Rating: R/NC-17
**WARNING**: This story is Frodo/Pippin (with Frodo/Sam and Merry/Pippin referred to), so if you don't like hobbitslash
then you may want to go elsewhere.
Feedback: Questions, comments and snide remarks directed to <FyrDrakken@juno.com>
will receive guaranteed responses. As an Elitist Fic Bitch in good
standing, I welcome constructive criticism -- if there's a
problem in something I've written I *really* want to know about it so I can fix
it!
Disclaimer: Tolkien must be spinning in his grave enough already without
my being able to add much insult to the injury. Obviously any characters
you recognize aren't mine.
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"Paths Retraced"
by FyrDrakken
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Peregrin Took frowned at the back of his cousin's head. This wasn't
exactly what he'd been expecting when he agreed to this trip.
"Pip, I promised the queen's mother I'd take this to her daughter.
So I'm riding to Gondor in the spring. With Sam and Merry both married
now, they can't leave the Shire for that long -- do you want to come with
me?"
Pippin hadn't even had to think about it. Not that he'd ever begrudge
Merry having Estella -- the future Master of Buckland needed to start seeing
about getting the next generation that would follow him in Brandy Hall, after
all. But with Pippin still a bit too young to think of settling down
himself, that left him without the company of his dearest friend and cousin
more often than he liked.
And then Frodo had come back.
Sam displayed a better sense of drama than Pippin had ever realized he possessed,
sending Merry and Pippin insistent dinner invitations to Bag End with no
mention of what the occasion was. The pair arrived on the appointed
day, bursting with curiosity as to what was on the gardener's mind -- only
to be greeted by Frodo, shyly emerging from the parlor to meet his cousins
as they entered.
Having seen Frodo getting on the white ship and leaving from the Grey Havens
themselves, they had expected never to see their cousin again. Who
would ever choose to leave paradise for prosaic Middle-Earth?
But Frodo had calmly explained that he had come to realize that, whatever
its flaws, his life was really in Middle-Earth and there was no place for
him in Valinor. He had decided it had been a mistake to leave and,
when Cirdan returned to the Havens to take up once more his task of sending
the elves over the Sundering Seas as they tired of Middle-Earth, Frodo had
sought and been given permission to return with him.
Pippin suspected there might be more to the story than that -- but Frodo
was characteristically close-mouthed about the details, and for once Pip
was content to leave his curiosity unfed. His cousin was back -- presumably
to stay this time -- and he seemed much better than when he had left.
Clearly the Undying Lands had been good for him.
Though perhaps not so good as all that, if he had decided in the end to choose to return to the Shire instead.
Certainly he had not returned unchanged...
"Well, are you better, then? You look well..."
A tremendous understatement, even by hobbit terms. Frodo had almost
a light about him, but not that unhealthy glow he'd developed after the Morgul
blade, or the dreadful transparency he'd shown right after his rescue from
Mordor. Rather than seeming to fade out of this reality and into another
one, he seemed almost to be more here, by virtue of being
in that elsewhere place as well, letting the other world shine through into
this one through his own being.
It really did make him almost elvishly beautiful, even to hobbits who tended
on the whole to disdain the ethereal as irrelevant to their own lives.
To Peregrin, who'd met enough elves personally to appreciate them properly,
that touch of otherworldliness was rather attractive. Not that he'd
never noticed his older cousin was fairly easy on the eyes before -- but
Frodo had attached himself rather stubbornly to Sam well before Pippin reached
the age of experimentation, and in any case Merry had occupied a very central
role in Pippin's life. So he'd never quite gotten around to making
a more intimate acquaintance with Frodo -- not even on the long journey south
and home again.
The offer of a number of months alone together, the only two hobbits in a
whole world of men (and elves, and dwarves) -- well, the fact that the proposed
journey was to Gondor and Minas Tirith (where both would be made much of,
and visit with old friends) was almost immaterial. Clearly Sam's marriage
to Rosie was cutting into his alone time with Frodo as much as Merry's to
Estella was taking away from time with Pippin. Peregrin could hardly
agree quickly enough.
So in the early spring, right after little Elanor's birthday party (which
Frodo flatly refused to miss), Frodo rode to the Tuckborough to meet Pippin
and then they both headed east to Brandy Hall. Their last night in
the Shire was spent under that roof, finding spare bedrooms somewhere in
that warren of a hundred Brandybuck relations.
The first subtle hint that all would not be as Pippin had hoped came on that
first night. Estella had spared Merry for a night -- after all, his
little cousin would be gone for many months, and he wanted to give him a
proper send-off. Frodo had bid them good night with a smile before going
to his own room quite alone.
"Pip, do you think Frodo really wants to sleep alone tonight?"
"What d'you mean?"
"Well, he's my cousin, too -- and I'm not going to see him for a long time, either..."
Pippin examined the idea in all its facets and found it to be flawless.
Truth to tell, he was just a bit shy about climbing into bed with Frodo for
the first time. Pippin was considered a very likely-looking lad by
Shire terms, and the Ent-draughts had made him impressively tall and strong
as hobbits reckoned such things. Yet Frodo -- especially with the glow
of Valinor on him now -- made Pip feel plain and gawky by comparison.
Plus, Merry had hinted in the past that Frodo had been very experienced indeed
in his younger days, leaving Pip worrying about making some clumsy mistake
that would put Frodo off.
Pippin wasn't a novice in the bedroom. He'd been playing games under
the sheets with Merry pretty much from the time he'd first learned there was another use for what he kept in his breeches.
And Merry hadn't been the only one, either. But if Frodo had been well-practiced
enough for Merry to comment upon it...
And Frodo had been to Valinor. Surrounded by nothing but elves and
maybe greater things. For several years. He'd probably done
things there -- learned things.
It was just intimidating enough for Pippin to welcome the idea of having
Merry there as well for his first time sharing a bed with Frodo. Let
the other two take the lead, let Merry keep Frodo a bit distracted while
Pippin figured things out. Threesomes with Merry were a comfortingly
familiar experience for Pippin. And Merry had been with Frodo before,
in the days when Frodo lived in Brandy Hall before Bilbo brought him back
to Bag End. He wasn't intimidated, shiny-glowy or
not.
"Let's go ask him!"
But when they knocked on Frodo's door, he smiled at Merry's invitation but
shook his head. "Actually, I was hoping to get a good night's sleep
before leaving." Waistcoat gone and braces around his knees, they had
certainly caught him undressing for bed.
"Sure you wouldn't rather have a nice send-off instead?" Merry was nothing if not persistent.
Frodo chuckled. "Sam gave me one last night. It's why I'm short on sleep now..."
Merry accepted the dismissal with disappointment but good grace, politely
wishing his cousin a restful night. As they turned to head back to
Pippin's guest room, Pip glanced back over his shoulder but Frodo had already
closed the door firmly behind them.
"Ah, well," Merry told him. "Lucky you -- me all to yourself tonight,
and Frodo all to yourself all the nights after!"
The frown deepened as Pippin recalled the next night thereafter, when they reached Bree and the familiar old Prancing Pony.
"Well, and if it isn't Mr. Underhill again, or Baggins, or whatever
you call yourself! I'd heard tell you'd gone away West, and wouldn't
be back..."
"Well, I did, but I am back, and like as not you'll be seeing me again."
"And you're more than welcome under my roof -- so long as you don't go disappearing again, mind you!"
A meal and then to their shared room, and Pippin was following Frodo's lead
at that point. When Frodo suggested baths, Pippin found that a noble
idea -- both were probably a bit grubby after a long day of riding.
Except that he meant bathing one at a time rather than a shared tub, and
when Pippin finished his and went to the bed he found that Frodo had re-dressed
himself in shirt and breeches after his bath and was now fast asleep.
Which was more than a little disappointing -- the more so since this was
their last genuine bed for a while, inns being few and far between on the
road -- but Pippin settled down to sleep next to his cousin.
Bree had been a week ago now, and disappointment had given way to frustration (and more than a little hurt, as well).
Frodo spent much of the daylight hours wrapped in his own thoughts, but tolerated
Pippin's chatter with good grace and even responded when Pip tried to have
a genuine conversation. He shared equally in setting up and clearing
camp each evening and morning, laying his bedroll companionably next to Pippin's.
Yet he never indicated in gesture, word or deed the slightest hint of interest
in establishing any kind of a sexual relationship.
This worried Pippin. Celibacy did not come naturally to hobbits.
They had healthy appetites for all the needs of the body, and considered
it best to keep them satisfied. Though a lad and a lass were expected
to behave themselves properly until the wedding vows had been given, certainly
there was nothing wrong with a pair of lads tending to each others' needs
in private. (Or a pair of lasses, for that matter.) No harm done, no worries
of children coming along without their parents being safely wed, friends
could be even friendlier, and everyone the happier for it.
For Frodo to go several days without any kind of sexual activity at all was
frankly unhobbitlike. It made Pip worry about how badly he might have
been damaged by the Ring and all the rest of it -- or worse yet, if something
had happened to him in Valinor.
Come to think of it, as far as Pippin could tell in Rivendell and Lorien,
the elves just didn't... well... didn't fuck as often
as hobbits did. He couldn't recall having seen any elf children, after
all, and compare that to all the little hobbits underfoot in the Shire.
The thought of poor Frodo, all alone surrounded by such overpoweringly beautiful
but passionlessly untouchable folk... Oooh, that was surely reason
enough to drive a poor hobbit out of paradise!
Maybe he'd just gotten out of the habit, though surely Sam would have gotten
him back into it as soon as he'd showed up at Bag End once more. Probably
not as much as poor Frodo needed, though -- Sam had to save something
for his wife, after all.
No matter what kind of impressive sexual feats Merry had rather crudely speculated
Sam must be capable of performing, to keep Frodo so faithfully devoted for
so many years, Pippin rather doubted that he was able to help Frodo make
up for several years of celibacy while keeping his lively little wife happy
at the same time.
Not and still have sufficient energy left to tend to the gardening, anyway.
Whether Frodo had lost the trick of initiating a sexual encounter during
his time amidst the pitiably sexless elves or had just learned to ignore
the needs of his body (which he seemed tragically predisposed towards --
look at how thin he remained!), Pippin was a healthy hobbit in his early
thirties and by no means inclined to celibacy. So on the second night
out from Bree, he became frustrated enough to decide to stop waiting for
his cousin to make the first move.
The campsite for the evening being fortuitously close to a stream,
Pippin braved the spring chill of the water long enough to get rid of the
travel grime. Not anywhere near as clean as a proper hot bath, he was
nonetheless no longer offensively grubby -- he hoped. Frodo being somewhat
finicky in that regard, Pip was going to make an effort to please.
After supper, they banked the campfire and settled down into their neighboring bedrolls. "Good night," Frodo said.
"Half a moment," Pippin said, pushing himself up onto his right elbow.
When Frodo turned to face him inquiringly, Peregrin leaned over and kissed
him.
Okay, it wasn't how an elf would have done it. Probably even a man
would have been more sophisticated in his approach. But by Shire standards
-- where, "I'm bored -- wanna shag?" was likely to get an affirmative response
and with no shilly-shallying -- it was a subtle approach.
Stars above, been to Valinor or not, Frodo was Shire-raised,
after all. He might have gotten smoother seductions -- but certainly
he had to have gotten cruder offers as well. In any case, he wasn't
pushing Pippin away.
In fact, he was kissing back. Not enthusiastically or passionately,
but pressing back just enough to let Pip know that he was willing to play
along. So far, so good.
Running the tip of his tongue along Frodo's lower lip got a similar reaction,
lips parting invitingly. Encouraged, Pip put his free hand on the other
side of Frodo to help support his weight and edged himself over, pressing
himself against his cousin.
Frodo laid his own hand on Peregrin's side, but when Pip started to unbutton
his shirt he raised that hand to the younger hobbit's shoulder and pressed
him back onto his own bedroll. Disentangling himself from his blankets
and raking Pippin's blanket out of the way, he started unbuttoning his cousin's
breeches.
Pippin submitted gladly, pleased to let the expert take over. He was
delighted when Frodo climbed over his knee and slid himself down between
his younger cousin's legs, licking gently at the head of his penis and then
down along the underside of the shaft before settling down to sucking firmly.
That particular application of one's mouth wasn't a common Shire practice,
but he and Merry had picked it up -- one more thing learned on their travels,
and more pleasant than most of the rest.
(Suffice it to say they'd learned more from Boromir than fighting -- or more
than one form of swordplay, one might say. And given fair repayment
for the teaching he'd given, Pippin hoped. Certainly the memory of
the look on Borry's face when Merry came charging in to interrupt Pippin's
clumsily blunt seduction had been a dear one -- the shock of finding he'd
understood Peregrin's offer correctly was nothing to that of having his protective
cousin interrupting with, "Pip's not climbing into bed with one of the Big
Folk unless I'm there with him!" He might not have agreed without Merry,
though -- that had apparently been what convinced him that he wouldn't be
despoiling an innocent in some way, that the two lads were so clearly already
experienced with each other...)
But thoughts of Boromir were to be buried now, for he was most tragically
dead and gone, and Frodo was right here, and doing such
wonderful things with his tongue, and -- and --
And he was entirely too deft, and Pippin had been looking forward to crawling
between the blankets with him entirely too much since he'd been invited on
this trip. And it had been a frustrating few days, having Frodo alluringly
close but never touching.
And Pippin was finishing rather embarrassingly too soon, clenching his fists in the blanket beneath them.
Ah, well, he was young and if he was this randy then surely he'd be able to go again, and more than once...
Except that Frodo was tucking him back into his trousers and buttoning them up even as he finished swallowing.
Oh. Well.
Pippin gave himself a moment to catch his breath, let the stars stop spinning
above them, before turning to his cousin. Surely now it was his turn,
and he could only hope to do half so well...
Except that Frodo was crawling back between his own blankets, and turning to pull Pippin's blanket back into place.
"Frodo?" Pip asked, confused. "Don't you want me to...?"
"No, I'm fine. Go to sleep, lad."
"But..."
"Go to sleep."
Peregrin settled into unhappy silence. This wasn't the end to the evening
he'd anticipated. What he'd wanted was to be curled up together under
shared blankets, bare skin against bare skin, drifting off into sleep with
matching exhausted smiles. What he got was a cold bed on hard ground,
and Frodo as distant and untouchable at arm's length as he would have been
still in Valinor.
Bloody hell.
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TO BE CONTINUED
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