You have the best co-writers 🥺. Okay, I totally just threw this in a random generator but how about:
Secret Royal + Mechanic + "Nothing's THAT important, you know."
Ohhh I feel like this is going to be good. 😏
Hey, I did my best for this one :/
I have tried - out of respect - to tailor this a little bit, so...Ladies and Gentlemen, here comes an attempt at writing Bagginshield from me 🙈
Thank you so much for the request & I hope you won't be too disappointed 😞
Words: 1,7 k
Warnings: None
Being a mechanic was fiddly work, but – thankfully – Bilbo Baggins was a man who rejoiced in puzzles; many a person would have believed that his job was all about brute force – yanking and screwing – when in truth, he caressed engines back to life with such an exceptional precision that he was almost famous around here.
He didn’t look the part though; prim and proper – or vain as some people liked to call it – he straightened his waistcoat after having wiped his hands meticulously. Bilbo was a gentleman, he was a mechanic, and he was a mysterious bachelor.
Now, if one were to ask him, he would have scoffed and wrinkled his nose at the epithet ‘mysterious’ for – in his opinion – there was nothing enigmatic about the lack of a spouse; he simply was unmarried and if that gave rise to serious questions, he was inclined to doubt the intelligence of whoever was thus derailed by a fact so simple.
“Bilbo? There’s some dude outside who wants you to take a look at his car,” one of the neighbours – blight and blessing of his life – called through the small window standing slightly ajar to let some fresh air into the stuffy workshop.
“I am on my break,” Bilbo grumbled; what he meant to say was that he had just finished the task of the day and had been looking forward to curling up with a book in his office.
Maybe, people were right after all when they said – behind his back – that he was much too set in his habits for a man so young still and Bilbo deemed it lucky for them that growing irate at nosey townsfolk was not one of those habits then.
“No, but come look at him,” the neighbour went on.
“Him? It’s a boy-car?” Bilbo replied, relieved that the man could not see him rolling his eyes.
“No, you jester, the man…the owner of the car!”
With a deep sigh – and a last look into the floor-length mirror standing in the corner for convenience – Bilbo made his way outside to go look at all those fantastical things that had apparently appeared out of thin air.
“Hello, are you the mechanic?” a low, grumbly voice resounded, and Bilbo had to shade his eyes with his hand as he stared right into the light – only broken by the silhouette of the stranger – of the blazing midday sun.
“I am. Are you the ‘man…the owner of the car’?” Bilbo replied in a soft singsong voice; now that he had stepped out, he could clearly recognise that his neighbour’s words must have been overheard by said person.
“I am…I’m…Thorin,” the man said and extended a broad, elegant hand full of heavy rings and smudged with oil.
“I see you’ve tried to remedy whatever’s wrong yourself,” Bilbo quipped and walked around the man to take a look at the car – standing abandoned in the middle of the parking lot – without so much as a thought about how this new position would allow him to take in that stranger better.
Upon further reflexion, the shadow of that very same thought might have crossed the mechanic’s mind and he threw a quick glance – after all, he had been called forth to throw glances and looks at everything – at the man having turned around to watch Bilbo in turn.
He was taller than Bilbo, broad-shouldered and long-haired, and he had the bluest, most intense eyes he had ever seen; an unexpected warmth flooded Bilbo’s chest akin to the breathless awe he felt when coming across a particularly well-kept classic car.
What a beauty, he thought, and – him truly not being like everyone else – that realisation made him frown and scowl rather than smile at that picture of sturdy but gracious virility.
Moreover, he had not missed the heartbeat of hesitation upon identifying himself as ‘Thorin’; either that was not his true name or there was simply more to it.
“Bilbo Baggins,” he offered up his own full name, but the stranger simply repeated those two syllables that held the hint of a foreign pronunciation like vanilla and cinnamon – no matter how sparsely used – would always change the flavour of a cake.
“Alright, Thorin,” Bilbo chuckled, his fatigue and reluctance blown away by the curiosity a face such as this one inevitably inspired, “the good news is that there’s nothing seriously wrong with your car and the bad news is that it will take a day to get the necessary piece.”
Usually, he prided himself on his excellent connections and – of this much he was sure – all his other customers would have been delighted to know that he’d be able to fix whatever was wrong within 24 hours, but Thorin – clearly a stranger to these parts – looked disheartened.
“Oh no,” he grumbled, “I need to be on my way tonight. I have an important…meeting.”
Ah, there it was again, and Bilbo’s ears perked up; there was something that gorgeous stranger was hiding from him.
“Well, I cannot – in good conscience – let you leave in this car,” he set his foot down; despite his optimistic assessment, he would not compromise his professional integrity and let Thorin drive away in a potentially dangerous car that could give out at the most inopportune of moments.
“It’s important,” Thorin mumbled, rubbing that mesmerising hand over the dense, dark beard covering a strong jaw that was set stubbornly.
“It’s dangerous!”
“It’s really important!” Eyes the colour of glaciers and rock springs turned pleadingly onto Bilbo’s soft face, making his heart and bones melt a little around the edges, but not his resolve…never his resolve.
“Nothing’s THAT important, you know,” Bilbo huffed, “you could get into a serious crash, and I will not risk that.”
A tiny sliver of doubt lodged itself between his good resolutions and his professional pride now though; he could easily have offered a replacement vehicle – even his own – but for some reason, he felt almost irrationally jealous and possessive.
He didn’t want Thorin to leave before he could get to the bottom of that secret he was flaunting – veiled and impenetrable – so brazenly; Bilbo was indeed a man who loved a good puzzle and he itched to fiddle with this one until it was solved.
“You don’t understand,” Thorin looked around as if to check if not another dozen townspeople were hidden in the bushes lining the parking lot – a good and smart reflex in Bilbo’s opinion – before whispering: “I am to attend diplomatic talks of monumental significance.”
Bilbo chewed on that information for a second before straightening up and nodding slowly.
“I can lend you my own car,” he offered, “but you’ll have to bring it back in perfect condition once you’re done.”
“Oh,” Thorin’s eyes lit up with a joyous gleam – relief and gratitude swirling like stars in the depths of that azure ocean – and he was tempted to hug the small, soft man who looked so incongruous standing in front of his business, “I’d be ever so thankful. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
With a small ‘humph’ sound, Bilbo waved him into the building and flipped the sign on the door to deter any other customers from bothering him today; he was now officially ‘closed for the day’.
The awareness that he was basically locked in with the most handsome man he had ever beheld in his life made the skin under his freshly pressed white shirt prickle.
Mysterious, Bilbo remembered his earlier musings, there was nothing mysterious about the absence of a woman in his life, it was easily explained by his visceral reaction to this blindingly handsome creature headed for ‘important negotiations’.
“I trust you to keep this quiet,” Thorin breathed as he leaned against the wooden counter and pushed his passport over; he kept his palm – huge and strong – on top of it until Bilbo nodded with a small smile that melted into a shocked gasp.
“Your Majesty,” he squeaked.
“I see, keeping it quiet did not work,” Thorin laughed under his breath.
He flinched when Bilbo’s hand came to cover his own reassuringly, giving it a few short pats for good measure as he swore – on his mother’s grave – that he would not tell a soul about who Thorin really was.
“You can trust me,” he promised.
“Can I?”
“I decided to trust you not to wreck my car as you did your own!” Bilbo cocked one eyebrow at him; king or not, Thorin had arrived here with a damaged vehicle and Bilbo had agreed to handing over his own baby.
“You are right, Master Baggins, my apologies,” Thorin grinned; he was amazed by this little fellow who seemed so comfortable and cosy and yet took every curveball thrown at him in his stride as if he had never known a quiet instant in his life.
“Bring back my car,” Bilbo muttered, “and maybe a spot of dinner depending on when you expect to be back?”
It was brazen, but Bilbo had the instinctive feeling that he’d get along great with this foreign king; no doubt, he had been mollycoddled way too much and it would be good for him to spend some time with ordinary folk.
“Sure thing,” Thorin chuckled; he hadn’t laughed this much in a long time and already, his heart – aggrieved and worried by the talks he was heading to – felt lighter after this unfortunate intermezzo, which was an unexpected but very welcome surprise.
“I’ll see you then,” Bilbo replied sheepishly; he had not expected a literal king to agree that easily to his cheeky invitation.
With a flourish, he handed over his car keys, the small tokens in the form of different flowers jangling softly as they fell into Thorin’s hand as if into a ravine of flesh.
“I will be back as soon as I can,” Thorin promised as he tucked away his passport again without Bilbo having made so much as a copy of it.
Bilbo made an unconvinced sound; he was pretty sure that diplomatic incidents had a tendency to grow longer than expected and not shorter, but – as a frown darkened that heavy brow – he decided not to meet trouble halfway.
“Ah,” Thorin’s face cleared into a summer sky – radiant and painfully beautiful – once more, “as you have witnessed, I can be very persuasive. I’ll tell them that it’s important.”
As he strolled towards the door, he turned one last time to meet Bilbo’s gaze and grinned: “Some things are just THAT important."
So, here we are...
Lots of love from me <3
I guess this qualifies as @fellowshipofthefics <3
