Pairing: Frodo/Strider Frodo/OMC(s)
Rating: NC17 for the series
Warning: AU! AU! Frodo in Bree, pre-Quest, nothing book canon about him, not much film canon either, really. Except he's very beautiful and has a very good heart.
Disclaimer: Frodo, Strider, Hobbits and Bree are all the property of the Estate of J.R.R. Tolkien - I borrow them with respect, make no profit and intend no offence.
AN: A simple AU story set mostly in Bree; Frodo tries his hand at various trades before settling on becoming a barber. All does not go according to plan. NC17 for the series overall, but this part is PG13. A work in progress. Dedicated to Claudia, whose wonderful "Frood" stories are an inspiration. Her website can be found in the "bookmarks" section of this one.
Feedback: Always appreciated - perhobfan@yahoo.co.uk
The ride back to Bree was uneventful. Except that Aldegar, trussed up in the back of the cart, kept up a barrage of insults along the lines of "Who cut yer hair? A blind man with a grudge?" and "Was it fer a bet? What were t'other fella willin' to lose, then?" and "Lousy were ye?"
Frodo, sitting beside Strider on the driving-seat, sank deeper and deeper into his skin with shame. He had done this terrible thing to Strider; he had mutilated the Man and lain him open to abuse by that villain.
The Ranger, however, kept his eyes on the road and the reins relaxed in his big, callused hands. Every once in a while he would find a particularly deep rut to ride across, smiling with quiet satisfaction every time the peddler, jostled up and down in the un-sprung conveyance, yelped and squealed.
Frodo was unsure what to make of all this. In truth, he was confused. Strider had come for him. Of course, Strider had business with the peddler – they knew each other of old, that much was obvious – and he, Frodo, was a mere beneficiary of this happenstance. Yet Strider had seemed happy to see him and his embrace had been warm and rather personal. It was a little puzzling.
And then it came to him, like a flash of lightening. Of course! Todo had asked the Ranger to find Frodo. Or Belwig. Either or both had sought out the manly Ranger and perhaps had paid him – Belwig because Frodo was his apprentice, Todo because he had that very day given Frodo a valuable new winter coat. That must be it. Frodo stroked the nap of his coat, hoping it wasn't too dirty and dusty.
"What will happen to him?" Frodo whispered, gesturing towards the back of the cart.
"Not your concern," Strider replied, grimly; seeing the hobbit's crestfallen expression, he softened and said "I am going to deliver him to the Forsaken Inn."
"Ah," Frodo said, nodding wisely. Then added, "What's that, then?"
Strider shifted in his seat and flicked the reins. "It's an inn a mile or more from Bree, on the East Road. It's little-frequented nowadays but it has its uses…" he said.
"You're not takin' me there!" Aldegard yelled, startling the hobbit. "You cannot! Have pity, Arrogant – I mean, Aragorn!"
"The ale is really that bad?" Frodo asked, his eyes round as saucers.
Strider appeared to be debating with himself for a moment, then he replied, "It's a meeting place for my men. I will hand over this vermin to their keeping and they can interrogate him for useful information regarding the Enemy."
"The Enemy?" Frodo said. "Who is that?"
But Strider ceased to be so casual with his intelligence, clamming up completely and concentrating on the road ahead. Aldegard, on the other hand, became even more vocal.
"Frodo, me love, me dear, me sweetheart, did I really hurt thee? I did not! Did I molest thee other than wi' the Feather of Fear? I did not! Frodo, I'm begging thee, don't let him take me to the Forsaken Inn!"
Alarmed, Frodo edged closer to the Ranger. He felt utterly miserable. Aldegard was a bad man, no denying it – but did he deserve to be handed over to Strider's men to be questioned in what was probably going to be an unpleasant manner? And who was The Enemy? Why did spiders always want to explore the bathtub? And why was his heart beating a little faster now he was sitting so close to this big man? So many questions.
"Frodo, save me!" Aldegard bleated. Strider turned in his seat and the look he shot at the peddler was so grim and stern that it silenced him instantly and set Frodo quivering like a jelly.
They carried on in silence, bypassing the village of Bree and heading east.
"Thank you for coming for me, Strider," Frodo said at length. "It was good of you. I'm sure Belwig and Todo will be very pleased."
The Ranger chuckled. "I'm sure they will both be glad to have you back. Belwig in his shop, pleasuring his clientele, and Todo in his cottage, pleasuring him."
Frodo, about to nod in agreement, realised the import of these words and that he had most likely been insulted. "Pleasuring the clients? Pleasuring Todo? Why, Strider! Do you think I am a bawdy chap? A strumpet? Do you think I have fallen?"
"I think one has lovely as you can be forgiven if he has fallen. But no, I do not think you have. I think you are as innocent as a drop of dew on the most fragile of blooms. But you cannot stay that way for long, Frodo. Your master is a decent enough fellow but he has an eye to his takings and I'd wager he would turn a blind one were the customers to start taking liberties. As for Todo – he is simply not good enough for you, Frodo. You should be with someone who can really look after you, cherish you. Someone like-"
At that precise moment, the prisoner began to kick with his tied feet against the back of the wagon.
Strider gritted his teeth and snapped, "Do that one more time and I will drag you behind the cart."
That put paid to Aldegard's shenanigans for a while. An owl hooted overhead and Frodo shivered. He wasn't used to being out in the dark, but what made him shiver even more were Aragorn's words. Someone like, someone like…? He wanted to ask the Ranger to carry on where he had left off, opened his mouth to speak.
"Why are you in Bree, Frodo?" The Ranger's words took the hobbit by surprise. Strider did not look down at Frodo, choosing instead to stare into the night and the rough road ahead.
Frodo thought for a moment, then said, "I want to make an honest living, Strider. I want to be a barber."
"But you were not born in the village? How came you there? Whereabouts in the Shire do you call home?" Strider wanted to know. Frodo squirmed on the seat, took a deep breath and began:
"I, I lived for the longest time at Brandy Hall, the ancestral home of the Brandybuck family. It's a really big smial in Buck Hill in Buckland by the Brandywine. They have a hundred windows, don't you know? I know very well, because one summer, Uncle Saradoc made me wash every one of them, just because I had a little mishap in the vineyard. It was a very hot, dry summer, Strider and really, anyone could have set the vines alight with a dropped pipe but of course, it was me and he was really annoyed and anyway, I had to wash every one of those hundred windows and that was when I decided I ought to just leave Brandy Hall and make my way in the world. That was quite some time ago. I wandered the Shire for ages, falling in with travellers and meeting some really interesting people. It was at this time, for instance, that I discovered that moisture from a blue-eyed hobbit's lips can cure all manner of things like lumbago and leprosy. Did you know that, Strider? I donated rather a lot of moisture, of course, but still the travelling healer said I needed to give more as I owed it to hobbit- and mankind but he was severely hampered by having to collect it with his own lips and I'm not entirely sure the dew from my lips didn't become mingled with the dew from his, so I wouldn't like to make any claims as to the efficacy of the remedy but if you have either lumbago or leprosy, Strider, I would be very happy to help you out."
The Ranger seemed to have given up on watching the road and was now watching Frodo, instead. The hobbit felt a blush stealing up from his chest to his cheeks and he turned away. "I talk too much. I know it. You will be glad to be rid of me," he said, miserably.
But Strider was smiling and it was a glorious sight. "I spend most of my days either entirely alone or with close-mouthed men, cut from the same cloth as myself," he said. "Your chatter reminds me there is more to life than woodcraft and tracking, Frodo. Tell me more."
So Frodo did.
It was full dark now but Strider had the moon and his own remarkable eyes to see them safely out of the woods. Ere long they were on the East Road proper and there was only the rattle of the cart wheels to remind them they were moving at all.
Just as Frodo began to wonder if a mile in manly terms was longer than a mile in hobbity ones, he saw, looming out of the darkness ahead, what could only be the Forsaken Inn, its windows pale yellow like the eyes of many feral cats. Frodo immediately thought of Padder, the kitten Todo had given to him, and he wondered if he would ever see him again. And Todo; of course, he wanted to see him again, also.
"Frodo, spare me. Don't let him do this," Aldegard cried, upon setting eyes on the dread inn. "He wants to rid himself of me and then he's going to take you some place and ravish you, my dear!"
"Shut up, knave," Strider snapped, bringing the cart to a halt before the door. At once, from both sides of the inn emerged men clad as Strider was clad, perhaps eight or nine of them, all armed to the teeth. The Ranger jumped down from his seat and handed the reins to one of the men.
"Aragorn!" another said, stepping forward to take the Ranger into a hearty embrace. "Driving a cart? Not your usual style, my friend!"
"Needs must and all that, Halbarad," Strider replied, grinning. Frodo thought he looked younger somehow, now he was with his folks. Younger and yet they seemed to defer to him; for some reason, this made Frodo feel very warm inside, and not a little proud.
"What on earth has happened to your hair? And what's in the back?" Halbarad asked, moving round to see for himself. "Ladies' things, Aragorn? I knew you were a bit kinky but ribbons and lace?"
Strider was about to protest when Halbarad espied the prisoner and raised a stern eyebrow. Frodo, unnoticed for the moment up on the driving-seat, watched as the men gathered around the cart and lifted the squirming Aldegard out from his nest of satins and silks. They set him upright, tethered still and cursing like an old seadog, whereupon he hopped around until he could see up to where the hobbit sat, and then he made a chilling prediction:
"Mark my words, Frodo. They'll torrrrrr-ture me good an' proper, an' then they'll sully all that innocence right out of thee!"
At this, the men noticed for the first time the hobbit upon the cart, with predictable results.
"Who is this, Aragorn?" Halbarad asked, when he had regained the use of his tongue. "Is it a lass in boy's garb?"
Frodo blushed indignantly and declared, "Most certainly I am not a lass! I am Frodo Baggins and I am an Apprentice Barber!" He made to jump down to the ground; immediately, a half dozen pairs of arms were at his disposal, as the Rangers pushed forward. Strider quickly elbowed his way to the front, reaching up to lift Frodo gently but firmly from the cart. He held him for a moment in his arms, the hobbit's glorious eyes at a level with his own, Frodo's beestung lips mere inches away… It was a beautiful moment. Then,
"He's legging it!" Halbarad shouted, pointing. Indeed, the peddler, seizing his chance, was hopping wildly down the path towards the woods. The men watched him for a minute, laughing and jeering, then Halbarad gestured for two of them to go retrieve the prisoner.
Strider reluctantly put Frodo down, though he kept a proprietary hand on his shoulder.
Aldegard was carried back to the Forsaken Inn, for all the world like a squealing, wriggling rolled-up rug. Once inside, Halbarad and three of his men conveyed the prisoner into the back room, whereupon the door was ominously shut and then there was silence. The rest of the men sat at tables and returned to their unfinished ales as if such happenings were perfectly normal in this place.
Strider helped an anxious Frodo up onto a seat in a quiet nook and the landlord, a lugubrious man answering to the name of Hopgood, drew a tankard for the man and a glass for the hobbit, depositing both on their table with a weary sigh.
"They won't hurt him, will they, Strider?" Frodo whispered, clutching at the man's sleeve.
Strider quaffed down his ale, not stopping until the tankard was drained. Then he laid a hand on Frodo's and smiled, sadly. "They will if they have to, Frodo. You have no idea of the evils in this world. You and your kind have been sheltered, and I for one am glad of it. Now more than ever would I have the Shire a peaceful and untroubled land, a sanctuary."
"Who is this Enemy of whom you speak?" Frodo asked, anxiously, curiously, eagerly. "Is he Aldegard's master?"
Strider laughed out loud and gestured to the landlord to bring more ale. "Nay. Aldegard serves a corsair in Umbar; he's a slave trader, cutthroat, brigand, any number of things and none of them good. But it is his master to whom I refer." He turned his attention to the door behind which he had no doubt Aldegard was being thoroughly questioned.
"But who is Aldegard's master's master?" Frodo wanted to know. He was beginning to feel very tired and light-headed. He'd drunk too much ale earlier at the Pony and now he'd knocked back his half of ale too fast. Plus, he'd eaten nothing since second breakfast, had been drugged, kidnapped and trussed up with ribbons, tickled most cruelly with an enormous goose feather and bumped around in a cart… The room was closing in on him, the dour landlord's moustache seemed to be wilting before his eyes and behind the closed door those big men were most likely doing bad things to Aldegard and it was all too much…
He slid off his chair and under the table. Strider turned his gaze from the door back to the hobbit, saying in a grim tone, "He is the Dark-" but stopped when he saw an empty space where but a moment earlier the beauteous one had been. "Frodo!" he cried, jumping up, his hand going automatically for his sword.
"He's under the table," Hopgood said, removing the empties. "Is he knocked up, then?" Strider's reply was a withering glance.
The Ranger got down on all fours and pulled the swooning hobbit out from under the table by the ankles, as a farmer might deliver an awkward lamb. "Frodo," he cried, gently, lifting him up and into his arms. The hobbit's skin felt clammy to his touch.
"Ouch!" This from behind the closed door. Strider was glad Frodo was not awake to hear the sounds of torture emanating from the closed room; he was a soft-hearted, gentle creature.
"The Lavender Room is free, if you wants to take him and lay him down for a bit," the landlord said, picking up the lamp and leading the way to a chamber on the first floor. He opened the door to the Lavender Room and lit the candles.
"Prepare food and bring it up," Strider said, then added, "In an hour."
The landlord smirked and nodded. "An hour it is, then," he said, closing the door behind him.
The Lavender Room was clean and warm and painted in various shades of green. Strider laid his sweet burden down on the bed and studied him carefully.
Such beauty. If he had not seen him first in daylight he might have been misled into thinking it was the candlelight that gave him that glow. But no, Frodo had looked like this always. "You need to be kissed and held and protected, my Frodo," he whispered.
Frodo murmured, turning his head and frowning in his sleep.
"Would that I could stay here forever with you and make love to you, endlessly and with vigour, dress you up, smear you with cream and honey and take you on the journey of the jostling cocks… But that cannot be. We belong to different worlds, you and I…"
The hobbit's buttons were tricky but Strider managed them, opening up layer after layer of coat, jacket, waistcoat, shirt and, finally, vest, with big fingers trembling with suppressed desire.
"You are a healer and are above the needs of the flesh. You are a healer and this is a heal-ee," he said to himself as he pushed the hobbit's vest up to reveal luminous skin and sweet little nipples. "Oh my."
"Why are you undressing me?" Frodo asked groggily. He struggled to sit up but Strider gently pushed him back down.
"I am a healer, Frodo," the Ranger said sternly. "You fainted and it was necessary to lay you down and let the air get to your body."
"Oh," Frodo replied and closed his eyes again. "As you were, then…"
Strider pulled down Frodo's vest, groaning a little as those enticing nipples disappeared from view. He pulled the eiderdown over the hobbit and tiptoed from the room.
Downstairs, Halbarad had emerged from the interrogation chamber and was sitting at a table, a glass of strong wine before him. His expression was grim when he looked up at his leader.
"Frodo?" he questioned, taking up the glass and knocking it back in one.
Strider looked up at the ceiling and Halbarad nodded. "You've tupped him and he's nursing a sore backside up there, then?" he said, sagely.
"No! He swooned and I put him to bed," Strider replied, indignantly.
"Of course, of course," Halbarad replied, grinning. Strider was about to protest more vehemently but his friend's expression had become once more grim and weary.
"What did you learn?" Strider said, quietly.
Halbarad toyed with the stem of his wineglass, then straightened in his chair. He rubbed his face with a callused hand and then began. "It is very bad, Aragorn. Everything we had feared is coming to pass…"
As he listened to the tale unfold, Strider found his thoughts turning from Umbar and Mirkwood and Rohan to the little chamber above his head.
It gladdened his heart to know that the sleeping beauty that was Frodo would never know aught of evil and suffering. Safe in the Shire, Frodo would live out his life with nothing more to plague him than which suitor to accept or which career to try next…
"What will you do?" Halbarad asked, lighting his pipe.
"Do? I will find Gandalf, of course," Strider replied. "He is both wise and powerful. Trust me Halbarad, he’ll know what to do."
TBC