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Bilbos head hummed pleasantly as he made his way through the corridor of the master of laketowns house. Behind him, the party was still in full swing, the merry voices of dwarves and men mixing with the sound of violins, flutes and lutes. His body felt all warm and fuzzy from the alcohol he had indulged in and he kept one hand on the wall of the corridor to keep from falling. Finally, he was able to reach for the doorknob, twisting it before stumbling out into the bitter cold that permeated laketown. He gasped at the shock he felt from the biting late-autum wind, before laughing giddily as the warmth of the ale started coursing through him again.
He let his gaze wander over the sleeping town. It was actually quite nice, if one ignored the overwhelming smell of fish and the fact that it seemed to be falling apart for lack of upkeep. The houses jutted into the sky, tall and narrow, and inside Bilbo could see cozy orange firelight wich reflected onto the water, glittering like stars as the waves rippled. He raised his head to try and look at the real stars, and found that it had started snowing. It came down ever so quietly, in thick white flakes, like whispers on the wind.
He smiled as he remembered how he and the other fauntlings in the Shire used to try and catch them on their tongues. His mother would always tell him that the biggest flakes were actually spun from sugar, so he'd try and try and when he came home unsuccessful, having only tasted cold, watery snow, she'd tell him the flakes he caught simply were not big enough, and to try again tomorrow. He snickered at the memory of his mother's antics.
Fueled by the happiness of the memory (and quite possibly the alcohol), Bilbo gave into the urge that overwhelmed him and began chasing after the falling snow. The world around him seemed to spin in a flurry of white specks against dark blue night. He skipped and jumped, snatching flakes from the sky and giggling like a loon.
"If you keep that up, you'll end up in the lake again master Baggins."
Suddenly ripped from his reverie, Bilbo whipped his head in the direction where the voice had come from. Next to the door he had stumbled out of was a little wooden bench and on it sat none other than Thorin Oakenshield, wrapped in a red cloak, smoking his pipe. All the warmth he had previously felt in his body seemed to rush to his cheeks.
"U-Uhm... how long have you been there?", he stuttered, feeling very foolish indeed all of a sudden.
Thorin's eyebrows rose high upon his brow, and his eyes twinkled with bemusement.
"I have been here since before you stepped out of that door."
"Ah.", Bilbo responded dumbly.
He fervently wished for the wooden planks to burst under his feet and the lake to swallow him on the spot, if only to save him from this embarrassment.
The planks did him no such favor, of course.
"Join me"
Bilbo looked up from his feet, which he had been staring at intently to avoid Thorin's piercing gaze. The dwarf before him gestured to the empty spot on the bench next to him.
He sighed, resigned to his fate, shuffled over meekly and sat down next to him. He turned his body away from Thorin, only a little, just enough to not seem rude, his posture stiff and awkward. He could still feel his cheeks burning, and so he lowered his gaze and started picking at the hem of his blue coat.
"We used to do that too, when we were little"
"Huh?" Bilbo looked up at Thorin, despite his embarrassment, and found the previous sparkle of bemusement in his eyes replaced with the same look he had given him at the top of the Carrock. Bilbo didn't dare call it fondness, for even the thought of it made his heart skip and stumble in his chest and his breath catch in his lungs.
"When we were but pebbles, Dwalin, my little brother Frerin, my even littler sister Dìs and I used to go out onto the terraces of Erebor to see who could catch the biggest snowflakes."
"...pebbles?"
"It is what we dwarves call our little ones."
An image appeared in Bilbo's mind, of four little dwarves running across snow-covered ground, bundled in their coats, cheeks red from cold, their noses stretched into the sky trying to reach the biggest flake first.
The thought made him chuckle.
"You find it funny that we call our little ones so?", Thorin questioned, though there was no heat behind his words.
"No, I think it rather sweet", Bilbo assured him, "hobbit babes are called fauntlings in the Shire"
"Pebbles usually stop hunting for snowflakes after a certain age. Is it not so with hobbits then, or have we simply taken an overgrown fauntling into our company?" That mischievous twinkle had returned to Thorin's eyes and his crow's feet deepended with his smile.
"Oh! You...! I'm sure you think it very funny, having caught me doing something so silly, but there is really no need to gloat about it.", he put his hands onto his hips in what he hoped looked like an authorative gesture.
"I thought it rather sweet."
Thorin had lost the joking sparkle in his eyes again, his voice deep and serious. Bilbo's breath caught once more and he simply stared at Thorin, noticing the snow that had fallen onto his hair, caught there like stars on the inky black sky. He recalled the past few months since the Carrock, all the hidden glances and stolen touches over the weeks, as well as the quiet conversations they had held in the elven dungeons.
Thorin reached out and brushed some snow out of Bilbo's hair, before his hand settled on his cheek, and suddenly he felt very foolish for having ever questioning any of this. He let out the breath he had been holding in, closing his eyes and sighing as he leaned into the touch, closer to Thorin. The hand resting upon him was big and calloused from years of toiling in forges and on battlefields, yet it was warm and gentle too, cupping his face as though it were a precious treasure. He could feel that very same hand pulling him ever so slightly towards Thorin and he followed willingly.
They both came to a stop when their noses were almost touching, staying there for a few heartbeats. Bilbo could feel Thorin's damp breath ghosting over his skin and it smelled of dwarven pipe-weed and mannish ale. His eyes fluttered open slowly and met with Thorin's. When they first met, his eyes were the first thing that struck Bilbo. At the time, he had thought them cold and harsh, clouded by judgment and distrust. But he had stopped thinking of them so a long time ago and he certainly could not think of them so right now. For Thorin's eyes were full of love and adoration, and their usual steely blue seemed to break into a thousand facets of azure, turquoise and indigo under the warm torchlight.
Thorin's eyes fluttered shut as he closed the distance between and Bilbo's followed suit as soon as he felt their lips meet.
It was warm and sweet and safe and just so... right. It was as though everything was falling into place and this was it, there could only ever have been this. Just them, on their little island of warm torchlight, surrounded by a sea made of night and moonlight and dancing snowflakes.
They pulled apart gently and Bilbo could see the same emotions in Thorin's eyes as the ones he felt spreading in his chest. And if words were what had soured their acquaintance the first few months of the quest; words that contradicted actions, words misinterpreted; then they were not in need of them now and so they were left unsaid.
Instead Bilbo buried his head in the crook of Thorin's neck, as the dwarf put his arms around his waist to pull him closer. He didn't know how long they stayed this way, wrapped in Thorin's cloak, sharing each other's warmth. Time was measured only in Thorin's steady breath, in the faint rustling of falling snow and the steadily diminishing sounds of the party.
Eventually Thorin moved to stand and Bilbo attempted to do so as well, but was promptly stopped as strong arms lifted him from the bench to Thorin's chest. Maybe he should have felt a bit embarrassed to let himself be manhandled so, but the ale he had drunk was making him lose the fight against his weary eyes and heavy limbs already, and so he simply wrapped his arms around Thorin's thick neck and let himself be carried inside.
Inside, through the corridor and the now abandoned feast hall, up a rickety flight of stairs and into Thorin's room. Even though the masters house was the most beautiful and intact building in all of Laketown, the room was still cold and damp and no one had even bothered to fire up the hearth.
"What a poor show of hospitality", Thorin groused, mirroring his thoughts as he set Bilbo down on the bed. He marched over to the fireplace, took some of the wood set next to it and began building a fire.
In the meantime, Bilbo realized just how cold he felt without Thorin's cloak or body heat. He wanted nothing more than to bury himself under the heavy duvet piled with thick woolen blankets. He could not remember the last time he had slept in a proper bed. Still, he was apprehensive about slipping underneath the blankets while wearing his dirty clothes, so he stripped down to his underthings, tossing his pants, shirt and coat to the floor in the process. Once done, he crawled below the covers as quickly as possible, trying to keep the cold from sinking through his skin.
Just then, Thorin turned around, having successfully lit a small, cozy fire and walked up to the bed on the side opposite to his. Bilbo watched him through half-lidded eyes, sleepy and wrapped in a cocoon of blankets with only his face poking out, as he discarded his clothing and shuffled in next to Bilbo.
And so he fell asleep, his head pressed against Thorin's chest, his arms wrapped around his back, surrounded by the smell he could only describe as distinctly Thorin's. And for just a fleeting moment before he left the waking world, there was only the cozy crackle of the fire, the quiet whisper of snow against the windowpane and the slow, steady beating of Thorin's heart and everything was as it should be.
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On a little wooden bench in front of a green door sits a lone hobbit, smoking his pipe. He has a thick woolen coat wrapped around himself, and his hair is as white as the snow that is starting to fall from the overcast sky. He lifts his nose into the air as he tries to drown himself in memories of a kinder past, when even the dead of winter was warm and loving.
Outside little fauntlings race around the hills, catching the first snowflakes of the season on their tongues.