marriage of convenience bagginshield for the WIP game! the title has me 👀
EEEEEEE!! I'm so happy you asked about this one because (even though I love all my WIPs) this is my current baby. Apologies if this gets long.
Now, I love stories about royal marriages: they can be loveless, hateful, friendly, a business relationship, a mutual beard to hide behind, any number of things. And the potential for sexual frustration is high, and I like that.
I was having fun worldbuilding's Erebor's economical renaissance, and wondered "where would Bilbo and Thorin stand in this universe?" (although I like the story of The Hobbit as it is, in fic, I want Thorin to live and deal with the fallout of his actions) and the most interesting answer was that their relationship is fucked.
In my fic, they fell in love on the road, but while Thorin was goldsick, he married Bilbo in a fit of possessiveness, and was abusive. (to be clear, not sexual assault, but he was really pushy and possessive and ultimately, as we see in the movie, violent.) They stay married because Bilbo knows he wouldn't fit in and would be lonely if he went back to the Shire, and Thorin would have to find another consort and have an heir, and he refuses to pass on his susceptibility to goldsickness. It's better for the kingdom's stability. Also, the person they fell in love with is still there, right? (no they're not, these are all the wrong reasons, can you tell this is a terrible idea?)
I want to show how they become a very efficient ruling team as the years go on but on the personal side their relationship dies. I'm going to create a marriage that is so depressing. In public they look fine, but in private they don't touch, don't discuss their feelings, have separate rooms, etc. I want them to have created these coping mecanisms, walls of fear and guilt at the very beginning, but being unable to take them down when they want to later (which they will, yay).
It's about healing, abuse, duty, addiction (if I can fit it in, otherwise this one'll be a fic of its own), friendship, desire, and how these things mix together when they shouldn't and the result is ugly and not therapy-approved. And I want it to have a happy ending because I believe in healing and forgiveness.
Snippet time! Sorry it's long, I'm a wordy bastard. Careful, the vibes are rancid:
The wizard’s expression darkened, but he started moving again nonchalantly. “We had a similar nightly discussion some time ago. I warned you about Thorin and the effect dragon sickness would have on him. You told me you were not afraid of him, despite everything. Have you revised your opinion?” Bilbo kept walking, but it felt like a heavy stone had dropped inside his stomach. A shiver crept up his neck as the painful sensation of strong hands on his thighs and sides came back to him. He remembered the throat-tightening fear as he listened to Thorin rant and rave, go from gentle to threatening in an instant, Bilbo in his wake never knowing if this time he would escape the king’s fury or be discovered for the traitor he was and choked by a hand heavy with gold rings. He saw again the leering, the unbridled desire, the possessiveness. Thorin covering him in riches and bedding him on top of his cursed gold like he was one of his things to use as he pleased. [...] What happened didn’t matter because Bilbo couldn’t afford to grant it importance. The fact was that when he married Thorin Oakenshield, he married a dragon. A dragon that had since then disappeared, but who could tell that it wasn’t lying in wait, observing Bilbo hungrily from behind beloved blue eyes? “I haven’t,” he told Gandalf. “I don’t fear Thorin, I fear what he could become if he’s not watched.” “It is not your responsibility to watch over him, Bilbo,” the wizard said gently. It is. And not because Bilbo had taken hollow-sounding vows during a travesty of a ceremony hastily held in the treasury. He hadn’t needed a title or a formal bonding to jump between Azog and Thorin, to deliver him from giant spiders or the cells of Mirkwood, or to endorse his plea to the Master of Laketown.
This is gonna be unhealthy before it gets better.
Anyway, I hope you don't mind how long this got. Thank you so much for asking, it made me so happy to tell you about it 💙



















