Chapter Text
Nori loved his brothers. Anyone that dared imply different would get a knife positioned in a rather tender place. Just because Nori wasn't a traditional sort of dwarf did not mean he didn't hold family above everything else. He protected them in his own way, and while they weren't the richest dwarves in the blue mountains, they never lacked for anything, and were about the only dwarves who had not been harassed by thieves and ruffians on the roads and in the towns they would sometimes travel to.
But he was never home much, and for very good reason. Dori was a fusspot, and Nori had put up with his brothers constant harassing ways for the entirety of his youth, put up with the lectures and the hair straightening and lindt picking and general Dori-iness for what he considered to be much to long. He had never been so glad that his mother had had another child and Dori turned his attentions to him. Though Nori sometimes felt a little guilty for leaving his little brother in Doris tender hands.
Not that Dori was a bad brother, he most definitely was not, in fact he might be classed as one of the best brothers in the whole of dwarf society... or sisters. That thought often made Nori snicker before the reality of Dori's situation would smack him upside the head like one of Dori's swats about his behaviour.
Dori's inclinations were perfectly clear for anyone who was looking. Their mother was traditional enough in some things (though monogamy was not one of those things), that when she had found out about Dori's preferences she had begun to merrily teach him everything he needed to know about looking after a husband. Nori had been waved off as a typical Dwarrow, and had never learned to cook or sew or clean. Dori had taken too it like a duck to water.
But in the absence of that husband Nori knew Dori secretly longed for, Dori had turned his nurturing ways on his brothers, and over the years ratcheted nurturing right up to fussing and never stopped.
But all that was going to change, because if it didn't Nori might just actually slap his brother if those twitching fingers made a move towards his crooked collar. And Nori knew just how.
He'd been eyeing e rest of the group idly, picking them apart as potential marks, though he had no intention of stealing from any of them... well, nothing of value at any rate., when he'd noticed Balin and Dwalin. The latter was sitting, arms crossed and was glowering at nothing, while the former was constantly leaning in to mutter something and give him a jab in the ribs. Nori nearly winched in sympathy, he'd had more than enough jabs to his side from his brother over the years and mutters over the correct way to conduct oneself at a dinner table.
But then he noticed Balins eyes flicked to Dori occasionally and the little jabs of harassment took on a whole new meaning and Nori's full attention shifted to Dwalin, and he could see the faint trace of a blush on his face, and Nori felt a grin split his face.
"What are you grinning at?" Dori asked him in a wary whisper.
Nori just widened his grin. "Nothing at all dearest brother. Nothing at all." he said and made his plans to approach Balin later that night for some discussion. After all, he would need to suss out this potential husband first. It wouldn't do for it not to work out.
He and Ori needed a break from their brother too badly for it to fall apart.