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Dwalin is never at his best in the early morning, even under the most pleasant of circumstances; today, with the scars of his recent wounds still aching and itching and his muscles sore from the work of rebuilding (and a scolding from the healers still ringing in his ears), he feels hardly more than a wild beast, shuffling into the great hall and growling like a bear until a heaping plate of eggs and a steaming mug appear on the table before him. He eats and drinks — the tea helps more than the food, really — and he's just beginning to feel properly himself when a voice says from behind him, "Oh, Dwalin, here you are! I, ah — I've been looking for you."
He turns to see Ori, just inside the door; he looks nervous, and Dwalin sighs, thinks, I thought he was over all this shyness. He gives what he hopes is an encouraging smile and asks, "What for, my lad?"
"Ah... well." Ori's smile seems a bit hesitant, but he does take a step forward and lift his chin confidently, which Dwalin supposes is a good sign. "I'm clearing out the old library, and there are a few things I can't shift on my own — the arm, and all. Could you come and help me?"
Dwalin tries not to make a face — it's true enough that Ori will need some help, with his right arm still bound tightly in a sling, but cleaning the library isn't his idea of a good time. "What things?" he hedges.
For some reason that makes Ori flush pink. "Oh — tables and that," he says, waving a hand vaguely, and then he adds, "Come on! Mustn't waste time!" and darts off.
Dwalin turns back to his plate, slightly baffled, and discovers that Nori's slid onto the bench opposite him and stolen his tea. He opens his mouth to protest, but before he can say anything, Nori tilts the mug at him in salute, says, "I shouldn't keep him waiting if I were you," and stands up to go.
He stares at his plate for another moment, trying to decide which would be worse: to go shift a bunch of heavy tables around the library (which he really, really doesn't want to do) and likely end up getting another tongue-lashing from the healers, or to disappoint Ori.
It's not even a choice, really.
It takes him a bit to find the library — after all these years, he can hardly remember even his own old haunts, and the library certainly was never one of those. In fact, he never does find it on his own; he has the good luck to stumble across Dori and Gloin deep in conversation, and Dori looks up at him and says, "Ah, Dwalin! Looking for Ori, are you? He's just down here," and leads him the rest of the way.
When he does get there, Ori smiles and beckons him in; Dori, in the corridor behind him, says, "Good luck, then," and Dwalin steps inside and looks around, and just as he's realizing that not one of the heavy tables is actually out of place, he hears the door close and lock behind him.
When he spins around, alarmed, he sees Ori grinning widely and holding up the key; he theatrically slips it into an inner pocket of his coat, then turns to look at Dwalin and says cheerfully, "That went well, I must say."
"What do you think you're—" Dwalin begins, and then it dawns on him what's just happened — he has been spirited away from his home (such as it is), trapped by Ori with the aid of both of his brothers, locked away where he won't be looked for with only his captor as company — and what it means, and he gapes.
"Ori," he manages after a moment. "Is this a kidnapping?"
"Well, yes," Ori says; a flicker of nervousness crosses his face, but then he stands up straight and sets his jaw and adds, "I couldn't very well throw you over my shoulder and run for it, could I? Not with this arm."
"No, no, trickery's fair," Dwalin says quickly. "No less traditional than using force, really. I just — well, you did take me by surprise."
"Well, that is the idea," Ori says, and flashes a surprisingly sharp-edged, wicked grin, and Dwalin has to shut his eyes and firmly remind himself of the ritual — three hours the groom must keep his bride, and three times the bride must try to escape, and until those three hours are up and the betrothal becomes official, the rules are hands off.
He's not at all sure he can manage it.
Dwalin spends most of the first hour trying to develop a plan of escape — or rather, developing several dozen plans and discarding all of them as too likely to actually work. He distantly remembers a conversation with Dís, when she was first betrothed, in which she admitted that she'd spent her childhood creating such plans, both those that would work (in case the prospective groom should not appeal) and those that wouldn't; Dwalin, alas, has never imagined himself as the bride and has no such store of ideas to draw upon.
Eventually it dawns on him that he's overthinking it. He stands and stalks across the library to Ori, who has apparently grown bored of watching him think and is perched on the edge of a table with a book, and demands, "Hand me that key."
"Yes, just a moment," Ori says absently, and then he blinks, looks up from the page and says, "What?"
"The key." Dwalin holds out his hand, palm-up, and puts on the darkest frown he can manage.
Ori snorts — ah, there's the bold young lad he's come to know, these last six months. "Don't be ridiculous," he says. "If you want it, come and take it from me."
Dwalin shrugs, pins Ori's good arm behind his back as gently as he can, and reaches into his coat where the key disappeared; a moment later, the key is in his hand and he's stepping back, Ori looking up at him with just the faintest trace of disappointment in his eyes.
He lingers close for a moment, keeping his hold on Ori's wrist a bit longer than he needs to; then Ori says quietly, "I won't try to stop you," and Dwalin lets out a bark of a laugh and turns away, crosses over to the door.
He holds the key up to the keyhole, lets it go, and, as it lands with a clatter, gives it a swift kick that slides it under the door, saying loudly as he does, "Whoops, oh, bugger, I've dropped the damn thing."
There is a moment's absolute silence in the library; when Dwalin turns around, he sees Ori staring at him with what looks like a mix of disbelief and delight, and he shrugs self-consciously and says, "You didn't really think I'd go, did you?"
"Only for a moment," Ori says, and then he smiles and turns his attention back to his book.
It's another half-hour or so before Dwalin grows bored and interrupts Ori's reading again, this time with the brusque question, "How long?"
"What?" Ori says, and looks up with a frown. "How — hmm. Another hour and a half, I should think. Dori's meant to be watching the door; he'll knock when the time's up."
"That's not what I meant," Dwalin says, and settles himself on the bench below where Ori sits on the edge of the table.
"What, then?" Ori says, shutting the book, and then after a moment, "Oh. You mean — well," and without even looking at him Dwalin knows the lad's ears and cheeks are going pink.
"Shall I tell first?" he suggests, his voice low and soft; Ori is silent, and he takes it as a yes and continues, "The first time I thought of it was the night Thorin sent me to speak to your brothers, to ask if they would join the quest."
Ori laughs at that. "I remember that night. I was so offended — that you should ask both of them, and not me!"
"Aye," Dwalin says, grinning, "the fuss you made! Marched right up to me—"
"Shook my finger in your face," Ori interrupts, and laughs again, ducking his head. "Durin's beard, I've never seen Dori so embarrassed! We had an awful row over it, once you'd left — he kept saying I'd disgraced the family."
"What, by showing some backbone?" Dwalin snorts. "Ridiculous. Anyway, that wasn't it — I mean, it took some nerve, and I liked seeing that, but really it was the way you looked after I said I'd speak to Thorin about it. The little smirk you gave, like you'd just won a game when the rest of us didn't even know we were playing. I saw that, and I knew I was in trouble."
"That long ago," Ori says in a tone of wonder, and tilts his knee just a bit to the side, lets the outside of his leg rest against Dwalin's shoulder for a moment. Then he straightens up again and says, suddenly all business, "If we're going to do this properly you'd better hurry up. There's not much more than an hour left, and you've only tried to escape once," and Dwalin sighs and puts his face in his hands, turns his mind back to the search for the perfect plan.
He's just given up on yet another plan — he's pretty sure Ori could foil this one, but not yet entirely convinced he would, on top of which there's too high a risk the lad would re-injure his shoulder — when there's a pounding at the door and Balin's voice bellows from out in the corridor, "You in there! I've come to rescue my brother!"
"Oh no you don't!" Dori's voice replies, equally loud and belligerent, and Dwalin grins and whispers to Ori, "This could be entertaining."
"You'd better go and participate," Ori whispers back, which is true enough — just waiting for rescue won't count as one of his three escape attempts, not unless he actually takes part himself.
Luckily, requesting the rescue does count. Dwalin stands and crosses the room, bends down to speak through the keyhole, clears his throat and says dryly, "Help. Oh, help."
There's a snort of laughter from outside — he can't tell which of them it is — and then Balin says, loudly and somewhat theatrically, "Aha, I see the key here! Stand aside, Dori, and let me have it!"
"Not a chance!" Dori shouts back; there's the sound of scuffling feet, which seems appropriate if slightly unconvincing, and then a sound that doesn't fit in at all — liquid pouring, and the clink of a metal spoon against pottery.
Dwalin stoops lower, trying to see through the keyhole, and demands, "Balin! Are you serving my captors tea?"
"Nonsense, dear brother," Balin calls back to him. "We're locked in combat for your honor. Aren't we, Dori?"
"Quite," Dori says; there's what sounds like an actual scuffle, and some whispering, and then he adds, "I mean, ow! Argh! Have at thee!"
More scuffling of feet, and something that might actually be a blow landing — not very hard, Dwalin thinks, by the sound of it; perhaps an open-handed slap against a shoulder well-padded with clothing — and then Balin says, "Alas! I'm sorry, brother, but he's bested me."
"You've been in on this from the start, you rascal," Dwalin accuses him, but he can't quite hide the laugh in his voice.
"Nonsense," Balin says again, and then, "You've only half an hour now, brother — better make it count." Then there's a murmur of low conversation between him and Dori, and footsteps receding into the distance, and apparently that's that for the rescue attempt.
Half an hour! He'd better think of something quickly.
"You never did answer me," Dwalin says, and sits down beside Ori again, this time so close that he can feel the warmth of Ori's body in the cool room. "All this time, I thought my feelings were not returned. How long have I been wrong?"
"Do you know," Ori says, closing his book and laying it down on the table, "I'm not sure myself. I didn't recognize it for what it was, not at first."
"No?" Dwalin leans closer, reaches across to lay his hand on Ori's thigh — strictly speaking a violation of the lore, but then, who's here to see it? "Tell me, then. What did you think?"
Ori sighs and shifts his weight, just enough that the side of his body rests against Dwalin's; he slides his leg over a bit, too, beneath Dwalin's hand, so that the fingers curl around to the inside of his thigh. "I thought," he says, "that I simply admired you. Your strength, and your courage, and your skill in battle — I felt like a schoolboy, looking up to his master. A schoolboy with a crush."
Dwalin feels his grip on Ori's leg tighten involuntarily — he knows what he is, knows himself as a paragon of warriors, but there's something in hearing himself admired that appeals to him, that makes his breath come quicker. "And then?" he asks, and it takes a mighty effort to keep his voice steady.
"I was so certain that you saw nothing more than that schoolboy in me." As he speaks, Ori lays his good hand over Dwalin's, toys with his fingers; then he moves still closer, pressing their bodies against each other and leaning back as if to welcome the slow slide of Dwalin's hand up his thigh and toward the laces of his breeches. "The way you acted toward me — protecting me, pushing me to the back anytime it looked like there might be a bit of action. You were nearly as bad as Dori."
"The thought of seeing you hurt—"
"Hush." Ori shifts his hand quickly, gets a grip on Dwalin's shoulders and pulls him in tight. The movement overbalances him, and Dwalin has to shift his grip, too, to keep them both from toppling over; instead he gets an arm around Ori's waist, lowers both of them carefully until Ori lies on his back on the table, Dwalin leaning over him, their faces not more than an inch apart.
Dwalin is first to break, to look away, and as he stares down at the stone of the table, Ori goes on, "In the elves' prison, when they separated all of us — you called out for me. For your brother, first, and then for me."
"You heard that," Dwalin says, embarrassed, and ducks his head — and finds that that puts his face in the crook of Ori's shoulder, and without even thinking about it presses just a fraction of an inch closer, nuzzles and mouths along Ori's jawline.
"Of course I did," Ori answers, a little breathlessly. "That was the first time that I thought — this isn't protectiveness. This isn't like Dori. And it frightened me, a bit."
"You kept away from me in Lake-town," Dwalin murmurs into the skin of Ori's neck, and rolls slightly to free his hands, brings them to Ori's waist and tugs at the knot of his laces. "Was that why?"
Ori gasps — "You're breaking all the rules, you know," he says, but he doesn't make a move to stop Dwalin, and as Dwalin gets the knot undone at last and the laces loose, he goes on, "Yes. I didn't know what to think, and I didn't know what I wanted; it was all too much, too sudden."
"And when did you know?"
"In the battle," Ori says, and he turns his head, catches Dwalin's lips with his own. "In the battle, when I saw — oh, Dwalin—"
"Tell me," Dwalin insists, and tugs Ori's breeches down, palms his cock through the thin fabric of his smalls. "Say it."
"I saw you fall," Ori pants, his head tipping back, the long line of his throat exposed. "I saw you fall, and it was like I went mad, like I was somebody else. I killed the orc that hurt you — I didn't even know I'd picked up a sword until after I'd run it through him — ah, don't stop, don't — where are you going?"
Dwalin pushes himself up with an effort, once again sitting on the edge of the table. "Escaping," he says, and grins, dark and hungry. "Come and stop me."
Ori growls in the back of his throat and lunges up, catches Dwalin by the shoulder; his momentum takes both of them over in the opposite direction, and he moves easily to take advantage of it, straddles Dwalin's waist and keeps his one good hand on the larger dwarf's shoulder. "That's three," he says, and the smile on his face is the same one he gave after talking his way into the company, sharp and clever and dangerous and everything Dwalin's ever wanted. "Three times you've tried it, and three times I've kept you. You're mine, and I intend to claim you."
"The door," Dwalin gasps in warning, and indeed, over Ori's shoulder he can see the library door swinging open, a crowd of their friends and kinsmen waiting outside — and, of course, that's part of the tradition too, isn't it, that the happy couple should be received by their friends and blessed by their lord when the time is up.
From the doorway, there's a chorus of gasps and chatter; he can make out Dori squawking something about propriety and disgrace, and Nori and Balin both laughing. Ori's face is bright red above him, and Dwalin puts a protective arm around his waist, cranes his neck to meet Thorin's eyes and mouths, Get on with it.
Thorin's cheek twitches as if he's hiding a grin, and he clears his throat. "Blessings on this union," he says, loudly enough to cut through the noise and silence the rest of the dwarves, "that brings together two noble houses of our people, and two dear friends of all this company."
"Thank you, my lord," Dwalin says, and Ori squeaks something that sounds close enough to 'thank you,' and a cheer goes up among their friends.
"We will celebrate your betrothal tonight," Thorin says, and then he does grin and add, "Since it seems you have plans for the next few hours. Come on, everyone, clear out — stop that sputtering, Dori, at least you know they're happy—" and with that the doors swing shut again and they're alone.
Dwalin huffs a laugh and lies back on the table, pulls Ori back down to lie atop his chest. "Well," he says, and slips one hand between their bodies, tugs Ori's breeches open again. "Where were we?"