Not sure if there's much to say about this chapter. It's a lot of feels combined with something concrete coming from Fili, which is always nice, right?

I suppose if there's much to be said at all, it's that the chapter is shorter than normal.

Ps. Looking back at the beginning of this story, I couldn't help but notice that the chapters used to all be shorter and somewhere along the way, 6k chapters became the normal instead of 3k or 4k.

Summary: Fili and Bilbo share a moment courtesy of Kili

Fili and I were very much alike when it came to the pleasures of life, both of us not wanting to get up after I first stopped us.

We both sat content on the floor, our clothes only just righted and tied back into place, but aside from that, we both were awash in indolence and seemed to be proud of it. As a hobbit, this sense of laziness was nothing that I wasn't accustomed to but for Fili to bask in it when not sleepy, well, that was saying something.

I breathed deeply from my place between his legs, his solid chest at my back providing a soothing rhythm as he allowed his hands to wander along my arms. For how quickly the events of the day had seemed to rile him up, Fili calmed quickly after we had lain together. He seemed much more at peace now, his hands loosely holding me, no longer needing to cling desperately.

I supposed all Fili needed was a chance to talk to me about the issues on his mind but what with us being surrounded by the company and Thorin and Kili, he felt as if he couldn't.

As my fingers idly stroked along the back of his hand, I felt I understood his reasoning to want to find a place for ourselves where the two of us could exist and ease the doubts of the other if it were needed.

"Do you think Beorn will mind that I ravaged you in his bathroom?"

His voice tickled pleasantly along the skin of my bottom and I laughed both from the sensation and his words, both of them equally inciting joy. "A hobbit would find it scandalous but I think he will laugh. I think he will find it especially funny considering what I am."

Fili chuckled at the statement, his hand wrapping around my waist as he rested his cheek against the top of my head; I heard him breathe in the scent of my dirty hair and giggled when I felt him smile into the honey colored locks. It was obvious that he could smell how ripe my hair was but he refused to say anything negative about it. I decided to do it for him.

"My hair alone could rival a sweaty dwarf any day."

Once again, Fili chuckled at the idea and smoothed his fingers over the soft tresses, "Perhaps, but soon enough Erebor will be ours and baths will be aplenty for you."

The thought of the Lonely Mountain came fresh to my mind, always in the background but never one to make itself more well known unless someone around me was directly talking about it. Erebor still seemed like such a long ways off and yet, from what Gandalf told us, we would only need to get through Mirkwood before the mountain was nearly upon us. Closer and closer the day would come when we would have to face up against Smaug.

Well, in all actuality, it was actually the day that I would need to try my burglar skills that I didn't really think I had to steal treasure from a mountain guarded over by a dragon. I wasn't exactly sure where the dwarves fit into that picture since I was specifically hired for that task.

However, if all went well and we managed to somehow take back the dwarves' home, then what was beyond that? I thought back to my night with Thorin and how he suggested that I give some thought to staying in Erebor once it was reclaimed.

Life outside the Shire seemed like a crazy notion, a distant thought that I could barely even conceive. There had always been a Baggins at Bag End and if I left...? What would become of the hobbit hole that my father specifically made for my Mum?

I thought of my cousin Drogo, who was happily married... Perhaps if I could give it to him then I would actually think of leaving? My thoughts raced with the expectation of plannings but I couldn't really dwell on them. I couldn't leave the Shire and no matter what was going on right now in this relationship between the four of us, there was still so much uncharted territory. So much that still needed to be explicitly said.

Yet, as serious as Thorin was, he had so calmly and simply offered such a suggestion to me...

"What will you do when Erebor is reclaimed?"

I asked Fili, wanting to know what his future thoughts were in regards to us and just what he was looking for in general; I felt like I had a vague idea with Thorin from his suggestion and what he hinted at in regards to Motherhood but Fili... for all his talk of love, I hadn't heard much of anything substantial.

"I don't know. Probably become a smithy again for a while." Fili casually replied,a smile on his face, a humor in his tone that I felt on my skin. Without wanting to, I remembered Kili's story from earlier. "I enjoyed it. Did you know that I was once a smithy?"

His tone was light because he didn't know anything about what Kili told me from earlier, thinking that this was the first time I had ever heard of his skills as a smithy. He lifted my hand in his and threaded my fingers between his own, a peaceful smile on his face while he squeezed my finger, "I could have made for you anything though I loved making rings."

"I did actually know about you being a smithy." I grinned at him, rubbing my cheek against his playfully, "Kili told me."

His eyes hardened only for a moment, a quick flicker of emotion that whispered in the blue of his eyes that I was sure that if i had blinked, I would have missed it.

"Oh? What did he say?"

His hand remained steady around my own, his gaze just as loving though not as open as before. I was saddened by the fact that something in his past with Kili made him close up to me emotionally, so different from how it was whenever Fili and I talked of ourselves or even Thorin. I wanted Kili to open up about his feelings in general but with Fili, I wanted him to open up about the relationship between he and his brother.

I felt that when it came to them as a pair, there was something he felt he needed to hide from me, a hidden fact that he thought he needed to keep a secret from everyone else.

"He told me about a time with a girl and how it ended badly..."

I didn't want to mention details because -as rude as it was- I wanted to dig. I wondered if Fili would've been smart enough to see what I was doing or if the love he bore for me would make him careless.

"Did he mention her name?"

I felt it in the way the sensation of his voice crawled along my rear, how it nervously prickled on the edge of anger and anxiety. He did not want to talk about it but he also did not want to shut me out. There was something in the story itself that made Fili upset because his eyes were still warm towards me.

I wanted to dissolve the tension that I felt in Fili's body, the way his hands seemed to struggle to stay gentle and not press for more information; I responded to his question by sighing and scooting up into his chest, the unexpected and abrupt motion making him chuckle and relax.

Still he kept my hand in his, calloused thick fingers tracing along my knuckles, "Are there that many times when it ended badly?"

I joked about it, giggling with a smile on my face, hoping that Fili would loosen up and tell me more; his reaction was exactly as I hoped it to be, smiling wider and kissing the skin of my knuckles with tender care and passion. When my eyes looked upon his face again, his expression was open again and his body relaxed.

"A few," A snort of amusement, "Did he say that this girl in particular became fat?"

My eyes widened because of how quickly he guessed which story Kili told me. It made amend my earlier thought that there had been so many in the past because if there had really been so many in the past, then Fili wouldn't have been so easily able to guess.

Upon seeing my eyes, he grinned at me because of how he managed to guess it so quickly.

"That would've been Thandra then," He began, his eyes trailing back to my knuckles, more at peace telling me while not looking at me from the way his voice became its normal stroke against my bottom, "She wanted me to leave Kili when she found out everything. Obviously I couldn't – didn't." He quickly amended, his eyes rushing for a moment in his own thoughts. He closed them, sighing, "I didn't leave, obviously." He firmly repeated, nodding to himself.

I watched him as his face saddened from whatever his thoughts were before he squeezed my hand lightly, directing a soft smile back on me, "No more of this unpleasant talk..."

From the look on my face, he knew I would not persist in the topic, that fact alone easily making him happy because from the sensation of his tone, I knew that he was already struggling internally from whatever memories the story brought back to the surface. His facial expression softened instantly, wanting desperately to run away from whatever darkness plagued him, happy because I was allowing him that.

"What would you have us talk about then?" I poked at him playfully, earning a soft yelp and a struggle from having poked him where he was ticklish.

"You? Me?" His voice teased as his eyes smiled at me, his happiness again evident because we were talking about something between the two of us and not about something that would happen only between he and his brother.

I returned that smile to him, "The others?"

He laughed because of the look on my face, from how eager I was to include them into any and all conversations.

"So, all of us together and where it goes?" Fili inquired as he tightened his hold around my stomach, bringing me up closer so that he could cuddle with me and smell my hair again.

"Where it would go..." He repeated, trailing off because he wasn't exactly sure where it would go if his voice was any indication; it nervously fluttered along flesh though his face looked sure of himself.

"I'm not sure of everyone's intentions but from how easily you accepted being in Erebor, I imagine that Uncle already broached the topic with you?"

"He sort of did, yes."

Slowly he nodded, his thoughts settling into the new information, "Then I would ask that you accept the offer should he ask you directly."

"What if you ask me before him? Can I accept yours?" My heart fluttered in my chest and I felt the hand that Fili had around my waist come up to rest on my chest. He felt how heavily it beat in my chest, the thumping rhythm visible. Wanting to assuage any worry of mine, Fili brought up my hand, the smooth skin of the back of it rubbing along the coarse hairs of his beard.

"I'm too much of a coward to ask you right now. Unless I'm absolutely sure your answer was yes, I wouldn't ask."

I stared at him, wanting to know his thoughts and understanding of where his words came from. As open as my expression was, I knew that without a doubt that if Fili asked me to move to Erebor, I wouldn't have a definitive answer. I understood and accepted his want to not ask me because it was his way of protecting himself from any sense of doubt that could come over him at any moment.

"But what I wouldn't give for that." My eyes found his and he leaned down to kiss me, "You in Erebor with us forever." I smiled at him, feeling my cheeks flush from how sincere his words were and how intensely his adoration shown to me. Such words though made me feel embarrassed and I pushed his face away so that he would give me a little space.

"Enough of this talk; I'm blushing over here."

Fili allowed the playful push, his hair a mess like my own since he hadn't the real chance to comb it back out and redo the braids since the stream that we bathed in a few days ago. Still, he did not allow me to disregard the words, "You talk of embarrassment but I am speaking the truth to you. When all of us are with you, we are at peace. If Thorin broached the topic of living with us in Erebor, then even he understands that we would have a future with you beyond that of just reclaiming a mountain. We would ask you to stay with us, to love us, to give ourselves over to. To make a home that couldn't be taken away again."

My breath caught in my throat from how powerful his words were, how lovingly they stroked along my bottom and how they made his blue eyes glisten fiercely; he meant every word he spoke and he meant it in regards to the others as well. He knew where they stood even if I wasn't exactly sure of it and what was more, he enjoyed the thought of all of it. All that he spoke, he enjoyed every single word of it.

Thoughts of my night with Thorin came again because of what he professed and where it would have technically made him stand in the culture of the hobbits. While Thorin proposed the idea of making me a mother was something he greatly desired, Fili's mentioning of a future was the same thing worded differently.

"Is that a want?"

I couldn't help but breathe out the words, their traces lingering over my lips as Fili digested my words and -more importantly- their meaning. He understood within the second, his face growing serious because on some level he realized that I was asking something concrete of him. I was asking for something that even I was not sure of.

"I couldn't imagine a better life, being with you for the rest of my days. To have us grow old." The sensation of his voice lingered and possessively kneaded my bottom, his physical hands turning me so that I could straddle his lap and kiss him deeply; already we were becoming heated again, our lips locking and our tongues wanting to taste the other.

When we finally pulled away, he chuckled softly, his voice a soft pat that made me rock into his hips, "What's so funny?"

"I just imagined you with grey hair." His fingers lingered over my waist while his eyes trailed along in my hair. I smirked at him, reaching back to pull on his hair and reveal the tanned expanse of his neck. I watched as his pupils dilated and smirked when he started to harden underneath me again. Perhaps there was something to be said about how a normally rather alpha dwarf preferred a certain amount of roughness?

It gave me thoughts.

"Me with grey hair? I think you would look much more handsome."

"I'll have to wait a long while for that. Though," The sensation of his voice cupped at me underneath my skirts, sinking to dip low and linger enough to issue a groan from me. At the same time, his hand reached around to pull me closer, needing to feel more of me than he already did, "Would I have to wait long for a child? Our women sometimes do not have children for many years after marriage."

I stopped just as I was about to kiss him again, surprised by his statement enough for it to stall me. My expression was something that I couldn't understand as I looked at him, my eyes searching his for the correct words to voice what thoughts I actually didn't even have. His own eyes sought mine as desperately, wanting to make sure that we were both on the same page, knowing that we were and sure that he was only giving voice to thoughts we both mulled over in our whims.

I licked my lips, his eyes glancing down to follow it before his eyes found mine again, "Is that a want?" I repeated my words from earlier...

Our gazes held each other, my hands nearly trembling as they gripped the fabric of his jacket. Fili's face was nothing but seriousness, his brows furrowed unconsciously and his jaw tightened.

"Want is not enough of a word for that."

The touch of his voice nearly gripped from how much he needed and he surged forward to capture my lips again, his hands going for my vest and unbuttoning it so that he could start to strip me.

A thump on the door interrupted us, freezing both of us right in the middle of what we were about to do again, "Fili? Bilbo? You two in there?"

I sighed in relief at the sound of Kili's voice, laughing when I felt Fili relax as well and indicate that he wanted me to move so that he could at least move off to the side. I hurried to clear the way for him, getting up and away from the door so that Kili could come in.

"You two finished in here?"

There was a teasing gesture to his voice that I was happy to hear, a soft pinching as Kili came into the room and closed the door. I kind of figured that he needed to tell us something but I watched as he just sat down on the other side of the door where Fili and I just recently vacated. Kili looked to be in a much better mood than he was already, a contentment in his posture as he glanced at Fili and patted the spot next to him. Fili was eager to comply with the silent request, relaxing into his brother's shoulder with a worry free expression his face. At the same time as Fili did all that, I was delighted when I noticed that Kili opened his arms to ask me to come and be close to him as well.

I found it amusing and interesting that when Kili wanted love and reached out for it, Fili and I almost jumped at the chance to provide it for him. I went to him, feeling his fingers wrap around my wrist gently before he pulled me down into his lap, enveloping me in a tight embrace that he sighed into.

"Everything get worked out?"

Kili's voice was soft and curious, not at all his light joking tone. I wanted to know if he were talking to me but when I looked up, I saw that he was looking at his brother, the elder meeting his eyes coolly before pulling his brother into a soft kiss.

"Yep, everything worked out. I was a dumbass and you were right." Fili's voice was an easy stroke along my bottom, his sincerity obvious in the tone of his voice and from the look he directed at his brother. His fingers wrapped along the back of Kili's neck, pulling him closer so that they could rest their foreheads together. "I really appreciate it. I don't tell you that enough sometimes."

Kili squeezed his arms around me, bundling me closer as if I were suddenly precious to him, "It's alright. I don't often get the chance to fix things like this."

All three of us sat there together in a quiet silence until Kili suddenly piped up, "Oh! Which reminds me; Uncle wanted me to tell you that Gandalf came back, Bilbo." His voice pinched along my bottom and I squirmed in his lap, startling when his hand patted along the curve of my butt, "Nope! None of that right now. Dwalin was also looking for you too. He's really determined to make sure that you get to real swords today!"

With his message delivered and his official business concluded, Kili didn't exactly feel the need to hop to and head out to where the other dwarves were. In fact, despite how much the younger brother impressed to Fili and I that we should have hurried out to greet Gandalf and finally not avoid Dwalin anymore, none of us really seemed that inclined to pull away from one another.

It had been so long since the three of us were content like this, seeking to enjoy our place there in Beorn's bathroom.