A/N: This is my first Hobbit fanfiction so I have my fingers crossed for quality. x

Thorin would've been more concerned if he'd arrived home from work and not found at least one of the boys in on the sofa. Stepping up to his front door, he could imagine himself calling Dis at work and asking if something had happened, himself worked up with worry because his nephews might be in trouble –or less likely, at their own house after school.

But it wasn't today nor any other day in years that he hadn't quickly caught one inside. This time it was just Fili he found on the couch, knees bent up with a thick textbook lying open between the legs and a bored face.

Fili didn't look up immediately when the door opened and heavy footsteps made their way inside; he was worried that if he looked way from his reading he wouldn't look back. "You're a little late, Uncle. Something keep you long?"

Thorin gave a nod he wouldn't see and gestured to the bouquet in his right hand, the chocolates in his left. "Where's your brother?" He was less a man who gave direct answers than demanded them.

Fili pointed a finger upward, and Thorin's eyes followed the broad staircase. As if on cue, he heard Kili sound as if he was talking to himself, sounding more distressed than usual. But Thorin largely ignored it; he had other matters that needed to be addressed. Flowers and candy still in hand, he marched into the living room to stare down at the older of the teens.

Fili took the time to finish the line he was reading before gratefully lending his gaze to something other than business ethics. He stared back up over the rim of his glasses, never one to be intimidated by a hard look.

"You two are watching Frodo tonight," Thorin informed him. As the words came out he felt satisfied with their finality; there would be no room for discussion, and one of the two of them would pass the words along to the younger one upstairs.

Fili tilted his head a bit in confusion, brow furrowing before it loosened when a knowing smile came to his lips. "How much of the night?" Thorin didn't seem to catch his meaning, so he reiterated, "Should we expect you and Bilbo back tonight or make him breakfast and send him off to school as well? We'd understand –it's Valentine's Night, after all, we'd just like to know in advance."

Thorin rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Bilbo will be here about six; you could probably expect us back by midnight." He had a few more words to say on the matter, but he'd wait until both of them were present.

"What's for dinner?" Fili asked absently, returning to the dreaded assigned reading.

Half the time Thorin would make something himself for all three of them (and his sister, if she came over), and the other half he'd send the boys home for the evening when they got too hungry to stay without a meal. Tonight would've been one of the latter nights if he didn't need them to stay to watch little Frodo. He sighed heavily. "There's dinners in the freezer –make sure you give Frodo the one with the chicken nuggets." It seemed silly, but he didn't allow his nephews to use the oven while he wasn't there, not after the Kitchen Incident. He was mostly worried for their safety, and the trouble that they seemed prone to, especially the younger. They were allowed to use the microwave but nothing else. "There's also snacks left over from the party on Sunday. And anything else you find is fair game for tonight."

Fili weighed the options of sustenance, and decided they were fair enough but not ideal. If he and Kili would be watching the five-year-old for the night, he'd at least like to give the boy a decent meal (preferably one the two teens didn't have to make themselves.) He was about to ask for pizza money when his younger brother came clomping down the stairs.

Kili was red-faced and visibly strained when Thorin saw him, but the scowl quickly turned to a broad grin when the boy caught sight of the flowers. "Aw, Uncle, you shouldn't have!" He jokingly went to take the gifts when they were shoved into his arms by a grumpy Thorin.

"Did you have plans for tonight?" he asked out of courtesy, finally taking his coat off.

Kili looked from the flowers and chocolate to Thorin. "I was gonna go out with Tauriel, but—"

Thorin shook his head and looked to the kitchen. He laid his coat on top of the things he'd already handed his nephew. "Hang that up and hide those under the counter, I need to go get ready." And he ran up the same way his nephew had just come down.

Kili was very confused and did as he was asked before joining his brother on the sofa. He frowned and nudged at the book and Fili's shoulder.

"Stop," his brother scolded, trying to keep his attention on the lines of tiny font.

"Everyone's so huffy with me tonight and I only just came down." Kili crossed his legs and went for the TV remote on the sofa arm Fili was propped up against. But (without looking but always knowing) Fili got it first and shoved it down between the sofa cushion and the arm, out of Kili's reach. When he insisted that he needed to study, it was Kili's turn to huff. "It's Friday, Fee. You don't need to be so intense about school on Fridays."

"I prefer to get work done early, even work I hate." And they both knew this and still had this conversation every Friday. "You'll be thanking me when I can take you to the concert next weekend –that I don't have to be doing homework when I should be taking you out for your birthday."

Kili smirked a little and played with the sleeve of his sweater. "And on my actual birthday?"

"I figured you'd have plans with Tauriel." Fili's eyes and most of his attention were back on his book until there was silence between them, and Fili remembered how Kili had been upstairs on the phone, probably with his girlfriend. He frowned and lifted his eyes up to look at his brother, reading his expression, and asked, "What was that about, on the phone?"

"She left right after school to go on vacation with her family." Kili wouldn't make eye contact, and Fili's frown deepened. It didn't sound like Tauriel to forget to tell him something like that.

"And you didn't know?"

"Oh, she told me. But she promised then that she could get out of it. She just called from her hotel to tell me she'd made it there safe –she figured I'd realize why she wasn't at school today."

"And you guys argued?"

"Not at first," he shrugged. "She said Thranduil wouldn't let her worm her way out because we already spent nearly all of summer break together, and he said it was time she start being more involved with her own family than her boyfriend. I mean, I understand that, I guess; Ma would probably say the same if I wasn't still so family-oriented. I was kinda upset cuz I was gonna take her out tonight. But then she just found out today that they're staying longer than she'd expected –so not only are we apart for Valentine's Day, but she's not gonna be back for two weeks, now. She says we'll celebrate my birthday when she gets back." He laughed a little, and Fili didn't really want to picture what kind of celebration the two had in mind.

"I think it kinda works out then, that you're suddenly free tonight." Fili pushed his glasses further up his nose and returned to his reading. "Uncle says we're watching Frodo while he and Bilbo go out –until midnight, he claims."

And the idea was difficult to get upset about now; no plans with his girlfriend, and Frodo was just so adorable that Kili was kind of looking forward to it. "We're the babysitters now?" But Fili was too into his reading to answer. So Kili played the role of annoying little brother and started bombarding the older brother with questions. Fili kept reading but when it got to be too much, he reached over to cover Kili's mouth with his hand.

"Yes, we're the babysitters. Uncle says they should be here about six. We're having frozen meals for dinner, but no, not the good kind. There's snacks in the pantry but the chips are probably stale by now. And I'd love to hear about your awful day at school but not right now."

He only pulled his hand away when Kili licked his palm, wiped it on his brother's arm, and they both laughed a bit before falling into silence.

Thorin had never needed to be this nervous before, probably because there wasn't only one source of the stress to worry about. Normally when he faced challenges, they seemed to come one at a time –mostly business related, and more often than not deriving from Thranduil being a smug son of a bitch. The jewelry business itself was rather cutthroat, but besides his rival-borderline-nemesis, it was nothing a strong-willed and confident man like Thorin Oakenshield couldn't handle.

And work was often the biggest bane of his nerves. He was close with his family –both what remained of his more immediate family (his sister and her boys), and cousins and friends he regarded as close as well— and led a happy existence. He and Bilbo had been together for six years now and maintained a respectably comfortable relationship –it was a proper love between independent adults but they would never admit just how much they needed each other. If Thorin weren't so proud, he'd have proposed long ago.

But lately Thorin had realized something –first only in passing, and then head on.

It first occurred to him just over a year ago. He'd been getting ready for a date with the man and the world around him was going on much like it was tonight. He'd been well dressed as ever and planned to take Bilbo for a fancy meal –he wasn't much for such a thing, but it appealed to Bilbo's classic tastes enough that it was more than worth the bill.

Frodo had been left with his usual sitter, so only Bilbo was on his way over, but that seemed the only difference that he could recall. His nephews had been over as they always were; Fili doing schoolwork (even then he knew the boy's course load was heavy), and, without his brother to keep an eye on him, Kili was trying to keep himself out of the trouble that tended to follow him. Bilbo arrived and rang the doorbell and Thorin was just making his way down to greet him.

Before he turned the corner to go downstairs, though, it seemed Kili had made it to the door before he did, because the next thing he heard was the teen's cheerful tone: "Uncle Boggins, glad you made it!"

Thorin hardly heard the way Bilbo huffed and scolded the boy without much will behind it, or how Kili just laughed and went on teasing him until he retreated. He was more focused on how his own nephew had just called someone besides himself his uncle. It might not have been the first time, but it was the first time Thorin had heard it. He wondered if the brothers considered Bilbo family as much as their blood relations –and when he thought on it, it didn't surprise him.

But when he did go downstairs and saw Bilbo looking so smartly dressed, those thoughts were replaced by new ones of his boyfriend.

The next time was the time that it really hit him. Thorin and Bilbo had taken little Frodo to the water park for his birthday. The day had gone great; though Thorin had never been a fan of water slides or wading pools (the tide only came to his knees, mid-thigh at the deepest), or really getting wet in general, Frodo had smiled and laughed the whole day away and it made both Bilbo and Thorin smile wide at the little one's happiness.

They'd gotten several looks from other parents throughout the day: mostly harmless, watching as if trying to gauge the nature of the unit of the two men and the little boy with them. They seemed to suspect Frodo was their son, but no one asked until a little girl that Frodo had been splashing around with came up to them.

She stared at the men and asked in a sweet voice, "Are you Frodo's daddies?"

The girl's mother scolded her and apologized, Bilbo said it was no problem but clarified that he was Frodo's uncle and that Thorin was his boyfriend. But, like at the top of the stairs that first time, Thorin paid attention to none of it. He'd never thought of the three of them as a proper family unit –family was important to Thorin but such a tangled and indefinable concept. Plenty of people in his life he considered family, but he'd never thought of himself and Bilbo and Frodo as a proper nuclear family. But now that he did, he couldn't let the idea go.

Frodo had all but fallen asleep in Bilbo's arms on the way back to the parking lot. Thorin was lagging a bit behind, lost in thought even an hour later, but still tried to keep up. When they reached the lot, Bilbo handed the little boy off to him, and Thorin took the child very comfortably. Frodo almost felt right against his side and shoulder.

"You stay here with Uncle Thorin," Bilbo quietly instructed the dozing child. "I'm gonna go get the car."

Thorin's mouth hung agape while Bilbo walked away, and he turned his head slightly to the child to whisper, "Do you really call me that? You call me 'Uncle Thorin?'" But Frodo was already asleep.

Thorin stood now, on the most romantic night of the year, in front of the mirror. He was dressed in a gray suit with a blood red tie which he had to straighten again. The velvet box enclosing a diamond encrusted ring sat heavily in his inner pocket.

Tonight's the night, he told himself, trembling in his reflection. The night you take the first step toward making your little family unit a proper one.