Title: Untangled
Author: foreverdistracted
Fandom: The Hobbit
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield, Dwalin, Balin, Gandalf, Thorin's Company (though could be read as Thilbo or Dwalin/Thorin)
Summary: Thorin's rescue was swift, his recovery not so much.
Prompt: Result mostly of this wicked-prince-thorin's mouth-watering tumblr post, though I apologize for not doing it much justice.
Notes: Much thanks to my lovely proofreader. Any remaining mistakes are my fault.
There had been no recognizing him at first. Strapped spread-eagle to thick, wooden beams mounted six feet above ground, strips of bloody cloth hanging from his body, and a bruised, cut face covered with shoulder-length hair...Bilbo swallowed hard and moved forward to see if there was still breath left in the poor man.
But his feet stepped upon something soft, and it was such a contrast to the teeth and bones he'd been plodding over that he had to look down.
Hair, everywhere. So much of it scattered and hacked, clumps and strands blood-soaked and burnt. He lifted his feet and could do little more than stare at the glint of a familiar clasp, still wrapped around a thick clump of black and grey strands. He knew that clasp. He'd stared at it long enough as the wayward King Under the Mountain rode ahead and led their party through fair and ill weather.
Balin cursed from beside him. Bilbo raised his eyes to find the old dwarf looking at the figure strapped to the beams, and not at his feet.
He opened his mouth to tell Balin about the hair piece, about how they should look for Thorin, Thorin was somewhere in here and he probably needed their help, there was no time, but realization cut his urgent message off to a strangled sound as he stared, once again, at the barely-conscious figure.
With an unspoken gesture from Balin, Dwalin headed back down the passage and past Bilbo. Soon after, he heard Ori and the young brothers struggling and crying in protest. "Ye lot stay here," was Dwalin's command, his tone grim. Judging from Fili and Kili's unabashed yelling, Bilbo didn't think it did anything more than heighten their worry.
Bilbo stood rooted as the rest of the dwarves went to work, dragging piles of wood and stone to create a makeshift ladder so they could reach their wounded king. Bifur reached one wrist and cut through the ropes. But as an arm fell and they tried to ease his body into leaning forward, Thorin issued a weak, strangled groan, bubbling with coughed-up blood.
It was that sound more than anything else that shook Bilbo out of his paralysis. "Don't move him!" he yelled urgently, running to join the others, their eager hands freezing when he spoke. "There!" he pointed at Thorin's side, at his back, and for a second, he thought he might heave up his meager dinner. "He is impaled, two spikes-"
"We see them," Bofur interrupted, his heavy brows drawn in concentration. "Nori, untie his other hand, we have to pull him straight forward."
It couldn't have been more than five, maybe ten minutes, but it felt like a lifetime to Bilbo's shattered nerves. The atmosphere was fraught with tension so thick, he thought he could slice through it. Every errant nudge to Thorin's body brought up a cough or spittle of blood from his mouth. Sounds of swords clashing and screaming in the language of the Black Tongue rang in the distance, and Kili's frantic efforts to get past Dwalin was just adding voice to Bilbo's pounding heart.
We have to move! he wanted to yell. But Thorin's broken body looked far too frail to carry. The dwarves were swift, however, patching up what they could of the bleeding with strips of cloth torn from their own clothing. Bilbo divested himself of his brocade vest and made quick work of it with Sting, the fine silk strips handed over to Balin and Bofur. He also gathered what he could salvage from what was removed of Thorin's own garments, lying littered on the blood-stained floor, though he could see little that could still be of use. He snatched up the hair clasp first, then spotted the fur-lined coat torn in the middle at the wooden beams' feet and gathered that up as well.
Two cloaks were used to provide what little decency they could. Balin carefully lifted him in his arms, the jerky movements eliciting another strangled sound from the wounded dwarf. "We move," Dori said to the others, breathless, and soon they were heading back down the passage from which they entered.
It had been four days since they rescued their king from the underground goblin cave, and Bilbo was itching to set scissors to that uneven hair.
He didn't have much experience with hair cutting or styling, not like Caroline did back in the Shire (what wonders she could work with those hands!), but he'd done enough on his own hair before, and on some of his friends when he was younger. There was just something indecent about the way Thorin's uneven hair swayed, with the majority of it far shorter than the rest. Remnants of his old, thick mane reached as far as the middle of his back, while the shortest strands merely came up to his chin.
Thorin's health was, of course, quite paramount. The dwarf's initial recovery consisted of a fretful overnight watch, with constant re-bandaging of blackened, poisoned wounds and the careful application of Oin's herbs. By morning, Thorin still wasn't conscious, but he was breathing more easily. By afternoon, he could speak in hushed tones, flitting in and out of awareness, though he made little sense and seemed beset with terrible waking dreams.
No one spoke of how hard the nephews were taking things, though Bilbo was certain that everyone was aware of it. They fooled no one whenever they volunteered to fetch more water, and the brothers would come back a little later than they should, with Kili's eyes red and Fili's frown carved deep into his youthful face.
The second and third days fared much better, with Thorin lucid and grumbling. There was much wary relief, as Thorin's wounds were still quite grave, and the poison in his blood still not quite removed. Oin saw fit to set to rights any broken bones Thorin had that day, and Bilbo was happy enough to spend all afternoon scouting with the lads and away from the painful screams those elicited.
Today, the fourth day, seemed to hum with a new sort of tension. Thorin still wasn't well enough to travel, but there was an air of impatience to everything he did, and when he wasn't waving away the other dwarves' efforts to fuss over him, his gaze would wander toward the distance. All that was apparent was a line of trees, but beyond that, Bilbo was certain, the king's blue gaze was unerringly fixed in the direction of the Lonely Mountain.
It was perhaps this impatience that set Bilbo's teeth on edge, and caused an ache in his hands for something to do. Thorin was able to sit up for an hour or so at a time, usually with Dwalin's strong frame supporting him from behind, and his untended, messy hair just kept entering Bilbo's line of sight.
"Move over!" he muttered, causing a raised eyebrow from Dwalin, though the large dwarf obligingly scooted to the left. Thorin was giving him a wary glance. "You lot might be content to look like hooligans what got run over by a chicken cart-"
"Bilbo," Thorin interrupted with a note of warning.
"Well, I've a pair of hands and a bit of experience, so this I can do." He gave Thorin a challenging glare, and though the dwarf didn't seem particularly impressed by it, he eventually shrugged one shoulder and settled back more comfortably against Dwalin.
"Get on with it, then."
"Right," Bilbo said, unable to keep the beaming smile off his face. "Anyone have scissors? No? Oh, well, thank you." He smiled gratefully at Bofur, who'd thrown a fine-toothed comb at him from across the fire. Bilbo actually had his own, but the one Bofur gave looked far better.
"I don't know about you dwarves," Bilbo muttered, quietly and carefully. Thorin was extremely tense while he worked on combing out the worst of the tangles. "But you look extremely handsome without all that hair, by hobbit standards." And Bilbo didn't think that was unkind to say, or improper, even in hobbit society. He could see more of Thorin's mouth like this, curved, smooth, and lovely. A shame to cover it up with all that hair. He'd had enough of that strong nose, thank you very much, turned up at him as often as it was. And he could see an interesting curve to that jaw, even with the haphazard shaving he'd have to clean up and the ugly scar stretched across on it.
Overall, very handsome, he happily thought, while Sting slid like butter through the errant, long strands clasped in his fingers.
Thorin first breathed out a soft sigh, then let out a chuckle. "You are kind to say so, Master Hobbit," he said, and Bilbo frowned a bit at the self-deprecating note he sensed. He felt more than saw Thorin raise a hand to feel across his cut cheek. "I've not been this bare-faced since I was younger than Kili."
"'Younger than'?" Dwalin said with a snicker. He did a poor job of stomping his laughter after Thorin elbowed his arm and told him to "shut it."
Bofur, who was at a safer distance from Thorin's ire, piped up from across camp, "I'd say you were closer to Fili's years when we started seeing some fuzz on your chin."
"Is that true, Uncle?" Kili asked, with far more enthusiasm than what was proper. Bilbo smiled. It was a relief to see the brothers in higher spirits again.
"They exaggerate," was all Thorin muttered, huffing a little as the older ones laughed at his expense.
"No, no. Leave that bit, laddie," Balin was saying, and Bilbo hadn't immediately noticed that it was directed at him, but Dwalin was already shoving his hands away and settling himself closer on Thorin's other side. Carefully (and much more gently than Bilbo thought possible, given the dwarf's large, callused hands), he gathered the last clump of long strands in one palm and smoothed them out three times, before dividing them and wrapping them into each other in a neat, tight braid.
Bilbo sheathed Sting and contentedly sat back on his own elbows to watch, emulating Thorin's pose. Thorin gave him a brief glance over his shoulder, his expression unreadable, but a sharp tug on his hair from Dwalin had him returning his gaze to the fire.
Yes, Bilbo thought, while he watched firelight dance across the newly cut hair, and the lone braid being clipped with the familiar clasp Bilbo had picked up earlier, quite handsome indeed.
By morning of the fifth day, Thorin was practically vibrating with impatience. Bilbo wasn't sure, but the haircut and the clean shave he'd been given the previous night seemed to improve his resolve, if not his health. He overrode Balin's suggestion to stay at least one more day to let the ugly gashes at his side close up properly.
"We move now, or we may as well turn back and abandon this quest!" Thorin griped, and that was that. Bilbo wasn't even sure if they'd get very far without Thorin collapsing on them. The stubborn dwarf had enlisted Dwalin's help to keep him upright and moving at a steady pace, at the cost of his own recovery. Twice, bandaged wounds had reopened, and they'd had to stop for a few minutes to re-apply some poultice.
It was fortunate, therefore, that fate chose that moment for their errant wizard to return. Gandalf's arrival was like a huge collective sigh of relief, except maybe for the one person who needed it most. The wizard's "What in all of Middle Earth happened to you?!" was gruffly met with Thorin's "Orcs. You're late, we must make haste." Gandalf puttered around where Thorin was leaning heavily onto Dwalin, taking visible stock of the wounded king's condition. At length, he said, "Well, that won't do. Off, off with all those layers, we must heal what we can," and the two quickly devolved into a heated argument from there.
If Thorin thinks anyone will side with him over Gandalf right now, he's in for a nasty surprise, Bilbo thought, not a little smugly, as he took in how Dwalin was pointedly ignoring Thorin's protestations and listening intently to what Gandalf was saying.
Apparently, Balin was also thinking along the same lines. He turned his back on the shouting pair and urged the others to move away. "Some privacy, lads. Thorin won't appreciate an audience when they've finished arguing. Oin, you might wish to join them." He had to repeat the last sentence after Oin had fished out his hearing horn. The old dwarf nodded in reply and strolled off to join Gandalf, his trusty bag of potions and herbs slung over one shoulder.
"When Gandalf's talked him down, you mean," Fili countered with good nature.
Bofur laughed. "Give your uncle some credit. He's won a few of those arguments."
"Very few," Ori helpfully remarked. Most of them winced at Thorin's angry, emphatic yell of "We're losing precious time!" from the distance. Bilbo couldn't quite stifle a small laugh when he faintly heard Gandalf's calm reply, "There now, you've lost your breath and can't breathe. Are you quite satisfied? Oin, keep this cloth wet, will you..."
"That was a good thing you did, lad," Balin said to him in private, after they'd all settled down to wait out whatever healing magic it was Gandalf was doing. "None of us were really sure how to broach the subject. I'm quite certain Thorin wouldn't have let any of us dwarves tend to his hair quite like that."
"Like - like what? Why'd he let me, then?" Bilbo asked curiously, remembering the way that strong neck swallowed nervously last night, and how a blue, hooded gaze fixed unmoving on his face while he passed Sting carefully across cuts and bruises to crop off the rest of that shorn beard.
"Well, that's a good question, isn't it?" Balin smiled and patted his arm. "Just know that we're grateful and leave it at that. Maybe Thorin himself will tell you another day."
Bilbo reluctantly nodded, unhappy and dissatisfied with the reply. Still, he remembered how tired Thorin had seemed when he'd finished with the shave, and how he and Dwalin had touched foreheads soon after. He'd felt almost like he was intruding in some private, emotional moment.
Odd sort, these dwarves, he thought, and not for the first time since leaving Bag End. And Gandalf calls me sentimental. He huffed a brief laugh to himself, while his fingers idly played with the small lock of black and grey hair he kept in his pocket.
\\\End/