Author's Note: Short little big of my modern au. Don't know if this is terrible; I'm exhausted and got distracted a lot by UK's Being Human (AIDEN TURNER OMFG), but here's this. It's going to have a mega short second part, so keep tuned for that. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Don't own shit.

He was tired, frustrated, and hungry as hell. Traffic had been terrible getting home, the grocery store packed with people still in their clothes from work, tired eyes and restless frowns everywhere. Thursday nights were awful, close enough to the weekend to taste but with one more long day between everyone else and a morning spent lazing around in bed. The past week had been particularly hard on Thorin, with a dull headache that lurked between his temples for the past three days and a load at work that kept him up into the early hours of the morning each night. He trudged through the front door of his home, shoulders aching with the strain from the weight of his laptop bag, only to pull up short at the emptiness of the living room.

"Kili," he called out quietly. The beat up old stick shift Dwalin had gotten Kili last year had been in the driveway, so it was highly unlikely that Kili wasn't home. But the house was as silent as a statue posed above a forgotten grave. Thorin's stomach dropped to his knees and he rushed forward, not caring that his laptop bag slipped from his shoulders. He opened his mouth to yell for the boys, worry making his throat tight, when a familiar sound registered in his brain. Relief rushed over him so fast that his knees almost buckled and he wobbled a little as he walked toward the basement door. It was barely open, just enough that he could hear the faint sounds of the video game drifting up from the basement, which had been a game room since Kili had turned eleven.

Kili was hanging upside from the couch, head hanging off the front end, legs thrown over the back. The sleeves of his long sleeved shirt were rolled up to his forearms, even though the basement was easily the coldest section of the house in winter. He wore one of his rattier pairs of jeans, laundry not having been done in two days, and mismatched socks. Frodo was sitting cross legged atop the coffee table, battered and scarred as it was already it creaked loudly every time the boy shifted his weight. The little boy was wearing one of Fili's old beanies, the bright red one with the logo from one of their video games, with his black curls peeking out from under the rim. Frodo's tongue was stuck out between his teeth as he rocked back in his jeans and long sleeved shirt. Thorin was pretty sure Frodo had been wearing that shirt on Monday, something he hadn't noticed in the morning rush to get him to school.

"Boys," Thorin said. Both boys squeaked like startled mice, limbs flinching in every direction. They didn't turn to face him, Frodo's shoulders hunching a little bit and Kili's twitching foot stilling.

"Hi Uncle Thorin," Frodo answered. Kili muttered something of an echo of those words, hands clenching even tighter around his controller than he had been before.

Thorin didn't really want to be the bad guy, but it was a school night and both the eight year old and the eighteen year old looked rather suspicious. He sighed through his nose, hands twitching at his sides before he cleared his throat pointedly and said, "homework check."

Both boys tried to make themselves as small as possible like guilty little kittens. Thorin felt the frustration build inside him once more, making him clench his hands into fists. Part of him wanted to throttle the boys, irritated that they weren't following the routine that had been set up since Fili and Kili weren't any taller than his hips, but the majority of him just wanted to turn around and go back to bed, dinner and the boys be damned. But Thorin wasn't a child and he knew what he needed to do, so he gritted his teeth and counted to three.

"Homework check," he repeated evenly. Kili sighed miserably and sat up.

"English," he admitted. His dark hair was mused, his cheeks flushed from hanging upside down. Frodo wiggled around until he sat facing Thorin as well, lower lip stuck out just the slightest bit.

"Math and science," Frodo added softly. "Sorry, uncle," the little boy finished. He placed his controller quietly on the table he sat upon and started to stand up. Kili dropped his controller on one end of the couch and reached for the book his class was reading, which had been lying discarded upon the floor. Kili had been having troubles with that particular book, troubles Thorin couldn't ease. Frodo hated math and science.

It was never easy when Bilbo went to attend a conference out of town. Thorin always tried to pretend it wasn't hell on Earth when he was gone, but Bilbo had been fussing through their lives for much too long for them to survive without him for more than a few hours. Thorin had woken up in an empty bed for the past five days and was likely to keep waking up to one for another three or four. He would never begrudge Bilbo these conferences, because his husband was always so thrilled to be invited and came back babbling about old books, excited and rosy cheeked. There was nothing Thorin loved more in the world than an excited, happy husband.

Bilbo would have been able to help Kili understand his book. He would have been able to engage Frodo in his math and science too, through some kind of parental witchcraft Thorin still hadn't mastered. Somehow he would have done all this with dinner simmering along and laundry spinning away merrily in the washer.

Something hot and wild rose in Thorin's chest, making his work clothes stifling and constricting, making his skin itchy and too tight. Thorin turned from the basement and marched to his bedroom, flicking the buttons open on his work shirt as he did so. He then dug out an old Henley of his and pulled that on, unbuttoning his dress pants and kicking them off as well. They got stuck on his dress shoes, which he toed off jerkily. As soon as he had on a pair of sweatpants he dug his phone from his dress pants pocket and marched his way back through the house, leaving his clothes in a pile on his floor and his laptop bag abandoned on the floor of the kitchen.

"Okay, put that down," he commanded the two boys who had dutifully begun their homework. Kili's head snapped up to look at him, confusion written across his face. Frodo didn't even pause, flinging his math workbook away from him with haste. "Our first order of business is to discuss what we're ordering in for dinner. After that one of you two needs to find me a controller you haven't lost and put in a game that I won't be wretched at. Do you understand your mission?"

Kili blinked at him for a long minute, but Frodo had no such problems. "Chinese," the eight year old insisted in a hiss, eyes alight with glee. "We're having Chinese for dinner!"

"I said we'd discuss what we're having, not that you'd declare your opinion as fact," Thorin remarked dryly, taking the stairs two at a time. He plucked his nephew's book out of his limp hands, dropping it back on the floor where it had been when he had come home. "Close your mouth, Kee, or flies will get in."

Frodo stuck his tongue out at Thorin in defiance before loudly insisting that they needed to have Chinese or he would perish. The more Frodo babbled the less bewildered and more excited Kili got, until the eighteen year old was grinning just as widely as the eight year old.

"Yeah, c'mon Uncle Thorin," the dark haired teenager whined, "let's have Chinese!"

"Fine," Thorin sighed. He rolled his eyes fondly as the pair whooped and hollered. He pulled out his phone and watched as they then proceeded to argue over which game Thorin would be least awful at, both of their reasoning flying completely over his head. He placed the order for their food, feeling the tension and the stress of the past few days slide away.

"Hey uncle," Frodo said, dropping back down upon the coffee table enthusiastically. The poor thing creaked like it was going to shatter, but Thorin had built that coffee table himself and had faith that it wouldn't break. Thorin hummed to show he was listening. "Can we stay home from school tomorrow? I've got a math test tomorrow that I really, really don't want to do."

Bilbo would skin him alive when he found out, but with him out of town the excuse of 'my kid is sick and needs attention' wouldn't catch him any grieve at work. Thorin only hesitated for a second before he shrugged, smiling a little bit in the corner of his mouth. "Sure," he agreed, taking the controller Kili handed him and settled back against the sagging, soft couch.

"If he's not going, I'm not going," Kili declared, flinging himself back onto the couch in his previous position. Thorin didn't argue and instead settled down to try and learn the basic skills of zombie survival from the two dark boys he considered his sons.