Title: Childish Truths
Fandom: The Hobbit
Rating: G
Length: 1204
Content Notes: Modern AU
Summary: When Thorin is called to the nursery to deal with an emergency, this wasn't quite what he was expecting.

Thorin swore loudly as he left his meeting simultaneously trying to shrug into his suit jacket, shove his papers into his briefcase and juggle everything as he tried to find his car keys. The nursery that his nephews attended had phoned to say that there was an emergency that needed dealing with and he needed to come immediately. It was no what Thorin needed to be dealing with. He was supposed to be in a meeting with a potentially big new client not dealing with whatever this apparent crisis was.

Not for the first time, he wondered what the point of having such an extensive list of people able to pick the boys up was when none of them were available when they were needed. He’d mentioned this on the phone when he’d ducked out of the meeting to answer the call in hushed, harried tones, only to be told that they had tried the whole list and only Thorin was available. When he was halfway to the nursery and the initial frustration had eased somewhat, he remembered that he was the only person able to collect the boys. Dís and Bilbo were away for work, Dwalin was on a site visit for one of their current projects, Ori was defending his doctoral thesis while Balin guest-lectured in Cambridge and Gloin and Hervor were at the hospital where she had been in labour for fifteen hours with their second child.

Thorin was, quite literally, the only option.

Arriving at the nursery, Thorin was greeted by the somewhat formidable sight of Adamanta Took, the principal, stood waiting for him. In her late-sixties with greying hair and a stern demeanour, Mrs Took could have even Dwalin quaking in his boots and they all infinitely preferred Miss Primrose, a childhood friend of Bilbo’s who had the dubious delight of having all four toddlers in her class.

“Mrs Took, you didn’t say much on the phone. What seems to be the problem? Which of the boys am I going to have to take home?”

“All of them.”

“All?” Thorin choked on air. “All of them? Even Frodo?”

“Even Master Baggins.”

Thorin couldn’t think of what could be so bad that Frodo – sweet little Frodo, the most complacent of children Thorin had ever met – needed to be sent home. The other three, well, it was hardly surprising given the things that they got up to. “What did they…”

“There was an incident in art class this morning. From what I understand, the children were supposed to be making presents for Father’s Day and words were exchanged between some of the children.”

Thorin groaned; he had a fairly good idea of where this was going. Their little rag-tag bunch of miscreants were remarkably well-adjusted considering everything that they had been through but the fact of the matter was that Gimli was the only one with both parents alive. Fíli and Kíli were pretty sanguine about the fact that it was just them, their mum and a myriad of uncles and cousins but then Víli had died when Dís was still pregnant with Kíli and Fíli had been little more than a babe in arms. No, the likelihood was that someone had decided to tease Frodo – who was still coming to terms with the loss of both his parents – and his cousins had waded in to defend him. Thorin was just about to ask which other children had been involved when he spotted the ridiculously flashy car in the corner of the car park and groaned loudly, swearing profusely mentally.

Oh joy. Thranduil.

If there was one downside to the nursery that the boys attended, it was the fact that two of the other children who attended were the children of Thranduil Oropherion. Thorin hated the man, always had, and the feeling was mutual. It had also managed to pass onto the boys, despite Thorin’s best efforts. He tuned back into Mrs Took just in time.

“If you’d like to come to my office, Mr Durin, then we can discuss the issue and how best to proceed.”

“By all means.”

(~*~)

Thirty minutes later, Thorin stalked out to his car with Frodo on his hip, face firmly buried in Thorin’s neck, Kíli by his side with one hand fisted in Thorin’s jacket and the other clutching at Fíli’s while Gimli trotted along behind them. Unsurprisingly, Thranduil had blown the whole thing out of proportion and was actually demanding that all four boys be expelled from the nursery. All because Legolas’ hair had become matted together with glitter glue and Tauriel had ended up with green and blue paint streaks running through her auburn locks. Thorin pointing out that it was actually Thranduil’s offspring and his ward that had started things hadn’t gone down well at all.

Thranduil had started shouting which meant that Thorin had started shouting which made Frodo and Kíli cry even harder until, in the end, Mrs Took had yelled at all of them. She had then proceeded to dole out the punishments equally to all of the children. None of them were allowed back to nursery for the rest of the week and they would only be allowed back on Monday if they brought apology letters with them. It all seemed fair to Thorin and so he had accepted and made a quick exit before Thranduil could protest.

“Is Uncle Bilbo home yet?” Frodo uncurled himself enough to let Thorin put him in his car seat but still clung to the lapels of Thorin’s jacket.

“I don’t think so, mizimith. You may have to cope with just me.”

“Will you sing us the song, Uncle Thorin?”

Thorin looked over at a still somewhat watery-eyed Kíli; a far cry from his usual ebullient self.

(~*~)

In the end, Thorin wasn’t at all surprised when he ended up sharing his bed with three little boys that night. Hervor had had the baby – a little boy that would no doubt be running after his older cousins in a couple of years – and Gloin had come to collect Gimli so that he could meet his new sibling. Thorin had explained the situation at nursery and Gloin had promised to oversee Gimli’s letter of apology. Once they had left, Thorin had fed and bathed the remaining three, not even batting an eyelid at their wish to sleep with him. Now, three renditions of the song that his grandfather had sung to him later, Thorin had three boys clinging to both him and the last vestiges of wakefulness.

“Uncle Thorin?”

“Yes, little lion?” Thorin smiled encouragingly at Fíli, who had thus far been the quietest.

“We’re sorry but the presents we were making got ruined and they were supposed to be for you. I know we all had dads but we can’t really remember them – well, Frodo can but – and we’re really lucky because we have you and you’re the best almost dad in the world. Uncle Bilbo too.”

“No,” Thorin could barely speak, his throat was that constricted with emotion at the childish honesty in his sister-son’s words. “No, I am the lucky one. You boys and your Uncle Bilbo are my ghivashel and I am the luckiest man in the world.”