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Bilbo could not say how he ended up with such a strange life. Surely it had begun when he ran out his door, chasing after the dwarf lord who would become his husband on a quest to save a kingdom from a dragon. But that this turn of events had led to him coming home with a family and a child was surely a twist for the history books. The oddness that had made him a hopeless prospect for all other hobbits was the very thing that led to him having what most of his neighbors considered an idyllic life.
He had never considered it one he wanted. Certainly he was familiar with the tending of small children, one could not help but be so with so many younger cousins, but it was long ago when he’d resolved that his confirmed bachelorhood offered an excellent excuse for his total lack of interest in children of his own.
But then, he could not have anticipated Thorin, or Frodo for that matter.
He was a good boy, solemn like his father. Once, Bilbo might have said Elvish in temperament, always out of an earshot of Thorin. Certainly without Thorin, Bilbo was not sure how he would have handled a small child, but he need barely wince in anticipation of a changed diaper, or a messy feeding session before Thorin was taking Frodo from his arms. There was never any recrimination from Thorin, he took to parenthood in the sort of quiet, dedicated manner with which he approached all things in life. His pride in Frodo was evident, but rarely loud, and he never questioned Bilbo’s hesitance with their son, but seemed only too happy to tend Frodo in all things.
Bilbo’s own reluctance changed somewhat with time. When he looked on other hobbit children as they shrieked and giggled, trailing mud and twigs wherever they went, much like he’d been as a child, he couldn’t help but cringe. Utterly unbearable. So he could only wonder at his good fortune as Frodo grew from an infant— certainly an easy one by comparison but still lacking much in the way of personality— into a wide-eyed child who rarely showed any temper.
Most children required constant entertainment to be kept from shrieking to bring down the roof. Frodo was quite content to sit quietly with his parents, like on nights such as this one. The summer air was warm, and heavy with the promise of those chaotic rainstorms that blew through the Shire (the green of the land did not come from nowhere, after all). In the distance, the sun set the low clouds alight with blazing pink mixed with gold. It had only just fallen below the horizon, darkening the lands into the early fall of night, and Bilbo had his pipe out as he took in the air. He leaned against the back door of Bag End, looking out over his garden.
Frodo and Thorin were sitting on the ground beside the oak tree sapling, Frodo with his legs sprawled out in front of him as he leaned his curly head against Thorin’s chest. Thorin had the tip of his chin on Frodo’s head, and had just murmured something that made Frodo giggle and clap his hands over his mouth to stifle the sound. His broad arms were wrapped around Frodo’s stomach, practically obscuring him from view. Bilbo sighed at the thought of the inevitable grass stains on their trousers from a day spent playing with Frodo in the garden, but on so fine an evening as this it was difficult to stay miffed at anything.
“Any moment now,” Thorin said, his deep voice a quiet rumble. He pressed a kiss to the top of Frodo’s head, drawing a giggle from their son who butted back against Thorin like an affectionate kitten.
It truly was remarkable how Frodo did not squirm or fuss to be held so still, waiting for whatever it was Thorin was expecting, content simply to be in his father’s arms. Bilbo blew out a smoke ring so that it wafted over the two of them. Thorin pointed, following the trail of the ring as it wafted over their heads.
Thorin turned back, looking at Bilbo, and then nodding at the grass beside him. The silent request was clear, join us?
Bilbo nodded, padding through the garden to take a seat, at the sight of him Frodo gave his own burbling welcome, reaching out to drag at Bilbo’s hand, drawing his attention. “Bilbo, we’re waiting for the stars!” Frodo said.
Bilbo cocked an eyebrow at Thorin who only answered with an enigmatic smile.
“Are you now, my lad? Well, I must wait with you then. There’s nothing quite so fine as stargazing,” Bilbo said. Two years before, when Frodo had just begun to speak, they had the discussion of who would be "papa" or "father" or "dad" and Bilbo had reached the eminently practical solution that Thorin would take all such formal nomenclature while he would simply continue to be "Bilbo", which was an eminently simple name for small children to pronounce and what Frodo had already begun to call him, parroting his dwarven father at a precocious age. Now he offered his pipe to Thorin, who freed one hand from where it was wrapped around Frodo’s waist to accept it. With a little smirk of his own he sent his own smoke ring out over the hills, and then a smaller one behind it that went through the larger before passing it back.
“Show-off,” Bilbo snorted as he accepted the pipe back. He took a deep puff, allowing the peace to seep into him as if it welled up from the land itself. Dusk was falling in earnest, the night gone from pink and golden to heavy violet, though no doubt to Thorin’s eyes there was little change at all, and Bilbo wondered too about Frodo sometimes. By all signs, the lad took after the hobbit side of his lineage in all ways except his coloring and mannerisms, but he was a keen observer. Perhaps it was some hint of the strong vision of the dwarves running like an underground spring through Frodo’s blood, granting more than just the color of his father’s eyes.
“Papa, there!” Frodo cried, pointing. Not up at the sky, but at the rose bushes, and suddenly it dawned on Bilbo what they’d really been waiting for.
“Stars?” Bilbo said, looking aside at Thorin. Thorin said nothing in turn, only smiling a little as closed one broad hand on Bilbo’s knee, squeezing it lightly.
The first fireflies of summer awoke one by one in the bushes that dotted the garden of their home in Bag End. Fluttering on the breeze and flashing behind leaves, they filled the air as night fell, alive and close to the earth. They were beautiful in ways that would put the vaunted elvish poetry as they described their own beloved stars to shame, and Bilbo remembered a night now all those years ago in Rivendell, when he’d stood on a balcony with Thorin and that first uneasy peace sprung up between them. The night Thorin told him of a childhood spent within the doors of Erebor, when he’d looked up to the ceiling and thought the trapped fireflies were stars.
“Aye, we’ve been waiting all month to see them, haven’t we, Frodo?” Thorin said, words muffled as he buried his nose against Frodo’s curly hair.
“Well, far be it from me to interrupt your stargazing,” Bilbo said, beginning to stand again.
“Stay with us, Bilbo,” Frodo said reaching over and tugging at Bilbo’s sleeve, and of course when a small child tugs at one’s arm there is little one can do but obey. He settled back down again, and after a moment, placed his head against Thorin’s shoulder. Thorin said nothing, only gave an appreciative hum, a warm and silent weight beside him.
Bilbo could not say how his life took such a strange turn, what he’d done to end up with the very adventure and family he’d once thought would always be mutually exclusive, all come together in one neat package that he brought home with him. Surely there were days he could only shake his head at this, wondering where he’d lost his independence, his neatly ordered house and solitude along the path of raising this quiet hobbit child of the line of Durin. But on an evening so fine, with with his husband beside him and their son gasping at his feet at the dance of fireflies, he could not find much within him that minded.