin did, sitting with their backs to his father’s grave. But instead they talk politics, recount concerning reports over the escalating violence in Burundi, discuss the new tax scheme for charitable trusts, criticise New Labour and old policy with perhaps more indignity than they can really afford.

“You know,” Fili says, pointing at Bilbo with his chopsticks. “My last year in uni, Jack Straw was taking over an international state building course as a visiting professor.”

“No,” Bilbo begins. “You didn’t-”

“I did,” he says gravely. “It was the only thing that fit in my timetable.”

“I’m ashamed of you”

“If it helps,” Fili begins. “The title of my final paper was ‘Parliament’s Straw Man: The Fallacy of Foreign Policy in Iraq,’ but I don’t think he appreciated the joke.”

Bilbo snorts into his bowl. “If only Kili had an ounce of your subtlety.”

“He would be infinitely less fun,” Fili says with a smile.

He pays the bill, snatching it off the table before Bilbo has the chance to rummage for his wallet, insisting that it’s the least he can do. They dress for the autumn bite of the locks and linger just outside, the station to their backs. Fili’s hair is windswept, slightly longer than when he last saw him, and a stray curl falls in front of his eyes. “Thank you,” he says, his hands in his pockets. “I know only so much can be gleamed over lunch but we have time.”

“We certainly do,” Bilbo agrees. “And I had a lovely afternoon.”

Fili holds out a hand but Bilbo shakes his head. “You lot,” he says, pulling him into a hug. Fili appears surprised, unsure of what to do with his hands, and Bilbo pats his back reassuringly. “You’ll learn,” he tells him and Fili smiles as he pulls away.

“I’m certain I will.”

—

Bilbo comes in to work the next morning to an email from Kili, a single line of text: How did it go? He wants to tell him that he no longer wishes to reconcile the golden boy of Thorin’s memory and the man that Kili described late at night, sprawled across his sofa. Instead he’ll put the pieces together as they come.

But he can’t bring himself to allude to what has laid hidden beneath the foundations of their friendship and instead he writes back with a flawless review of the restaurant neither of them had visited before and mourns Kili’s inability to hold conversations of an intelligent nature that don’t revolve around the Greek antiquity. He receives a reply of “fuck you both and your politics degrees” for his efforts. It’s followed up, a few hours a later, with a short: Thank you for everything.  

Kili doesn’t need to know that Bilbo had his doubts, because now he’s seen the way Fili’s feet shifted against the carpet in his office, how he sat with his piano player’s posture and smiled in a way that betrayed his nerves. He doesn’t seem like a man who generally has to work to make a good impression, and that tells him enough.  

—

On Friday night they offer to cook him dinner, though it’s more of a demand on Kili’s part, so Bilbo shows up to their flat at half past seven with a bottle of wine that makes Kili wrinkle his nose at the sight. “This will go perfectly with Kili’s recipe,” Fili says, pouring them both a glass.

“You two are disgusting.” He has some distressingly high pitched pop music playing from bluetooth speakers with his hair tied into a messy bun and the strings to a previously untouched apron tied around his neck.

“We’re adults,” Fili reminds him with a hand to his waist as he peers over his brother’s shoulder and into the simmering pot.

“Go be adults in the other room. This still has a while to sit.”

Fili glances back at him, smiling. “I believe we’re being kicked out.”

“Remarkable,” Bilbo says, following him into the living room. “And usually I have to threaten him with eviction to get him anywhere near a stove.”

“He wanted to do something for you,” Fili says in a low voice. “He’s been stressing about it all day. Made me go with him all the way to Borough Market to get his ingredients. You know, he even planned for desert.”

Bilbo laughs, peaking through the kitchen doorway just in time to see Kili rummage through the fridge for a block of parmesan. Fili sips at his wine, watching his brother just as closely with a hint of a smile at his lips, the same reverent awe in his eyes. “I’m coming back, you know,” he says quietly, motioning for him to follow as he takes careful steps down the hall.

“What?”

“Once my contract is up, I’m coming back.” Fili’s hand lingers against the banister and Bilbo can hear Kili’s off key singing from the kitchen.

“When did you decide that?” He asks, at a loss for anything else to say.

“The second I took the job. It was part of my terms, that I would be allowed to transfer after two and a half years.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?”

“Because Kili has never been able to fathom a world where he is the closest person to his own heart.” Fili finishes the rest of his wine in one steady swallow, leaving the empty glass balanced on the steps. “And that’s a very dangerous thing.” Fili leads him up the stairs and to their shared bedroom, the door that always remains perpetually closed. He reaches for the lamp switch, flicking it on and flooding the room with soft yellow light.

“Oh,” Bilbo whispers, standing at his side. It is cosy and lived in and slightly cluttered but it’s the wall above the bed that catches his eye first, covered with photographs across every free surface. They are plain prints, unframed, a mix of matte and reflective shine, but every one is beautiful. He spots a rusted foot bridge stretched across a frozen river, a flash of autumn leaves against concrete, the outline of a windowsill at dawn. But mostly what he sees are photographs of Kili, breathtaking and simple, his hand reaching for a glass, the edge of his smile, the smallest curve of his lips, his fingers tracing a date in the sand, his shoulders hunched against rain.

“Have you?” Bilbo asks softly.

“Have I what?”

“Imagined a world without Kili in it?”

His eyes don’t leave the photographs. “I don’t have to. I was old enough to remember when he was born. And that, I think, is the difference. I can’t go backwards, but he can learn.”

“You’re very talented, you know,” Bilbo tells him. He reaches out for a picture of Kili laughing, his eyes drawn to the lens.

“That’s one of my favourites too,” Fili says.

“Why did you stop?”

“I haven’t. I just don’t print them anymore. I can’t be lugging photo albums around everywhere I go.”

“He hides them from me,” Kili says, leaning in the doorway, watching them both.

“I am not.”

“He is,” Kili says to Bilbo, nodding his head. “Hiding pictures of his Lebanese boyfriend.”

A photo of Thorin sits off to the left, frowning at the camera, mouth open with a scolding remark at his lips. Bilbo smiles, tracing the edge, and finds another one of him standing with his back to the camera, bent over a stove, bracing one hand against the granite countertop. It is familiar and comforting and Bilbo’s chest aches thinking of all the times he’s seen Thorin’s shoulders shift and unwind.

They pretend not to notice, pointing at memories with crooked fingers, until finally Bilbo asks, “Would you have liked to be a photographer?”

“No,” Fili says even as Kili frowns in disbelief.

“You love photography,” he says.

“You can love more than one thing, Kee,” he reminds him, leaning in closer to inspect the reflection of a streetlamp on a flooded sidewalk.

“I know that,” Kili says, eyes trained on the floor. “Anyway, I have to go check the sauce.” He lingers for a moment longer in the doorway, before turning and walking back down the stairs.

“It’s a work in progress,” Fili tells him, watching from the corner of his eye. “But Kili appears increasingly jealous of an entire nation.”

Bilbo looks up at the photographs, Fili’s heart poured onto citric acid and silver halide, and imagines what it must have been like for Kili to grow up with those photographs hanging above his head as he slept. He imagines seeing love laid bare, unequivocal and unconditional, and thinks that he might feel the same, if suddenly he had to share that space with the docks of Beirut.

“He’ll come around,” Bilbo tells him. He watches Fili glance back at the photo of Kili laughing, his head thrown back, before he nods in agreement.

“I’m sure he will.”  

—

Bilbo sits back against his father’s gravestone and stares up at the low flying planes, imagining that Fili is onboard every jet that passes overhead, returning to the yellow air of Lebanon. He waits for the phone call that will summon him back home, but Heathrow is a long way from Leyton, and he has this time at least. He closes his eyes to the distant sound of construction and the rumble of passing trains and when he opens them it’s to Thorin walking down the path, two sets of flowers in his hand.

Bilbo smiles up at him, too tired for a moment to reassure anyone but himself, too overwhelmed by all the broken hearts that he keeps tucked along side his own. Thorin lays one bouquet across the top of his father’s grave and sits at Bilbo’s side, handing him purple irises wrapped in thin paper, held together with yellow ribbon.

“I’ve never had much time for relationships,” Thorin says quietly. “I didn’t really mind. There are other types of love and those I had in abundance.” Bilbo breathes a sigh for the very same feeling he’s kept lodged in his ribcage for years and years. He’d always loved and loved dearly and has been left to wonder what it is about this that makes it any different.

“This is the kind you can ruin,” Thorin says for him. “I made mistakes with the boys, with my siblings, but luckily for all of us we can’t ever get away from each other. But we could lose you, and I think that’s what makes this so terrifying.”

“I’m not so sure you could,” Bilbo says finally, plucking a petal from an iris to tuck into his pocket. “I’m fairly certain Kili made copies of my house keys while I wasn’t looking.” Thorin smiles but doesn’t appear to have anything else to say. So Bilbo steadies himself, takes lead as he always does and says, “If you can forgive me for lying by omission, I can forgive you for your reaction.”

“We can start again?” He asks, his voice similar to Kili’s now, uncertain and out of depth.

“I don’t think it works like that,” Bilbo says. “How about we just start here. Would you like to come to dinner tomorrow?”

Thorin watches him like a confirmation. “Yes,” he breathes. “I would like that very much.”

—

Kili watches from where he sits at the kitchen table, reviewing the guest list for their upcoming auction and sending Bilbo suspicious glances from over the edge of his laptop. “Why are you cleaning?” He asks, as Bilbo carefully wipes down the stove, scrubbing away at dried stock and grease splatters.

“I always clean,” he says. “Now stop bothering me and do your work.” Kili had turned up last night, silent and sunken in, but at least he wasn’t crying. “He’ll text me when he lands,” was all he said and Bilbo didn’t push it.

“Right, but you’re like obsessively cleaning. It’s putting me on edge.”

Bilbo ignores him and finishes tidying up, keeping an eye on the oven. “Set the table, will you?” He watches as Kili dutifully digs out two plates and two sets of silverware before returning to his laptop. Bilbo makes sure his coat is hung at the door with his keys tucked away safely in his pocket before sitting down to wait.

Thorin is always punctual and arrives at three minutes past, bottle of red wine in hand. “Bilbo,” Kili shouts from the kitchen. “Who the fuck’s at the door?”

Thorin glances down at him, frowning, so Bilbo leans up and kisses his cheek just as Kili turns the corner. “You’ll be fine,” he says, grabbing his coat from the hook. “And I’ll see you in roughly two and a half hours.”

“What?” Kili snaps, just as Bilbo shuts the door behind him and quickly locks the bottom bolt with the heavy antique key that he’s certain Kili has no double to. He hears banging from the other side and Kili’s eyes appear at the letter box, glaring out at him.

“Bilbo, I swear to God you cannot lock us in your fucking flat.”

“I’ve made sure you’re well fed. There’s Guinness in the fridge and Thorin has wine so really you shouldn’t be complaining.” He shrugs on his coat and Kili’s eyes widen comically from the slit in the door.

“No, no, Bilbo- stop it. Come back.”

“I’m off to see a film down at the Picture House on High Street. That gives you two plenty of time to sort yourselves out.” He hears a sigh from behind Kili and assumes Thorin has left to pour himself a sizeable glass of wine.

“Bilbo- come on. I can’t do this without you here,” Kili hisses.

“Oh I’m very certain you can. I’ll see you soon.”

“I’m going to pour bleach into all of your window boxes,” Kili shouts as Bilbo heads for the stairs. He waves just before turning the corner and digs his mobile out of his back pocket, switching it off.

—

The Picture House has a penchant for old films so Bilbo is pleasantly surprised to find a documentary on Janis Joplin playing instead of something ancient and shrill like the movies Kili inevitably leaves on whenever classics night rolls around. He listens as the familiar chords of ‘My Baby’ play through the credits and thinks of how his mother would sing it when he was a child, twirling him around the kitchen, her voice soft and mellow and so unlike the original. He loves it still and listens until the song is over and the lights come up and he is the only one left in the theatre.

He turns on his phone to a procession of increasingly desperate text messages from Kili which drop off by about eight thirty. He takes his time walking home, and when he finally arrives, unlocking the door and peaking through the hallway, it’s to silence. “Hello,” he calls.

He finds them in the living room, Kili sprawled flat across the coffee table, his knees bent over the edge, surrounded by a small stack of empty beer cans. Thorin is in Bilbo’s armchair, a nearly empty wine bottle at his feet. “I still cannot believe you locked us in your flat,” Kili tells the ceiling.

“Dinner was excellent though,” Thorin adds and Kili snorts in disbelief.

“So,” Bilbo begins, taking a seat on the arm of Thorin’s chair. “How’d it go?” Thorin hands him the wine and watches as Bilbo drinks straight from the bottle.

“Initially Kili tried to lock himself in his bedroom.”

“The guest room,” Bilbo corrects him.

“The guest room. But it turns out your doors are very flimsy. You should likely look into that.” Thorin glances up at him with shining eyes and Bilbo has to resist the urge to crawl into his lap and take his face in his hands and count every speck of light in his irises.

“And then we got drunk,” Kili adds from the coffee table.

“Tipsy,” Thorin amends.

“Yeah just wait until you try and get out of that chair, mate. We’ll see who’s tipsy then. Oh also-” Kili rolls over to face him, his cheek pressed flat against the table. “We found your passport.”

“He found your passport,” Thorin says. “I was not party to this at all.”

“So we are both now fully aware that your birthday is in two weeks. And you will be subjected to both gift giving and failed attempts at baking.”

“Will I also be allowed a quiet night in my own flat?”

“Yeah, no, absolutely not.”

“We’ll revisit this subject when you’re not intent on getting back at me,” Bilbo says, standing. “Now are we fine?”

Kili glances up at Thorin and after a moment they both nod. “Yeah,” Kili says, pushing himself up with one hand. “We’re alright.”

—

They start again with dinners and Sunday afternoons in Saint Andrew’s. Thorin brings him flowers to leave with his father and Bilbo always packs two flasks of tea and he watches as his shoulders fall, inch by inch, relaxing under the weight of his apparent forgiveness.

“You never did tell me,” Bilbo says after a while, clasping Thorin’s hand in his as he pulls him from the muddy ground. “What it was you two talked about.”

“I didn’t do much talking,” Thorin assures him. “Though Kili did a decent amount of yelling.”

“I’m not surprised.” They walk slowly, careful of the muddy ground, the slopping edge of the path back to the gates. Thorin doesn’t let go of his hand so Bilbo adjusts their fingers to overlap. “Have you spoken to him since?”

“No,” he admits. “Though I’ve spoken to Fili. He has always been far kinder than his brother, though I think less honest.”

Bilbo hums in agreement. “I think perhaps it’s time for Kili to move back to Bethnal Green.”

Thorin looks down, surprised. “Has he-“

“You know he hasn’t,” Bilbo says, waving him off. “But he should have a year or so of living alone, it’ll do him good.”

“A year?” He asks and Bilbo sees the recognition in his eyes, blown glass and breaking, and Bilbo sighs for his silent nephews.

“More or less. Fili’s contract ends in August, and before you sulk, he hasn’t told anyone yet.” He tugs Thorin onto the pavement, watching him stumble to keep up. “Now, about Kili. Perhaps it’s best if it comes from you two first.”

—

“Jesus, Kili, what on earth is that?” He is wearing sweatpants and a band tee, his hair tied up, digging mutilated toast from the top rack of the oven. He looks marginally more human than he tends to on weekends and despite his ink stained fingers and pillow marked skin, Bilbo thinks this may be an improvement.  

“Cinnamon toast,” he says, a slightly defensive edge to his voice. “A perfectly valid Sunday morning breakfast.”

“It’s nearly noon,” Bilbo says and Kili shrugs. “Explain to me what’s in that.”

Kili speaks around the hollow of a spoon, his voice muffled. “Butter, sugar, and cinnamon. Throw it in the oven. Cinnamon toast.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“It’s delicious,” he says. “Fili would make it every weekend. Even cut the edges off.” Kili hands Bilbo one of the mugs from the counter and takes his own, balancing the plate on his palm as he pads into the living room. “So,” he continues with a sigh, ripping off pieces of his toast with meticulous precision, catching cinnamon at the corners of his lips. “They want me to start staying in Bethnal Green.”

“I know,” Bilbo says, taking a seat beside him. “Thorin told me.”

“Do you want me to?” He is staring down at his plate, picking off the crust, his shoulders hunched forward.

“I think you should,” he offers. “You can’t hide here forever.”

“I’m not hiding. I like it here.”

Bilbo sighs, leaning heavily on Kili’s shoulder. He smells of cinnamon and laundry detergent and green apple shampoo. “It’ll be good for you.” Kili reaches for the remote and turns up the volume on the television, ignoring any further attempts at conversation. Sometimes Bilbo thinks he’ll miss him just as much, but then he sees the tea ring left on his coffee table from Kili’s mug set inches away from a coaster and thinks better of it.

—

He opens his eyes when his mattress dips under Kili’s weight. He slips under the duvet and presses himself against Bilbo’s side, curled like a child at the small of his back. “You’re far too big for this,” Bilbo says, his voice thick with sleep.

“Not like you’ll have to put up with me any longer,” Kili mumbles, his fingers tighten on the sleeve of his top, twisting into the fabric. “The cab is coming at eleven, and I’ll need help with some of my clothes. And then you’ll never see me again.”

“You do realise we work together.”

Kili’s breath is warm against the back of his neck, a dramatic sigh into his skin. “I’ll just be all alone, in my dark, furniture barren flat.”

“We have lunch together every day.”

“Fending for myself.”

“You can still come for dinner,” he offers, rubbing the last of the sleep from his eyes.

“Abandoned by my family.”

Bilbo snorts, rolling over to face him. “It’s not so bad,” he says. “Living alone. You might actually enjoy it.”

“I could choke and die or slip in the shower and no one would know until my neighbours began to complain about the smell,” Kili says.

“If any one of us went a day without hearing from you, rest assured we’d fear the worst.”

“I hate this,” Kili says and it’s almost enough to make him feel guilty. Bilbo pulls him into a hug and Kili fits like a gangly teenager up against his chest, clutching at his shoulders until he can feel the slightest bite of his fingernails.  

“You are an actual adult, you know.” Bilbo says into his hair.

“I don’t feel like it.”

“No,” Bilbo concedes. “You never really do.”

—

Fall has just turned frigid when Bilbo receives his own letter written on the same yellow paper with olive tree postage stamps. He opens it with a frown, recognising the handwriting at once, and begins to read.

Bilbo,

I never believed in Kili’s fates, in his Greek poetry and fables, but I cannot deny luck. And luck, at least, may explain it. Our family is almost textbook dysfunctional, as terrible as that sounds, and I always thought that one day we’d inevitably have to cut our losses and run. Kili didn’t mind, though I imagine he would have the second he realised how much rent tends to go for in central London. But it’s a thought that has kept me awake at night since I was seventeen. I’ve spent the majority of my life adding up every outcome, every possibility, and always coming out in red. But I didn’t account for you.

I cannot thank you enough for everything you’ve done. But I think, if I could guess, you’d say I didn’t have to. And perhaps you’d be right, because between us we share two crucially important people and what better circumstance could there be to give rise to a very productive partnership?

Thorin has an obsessive love for Casablanca and by proxy Herman Hupfeld. He will never admit to either and will stand by his assertion that he simply doesn’t listen to music. His favourite dessert is tiramisu and he has always, inexplicably, wanted to visit St. Petersburg but has never taken the time off. He has a bit of a penchant for driving quickly, get him on the M1 next time he’s in a mood and watch him fly. And as my final gift to you, please see enclosed.

Bilbo picks up the envelope from the table and pulls out a photograph wrapped in a sheet of lined paper to protect it from the light. It is Thorin, decades younger, sitting along a rocky beach in Cornwall with a swaddled infant in his arms. “Oh dear,” he murmurs, running his fingers over the glossy surface.

He finds Kili’s number and laughs into his mobile. “You didn’t tell me your uncle used to have a pony tail.”

—

Bilbo has always had a large family. It is full of cousins and aunts and grandparents that still send out Christmas cards and emails with video attachments of school plays. He had never thought of family beyond his staggered blood line, but now he finds himself adding another branch, sewn tight against his arteries.

“Prim,” he sighs into the phone. “It’ll be up there for New Year’s, it’s not the end of the world. I just won’t be in on Christmas day.”

“You’re always here on Christmas day,” she says. Bilbo holds his tongue regarding her twenty-something tendency to spend her Christmases with the boyfriend of the season and instead humours her attempts to guilt him onto a train to Yorkshire. “And the kids are all asking after you. They miss you terribly. What am I supposed to tell them?”

“That I’ll see them all on the 28th. Perhaps it would help to mention that I’m bringing a guest, and he gives very good presents indeed.” He glances behind him, where Thorin sits on the sofa with a tablet in hand, answering emails and pretending he isn’t listening in on every word. “Especially when he’s trying to make a good impression. Though I’m sure Frodo loves me dearly, double the presents should appease him.”

“Are you staying in London?”

“Yes,” he says.

Prim’s voice turns salacious in seconds. “Just the two of you, then? Roaring fire, Boxing Day telly?”

“Not quite. We have children tagging along I’m afraid, so it’s the full Christmas dinner and tree decorating the night before.” Thorin turns around to face him, mouthing ‘children’ with raised eyebrows.

“Well he better be impressive, this man of yours, if we’re to do Christmas without you.”

“You’re married to Drogo, my darling, so you will undoubtedly think so.”

She snorts with laughter and Thorin eyes him skeptically from the ridge of his glasses. “Just for that I’m going to flirt with him inappropriately during dinner and instruct Drogo to do the same. Wish him luck. He’ll need it.”

Bilbo hangs up the phone and takes a seat at Thorin’s side, running his fingers absentmindedly through the short hair on the nape of his neck. “They’re excited to meet you,” he says. “I’m going to give it another year before we bring the boys up, because frankly the Baggins aren’t known for their good looks and I fear all three of you at once may be a bit more than my family can actually handle. And Kili is a terrible flirt.”

Thorin fights a losing battle against the smile at his lips and in an attempt to hide it he leans down and kisses him instead.

—

He watches Thorin get dressed, a silhouette against the brick wall. “You can turn on a light, you know, it won’t bother me.”

Thorin hums in response, stringing his tie around his neck and sitting on the edge of the bed, his fingers following the ridge of Bilbo’s collarbone. “Go back to sleep.” He isn’t sure what time it is, but the sun has yet to rise and he surely won’t have to be up for hours yet.

“You were going to leave without waking me,” he says, closing his eyes.

“I wasn’t,” Thorin assures him with a kiss to his forehead. “I set an alarm on your mobile.”

Bilbo watches with half lidded eyes as he gathers his things, his briefcase left by the bedside table. He pauses at the door, turning to face him, pale and dark in the half light. “I love you.”

It’s the first time he’s ever said it, barely a whisper and it looks like it takes something out of him, like it scares him to say. If he had an ounce of Kili’s desperate need for metaphor Bilbo might think that it took the shadows of dawn to finally pull the words from where they've always sat, tucked so carefully behind his teeth. Bilbo has never put much stock in romance so he smiles and says, “Oh Thorin, I already knew that.”