"Done!" Kili exclaimed, hitting the enter key and grinning.

The combined genius of Fili and Kili's mischievous minds had concocted the perfect prank to play on their uncle. The only problem with this prank was that as soon as it was discovered and the comedy of it played they both would be put to an unceremonious death. The idea had derived from Kili's fourteen-year-old mind, and seventeen-year-old Fili had agreed that it would be hilarious.

Making Thorin an account on Find An : The Only Online Dating Site Offered To All Species, had been rather easy. The most interesting thing was filling the information in his profile and the most difficult was finding a picture of him with a pleasant enough expression (the one they had settled on was taken at Fili's eighth grade graduation when Thorin had not realized the camera was pointed at him). Now that they were done making his account, they had reached the fun part of the prank: seeing what poor soul would be pared with him. They hadn't put any filters on age or gender, wanting to make sure that his results were not altered at all. If an Elf came up then Fili would have to pay Kili fifty dollars, and Kili firmly believed that he would win this bet.

The mouse hovered over the "find my other" button for a moment. Kili drummed on the table for dramatic effect, while Fili did the honors and clicked the mouse once. The computer screen then read "loading" and the brothers knew that all they had o do was wait a few short minutes before they could see the poor wretch that the dating website thought was perfect for their uncle.

"He's going to kill us when he finds out," Fili told his brother, although at the moment neither of them cared about the consequences.

"If he finds out," Kili corrected.

"So we're not going to try to set him up with whoever he's pared with?" Fili asked. "You know, send flowers and stuff."

"Right, we can do that," Kili responded gleefully. "But he won't know for certain that we're the ones behind it."

"No," Fili thought for a moment. "He won't know for certain that we are, but he'll definitely assumed that you are."

Kili's response was cut off by a chime made by the computer, both boys turned to see that it had loaded and the screen was now displaying Thorin's perfect match. Both of the brothers froze as their eyes read the name. An look of shock, humor, and the expression what-the-heck-just-happened was clearing painted on each of their faces.

"Holly Mahal," Fili said under his breath, while his brother murmured a few swear words.

"This leaves the flowers out of the question," Kili voiced, his brain was not at the state to form a thought.

"Definitely," Fili agreed, his eyes reading the name at the top of the screen one more time.

Bilbo Baggins

"When Balin said that they'd be perfect together I thought he was joking," Kili leaning back on the chair he was sitting on.

"Just because the website says that they're perfect doesn't mean that they are," Fili chided him.

"Hey, this is a really good website," Kili informed his brother.

"Just because you met your elf girlfriend on it doesn't make it a good website," Fili scoffed. "In fact it probably proves the opposite."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Kili asked angrily.

"Nothing," Fili dodged the death glare Kili was now sending him. Deciding not to get into a fight just yet, Kili took this opportunity to scroll the mouse down, examining Bilbo's account.

"He made this three years ago," Kili exclaimed in surprise.

"It hasn't helped him much," Fili mused and Kili nodded his agreement.

"Maybe that's because Uncle's account wasn't made yet," Kili waggled his eyebrows as he spoke. Both boys laughed.

"I'm never going to be able to look at them the same way," Fili said through chortles.

Kili was about to make another joke, when the heard the sound of someone clearing their throat behind them. They both quickly spun around, Fili throwing himself in front of the computer screen and Kili situating himself so that he was leaning on the table in an attempt to look casual. They were relieved a little to see that it was not their uncle standing a few feet away from them, but the certain hobbit who's online profile they had currently been reading. Standing behind Bilbo was his ten-year-old nephew Frodo. Their presence in the Dwarf's home was not unusual, for Bilbo and Thorin worked together and it was common for Bilbo to stop by with a question or something that he wanted to run by Thorin.

"Hello Bilbo!" Kili's voice came out in a falsetto that hit notes Fili hadn't known his brother was able to reach.

"Hello," Bilbo said slowly, hid eyes darting back and forth between the two brothers. Obviously knowing that they were up to something. Frodo waved at the pare, but didn't say anything.

"Have either of you seen your uncle?" Bilbo asked awkwardly. This question sparked a loud and not-very-manly giggle from Kili and Fili had to repress the urge to facepalm.

"I think he's upstairs," Fili said.

"Ok, thanks," Bilbo said sheepishly. He looked like he was about to leave, but then asked: "What are you doing?"

This would have been an easy enough question to dodge if they had not both decided to answer at the same time.

"Nothing," Kili had said quickly, not wanting to reveal any information.

"Hacking our school's website," Fili responded without missing a beat. He had figured that it would be wiser to give Bilbo an answer so that he would stop wondering.

Upon hearing his brother's insane response, Kili automatically elbowed Fili's arm. This was not done violently, and, had Fili been standing firmly, it would have had no effect. However, Fili had also adjusted himself to be leaning against the table, and when his brother elbowed him it caused him to lose his balance and fall onto the floor. The computer screen was now exposed, and, judging from the expression on Bilbo's face, he recognized his Find An account being displayed.

"How did you-" Bilbo stammered.

"It's not as bad as it looks!" Fili assured him, jumping to his feet.

"It's actually worse," Kili muttered.

"You see we made this fake account," Fili tried to explain.

"And found yours completely on coincidence," Kili added.

"Why would you make a fake account for a dating website?" Bilbo asked. Fili and Kili exchanged a glance, neither knowing what to say.

"Well," Kili stretched out the word.

"When we say fake account," Fili grimaced as he spoke. "The person we made it for isn't fake."

Before Bilbo could ask them what they were on about or they could come up with a way to talk themselves out of the situation, Frodo made a dash for the computer and pressed the back button making the computer screen then display Throin's profile. Fili had nearly fallen over again in an attempt to stop Frodo and Kili made a mettle note to recruit the young hobbit for future pranks. Bilbo gaped at the computer screen an expression of wonder and horror displayed on his face.

"Please don't tell him," Kili begged Bilbo. Fili had to stop his brother from literally dropping to his knees as he pleaded.

"I'm not sure that I want to," Bilbo confessed.

"You don't," Fili said in a matter-of-fact tone. "For one if would be a shame for you and Frodo to have to witness Uncle dismembering us. And then there's the fact that-"

"Yes, I understand," Bilbo cut him off.

Kili was about to thank Bilbo for not being the causing factor of his untimely death, when all three once again realized the importance of keeping an eye of young Frodo. For as soon as Frodo had assessed the situation he had bolted out of the room. They could hear him running up the stairs to Thorin's office.

"He's going to tell on us isn't he?" Kili asked no one in particular.

"Yep," Fili answered anyway. He quickly closed the computer even though he knew it wouldn't make much of a difference. Bilbo looked torn between going after his nephew and fleeing the house. Unfortunately he didn't have time to do either.

"Hello Uncle," Fili said nervously. Thorin had majestically swept into a room (Frodo following silently behind him with a wide smile), and Fili wondered, not for the first time, if his uncle was capable of entering like a normal person.

"How are you on this fine day?" Kili asked a little too pleasantly.

"Give me the computer," Thorin glowered as he spoke.

"About that-" Fili began.

"We don't know where it is!" Kili declared.

He looked to his brother for support in his lie, but Fili looked liked he was contemplating jumping out of the window on the other side of the room. Thorin raised an eyebrow and also looked to Fili, who shrugged because he honestly wasn't sure what else to do. Thorin then directed his gaze to Bilbo who had been trying his hardest to blend into the wall. Bilbo meekly pointed to the table behind Kili, and Thorin marched over, pushing his nephew to the side.

It took Thorin all of ten seconds to open the computer, see the account that his nephew's had made for him, and then notice who the website had pared him with. As he read a string of Khuzdul curse words poured from his lips. During these ten seconds Fili began to calculate the chances of him being able to land uninjured if he did jump out of the window. Kili was wondering if his uncle would remember the past few minutes if he was able to nock him out with the mettle paper weight laying on the table (he then thought better of trying to attack Thorin, knowing it would end painfully). Bilbo was considering sneaking out of the room once Thorin began shouting at his nephews, and Frodo and taken a seat at the couch on the far side of the room.

"You know the question isn't why Kili and I did this," Fili spoke up the moment that Thorin had turned away from the computer. "I mean, we're always pulling stupid pranks."

"We are very stupid!" Kili added, wanting to be helpful.

"Right," Fili acknowledged his brother. "The question is: why does Bilbo have an account in the first place?"

All eyes pointed to a very flustered hobbit.

"Well, I...It's perfectly normal to...you know," Bilbo struggled to find the right words to make his situation seem a tad less pathetic. "It's not exactly your business, now is it?"

"It is if the site thinks you and Uncle are made for each other," Kili did his best to ignore the death glares he was sent at this comment.

"He's right," Fili interjected. "In fact, you two should be grateful that we figured this out for you and saved you the trouble of having to find out on your own."

"Find what out?" Thorin's voice was dark.

"Surely you're not suggesting...?" Bilbo looked aghast and Thorin looked like he was attempting to mask how uncomfortable he was with a layer of pure dwarven rage.

"We're not suggesting it," Kili sent Fili a cautious look, knowing that they were currently skating on thin ice. "Find Your is."

Thorin took this opportunity to growl a few more words in Khuzdul that only Fili and Kili understood, but judging from the tone of Thorin's voice the hobbits were able to give a rough guess of their meaning.

"I think our work here is done," Kili said nervously to his brother.

"I would say so." Fili agreed. The two made eye contact and then dashed from the roomed before Thorin could murder either of them. Frodo watched them go, looked back at the two adults, and then quickly followed Fili and Kili.

Thorin took a few steps in the direction of the exit, then thought better of it and walked back to the computer. Bilbo watched Thorin. Unsure of what he should do at this point, Bilbo sat down on the couch that Frodo had formerly been sitting on.

"You have to at least give them credit," Bilbo finally said when he could no longer stand the silence. Thorin looked up from the computer and raised an eyebrow and Bilbo quickly added: "Well, they obviously spent a lot of time on that."

"They always spend a lot of time on the trouble they cause." Thorin didn't look half as angry as he had a few minutes ago, but Bilbo assumed that he was saving his fury for when his nephews returned. "But this is hardly accurate."

Unable to contain his curiosity, Bilbo joined Thorin at the computer to get a closer look that the profile that Fili and Kili had written.

"I don't know," Bilbo mused as he skimmed through the first paragraph. "They're right about the brooding bit."

"I do not brood," Thorin stated.

"Sulk then," Bilbo corrected himself. "You do quite a bit of sulking when you think no one is paying attention to you."

"Even if I did sulk or brood," Thorin allowed. "I would not say that I do in an online profile."

"Yes," Bilbo admitted. "But you wouldn't make an online profile for any social media, much less a dating website."

"But you would." There was amusement in Thorin's eyes as he regarded Bilbo.

"Yes," Bilbo wasn't sure what to say. He felt that Thorin was judging him, which he knew as only fair.

"You didn't mention why," Thorin drawled. "Or is that 'not exactly my business'?"

"Why do you think I made one," Bilbo answered. "Why does anyone go to these kind of sites?"

It was easier to say this than the confess that he was lonely. Or at least he had felt particularly lonely three years ago. He knew that he should have deleted his account on the horribly embarrassing website once he had realized that it wasn't going to do him any good and him keeping it was really rather pathetic.

"Did you meet anyone on it?" Thorin asked, his voice sounding a little to nonchalant to actually be casual.

"Yes," Bilbo answered honestly, choosing not to question why Thorin wanted to know this. "But not recently, and it obviously didn't work out those other times."

Thorin nodded.

"Maybe we should address what the boys intended for us to discuss. I don't think that they'll give us any peace if we don't at least say that we talked about it." Bilbo didn't meet Thorin's eye as he spoke, for he deemed the situation awkward enough.

"So we tell them that we talked about it," Thorin turned back the the computer scrolling down the an icon that read delete account. "We say that we both laughed about it and then I explained to you the method that I am going to use to slowly murder both of my nephews."

"Right," Bilbo muttered. "You tell them that."

"Unless you want to talk about it," Thorin turned away from the computer. "I thought that you would rather pretend that it didn't happen."

"Yes," Bilbo agreed swiftly. "I mean, what is there to talk about? It doesn't make any sense that we'd be paired together."

"The boy's most likely said something wrong when they were making the account," Thorin added. "We're nothing alike."

"Exactly," Bilbo said. "I'm a hobbit and you're a brooding- oh, sorry, sulking dwarf."

Thorin laughed, and Bilbo couldn't help but grin.

"I think it's more like a fussy hobbit and a reasonably irritated dwarf," Thorin corrected and Bilbo tried very hard to look offended.

"I am not fussy!" To Bilbo's annoyance he could not stop smiling, and he did not want Thorin to think that it was alright to label him with that word. "And what part of you is reasonable?"

"Excuse me?" Thorin was far better at suppressing his smirk, but his eyes did not to reflect the offense that he was trying to portray.

"You tend to overreact," Bilbo explained. "About everything."

"I do not."

"Really?" Bilbo no longer tried to repress his gleeful expression. "So I should assume that what you were shouting in Khuzdul at your nephews was not completely unpleasant and un-G rated?"

"That does not qualify as overreacting," Thorin answered.

"As a parental figure, I would personally be more upset had they actually been hacking their school's website."

"What?"

"Never mind," Bilbo remembered that Thorin had not been in the room for that. The past few minutes had been more than a little bit hazy.

"So had Frodo done something like this you would have brushed it under the rug?" Thorin accused.

"Well it's not as if they've gone very far," Bilbo brushed off. "All they did was make the account and no one actually saw it."

"You saw it," Thorin's line of vision veered away from Bilbo's eyes.

"Yeah, but I don't count."

Thorin raised an eyebrow instead of verbally asking Bilbo what he meant.

"I mean, I knew that it was Fili and Kili pulling a prank the entire time," Bilbo explained. "It's not as if you were matched with some poor sod who didn't know what was going on. I have more reason to be embarrassed than you do."

"I'm not judging you for having an account," Thorin snapped his vision back to Bilbo, who waved off his words.

"Yes you are," he said back. "But I appreciate that you're not being rude about it."

"Are you saying that I'm usually rude along with sulky and overacting?" Thorin asked with an unreadable look that had Bilbo scrambling to correct himself.

"No," he quickly stated. "Of course not, sorry, I just meant-"

"I know what you meant," Thorin cut the hobbit's ramble off. "You're welcome."

"You're not very sulky," Bilbo muttered.

"What was that?" Thorin asked, even though Bilbo knew that he had heard him clearly.

"I am not going to say it again," Bilbo's firmness was only intercepted by the gentle smile on his face.

"You're not very fussy," Thorin admitted.

"Sorry, could you repeat that? I don't think I heard you," Bilbo jested.

When the joking and laughter had subsided Bilbo looked back to the computer.

"I think I'll delete my account as well, while we're still one the website," he clicked the login button on the top right conner and punched his username and password in.

"You sure you want to?" Thorin asked, not entirely kidding. "You might meet someone."

"I'm done with online dating. You're the first person I've been pared with in the past year," Bilbo told him. "And, I'm sorry, but I don't think it's going to work out."

Thorin did not react to the joke. Bilbo had thought that this would encourage a chuckle or a smirk at the very least, but Thorin's face was the unreadable blank shade that always made Bilbo uncomfortable. So he turned his attention back to what he was doing on the computer.

"I think I would have probably tried to meet you, if we hadn't known each other and this hadn't been a prank." Bilbo wasn't entirely sure why he was voicing this.

"And would it have worked out then?" The fact that Bilbo wasn't looking at him seemed to give Thorin the mask that he needed to ask this question.

"In the hypothetical world where we're strangers and you willing made a Find An account?" Bilbo consider this for a moment. "I don't know. I guess we'd go on a few dates before either my nephew would scare you off or yours would get rid of me."

"Frodo adores me," Thorin interjected.

"You have not seen the little monster that he can be," Bilbo turned around to face Thorin as he said this. "Although he had saved me from quite a few relationships that were doomed to fail."

"I know a thing or two about little monsters, you should have seen Fili and Kili at his age," Thorin argued. "But I would find a way to win him over."

"Maybe," Bilbo allowed.

"And what makes you think Fili and Kili would try to get rid of you?" Thorin questioned.

"I don't know," Bilbo could feel his cheeks involuntarily reddening. "They'd probably think that you could do better."

"They would not think that. No one in their right mind would think that," Thorin's voice was firm, and as he spoke his expression changing from one of surprise to one that Bilbo couldn't hardly bring himself to believe.

"Then maybe things would work out," Bilbo knew that he was matching the look of endearment in Throin's eyes.

They were standing closer than Bilbo had realized and, for a moment, he imagined closing the gap between the two of them. If he could allow himself to pretend that the scenario that they had just conjured was in fact reality, then maybe he could stop resisting the magnetic pull that yearned to draw him closer to Thorin. But Bilbo knew that he had to cease the thoughts running through his head, he had to break away from this need while his still could. For only a few minutes ago Thorin had been cursing in Khuzdul when Find An had pared them together.

"Yeah," Bilbo took a step back, only to bump into the table behind him. "In that hypothetical world things might work out."

"Right," Thorin's gaze met the floor.

"Oh come on!"

Both men turned on their heels to the doorway where Fili, Kili, and Frodo were now standing.

"Can you just kiss already?" Kili complained.

"It's so irritating to watch you dance around the edge," Fili added with a weary expression. Frodo was giggling.

Thorin growled something so low that Bilbo could not distinguish what language it was in. Fili and Kili, however, got the meaning with out a second to spare. Each of them grabbed and arm of the still giggling hobbit and dashed from the room.

"I think they mean well," Bilbo said after they had gone.

"Remind me to say things like that when Frodo is their age," Thorin shot back.

"Sorry," Bilbo murmured.

"But, speaking of Frodo," Thorin's tone was lighter now. "I've already won him over."

Bilbo blinked, not sure how to respond to this. Was Thorin joking or still speaking in pretense? Or was he implying what Bilbo secretly hoped he could be?

"Fili and Kili certainly approve of me," Bilbo settled on replying with.

"In the hypothetical reality, where would we first meet?" Thorin asked, and Bilbo would be lying if he said that his heart beat did not increase a little.

"You mean where would our first date be," Bilbo couldn't stop himself from correcting.

"Yes," Thorin responded. "Where would our first date be?"

"That Italian restaurant near my flat," he answered after mulling the question over for a moment.

"Alright." Thorin took a noticeable breath, as if he was gathering his courage, before he asked: "Are you free tomorrow night?"

"For you I'm free every night." The words were out of Bilbo's mouth before he fully knew what he was saying, before he had fully registered what had just happened. "We're probably still being spied on."

"Most likely," Thorin didn't seem the least bit vexed.

"We should go find them," Bilbo said. "You can say whatever unpleasant Khuzdul phrases you want to."

Bilbo honestly had meant to walk out of the room with Thorin following him, but he found himself taking a few steps toward the other man. Thorin didn't step back, instead he placed his arm around Bilbo's shoulder. Bilbo ended the distance between them, having to pull Thorin down to place his lips on his.

"I told you they'd kiss once we left." Bilbo did not have to look to know that the three boys were once again at the doorway.

Thorin broke away from Bilbo's embrace only to yell: "Get out!" in the direction of the door.

"You're welcome!" One of the boys shouted as they scurried away once more.

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