Limber Up

Part III of Quite, Quite Scandalous

Mornings were terrible. Mornings were the spawn of Morgoth himself and Thorin hated them. But he was always the first up, after the one on watch. Almost as if his body clock wanted to deprive him of whatever few glorious moments of bliss were left to him, he was always awake early; it did nothing for his mood.

Nori had been on watch last so he helped him get the others up, shaking them lightly to raise them to consciousness. The last few days, Bofur had been waking the hobbit, touching his little shoulders and poking his ribs gently until he was granted one of Bilbo's beatific smiles -

Not that Thorin Oakenshield was jealous, or anything.

But this morning he stole towards the hobbit before Bofur had been roused, crouching down by his side, suddenly unsure where to begin.

"Halfling?" he said, unnerved by the look of peace on Bilbo's face. But just as he was beginning to feel bad for waking the poor thing, the hobbit stuck his foot out of the blanket, hitting Thorin's leg with his ankle. Of course.

"Halfling! Master Baggins!" he gently prodded at the hobbit's prone form. He only stirred a little in his sleep.

With a huff and a mutter of 'insolent halflings' he stood up, only to hear a yawn from below. Bilbo was sitting up and covering his mouth with his hand as he yawned; with his tousled curls he had the look of a very satisfied cat.

A very soft, warm, satisfied cat-

No.

Bilbo blinked a little before his eyes latched onto Thorin and he smiled, if a little uncertainly.

"Good morning, Master Oakenshield," he said;Thorin was just about to reply with something terribly witty and funny (along the lines of 'you've got pointy ears like a cat but it's a shame you don't have whiskers' - which of course would probably have just offended the poor hobbit) when suddenly Bilbo stretched.

He raised his arms in the air as he pointed out his large feet and arched his back. Thorin heard the bones crick and his mouth went dry, especially as Bilbo's gaze was still fixed on him as he smiled.

"I like to stretch," Bilbo muttered, looking away from Thorin. (Thorin'd like to give him a stretch, that's for sure...) "It gets me all limbered up for the day."

Limbered up - limbered - Oh come on. Thorin just nodded - and congratulated himself on not doing anything as unkingly as squeak - before he hurried away to busy himself with some other chore to keep himself from replaying the images and remembering the seductive grace with which the hobbit had stretched out his soft limbs with.

Oh Mahal. Thorin was a dead dwarf walking at this rate. The hobbit should not be allowed to stretch and make eye contact; if they wanted a leader with any sense left, at any rate. His sense seemed to be headed downward all too often these days.

Damn the halfling. Bugger him jolly rotten. (Thorin refused to acknowledge how pleasant a task that would be.)

A/N: I got one of my best friends (who I shall nickname QueenofInnuendo) to read this over and she helped me work in a few extra innuendos, so my huge thanks to her. :3