"Have a good shift," Bilba had said, craning up to claim a brief, soft kiss as they said their goodbyes at his front door. Thorin had returned the kiss, one broad hand cupping the back of her head as he bent to her, and Bilba's bones had felt jellied with relief.
"Thanks," he had murmured, pulling back just enough to keep his nose brushing her cheek. "Now, stop fretting. We're all right, yeah?"
That assurance had settled in her belly, heavy and pulsing warm as she'd trotted down the pavement away from Thorin's flat and towards the nearest Tube station. They were all right. Things had gone... better than they might have done.
She was all the way home again, already planning the rest of her Sunday to consist of little more than curling up with a book and a cup of tea, when she finally remembered her mobile. It had migrated from her pocket to her purse before she'd left Thorin's flat, and she hadn't yet thought to read the message she'd gotten when she was in the midst of confessing her mistake.
The text, when she checked it, was a actually a photo message— Bofur's face stared up at her from the screen of her phone, with his hair a tragic flyaway mess and what looked like a pillow and part of Nori's bare, tattooed shoulder behind his head. Besides being obviously still in bed when he'd answered her, he was also wearing the most dramatic, unconvincing look of shock she had ever seen in her life.
The photo was captioned: you don't say.
"Oh, you arse," Bilba said aloud, shaking her head at the phone, but she was laughing.
There were heavy footsteps across the station's concrete floor, then the rattle of metal against metal, and Thorin glanced over to where Dwalin was just arriving. After a mutual nod and grunt of greeting, he turned back to continue stowing his own gear in his locker.
It was the start of their first night shift of two, and Thorin had said goodbye to Bilba hours ago, first at his door, then again, silently, as he watched her trot off down the street from his flat window. He was still feeling somewhat out of sorts about the secret she'd thought she'd been keeping, but he couldn't get the sight of her wide, watery blue eyes out of his mind. She'd looked devastated, heartbroken that she'd hurt him, and apparently he was helpless in the face of that genuine, tearful apology.
Or, more likely, he was helpless in the face of Bilba Baggins, and the affection that swelled up in his chest at the very thought of her.
Damn it.
She'd promised they'd be truthful from here out. That was good enough.
"Well thank fuck for that." Thorin looked to where Dwalin stood, bare-chested, just doing up the flies of his station uniform trousers.
"Thank fuck for what," Thorin said, desert dry, knowing full well he was going to regret asking.
Leaving his shirt hanging on its peg for the moment, Dwalin closed the few steps between them and leaned against the row of lockers just beside Thorin, crossing his thick, tattooed arms.
"Thank fuck," he said, in a perfectly conversational way, low enough that the blokes from Green Watch, just getting off for the night, might not hear most of it from farther down the row. "You're looking like you've got a bur up your arse. One more shift of suffering through that shit-eating grin you think you're hiding, and I couldn't be held responsible for my actions. Meeting the lass's mates didn't go so smooth, I take it."
"One more word of this conversation—" Already dressed in his own uniform, Thorin shut his locker door with somewhat more force than strictly necessary. "And I won't be responsible for my actions."
"Bit of a row's good for the blood, now and then," Dwalin said with a shrug, as though Thorin hadn't uttered a word. Green Watch was clearing out, thankfully, leaving him and Dwalin alone, offering a few friendly waves as they went. "Though I'd take a pub fight over a domestic, every time. Punch up with some lippy prick who's had too many pints is better than a cold shoulder and a cold sofa, eh?" He continued to talk even as Thorin turned and stalked out of the locker room.
"Fair do's to her mates, you're an arsehole on first meeting," he called out, before Thorin disappeared through the door. "But you get better. I'd give it some time!"
"Who's an arsehole?" Fili asked, stepping deftly out of Thorin's way; the lad was still in his civvies, jeans and an oxblood red jacket, and no doubt headed to his own locker.
"Dwalin," Thorin replied, then paused his exit just long enough to lean back into the room, pointing meaningfully at the arsehole in question. "And you, piss off and mind your business."
He trusted that as much as Dwalin might take the piss out of him when they were chatting in relative privacy, the man wouldn't likely go blabbing to Fili. Still, saying it plain felt good.
"Oh aye, sir." Dwalin saluted loosely, obviously still profoundly amused by the whole thing, and Thorin flipped him off before beating a strategic retreat.
"No, nope, I'm not even going to ask," he heard Fili say. And with any luck at all, it was the truth.
One thing she hadn't kept secret from Thorin, even when she'd been hazy at best about the exact details of her job, was her upcoming trip across the Pond.
A week in New York, next week to be exact, and in the meantime there was a staggering amount of things to do before boarding the plane on Saturday. A Lingerie Fashion Week was an exciting new idea— not a show exclusively for buyers and industry folk, as usually happened, but for media and the public as well. Exciting, and past due, but it was certainly not without its workload.
Preparations were in full swing already, of course, but Bilba had never been officially consulted on paperwork and such things before Gandalf had had her name stencilled on an office door just beside his own: Bilba Baggins, Assistant Director. She'd had her opinions before, of course, and the vast majority of people in the Istari Building had long ago stopped batting a single eyelash at her presence at meetings, dragged here and there by Gandalf. But this was different. This was formalized, signed off by Saruman himself, and Bilba could already feel her stomach fluttering with nerves at the thought of mucking it all up.
And beyond those new responsibilities, there was still the matter of the show itself, and her modelling in it. That, at least, was old hat for her, though not without its own anxieties.
All of this amounted to a hellishly frantic few days, during which she hardly left the Istari Building to do more than sleep, with her mornings spent down on the Second Floor being sewn into various elaborate knickers in Bifur's workrooms, perfecting the fit, and her afternoons devoted to paperwork, and following Gandalf around hither and yon like a lost lamb. It was exhausting, but also oddly thrilling, and Gandalf had just the worst sort of twinkle in his eye every time she caught him looking at her. It was at twinkle of isn't this all wonderful fun, and nothing to worry about at all.
It was a twinkle that had caused no end of trouble for her, in the past.
Thorin's schedule meant he was sleeping Monday, and catching up on sleep most of Tuesday as well, which meant their conversation was largely limited to infrequent texts. By Wednesday, Bilba had hardly any notion of what day it even was anymore— she was currently perched on a sturdy step stool, trussed up a bra and knickers of the softest lilac silk, with frothy bits of cream and coral lace, being cinched into a waspie by Bifur's big, gentle hands. The colours were fresh, soft, and evocative of springtime in the countryside; Bilba had little doubt that similar tones in a the hands of another, less skilful designer might have had her looking like an Easter egg, but Bifur was a wonder.
Bifur was behind her, his palms feeling along the boning that now nipped in her waist, squeezing here and there. "Too tight?"
"No, it's fine." Bilba straightened her posture a bit more, taking a deep breath and feeling the fabric shift with her. "Perfectly fine. Not biting at all."
Bifur hummed a wordless affirmative, sounding pleased, and padded over to one of his worktables. He had an impossible array of notebooks, fabrics, tools, and bits of unfinished projects, seemingly scattered everywhere, but he was able to grab a biro and begin scribbling down notes without searching for a thing. There was some sort of order to this chaos, though Bilba couldn't suss it.
"Perfect, indeed." The sound of an unexpected voice— familiar, sonorous, and not entirely welcome— nearly made Bilba shriek, though she managed to swallow it back to a subtle gasp. Smaug seemed to melt out of the background, appearing as if from thin air, though in reality he'd simply been lurking, unmoving and unnoticed, by the workroom door. The door which had been shut behind her when she'd come down for fittings, and which was still closed now.
He sauntered forward, affecting that liquid roll of muscle and lean lines he so favoured, coming within arm's reach of Bilba. He was dressed in a slim-cut suit of deep charcoal grey, with a bottle green cashmere jumper layered under the jacket, and a sly, curling smile lighting up his face.
"Though you're rather fond of a bit of biting," he murmured, leaning close as if sharing a secret; his voice was a deep rumble, but still probably loud enough for Bifur to hear. Bilba felt heat wash over her cheeks, no doubt flushing pink. "If memory serves."
"You-you're n-not—" Bifur began to say, his stutter mounting with his agitation, only to have Smaug begin speaking over him without sparing a glance his way, waving a careless hand.
"Yes, yes, I'm not due for another few hours, I know." His clear, copper-brown eyes were still trained on Bilba, straying from her face, down the length of her neck and back up again, slow and heavy as a caress. "I just left a meeting with Saruman, and thought, why not see if my dear Bilba would care for some lunch and stimulating company. My treat, and my absolute pleasure, of course."
"Lunch?" It was noon, or close enough, and Bilba had been ignoring the gurgling in her stomach in the interests of getting this fitting over with. Of course, it would choose that precise moment to growl audibly, making Smaug's smile widen with amusement. She called up a polite smile of her own, trying very hard not to shiver under his rapt attention. "Not worried you'll be tired of me by next week?"
It was actually quite a large, impressive feather in the cap of Istari that Gigi's had managed to hire Smaug for the New York trip; unlike Bilba, he was entirely freelance, without a contract tying him to any one company. Saruman would likely have paid a small fortune to procure Smaug's employment for so long a stretch, and especially for such a prominent event.
"I could never tire of you," he said, sounding so utterly earnest that something traitorous and warm curled in the pit of Bilba's empty stomach, entirely without her permission. She swallowed it back, allowing her fingers to brush absently along the lace at her hips.
"We're in the middle of fittings," she tried, glancing over to Bifur, who was frowning thunderously and massaging the side of his jaw. She felt a pang of inappropriate amusement at the thought that though Smaug had interrupted him, quite discourteously, Bifur was still the one with the pins, and it would be Smaug's turn at fittings that afternoon.
"Surely you can afford a break, at some point." Smaug's hands clapped sharply, making Bilba jump and look back to him. He was rubbing his palms together, his smile still firmly in place as he stepped back to a more respectable distance. "I'm certainly willing to wait, Bilba."
There was no reason to refuse, no polite excuse she could cobble together, and the most annoying part of all was the fact that Smaug was, in general, excellent company. A clever conversationalist, well-read and expressive, too charming for anyone's good... unless something flared his temper, of course. Then his mood could shift from gregarious to acidic in the blink of an eye, still sharp as a razor but turned about unpleasantly, deeply cutting rather than captivatingly witty.
They were about to spend an entire week together, possibly living in each others' pockets for the majority of the time, depending on their schedule for professional socializing and networking. Bilba truly wanted to keep things as cordial as possible, and Smaug hadn't done anything worth rebuffing a friendly invitation. The same sort he'd extended, and she'd accepted, several times before.
Nothing to warrant rejection, except sneak into Bifur's workshop while she was getting fitted. Granted, the door hadn't been locked, but it had been closed, and there hadn't been a knock. The unannounced nature of his arrival sat a bit ill, to be honest.
Deeply ingrained manners and consideration for their professional relationship warred briefly with a nagging doubt in the back of Bilba's mind, and the former was about to win out, when a jaunty tapping on the door saved her from answering.
"Knock, knock," Bofur called out, as he slipped inside the room, with a pair of brown paper bags and a tray of takeaway cups in hand. "Hope you're not decent, darlin'— Oh."
When it came to Smaug, Bofur was never strictly impolite (or at least, not without cause, in Bilba's experience), though he was less concerned with maintaining an amiable relationship than Bilba was. Immediately, both men seemed to draw up to their full heights (which, if it was some sort of masculine contest, Smaug won by a few inches), and the easy grin fell from Bofur's face, replaced by a blandly neutral stare.
When she and Smaug had been dating, and things had begun to go south, her close, admittedly flirty friendship with Bofur had become one of the bones of contention. Certain accusations and insinuations had been thrown about on more than one occasion.
Neither man was especially fond of the other, even now, almost seven years since.
"I come bearing soup," Bofur said, lifting the bags and not bothering to greet Smaug. "Lunch for the hard-working souls stuck inside. Chicken and lentil for the lady, beetroot for my dear cousin, and plenty of naan. And tea."
"Bilba has lunch plans," Smaug said, sharper than necessary, and this was a situation that needed to be defused before it was properly lit. Bofur would be with them in New York as well, and Bilba would much rather everyone make it back to England alive and still in one piece at the end of the week, if possible.
"Bilba does, indeed," she said, hopping carefully off the step stool and losing the near half-metre of height it afforded her. "Bifur, may I have a robe please? Smaug, I was going to mention, Bofur is bringing me lunch today, since I've so much work this afternoon and can't pop out. But I do appreciate the offer— could we reschedule?"
There was a cream silk robe being laid over her shoulders, and Bilba slipped her arms into the sleeves, murmuring her thanks to Bifur with a sweet smile back at the man. Bofur had begun clearing a spot on one of the worktables, and the warm, savoury scents wafting from the bags were heavenly.
Bilba pulled the robe closed, turning back to Smaug as she secured the belt in place; there was a gleam in his eyes now, not the annoyed flare that Bofur's arrival had put there, and he was leaning into her space again, towering over her all the more since she'd stepped barefoot onto the floor.
"Of course," he said, and reached down to take her hand in his own, his long, graceful fingers all but swallowing hers. His skin was warm, velvety smooth, and she would have wagered from the precise trim and polish of his nails that he'd recently had a manicure. It was so entirely unlike Thorin's wide, callused hand, with its thick fingers and rough edges. "What about tomorrow? Let me take you out for dinner, wherever you like."
Oh lord, this was not going smoothly at all.
"Tomorrow? Tomorrow's... Thursday, isn't it?" Ignoring the meaningful, exaggerated expressions of agony Bofur was sending her way, just out of Smaug's view, Bilba gave the hand grasping hers a friendly, apologetic squeeze. "Tomorrow is Valentine's."
"Wherever you like," Smaug repeated, dipping his head and favouring her with a small, private smile. It wasn't his polished, public look, but rather a crooked, fond quirk of his full lips. This was a smile Bilba remembered from early days, when Smaug was still Eurig at home, and he would happily spend hours curled around her in his lush, expansive bed, holding her close and rumbling quiet words of treasured and forever into the crook of her neck. "Name the place, anywhere, and don't worry about reservations. I will handle everything."
"Smaug," she said, because he really did prefer the surname now, even if it felt odd and distanced to her. "I'm sorry, but I can't tomorrow." Taking a steadying breath, she dearly hoped she was making the wisest decision as she continued. "I'll be having dinner with my boyfriend."
There was no explosion, no outburst. Just a pause, a slow blink, and then a minute hardening of Smaug's fine features into an impassive, porcelain mask.
"Boyfriend?" Tilting his head, a bit like a bird, Smaug slackened his fingers around her own, but didn't pull back his arm. She was now holding his hand, rather than the other way around. "Oh, I... hadn't heard. You never said."
We hardly ring each other up to chat, do we, she didn't say.
Nor did she say: that's because it's none of your business.
In fact, she didn't have a chance to utter a word before Bofur was speaking up, calling out to them as he stirred a plastic spoon through his own little cup of soup.
"How is Mister Tall, Dark, and Ridiculously Handsome, darlin'? Oh, and if you'd be so kind, please let him know I'd consider it a personal favour if he'd shave before whatever you get up to between now and Saturday. Dealing with beard burn on a live catwalk'll be a right pain in the arse."
Swivelling her head around so fast she felt nearly dizzy, Bilba levelled Bofur with the sourest frown she had at her disposal, and was mildly placated when he visibly withered under the look. Bifur also gave him a smack in the back of the skull— not too terribly hard, but enough to have him sputtering.
"I should be off," Smaug said suddenly, stepping away but keeping their hands loosely entwined. "If you're certain I can't treat you to lunch."
The offer was made much more coolly this time, with the shutters obviously having closed over whatever vulnerability Smaug had been willing to expose to her, and Bilba felt the sting of its loss. It wasn't heartbreaking, but it was sad... and perhaps a slight, guilty relief.
"I'm certain," she said, smiling gently up at him. "But thank you. Another time, really."
Smaug hummed something like an affirmative, then drew his hand back, smoothing it absently over the front of his jumper. "I'll be back this afternoon for my fitting. Be ready at two."
Without waiting for agreement, Smaug swept out of the room in several long strides, letting the door close hard, but not slammed, behind him. There was the lingering scent of cologne, darker and spicier than Smaug's usual choice of Clive Christian, under the hearty smells of lunch being slurped nearby
"That was horridly rude, Bofur," she said, feeling entirely out of sorts now, and not especially charitable towards ill manners. "And I would appreciate it if you didn't trot out my private life as fodder for your vulgar, unkind antics, if you please. I cannot believe I even have to tell you that, for goodness sake."
"Oh, Christ have mercy." Pushing his soup aside, Bofur dropped his head onto his palm, elbow braced on the tabletop. "I was out of line, all right? That prick just gets under my skin, after everything— even the look of him, Jesus."
Bilba didn't say anything, but she did pad quietly to the table, dragging her own soup over to sit across from Bofur's hunched form. Popping the plastic lid from the waxed paper cup, she waited; Bifur was dunking a torn piece of naan into his rich maroon soup, not speaking either. Until finally, after a few lengthy moments of that silence, Bofur let out a deep, irritated groan.
"I'm sorry." He took a deep breath, then exhaled it hard enough to ruffle his moustache. "That wasn't fair to you, and I am sorry, love."
"Thank you." Bilba reached across the table, giving Bofur's forearm a squeeze. "Please, do try to be civil with Smaug? For me? This next week will be ghastly otherwise."
And it would be simpler to replace a make-up artist, in the case of an untenable conflict of personalities, than it would be to replace a well-respected, highly sought model with a known name. Especially given the likely obscene amount of money Saruman would have already signed away to cover Smaug's fee.
If it came down to it, Bilba was confident that Gandalf would kick up a extraordinary fuss rather than lose Bofur for the trip, but that wasn't a battle that needed fighting.
"He's a smug, nasty shite," Bofur said, taking up his spoon again and jabbing at the noodles floating around his soup. "And I've no idea why you even give him the time of day, instead of a boot to the bollocks like he deserves."
"Because," Bilba said, looking to Bifur as well. "Any unpleasantness between Smaug and I was years ago, and I'm not one for carrying around such resentment for no reason at all." When Bofur opened his mouth, the start of an argument taking shape behind his teeth, Bilba held up a quelling hand. "No, listen. We were both younger, and more than a little foolish, and I've chosen to forgive rather than get bogged down by past mistakes. But I've not forgotten anything, and I'm not about to make those mistakes again. All right?"
Bofur's mouth was drawn down in a mutinous scowl, while Bifur looked only slightly less grim. Wonderful.
"He is an arse," Bifur said, enunciating every syllable with great purpose, pausing briefly to lick his lips with a red-stained tongue. "But it's up to y-you."
"Thank you, Bifur." Bilba offered a warm, grateful smile, then raised both eyebrows in Bofur's direction.
"Fine," he said, shrugging hard. "Fine. I'll... behave myself. But only as much as that arsehole keeps himself reined in, mind."
"That's all I ask." Bilba gave Bofur's arm a pat, then tucked enthusiastically in to her lunch.
It was indeed all she could ask, realistically. It was better than a powder keg, at least.
AN: You may recall this Fashion Week thing being mentioned ages ago. Well, we've finally arrived, almost. Head's up for anyone wanting some Thorin & Smaug tension.
As always, I am deeply grateful for all of you reading, and for those who leave reviews and messages. Thank you so much for sticking around and exploring this AU with me so far; I'm excited to see where we go from here, and I hope you are as well.