b2mem | Brambles by octopus

B2MeM Prompt, Card and Number: I20: "Brambles" (25. Botany), "Bilbo" (81. Five Books, Five Characters)
Format: Short Story
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Rating: General
Warnings: Minor injuries, blood
Characters: Bilbo, Bofur
Pairings: Bilbo/Bofur preslash
Creator’s Notes (optional): None
Summary: The dwarves are surprisingly good at finding additional food. Bilbo isn't, even though he would like to be. When he finds a thicket of blackberries, he sees his chance.

Also posted on AO3.

It rankled Bilbo. That he wasn’t terribly good at adventuring wasn’t too surprising, he could live with that. But he had always prided himself at growing a fair amount of his own food. The thing was just that his prize-winning tomatoes were probably withering on their stems back in the Shire while he was here in the middle of nowhere, living off the supplies the ponies were carrying and whatever the dwarves could procure.

That was what rankled him most. The dwarves were surprisingly good at supplementing their dry food. Barely a day passed in which Kíli didn’t shoot at least a rabbit. Nori had the habit of disappearing into the evening and returning half an hour later with the most delicious things. Bifur had a knack for finding birds’ eggs and Óin often spotted some fruit trees to plunder. Even Thorin was surprisingly adept at finding nuts to add to their meals.

He had started raising his eyebrows when Bilbo had nothing to show when the dwarves emptied their pockets at suppertime. Glóin had taken to grumbling quietly. Bofur tried to assure Bilbo that it was fine if he didn’t have anything, but Bilbo knew that he was the only one with that opinion.

Bilbo tried his best. His mother had taught him to recognise edible herbs when he was little, so he spent the time on the road keeping an eye out for edible greens. He plucked some dandelion and plantain leaves here, some chickweed and clover there and rounded it out with some sorrel.

“What’s that?!” Glóin asked when Bilbo proudly presented his greens in the evening.

“Edible herbs. I thought we might make a salad from them, or add them to the soup,” Bilbo replied.

“They don’t look terribly edible to me,” Fíli said doubtfully.

Ori looked almost as green as the herbs at the prospect of eating them.

“You know what, laddie,” Balin said finally, “you go ahead and eat them. I’m sure they are perfectly healthy for a hobbit.”

Bilbo huffed and tucked in. Bofur tried a few of the leaves and politely tried not to pull a face. Bilbo couldn’t say the other dwarves’ critical glances did much to improve his appetite.

After that, nobody grumbled when Bilbo didn’t have anything to add to supper. Thorin even seemed to breathe a sigh of relief the first few evenings after Bilbo had gathered the greens. Needless to say, it didn’t make Bilbo feel any better.

When Bilbo saw a thicket of blackberries while fetching water for the stew, he knew his chance had come. He quickly brought the water back to where the dwarves were setting up camp for the night and then returned to the thicket with a pouch.

Bilbo swallowed as he looked at the long thorns the brambles had. The blackberries had fewer and shorter thorns in the Shire, and farmer Greenfoot had even managed to breed a variety which had no thorns at all. Still, this was not an impossible task, and the berries shone temptingly dark and juicy in the evening sunlight.

Bilbo started picking. He pricked his fingers a few times, but it wasn’t as bad as it had first looked. The pouch started filling quickly and the few berries Bilbo tried were just as sweet and juicy as they had promised to be. Still, they were a large group of hungry travellers and Bilbo would need more berries to have enough to go around. Bilbo looked up to wipe the sweat off his brow and saw a bramble with many particularly large berries, hanging just a bit higher and further into the thicket than those that he had previously been picking. It was not quite out of reach, not if he stood on tiptoes.

Careful not to snag his clothes or skin on the brambles below, Bilbo stretched, his toes grasping onto the soil and grass. Just a little bit further, just the breadth of a finger more before he could get a hold on the bramble.

Standing on the very tips of his toes and waving his fingers, Bilbo managed to grasp the bramble – and overbalanced. With the arm not holding onto his prize, Bilbo managed to at least partially shield his face as he crashed head over heels into the brambles.

“Ow.” Bilbo muttered when his fall through the thorns finally came to an end, leaving him painted with streaks of pain in the middle of the thicket. “Ow, ow, ow.”

A startled bird fluttered away, scolding him loudly for interrupting its rest.

“And how do you think I feel about this, you cold-hearted creature?” Bilbo grumbled in its direction, trying to assess the damage.

Nothing was broken, but he had painful gashes all across his arms and his lower legs. When he gingerly felt across his forehead and cheeks, he winced and his hand came away bloody. Miraculously, the pouch with the berries had neither been squashed nor tipped out, and he was still holding his prize bramble with the many berries, although several thorns had pierced the skin of his hands.

Well, if he had come this far and paid a blood price for these berries, he might as well pick them, Bilbo decided. Now that he was this deep in the thicket, he could also reach berries that were previously out of his grasp. Besides, picking more berries would delay the inevitably painful crawl out of the thicket.

His pouch filled and the sun disappeared behind the trees. Bilbo sighed and looked at the brambles separating him from freedom, and perhaps even more importantly, supper.

There was nothing else to do. With the tips of his fingers, he bent the first brambles aside and inched squeezed into the little gap that brought him closer to freedom. Then he did the same with the next set of brambles. Through he tried his best to stay clear of them, they caught at his clothes, at his skin and at his hair. He stepped on them, and not even the thick skin on his feet was enough to prevent them from hurting him. For the first time in his life, Bilbo wished for boots.

But finally, Bilbo was out of the thicket, wiping the sweat and blood from his forehead and shouldering the pouch filled to the brim with delicious blackberries.

The delicious scent of stew drifted towards Bilbo as he returned to the camp. The dwarves were sitting around the fire, talking or mending whatever equipment needed fixing.

Bofur spotted him first. He dropped the piece of wood he had been whittling and jumped up.

“Bilbo! What happened?! Are you alright?”

The other dwarves looked at Bilbo and reached for their weapons.

“Were you attacked by orcs?” Thorin demanded.

“Were there wargs?” Kíli asked. “Or wolves?”

“I just had a run-in with some brambles,” Bilbo said. He held up his pouch proudly. “I have blackberries though. There should be enough for the entire company.”

The dwarves stared at him.

“You picked that many blackberries?” Dwalin asked.

Bilbo froze. “Please don’t tell me that blackberries are another thing you don’t eat. They’re not vegetables, they’re fruit, for the Green Lady’s sake! You eat apples, you eat pears, there is no reason not to eat blackberries. I went through all of this trouble, and you’re telling me you don’t even eat them?!”

Bilbo drew a much needed breath, wondering whether to just leave this bunch of ingrates or to continue his rant.

“Bilbo. Bilbo, we do eat them,” Bofur interjected before Bilbo could do anything drastic.

“You’re not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?” Bilbo asked, looking at the other dwarves.

“No, we really do eat them,” Fíli confirmed. “A handful of them when we pass a thicket with easy to reach berries, those which we can pick without any risk of getting pricked.”

“We don’t really harvest them in large amounts,” Kíli added. “Or we’d end up looking like you do now.”

“Let me take a look at that,” Bofur said, looking at the largest of the scratches across Bilbo’s forehead.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Bilbo said.

He handed to pouch with the berries over to Dori and winced as the strap brushed against the cuts on his arm. He pursed his lips and tasted blood.

Bofur raised an eyebrow. “Let’s get this cleaned up. Óin, we need your ointment.”

Bilbo let himself be led away to a large stone without further protest. Bofur sat him down, dipped a piece of cloth into a bowl of water and carefully dabbed at the gash on Bilbo’s forehead. Bilbo drew in his breath.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to cause you any more pain, but this really should be cleaned.”

“I know,” Bilbo said through clenched teeth. “It’s fine, let’s get this over with.”

Bofur cleaned the cut and gashes on Bilbo’s head as gently as he could.

He tutted softly over the deeper ones. “I don’t know what you were thinking,” Bofur said, shaking his head. “Picking blackberries for the entire company.”

“I want to pull my weight in finding supplies for the company,” Bilbo mumbled. “It’s embarrassing to be the only one who never contributes anything. And since you dwarves are so horrified by green food, what else was I supposed to get?”

“The green food wasn’t so bad,” Bofur said.

Bilbo shot him a pointed look. “You don’t have to lie, you know. I don’t know why you have the urge to make me feel better anyway. None of the others do.”

Bofur rubbed his neck and Bilbo thought he could see the hint of a blush creeping up his face. He felt a little bad for making Bofur feel awkward when he was only trying to be nice to Bilbo.

“You try so hard and nobody ever acknowledges it,” Bofur mumbled, moving on to the cuts on Bilbo’s arms. “And it’s not easy for you because some of your customs are so different from ours. You really don’t have to find things to eat.”

“But I want to. Everyone else does, and I’m sick and tired of their grumbling. I want them to respect me as a member of the company.”

“But why blackberries, of all things?! You could have gathered some mushrooms, edible roots, or helped Óin pick apples.”

“It wouldn’t have been a problem if I hadn’t lost my balance,” Bilbo pointed out, wondering why he hadn’t thought of mushrooms before. “We pick them all the time in the Shire. Granted, the thorns in the Shire are a bit shorter, but still.”

Bofur shook his head. “You hobbits are strange. Why don’t you just stick with less dangerous foods?”

Bilbo snorted. “As if climbing up a tree to pick apples is any less dangerous, or hunting wild boars, of all things!”

Bofur shrugged. “Those are just part of life.”

“So is picking berries.”

Óin came over to bring them his ointment just as Bofur finished cleaning the cuts.

“Thank you,” Bilbo said.

“Thank you for the blackberries,” Óin replied, “though I’d prefer if you stayed away from such risky enterprises in the future. I don’t have an unlimited supply of ointment either.”

“It’s not that dangerous, I just overbalanced,” Bilbo said once again.

Óin just shook his head. “Make sure you put some even on the small cuts,” he told Bofur.

“I know.”

“Are they all going to think I am a reckless risk-taker now?” Bilbo asked as he watched Óin leave.

“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Bofur replied making a small head movement towards Dwalin, who nodded respectfully when he saw Bilbo looking. “We dwarves aren’t really people who go to great lengths to get delicacies.”

He carefully spread some of the ointment on one of Bilbo’s cuts.

“Ow!” Bilbo drew in a sharp breath. “Ow, ow, ow, ow. That really strings!”

“I know. It really burns horribly and it smells, but it helps. Nothing treated with Óin’s ointment ever gets infected.”

The gentle worry in Bofur’s face gave Bilbo a warm feeling in his chest that distracted him nicely from the pain.

“Is it alright if I continue or do you need a moment to get used to it?” Bofur asked softly.

“Please go on. Don’t mind my complaints, I really do appreciate that you are helping me.”

“Complain all you like, if that makes it more bearable.”

“I’ll try not to get too creative with my cursing,” Bilbo promised and was rewarded with a wide grin.

“Oh, please don’t restrain yourself. I’d love to hear some creative curses from the Shire.”

Bilbo laughed and tried not to wince too much as Bofur returned to applying the ointment.

With Bofur’s fingers applying the ointment more gently than Bilbo would have considered possible, it didn’t take nearly as long until the task was finished as Bilbo had thought. Luckily, the burning also faded after the first few minutes.

“Here, take this to keep you warm,” Bofur said, carefully draping his blanket over Bilbo’s shoulders.

“But it will get the ointment on it,” Bilbo protested. “And you’ll have to bear the stench.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’m sure we’ll have the opportunity to wash out the worst of it sometime in the next couple of days. I’m getting us some supper.”

Bilbo looked around the camp fire and was pleased to see the dwarves smiling as they enjoyed the blackberries. Those that noticed Bilbo looking nodded at him in appreciation.

It couldn’t have been long before Bofur returned with their bowls of stew and their share of blackberries, but Bilbo had already managed to nod off.

“Bilbo.”

Bilbo looked up at Bofur smiling at him softly.

“I didn’t want to wake you, but it would be a shame if you miss super after so valiantly picking us blackberries.”

“Thank you,” Bilbo murmured, taking the bowl of stew and moving over so that Bofur could join him on the stone.

He ate the stew with Bofur warm against his side.

Bofur tried the blackberries and beamed at Bilbo. “These are absolutely delicious. Thank you.”

“Then the effort was worth it,” Bilbo said, eating some himself. “And thank you for taking such good care of my cuts.”

“I hate seeing you hurt,” Bofur mumbled.

Bilbo leaned his head against Bofur’s shoulder. He had little doubt that tomorrow’s journey would be painful, but he had a feeling that Bofur would be at his side the entire time and that perhaps even the others would slow down a bit for him.