A Brief Respite
by Nilladriel

The climb down from the great, giant, stony monstrosity the Eagles had brought them to seemed to Bilbo more exhausting than the events of the past day. At first he had wondered why they could not be deposited closer to the Lonely Mountain. Then he wondered why they could not be deposited at the base of the stone hill.

But then suddenly Bilbo's searching feet touched soil, not rock. He could hear a river, perhaps only fifty paces away. He turned towards it. Surely it is time for a bath! he thought. But somehow he only made it a few steps, and then he was sitting down and closing his eyes.

His entire body ached. Even his heart seemed to ache, and his head. He realized he had curled up onto his side.

Thorin, he thought suddenly. If I am this tired, then surely Thorin -

But he did not even finish the thought before sleep overtook him.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself looking at a stony ceiling. A cave. A cave? Why was he suddenly in a cave?

There was a pillow underneath his head. Bilbo's questing fingers touched fur. It wasn't a pillow. It was - it was a coat. He sat up. It wasn't just a coat. It was Thorin's coat. Bilbo felt disbelief, and then a peculiar warmth that sat low in his belly like a particularly good seedcake.

There were rends at the collar and shoulder of the garment.

Bilbo remembered, with awful, startling clarity, Thorin taking a blow from the Pale Orc's mace. The warmth fled, doused by fear. And that was when the most absurd of sounds reached his ears:

Laughter.

Fíli and Kíli, roaring in tandem. Dwalin's deep, bass boom. Bofur, chortling over a joke - and Ori's answering, and slightly nervous chuckle.

Bilbo crawled to the cave's entrance and peeked cautiously out, as if trolls were lying in wait outside. He clutched Thorin's great fur coat to him while he stared. He hadn't heard laughter like that since that night in Bag End.

As before, there was a voice missing from the thirteen.

"Good morning," Gandalf said, and Bilbo jumped, nearly braining himself on rock.

"Gandalf!" he said.

Gandalf raised one bushy eyebrow, as if asking why he needed to be reminded of his name. "You're looking well, Bilbo Baggins," he said.

"I am feeling a bit better," Bilbo said, and was surprised to find he meant it. His back still hurt, reminding him that he had been thrown to the ground. And there were a half-dozen sharp aches about his person, from his grapple with wargs and orcs and from the fall into the creature Gollum's cave. But the injuries were reminders that he was still alive; each throb seemed to match his heartbeat. Belatedly he added, "And a good morning to you, too."

Of course morning was long past. The familiar heat of a high summer afternoon was beginning to build. Bilbo looked at the dwarves, making merry in the river. Beside him Gandalf began to explain, "That is the River Anduin, sourced from - " and then cut himself off, watching the way Bilbo's eyes danced from Dwarf to Dwarf.

Gandalf smiled. "Thorin," he said, "is a little further downstream." And then, when Bilbo jumped to his feet: "Be careful! The water is less shallow there!"

Thorin was more than just a little further downstream. He was past the bend, and Bilbo paused when he caught sight of him. The other Dwarves had long moved past cleaning and were unashamedly playing. Thorin had stripped off the outermost layer of clothing. By the river lay his belt and surcoat only. It was not hard to see why. He was moving stiffly, and his left hand dragged in the water.

Bilbo took off his coat, and then his waistcoat - depressingly easy to do, what with the missing buttons - and did not even hesitate at stripping off shirt and pants. Then he edged closer to the water. He'd bathed in rivers before. Well. He'd bathed in streams. But the current looked gentle, and the water clear, and he found his fear of drowning could not contend with a desperate need to just get clean.

Hobbits move quietly, but it is hard to mask the sound of splashing, and Thorin looked up as Bilbo approached. They watched each other for a while. Bilbo thought Thorin looked a little startled. Or did that slight widening of the eyes mean anger? Well, a single embrace cannot undo weeks of enmity, Bilbo thought, when Thorin inclined his head and asked, "And why are you here, Master Baggins?"

"Bathing!" Bilbo said, a little indignantly. "As you can see!"

Thorin's gaze traveled briefly downwards, and then snapped up to Bilbo's face. He didn't reply. Bilbo took a step forward. Thorin shifted, as if he might move back, and then furrowed his brow when Bilbo wobbled a bit in the current. The water was near up to his shoulders.

"Maybe we should move closer to the bank."

"We?" Thorin echoed, and then Bilbo's fingers found Thorin's good hand. It took a few insistent - and then a few near-violent - tugs before Thorin followed. Like leading an ill-tempered donkey! he thought.

He felt much more comfortable closer to shore, and confident. When he reached for Thorin's brigandine, Thorin clasped his wrist and said, "You should join the others."

His grip was firm. Bilbo's thoughts scattered, and it took a moment too long to gather them again. "Certainly not! Fíli and Kíli are in too merry a mood."

"Which is why you should join them."

Bilbo drew himself up to his full height. Thorin remained unimpressed.

"I don't want to join them. I want to - " help you, he almost said, and bit his tongue in frustration. His glares were surely as ineffective as Ori's, but nevertheless something in Thorin's face shifted. Softened.

Thorin's fingers flexed, loosened. He said, "These first," and turned his arm to show the buckles of his vambraces. His gaze burned the back of Bilbo's neck as he bent over them. The gloves underneath were leather, and when Bilbo worked them off as well he found the palms they sheathed roughened from years of toil. Thorin's forearms were remarkably pale. Bilbo touched the underside of Thorin's wrist - realized what he was doing -

"Boots next, I think!" he suggested, a little too quickly and a little too high.

He expected an argument, but Thorin after a few beats only moved back until he found a flat, smooth rock to sit on.

Bilbo could hear the rest of the Company, still. But somehow they seemed much more distant, as if they were many miles away instead of just out of sight. He kneeled. The water caressed his collarbone, the curve of his back. He was level with Thorin's knees. Thorin's breeches were as worn as the rest of his clothes, Bilbo saw, before he forced his attention to where it belonged. First the straps had to be loosened, before the boots were eased off, one after the other, and set aside.

Thorin's feet were unexpectedly small.

Bilbo looked up, but no further than Thorin's chin. Bilbo raised himself, one hand on Thorin's thigh, the other at the edge of the rock. He shivered a little: the water was not warm.

The brigandine was held fast by toggles. Bilbo tried very hard not to notice how many of the plates were skewed or bent.

And then, finally, there was only the tunic to be dealt with. The tunic, and the - but surely Thorin would not want him taking off everything -

Thorin turned back, and whatever he saw in Bilbo's face, it was enough for him to grimace. "You need not aid me - you should not be aiding me. If you could send for my nephews - " A pause. "For Óin," Thorin said, a warning in his tone.

"Don't be ridiculous," Bilbo said, hoping for haughty but suspecting he was falling short. Thorin's tunic was laced all the way down the front, and Bilbo fumbled the ties at first. Was he leaning too close? He thought he could feel Thorin's breath stirring the hair at the top of his head. Then memories of helping with his younger cousins took over, and he was pulling the tunic off Thorin's shoulders before he was even properly thinking about it. Under the tunic of course there was yet another layer, and when Bilbo pulled that off, too, he paused to stare.

Then he said, "Oh."

And then: "I see why you suggested Óin."

It surely looked worse than it was. Thorin had made his way down that outpost of stone by himself. But Bilbo remembered the coat under his head, and the bent plates of Thorin's armor.

The Pale Orc's blow had caught the left side of Thorin's chest, and left behind ugly bruising that stretched all the way from sternum to shoulder. Most horrifying was the semi-circle of angry, purple-red flesh where teeth had gripped, and dug, and started to crush.

Bilbo registered a weight on his shoulder and a dry voice saying, "Breathe, lad."

"Doesn't that hurt?" he asked.

Thorin said, "It will heal." It was not, Bilbo noticed, an actual reply.

"But won't you need - " Bilbo's mind stuttered. He was used to scratched knees or dirt-roughed palms. He'd dealt with Poppy Brandybuck's broken arm by having nothing to do with it. "Won't you need medicine, or... but most of our supplies are gone. But I'm sure Óin will be able to do something- "

"Surely," Thorin agreed.

Bilbo's gaze jumped from hurt to hurt. There was no bleeding, at least, except for the surface wounds on Thorin's face and hands, so that ridiculous number of layers was good for something. He'd even largely escaped the singeing Bilbo had suffered. But that was not a comfort. Bilbo peered up at Thorin. He thought, Is his skin too pale? Is his pulse erratic?

He realized Thorin was gazing back at him, and that Thorin's thumb was rubbing soothing circles. He flushed. "Let's get you clean, shall we?"

"I hardly need - " But Thorin cut himself off with a frown as sudden as a spring storm. "Fine."

The frowning did not cease. Neither did his rhythmic movements. Bilbo waited a few counts, to see if Thorin would notice; when he didn't he eased back, so that Thorin's hand dropped slowly from his shoulder. Too slowly.

They didn't have a washcloth - or even a handkerchief, and wouldn't that have come in handy? - but just the water was a luxury to sing about. Bilbo cupped it in his palms and brought it trickling on Thorin's skin, pressed his palms down - at first tentatively, and then more firm - and rubbed sweat and grime and dirt away. Thorin did not protest. He didn't even seem to be breathing, he was so still.

"Rather tense, aren't you," Bilbo said, sounding rather tense himself. His reply was a very articulate grunt.

After that Bilbo struggled to speak. They had survived a near-death experience together. Surely that counted as common ground? Apparently not. "Um," he tried, and: "Er," and finally: "Your hair - that is, if you could just turn around - "

As slowly as a sapling grows, Thorin presented his back. His hair was very thick, and coarser than the fine curls Bilbo was used to. He wished for soap, and perhaps a brush and, while he was at it, a tub of hot water to sink into, bathing oils, a glass of wine, and a good book. But mainly the brush and soap, he thought, as he combed the strands as best he could.

Bilbo touched a shoulder; Thorin ducked his head under the water, and Bilbo massaged his scalp, guided by his memories of Belladonna Baggins. Behind the ears, she might say. Or, Not just the top. The whole skull needs cleaning.

And then he was finished, or as finished as he could be without a brush to work the hair. He dropped his hands, feeling quite lost. Thorin was standing with his neck slightly bent, and at the cessation of movement he turned to face Bilbo with a question in his eyes.

Or what Bilbo thought was a question. Thorin's was a face built for glowering, so that any other expression he wore seemed rather alien. "You wait right here," Bilbo said. "I'll just go and fetch some salve from Óin. If - if he has any," he added doubtfully. He turned.

Of course it was then that Thorin Oakenshield finally deigned to speak.

"Halfling," he said, but it was not his voice that froze Bilbo's motion. Bilbo was aware of warmth suddenly on his hip: of big fingers brushing the soft skin where hip became thigh. He turned his head, just enough to see Thorin's gaze, solemn as steel.

"Thank you," Thorin said.

Bilbo shifted, aware of the way the movement caused Thorin's fingers to drag slightly on bare flesh. "Well, hardly had any choice, did I?" he said. "Seeing as none of the others thought to help."

A pause. "I did not let them," the Dwarf replied. Somehow the words seemed - heavy. Bilbo was not sure what the words meant. If they meant anything at all. He licked his lips: Thorin's grip tightened and then abruptly he shifted back, expression unreadable.

Bilbo managed a smile. "I'll just go and get Óin, then, shall I?" he asked, and Thorin inclined his head, watching him as he left.