Unashamedly bagginshield.
If I could call this something else, it would be the Right Moment is hard to find, and I've had thousands with you, my Love, but I can't because that's too long.
Decidedly AU, because no one dies.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hobbit. Ugh.
Thorin, on occasion, likes to think back, to after the journey to the lonely mountain, after Bard slew the worm(which still gives him vicious pleasure to think of), and after the battle of five armies, which was the dirtiest, grittiest, hardest won battle Thorin has ever had the misfortune to be involved in.
He thinks back to after that battle, when his company are sitting quietly around a fire, drinking mead and complaining about how much blood is in their hair.
Fili and Kili, in particular, were untangling their braids and picking out clumps of semi congealed orc blood. Fili was having a much easier time of it than Kili, whose dark hair was as much a hindrance as Thorin's own.
Thorin remembers surveying his battered friends, a tankard of ale forgotten in his hand, with a burglar to his side, and his nephews to the other, and being relieved beyond measure that no one was dead. No one had any major injuries, save Kili, who even in the midst of combat had been fighting the poison remaining from his wound, inflicted by a morgul arrow in Mirkwood. Tauriel had scolded the young dwarf mightily for 'being such a wretched fool!'.
His friends and his family were safe, and for the first time in a long time, he could relax. He didn't have the burning hatred in the pit of his stomach, driving him to reclaim their home, he even hated the elves a little less.
In fact, there was something a little like the exact opposite of hatred, resting comfortably in his chest, directed solely at the little Hobbit sitting sleepily by his side.
Bilbo Baggins.
Without their burglar, they would have been hard pressed to kill the dragon, even to enter the mountain, for it was he that solved the riddle on the map, he that saw first hand the missing scale under Smaug's left wing and reported it, he that wrenched Thorin from the depths of gold sickness.
Yes, the little man had saved all their lives at some point or another on their long journey, but Thorin doubted anyone had fallen in love with him, save himself.
He remembered the sudden epiphany, sitting by the fireside, before Mirkwood, just after the mountains, by his reckoning. He had sat up a little straighter, shot the Hobbit a furtive glance, and taken a sip of ale, hiding his suddenly red cheeks in the tankard.
But the Hobbit had paid no mind, his own pint dangling limply from his small hand, and the dwarf had buried his newly realised feelings, saving them for a time in which orcs weren't trying to kill him, and they could talk in relative peace.
But now here they were, and no one was trying to impale them, or slit their throats, or steal his throne, which he was giving up anyway, and he couldn't get the words out.
But then he recalls his father, in one of his clearer moments, scattered among the possessive, fierce spell of the Arkenstone, talking about the Right Moment. He had pronounced it like that, as well, with implied capitals, pressing importance down on the words.
So Thorin waited, for the Right Moment. And then he waited some more. Then Erebor had been taken, and he had wandered the earth, waiting some more.
And then the wizard had shown up, in a small tavern, and the little voice in the back of his head had nudged him. Almost, it seemed to whisper. Almost.
So he had stayed, and agreed to the mad quest.
He had been glared at by the Hobbit, upon their first meeting, and damn if that didn't send hot little shivers down his back, and he had stored the information away for pondering.
Then, he had hated the Hobbit, for a little while. He was too small, too weak, too content in his comfy hobbit hole in the ground, and he had complained of the cold, the wet, that he was hungry, he was tired, and any other manner of thing that Thorin did not care to catalogue.
Some time later, he was separated from them, in the goblin mountains, and Thorin's heart was suddenly in his throat, panic threatening to swallow him down. He had ignored it in favour of surviving, helping his company survive.
His bitter fear for the hobbit had emerged, disguised heavily as hatred and disgust, and then Bilbo had returned, seeming to appear from around a tree as if by magic.
After that, they were too busy trying not to die for Thorin to speak of his affection, though when Bilbo saved his life, facing the pale orc like he was a slug on his cabbages, he managed to steal an embrace, thanking the burglar passionately. He had seen something in the burglar's eyes then, something like affection, and his hope had been restored.
And again, he waited for the Right Moment.
By the time they reached the mountain, they had lost Bilbo, he had found them again, and then they had to leave several members of the group behind, in Laketown. He worried about them, was terrified for Kili, and Bilbo had talked him down, quietly, calmly, and with the utmost confidence that he could coerce Thorin into suppressing his worry, 'lest it should cause him distraction from their quest, and do him injury'.
After the battle, after the fireside drink, when all the dwarves asides from Thorin were asleep, and Bilbo was just barely conscious, Thorin had plucked up his courage, and spoken to the small man about his emotions. Or he had tried, anyway.
"Bilbo." He had said, his voice like gravel with nerves. The tiny hobbit had turned his head up to Thorin, and all of a sudden, the words stuck in his throat. He couldn't utter a syllable, not one.
So he had done the next best thing; he had leaned in, and pressed a small, soft kiss to the man's lips, gentle as a breath of air.
And Bilbo had smiled.
"Finally." He had mumbled, and risen up wearily on his knees, threading his hands into Thorin's dirty hair, and he had kissed him, deeply, pouring emotion into it and pulling the dwarf closer, roughly and passionately.
And if Thorin had any thoughts left in his mind other than Bilbo, and kissing, and finally, he would have thought that was the Right Moment.
And then there were lots more Right Moments.
When Thorin gave up the throne, gave it to Fili, and clutched Bilbo's hand, asking him if he wanted him as nothing more than Thorin. Bilbo had just pierced him with a glare, and asked if he thought he could get rid of him that easily.
When Kili and Tauriel had announced that they were to wed, and he hadn't strangled his nephew, but instead congratulated the pair and sulked grumpily when he went to bed that night. And Bilbo had snuck in and wriggled into his side, and put his cold toes against Thorin's calf. And Bilbo asked if he was mad that Kili had beaten them, getting married first. And Thorin had rolled over, and proposed, grinning happily when he got an emphatic yes. They had married the next month, desperate to have each other forever. Kili cried. Happy tears. Tauriel had kissed him and poked him in the side happily.
Three years later, when his great niece was born. Fili had been so proud of his daughter, showing her off as much as his beautiful wife would allow. Bilbo had cried, and yanked on Thorin's braids to give him a kiss, right there in the great halls of Erebor, rambling nonsense about dwarven babies.
When Kili's children were born, Thorin had hoisted Freya on his shoulders, so she could see her baby cousins, and Bilbo had smiled at her and given her a sweet, and they had talked quietly that night about adopting.
Shortly after, their two Right Moments came, two beautiful, tiny babies, orphaned in the spring when their mother died in childbirth. Their father had died the month previous, gored by a stag in the forest. Thorin had cradled the babies, marvelling at how small and delicate they were, and how perfectly formed their minuscule fingers were, and Bilbo had kissed him softly, laying his head in Thorin's shoulder and sighing content lying.
Years later, when Thorin was grey, and Bilbo was breathing shallowly, both of them old and happy in their bed, they curled up together and died.
Their lives together had been one long, happy, glorious, Right Moment.
Who would have thought it?