Chapter Text
When Thorin first lays eyes on the so-called burglar named Bilbo Baggins, he is not at all what he had expected him to be like. There is nothing in the way he looks, stands or carries himself that points to any proficiency in burglary whatsoever, but far from wanting to turn to Gandalf and scold the wizard for ostensibly wasting all their times, Thorin is seized with the inexplicable desire to applaud his recommendation.
It's shocking enough that Thorin has to tighten his jaw to keep himself grounded. An alpha or a beta would easily perceive a quickening of his breath as interest, and a fall in it…well, the exact same thing. And he cannot be perceived as interested in Master Baggins by any of the other alpha and beta dwarves around him, or worse, by the hobbit himself. It would most definitely not do to have it known that he finds this…modest-looking creature rather handsome at first sight. Embarrassing, even, should Master Baggins turn out to be an alpha of his race, and then Thorin would never hear the end of it from Dwalin, the hierarchy of kings and subjects be damned.
Wearing a thin, cream-coloured cotton shirt and suspenders holding up a pair of brown trousers, Bilbo Baggins looks up at him, his bluish-grey eyes tapered with uncertainty. There's a comeliness to the expression on his smooth, round face that makes Thorin's mouth water. Locks of curly, auburn hair adorn his head, and when Gandalf introduces him to Thorin, Bilbo's pointed ears twitch at the mention of his name. The shirt he's wearing is only buttoned up to the third one, allowing Thorin a peek at a sliver of the hobbit’s pale chest, which he finds himself imagining to be as smooth as his face.
What is most striking about the hobbit, however, is his scent. Alpha or beta, Thorin couldn’t be arsed to figure which one Bilbo is at the moment — all over him, Thorin can smell spring downs and satin sheets and brown honey, all molding together into an aroma that fills his lungs in the same manner as how fine food makes its way into his stomach. He has to wonder exactly how Bilbo smells when he is in heat, and the thought has to be tucked away before it can grow into something beyond Thorin’s volition. It’s all he can do to stand his ground, the alternative being to tackle the hobbit to the floor to sniff lovingly at his neck, perhaps thieve a kiss from his lips if he’s feeling particularly brave about it.
“He looks more like a grocer than a burglar,” Thorin says instead, and he grins through the guilt sparking inside him like the beginnings of a small thunderstorm. Bilbo looks slightly hurt at this, and Thorin’s heart sinks, but he doesn't verbalise the apology that springs into his mouth. Desperate times and desperate measures, and so on.
Out of instinct, the next thing that Thorin does is take a deeper breath as any alpha dwarf does, or for an alpha of any other race as it is generally customary when meeting someone for the first time. This time when the underlying hormones in Bilbo’s scent suffuses his nose, Thorin is aware that his face betrays his inclination to hide his surprise, though Bilbo just sniffles and does not appear to make anything of it.
Thorin glances around at the rest of the dwarves. Those who catch his eye return his gaze knowingly, some with curt nods and others with light shrugs. He looks back at Bilbo, who is scratching behind an ear now with his lips pushed forward into a pout. Mild bemusement clouds his face, something that Thorin only registers when he realises that he’s been staring at the hobbit for an inordinate amount of time.
“Er,” Bilbo says, starting to fidget. “Is there something on my face?” He rubs at his cheek absently and looks down into his hand, frowning. The expression creases several lines into his forehead, and Thorin can’t help but lick his lips at the mental image of tasting Bilbo’s skin on the tip of his tongue. “Is it gone now?” he asks Thorin, looking up at him with eyes wide and innocent.
It is not a mere interest anymore. Thorin is positively intrigued with Bilbo Baggins, which has a bit to do with the halfling's most aesthetically pleasing appearance and a whole lot to be attributed to how he smells strongly of a yet-to-be-determined mating partner who has to be short of a few months away from cycling beautifully into his very first heat.
***
Later, when the halfling has fled upstairs and left them behind in his living room, Thorin pulls Balin aside, away from the company to talk with him. “Is he…?” He leaves the question dangling, sure that his wisest and most trusted friend, another fellow alpha dwarf, will understand.
Balin nods.
“I — I was beginning to think that it was just me,” Thorin says as he slumps his shoulders. He pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. “Now he will be a liability more than ever. Gandalf clearly means to sabotage our quest by insisting that he accompanies us.”
“You don’t know that,” Balin tells him gently. “Perhaps there is another reason as to why Gandalf has deemed Master Baggins a suitable candidate for our cause.”
“We don’t need an alpha in full heat tagging along with us,” Thorin snaps, because that is what he would say and actually mean every word of if he had not already decided that he wanted Bilbo Baggins in their company, by hook or by crook. “Not if we have to pull him out of every omega we encounter on the way. And you know that draughts will not do anything to suppress the heat of a flowering.”
“No, they will not, but you are making the rather unfair presumption that Master Baggins is going to be an alpha when he flowers,” Balin replies. “The maturation heat of a beta is much easier to keep under control, even without the use of draughts.”
Thorin is fully aware of this fact, having thought it through carefully before approaching Balin, but he purses his lips and tries to look his most disagreeable. That they are speaking one-to-one means that they have now attracted the not-so-surreptitious attentions of the other ten dwarves in the room, and he has to make this convincing if Bilbo is to be accepted by them. “And if he does flower as an alpha?” he challenges, keeping his face and voice stern.
“Then you also know that the heat of an alpha, even while maturing, can only be brought to its zenith when in the extended presence of an omega in heat as well, of which we number none and the world numbers very little,” Balin says patiently, shaking his head. “We are all living proof of that fact of nature, are we not? You are worrying too much, my king.”
As a matter of fact, Thorin is not worried in the slightest; he hasn’t hit the peak of a heat in over a century, what with the dwarves’ love of locking fertile omega females away from the general populace. Feeling brave to push it just a little further, Thorin throws out the absurdity, “Then what if he matures as an omega?”
The incredulous smile on Balin’s face almost makes Thorin grin. Just a little, he feels guilty for manipulating his odds to this level, but on the other hand, that and the patronising look that Balin gives him would be well worth the prize of having Bilbo in their party. “An omega? Really, Thorin! You may as well posit that Master Baggins will matureas the Firedrake!”
“It is a possibility —” Thorin says, false skepticism in his tone as he revels in the knowledge that it bloody well is not. The day a male omega appeared on the face of Middle Earth would be the day that another Arkenstone is pulled from beneath the Lonely Mountain, his grandfather used to say.
“Nonsense. There has not been a male omega for four hundred years of recorded history — check with Ori if you need confirmation.” Balin sighs. “I know that you want nothing less for this quest to be a fruitful one, Thorin. But do not let phantom concerns bias you against Master Baggins, whom as far as I can see bears only the sincerest wishes that we see nothing less than success.”
Thorin looks away to conceal his satisfaction. He probably wouldn't have anything to say in reply to any of that even if he wanted to, anyway. He looks down at his boots and waits, pretending to give the prospect deep thought. For all of ten seconds he keeps up the charade, complete with exaggerated gulping, a bite of his lower lip, and the restless shifting of indecisive eyes. Finally, he returns to his company, Balin tailing behind him, and Thorin tells them all while his heart is soaring inside his chest, “I will allow it.”
***
Well, all he can say is he did try.
Now, at the forefront of a line of twelve dwarves and one wizard, a company most dismally missing one hobbit, Thorin keeps his gaze to the road ahead on the pretext of scouting the route. He is really just sulking furiously into the mane of his pony, gnashing his teeth together so hard that he thinks Balin might just be able to hear him. Bully if he does — it doesn’t matter to Thorin, not anymore.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. What had done it? Had it been the grocer comment that put the hobbit off? It wasn’t that offensive, not really, though he thinks and he thinks and can’t figure out anything else besides that might have led to Bilbo declining to join them. Certainly not the bit about Smaug and dragon fire and being a furnace with wings, because even though he’d fainted at that, Bilbo had insisted that he was fine afterwards when he regained consciousness.
If it is so, Thorin knows that he will never, never forgive himself for this, could kick himself for ever thinking it a good idea to call the hobbit a grocer.
With every step he’s further and further away from the halfling, a thought that pains him, never mind that it couldn’t have come to much. An alpha-alpha relationship wasn’t out of the question, though Thorin already has enough of those with the members of his company, thanks. Granted, he thinks that he’d be closer to the hobbit than any of them — Thorin knows that he would have done anything in his power to make that a reality, at least until they found their separate omegas, but still that didn’t mean they still couldn’t continue to be near each other. Just anything to get more of that scent, and to cast his eyes upon that handsome, boyish face, maybe press his own lips to the hobbit’s in a simple act of brotherly love…
“Wait!”
The cry comes from behind them, high-pitched and desperate and familiar. Thorin falters on the edge of disbelief, cautious of dashed hopes and expectations, but when he turns his pony around, the wind catches him, carrying that sweet, delicate scent of comely little gentlehobbit in an excited state of almost-heat, and Thorin has to grip his reins tight to avoid falling off.
“Wait, wait!” Bilbo jogs up to the pony at the back of the party, puffing and panting and looking completely winded. He holds up a browning length of paper and grins dizzily, his round face shiny with sweat. “I signed it!”
Homely, gorgeous, flustered, sweaty hobbit. The scent is threefold now, amplified through the blessing of a liquid medium. The elementary pheromones he is giving off are enough to attract the combined attentions of Dwalin and Nori, both of whom are now looking intently at him, much to Thorin’s displeasure. He makes a mental note to relegate them, and the other alphas, to the back of the party after their next stopover, preferably keeping Bilbo close to him at the front. It pays to be king, sometimes.
Later, while Balin is making sure that the paperwork checks out and the dwarves have developed a small crossfire of lost and gained bets, Thorin determinedly keeps his body facing the front like the needle in a compass pointing solidly north, if only to conceal his smile, which he is sure closely resembles that of a dragon who has stumbled upon an exceptionally large pile of gold to claim, to own, to love as his very own.
***
When Thorin thinks that he’s finally stayed away for the prerequisite amount of time needed for anyone to settle fully on the decision that he is most definitely not attracted to Bilbo, they are already making camp that same day to stop for the night. Working up the courage and convincing himself that it’s perfectly normal to exercise polite discourse takes him well into dinner, and they are preparing to go to sleep by the time Thorin shuffles over to the hobbit, who is busy draping his groundsheet over a plot of dry earth and spreading it out.
“Evening,” Thorin rumbles, keeping his voice even. The hobbit’s fragrance assails his nose with a gentle vigour, and he sniffs at it eagerly.
Bilbo stops smoothening out the groundsheet to look up at him. “Good evening.”
“Pleasant night, is it not?” Good grief, he sounds like he’s courting the halfling already. He doesn’t dare to look around to see if anyone is watching them, if they are in earshot to pick up their conversation. Not that anyone would be able to make anything out of a formal greeting, an induction of sorts, if you will.
Bilbo smiles shyly. “Why, yes. I suppose it is.”
“I have heard that hobbits make excellent sleepers,” Thorin blurts out at a half-baked attempt at levity, then gives himself a mental kick for the inanity of that statement. “I mean — hobbits are artful in the ways of enjoying life’s many pleasantries. That was what I meant to say.”
“Oh.” Bilbo’s face turns a most endearing shade of red, pinkening his cheeks and spreading to the tips of his ears. “Oh — um. Thank you very much, Thorin. It’s very kind of you to say so.”
“You’re welcome,” Thorin says, almost heaving a relieved sigh at getting that turned around. He keeps his eyes on Bilbo’s face, most resolutely not looking down his tiny, trim little body and dreaming the fantasy of having the hobbit father his children. Healthy stature, good build, a fertile-looking belly that would nurture a dwobbit very nicely. If only. “Rest well, Bilbo.”
“And you too.” His hand floats absently over his groin, where he scratches for a moment before he appears to take notice of this, and when he does, he stops and pulls his hand away, looking embarrassed. The scent rising from Bilbo is concentrating in the air noticeably, and Thorin recognises this as one of the many indicators of approaching the zenith of mating maturity. He allows a small smile.
“Congratulations,” he tells Bilbo, with all goodwill intended.
“Whatever for?”
Thorin blinks, thrown. “It is not long now for you, is it not?”
“Is what not long now?” Bilbo asks, clearly not following, even as his hand drifts back to scratch at his inner thigh once more.
Gods, Thorin thinks, daring himself to believe it. “Your first?” he tries again, slowly becoming more and more mystified.
Bilbo frowns, still scratching. “First? What first?”
He doesn’t know. Astonishment comes over Thorin as he excuses himself with a hasty good night and quickly returns to his own groundsheet, lying down on it and turning away from where Bilbo is, his mind working fiercely to digest this new information, and realising with a start that he is somehow drawn toward the hobbit even more so for that.
Curious, simply curious. Thorin decides that he needs to talk to someone about this the moment he wakes up. Someone who might just be able to shed some much-needed light on the enigma that is Bilbo Baggins’s spectacular ignorance, and then some.