Born on a Blue day is a book written by Daniel Tammet, and one I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

Behind Blue Eyes

XXI: Born on a Blue day

"You're a volcano," she whispers into Dwalin's ear one memorable evening, when they are curled together in the large bed that Thorin had brought into the chamber they chose for their bedroom, connected to the large room that has come to be the centre of their Company's living quarters – the place where they all meet after a hard day's work. The time on the road bound them together irreversibly, made them a family instead of distant kin and dwarrows (as well as a hobbit, of course) desperate enough to march against a dragon wildly cobbled together, and neither of them could imagine parting ways just like that.

Dwalin's large hand rests on her swollen belly, a few months along as she is, his fingers splayed out and so very warm through the thin, simple tunic Dori made for her. (She tried to insist that she was perfectly capable of sewing her own clothes, too, but the gentle dwarrow insisted that not only would he enjoy being allowed to take up his craft once more, but also that two certain dwarrows would most definitely enjoy seeing her in dwarven clothing. She had not hesitated long to give in after that.) His face is, once more, hidden in the crook of her neck, rough beard scraping against the soft skin there, and she has tried her very best to wrap her short arms around his broad frame.

"Not that I've ever seen one, mind you, but I've seen pictures, of course, and read descriptions, and it's the only word to describe what I feel when I sense your emotions."

"A volcano?" he asks, voice rough, and presses his face closer still.

The molten heat is in indescribable turmoil, sloshing and swashing and spraying, and Bilbo is almost tempted to reach out and try to calm it, take the shock and disgust and pain from it and bring her love peace. And yet, she knows, there is little she can do now but hold him, and show him that he is, at the very least, not alone.

"You're molten heat," she quietly explains, and raises one hand from his strong shoulder to lay onto his instead. "You always warm me, inside and out. When I… when I cut myself off, in Mirkwood and later during the battle, I thought that I'd never be warm again – until you held me, and the heat of your love seeped back into my heart." A few months ago, at the beginning of their Journey, she would have called anyone a fool who chose such sweet words when talking to a dwarrow, for surely they would just laugh and have no appreciation for the meaning behind them, but now? Now she knows that dwarrows love as intensely and deeply as anyone, and that their beloved's words would always matter to them above all else, sweet or not. "When… when you thought you'd lost me – it was like an explosion frozen mid-motion, and the pain clinging to every trickle and sliver… was unbearable."

She has been waiting for an opportunity to tell them what their emotions are, to her, so that she might explain what even such simple acts as being kissed by them mean, and now is the best time, desperate as they are for distraction and oblivion, after the events of the past day. And perhaps it is cruel of her, to remind him of their painful past, but what happened that fateful day at the Gate will always be a part of their lives, and Bilbo has long made her peace with it.

She does, after all, know exactly what they feel for her, and how much they really regret what happened.

"When you kiss me… there's heat everywhere. In me, around me, in every place we touch but also in every place we don't. When you pull me against you, and feel my body ever so close to yours, there's a deep well of want, and when our tongues touch arousal bubbles up to the surface, and the heat grows. And when we… lie like this, with your hand on my belly, there's this hot steam of happiness reaching every nook and cranny the magma might not have touched."

She can feel the pain and desperation subside a little upon this remainder of what they will have, instead of what was lost, and in the doorway the deep, churned up waters calm a little.

"And I? what do I feel like to you?" Thorin asks, voice rough and a terrible tension to the lines in his face, and drops his great fur coat – the one he wore during their Quest, and still does now instead of the thrice-cursed raven crown to obviously outline his position – without care nor caution. He toes off his boots, then, already on his way over to the large and so wonderfully soft bed, and when the heavy door to their chamber snaps shut he is crawling up to where the two of them are wrapped around each other.

"You're like the sea," Bilbo says, and shifts a little so that she can wrap her free arm around Thorin. (Their large hands, as they mostly do these days, meet on her belly, and the entwining of their blunt fingers tells her more than even their muddy emotions how trying and terrible this day really was.) "It's never still, always moving and ever so deep and terrifying, but… well. I'm a hobbit, and we hate large bodies of water, yet I've found safety in yours. After the battle, when I'd clawed my way in, there was a huge maelstrom, reaching as far as any eye might see, that was frozen in agony. And when you kiss me… it's taking a leap of faith, and jumping into unknown depths, and being surrounded by you on all sides. It's being submerged, and never wanting to come up for air again."

Silence settles onto their chamber deep within the mountain, until Thorin hums lowly.

"I like that," he quietly acknowledges, blunt fingers gently massaging his husband's. "I might've preferred being a mountain, of course, but-"

"-but a mountain is rigid, and immobile," Bilbo interrupts him, breathing a kiss against his forehead. "You might believe it more dwarvish, or something equally ridiculous, but a mountain would've never fit you. You feel too intensely, too deeply, too passionately to be portrayed by something so stiff."

He hums again, and no words follow this time, but she knows that he has understood and accepted her explanation, a little of the indescribable pain clinging to the whipped-up waves seeping away.

Bilbo… the teams working through the collapsed tunnels and walkways exposed the area where most of the women and children would spend their days. Apparently the two headings leading up to it collapsed when Smaug came… I'm sure you can imagine what our people found. Don't worry, none of us want to see you anywhere near there, I just – well, Balin insisted I come and warn you, since there was little I could still do down there. Thorin and Dwalin, however, will be caught up for quite some time there, and might not be in the best of moods once they retire. Just so you know.

Óin's words had been kind, and the elderly healer had spent the following few hours with her while all other of their Companions (except for Bombur, who was working in the kitchens, and Ori, whom both Balin and his brothers had wanted to spare the pain) had helped carry out the countless bodies of what would have been the greatest treasure of their people, and finally give them proper burials.

Dwalin had been the first to return, a few hours after what would have been time for their joint dinner any other day, and sent Óin to take care of all those who had helped, staying with her in his stead. They had quickly migrated to the bed, then, and Bilbo had done her very best to try and give him what comfort she could.

(She is still trying.)

"Did you… finish it?" she asks cautiously, and Thorin nods against her neck.

Well… perhaps a distraction is in order. There is little than can be done now for all those women and dwarflings who perished in these rooms, now that they have been buried properly, and Bilbo dearly needs to wake her two dwarrows from this painful stupor before they lose themselves in it.

"I do have to admit I'm surprised," she takes up the thread of their previous conversation, forcing her voice to be light and gently teasing, "that neither of you have asked yet."

"Asked what?" Dwalin inquires after a few moments of bland silence, and a tentative smile slips onto her lips.

"What it felt like."

"What?" Dwalin is, once more, the one to ask – even though he must have an inkling what he is speaking of, if the slowly growing heat is any indication.

"When we shared a bed… in Laketown."

That addition was, perhaps, unnecessary, but Bilbo wants to be more than clear what she is on about. It has, after all, been months since they last lay with each other, that night they made their vows… granted, after the Battle she was too injured to secure their physical bond once more, but her wounds healed well and without any complications, naught but a few scars remaining of them (even though the terrible flash of pain that hits Dwalin whenever he sees those covering her neck, or the one that torments Thorin when his deeply blue eyes fall onto her ear has barely lessened with time). They are terribly worried about any possible complications considering their child, Bilbo knows, but – unfortunately – she also knows what Hamfast and Bell were up to more than a few months into the younger hobbit's pregnancy, and she is not made of glass.

(Besides, she can tell that they want to, even though they never say-)

"Well, what did it feel like?" Dwalin, once more, asks, voice suddenly throaty for a different reason, and Bilbo smiles in satisfaction when his large hand twitches to cover her ample breasts instead of her slowly growing belly.

"Why don't you make me feel like that again, and I tell you as we go along?" she suggests, a little breathless already, and a deep growl resonates in Thorin's chest.

(From the heat rising in both of them, she can tell that either is quite happy to play along.)

Well... looks like we're finally getting to the end of this fic.
Only one more chapter after this...